Douglas Murray

2 days ago | newcriterion.com | Kyle Smith |Robert Erickson |James Bowman |Douglas Murray

T-shirts for sale in the lobby at Angry Alan, the new play by Penelope Skinner (at the Studio Seaview through August 3) are printed with the legend “Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man.” Experience suggested I turn around and leave immediately, but duty compelled me to stay. The slogan comes up during the play, which is a sort of stage equivalent of a feminist T-shirt.

2 days ago | newcriterion.com | Mark Judge |Robert Erickson |James Bowman |Douglas Murray

Sally Quinn won’t return my emails. Perhaps Quinn, the doyenne of Washington, D.C., and the widow of the Washington Post legend Ben Bradlee, is overwrought. As she recently lamented in The New York Times, her city is under siege:This spring Washington is a city in crisis. Physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. It’s as if the fragrant air were permeated with an invisible poison, as if we were silently choking on carbon monoxide.

2 weeks ago | newcriterion.com | Paul du Quenoy |Douglas Murray |Hilton Kramer |Robert Erickson

Rare is the opera that continues to be performed in two languages, but the exigencies of the Paris Opera have imprinted that legacy on a handful of works. Many are mid-nineteenth-century Italian stalwarts that were introduced in French to conquer what Walter Benjamin identified as “the capital of the nineteenth century.”We normally call Giuseppe Verdi’s great opera of religion and power Don Carlo, without the s. But with the added letter, the connoisseur knows he is getting the French version.

3 weeks ago | newcriterion.com | Paul du Quenoy |Douglas Murray |Hilton Kramer |Robert Erickson

Palm Beach slows down after Easter, with traffic notably easing up through the month of May as the largely seasonal community packs up for Europe or the Hamptons. That, however, was no stumbling block for the Palm Beach Symphony, which presented an extra late-season “encore” program that sold out, defying all seasonal demographic trends.

4 weeks ago | newcriterion.com | Mark Judge |Robert Erickson |Andrew Shea |Douglas Murray

In 2020 a brilliant novel was published called The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures, by Jennifer Hofmann. Kirkus called it “a remarkable first novel that reads like the work of a seasoned pro.”Despite great reviews, Standardization did not hit the bestseller lists. At the time of publication, the country was focused on the George Floyd riots and the fallout from COVID. Still, for those of us who read the book, it left a lasting impression.