R.I.P. Michael Feingold 1945-2022

[scenicdesign71]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/theater/michael-feingold-dead.html

https://www.villagevoice.com/2022/11/22/the-review-that-almost-toppled-civilization/


Dramaturg, translator; and drama critic for the Village Voice from 1971 to 2013.

I read Feingold in the Voice almost every week from late 1989 onward; if his occasional crabbiness and palpable disappointment in a significant percentage of the theatre he reviewed during that time could be wearying over the long haul, his astonishing erudition and bone-deep commitment to the art form were always indispensable.  I met him just once, very briefly, at a job a few years out of grad school (my boss at the time was apparently a friend of his, both Yalies of roughly the same vintage, and both prominent in the New York theatre scene for decades), but I'm sad he's gone.

Even if you don't know anything else about him, his legendary 1991 evisceration of Miss Saigon remains a thing of shock and awe, well worth a read (or a re-read, or another re-read) three decades after the fact.