“Theater is a feeling, more than anything, and performativity defines the act of living. The world is a stage and we the players, as Shakespeare’s Jaques said. In the vision of Modern Theater, stemming from the likes of Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov, and which saw the advent of the director, the theatrical stage was meant to reflect the situation of the audience. Realism became the name of the game, and has remained the most influential force in contemporary theatrical production, which outside of (though sometimes including) musicals has sought immediacy in setting and performance as witnessed in the middle-class foibles of George Bernard Shaw’s plays and the acting method developed by Constantin Stanislavski. It’s within the context of extending the bounds of Modern Theater as an area indistinguishable from living, and into the world of cinema, that the collaboration between Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn has existed lo these decades. The Criterion Collection have now brought together Gregory and Shawn’s three “theatrical” films, My Dinner with Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street, and A Master Builder in a new and essential Blu-ray box set.”

Read more at Movie Mezzanine.