« May 2006 | Main | July 2006 »

June 30, 2006

TT: Five things you won't read about here

- Star Jones Reynolds

- The sixtieth anniversary of the bikini

- Superman's politics

- Superman's sexuality

- Rob Schneider's fainting spell

Aren't you relieved?

Posted June 30, 12:25 PM

TT: Forgotten but fresh

Friday is here, I'm back in New York, and it's time once again for the weekly Wall Street Journal drama-column teaser. I wax enthusiastic in today's paper about two new shows, Susan and God and Macbeth:

The most interesting thing about playgoing in New York isn't Broadway--exciting though it can be--but the plethora of tiny Off Broadway troupes that make magic on the cheap. The Mint Theater Company, one of the best, specializes in neglected plays deserving of a second chance, which it performs in a coffin-shaped room on the third floor of a dingy office building in the theater district. The Mint's productions are always worthy and often revelatory, never more so than in the case of Rachel Crothers' "Susan and God," a long-lost Broadway smash from 1937 that wowed the critics, played to packed houses, was filmed by MGM, then sank from sight. This is its first New York revival since 1943, and it is a major event, a pitch-perfect production of a 69-year-old play whose subject matter is so modern in flavor that it could have been written last week....

I feared the worst when I opened the program to the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of "Macbeth" and found not one but two open letters in which Oskar Eustis, the company's artistic director, assured me that the play I was about to see was "all too appropriate a choice" for a "divided and war-torn nation" engaged in a "vaguely defined war on terror." Nor was I encouraged to learn that Moisés Kaufman, the director, was offering us a modern-dress "Macbeth" performed in a bombed-out palace strewn with rubble. It suggested a party game for precocious kids: "How many clichés can you spot?" Yet Mr. Kaufman, for all his political preoccupations, is also a true showman, and he has somehow managed to turn these week-old leftovers into a thriller full of sumptuous pageantry and drenched in buckets of stage blood....

No link. You know what to do: either (A) buy a copy of the Journal or (B) go here and follow instructions. Me, I recommend Plan B, but the Journal on paper is infinitely better than no Journal at all.

Posted June 30, 12:00 PM

TT: On the dotted line

Upon returning to New York from Smalltown, U.S.A., I found in my waiting pile of incoming snail mail a contract for a five-hundred-word piece I recently wrote for an upcoming issue of a Magazine Which Must Remain Nameless. It consisted in the main of the usual you-agree-to-let-us-do-whatever-the-hell-we-want boilerplate, but the following paragraph was new to me:

8. You agree to use your best efforts to participate in the promotion and marketing of the Work and The Magazine Which Must Remain Nameless by making reference to the Work and The Magazine Which Must Remain Nameless in settings including, but not limited to, articles or books written by or about you or the Work, interviews, editorials, press conferences, press releases, television appearances, Internet Web sites maintained and operated by you, and any other media available for the promotion of the Work to which you have access.

My immediate impulse was to scrawl Screw you, buddy! across the face of the contract and send it back in the stamped, self-addressed envelope thoughtfully supplied by the Magazine Which Must Remain Nameless. After further consideration, though, I decided that it was more important to get paid than strike a pose, so I signed the contract--grudgingly--and dropped it in the mail.

The whole dismal exercise put me in mind of the following passage from Patrick O'Brian's The Reverse of the Medal:

"As for Gibbon, now," said Stephen when they were settled by the fire again, "I do remember the first lines. They ran ‘It is dangerous to entrust the conduct of nations to men who have learned from their profession to consider reason as the instrument of dispute, and to interpret the laws according to the dictates of private interest; and the mischief has been felt, even in countries where the practice of the bar may deserve to be considered as a liberal occupation.'"

Or, as Auberon Waugh observed in his autobiography, more succinctly but no less devastatingly, "Honourable causes are seldom advanced by the employment of lawyers."

I'd say that includes common courtesy, wouldn't you?

UPDATE: This guy soooo missed the point, which didn't strike me as especially subtle. An author who isn't willing to publicize his own work by any and all available means is an idiot. In the immortal words of John L. Lewis, "He who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted." On the other hand, a magazine that tries to make him do so by stuffing yet another lawyer-drafted clause into its two-foot-long standard-form contract is...but you get the idea, right? Don't you?

Posted June 30, 12:00 PM

TT: Entries from an unkept diary

- I take the visible world at face value, experiencing it first of all as an abstract panorama of colors, shapes, and patterns. This makes it possible for me to gaze out the window of a train or an airplane for long stretches of time, wholly absorbed in the stream of images unfolding before my eyes. It also explains why my initial response to a figurative painting rarely has anything to do with its subject matter, to the point that I'm capable of overlooking the most obvious of representational details.

No doubt this quirk of mine arises from the fact that music, the most radically ambiguous of all art forms, was the one with which I first became closely acquainted. Perhaps as a result of my early musical training, I tend not to worry overmuch about what any work of art "means," except when it insists on its "meaning" so aggressively that you can't possibly overlook it, in which case I'm likely to find the results tiresome or irritating.

It's my impression, however, that most people approach art in exactly the opposite way: they view a work of art as an act of symbolic communication whose "meaning" is fully knowable, and they become uncomfortable, even anxious, if they can't figure it out more or less immediately.

Flannery O'Connor once said something highly relevant in this connection:

If teachers are in the habit of approaching a story as if it were a research problem for which any answer is believable so long as it is not obvious, then I think students will never learn to enjoy fiction. Too much interpretation is certainly worse than too little, and where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it.

- I dreamed last night that a friend of mine had a nervous breakdown after being bumped from a reality TV series. No part of this dream makes sense: I don't watch that kind of show, and the friend in question doesn't even own a TV set. To be sure, I don't care for such reality TV as I've been unlucky enough to see. Back when the genre was new, I watched one episode apiece of Survivor, The Real World, and American Idol, and loathed them all. But that was the end of it: except for a short piece written for the New York Times in 2002 and later collected in A Terry Teachout Reader, I've had next to nothing to say about reality TV in or out of print, nor do I sit around my apartment at night thinking evil thoughts about Simon Cowell. So why did I dream so vividly about something that means so little to me?

- An old friend writes, apropos of my recent postings from Smalltown, U.S.A.:

I was just wondering...do you think you could ever be happy outside the big city again? I mean to live. Are the artistic offerings essential to your happiness? I read you appreciating your escapes but wonder how you would "be" if you were someplace quiet for very long.

I wonder. Having been a New Yorker for twenty-odd years, I can't easily imagine living in a place that didn't offer a like amount of artistic stimulation. On the other hand, I don't spend nearly as much time on the town as I did before I fell ill last December, and even if I were to move elsewhere, I'd presumably take my books and CDs with me (not to mention the Teachout Museum).

My guess is that what I'd miss most about New York is not so much its "artistic offerings" as the regular face-to-face contact with artistically inclined people that living here makes so easy. I know art isn't the most important thing in the world, but it's the most important thing in my world, and in the absence of friends and colleagues with whom I can talk about it, I start to get restless.

It hasn't escaped my attention, by the way, that this restlessness bespeaks a certain narrowness of mind on my part. Some of the nicest people I know don't care about art.

Posted June 30, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"In Los Angeles, the theatre on the entertainment food chain falls somewhere between folk dancing and accordion playing. Basically, they feel you're out of work."

Nathan Lane (quoted in Acting: Working in the Theatre)

Posted June 30, 12:00 PM

June 29, 2006

TT: Down by the old millstream

My mother and I packed a picnic lunch this morning and drove to Bollinger Mill, a flour mill built in 1868 next to a covered bridge of like vintage. It's as pretty and peaceful as its picture, an oasis of quiet in what seems like the middle of nowhere, though in fact it's only fifteen miles from Cape Girardeau, a good-sized college town. When we were finished eating, we sat by the creek and listened to the water rushing over the dam, then headed south to a favorite drive-in just outside of Benton (pop. 732), the county seat, where I had my annual chocolate malt. Later on we watched the 1962 film version of Requiem for a Heavyweight, and afterward we sat together on the porch swing and watched the moon rise.

Now I'm packing my bag and listening to Louis Armstrong singing "Blueberry Hill." The shuttle bus will pick me up at six-thirty tomorrow morning to whisk me back to the St. Louis airport. I'll spend two nights in New York, then fly down to the Georgia Shakespeare Festival to see Hamlet and Twelfth Night. I hope I enjoy them half as much as I enjoyed my visit to Smalltown, U.S.A.

I'll check in with you again on Friday. Be well.

Posted June 29, 12:00 PM

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I either gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened or saw and liked them some time in the past year (or both). For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:
- Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
- Bridge & Tunnel (solo show, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Aug. 6)
- Chicago (musical, R, adult subject matter and sexual content)
- The Drowsy Chaperone* (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)
- Faith Healer* (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes July 30)
- The Lieutenant of Inishmore (black comedy, R, adult subject matter and extremely graphic violence, reviewed here)
- Sweeney Todd (musical, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)
- The Wedding Singer (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
- Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris (musical revue, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here)
- Slava's Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

CLOSING THIS WEEKEND:
- Doubt (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter and implicit sexual content, reviewed here, closes Sunday)
- King Lear (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Sunday)
- The Light in the Piazza (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter and a brief bedroom scene, reviewed here, closes Sunday)

Posted June 29, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"The sooner you learn that you're a vessel, the quicker your fear goes away. Because when you're younger, you sort of go out there thinking, Look at me! Watch me! But once you understand you're a vessel for the playwright your fear disappears."

