Michael Ryan
Latest Articles
The First 100 Years
I t was not supposed to succeed. All of its predecessors had failed. The Faculty and administration were resistant to
Gordon Cairnie 1895-1973
G ORDON CAIRNIE is not a proper subject for an obituary. He was much too alive ever to die, and
Patience
T HE AUDIENCE STILL STANDS for "God Save the Queen," and they send her victorious, happy and glorious before every
Not by Bed Alone
When I am arranging all that madness that unleashes the spectators' glee. I am not amused by it. I keep
The Taxi
Violette Leduc's death last month was not accompanied by any of the usual obsequies reserved for Literary Figures. Genet has
Living the Nightmare--Up Close
T HE LUNATICS are running the asylum these days, and lunacy is its own reward, sanity the only true crime.
Cole Porter Redivivus
F OR SOMEONE who used to be Dean Acheson's roommate, Cole Porter has come a long way. In the Grand
Yeomen of the Guard
S OME CRITIC has said that the basic action of comedy on the stage goes something like this: boy meets
Ancestors and Immigrants
J AMES MICHAEL CURLEY'S second-youngest son came to my grandfather's wake. You may remember the caricature of this son in
September Song
T HAT WHIRRING NOISE you hear is Kurt Weill spinning in his grave. When he and Bertolt Brecht wrote Threepenny