Culture Watch

"The Conspirator": Film and Historical Truth

by Ron Briley

Although academic journals such as The American Historical Review and The Journal of American History have expanded their focus to consider cinema, most historians still seem to approach historical films with considerable suspicion.  Thus, the American Historical Association’s (AHA) Executive Director James R. Grossman demonstrated both excitement and trepidation when he introduced a screening of The Conspirator on the last evening of the AHA’s 2011 annual meet

A History Play Where the Past Never Feels Past

by Bruce Chadwick

The New York IdeaLucille Lortel Theater121 Christopher St.New York, N.Y.The curtain went up on The New York Idea, a 1906 comedy at New York’s Lucille Lortel theater, and the audience saw two elderly women on a couch.  Oh, no, I thought. This is going to be another dreary old turn-of-the-century drawing room comedy—Moliere in Manhattan.

History and the “Million Dollar Quartet,” Broadway’s Million Dollar Hit

by Bruce Chadwick

Nederlander Theater208 W. 41st St.New York, N.Y. By sheer coincidence, December 4, 1956, became one of the landmark days in American musical history.  The day started out innocently enough.  As scheduled, Carl Perkins— already a star with his hit song “Blue Suede Shoes” —his brothers, and a musician friend arri

A Civil War Passover, A Night to Remember, and a Window on Jewish History

by Bruce Chadwick

The Whipping ManCity Center Stage 1130 W. 56th St.New York, N.Y.Jewish Confederates came home to abandoned homes, empty cupboards and ruined lives after the Civil War ended just as Christian Confederates did. The Whipping Man is Matthew Lopez’s

Divine Sister is a Divine Historical Comedy about the Catholic Church and Its Lovable Nuns

by Bruce Chadwick

Divine SisterSoho Playhouse15 Van Dam St.New York, N.Y.I attended Roman Catholic grade school run by nuns in a small town in New Jersey in the 1950s. Like many students, I loved and hated the school at the same time.  There was something about it that intrigued me, though, because throughout my life I have been drawn to just

Play Dead, A Throwback to the 1930s, is Theater that is Very Much Alive

by Bruce Chadwick

Play DeadPlayers Theater115 MacDougal St.New York, N.Y.In Play Dead, the enchanting and very scary ‘spook show’ play now running at the Players Theater, the woman in my row met the spirit of her college friend, deceased more than thirty years.  The woman in the row behind me me

Another Week, Another Round of History Plays in New York

by Bruce Chadwick

‘Honey Brown Eyes’Theater Row410 W. 42d. St.New York, N.Y.The stage lights flash on and there is a thin Serbian soldier with an automatic rifle aimed at a terrified Muslim woman in a small, blandly decorated apartment in Visegrad, Yugoslavia, in the middle of the 1992 war that escalated from a civil war into a genocidal massacre between the Croatians, Bosnians and Ser

‘Under the Radar’ History Plays Are Over the Top and Up in the Hills

by Bruce Chadwick

This is the seventh year of the Under the Radar theater festival hosted by New York’s Public Theater and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. The festival runs for two weeks and features plays from around the world.  The works are presented at the Public Theater and other venues near it. Several of the plays are history works. We chose two to review – ‘Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good),’ about Andy Warhol’s 1960s movies, and ‘Bonanza,’ about the history of an a

The Rollicking History of the World in Just 75 Minutes

by Bruce Chadwick

“Long Story Short”Helen Hayes Theater240 W. 44th St.New York, N.Y.Actor Colin Quinn walked out on to the stage of “Long Story Short,” the one-man play about the history of the world, and stood amid rows of what appeared to be large stone seats from an ancient Greek amphitheater.  He looked solemnly at the audience and told them that what happened long ago was no diffe

