True Confession Time For Cell-Phone-In-The-Theatre Offenders

Ben Brantley writes about learning some compassion for audience members whose cell phones ring during a performance after his own (mortified) date’s phone rang during a play. Brantley then invites offenders to post comments “about what it feels like to be on the other side of the law.” (Comments are running roughly 20-to-1 unsympathetic.)

What Makes An Awful Date Movie?

“At first blush, the hallmarks of a terrible date movie might seem rather obvious. Such a movie might feature multiple instances of projectile vomiting, like the Sam Raimi horror flick Drag Me to Hell. It might graphically depict genital mutilation” or, perhaps, “aliens emerging from human rectums.” But these aren’t the kind of movies to watch out for.

Lamenting New York’s Shakespeare Deficit

Charles Isherwood: “The news that the Royal Shakespeare Company will install a classical theater inside the Park Avenue Armory for a six-week residency in the summer of 2011 inspires both gratitude and chagrin. … The chagrin derives from the dispiriting reflection that the chance to see five Shakespeare plays in rep is virtually unheard of in this, the country’s theatrical capital.”

Diary That Holds Key To Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County Found

“The climactic moment in William Faulkner’s 1942 novel Go Down, Moses comes when Isaac McCaslin finally decides to open his grandfather’s leather farm ledgers with … proof of his family’s slave-owning past. Now, what appears to be the document on which Faulkner modeled that ledger as well as the source for myriad names, incidents and details that populate his fictionalized Yoknapatawpha County has been discovered.”