ARTICLES, ETC.
Jonathan Kalb
Reflective essay in the final issue of PAJ about the impact of Samuel Beckett on three decades of contemporary theater.
Review-essay on Priscilla Gilman's book The Critic's Daughter, in 3 Quarks Daily
“Marathon Theater as Anti-Monument: The Curious Case of Gatz”
Essay on Elevator Repair Service's Gatz in a special issue of the journal Anglia devoted to marathon theater.
“Big Talk, Small Talk: Why People Who Read Should Care About Emojis”
Essay about the origins and appeal of emojis in The Brooklyn Rail
Personal essay in Full Grown People about proprietary feelings toward particular words
“Nausea After Charlottesville: A Reflection on Anti-Semitism"
Memoir-essay in In These Times about a 1967 election in Wayne, NJ, with anti-Semitic dog whistles that foreshadowed the 2017 Charlottesville riot
Essay in The Nation about the solo performer Sarah Jones and her production Bridge & Tunnel
Essay in The New Yorker about living with Bell's Palsy
Essay from 2009 on productions of Samuel Beckett's plays since his death, in Salmagundi
Essay on Peter Stein's 21-hour production of the entirety of Goethe's Faust, Parts 1 and 2, in Salmagundi
“Can a Sleepy Chinese Town Become a Cultural Mecca?”
Article in Salon.com on China's first Wuzhen International Theater Festival
Essay on the city of Berlin in 1989, in The Threepenny Review
“The Nymphet is a Lethal Weapon”
Article in The New York Times about Michael Thalheimer's production of Wedekind's Lulu
“To Sleep the Big Sleep? Call it Murder, My Sweet”
Review in The New York Times of Ian W. Hill's Necropolis #1&2
“The Thirty Years' War, All 10 Hours of It”
Feature article in The New York Times about Peter Stein's 10-hour production of Schiller's Wallenstein, starring Klaus Maria Brandauer
“Revisiting a Psychiatrist Who Questioned Psychiatry”
Review in The New York Times of Mike Maran's Did You Used to Be R.D. Laing?
“An End Tale, Through the Eyes of Saramago”
Review in The New York Times of Joe Tantalo's adaptation of Saramago's novel Blindness
Review in The New York Times of Looking Glass Theater's production of Brecht's Baal
“Madeleines, Turkey Stuffing and Other Thoughts on Loss” (Gone)
Review in The New York Times of Charles Mee's Gone
“Robert Wilson, Beckett and a Celebrity from the Neck Up”
Review in The New York Times of Robert Wilson's Voom Portraits at Paula Cooper Gallery
“Greek Tragedy Wears a New, Brash Mask”
Review in The New York Times of Sophocles's Women of Trachis produced by Target Margin Theater
“A Critic Has Praise for a Playwright (Himself)”
Feature article on Eric Bentley in The New York Times
“Still Fearsome, Mother Courage Gets a Makeover”
Feature article in The New York Times on George C. Wolfe's Delacorte production of Brecht's Mother Courage, newly translated by Tony Kushner, starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline.
“Legal Briefs of the Absurd (Filed by Beckett)”
Review in The New York Times of The Complete Lost Works of Samuel Beckett and Americana Absurdum
“Mysterious Green Strangers in a Pentameter World”
Review in The New York Times of Glyn Maxwell's Wolf Pit
“Beckett the Difficult, Beckett the Brash, Beckett the Prolific”
Review in The New York Times of the Grove Centenary Edition of Samuel Beckett's collected works
“The Mythic Eugene O'Neill's Turbulent Life”
Review in The New York Times of Ric Burns's PBS documentary Eugene O'Neill
“You Must Go On After Beckett. I Can't Go On After Beckett. Go On”
Feature article in The New York Times about contemporary American playwrights' thoughts on Samuel Beckett
“Toward a Wordless Theater of Death-Haunted Imagery”
Review in The New York Times of Leszek Madzik's Odchodzi (Passing Away)
“Portraying Robert Kennedy, as Idol and as Ordinary Man”
Review in The New York Times of Jack Holmes's RFK: A Portrait of Robert F. Kennedy
“Who Are We? Where Are We? What Are We Doing? You Decide”
Review in The New York Times of Wax Factory's She Said
“A Tale of Sex and Death, Stripped to Its Core”
Review in The New York Times of Michael Thalheimer's production of G.E. Lessing's Emilia Galotti
“By Yon River's Edge Gather Merry Wanderers of the Night”
Review in The New York Times of Pulse Ensemble Theater's A Midsummer Night's Dream
“Better Hope the Seats are Comfortable”
Feature article in The New York Times about Théâtre du Soleil's Le Dernier Caravansérail (Odyssées)
“He’s No Angel, Just a Guy with the Landowner Blahs”
Review in The New York Times of the NAATCO production of Chekhov's Ivanov
“Western Drama With a Japanese Accent”
Review in The New York Times of Japanese Plays from the Early 20th Century
“The Emperor’s Life: These Boots Are Made for Talkin”
Review in The New York Times of Alfred Preisser and Randy Weiner's Caligula
“Street Life and Lowlifes Meet to Scheme in a Grubby Motel”
Review in The New York Times of Grzegorz Jarzyna's adaptation of George F. Walker's Risk Everything
Feature article in The New York Times on Thomas Ostermeier's Ibsen adaptation Nora
“An Indian Father Courage, Using and Losing Women”
Review in The New York Times of Vijay Tendulkar's Sakharam Binder
“The Forlorn Woyzeck, With a New Spin”
Feature article in The New York Times on a new musical version of Büchner's Woyzeck by Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan
“A Provoking Parable That Won’t Quit”
Feature article in The New York Times on Theatre for a New Audience's production of Max Frisch's Andorra
“Making Crazy with a 91-Year-Old German Comedy”
Feature article in The New York Times on Steve Martin's adaptation of Carl Sternheim's The Underpants
“Dangerous Liaisons’ Through a Marxist Mirror”
Feature article in The New York Times on Gabriele Maione's production of Heiner Müller's Quartett
“A Postmodern Hamlet By a Driven Provocateur”
Feature article in The New York Times on El Periferico de Objetos's production of Heiner Müller's Hamletmachine
“Robert Wilson’s 21st-Century Academy”
Feature article in The New York Times on Robert Wilson's Watermill Center
“The Downtown Gospel According to Reverend Billy”
Feature article in The New York Times on Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
“Casting New Light on the Most Visible of Playwrights”
Feature article in The New York Times on the playwright David Mamet
Review in The New York Times Book Review of Wendy Lesser's A Director Calls
“The Mahabharata Twenty-Five Years Later: Peter Brook in conversation”
Interview with Peter Brook in 2010 about his production The Mahabharata, in PAJ: Performing Arts Journal
“Amazing Untold Stories of Catalogues” (Forced Entertainment)
Essay on the British company Forced Entertainment, in PAJ: Performing Arts Journal
“American Playwrights on Beckett”
Interviews in 2006 with 13 prominent American playwrights on Beckett's influence, in PAJ: Performing Arts Journal
Short reflection on current work, in PAJ: Performing Arts Journal
“Notes on the Last Cold-War Theatertreffen”
Essay on the last Theatertreffen festival planned before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in PAJ: Performing Arts Journal
“The Question of Beckett's Context”
Essay on Samuel Beckett's theatrical presence--Beckett in Performance excerpt in PAJ: Performing Arts Journal
"The Anti-Professional Prejudice”
Review-essay on Peter Boenisch's book Directing Scenes and Senses: The Thinking of Regie, in Theater magazine
“What is the Theater’s Outer Limit of Great Length?”
Essay on the history of marathon theater--Great Lengths excerpt in Theater magazine
“Nothing to do with Patience: An Interview with Michael Thalheimer”
Interview in 2009 with the German theater director Michael Thalheimer
Play: an original adaptation of Heiner Müller's Mauser, in Theater magazine
Essay-review of Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan's musical adatpation of Büchner's Woyzeck, in Theater magazine
“The Death (and Life) of American Theater Criticism"
Lecture/Essay from 2002 on the state of American theater criticism, in Theater magazine
“Documentary Solo Performance: The Politics of the Mirrored Self"
Essay on Anna Deavere Smith, Marc Wolf, Danny Hoch and Sarah Jones, in Theater magazine
“The Gospel According to Billy"
Essay on Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, in Theater magazine
“Oedipus and Other Impracticalities"
Essay on New York theater in 1998/1999, in Theater magazine
"On the Becoming Death of Poor H.M."
Essay on the death and legacy of Heiner Müller, in Theater magazine
"Maybe We're Friggin Immortals"
360 Viewfinder interview with Michael Shannon and Paul Sparks, stars of Arin Arbus's Theatre for a New Audience production of Waiting for Godot (2023)
"The Audience is the Community"
360 Viewfinder interview with Flordelino Lagundino, director of Fuente Ovejuna at Theatre for a New Audience (2023)
"The Line Between Thought & Feeling"
360 Viewfinder interview with Will Eno, author of Gnit at Theatre for a New Audience (2021)
360 Viewfinder essay on the gender-switched title character in Simon Godwin's Timon of Athens at Theatre for a New Audience (2020)
"Flickers of Hope in the Fog of War"
360 Viewfinder interview with Shana Cooper, director of Julius Caesar at Theatre for a New Audience (2019)
360 Viewfinder essay on the genesis of Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne's Why? at Theatre for a New Audience (2019)
360 Viewfinder interview with Dianne Wiest, star of Beckett's Happy Days at Theatre for a New Audience (2017)
360 Viewfinder essay on Simon Godwin's Measure for Measure at Theatre for a New Audience (2017)
"Contradictions in Black & White"
360 Viewfinder interview with Evan Yionoulis, director of Adrienne Kennedy's He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box at Theatre for a New Audience (2017)
"Holding it Together with Richard Maxwell"
360 Viewfinder interview with Richard Maxwell, author and director of Isolde at Theatre for a New Audience (2015)
"In Conversation with Michael Pennington"
360 Viewfinder interview with Michael Pennington, star of King Lear at Theatre for a New Audience (2014)
Review of Michael Wood’s Heiner Müller’s Democratic Theater: The Politics of Making the Audience Work, in Modern Language Review
Review of Brandon Woolf’s Institutional Theatrics: Performing Arts Policy in Post-Wall Berlin and Olivia Landry’s Theatre of Anger: Radical Transnational Performance in Contemporary Berlin, in TDR
Review Jens Pohlmann's The Creation of an Avant-Garde Brand: Heiner Müller’s Self-Presentation in the German Public Sphere in The Germanic Review