Frank Langella (quoted in Acting: Working in the Theatre)

Posted June 29, 12:00 PM

June 28, 2006

TT: Pedestrian

Nobody walks anywhere in a small town, except maybe next door or across the street. When I told my mother I was going to walk downtown to buy a belt, she boggled. It took me a good ten minutes to persuade her that I wasn't kidding, and another five to talk her out of driving downtown to pick me up after I'd made my purchase.

It's been years since I last took a long walk in Smalltown, U.S.A. Much has changed since then, though mostly only on the surface. I walked across a couple of dusty, weedy vacant lots that once held stores at which I shopped when young, and I saw quite a few buildings that had changed virtually beyond recognition in the thirty-two years since I went off to college. One of them used to be a fire station, the same one I visited on a first-grade field trip. Now it's a schoolhouse, an Adult Basic Education Center. I wonder if the fire pole is still there.

Yet most of the sights I saw were as familiar-looking as my own name. I strolled by a white water tower with SMALLTOWN painted on the tank in big black letters. I passed half a dozen boxy brick churches whose outdoor signs bore inviting messages ("Where Friends Become Family"). I peered into the show window of Collins Piano, the store where my parents bought me the spinet on which I learned to play, and where I later purchased my very first album of modern classical music, an LP containing Isaac Stern's performances of the Berg Violin Concerto and the Bartók Rhapsodies. How on earth did it get there? I've always wondered.

Not only did most things look the same, but they sounded and smelled the same. I heard the purr of air conditioners and the whine of lawnmowers. I smelled fried onions on the morning air and knew I was a block away from Kirby's Sandwich Shop. I heard a loud roar far above me, looked up, and saw a twin-engine plane descending from the cloud-filled sky, headed for the Smalltown airport.

At length I arrived at Falkoff's Men's Shop, where I've been buying clothes for nearly forty years. David Friedman, the proprietor, greeted me with a smile, and smiled even more broadly when I told him that my old belt was two sizes too big for me now. He last saw me six months and forty pounds ago, and he was happy to see how well I looked.

It was two degrees hotter by the time I left for home, but a breeze was blowing, and most of the streets down which I walked were lined with tall, shady trees that made my return trip pleasant. Just as I was crossing Malone Street, I heard a familiar roar, looked up, and saw the same twin-engine plane that had landed a half-hour before climbing back into the sky, this time headed in the opposite direction.

An hour later my mother and I were eating potato soup at Vanessa's Coffee Shop, the newest restaurant in Smalltown. "I can't believe you walked all that way," she told me.

"I needed the exercise," I told her. "Besides, it was fun."

"Did you see anyone you knew?"

"Not a soul. Except for two kids dribbling a basketball, I didn't see anyone else on foot."

My mother shook her head. "Nobody walks anywhere in Smalltown," she said.

Posted June 28, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"Someone once defined to me craft--or technique as I've always thought of it--as being what you use when you don't feel it anymore."

Patrick Stewart (quoted in Acting: Working in the Theatre)

Posted June 28, 12:00 PM

June 27, 2006

TT: Everywhere you go

I got up this morning and wrote my Wall Street Journal drama column in a setting different from the office-bedroom where I normally pass my working hours.

In New York I sit at a desk placed next to a window that looks down on a quiet block of brownstones. When I glance up from my iBook, I see Fairfield Porter's Ocean II, a Max Beerbohm caricature of Percy Grainger, a pair of etchings by Degas and Matisse, and a bookshelf containing Fowler's English Usage, the two-volume New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, David Thomson's New Biographical Dictionary of Film, A Terry Teachout Reader, the Library of America's one-volume Flannery O'Connor collection, and well-thumbed copies of the Viking Portables devoted to Johnson and Boswell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Joseph Conrad. Behind me is a set of wooden shelves holding three thousand compact discs.

In Smalltown I sit at a rickety, ink-stained card table that's as old as I am, set up next to the bed in which I slept as a teenager. When I glance up from my iBook, I see a homemade bookshelf (my father built it) full of tattered paperbacks, a complete set of Reader's Digest Best-Loved Books for Young Readers, and a short stack of dusty 45s by such artists as Ray Anthony, Rosemary Clooney, Billy Daniels, Vic Damone, Stan Kenton, the McGuire Sisters, and Jo Stafford. A chromolithograph of Abraham Lincoln hangs on the wall behind me. To my left is a telephone with a dial. The only modern things in sight are the laptop computer on which I'm writing these words and the iPod on which I listen to music, both of which I brought with me.

I filed my column at one-thirty, then took my mother to lunch at Susie's Bake Shoppe. People eat early in Smalltown, and no one else was in the dining room when we got there. My mother ordered quiche, the special of the day. "If you'd gone to a restaurant and ordered quiche back when I was a boy," I told her, "nobody around here would have known what you were talking about." She laughed.

After lunch we drove to the cemetery where my father was buried eight years ago, then returned home and spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and puttering. At six o'clock we turned on the TV to watch the local news. The anchors were a white man and a black woman, and one of the reporters had a strong Indian accent. "You wouldn't have seen that when I was a boy, either," I said, thinking of the lynching my father witnessed in Smalltown six decades ago.

We ate supper after the news. As we were clearing away the dishes, my brother stopped by to watch the second half of Broken Trail with us. Then he went home--he lives three blocks away--and my mother picked up her cane, kissed me goodnight, and went to bed. I retired to my bedroom, booted up my iBook, dialed up Earthlink, and checked my e-mail, which consisted of messages from a blogger and a jazz musician. As I read them, I heard the low whistle of a freight train rolling through town, the same sound that called to me long ago, summoning me to the world beyond the city limits of Smalltown, U.S.A.

The time came when I obeyed that summons, and ever since then I've lived in big cities. Yet I keep on coming back to Smalltown two or three times a year, each time returning to the same room in the same house in the same neighborhood, a block from my elementary school and three blocks from my high school. They say that no matter how long you live or how far you travel, you can't get very far from the place where you grew up. I wouldn't know--I've never tried.

UPDATE: A friend writes:

My mom died in 1979, we emptied her house and sold it and I've never been back. My dad had moved, long before, to Alabama and was living with a third wife. Not a home. My dear aunt died in 1999, so the haven she had been to me was gone. There is no home for some of us to get back to...so I felt a little envious reading what you wrote, even though I know there can be a pervading gloom in those shabby old rooms.

Not here--and believe me, I know how lucky I am.

Posted June 27, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"Horace, I believe that is hitting a man when he is down. One so seldom meets an example of it, as it is so strictly forbidden. That almost suggests it is the natural moment to choose. Hitting a man when he is up, does have to be strongly recommended."

Ivy Compton-Burnett, Manservant and Maidservant

Posted June 27, 12:00 PM

June 26, 2006

TT: Return engagement

No sooner did I come back to New York on Friday than I plunged into a brief but intense stint of playgoing: I saw Pig Farm on Friday night, Susan and God on Saturday afternoon, and Macbeth in Central Park on Saturday night. The last was a near-run thing, for it was raining until an hour before curtain time, and it looked like it was going to start raining again all the way through the performance.

I awoke at five-thirty on Sunday morning, packed my bags, made my way to LaGuardia Airport (about which more here), and flew from there to St. Louis, where I caught a shuttle bus to Smalltown, U.S.A. At two o'clock I was eating chicken-salad sandwiches with my mother and flipping through her high-school yearbook, published in 1946. Five hours later we sat down with my brother to watch the first installment of Broken Trail, and now I'm headed for bed.

This is the first time I've been home since Christmas. My mother was pleased to see that I'd lost forty pounds and acquired a rosy hue in my cheeks. (Apparently I was looking a trifle wan for several weeks prior to my visit to the hospital.) I shared the bus from St. Louis to Smalltown with a seventy-seven-year-old woman who asked me where I was from. I told her I'd grown up in southeast Missouri but was now living in New York City, to which she replied, "How nice! Do you go to school there?" I hooted loudly, thanked her kindly, and tried to imagine how weak and scared I must have looked the last time I was in Smalltown.

I'll be spending Monday morning writing my drama column for Friday's Wall Street Journal, after which I plan to buy a new belt, eat a very modest amount of barbecue, and take it easy. Not to worry: you'll be hearing from me at regular intervals between now and my return to New York on Thursday. Right now, though, I'm more than ready to turn in.

Till soon.

Posted June 26, 12:00 PM

TT: Regional theater's glamour gap

In my latest "Sightings" column, published in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, I discuss a question that's been on my mind for some time now: why are America's best regional theater companies not as well known as our museums, symphony orchestras, and opera companies?

Time for a pop quiz: name three important fine-arts institutions that are not located in (A) New York City or (B) the place where you live.

I recently asked this question of 20 art-conscious friends all across the U.S. Between them, they listed 42 different institutions, seven of which received more than one vote. Most frequently cited was the Art Institute of Chicago, with four votes.

Only five of them mentioned a theater company.

I took this informal poll in the same week that Seattle's Intiman Theatre won the Tony Award for excellence in regional theater. It's been presented annually since 1976 to such distinguished ensembles as Chicago's Goodman Theatre, New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, all of which I covered enthusiastically for the Journal in the past year. Not one of them was mentioned. The only person to vote for the Intiman was a former resident of Seattle....

Each year it grows more difficult to persuade the arts editors of major newspapers and magazines--even those that pay fairly close attention to theater in New York--to send their drama critics to other cities, save for an occasional trip to London. As for TV, forget about it. I can't remember the last time PBS aired an out-of-town production. Regional theater, it seems, just isn't glamorous enough to make the journalistic cut.

Yet most of the best live drama in America is to be found in what Variety still insists on calling "the stix." The vast majority of large and medium-sized American cities can boast of at least one high-quality repertory company, and many have more than that. On any given night you can see about as many plays in Chicago or Washington, D.C., as you can in New York, and Minneapolis-St. Paul isn't far behind....

