By John Heilpern 2/06/06 12:00am

Fact, Fiction and the Theater: Truth Is, We Prefer Lies

As I was saying, I don’t go to Oprah Winfrey for the truth. I go to the theater instead. That fragile, fantastic thing we call the theater has always seemed to me to be the last place on earth where our stories can be truthfully told. There, Artaud’s “strange sun,” a light of abnormal intensity, Read More

By John Heilpern 12:00am

Arthur Miller’s Enduring Message: It Could Happen Again

Some 35 years ago, the critic Harold Clurman asked the question, “What has the American theater to say about the present state of American politics?” His own answer was “Very little”–which was a polite way of saying “Next to nothing.” In 1965, when he wrote that, the Vietnam War was escalating and the civil-rights struggles Read More