The truth is that a lot of plays aren't political at all. In American theater history, political theater has tended to crop up when there's a crisis, a national crisis.
Frank RichAmericans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years.
Frank RichHollywood no longer depicts reporters in ruthless pursuit of criminals, high and low. Now they are the criminals.
Frank RichWhile F.D.R. once told Americans that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Mr. Ashcroft is delighted to play the part of Fear Itself, an assignment in which he lets his imagination run riot.
Frank RichIf Obama needs to be criticized, I will criticize him. There's a tremendous amount of excitement about him. And a corollary of that is, as we're learning, from newspapers and magazines that are going into overdrive reprinting Obama editions, etc.
Frank RichThereโs nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesnโt recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.
Frank Rich