This collection of recent pieces from The New Yorker are often spacious, always reflective, and nuanced. Organized in four sections (Comedians, Playwrights, Musicals, and Productions), these serious, well-written essays draw on interviews (Lahr haunts backstages, lobbies, dressing rooms, and rehearsal halls), biography, theater history, and performance-always performance. "Lahr is that rare bird in theatrical journalism--the prolific, witty, literate independent scholar. The regular New Yorker contributor creates exhaustively researched profiles that never descend into mere puffery and well-considered reviews that never resort to the glib, cruel, ad hominem attacks found in too much contemporary criticism. Reading these 41 pieces, it is hard not to be struck by Lahr's range, too, for his subjects span the spectrum of contemporary theater, from Harold Pinter to the politically engaged Anna Deavere Smith and even rebel stand-up comedian Bill Hicks. his discussions of serious comic playwrights Joe Orton and Tony Kushner (as well as of Barry Humphries--"Dame Edna Everage" ) make a dip into this book well worthwhile." [Jack Helbig]