OCT-NOV 01 - Theater – The Brooklyn Rail

Mysteries of the Vernacular

By Anne Washburn

There is a place in theater for talky received naturalism. A lot of very good actors were trained up in it and are comfortable with it, and their bravura performances often justify what is a high charge-per-minute for a form more gracefully expressed in television and novels.

Photograph by Paula Court. Courtesy of Soho Rep.

Spalding Gray on Zen and the Downtown Theater Scene

By Ellen Pearlman

Ellen Pearlman, who is writing a book on the relationship between Zen Buddhism and the American avant-garde, spoke to Spalding Gray this past summer at his home in the Hamptons.

Excerpt from I, the Undersigned Cardiac Case (1981)

By Sony Labou Tansi

ACT 1, SCENE 1Prison cell. Light coming through the bars from the corridor. From time to time, we glimpse a pacing guard.