Culture Watch

Happy Holidays to all from Dickens’s "A Christmas Carol"

by Bruce Chadwick

"A Christmas Carol" is spot on wonderful, a warm, tender and joyful Christmas and holiday present for all, the best colorfully wrapped package Santa could bring to anyone.

Ten Rounds of History: The All-American Boxing Film Is Back with Creed

by Bruce Chadwick

Why have we loved boxing movies so much for over a hundred years?

The Merry Wives of Windsor Work Hard to be Merry

by Bruce Chadwick

Alas, they don't succeed. It's a history comedy play without the history or much comedy.

The Nazis at Vichy, France, in World War II: The Arthur Miller Play

by Bruce Chadwick

"Incident at Vichy" is, for the most part, an entertaining and at times frightening play that should be seen.

Classic 1970s Christmas Movie about the Depression Hits the Stage with a Holiday ‘Bang Bang’ Flourish from Red Ryder

by Bruce Chadwick

Unless you have been living in a cave in the Andes, you must have seen the classic holiday movie "A Christmas Story" on television. Here’s the play version – and it’s great!

A Story about a 1980s Captive Who Goes through Much ‘Misery’

by Bruce Chadwick

This new version of Misery, at the Broadhurst Theater on West 44th Street, is a good play, full of suspense and intrigue.

The First Woman President of the United States – Mrs. Edith Wilson, 1919-1920

by Bruce Chadwick

"The Second Mrs. Wilson" is a tour de force of political intrigue and high level drama, with the existence of the United States in the balance.

Comic Book Superheroes from the 1930s Are Back – Quick, to the Bat Cave!

by Bruce Chadwick

With all the trouble we have in the world today, thank goodness Superman is around to save us!

One of the Saddest Chapters in U.S. History – the Japanese-American Internment Camps in World War II

by Bruce Chadwick

"Allegiance" is one of the best history musicals in years. 

Sheer Fun and Sheer History at ‘Shear Madness’

by Bruce Chadwick

You need a laugh in these dreary times? See this play.

Setting Sail into the 1930s

by Bruce Chadwick

This was a hit play in the 1960s when audiences still remembered the stars of the 1930s whom it spoofs.  But today? 

Chilling Murder in 1867 Paris

by Bruce Chadwick

Therese Raquin is a taut, tight, highly entertaining and at times gripping murder story in which you learn much about crime and punishment in Paris in the 1860s, the life of the shopkeepers and their friends and Parisian fashion of the day.

Behind the Scenes at the White House with a Battalion of First Daughters

by Bruce Chadwick

One good thing about the show is that you see a lot of political history and get a nice look at several Presidencies as seen through the eyes of the family.

Anne Frank, Attic Hideaways and the World War II Persecution of the Jews

by Bruce Chadwick

After all these years, it is still the poignant story of a young teenager trying to make sense of the world and her place in it. amidst the horror of World War II and the Holocaust.

The Glory Days of Tough-Guy Writer Ernest Hemingway

by Bruce Chadwick

The Morgan Library and Museum in NYC is holding the first full-scale library exhibit ever done in honor of Hemingway.  Surprisingly, perhaps, it's been packed with visitors who still love the writer, who died a long 55 years ago. 

Romance at the Edge of the Mojave Desert

by Bruce Chadwick

"Fool for Love," the absorbing and riveting revival of a play by Sam Shepard that opened last week, is another look at small towns on the edge of the western universe, little postage stamp communities with a decaying drive-in movie theater.

This Is Why the Art Market Is So Frenzied

by James Hamilton

The revolution in art, culture and commerce in nineteenth century London kept pace with the industrial revolution and acted as its sharp and shining point.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You: Suffragette, the Movie

by Lara Vapnek

The cinematic figure of the suffragette has been limited to the comic Mrs. Banks, the mother in Mary Poppins – until now.

Is the Entertainment World Finally Burying ‘Blackface’?

by Bruce Chadwick

It was time for the Confederate flags to be brought down and it is now time for blackface to dance and sing its way off stage, too.

This Play About the 1605 British Gunpowder Plot to Blow Up the King and the Parliament Mostly Hits the Target

by Bruce Chadwick

What could be more historically interesting that a play about the well-known plot by Guy Fawkes and others to explode 36 barrels of gunpowder under the House of Lords and blow up the British Parliament and kill King James I in 1605?