The Journal has posted a free link to this column, so to read the whole thing--of which there is much more--go here.

Posted June 26, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"'Do you do any work besides teaching?' said Sarah, in a social manner.

"'People always regard teaching as a side line. Well, I am writing a book of essays.'

"'Oh, not a real book?' said Tamasin.

"'No, not one with a beginning and an end.'

"'That would be more difficult.'

"'Yes, it would.'

"'Does a book of essays take very long?'

"'Not the book itself, but I have come to putting in the charm. I put in so much, that I had to take some out; and that seemed a waste, and I put it back.'"

Ivy Compton-Burnett, Manservant and Maidservant

Posted June 26, 12:00 PM

June 25, 2006

TT: Accidental Luddite

Don't laugh, but I didn't know that my new iBook was WiFi-enabled until Jools, one of the miracle workers from Ms Mac, paid me a service call back in March. Even then I didn't have any occasion to use this fancy new feature until last month, when I stayed in a hotel in Oregon where it was taken for granted that all guests would connect wirelessly to the Web. I fired up my untested WiFi gizmo, found it good, used it without incident, and promptly forgot about it from the moment I checked out until today, when I arrived way too early at LaGuardia and decided to see what it felt like to pull my laptop out of my shoulder bag and surf the Web, connected to nothing at all but my lap.

I suppose most of us have felt at one time or another the urge to pull up stakes and go off the grid. As a boy I watched Charles Kuralt on the evening news and dreamed of driving around America in a self-contained motor home, beholden to no one and no place. I didn't know at the time that Kuralt and his TV crew never actually slept in their motor home, having found it too cramped. Instead, they checked into a motel every night they spent on the road. A number of years later, my father bought a used motor home from which he derived great satisfaction, but it would never have occurred to him to park it off the grid. Whenever he and my mother went "camping," they drove straight to a trailer park, plugged in the power, hooked up the water and sewer lines, turned on the air conditioner, and partook of the great outdoors from a safe, comfortable distance.

Long ago I promised myself that someday I'd rent a motor home and do some Kuralt-style roaming, staying not in trailer parks or Holiday Inns but wherever I damn well pleased. Alas, I haven't gotten around to it yet, and at fifty I suspect I never will. Instead I'm sitting at Gate D-8 of LaGuardia Airport, posting these words on my blog and wondering exactly what the big deal is. The point of travel, after all, is to be somewhere else doing something else, and since I routinely spend large chunks of my life in New York sitting at a desk, checking my e-mail and surfing the Web, I can't see any good reason to do the same thing in an airport. I'm on my way to Smalltown, U.S.A., to visit my family, and when I get there this afternoon I'll set up a card table in my bedroom and reluctantly establish an electronic beachhead. Why rush the process?

The first time I flew in a plane equipped with Airfones, I made a special point of calling my mother from midair, which impressed her no end. I never did it again. Similarly, I have a feeling that today's venture into airport blogging will be a one-time-only event, unless I should find myself stuck in STL or LAX with several unexpected hours of time on my hands--and maybe not even then. Airports are for reading and listening to music, not blogging, just as trains are for looking out the window, not checking e-mail. Life is busy enough without plugging up such welcome chinks in the wall of constant activity.

For all these reasons, this study in the effects of postmodern technology on leisure time is now officially concluded. My plane leaves in an hour and five minutes, and two or three hours after that I'll be in Smalltown, sitting down to lunch with my mother. Tonight will be quite soon enough to plug in again, and tomorrow will be even better. I'll see you then.

Posted June 25, 7:35 AM

June 23, 2006

TT: The (bad) luck of the Irish

It's Friday, and time once again for my weekly Wall Street Journal drama-column teaser. This time around I comment on three shows, one out of town (Paper Mill Playhouse's revival of Hello, Dolly!, starring Tovah Feldshuh), one local (Second Stage's The Water's Edge), and one from out of town (Boston's Actors' Shakespeare Project production of King Lear, now playing at the Annex at La MaMa). The verdicts? Mixed, mostly unfavorable, and wildly enthusiastic:

If you warm to the notion of a no-nonsense Dolly whose singing is efficient and uningratiating, Mrs. Feldshuh will no doubt delight you, but I found her over-earnest performance to be painfully charmless.

Paper Mill's production, directed by Mark S. Hoebee, is in most other respects quite agreeable, and Mia Michaels' choreography is especially pleasing. For me, the real problem is not Ms. Feldshuh but the show itself, which is dated in all the wrong ways....

Is it ever a good idea for contemporary playwrights to emulate the Greeks? I have my doubts after seeing "The Water's Edge," in which Theresa Rebeck, the author of "Bad Dates," takes an up-to-the-minute plot about divorce and its discontents and gives it a tragic (and bloody) second-act twist. Up to that point things hum along pretty nicely, but no sooner does Ms. Rebeck start to confuse herself with Aeschylus than her not-uninteresting play explodes in mid-air, disintegrating into a thick black cloud of inadvertent comedy....

Sometimes lightning does strike twice. Boston's Actors' Shakespeare Project has brought its tremendous production of "King Lear," which I saw last October, to New York, where it looks just as good--better, even....

No link, so please feel free to read the whole thing by purchasing a copy of Friday's Journal at your local newsstand. Alternatively, you can always go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you immediate access to the full text of my review, plus other reviews and art-related stories.

Posted June 23, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"Let me give you one piece of advice: if you want to get on in the world, never tell a story. Nothing is so tiresome as a raconteur, and there's no such thing as a story one hasn't heard before."

Maurice Baring, C

Posted June 23, 12:00 PM

June 22, 2006

TT: Out and about

Once again I'm writing to you from Connecticut, the land of stone walls and forgotten cemeteries. Today I picnicked on top of a dam, bought a jar of Marmite at the local health-food store, ate the best hamburger I've ever had in my life, put in several hours' worth of work on Hotter Than That, and checked my phone messages before driving back into the woods for the night.

That's all I've got to tell you. The rest I'll leave to Our Girl. See you on Friday.

Posted June 22, 12:00 PM

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I either gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened or saw and liked them some time in the past year (or both). For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:
- Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
- Bridge & Tunnel (solo show, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Aug. 6)
- Chicago (musical, R, adult subject matter and sexual content)
- The Drowsy Chaperone* (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)
- Faith Healer* (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes July 30)
- The Lieutenant of Inishmore (black comedy, R, adult subject matter and extremely graphic violence, reviewed here)
- Sweeney Todd (musical, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)
- The Wedding Singer (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
- Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris (musical revue, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here)
- Slava's Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

CLOSING THIS WEEKEND:
- Awake and Sing! (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Sunday)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK:
- Doubt (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter and implicit sexual content, reviewed here, closes July 2)
- The Light in the Piazza (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter and a brief bedroom scene, reviewed here, closes July 2)

Posted June 22, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"She saw that although he lived in the world of art, that is to say, the world of books, literature and poetry, the world of artists was unknown to him. That was a world which she knew all too well. She had lived in it ever since her childhood, and she had known more than enough of it. She had seen a sordid side of Bohemian life, which had kindled in her a violent reaction. Her father and mother were both of them natural Bohemians. Their friends were nearly all of them Bohemians, and, for the most part, unsuccessful artists, forgotten musicians, unpublished poets and unplayed playwrights. They knew, it is true, some successful artists and some well-known authors, but they drew the unsuccessful and the needy toward them like magnets. Uncouth, talkative, shabby, hard-up, easy-going people were constantly in and out of the house, and Beatrice had often said to herself, 'Philistia, be thou glad of me,' only the trouble was there was no chance of getting anywhere near Philistia. She knew that C. knew nothing of all her world. She saw plainly that he imagined the world of artists and writers to be an ideal framework for all that was finest in art and literature, and to correspond to that. He imagined it to consist of nothing but completely disinterested, devoted and self-sacrificing Paladins, who were working, all of them under great difficulties and at great personal sacrifice, for the good and glory of mankind, and living masterpieces as well as painting and writing them. He mentioned artists with bated breath, as if they belonged to a higher sphere into which he would never be allowed to set foot. Beatrice, who knew the reality, foresaw that he would scarcely be able to avoid disenchantment and disillusion."

Maurice Baring, C

Posted June 22, 12:00 PM

June 21, 2006

TT: Into the woods

I wrote my "Sightings" column with the windows wide open, accompanied by the sound of chirping birds. When I was finished, I drove over to Hosmer Mountain Bottling Company to pick up a case of soda, then returned to my country retreat to eat dinner and watch TV with the friend at whose farmhouse I'm spending the week. Among other things, we watched Grand Illusion and Patton (which make a perfectly complementary pair, unlikely as that may sound).

We also looked at the episode of Legends of Jazz in which Jim Hall and Pat Metheny chat with Ramsey Lewis and play three tunes, one solo apiece and a duet version of "All the Things You Are" accompanied by Christian McBride and Antonio Sanchez. It was my first viewing of PBS's only regular jazz program, about which a fellow blogger recently expressed mixed feelings. I saw what he meant: the camera work was slickly, obtrusively busy, the interview segments superficial. On the other hand, my friend listened closely and attentively to Hall's performance of "My Funny Valentine," at the end of which she said, "Oh, wow! He's fantastic!" Any show that allows a great jazzman to play long enough to evoke that kind of response from a non-musician must be doing something right.

If you've never heard Jim Hall & Pat Metheny, by the way, I suggest you stop reading, click on the link, and order one of the most beautiful jazz guitar recordings ever made. I wrote about it five years ago in a profile of Metheny published in Time:

"Jim Hall & Pat Metheny" (Telarc), released last year, teamed the two friends for a bewitching program of unaccompanied duets. "It encapsulates the love and respect I have for Jim," Metheny says. Best of all is a magically spare version of "Farmer's Trust," a tender waltz originally recorded by the Metheny Group in 1982, which leaves no doubt that despite his love of ear-popping electronic effects, he is above all a wonderfully fluent spinner of simple yet indelible melodies.

On the way to the Hosmer Mountain Bottling Company, I drove past a sign that read as follows: FIRE DEP'T WATER HOLE. My cell phone doesn't work out here and I'm using a dialup connection to post these words. All this will give you some idea of how far off the beaten path I am.

I plan to spend Wednesday working on Hotter Than That, with time out for an early-afternoon picnic. In case you were wondering, I like it here--a lot.

See you later, maybe.

Posted June 21, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"They both felt that life was conducted, that people were judged, that things were done, opinions accepted, books read according to certain rigid and inflexible standards and codes. When some one mentioned a certain new musical comedy which had just been produced, and had achieved an instantaneous success, Lady Hengrave said with solemn decision, 'Edward couldn't get places, but we will go directly we get to London.' Wright felt, and C. felt that he was feeling, that to see this particular play was looked upn as a kind of sacred duty, like going to church on Sunday, which it would be a gross breach of decorum not to fulfil."

Maurice Baring, C

Posted June 21, 12:00 PM

June 20, 2006

TT: Still life with hot dogs

On Monday I filed my Wall Street Journal drama column, filled a suitcase full of books about Louis Armstrong, picked up a Zipcar, and headed for Connecticut, stopping along the way to grab a bite at Super Duper Weenie (which really is as good as its reviews, in case you were wondering). Where I am now is nobody's business, though I'll admit to hearing frogs and crickets outside my open window. I plan to spend the next three days working on Hotter Than That: A Life of Louis Armstrong, writing my "Sightings" column for Saturday's Journal, and taking it easy when not otherwise occupied.

I'll be back in New York on Friday afternoon. I don't expect to post much between now and then, save for the daily almanac entry and the usual theater-related postings. Have a nice week!

Posted June 20, 12:19 PM

TT: Almanac

"The point of life is--I think--its imperfection. The point of human beings to me is that they are full of faults and weaknesses and wickedness--it is because of all that that they are human, made up of a thousand things: defects, qualities, idiosyncrasies, tricks, habits, crotchets, hobbies, little roughnesses and queer pitfalls, unexpected quaintnesses: unexpected goodness, and unexpected badness; take all that away, and what is left? Nothing that I want to see again."

Maurice Baring, C

Posted June 20, 12:00 PM

OGIC: Separate intensities

I reviewed Monica Ali's sophomore novel, Alentejo Blue, in the Baltimore Sun last weekend. While more sweeping and ambitious than her first book, Brick Lane, this novel proved less satisfying in the end. Ali is a deft and sometimes flat-out dazzling writer, and I was rooting for the book to succeed. But the form she chooses is a difficult one to make work: she strings together several short stories about different characters residing in the same small Portuguese town. Taken individually, the stories are compelling and wonderfully written. But she seems not to know how to finish the book as a whole.

The final story, encompassing all of the characters' points of view and pushing uncertainly toward meaningful closure, just doesn't make much of an impression. As a formal choice, this late move from limited to omniscient narration is an interesting failure--I appreciated the risk Ali took, but at the point it should have been peaking, my engagement with the book crashed and burned. As I said in the Sun:

Each of the first eight stories belongs utterly to a single character, steeped in that individual's consciousness, sensibility and ethos. But Ali's reversion to third-person omniscient narration in the last story is the real innovation and surprise - one that, alas, doesn't have whatever effect was intended. Instead, it ends the reader's journey on a flat tire, dispersing the separate intensities that had mounted in each boldly imagined, pristinely written story that came before.

Still, I found large swaths of the book pretty impressive and involving, and will continue reading the talented Ali.

Posted June 20, 1:19 AM

June 19, 2006

TT: Take the money and run

I see in the Washington Post that Neil Simon, author of The Odd Couple, has won the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, an award of whose existence I was hitherto unaware. No doubt there are many such awards, since there seems to be nothing more popular than the handing out of prizes, a phenomenon first remarked by Lewis Carroll:

However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out "The race is over!" and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, "But who has won?"

This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, "EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes."

So it seems, and most especially when it comes to the arts, be they high or low. Of the giving of prizes there is no end, and it's hard to think of a single one, however ostensibly prestigious, that hasn't been devalued by the promiscuity and/or lack of discrimination with which it is handed out.

I'm not here to beat up on Neil Simon--I've done that enough in my Wall Street Journal drama column in the past couple of years. Instead, I want to ask a question that seems to me obvious but turns out not to be: has there ever been a prize in the arts that was worth having? Is it possible for any institution to give an award for artistic achievement that has real significance?

Looking back over the long history of such prizes, it strikes me that even the best-laid and most idealistic institutional plans are inevitably subverted over time by non-artistic considerations. Sooner or later the temptation to inflate the currency in one way or another becomes irresistible, and before you know it you're either out of business (the Leventritt Competition) or no longer taken seriously (the Kennedy Center Honors).

More to the point, I have a feeling that the reason why awards in the arts tend irresistibly toward irrelevance is that they contradict the essential nature of art. The fact is that there are only two "prizes" worth having, short-term success and long-term acclaim, neither of which can be conveyed by any means other than the uncoerced consensus of the relevant public.

Yet as self-evident as that might seem, there is some irresistible impulse built into the human psyche that makes us keep handing out awards anyway. Indeed, I myself am connected with the giving of three fairly well-known ones, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards, the National Medal of Arts, and the NEA's Jazz Masters Fellowships, and I like to think that all three are worth getting.

Am I kidding myself? Or is my continuing involvement in the prize-giving process simply an expression of my idealistic belief that it is somehow possible to second-guess the mysterious workings of posterity? Beats me. All I know is that most artists like to get awards, especially when they're accompanied by a check. The trouble with the verdict of posterity, after all, is that you're never around to hear it, any more than you get to read your own obituaries. (Go here to read my past reflections on this grim subject.)

Few of us, it seems, are sufficiently self-confident not to long for the reassurance of immediate appreciation, meretricious though it may be, and we long for it all the more as we grow older. As Orson Welles once observed to Peter Bogdanovich, "A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves." I need it, too, and I've never won any prizes worth mentioning.

So, I'm sure, does Neil Simon, who has lived long enough to see his style of comedy go out of fashion. That's why I don't begrudge his having received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which was previously awarded to Richard Pryor, Carl Reiner, Jonathan Winters, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, and Steve Martin. A motley crew, to put it mildly, and I doubt that any of them has done or will ever do anything that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the writing of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn--but so be it. That's what posterity is for. Today can take care of itself. That's what prizes are for.

Posted June 19, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"C. opened the volume of Shelley and came across The Cloud, which is at the beginning of the third volume, on p. 19. He read and experienced for the first time in his life what the printed words upon a page are capable of. He seemed to be caught up in a chariot of fire. Time and place were annihilated; one gorgeous vision after another swept him with dewy, rainbow wings; celestial bells seemed to be ringing in the air, and when it was all over something ineffable had been left behind. He was dazed. He thought he must be mistaken. He read the poem through slowly and silently again from the beginning until the end. Yes, it was all there. He had opened the gates of an undiscovered magical kingdom. He was bursting with the wonder of his discovery."

Maurice Baring, C

Posted June 19, 12:00 PM

June 16, 2006

TT: Where every prospect pleases

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday digging in the Garden of Satchmo, and came home bearing riches galore.

On Tuesday I drove to the Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark, New Jersey, a city in which there appears to be no parking at all. In order to stow my Zipcar, I had to drive all the way up to the roof of a dinky little garage reachable only by ascending a corkscrew ramp located inside a silo. Once I finally got where I was going, though, Dan Morgenstern, a distinguished critic who knew Louis Armstrong when young and now runs the most important jazz library in the world in between writing thoughtful essays about the music he loves, filled my lap with goodies. Among them were the unedited typescript of Armstrong's autobiography and a thick stack of his letters--real letters, mind you, not photocopies.

Of course I'd seen original Armstrong manuscripts before, but I'd never handled one, much less a king-sized batch of Satch. I got so excited that I worked for six hours straight without bothering to eat lunch or check my messages. That was a medium-sized mistake, as I discovered when I returned home and learned that three editors from The Wall Street Journal had been trying to call me all day. By early evening they were on the verge of jumping to the not-unreasonable conclusion (given my recent medical history) that I'd dropped dead. One of them actually went so far as to call Our Girl in Chicago to find out what hospital I was in, which didn't do anything for her peace of mind.

On Wednesday I went back to the Louis Armstrong Archives to finish going through Armstrong's Thirties scrapbooks, after which I listened to a half-dozen of the private tape recordings he made after hours. As the Armstrong Archives Web site explains, "Louis Armstrong's personal tape collection comprises 650 reels of audiotape. When he was hanging out with fans backstage or with friends in a hotel room or with Lucille at home, he loved to set his tape deck to ‘record' and just let it roll." Most of the tapes are full of dross, but the good stuff is stupendously revealing, and I'll be the first Armstrong biographer to have had access to it. (You can listen to selected snippets by going here.) Needless to say, I spent the whole afternoon with my fingers flying and my mouth hanging open.

