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Summary: How Good Is John Heilpern, Anyway?
Review: At last, readers beyond the subscription list of the New York Observer have the opportunity to read one of the most gifted--and funniest--writers around. As it happens, this book is a collection of his writing on theater (save for the non-theatrical, though rivetingly dramatic, account of Heilpern's struggle with a murderous roommate named Jack the Cat), but this work is a delight for anyone who appreciates finely tuned yet uproarious humor, a handsome prose style and a sensibility that is at once erudite, entertaining and inviting. How good is John Heilpern's "How Good Is David Mamet, Anyway?" anyway? Peerless.
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Summary: It Matters, It Matters
Review: I read this book, found some of the most entertaining, informative and lively criticism I've ever encountered, and came to this page to see what others were saying about it. Reading the slams by Booklist and Kirkus made me wonder if I'd completely misunderstood "How Good Is David Mamet, Anyway?" But then I read the raves from Salon and Tony Kushner and other readers, and wondered who the heck is reviewing for Booklist and Kirkus. Booklist calls it "daily journalism," but then the NY Observer apparently is a weekly. It's amusing that Kirkus ends its review recommending a trip to the theater--if their writer got out more, he or she might notice on a theater marquee that it's NOEL Coward, not NOL. (Sorry, my keyboard can't make the little double dots to go with the correct spelling.) A howler like that basically nolifies the rest of the review. You won't be seeing the collected works of either of these critics appearing in bookstores anytime soon.
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Summary: Can't Beat This One from the Theater's Number One Critic
Review: John Heilpern is without question the best critic of his generation, and his reviews in the weekly "New York Observer" can't be beat! Make plans to buy this collection from the most important living theater critic and England's best export since Archie Leach!
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Summary: Can't Beat This One from the Theater's Number One Critic
Review: John Heilpern is without question the best critic of his generation, and his reviews in the weekly "New York Observer" can't be beat! Make plans to buy this collection from the most important living theater critic and England's best export since Archie Leach!
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Summary: Rave Reviews from Theater Professionals
Review: TONY KUSHNER: "John Heilpern is one of the smartest, most literate, most decent critics this country's theater has had. He writes beautifully, he's wonderfully funny, he's incisive and insightful. Even when one disagrees with him (I would, for instance, answer that I think David Mamet is very, very good, great even), one finds in the disagreement the pleasure to be had from intelligent argument about art. Most importantly, Heilpern cheers for the difficult and daring in theater. As much as he shows himself here to be a great chronicler of our theater's past, John Heilpern is one of our most important and articulate champions of its future."GEORGE C. WOLFE: "John Heilpern is truly rare. His reviews are generous, openhearted and smart, without being effusive-tough and incisive without being mean. And ever present is his love for the theater and respect for the people who make it." PETER BROOK: "To describe a play he liked, John Heilpern says it was 'mindbogglingly entertaining.' He could be referring to his own joyful book. In the great tradition of English theater criticism, his writing hides its deep seriousness behind a glitter of fun."
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Summary: Description of HOW GOOD IS DAVID MAMET, ANYWAY?
Review: What makes an actor great? Why is English theater better than American-or is it? How good is David Mamet, anyway? John Heilpern, theater critic for The New York Observer, has spent a career watching the plays and the players, the geniuses and the also-rans, the great and the not so great on both sides of the Atlantic, and writes about them with lightness and passion. HOW GOOD IS DAVID MAMET, ANYWAY? is the best of John Heilpern's theater writings. The players are many: Vanessa Redgrave and Ralph Fiennes, Helen Mirren and George C. Wolfe, Fiona Shaw and Savion Glover, Karen Finley and David Mamet, and dozens of others. There's also an important essay on the differences between the British and American theater scenes, profiles of such legends as Noël Coward, Alec Guinness, and Michael Bennett, engaging pieces on such figures as Peter Brook and Robert Brustein, review-essays on dozens of great, good, and awful plays, as well as contrary opinions on some of our most widely admired playwrights. There are comic turns, too: "The Year of the Penis" and "The Art of Falling Asleep at the Theatre." Serious or witty, John Heilpern's criticism persuades us that theater matters, after all. For anyone who loves the stage and its timeless mystery and fun, HOW GOOD IS DAVID MAMET, ANYWAY? is a chocolate box of a book.
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