Quotes by Ben Brantley - Page 1

Cyndi Lauper knows how to work a crowd.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Crowds
Know How
Knows
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Be prepared to have the breath knocked out of you.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Be Prepared
Breaths
Prepared
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The eternal ambiguity of human motives and memory.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Ambiguity
Memories
Motive
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EVERY SINGLE DANCER, SINGER and BAND MEMBER is a BRILLIANT SOLO ARTIST
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Artist
Band
Dancer
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If you agree with a critic, you admire him or her. If you disagree, you despise them. We all feel a great need to be confirmed in our opinions.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Agree
Despise
Disagree
Confirmed
Critic
Opinions
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Whether you like it or not, a performance's triumphs and belly flops come to seem excruciatingly intimate, as if you were somehow partly responsible for them.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Belly
Intimate
Flops
Partly
Triumphs
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I personally read criticism - at least by writers I enjoy - to stimulate a conversation in my own mind, and I like to think that's the function I serve for others.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Conversation
Criticism
Function
Writers
Personally
Serve
Stimulate
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I have received hostile voice mail messages and e-mails. They are often anonymous, I'm sad to say, as anonymous messages are delivered only by very low forms of human life, in my opinion.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Sad
Hostile
Human Life
Mail
Messages
Opinion
Voice
Anonymous
Forms
Delivered
In My Opinion
Low
Received
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Rage properly channeled can definitely give birth to good even great theater. Disgust, a more passive and distancing emotion, is far less likely to. Would you rush to a play called Look Back in Queasiness?
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Giving
Looks
Play
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It's nowhere near as intense as what I imagine an actor experiences backstage, but I feel a fluttering nervousness before a curtain goes up on a play. I mean, any play, anywhere - on Broadway or the Bowery or in a church basement.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Broadway
Church
Fluttering
Intense
Mean
Nervousness
Play
Backstage
Basement
Nowhere
Curtain
Near
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THE HOT (AND SERIOUSLY COOL) ENERGY that comes from the musical gospel preached by the title character of FELA! feels as if it could stretch easily to the borders of Manhattan and then across a river or two. There should be dancing in the streets!
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Character
Rivers
Two
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I've seen plays that are, objectively, total messes that move me in ways that their tidier brethren do not. That's the romantic mystery of great theater. Translating this ineffability into printable prose is a challenge that can never be fully met.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Brethren
Challenges
Moving
Play
Prose
Fully
Messes
Objectively
Translating
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Theater criticism should be visceral, at least on some level, an articulation of that fierceness and passion. I usually do a fair amount of research before I see a show - on the history of previous productions (if it's a revival) and the creative team.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Articulation
Criticism
Productions
Revival
Visceral
Fair Amount
Previous
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The cliche was always that 'everybody's a critic,' but it becomes truer every day. Long before reviews appear in the traditional outlets, you can now usually discover - somewhere in the thickets of the Internet - reactions to shows from people who've seen them in previews.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Internet
Long
Outlets
People
Preview
Reactions
Reviews
Traditional
Appear
Critic
Discover
Truer
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I write the occasional entry for the 'Times' Theatre blog, especially when I'm in London and seeing two shows a day, but I don't tweet. I don't want to have to express my opinion in 140 characters. That's like writing haiku. You need a certain amount of legroom to review a play properly.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Entry
Occasional
Theatre
Tweet
Blog
Express
Properly
Review
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The power of the print reviewer is one of those urban myths. There have always been shows that slipped under the critical radar to become popular successes: 'Tobacco Road', 'Abie's Irish Rose' and our old friend 'Spider-Man', which got the worst reviews in theatre history and is still apparently going strong.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Critical
Print
Radar
Spider Man
Theatre
Tobacco
Urban
Apparently
Irish
Myths
Old Friend
Reviewer
Successes
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What Mr. Kaufman and his team are after is less a portrait of any one person than one of the ethos of a place. In the deliberate, simple staging ... in which eight radiantly clean-scrubbed performers embody 60 different people against a bare-bones set, 'Laramie' often brings to mind 'Our Town,' the beloved Thornton Wilder study of life, love and death in parochial New Hampshire.
Ben Brantley / Journalist
Love Life
Simple
Team
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