Theater: Defiled
Harry Mendelssohn (Jason Alexander) is the ultimate anticomputer nerd. He is threatening to dynamite the library where he works if its card-catalog system is replaced by PCs. Brian Dickey (Peter Falk) is the police negotiator--Columbo raised to the nth degree--trying to talk him out of anarchy. Lee Kalcheim's play, at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse, sets them dueling metaphorically over the fate of modern civilization. Sometimes his targets are too easy (no more Starbucks jokes, please), but he has written fine, funny parts for the edgy, earnest Alexander and canny, counterpunching Falk. And his ending is a coup de theatre that's both logically satisfying and genuinely startling.
--By Richard Schickel
Most Popular »
- The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
- Prehistoric Super-Crocodiles May Have Dined on Dinosaurs
- The Fall of Greg Craig, Obama's Top Lawyer
- Toilets
- Can the A380 Bring the Party Back to the Skies?
- Woman Loses Benefits over Facebook Photo
- How One Army Town Copes With Post- Traumatic Stress
- Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin
- Troubling Rise of Facebook's Top Game Company
- The Story of Barack Obama's Mother
- The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
- Toilets
- Prehistoric Super-Crocodiles May Have Dined on Dinosaurs
- Troubling Rise of Facebook's Top Game Company
- Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin
- How One Army Town Copes With Post- Traumatic Stress
- The Fall of Greg Craig, Obama's Top Lawyer
- Can the A380 Bring the Party Back to the Skies?
- Woman Loses Benefits over Facebook Photo
- Junior Eurovision: Schoolyard Crushes with Glitter
Quotes of the Day »
MARTHA STEWART, when asked about the insider-trading scandal that, by her estimates, cost her company more than a billion dollars
Quotes of the Day »
MARTHA STEWART, when asked about the insider-trading scandal that, by her estimates, cost her company more than a billion dollars
RSS