tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36965821913046319952012-01-10T09:59:28.641-05:00Music. Media. Playwriting. Politics. International Intrigues.Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.comBlogger1801100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-73445687648881327382012-01-10T09:59:00.000-05:002012-01-10T09:59:28.651-05:00

It's been in the works for a full year now, and at last I can finally break the news. One of my new plays, Nero/Pseudo, will receive a staged reading by WSC/Avant Bard at Artisphere on Wednesday, May 30. As they say on TV: "And that's not all." Last January, Chicago musicians Jon Langford (of the Mekons, Skull Orchard, Waco Brothers, Three Johns) and Jim Elkington (of the Zincs, the Horse's Ha

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-22263123054641778322011-12-18T21:02:00.000-05:002011-12-18T21:02:39.454-05:00

On my last trip to Prague in September 2010, I spent a good deal of time visiting places associated with Czech playwright, dissident and President Václav Havel – who died earlier today. I was fortunate enough on this journey to end up seeing Havel up close as I had coffee in the tiny café at Divadlo na zabradli ("Theatre on the Balustrade") – the small playhouse where Havel started his career and

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-69911207294132582752011-10-24T20:11:00.013-04:002011-10-25T22:35:27.021-04:00

Arms and the Man might not be George Bernard Shaw's greatest play (that's Major Barbara), but it is his most entertaining and consistently playable from a theatrical point of view -- something proven once again by a new production by Washington DC's Constellation Theatre Company. Constellation's version, directed by Allison Arkell Stockman, is acted with bravado by a cast that loves Shaw's

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-89216548407635922922011-10-21T15:05:00.004-04:002011-10-21T16:10:30.314-04:00

The proprietor of Balkans via Bohemia has -- at various times in his life -- lived the expat life to the hilt. One very rarely enters into that life with bad intentions. Indeed, one's good intentions are an almost necessary portal. Curiosity. Desire to help. The journalist's urge to tell a good story. These are often the first steps on a slippery slope. A road to excess that ends in a palace of

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-78991963305140789912011-10-05T21:08:00.004-04:002011-10-05T22:57:44.182-04:00

It doesn't happen very often that you get to see the legendary Mekons. But lucky folks in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York have seen/will get to see the Mekons this week as they play some US shows behind their new record, Ancient and Modern 1911-2011 (Sin Records/Bloodshot). A slew of European cities -- including a very Balkans via Bohemia-esque run through Prague, Berlin and

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-58583921312766529622011-09-09T22:14:00.021-04:002011-09-11T13:50:51.183-04:00

Jarett Kobek's ATTA is a curious book. And not "curious" as reviewer's code that stands in as a weirdly standoffish term for "strange" or "delightfully marginal."Kobek is, quite literally, more curious in a useful way about terrorism, and its perpetrators, and the intersection of cultures (religious, popular, technical and academic) that could breed an exterminator such as 9/11 operational

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-67074710152397453172011-07-27T08:42:00.007-04:002011-07-28T14:21:30.170-04:00

I recently spent almost two weeks in Berlin. It was a largely-unplanned excursion (let's call it "show business sucks") but a long-awaited return all the same. I was last in Berlin in 1994. Between 1991 and that year, I think I visited the city at least 5 times. The transformations going on in the city were so profound -- deaths and rebirths played out in front of your eyes. Somewhere in the

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-74929403893522018132011-07-16T11:51:00.009-04:002011-07-16T13:54:13.855-04:00

I'm missing a lot of Capital Fringe Festival this year, but made it to a few shows (Happenstance Theater's Manifesto, Pinky Swear Productions' Cabaret XXX) and helped the gang doing Live Broadcast hype their show before travel beckoned me away for the balance of the festival. But I still have access to Facebook on the road, so it was hard to miss many of my friends sharing Gwydion Suilebhan's

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-16599982656509027672011-06-21T21:41:00.004-04:002011-06-21T21:58:34.658-04:00

In the early days of Balkans via Bohemia, I blogged about Happenstance Theater's Manifesto -- a really smart and hilarious take on the Dadaist movement. It remains one of the best things I've ever seen on a Washington, DC stage. The good news for DC audiences is that Happenstance is reviving Manifesto for five performances at this year's Capital Fringe Festival. (See below for the dates and times

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-4901012444368863562011-05-26T09:01:00.007-04:002011-05-26T11:57:23.449-04:00

The arrest of indicted Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladic is a watershed moment in the region. But there are significant perils in it as well, and perhaps not where one might expect to find them.First, it is a long overdue triumph for justice. The massacre at Srebrenica is a scar on Europe. During and after his trial, justice and closure will now be available to thousands who suffered by the

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-58397647952604072862011-05-19T22:55:00.011-04:002011-05-20T12:21:49.103-04:00

Balkans via Bohemia doesn't do theatre reviews. But I found Washington Shakespeare Company (WSC)'s new production of Tom Stoppard's 1978 play Night and Day (which runs in repertory with two Tennessee Williams one-acts at Rosslyn's Artisphere through July 3) to be a moving and wonderful evening of theatre that did precisely what one imagines one of the world's best playwrights of ideas would want.

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-83431219405280146162011-04-16T17:34:00.004-04:002011-04-17T11:38:10.582-04:00

Romania's contribution to 20th Century literature has been wildly undervalued, but there are signs that this is changing. Tomas Sandqvist's book, Dada East (MIT Press, 2006), for instance, was a remarkable excavation of Dada's roots in Romania that greatly expanded our understanding of artistic spheres of influence. Ion Ratiu Post-Doctoral Fellow in Romanian Studies at Georgetown University

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-7636020700958484982011-04-06T21:18:00.007-04:002011-04-07T15:47:50.285-04:00

In January, during a trip to Chicago to read an essay on Dubravka Ugresic at a celebration of The Common Review and pursue an exciting artistic collaboration that I'll be spilling the beans about soon, I had the privilege of seeing a production of Hamletmachine -- the best-known work (at least the United States) by Heiner Müller -- at Chicago's Trap Door Theatre. Müller isn't performed much in

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-54679531231663408842011-03-11T00:07:00.003-05:002011-03-11T00:46:07.972-05:00

I have been researching a new play for the last year or so -- and am starting to write it. And today, oddly enough, is a highlight occasion for me in that process.Two hundred years ago today, on March 11, 1811, a riot broke out in the marketplace of the Englich city of Nottingham. Later that evening, a group of men marched into a Nottingham suburb and smashed up machines that made stockings (

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-49909917947104951072011-03-05T11:13:00.006-05:002011-03-06T14:45:00.539-05:00

J.P. Olsen is one of those renaissance guys. He's been a journalist and a documentary filmmaker who wrote a well-received book -- and made a film -- with drug policy specialist Nancy Campbell called The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America's First Prison for Drug Addicts. (You can hear an NPR interview with Olsen and Campbell about that project.)But I got to know Olsen as a musician about

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-9758083272252921122011-02-02T21:20:00.005-05:002011-02-02T23:15:08.347-05:00

Weinberl: What is it after all that distinguishes man from beast?Christopher: Not a lot, Mr. Weinberl.Weinberl: Trade.Christopher: I was thinking that.Weinberl: What would we be without trade?Christopher: Closed, Mr. Weinberl.Weinberl: That's it. The shutters would go up on civilization as we know it.(Tom Stoppard, On the Razzle)This month, Washington DC's Constellation Theatre Company is

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-72547802286184527092011-01-25T21:37:00.006-05:002012-01-09T21:20:48.995-05:00

The new play that I've been working on since July 2009 --called Nero/Pseudo -- is finally ready for people to read. Which is exciting. The first draft was finished this past summer, then it got a ruthless rewrite or two -- the last one thanks to some very perceptive comments by DC playwright Jim McNeill and actor/director Gwen Grastorf. I went back into my notebooks to try and trace down just

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-69211558603625576712011-01-21T11:41:00.008-05:002011-01-21T14:44:01.054-05:00

(This is the second of two posts about Belarus Free Theatre -- and it deals with Free Belarus Theatre's Being Harold Pinter, which was read in solidarity with the troupe on January 17, 2011 in Washington DC at Theater J. The first post on Belarus Free Theatre and the reading itself, can be found here. The photo at right is Pinter with the troupe's members in Leeds in 2007.)When Harold Pinter died

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-9939685917155016172011-01-19T12:08:00.013-05:002011-01-21T13:31:40.719-05:00

(This is the first of two posts about Belarus Free Theatre -- and it deals with a reading held in solidarity with the troupe on January 17, 2011 in Washington DC at Theater J. The second post, on Free Belarus Theatre's Being Harold Pinter, will follow in the next day or so.)On January 17, I was one of 200 people who gathered at Theater J in Washington DC to show our solidarity with the embattled

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-30175246294967010602010-12-15T23:56:00.004-05:002010-12-16T00:08:57.962-05:00

Life has overtaken Rich Byrne Inc. since I posted Hildegard Knef's picture back in late August. Closing a new issue of UMBC Magazine & then a mad (and largely ill-fated) dash to Prague to negotiate a summer performance of Burn Your Bookes there & then jury duty & then some freelance work (you'll be seeing fruits of that soon) & PR for Taffety Punk's amazing riot grrl Julius Caesar & then back '

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-18191100262770681242010-08-31T14:33:00.005-04:002010-09-01T07:27:12.156-04:00

"Lazy daysLeo daysAugust timeNot my timeHate this wearyDreary holiday time"Those are the words of the immortal Hildegard Knef (right), in her summer classic "Holiday Time." (I wrote a tribute to Knef and her delightfully dry song two summers ago here.)Well holiday time from the creative life is now officially over here at Richard Byrne Inc. Big project of the summer signed off on at last.

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-52573770024464534732010-07-23T20:01:00.007-04:002010-07-24T15:04:52.995-04:00

(NOTE: One performance of The Tea Party Project remains: Sunday, July 25 at 5 p.m. at the Capital Fringe Festival's RedRum stage.)As regular Balkans via Bohemia readers know, I've been increasingly putting my thoughts, money, mouth and actual theatrical work behind efforts to attract more and younger theatergoers (See: Taffety Punk Theatre Company and this terrific Washington Post summary of what

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-86057652134890617962010-06-13T08:16:00.007-04:002010-06-13T19:29:56.736-04:00

Very excited about the Magic City show at DC's Velvet Lounge this coming Saturday, June 19.Why?Well, first off, their performance at the Taffety Punk Theatre Company benefit in St. Louis last March (aka "Return of the Byrne") was simply astonishing. Frenzied, evangelical, yet sharp and soulful, too. Washingtonians need to see this -- and in particular the mind-blowing live version of "Animal

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-47590686835345541492010-06-04T22:00:00.007-04:002010-06-05T07:59:39.997-04:00

[CONFLICT ALERT: When I saw dog & pony dc's Courage in its workshop production last year, I not only blogged about it here, but also volunteered to help them with PR for the show's full production. So what follows is not a review, but some personal thoughts about what's at stake in director Rachel Grossman's approach to Bertolt Brecht and Mother Courage and Her Children.] I've seen a number of

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-24989678155099414872010-05-30T17:30:00.002-04:002010-05-30T17:40:58.558-04:00