Today I slept late and met an art-collector friend for lunch, after which we went to an Upper East Side gallery to look at paintings. I walked home through Central Park, where I ran into a film crew shooting on Bow Bridge, surrounded by an ocean of slack-jawed gawkers who apparently had nothing better to do than stand around in the hopes of seeing a movie star or two. Muscling my way through the crowd, I fled to my favorite park bench, only to find it occupied by two noisy conversationalists. I returned to my apartment and curled up on the couch with Maurice Baring's C (yes, that's the name of it), an undeservedly forgotten novel from which I plan to draw most of next week's almanac entries. (If you don't know who Maurice Baring is, go here and let Joseph Epstein fill you in.)

And so to bed. I'm not quite over my cold, but another good night's sleep should take care of it. On Saturday night I'll be seeing King Lear with an artist friend whom I adore, and at some point I'll start writing the sixth chapter of Hotter Than That: A Life of Louis Armstrong. I'll be out of town all next week, but I plan to do a modest amount of blogging from my secure undisclosed location somewhere in deepest Connecticut.

Life is still good--and no, I'm not dead yet.

Posted June 16, 12:00 PM

TT: Kids do the darnedest things

Friday again, and today's Wall Street Journal drama column reflects my sharply mixed feelings about Spring Awakening, the very explicit new musical version of Frank Wedekind's famous 1891 play about teenage sexuality:

Steven Sater has compressed Wedekind's three-act play into a tight two-act book that is surprisingly faithful to the original, though Mr. Sater's adaptation is far more sentimental and (fortunately) rather less didactic. The action is set in provincial Germany circa 1890, but the songs are contemporary in style--often unprintably so--and the performers whip wireless mikes out of their pockets and are bathed in neon light whenever they start to sing. The point, I gather, is that nothing much has changed since 1890, and when it comes to puberty, that's doubtless true enough. "Spring Awakening" is full of self-centered, solipsistic kids who think they're both unique and misunderstood. I know I felt that way when I was 14.

Is "Spring Awakening" for you? Only if you warm to the idea of spending a whole evening wallowing in teen angst. It also depends on your tolerance for the kind of singer-songwriter pop that runs to languishing tunes and sensitive piano arpeggios. I find it cloying, but I'll be the first to admit that Mr. Sater (who also wrote the lyrics) has used Duncan Sheik's music to savvy dramatic effect, greatly aided by the fast-paced direction of Michael Mayer and the sharp performances of the ensemble cast....

My feelings about Neil LaBute's Some Girl(s) were considerably more clear-cut:

I wanting to admire Neil LaBute, but he keeps writing plays like "Some Girl(s)." Mr. LaBute's favorite subject is the way men mistreat women, and while he handles it with virtuosity--I can't think of a more technically adroit playwright--his slickness almost always does him in....

No link, so get thee to a newsstand and pony up a dollar for today's Journal, or be big and brave and go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you on-the-spot access to the full text of my review, plus many other worthy stories about art and its ancillary activites. (You can also read about money if so inclined.)

Posted June 16, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"I have not carried out experiments to prove it, but may I suggest that people in the theater and the cinema do not sit in the same way? The theater requires attentiveness, and people must sit up alertly to see what is often a small area of concentration. Whereas in the cinema, the screen looms above us, and many people sink into reclining positions to watch. Some luxurious movie houses have seats that slide back to allow this posture. In the cinema we sometimes put our feet on the back of the row in front, loll across two seats, and damage the upholstery. Would this happen with a lively and commanding presence on the stage, or is it the result of a sort of loneliness in cinemas?"

David Thomson, America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture

Posted June 16, 12:00 PM

TT and OGIC: New wrinkle

Look in the right-hand column immediately below the Top Fives and you'll see that "About Last Night" has just rolled out a fresh feature. In "Out of the Past" we apply the Top Five idea to art that isn't new. Starting today, you'll find capsule commentaries on books, movies, records, and other old favorites that we think you might like.

Like the Top Fives, our "Out of the Past" picks will change frequently and without warning, so keep an eye peeled for the latest postings.

UPDATE: The Top Fives are all new, too!

Posted June 16, 4:35 AM

TT: Personal bests

Posted for no reason at all, and valid only until I change my mind:

- BEST COMEBACK "Sir, you MAY wonder."

- BEST MOVIE SCORE Jerry Goldsmith, Chinatown

- BEST PAINTING I'VE SEEN THIS YEAR Arnold Friedman, Landscape

- BEST LOUIS ARMSTRONG RECORD I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues (scroll down to listen)

- BEST P.G. WODEHOUSE NOVEL The Mating Season

- BEST EDUCATIONAL FILM Powers of Ten (thank you, dear OGIC, for introducing me to this miniature masterpiece)

- BEST SLOW MOVEMENT Beethoven, Cavatina from Quartet No. 13, Op. 130

- BEST PIECE OF WAR REPORTING Ernie Pyle, The Death of Captain Waskow

- BEST FIRST LINE "The bishop was feeling rather sea-sick."

- BEST LAST LINE "He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men."

Posted June 16, 1:51 AM

June 15, 2006

TT: Words to the wise

Jessica Molaskey, with whom I recently shared a microphone, opened last night at the Algonquin. I wasn't there, but I have vivid and indelible memories of her first Algonquin opening, which I covered last year in my Washington Post column:

I've had an eye on Jessica Molaskey ever since she sang her first cabaret gig, so I knew what it meant when she made her debut in January at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel--and blew the roof off. I've seen my share of big-deal Algonquin debuts, including Diana Krall's very first Oak Room appearance, and I'm here to tell you:

This one was that good.

Molaskey is a Broadway baby (formerly of "Crazy for You" and "Dream") who, like other musical-comedy artists of her generation, was finding it hard to land decent parts in the dance-driven, rock-flavored shows that now dominate the New York stage. Instead of tearing her hair out, she decided to look for another way to make a living. Molaskey happens to be married to jazz singer-guitarist John Pizzarelli, so she started off sitting in at his New York gigs. Bit by bit she cracked the code of cabaret singing, gradually figuring out how to work a small room. She grew more self-assured with each appearance--and more people started to notice.

At long last, the Algonquin got the message and booked her for a week, backed by her husband on guitar, brother-in-law Martin Pizzarelli on bass, and Larry Goldings, one of Los Angeles's top session men, on piano. Talk about seizing the day: Molaskey tore into her first set as if she'd been singing cabaret in the cradle. Her singing was warmly inviting, her interpretations subtle, her patter super-sly, her pacing infallible. The first-nighters were wowed by her medley of Cy Coleman's "Hey, Look Me Over!" and "Big Spender," which she followed with a string of tried-and-true standards ("Make Believe") and where-have-I-heard-that-before surprises ("Stepsisters' Lament"), and by evening's end it was perfectly obvious that high-end cabaret in Manhattan had found itself a New Face of 2005....

This time around Molaskey will be accompanied by John, Martin, and Larry Fuller on piano (Ray Kennedy's trio is subbing for the Pizzarelli group on June 22 and 29). The show is called "After Midnight" and features a canny blend of standards ("Glad to Be Unhappy," "Happy as the Day Is Long") and new songs by such smart young things as Jason Robert Brown, Ricky Ian Gordon, Adam Guettel, and Michael John LaChiusa.

Alas, I can't make it. I'm still coughing a bit too loudly to be companionable this week, and I'll either be out of town or sitting in an aisle seat during the rest of the run. Go and tell me how terrific it was. I won't mind--much--if you rub it in.

Molaskey will be appearing at the Oak Room through July 1. For more information, go here.

Posted June 15, 12:00 PM

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I either gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened or saw and liked them some time in the past year (or both). For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:
- Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
- Bridge & Tunnel (solo show, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here, extended through Aug. 6)
- Chicago (musical, R, adult subject matter and sexual content)
- The Drowsy Chaperone* (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)
- Faith Healer* (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
- The Lieutenant of Inishmore (black comedy, R, adult subject matter and extremely graphic violence, reviewed here)
- Sweeney Todd (musical, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)
- The Wedding Singer (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
- Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris (musical revue, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here)
- Slava's Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK:
- Awake and Sing! (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes June 25)

CLOSING SOON:
- Doubt (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter and implicit sexual content, reviewed here, closes July 2)
- The Light in the Piazza (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter and a brief bedroom scene, reviewed here, closes July 2)

Posted June 15, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"I now know that if you describe things as better as they are, you are considered to be romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you are called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you are called a satirist."

Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant

Posted June 15, 12:00 PM

June 14, 2006

TT: Less than a roar, more than a peep

I spent all of Tuesday rummaging around in the Louis Armstrong files at the Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark. It was a wonderfully absorbing and profitable day, but it wore me out, and by the time I finally made it back to Manhattan I was too tired to do anything but check my e-mail, take a really hot bath, watch a Lawrence Tierney movie, and call my mother in Smalltown, U.S.A.

Yes, I have tales to tell, and no, I'm not going to tell them until later in the week. On Wednesday I'm returning to the Louis Armstrong Archives to wrap up my primary-source research for the sixth chapter of Hotter Than That: A Life of Louis Armstrong, which I intend to start writing on Monday. I'm not quite over the cold that laid me low last weekend, so I'm headed for bed as soon as I publish this posting. Remember, this is the New Me, the one who takes better care of himself, or at least tries to.

See you soon.

P.S. If you don't know anything about Lawrence Tierney, go here and shudder. I had more or less the same experience described in the first paragraph of the profile to which the link will take you--it happened in a hotel room a couple of years ago--and I've never forgotten the impression it made on me.

Posted June 14, 12:00 PM

TT: Instruction manual

Finally, somebody out in the 'sphere (thank you, Kate) has posted a link to John Updike's six rules for book reviewing, which I first read years ago and have been citing admiringly ever since.