The Great Game: Afghanistan, Part Two

by Bruce Chadwick

‘The Great Game’: Nothing but Trouble in Afghanistan’s Long History The Great Game: Afghanistan, the Tricycle Theater Company’s trilogy of plays about the history of Afghanistan since 1842, is finishing its four-city tour of the U.S. at the New York Public Theater. The plays began last weekend and run through December 19. Theatergoers can see each of the three separately or all three in a marathon on weekends. P

The Great Game: Afghanistan, Part One

by Bruce Chadwick

‘The Great Game’: Nothing but Trouble in Afghanistan’s Long History The Great Game: Afghanistan, the Tricycle Theater Company’s trilogy of plays about the history of Afghanistan since 1842, is finishing its four-city tour of the U.S. at the New York Public Theater. The plays began last weekend and run through December 19. Theatergoers can see each of the three separately or all three in a marathon on weekends. The Great

The Golden Age of Euphemism

by Ralph Keyes

H.L. Mencken called the early nineteenth century a “Golden Age of Euphemism.”  A combination of religious fervor and fastidious concern about propriety among

Remembrance of Things Past: Fair Game and Historical Amnesia

by Ron Briley

In the Congressional elections of 2010, an American electorate, older and whiter than the voters who propelled Barack Obama to the presidency, returned control of the House of Representatives to the Republican Party.  Obama’s path to the White House was paved by a wave of dissatisfaction with the Bush administration’s handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the financial meltdown of 2008.  After two years voters were frustrated that a Democratic pr

"A Free Man of Color": A Wild Ride through the Early History of New Orleans

by Bruce Chadwick

A Free Man of ColorVivian Beaumont TheaterLincoln CenterNew York, NYJacques Cornet was the free, mulatto son of a wealthy New Orleans plantation owner who made extra money by staging a weekly casino night in his large, lavish mansion.  When we first meet the very elegantly dressed Cornet,

The Ethnic Fork of Bruce Springsteen

by Jim Cullen

Like all great artists, Bruce Springsteen has always been first and foremost a great editor.  Any Springsteen album in the last four decades has always begun with

Power Chords of Freedom

by Larry Schweikart

Much has been made over the years of the “revolutionary” power of rock music, particularly in 1960s America.  What anti-war scene would be complete without images of rockers and (presumably) drugged-out hippies swaying

Joy to the World: Historic Holiday Theater on National Stages

by Bruce Chadwick

I know.  I know.  When Thanksgiving arrives it is time to think of all the football on television—pro, college and high school.  Not for theater aficionados who love the stage and love history, though.  This coming holiday season has a number of history plays, from 1900 orphanages to 1802 New Orleans parties to 1830s London to 1970s gunfire in Afghanistan that should please anyone.No holiday theater season for history buffs would be complete without a Ch

Books: Robert Caro's Master of the Senate

by Lewis Gould

How many 20th century American presidents deserve to have four big volumes written about their lives and times? Robert A. Caro decided during the mid-1970s that Lyndon Johnson did, and"Master of the Senate" is the third installment in his massive exploration of the Texas president's quest for power. When Caro started his project a generation ago, Johnson's central place in the nation's history seemed assured. Champion of civil rights, architect of the Great Society and the president

The Pity of the National Museum of American Jewish History

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Freedom is the grand theme of the new National Museum of American Jewish History located in the Independence Mall in Philadelphia.  To emphasize the point, the core exhibition is divided into "Foundations of Freedom: 1654-1880," "Dreams of Freedom: 1880-1945," and "Choices and Challenges of Freedom: 1945-Today."  Freedom, the curators seem to argue, enabled the transformation of a small Jewish frontier outpost into the lar

From the Days of the Blacklist: What to Do with a Fallen Hero

by Bruce Chadwick

After the RevolutionPlaywrights Horizon Theater416 W. 42d St.New York, N.Y.What do you do when your hero of more than fifty years falls into disgrace?  Do you still venerate his greatness, now diminished, or join the masses in vilifying him?  Worse, what do you do when he is your grandfather?That is the dilemma that Emma Joseph finds herself in throughout Amy He