After a very long hiatus of Burn Your Bookes and getting an issue of UMBC Magazine out and a very unwelcome and unexpected bit of financial distress (still working out the latter).... Look out for a couple posts over the next few days, including a lengthy look at the career of Dubravka Ugresic, a post about dog&pony dc's Courage -- a renovation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-3912942027760894192010-04-26T22:09:00.005-04:002010-04-27T14:35:45.438-04:00

We're only three days away from the opening night of Taffety Punk Theatre Company's production of my play, Burn Your Bookes. Exciting (and a tad nervous) times for the playwright.But rehearsals have been great, and the amazing cast and crew -- led by director Marcus Kyd -- have made my dream of bringing the strange story of Edward Kelley and his alchemical ambitions to the stage a reality.To get

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-39919389223230692592010-03-31T08:00:00.003-04:002010-03-31T08:17:51.359-04:00

Taffety Punk Theatre Company's production of my play, Burn Your Bookes, opens at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in Washington, D.C. on Friday, April 30. I'll be blogging about various aspects of it here until opening night. Info/tix at http://tix.taffetypunk.comAs Taffety Punk put together the press push for Burn Your Bookes, we decided on some video (stay tuned) and on a quick Q & A with the

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-52298919285526058672010-03-22T21:57:00.005-04:002010-03-22T22:32:06.118-04:00

I'm happy to announce that tickets are now on sale for Taffety Punk Theatre Company's production of my play, Burn Your Bookes. And, yes, that is a nifty press photo for the production!We've been hyping it as "the sex, drugs and baroque 'n' roll behind Edward Kelley's pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone," but it's also a play about how we know the world and the intersection of science and poetry

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-78121653698408887002010-03-13T15:35:00.004-05:002010-03-13T16:47:02.181-05:00

Just a quick post to thank everyone who came out on Thursday night in St. Louis. Music fans in Mound City had a wide variety of choices -- including Willie Nelson -- but we managed to attract a pretty nice crowd that plunked down $10 to help Taffety Punk Theatre Company and hear some amazing new music by Leadville and Magic City and astonishingly rare reunions by Stillwater and Free Dirt. And oh

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-16352922409869373182010-03-07T21:10:00.004-05:002010-03-07T21:24:21.933-05:00

There's sad news from Belgrade tonight: Author and dissident Mihajlo Mijhajlov is dead at the age of 76. I got to know Mihajlov a few years ago on a visit to Belgrade. Other than forcing Russian horseradish vodka on me, he was a wonderful host. His book, Moscow Summer, was an instant sensation. It holds up terrifically even today. It also set him on a collision course with the Yugoslav

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-47468027308558562662010-03-07T11:11:00.010-05:002010-03-07T21:42:56.685-05:00

Return of the Byrne: A St. Louis Fundraiser for Burn Your Bookes at the Schalfly Tap Room is only a few days away. (Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m.)In the lead up to the gig, we'll have a look at the bands who'll be playing. Today it's Stillwater.* * * * *Fuck you, Cameron Crowe.When you decided to swipe the name Stillwater for the band that your younger self follows in Almost Famous, you relegated

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-54179497318530281142010-03-06T22:10:00.009-05:002010-03-07T19:23:10.230-05:00

Return of the Byrne: A St. Louis Fundraiser for Burn Your Bookes at the Schalfly Tap Room is only a few days away. (Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m.)In the lead up to the gig, we'll have a look at the bands who'll be playing. Today it's our Special Guests Brian Henneman and Mark Ortmann.* * * * *In the life-changing moments department, few dates for me will rival New Year's Eve 1988.As usual with

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-39610349419448723602010-03-06T21:08:00.003-05:002010-03-06T22:11:57.062-05:00

Return of the Byrne: A St. Louis Fundraiser for Burn Your Bookes at the Schalfly Tap Room is only a few days away. (Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m.)In the lead up to the gig, we'll have a look at the bands who'll be playing. Today it's Leadville.* * * * *"Don't try too hard, son/ You look dumb." (Leadville, "Shittown")Leadville plays that good 'ol fashioned alt-country with intensity and panache.

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-88345890040851063712010-03-05T21:36:00.007-05:002010-03-06T08:13:03.547-05:00

Return of the Byrne: A St. Louis Fundraiser for Burn Your Bookes at the Schalfly Tap Room is only a few days away. (Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m.)In the lead up to the gig, we'll have a look at the bands who'll be playing. Today it's Three Fried Chamber Players. (And see update below for rectification of vital omission of Roy Kasten...)* * * * *At the risk of being immodest, I'm going to say that

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-69721006098923158672010-03-05T20:49:00.004-05:002010-03-05T21:32:56.711-05:00

Return of the Byrne: A St. Louis Fundraiser for Burn Your Bookes at the Schalfly Tap Room is only a few days away. (Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m.)In the lead up to the gig, we'll have a look at the bands who'll be playing. Today it's Magic City.* * * * * *Nostalgia is cool and all that. (And we'll dive into it a bit more in the next few days...)But one of the best things about going back to St.

