The Front Page, Next Theatre Company. Never mind the plot (the pardon of a left-wing radical on death row is stalled by corrupt politicians hoping to profit from his execution). Never mind the richly detailed picture of 1928 Chicago as Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur knew it. Never mind the bomber-squadron camaraderie of a press corps no crueler or kinder than the world required them to be. No, what makes The Front Page a milestone in American theater, and the archetype of a genre that continues to this day, is the swiftness with which all these elements are spun out before us. In no other modern play do the characters’ fortunes change with such dazzling speed as they do for ace reporter Hildy Johnson, his amoral and nearly omnipotent editor Walter Burns, and Earl Williams, the psychopathic schnook whose life matters to no one but his hooker girlfriend but whose death is the pawn in a citywide scramble for power.
