An American theater critic observed recently that the British theater has traditionally been a theater of language rather than a theater of emotion and spectacle. The comment, though patently less tha...
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Critical Essay by Edith Oliver
["Molly"]—not a comedy but often funny—is about a woman who allows herself to become overwhelmed by feeling…. Molly is an Englishwoma...
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Critical Essay by John Simon
If you look to The Rear Column for philosophical illumination, you will not find it exceptionally enlightening or original. But it is a highly intelligent piece of crafts...
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Critical Essay by Edith Oliver
["The Rear Column"] is based on a historical episode. In the late eighteen-eighties, Henry M. Stanley, the explorer of the Congo, led an expedition to rel...
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Critical Essay by Terry Curtis Fox
Simon Gray's The Rear Column, an anti-adventure of Stanley's years after the discovery of Livingstone, is pure revisionism. Gray goes into Africa with...
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Critical Essay by Peter Jenkins
In the course of one Sunday afternoon we encounter drunkenness, homosexuality, dishonesty, adultery, abortion, and more besides, until the stage [for Close of Play] is...
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Critical Essay by Harold Hobson
Before the ending there are two parts of Close of Play which are entirely successful. The first is a brief conversation between the mercurial Marianne and the controll...
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The excellent revival of Simon Gray’s Butley at the Booth on Broadway proves particularly welcome because Mr. Gray’s hero isn’t nice. The British relish a bit of bitterness and in...
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The excellent revival of Simon Gray’s Butley at the Booth on Broadway proves particularly welcome because Mr. Gray’s hero isn’t nice. The British relish a bit of bitterness and in...
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Simon (James Holliday) Gray
Critical Essay by Edith Oliver
Is That Nathan Lane Spewing Good Old-Fashioned Spleen?