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-21196439278328255742010-02-26T22:14:00.006-05:002010-03-02T20:28:26.010-05:00

Return of the Byrne: A St. Louis Fundraiser for Burn Your Bookes at the Schalfly Tap Room is only a few days away. (Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m.)In the lead up to the gig, we'll have a look at the bands who'll be playing. Today it's Free Dirt.* * * * * * * *By the mid-1990s, I was sort of burned out on what had come to be known as "alternative country."I know, I know. It's a contested term. You

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-60300111822695460082010-02-14T22:32:00.001-05:002010-02-14T22:34:28.753-05:00

My show, that is. I am so excited that Taffety Punk Theatre Company will produce my play about alchemy in Renaissance Prague, Burn Your Bookes, at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in spring. (Opening night: Friday, April 30, 2010.)We had a standing-room only audience for the sneak preview of Burn Your Bookes at the Kennedy Center over Labor Day weekend. If you didn’t see it, a video of the

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-10695450680559196622010-02-11T11:34:00.005-05:002010-02-11T12:00:58.548-05:00

The snow that has knocked the Washington DC metro region for a loop has also cut down the number of performances of Taffety Punk Theatre Company's critical s/mash-up of music, text and dance: suicide.chat.room. There are only four (4) performances left at Flashpoint's Mead Theater Lab, starting tonight: Thursday, February 11 at 8 p.m. (The show will also run on Friday at 8 p.m. and on Saturday

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-56236632021592370782010-02-06T14:56:00.011-05:002010-02-06T18:38:26.927-05:00

My show, that is. I am so excited that Taffety Punk Theatre Company will produce my play about alchemy in Renaissance Prague, Burn Your Bookes, at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in spring. (Opening night: Friday, April 30, 2010.)We had a standing-room only audience for the sneak preview of Burn Your Bookes at the Kennedy Center over Labor Day weekend. If you didn’t see it, a video of the

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-53922552018345264712010-01-23T17:03:00.002-05:002010-01-23T17:37:34.632-05:00

Very excited that Taffety Punk Theatre Company's suicide.chat.room is about to open at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint on Thursday night. (And not just because it means that the full-length version of my play, Burn Your Bookes, is up next in the Taffety Punk queue!)The opening of suicide.chat.room is the final crystallization of a process that has engaged Taffety Punk artistic director Marcus

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-84104963329810553272009-12-21T21:00:00.003-05:002009-12-21T21:40:27.314-05:00

Terrific news for me and for Balkans via Bohemia readers: Two of my best pals (who happen to be terrific fiction writers) have new stories on the Interwebs.First up is John Strausbaugh. The former New York Press editor wrote some really terrific fiction in the 1980s and early 1990s before he got sucked up into the journalism/nonfiction game, and the fact that he's posted four new stories up on

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-51546520843564025442009-12-20T17:11:00.003-05:002009-12-20T17:32:05.191-05:00

It goes to show just how out of it that I have been with work and other seasonal madness (including two feet of snow in Washington D.C.) that I somehow missed the death of one of Serbia's most innovative and provocative writers: Milorad Pavić.Pavić's greatest work was Dictionary of the Khazars -- a novel written in the form of dictionary entries that purported to retell a mythical Khazar polemic

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-53257423379535882592009-12-09T07:58:00.005-05:002009-12-09T08:05:46.405-05:00

Find what relevance to our contemporary situation you can.(Translation by Stratis Haviarias):In the Great Hellenist Colony, 200 BCEThat things in the colony aren't going so well,there's no doubt about it, anyone can tell,and while it's true that we are making some progress,perhaps now is the right time, as many people believe,for us to invite in a political reformer.But then there's a problem

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-41902749888229909592009-12-06T18:04:00.005-05:002009-12-06T18:46:02.984-05:00

Over at Ibishblog, my good friend Hussein Ibish has a fascinating post about The Merchant of Venice, The Jew of Malta and whether either or both plays are anti-Semitic.I'd encourage you to read his argument in full, especially since I have had the privilege of discussing this a few times with Ibish as he's wrestled with his interest in this question.The literature on The Merchant of Venice is

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-17451854327706216292009-11-27T20:19:00.005-05:002009-11-27T20:47:06.120-05:00

A year or so ago, I had the pleasure of meeting and having dinner with D.C.-based author and playwright Denis Lipman at an intimate soiree organized by publishing guru Carole Sargent. (BTW: Sargent's indispensible blog has recently changed locations... Snazzy new look for snazzy publishing coverage!)Lipman was full of enthusiasm for his latest project -- a travelogue/memoir called A Yank Back to

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-36702305890555959722009-11-15T22:28:00.005-05:002009-11-15T22:45:21.676-05:00

One of the most welcome trends in American theater is a recent spurt of revivals of works by fin de siecle German playwright Frank Wedekind.The most notable of these revivals of course is the adaptation of Wedekind's astonishing 1891 play Spring Awakening as a rock'n'roll driven musical by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik. (The play swept two arms' full of Tony Awards in 2007.)But Wedekind's

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-42289877498869309212009-11-12T08:42:00.005-05:002009-11-12T09:39:32.022-05:00

Let's just say it's a pivotal Saturday for Balkan football. Bosnia-Hercegovina plays the first leg of a two-match "winner-take-a-World Cup-slot" against Portugal in Lisbon. (Return leg in Zenica on Wednesday.) And Slovenia takes on Russia in Moscow on the same day, with the final match taking place in Maribor on Wednesday.Jonathan Wilson has a terrific preview of the latter pairing here --

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-78602860480998520082009-11-08T18:48:00.006-05:002009-11-12T10:33:11.309-05:00

Tomorrow is Europe's most celebrated 9/11: 9/11/1989. The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. (It's date then month on European calendars, so November 9 is 9/11.)Theatergoers in Washington, DC have a special treat to celebrate -- a new production of Charles Mee's 1998 play, Full Circle. (First produce by Steppenwolf as "The Berlin Circle.")Mee's play takes its starting point from the

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-66403053030916022152009-11-05T10:53:00.003-05:002009-11-05T11:09:03.912-05:00

