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Hot Seat: Theater Criticism for The New York Times, 1980-1993 | 
 enlarge | Author: Frank Rich
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $45.00
Buy Used: $7.00
You Save: $38.00 (84%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 293344
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1072
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.5
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.4 x 2.4
ISBN: 0679453008
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.95097471
EAN: 9780679453000
ASIN: 0679453008
Publication Date: October 13, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: EX-LIBRARY; used item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned for refund. Buy with confidence - your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics!
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Amazon.com Review
Love him or hate him, there's no denying the vast influence Frank Rich wielded as chief drama critic for the New York Times. Those he praised usually enjoyed great success; those he damned accused him of conspiring against their productions. Now, here's a volume, almost forbidding in length, that encompasses his work over 14 theater seasons. More than 330 reviews and articles brimming with plays and players, shows and showmen--famous and obscure, enduring and forgotten. Readers are likely to find something that--depending on their vintage--serves as a discovery or a reminder. Do you recall that Mike Nichols and Elaine May once appeared in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (The 1980 production accentuated Edward Albee's dark comedy, but left Rich "hungry for blood.") Or that FOB in the very same year launched the New York career of David Henry Hwang ("an unwieldy, at times spotty work"--one that nonetheless "hits home far more often than it misses"). Jump forward eight years to the same playwright's M. Butterfly and the circle is complete, as Rich lavishes praise upon Hwang's work, calling it one of his favorite new plays. Whatever readers may think of Rich's opinions (and he isn't shy about sharing them), they'll delight in his prose--at once witty and illuminating, sympathetic and sarcastic. Revealed too in this tome is Rich's admiration and love for several mentors and peers, exemplified in moving tributes to the legendary critics Kenneth Tynan and Walter Kerr. Also poignant are footnotes to several reviews, outlining the real-life tragedies that befell mighty showmen like Gower Champion of 42nd Street. Rich traces the terrible toll AIDS has taken on Broadway, describing an era in which the celebrated and the unsung alike succumbed to the epidemic. Little wonder then, that Tony Kushner's Angels in America, rooted in the age of AIDS, makes such a profound impression on the critic: "I was so overwhelmed by Angels after a matinee in London that I canceled my theatergoing plans for that night; I needed time to think." All this makes Hot Seat more than just a compendium of reviews. It serves as a history and a highly entertaining read rolled into one, a portrait of the theater and, ultimately, of the critic himself. --Roy Wadia
Product Description
In his nearly fourteen years as chief drama critic of The New York Times, Frank Rich was both admired as a passionate advocate for the best in New York theater and reviled as "the Butcher of Broadway" for his presumed destructive power over the commercial fate of Broadway shows. Hot Seat is Rich's definitive chronicle of his long run--an encyclopedic anthology of more than three hundred of his best reviews and essays, interspersed with further thoughts, entirely new to this volume, about his adventures on the aisle at the tumultuous time when Broadway was decimated by AIDS and colonized by the British musical.
Rich's opening-night accounts of an era's biggest hits (from ThePhantom of the Opera to Six Degrees of Separation) and most notorious bombs (from Moose Murders to Carrie) are here, as are his year-by-year reflections on major careers both established (Stephen Sondheim, Peter Brook, Jessica Tandy) and new (August Wilson, Kevin Kline, Caryl Churchill).
Here as well are Rich's final words on his sparring matches with Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Hare, among others, and his retrospective lists of which plays and performances he admired most and least--as well as lists of the productions he feels he over--and underrated the first time around.
From the tragic opening night of David Merrick's 42nd Street to the unprecedented triumph of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Hot Seat captures what was in every way a dramatic chapter in cultural history, as told and lived by a journalist with the best seat and sharpest eye in the house.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 don't have to be a chicken.... November 18, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am so tired of the cliché response to critics those who can't do, blah blah blah. As if it constituted some sort of argument. Here's another cliché saying for you: You don't have to be a chicken to smell a rotten egg.
As to the example of Rich's venality, let's walk through the argument:
1)Rich writes a somewhat favorable review in which he discusses things he think would make it a better play.
2)The producers make those changes.
3)Rich thinks it's a better play.
What a monster!
Also, I love the hypocrisy of "mindless drones." Don't read reviews to figure out what to think...unless of course it's my review of Rich's book. Talk about mindless.
Rich is a fine writer with true insights and provocative opinions. You don't like them? Fine.
 Let's Not Forget August 22, 2003
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
While Rich's book may be a somewhat useful book of reviews he created for the New York Times, it must be remembered how he nearly ruined Broadway by writing hostile reviews of shows written by creative people he didn't like and glowing reviews for his personal favorites. He and his soon to be wife (Alex Witchel) who wrote the Friday Broadway column in times gave new meaning to the words "conflict of interest" and nearly destroyed Broadway in the process.
those were the days November 21, 2001
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
i miss frank rich's reviews so much. they were brilliant and insightful and funny. i loved re-reading them in this book. i love you frank!
A rich and vibrant account of Frank Rich's Broadway. August 29, 1999
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
What better way to view 10+ years on Broadway than through the eyes of a theatre critic? The so-called "Butcher of Broadway" has collected a large number of his reviews in this volume, and it is a must-read for anyone who remembers the theatre of the 1980s, or wants to experience it for the first time. Rich's reviews are insightful, well-written, and succeed very often at drawing you into the shows, and making you feel like you are part of the audience. The addition of editorial comments, from a modern day perspective, helps put some of the events his reviews and articles detail into an even greater context. Whether you agree with everything Mr. Rich says or not, there are few better windows into the twelve or so years of New York theatre while he was the theatre critic for The New York Times.
Almost as exciting as being there. November 6, 1998
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
This is one of the best purchases I've made in a long while. I sat up way past my bedtime pouring over this wonderful book. Frank Rich became the NY Times Theatre Critic shortly after I began making annual pilgrimages to NYC and staying abreast of what was happening both on and off-Broadway. Consequently, almost every show I've seen over the years is reviewed somewhere in this book. And how wonderful it is to re-visit some of those cherished experiences through his eye! Reading Rich's reviews of "Dreamgirls", "Amadeus", and "Angels in America" again gave me chills. His reviews of "Moose Murders" and "Carrie" had me laughing out loud. And his review of the 3,389th performance of "A Chorus Line" left me in tears. But more than just these isolated moments, the book as a whole provides a rich, varied overview of the commercial theatre during the last decade and a half, obviously written by a man who loved his job and knew what he was talking about. It's a must!
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