Jason O'Connell

Prosperous Fools

Prosperous Fools

Taylor Mac is chronicling slapstick goings-on backstage at a not-for-profit’s fundraising gala in his new comedy Prosperous Fools. Murphy’s Law is in high gear, and things are haywire. Since the not-for-profit is called National Ballet Theater, it’s clear this is Mac’s assessment of the state of the arts under the new federal administration that has made its leader chair of the board at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

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Happy Birthday, Wanda June

Happy Birthday, Wanda June

The reputation of Kurt Vonnegut nowadays rest on his comic novels—a mainstay of 1960s counterculture. He combined flights of hilarious whimsy with science fiction and sharp satire in works such as Cat’s Cradle (1963), God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) and Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). But at the height of his powers, Vonnegut also wrote a Broadway play, Happy Birthday, Wanda June. The play may not be a masterpiece, but the production by the Wheelhouse Theater Company under director Jeff Wise breathes screwball life into it with strong performances and unabashed theatricality.

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Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice

Don’t underestimate Jane Austen. Her authorial voice, distinctively witty and humane, rings out above the Gothic din of early 19th-century fiction. Two centuries after her death, this middle-class provincial’s novels still enchant readers with their verisimilitude and authenticity, despite how radically manners and morals have changed.

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