Today is November 5th, and many of us know what that means. Guy Fawkes Day. Gunpowder Plot. 1605 and all that.But were the plotters (right, in a contemporary engraving) terrorists -- especially in the sense that we know that term?The Folger Institute held a terrific seminar on that topic four years ago -- one that I was lucky enough to attend as a reporter.I wrote this article about it for The

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-78691421590789362802009-10-29T22:45:00.004-04:002009-10-29T23:32:53.733-04:00

So the article about Yugoslav filmmaker Dusan Makavejev that I have been promising since July has finally been published in the print and web versions of this week's edition of The Nation.Though I had to scrunch and smoosh to get it all in, I'm pretty happy with the piece. In particular, I was happy to get a chance to talk about a few things:(1) The brilliance of Makavejev's first three feature

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-65612599006097395792009-10-14T22:54:00.008-04:002009-10-15T13:25:02.519-04:00

Twenty years ago today, on October 15, 1989, Yugoslav writer Danilo Kiš succumbed to lung cancer in Paris, France. He was only 54 when he died.Among the works Kiš left behind included a form-bending prose triptych -- Garden, Ashes (1965), Early Sorrows (1970) and Hourglass (1972) -- two masterworks of short fiction -- A Tomb for Boris Davidovich (1976) and Encyclopedia of the Dead (1983) -- and a

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-46958306266519831062009-10-14T14:42:00.003-04:002009-10-14T22:39:33.658-04:00

I was asked by George Scialabba to make some introductory remarks at his Washington D.C. appearance at Busboys & Poets. He was in town to celebrate the release of his collection, What Are Intellectuals Good For?Here is what I wrote....* * * * * * *I am delighted to be here tonight to introduce George Scialabba.His latest book, What Are Intellectuals Good For?, has excited intense critical

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-22589356221217040072009-10-12T22:46:00.004-04:002009-10-12T23:02:45.891-04:00

My performance as a blogger, that is.It's been almost a month since my last post. I can't say that I haven't been busy. I've been crazy busy with work, family, life, etcetera. But having a blog is a cosmic pact. According to my web stats, people are still showing up, driven here by the wonderful machinery of Google. I must do better.There will be an onslaught of posts in the next few weeks as

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-51011752516824380502009-09-17T21:27:00.003-04:002009-09-17T21:33:51.670-04:00

Terrific article by Jo Glanville in the Guardian today about Samuel Beckett and Vaclav Havel trading plays during Havel's incarceration in the early 1980s. Beckett's play, Catastrophe, was answered by Havel's Mistake.The article is short enough that it needs no summary here. This bit, however, I found hilarious and grim -- as any playwright would:Catastrophe is a short work consisting of one

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-3031854512397115472009-09-14T13:26:00.005-04:002009-09-14T13:48:40.245-04:00

So Scott McLemee blogs about Jim Carroll's untimely death here, swiping (with attribution, permission and wild encouragement) a small moment I had with Carroll that I mentioned on Facebook. We've passed some kind of border here -- at least for Balkans via Bohemia.The junket where I met Carroll was one of the strangest weekends of my life. It was a joint junket for The Basketball Diaries and The

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-13301504510026449602009-09-13T18:22:00.004-04:002009-09-13T19:19:52.801-04:00

My friend and colleague Hussein Ibish has a new book out: What's Wrong With the One-State Agenda? It's a terrific addition to the intensifying debate on the Middle East peace process, and -- if you read on -- there is also a useful Balkan connection to be made in regards to recent events.But first to the book, which is Ibish's attempt to nip in the bud what he views as a fallacious and dangerous

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-42141551049741608172009-09-11T09:32:00.004-04:002009-09-11T09:51:48.678-04:00

As the 20th anniversary of the momentous events in Europe of 1989 start to come fast and furious, here is something Balkans via Bohemia regulars will be interested in checking out: My friend and colleague Colin Woodard -- author of three terrific book, Ocean's End, The Lobster Coast, and The Republic of Pirates -- is starting to post his reminiscences of his own travels in the region during the

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-38740645088163596992009-09-07T17:00:00.006-04:002009-09-07T19:43:38.070-04:00

After last night's sneak preview of Burn Your Bookes, the proprietor of Balkans via Bohemia knows how lucky he is.First... let's take care of business. The link to Taffety Punk Theatre Company's sneak preview -- courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and its Millennium Stage program -- can be found here as a streaming web video. (Running time slightly over 21 minutes.)And

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-1787626464279801282009-08-28T13:25:00.007-04:002009-08-31T14:29:35.805-04:00

Regular readers of this blog will remember that I stretched things out a bit earlier in the summer to do some Iran blogging, including two posts contrasting Iran's 2009 tumult with Serbia's in 2000 (here and here), as well as a more general post about what might happen.But a few days ago, I was alerted by my good friend Danny Postel -- one of America's sharpest thinkers on the philosophy of power

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-57051365934200296972009-08-25T18:56:00.010-04:002009-08-26T13:35:27.471-04:00

Playwriting has some alchemical aspects to it. And like any good alchemist, I don't want to to give away too many of my secrets about writing Burn Your Bookes.But in writing a play about Edward Kelley, there is no secret about the biggest problem confronting the playwright: Was Kelley a fraud and charlatan -- either as a scryer or an alchemist or both? Was he really talking to spirits and angels?