I usually make a point of mentioning this one whenever I have occasion to teach a seminar in criticism:

2. Give [the author] enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

I've never heard a better piece of book-reviewing advice.

Alas, I no longer buy Updike's first rule: "Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt." To find out why, go here.

I continue to stand by the others, but Number Two remains my all-time favorite. It's also the one most likely to be forgotten by big-name reviewers, as I had occasion to point out last month. Should you ever catch me breaking it, feel free to send me a rocket!

Posted June 14, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"So far as it has merit, a painting is a fact, arbitrary and individual."

Fairfield Porter, Art in Its Own Terms

Posted June 14, 12:00 PM

June 13, 2006

TT: Progress is our most important product

I just this minute got home from a press preview of Theresa Rebeck's The Water's Edge, and I'm really beat--but on the mend. I remember when I used to come down with colds that would last for a couple of weeks at a time. This one, by contrast, is already giving up the ghost after a mere three days of moderate misery. If I needed yet another reason to keep on doing what the doctor says, which I don't, that would be it.

Be that as it may, I'm not yet up to tossing off a half-dozen posts between now and bedtime, especially since I have to get up first thing Tuesday morning, drive to the Institute of Jazz Studies, and spend the day sifting through the Louis Armstrong file. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to knit up that ravell'd sleeve.

I'll be back on Wednesday, ready to roar.

Posted June 13, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"Art permits you to accept illogical immediacy, and in doing so releases you from chasing after the distant and the ideal. When this occurs, the effect is exalting."

Fairfield Porter, Art in Its Own Terms

Posted June 13, 12:00 PM

June 12, 2006

TT: Worthy cause

Richard M. Sudhalter, the distinguished trumpeter, biographer, and jazz scholar, needs your help.

Dick (he's a friend) suffered a stroke three years ago. Though he subsequently recovered from many of its effects, he has now fallen victim to a rare, equally debilitating illness of the nervous system called multiple system atrophy. It's hitting him hard, and his medical bills are piling up.

Alas, good works don't always reap financial rewards, and Dick has spent the whole of his long, productive life laboring in important but unrenumerative cultural vineyards. He is the author of such essential works of jazz and popular-music scholarship as Lost Chords and Stardust Melody: The Life and Music of Hoagy Carmichael. In addition, he co-wrote Bix: Man and Legend, one of the first truly scholarly jazz biographies, and has played on any number of fine recordings, including two of my favorite jazz albums, The Classic Jazz Quartet: The Complete Recordings and his own Melodies Heard, Melodies Sweet. Needless to say, Dick didn't make a whole lot of money out of any of these undertakings, but he thought they needed doing, so he did them anyway.

Some of Dick's friends are organizing an all-star benefit concert to help pay his medical expenses. It will be held at seven p.m. on September 10 at St. Peter's Church in New York City. Mark your calendar--it should be a memorable evening.

In the meantime, though, Dick is scheduled to go to the Mayo Clinic on August 24, and he needs immediate assistance in order to pay for the trip (among many other urgent things).

As you know, I don't make a habit of posting appeals like this, but Dick Sudhalter's case is special. Even if you aren't familiar with his work, take my word for it--he deserves your help.

To find out what you can do, go here.

Posted June 12, 12:00 PM

TT: How'd I do?

Here are the winners of this year's Tony Awards.

Here are my predictions.

You do the math.

Posted June 12, 12:00 PM

TT: Cold comfort

I've come down with a horrible summer cold, the kind that makes your head feel like a chunk of moist concrete. Though copious consumption of piping-hot fluids has kept me alive, I can't claim much more than that: I had to go see Paper Mill Playhouse's revival of Hello, Dolly! on Saturday night, but all I was good for on Sunday was sitting on the couch and watching old movies.

The good news, of course, is that I have nothing worse than a cold. This is, in fact, the first time I've been sick since I got out of the hospital in December. Lousy as I feel--and I do feel lousy--it's comforting to know that this bug won't force me to call an ambulance.

For the moment, though, I don't feel like doing anything but watching TV and pointing you to my contribution to Coudal Partners' Field-Tested Books series. (For Our Girl's contribution, go here.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go blow my nose. I'll be back when I'm back.

Posted June 12, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"War cannot be negated. One must live it or die of it. So it is with the absurd: it is a question of breathing with it, of recognizing its lessons and recovering their flesh. In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. 'Art and nothing but art,' said Nietzsche, 'we have art in order not to die of the truth.'"

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Posted June 12, 12:00 PM

June 10, 2006

TT: Words to the wise (Washington edition)

Charlie Victor Romeo is playing through June 25 at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. I reviewed the original New York production a couple of years ago in The Wall Street Journal:

Forget reality TV. If you want to watch raw slices of real life--and death--transformed into the highest possible drama, go see "Charlie Victor Romeo," a performance piece based on transcripts of the black-box recordings of six airplane crashes. (The title is military alphabetic code for "Cockpit Voice Recorder.") "Charlie Victor Romeo" holds you in a hammerlock for 90 unforgettable minutes. It's the most frightening show I've ever seen....

"Charlie Victor Romeo" was created by Bob Berger, Patrick Daniels and Irving Gregory of Collective: Unconscious, a Manhattan-based experimental theater group. It's a low-budget, unabashedly unglamorous affair. You stroll into a grubby black-box theater (talk about ironic!) in which a nondescript mock cockpit is placed at center stage. The house goes dark and a slide flashes on a screen overhead, telling you the flight number and date and how many people were on board, followed by a stark description of what went wrong: ICING. EXPLODING ENGINE. MULTIPLE BIRD STRIKES. Then the lights come up and all hell breaks loose.

Not always at once, though. Instead, you might find a pilot and co-pilot chatting away agreeably, flirting with a flight attendant, griping about this or that minor nuisance. But sooner or later--always without warning--something terrible happens, and in an instant the theater becomes a sweatbox. You watch in horror as the crew scrambles to save the ship while alarms beep and buzz, the radio crackles urgently and passengers scream on the far side of the cockpit door. Sometimes the crisis is protracted, sometimes shockingly brief (one flight lasts for just a minute and a half). Then the theater is filled with the clamor of a crash landing, abruptly cut off by a sharp click as the house goes black. After a seemingly endless pause, the slide shown at the beginning of the flight is flashed on the screen again, this time with an additional line at the bottom: NO SURVIVORS. NO SURVIVORS. 4 SURVIVORS. NO SURVIVORS.

If any of this sounds gimmicky--or, worse yet, exploitative--be assured that "Charlie Victor Romeo" is deadly serious from takeoff to landing. The transcripts have not been altered in any way. We learn nothing personal about the men and women who are fighting for their lives, not even their names. All we see is what happens when they are plunged into chaos. Once or twice they panic. (In one hair-raising sequence, the pilot and co-pilot quarrel furiously over what to do next.) More often, though, they conduct themselves coolly, even heroically. And though the clipped dialogue is as unpretentious as a conversation overheard on a crosstown bus, it's full of lines that stick in your head like bloody thorns....

I have a special perspective on "Charlie Victor Romeo": I became afraid of flying a few years ago, and went into psychotherapy in order to cope with the problem. Not surprisingly, I found the first part of the show so alarming that I wanted to hide under my seat. But as I watched each flight unfold, I found myself drawn ever more deeply into the drama of brave men and women doing their best to buck the odds. Sometimes they did, more often not. Yet at evening's end I felt oddly reassured by the knowledge of how hard they had tried. So will you.

I'm no longer afraid to fly, but I still can't recommend Charlie Victor Romeo strongly enough. If you're anywhere near Washington, go see it.

(To read a Washington Post profile of the show's creators, go here.)

Posted June 10, 12:54 PM

June 9, 2006

TT: Shakespeare in the valley

Today I devote my entire Wall Street Journal drama column to a glowing report on my recent visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival:

Founded in 1935 by Angus Bowmer, a local college teacher who presented "The Merchant of Venice" and "Twelfth Night" in a rundown old Chautauqua theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has since blossomed into a full-scale operation with an eight-month season, a staff of 450 and an annual budget of $22.5 million. Each year's productions are presented in rotating repertory, making it possible to take in a lot of theater in a short span of time (I saw five plays in two and a half days). Add in the natural beauties of the Rogue River Valley, which offers visitors to Ashland endless opportunities for outdoor fun, and you've got the perfect recipe for a stage-oriented vacation.

None of this would matter if the shows weren't worth seeing, but the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which won a Tony Award in 1983 for outstanding achievement in regional theater, turns out to be well worth the time and trouble it takes to get there....

No link, so if you care to read the whole thing--of which there's much, much more--pick up a copy of today's Journal at your local newsstand, or go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you instant access to the complete text of my review, plus other reviews and art-related stories.

Posted June 09, 12:00 PM

TT: You get what you pay for

In my next "Sightings" column, to be published in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, I take a look at the Arnold Friedman retrospective currently on display at Hollis Taggart Galleries, along with several other recent museum-quality gallery shows. Why were these important exhibitions presented by commercial art galleries instead of major museums? Partly because America's great museums have become too money-conscious--and partly because their curators are locked into narrow-minded "narratives" of art history that leave no room for mold-breaking mavericks of genius.

To learn more, pick up a copy of tomorrow's Journal, where you'll find my column in the "Pursuits" section.

Posted June 09, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"Nothing corrupts a man so deeply as writing a book; the myriad temptations are overwhelming."

