To Reawaken a Mockingbird In his adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel, Aaron Sorkin homes in on Atticus Finch’s blind spots.
“I WANTED YOU TO SEE what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”
You won’t hear Atticus Finch say those words to his son, Jem, in the To Kill a Mockingbird now alighting on Broadway. The banners outside the theater proclaim, in capital letters, harper lee’s to kill a mockingbird, but the smaller print tells the truth: “A new play by Aaron Sorkin.” The production is “not an homage or an exercise in nostalgia,” wrote Sorkin for this magazine. “I [didn’t] swaddle the book in bubble wrap and transfer it gently to the stage. Theaters aren’t museums.” Reverent readers turned theatergoers might clutch their pearls (as the Lee estate did), but it’s exciting to hear a writer speak clearly about intent and that intangible but incontrovertible sense of present consciousness that a piece of theater owes to its moment. Sorkin has written a new play, and it’s characteristically taut and nimble, fluid and funny, with plenty to meditate on and argue about. My own personal jury is still out on its major thematic turn of the dial—a condemnation of modern respectability politics through the developing character of Atticus—but as a piece of theater, it’s magnificent.
Denne historien er fra December 24, 2018-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra December 24, 2018-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.