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-11293656143472171042009-08-23T11:21:00.008-04:002009-08-25T23:01:06.599-04:00

Over the next couple days, I'm going to post some background about my play, Burn Your Bookes, which gets a sneak preview two weeks from today at the Kennedy Center as part of the 8th annual Page-to-Stage Festival. Full play to follow, courtesy of Taffety Punk Theatre Company, in early spring. Details on the September 6 performance here. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Edward Kelley is

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-48879884172823283812009-08-20T21:45:00.003-04:002009-08-20T22:03:03.725-04:00

In my last post, I cited Cecil Parrott's memoirs as the ultimate Balkans via Bohemia books. Well, today, in Prague, we had the Balkans via Bohemia Europa League clash of the season... and in more ways than one. It was a Czech team with a red star as its symbol (Slavia Prague) against a Belgrade team with the Red Star in its name. (Red Star Belgrade.)My two favorite cities. Bragging rights on the

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-74799647714354327682009-08-17T20:17:00.008-04:002009-08-17T21:10:36.484-04:00

It has been a month between posts here at Balkans via Bohemia. I can only offer my humblest apologies. The web traffic on this site -- strangely enough -- has not dipped, aided in part by search threads such as "zagreb occupation," "bohemia beograd" and "slaughter on the autobahn." It's been busy in my absence. I cannot blame the lack of posts on my own Hildegard Kneffian "weary dreary holiday

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-46388288228082148672009-07-15T21:40:00.005-04:002009-07-15T22:00:14.472-04:00

At 250 "Intellectual Affairs" columns, that is... Scott McLemee hit that number today at Inside Higher Education with a customarily fab column about Isaac Rosenfeld that will have you diving into your nearest library for a copy of the essayist and novelist's posthumous anthology, An Age of Enormity.One of the terrific nuggets that McLemee unearths in this column is a transcript of a talk that

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-67396794409705657802009-07-11T10:16:00.004-04:002009-07-12T21:35:27.781-04:00

Apologies to regular readers for the dismal amount of posting on this site in recent weeks. The spirit has been willing but the flesh altogether too weak to beat back the effects of some intensive work at the day job and a commute that has been brutal since the tragic crash on the Red Line in Washington, DC in late June. (Plus, a looming deadline for an article that you'll read all about right

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-65049375358925594362009-06-20T15:01:00.005-04:002009-06-21T01:13:03.479-04:00

Saturday June 20 has turned out to be a very good day overall for the Iranian government in its battle to crack down on protests. Or has it?The case for the former can be laid out simply:1) With the use of riot police and Basij militia, the government has managed to keep the hundreds of thousands of protesters either at home or out of the large public squares where they have gathered for a number

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-55251200113513089822009-06-17T23:34:00.003-04:002009-06-18T00:08:25.353-04:00

A couple more thoughts about 2000 and 2009...Had a long talk tonight with a friend who is deeply involved in international aid and finance. He was very curious about how this current situation would play out vis a vis other successful and unsuccessful revolutions in the past two decades. We ran through a lot of different scenarios.A) Best case: Public outrage and street protests coalesce in a

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-82406240465375506362009-06-14T16:43:00.007-04:002009-06-14T17:13:23.021-04:00

It's usually wrong to draw explicit comparisons between climactic events in nations as different as Serbia and Iran, but since I've written a lot about Serbia and a bit about Iran (see here), I will venture one broad comparison to argue that what's happening as I write this in Iran is much much more serious and potentially bloody. It is very hard to say who actually won Iran's election, and most

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-34884043509126079602009-05-30T16:14:00.004-04:002009-05-30T16:27:19.362-04:00

A wee bit late to this party, but my good friend Hussein Ibish is now in full possession of a blog (Ibishblog) where he will hold forth on sundry matters relating to Palestine, the Middle East and related topics.Ibish is a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) and Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for American Leadership. He is also one of the most

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-72701033312445650912009-05-28T08:00:00.005-04:002009-05-28T08:54:33.260-04:00

Word came down on Sunday that more than a month of student protests at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Zagreb had come to a rather quiet end. Protests at other Croatian universities -- including Rijeka and Zadar -- had ended their protests almost two weeks earlier.I found out about the protests through a really wonderful post by Nina Power on her blog infinite thought. Power had

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-51450297204002844372009-05-22T22:18:00.004-04:002009-05-22T23:25:58.419-04:00

A very long and detailed article about the Milan Kundera scandal by New York Review of Books staffer Jana Prikryl was just posted at The Nation.For anyone who is steeped in the complexities of the scandal, the piece is riveting. The big news in the article is Prikryl's close examination of the multiple cross-cutting ripples of influence in Czech journalism, academe, literary culture and

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-42598102600877187812009-05-19T21:34:00.009-04:002009-05-24T07:17:56.667-04:00

Winston Kofy Ahman, aka K.O.F.Y, is a very difficult man to pin down. He is an African musician based in Belgrade, or so says his press release.But even if we stipulate that his tale of international intrigues and travel (Lagos crack dealer and political activist who shared a cell with Fela Kuti in the late 1970s; unspecified activities in Jamaica and a stint as a doorman at a gay Latino bar in

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-7790997654884044812009-05-07T21:54:00.007-04:002009-05-07T22:44:27.279-04:00

"Reviewing" a work that's still "in-progress" is bad form. And that's not what I am going to do in this post. Review a work in progress.But I am going to advise you to drop what you're doing if you can and go see dog & pony dc's Courage: a workshop production of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop on Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m.Scena

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-71959551172200030202009-04-28T06:50:00.007-04:002009-04-28T14:16:13.426-04:00

I only got to see one film at the year's D.C. International Film Festival, but it was a film that Balkans via Bohemia readers will be interested in seeing if it comes their way: Goran Marković's film Turneja ("The Tour").It is a bleak and bitter tragicomedy about a group of Belgrade actors who sign up -- out of boredom and perhaps a bit of greed -- to perform on a "tour" of the front lines of

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-77667026170193292892009-04-25T12:31:00.008-04:002009-04-25T18:46:44.622-04:00

The article I wrote for The American Prospect on labor and theater in America -- and the overall lack of cultural juice that unions have had over the past 30 years -- is finally up on the magazine's website.I got the idea to write from a new selection of plays published this month by Cornell University Press called Staged Action: Six Plays from the American Workers' Theatre. The collection is

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-88553643018744996632009-04-13T15:50:00.005-04:002009-04-14T06:12:49.105-04:00

Just got word that longtime (and legendary) Philadelphia Phillies announcer Harry Kalas died this afternoon at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. -- just as he was about to call the Washington Nationals' season opener.Kalas' voice was a thread woven through my childhood and early adulthood -- through good times (the Ozark/Dallas Green-era, the amazing 1993 season, and last year's World

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-75482593015619263872009-04-03T21:41:00.015-04:002009-04-04T02:57:50.733-04:00

So you're asking what Balkans via Bohemia is doing here in the land of French psychedelic orchestral rock, on the trail of one of the strangest (and sampled and influential) concept records in, ahem, histoire.Well, there are Yugoslav dinars at the very foundation of the tale of Serge Gainsbourg's 1971 record, Histoire de Melody Nelson. How's that?First, the quick synopsis for absolute beginners.

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-25656564308490058902009-04-03T17:05:00.002-04:002009-04-03T17:24:14.675-04:00

I have a new piece up at The American Prospect website today about the seemingly interminable political stalemate in Bosnia and how to resolve it.The Dayton Peace Agreements that ended Bosnia's vicious three-sided war have always had their critics -- and those critics have not always been wrong. Agreements whose sole aim is to end killing aren't always the best foundation for building a nation.

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-26277725934468472592009-04-01T11:04:00.008-04:002009-04-01T11:39:24.166-04:00

(April 1, 2009) At Inside Higher Ed today, my colleague and friend Scott McLemee uncorks one of the greatest academic exposes since the outing of Paul de Man as a Nazi-sympathizing journalist in mid-20th Century Belgium.In my five years as editor of the research section of The Chronicle of Higher Education, I had never been privy to the existence of a secret "AcademoList." But McLemee somehow

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-31921763873843169262009-03-29T20:35:00.003-04:002009-03-29T20:49:31.156-04:00

Two months of hard work have reached fruition. Tomorrow night (March 30), the curtain officially goes up on the latest play from Taffety Punk Theatre Company: The Faithkiller.A world premiere is always exciting, and this one is particularly terrific. Gwydion Suilebhan is one of D.C.'s most exciting playwrights, and The Faithkiller is an incredibly ambitious play that weaves history, broadcast

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-57894839022226544922009-03-29T19:50:00.008-04:002009-03-29T22:21:26.156-04:00

Because I was off at a conference in San Francisco until today, I was unable to attend the Washington, D.C. readings and discussions of Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Girls: A Play for Gaza. I'm sorry to have missed this event.Churchill is one of our greatest living playwrights, and her work has been a formal touchstone for my own endeavors. Light Shining in Buckinghamshire taught me so much

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-77057024834530362302009-03-29T18:34:00.009-04:002009-03-29T19:50:13.622-04:00

The showing of The Wire's final season in Britain has revived the argument about the death of the American newspaper made so brilliantly by David Simon and his creative team in that final season.On Saturday, The Guardian had an exclusive interview with Simon in which The Wire's creator seems to have sharpened his articulation of the stakes involved in the implosion of the American newspaper. He

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-14192104431787249572009-03-02T20:08:00.006-05:002009-03-02T21:23:22.684-05:00

Neglected a few interesting articles over the past couple weeks. Many readers will want to check them out:* I have written a good bit about the arrest of Radovan Karadžić -- and now we get a terrific glimpse at the mechanics of his upcoming trial at The Hague via this video dialogue on Bloggingheadstv between Mark Leon Goldberg (who writes for UN Dispatch) and Kevin Jon Heller -- a professor

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-58769754343631158862009-03-02T19:26:00.006-05:002009-03-02T20:07:15.781-05:00

John H. Summers has a terrific new article in The New Republic that examines ongoing work to restore the battlefield site at Gettysburg to its "1863 appearance" -- whatever that might be.Summers writes that:The project likely delights the reenactors who troop to Gettysburg every year in pursuit of authenticity, as well as those tourists who expect less to encounter history during their

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-15762309592296240662009-02-22T13:53:00.005-05:002009-02-22T16:07:40.162-05:00

Yesterday I got a chance to visit the recently refurbished Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.Ford's Theatre, of course, is the site of Abraham Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. (He was attending a performance of Our American Cousin.) And I'd been eagerly awaiting the reopening after a significant closure for renovation.The good news is that the building looks great,

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-76545293026386957232009-02-20T23:12:00.007-05:002009-02-21T00:28:04.121-05:00

Last music post for a while I swear (unless they catch Ratko Mladić hiding behind a tuba in a Serbian brass band of the sort that plays at the annual Guča festival):Terrific article in Friday's Guardian about the upcoming reunion of one of the greatest British bands of all time: The Specials.I am not a fan of rock band reunions -- especially 30 plus years after the heyday. (One exception, oddly

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-38618921647098856642009-02-18T16:07:00.005-05:002009-02-18T21:45:10.421-05:00

I'm coming at this story about six weeks late (it was mentioned in the Guardian's blog of the annual Brit Awards), but hey... Let's just say I have some sympathy for icon of my late teen years Paul Weller -- former leader of The Jam and the Style Council. Sympathy in the sense of "I have been there." Drunk. In Prague. In winter. The warm wine purchased from the streets to fend off the chill is

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-70677378803206226182009-02-17T21:47:00.002-05:002009-02-17T21:56:21.843-05:00

I have a short -- maybe too short -- piece on Harold Pinter and his legacy up now on the website of The Nation. I wish I'd had a bit more space to unpack both prongs of the piece: 1) How Pinter's outsized influence has had a double-edged effect on English-language theater -- sharpening its rhythms and language while also shaving down its scope and tolerance of the big play; and 2) How Pinter

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-43631094125545358392009-02-13T20:56:00.008-05:002009-02-13T23:46:06.953-05:00

As far as cultural criticism goes, Slate has -- in its 13 years of existence -- been dedicated to the proposition that lazy and superficial snark is the optimal mode of discourse. (I wrote about this a bit in my article about the web magazine in the Boston Phoenix back in 2003.)Not much has changed. For instance, let's examine one of Slate's contributions to the 200th anniversary of Abraham'

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-1978076264830622009-01-25T18:38:00.004-05:002009-01-25T19:15:05.345-05:00

A couple quick notes about Constellation Theatre Company's production of The Marriage of Figaro, which I saw last night at The Source Theater over on 14th Street in Washington, D.C.The first note is go see it. This production has the twin virtues of aiming high (it's not the easiest play to do in 2009) and doing so with irrepressible high spirits.The second note is why I threw out a bit of

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-58864739208518929672009-01-22T20:41:00.005-05:002009-01-23T00:08:04.776-05:00

I have been reading plays by 18th century French dramatist Pierre Beaumarchais to get ready for Constellation Theatre Company's imminent production of The Marriage of Figaro at the Source Theater in Washington, D.C. (I'll post again after I see the production on Saturday night.)It's rare to see the play itself, which inspired one of Mozart's greatest operas. And the Balkans via Bohemia

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-3151561923148621232009-01-20T20:47:00.006-05:002009-01-20T21:08:42.107-05:00

Yes, as you can see at right, I was one of the 1.8 or 2 million or so folks on the National Mall today to watch Barack Obama sworn in as president.I was an early supporter of Obama, but also not afraid to say that I've been underwhelmed by a number of his appointments so far. I hope I'm wrong about that. There's just way too much at stake.Today for me, however, was also a chance to watch the end

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-65382237936436994272009-01-16T15:03:00.006-05:002009-01-16T15:15:49.989-05:00

Washington D.C.'s theatre scene has been atwitter and aflitter over the past week or so. Why? Because monologist Mike Daisey's broadside -- How Theater Failed America -- has been in town at Woolly Mammoth, kicking up dust and forcing artistic directors and arts bureaucrats into defensive crouches.The American Prospect just published my take on the show -- and in particular just how government

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-67930737222854792952009-01-02T18:28:00.005-05:002009-01-05T13:02:52.042-05:00

This is really terrific news: Laura Rozen, one of the best national security writers in DC, is joining the newly revved-up Foreign Policy website, starting Monday.Laura runs the must-read War and Piece blog, which often breaks news on all sorts of international fronts -- from Israel to Iran to the Balkans to Foggy Bottom. She has been a correspondent for Mother Jones, and had the difficult task

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-5541446300974658302008-12-31T22:19:00.006-05:002009-01-01T15:53:25.290-05:00

The tumult of the autumn at Richard Byrne Inc. led me to put a number of essential tasks to side. One of the most important was to obtain the long-awaited Prisonshake double record -- Dirty Moons -- and let it sink in long enough to have something intelligent to say about it.Finally did so. Put simply, Dirty Moons is more than worth the 15 year wait since the last Prisonshake record, 1993's The

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-6874479784483472042008-12-29T13:20:00.004-05:002008-12-29T13:36:30.211-05:00

This is the first time in five years that I have not been to the annual meeting of the Modern Languages Association (MLA), which is being held this year in San Francisco. (Yes, the wife is delighted.)But two awesomely-talented former colleagues of mine are there toiling in the book exhibit, the panels, and the dark murky corners where a lot of the business of the meeting really gets done.Scott

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-45955945405317294782008-12-29T12:31:00.006-05:002008-12-29T15:27:27.054-05:00

So at long last, my piece on an exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library -- "Breaking News: Renaissance Journalism and the Birth of the Newspaper" -- has been published by The Nation in its latest issue. (You can see it online here.)The good news is that though it took awhile to get it published (I wrote it back in November), the exhibit itself continues until the end of January, which gives

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-18394935284625052722008-12-27T12:00:00.006-05:002008-12-28T09:04:17.154-05:00

An interesting story -- though a couple years late, perhaps -- on how the investment in what one might call "Islamic evangelization" by Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations is progressing in the New York Times today.The story touches on all the (all-too) familiar contrasts and fault lines between pre-war and post-war Bosnia: the urbanity and lightly-worn Islam of pre-war Bosniak Muslims versus

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-58239150098414159082008-12-25T22:33:00.008-05:002008-12-26T00:57:27.349-05:00

Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War is my favorite novel. Sure, there are others that give me plenty to chew on, and plenty of entertainment. (I think number two would have to be Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.)But Hašek's book has given me by far the most to think about in my career -- about war, about the human condition, about beer and grog.

Richard Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14503034147282566996noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3696582191304631995.post-35738194601608335872008-12-25T21:05:00.005-05:002008-12-25T22:12:35.328-05:00

The battle between Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar and American mega-brewer Anheuser-Busch (which is now owned by European giant InBev) over the "Budweiser" trademark has extended to almost a century now, but last week saw the Czechs take a victory in the European Union's courts.Last week, an EU court ruled that AB was not entitled to a blanket claim to the "Budweiser" trademark across the union.

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