I'm no opera buff, and since I'm in a confessional mode, I'll tell you that I'm not much for "divas" either; at least, not as theatrical fetish objects. But in Manhattan Theatre Club's production of Master Class, Terrence McNally's wittily imagined version of the tutorials held by a phlegmatic, reminiscing, mot juste-dispensing Maria Callas at Julliard in the seventies, Tyne Daly's Callas never takes her regal status for granted. This Master Class contains a kind of Pyrrhic victory, an intrepidly honest performance that reveals a smart, yet tangibly scant show. I sometimes felt her playing less the tragic has-been than the self-deluded never-was. For the true diva, maybe there's not much difference.
MORE TODAY: