‘What of the Night’: Djuna Barnes: Her Life, Her Love, Her Grocery List

The New York Times > Theater Review | Djuna Barnes: Her Life, Her Love, Her Grocery List: “When the most thought-provoking moment in a tribute to a colorful figure of 20th-century letters is the ordering of groceries, it’s safe to say that trouble abounds. ‘What of the Night,’ a solo show starring Jane Alexander as Djuna Barnes, is a surefire soporific until this arresting segment, when the aged, reclusive Barnes, apropos of nothing, picks up the telephone in her Greenwich Village apartment and reads off a list of necessities topped by mint-flavored milk of magnesia, oranges and smelts.”