Rex Stout, The Mother Hunt

Posted June 09, 12:00 PM

June 8, 2006

TT: Wonderland

New Yorkers with cars go crazy when it rains, which it did all day Wednesday. It took me well over an hour to drive the thirteen miles from my Upper West Side apartment to the Louis Armstrong Archives, located on the first floor of the Queens College library. I sedated myself by listening to an advance copy of If You Have to Ask, You Ain't Got It, a three-disc Fats Waller anthology coming out later this summer from Bluebird/Legacy, but I still experienced periodic flashes of road rage along the way. Accidents, construction sites, vicious cabbies, psychotic bike messengers, suicidal pedestrians--you name it, I saw it, and in several cases barely missed it.

No sooner did I arrive at the Armstrong Archives, though, than I forgot my troubles. I spent the whole day going through three of Louis Armstrong's scrapbooks. He started keeping them in the late Twenties, right around the time that his career was taking off. They're a mixture of snapshots and newspaper and magazine clippings, and anyone with the slightest interest in his life and work would find them fascinating. I effortlessly uncovered one nugget after another, including his first appearances in Walter Winchell's column and The New Yorker. (If you should ever have occasion to use The Complete New Yorker for research, by the way, be warned that the anonymous compilers neglected to include "Goings On About Town" in their computerized index!)

Not surprisingly, the scrapbooks are perilously fragile, and they have yet to be scanned, so anyone who uses them has to put on a pair of protective white gloves and handle them with the utmost care. I found it impossible to type with the gloves on, meaning that I had to take them off in order to make notes, then put them on again each time I turned a page. It was a nuisance, but it was also a small price to pay. To be sure, microfilm and its successor technologies are (mostly) unmixed blessings, but any scholar can tell you that there's no substitute, emotionally speaking, for handling the thing itself, be it a scrapbook or a holograph manuscript. Though constant use has drained the word awesome of much of its meaning, I don't know any other way to describe what it feels like to turn the crumbling pages of the personal scrapbooks of the greatest of all jazz musicians. How amazing that such things exist--and that they've been made accessible to researchers.

The archive closes at four p.m., so at 3:55 I reluctantly packed up my iBook, unfurled my umbrella, and headed for the parking lot to collect my Zipcar and return to Manhattan. The traffic was even worse going back, but it didn't bother me nearly as much the second time around. I was too busy thinking about how fortunate I am to be spending my spare time, such as it is, writing the biography of a man who was both good and great.

An hour and a half later I dropped off the car at the neighborhood garage, then met a friend for dinner at Calle Ocho, just around the corner from my apartment. We ate and talked and enjoyed ourselves enormously, and when we were done I walked back to the tiny little apartment-museum in which I live, somewhat soggy from the day-long downpour but happy all the same. I put on a Louis Armstrong record to warm myself up and beamed at the familiar sound of his sunny, gravel-choked voice:

Boy, you the lucky guy.
When you consider the highest bidder
Can't buy the gleam in your eye,
You the lucky guy.

That I am.

P.S. The next time you need a fast-acting dose of good cheer, listen to Fats Waller's "Loungin' at the Waldorf." It's infallible.

Posted June 08, 12:00 PM

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I either gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened or saw and liked them some time in the past year (or both). For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:
- Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
- Bridge & Tunnel (solo show, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here, extended through Aug. 6)
- Chicago* (musical, R, adult subject matter and sexual content)
- The Drowsy Chaperone (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)
- Faith Healer* (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
- The Lieutenant of Inishmore (black comedy, R, adult subject matter and extremely graphic violence, reviewed here)
- Sweeney Todd (musical, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)
- The Wedding Singer (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
- Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris (musical revue, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here)
- Slava's Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON:
- Awake and Sing! (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes June 25)
- Doubt (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter and implicit sexual content, reviewed here, closes July 2)
- The Light in the Piazza (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter and a brief bedroom scene, reviewed here, closes July 2)

Posted June 08, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"Communication is everything to you artists. You can't look at a landscape or a bowl of fruit without thinking how you will put it on a canvas so that somebody else will see it as your landscape or your bowl of fruit. That is the inescapable vulgarity of art."

Louis Auchincloss, The Rector of Justin

Posted June 08, 12:00 PM

TT: Nota bene

Take a look at the right-hand column, where you'll find a fresh set of Top Five picks and an updated link to my latest Commentary essay.

Posted June 08, 3:11 AM

TT: One size fits all

I lost my once-considerable fondness for the National Spelling Bee when I read the first two paragraphs of this column by Larry Elder:

"These aren't nerds, they are intellectual athletes. They're all incredibly likable kids that you're rooting for."

So spoke ABC's executive vice president for alternative programming, Andrea Wong, on the network's decision to air the finals of the 79th Scripps National Spelling Bee--in prime time. The kids received the "American Idol" treatment, with hair and makeup handled by professional stylists. The show included interviews with the contestants, reaction shots of parents and background pieces on some of the finalists. How soon before contestants show up with their own agents and publicists? How long before one of them drops out of the eighth grade to "turn pro"?

I might add that Elder's column was a favorable account of the National Spelling Bee. Those last two sentences, he explained, were meant as a joke. Alas, ABC's decision to use "professional stylists" to turn the young contestants into Pretty Pod People was all too unhumorously true.

Stories like this never fail to remind me of a remark George Orwell made to a friend: "This age makes me so sick that sometimes I am almost impelled to stop at a corner and start calling down curses from Heaven."

That was in 1934.

Posted June 08, 3:10 AM

June 7, 2006

TT: A slight case of frazzle

I have nothing to say, wise or otherwise. I spent most of Tuesday writing a "Sightings" column for the Saturday Wall Street Journal, and by the time it was finally done I wasn't good for much beyond listening to some undemanding music and watching Only Angels Have Wings.

On Wednesday I plunge back into the world of Louis Armstrong. I'll be spending the day going through the scrapbooks Armstrong kept in the Twenties and Thirties, followed by dinner with a drama-critic friend. I'll check in with you thereafter. Meanwhile, onward and upward with the arts!

Posted June 07, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"Oh, yes, they made a beautiful couple, Frank and Eliza, Gibson boy and Gibson girl, standing like newlyweds in an insurance poster to represent all the brave new things that life seemed to offer. I could not help but be a bit disgruntled; the sexual happiness of others has always had an excluding effect."

Louis Auchincloss, The Rector of Justin

Posted June 07, 12:00 PM

June 6, 2006

TT: Unto the day thereof

When last we spoke, I was seeing two plays a day at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and trolling for really good restaurants in between shows. I found an amazing one, Amuse, where I ate a meal so fine that I could easily have closed my eyes and imagined myself at a table in New York, spending at least twice as much money for food not nearly so tasty.

On Saturday morning I started home for New York, a tedious but blessedly unscary process that went on, all told, for eleven hours. Since then I've done the following:

- I slept really, really late on Sunday.

- I opened a bagful of snail mail.

- I rehung one wall of the Teachout Museum in order to make a place for my new Arnold Friedman lithograph.

- I went to a press preview of Neil LaBute's new play, Some Girl(s).

- I sat slackjawed in front of my TV after coming home from the theater and pretended to watch His Kind of Woman. (I was too tired to sleep.)

- I got up first thing Monday morning and wrote my drama column for Friday's Wall Street Journal. It took me a lot longer than usual, suggesting that I hadn't quite recovered from my transcontinental travels.

- I read the page proofs of Hitchcock's Music, a forthcoming book about the use of music in the films of Alfred Hitchcock.

What now? Today I'll write my "Sightings" column for the Saturday Journal, go to the gym, get a haircut, and pick up my laundry. Tomorrow I'll spend the entire day doing research at the Louis Armstrong Archives in Queens. On Thursday I'll write up my research notes, fill out a couple of expense reports, work on my schedule for July, and go to a press preview of Spring Awakening. On Saturday I'll go to New Jersey for the opening of Paper Mill Playhouse's new revival of Hello, Dolly! In between I'll visit a few art galleries, see a few friends, and maybe--just maybe--blog.

Or not.

Posted June 06, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"'Havistock is a bit of an ass,' Jowett later told a blunt Yorkshire lad who bluntly repeated it to me. 'And an American ass at that. But a dinner party is pleasanter for his company, and how many men can you say that about?'

"How many indeed? I should like his encomium on my tombstone."

Louis Auchincloss, The Rector of Justin

Posted June 06, 12:00 PM

OGIC: Summer reading in situ

At the Coudal Partners site, they've posted their first set of 2006 Field-Tested Books, wherein writers write about the experience of reading a particular book in a particular setting. Terry and I both contributed entries this year, and mine is now up and available to read (Terry's will be posted in another batch later this week). My place is North Whitefield, Maine. My book is...well, you'll just have to hop over and see, won't you?

You'll surely find it worth the trip. Also among today's contributors are Kevin Guilfoile, Daniel Radosh, Claire Zulkey, and a man I know better as "Lunchboy," Francis Heaney. More entries will be added throughout the week from worthies including Maud Newton, George Saunders, and Jessa Crispin, to name a few.

Posted June 06, 4:58 AM

June 5, 2006

TT: Here but not here

I have returned, but I'm temporarily distracted by a deadline. Stand by until tomorrow!

Posted June 05, 12:13 PM

TT: Almanac

"'Why does teaching always seem to attract the intellectually flabby?'

"'Perhaps because we want to seem infallible and think that little boys may find us so. How wrong we are.'"

Louis Auchincloss, The Rector of Justin

Posted June 05, 12:00 PM

June 2, 2006

OGIC: James and the giant slab

Regarding The Complete New Yorker, I'll reluctantly admit to still being part of the camp James Wolcott describes like this:

An odd thing happened. It arrived, wrapped in plastic, and there it sat, wrapped in plastic. For weeks, months. I had read a few raised-nostril reviews of The Complete New Yorker that lauded its scope, refinement, and handsome presentation, but criticized its search engine, the awkwardness of inserting a different disk for each decade, the misspellings in the synopses (dismaying, given the magazine's reputation for meticulousness), and the inability to cut-and-paste. But it wasn't underwhelmed reviews that deterred me from cracking open the package, and I discovered through comparing notes that others shared my paralysis. Wherever literati types gathered to namedrop and glance over each other's shoulders, unopened sets of The Complete New Yorker seemed to loom in the background, like the slab from 2001. Editors, agents, and fellow writers admitted that they too had bought the set or received it as a gift, but somehow "hadn't gotten around" to opening it yet--or hadn't been able to bring themselves to. They sounded vaguely sheepish and guilty, as if shirking their duty, or shying away from what lay within. You would have thought that to pry open the gatefold to The Complete New Yorker was to enter the forbidden tomb from which no man or woman returns.

Presumably under threat of the New Criterion's everlasting ire, Wolcott finally unplasticked his slab and records his impressions in an garrulous but engaging thicket of a consideration that comes as close as one would wish to exhaustive coverage of the eight-disc behemoth. A good read and a survey of highlights for those who, like me, want to delve in armed with some manner of compass.

Posted June 02, 12:41 PM

TT: Down in the valley

I'm in love with with Ashland, Oregon, and not just because it happens to be ringed by mountains and bisected by a brook. In addition to the three-theater Oregon Shakespeare Festival complex, which is the reason why I'm here, three other theater companies, Oregon Cabaret Theater, Oregon Stage Works, and Camelot Theatre Company, have their headquarters in town or nearby. The main drag is lined with bookstores and other enticing establishments, among them a CD shop that bills itself as a "patchouli-free zone" and an antique store whose front window is full of immaculately preserved vintage bellows cameras, all of them long ago rendered obsolete by the shiny, gadget-crammed 35-millimeter models which are now being superseded by their own digital replacements. Two doors down from my excellent hotel is an indie-flick house with an art-deco façade, and there's an old-fashioned soda fountain up the street. As if all that weren't enough, I ran into not one but two strolling minstrels in the town square. (I half expected to find Lorelai and Rory Gilmore listening to them.)

I spent my first morning in Ashland looking for a place to have dinner on Friday. The question of where to have dinner on Thursday had previously been answered for me by Mr. Rifftides, who told me in no uncertain terms that Chateaulin was the best restaurant in town. I don't know about that, not having eaten at every restaurant in town, but I made a point of going to Chateaulin in between performances of William Inge's Bus Stop and a new play called UP, and had myself a first-class meal. Needless to say, it didn't hurt that the management chose to play Paul Desmond's Take Ten as accompaniment to my dessert, any more than I objected to hearing Pink Martini while having breakfast at my hotel. When it comes to background music, Ashland is hip.

This isn't paradise on earth, at least not quite. For one thing, the altitude, combined with the lingering effects of a slight case of bicoastal time-zone confusion, made my head spin after my first brisk walk around town. I suspect that the prevailing politico-cultural winds would make it spin still more rapidly were I to stick around for much longer. (I smiled wryly at the sight of the poster for the "Honoring Our Indigenous Women Activists Speaking Tour" hanging in the window of the local laundromat.) Even so, I'm not looking forward to going home. It seems I have a weakness for small resort towns surrounded by mountains whose peaks are wreathed with clouds.

Posted June 02, 12:00 PM

TT: Loud cheers for Lynn Nottage

Speaking of Lynn Nottage, as I was yesterday, my drama column in this morning's Wall Street Journal is in large part a review of a Baltimore production of one of her plays:

In 2004 "Intimate Apparel" and "Fabulation," two new plays by Lynn Nottage, received high-profile Off Broadway productions. All at once she was the talk of the town, and "Intimate Apparel" went on to become the most frequently produced new American play of the 2005-06 season. But Ms. Nottage was no theatrical debutante. Nine years earlier, she had written "Crumbs from the Table of Joy," a "Glass Menagerie"-style memory play commissioned by New York's Second Stage Theatre that received mixed reviews, though it, too, is now a regional-theater staple.

I finally caught up with "Crumbs from the Table of Joy" last weekend at Baltimore CenterStage, where it has been given a production of the highest possible quality. As for the play itself, I've no idea why it didn't put Ms. Nottage on the map a decade sooner. It's at least as good as "Intimate Apparel," and perhaps even more immediately appealing....

I also went to Philadelphia to report on Arden Theater's revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum:

If there's a funnier musical than "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," I haven't seen it. The book, by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, is a baggy-pants farce based on two comedies of Plautus that overflows with nudge-nudge laughs. Most of Stephen Sondheim's songs are functional, but brilliantly so, and "Comedy Tonight," a prologue added at Jerome Robbins' suggestion during the previews of the original 1962 production, is one of Mr. Sondheim's wittiest inspirations. The result is a show that rarely fails to send its audiences home happy, and the Arden Theatre Company's spirited revival, staged with leering gusto by Terrence J. Nolen, the company's artistic director, is full to the brim with good, dirty fun....

No link, as usual, so please pick up a copy of today's Journal to read the whole thing, or go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you on-the-spot access to the full text of my review, plus much, much more.

Posted June 02, 12:00 PM

TT and OGIC: Feedback

A reader writes, apropos of Terry's recent trip to Chicago:

Dear OGIC and Terry:

No time for hot dogs, but I had a day in Chicago worthy of you both yesterday. I put the "Gone Fishing" sign on the door and lit out early from Milwaukee to Chicago, where I caught the matinee Henry IV at the Chicago Shakes. Terry, I'm with Harold Bloom on Falstaff, meaning I think more of him and his code of life-affirming values and less of Hal than you do, but it speaks volumes for how wonderfully this play was done--and of how great the play itself is--that what I saw yesterday supports my interpretation as well as your own. And thanks for the tip on the box lunches--it sure beat the power bar I would have been eating otherwise.

It was then on to Hyde Park, for an evening with Lettice and Lovage. I thought the plot was a bit spotty, but the deadly earnest and real nature of the dialogue, combined with large dollops of humor and tremendous acting, made it a perfect complement to the Shakespeare.

OK, so I didn't get back to Milwaukee until 1 this morning. And yes, I had to get up for work at 6. And yes, I'm exhausted as I write these words. But I wouldn't trade my day for anything in the world. There are few things in life as wonderful as good theater. One of them is knowing that there are people like the two of you to whom I can write and on whom I can count to understand exactly what I mean.

And another is having readers like this. Many thanks.

Posted June 02, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"No artist--like no public figure--should be taken at his own word."

Clement Greenberg, letter to Irving Sandler, April 5, 1971

Posted June 02, 12:00 PM

OGIC: Paperback heaven

Late to the party as usual I'm sure, but I've finally discovered Abe Books and am pretty excited. The first thing I did with the site was to search for five out-of-print Reginald Hill novels that I'd skipped over in working through the Dalziel-Pascoe series. This week they've been trickling in from five booksellers in five different states, all of this arranged in about ten minutes on the Abe site. Last night I started reading a widely adored one, Deadheads, whose out-of-print status has seemed especially inexplicable, and which arrived in the form of a 1983 Signet paperback that cost more to ship than to buy--but we're still talking in the neighborhood of $5, and hey, I found it. Already in the first dozen pages I've been treated to lines like this:

Dalziel's eyes glittered malevolently in his bastioned head like a pair of medieval defenders wondering where to pour the boiling oil.

Oh frabjous Abe!

Posted June 02, 9:51 AM

TT: In one era and out the other

Overheard yesterday at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival:

- Middle-aged woman in socks and sandals: "Have you seen The Diary of Anne Frank yet? I decided to go, even though I don't like seeing depressing shows--George Bush already has me depressed enough."

- Older woman: "It says here in the program that William Inge--he's the man who wrote this play, honey--was ‘ashamed at being homosexual.' What do you think of that?"

Older man: "Huh."

Older woman: "Well, what I want to know is, if he was so ashamed, why didn't he just stop?"

Posted June 02, 1:15 AM

June 1, 2006

TT: Gone west

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Ashland, Oregon, having just returned from a performance of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel (a nice coincidence, seeing as how I went to Baltimore on Sunday to watch CenterStage perform another of her plays, Crumbs from the Table of Joy). It was a long trip--twelve hours, portal to portal--but Ashland, a resort town snuggled in the middle of the Rogue River Valley, proved to be refreshingly lovely, as did the Ashland Springs Hotel, the place where I'm staying, with which I am well pleased.

I realized as I prepared to depart from Newark very early on Wednesday that I was embarking on my first transcontinental flight since I went to San Francisco to cover the world premiere of Jake Heggie's operatic version of Dead Man Walking for Time. (That was in the long-ago days when Time still took note of such things.) I was already afraid to fly in 2000, and a few years later my late-blooming anxiety was on the verge of becoming a full-blown, incapacitating phobia. I didn't want to rely on drugs in order to keep on flying, so I embarked instead on a rigorous course of psychotherapy. Now, 9/11 notwithstanding, it appears to have paid off. I flew from Newark to Denver to Oregon without the slightest twinge of anxiety. May it always be so.

Not having been to the West Coast in six years, I'd forgotten how compulsively beautiful the American West is when seen from the air. I spent the last two and a half hours of the trip with my nose pressed to the window, goggling at the geographic marvels passing in review beneath me, the words of the psalmist running through my head: What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Alas, I've never beheld such wonders other than in movies and from the windows of airplanes. Maybe I'll do something about it, now that I'm fifty.

For the next few days, though, I'll be spending most of my time sitting in aisle seats without a mountain view. I have four more plays to see between now and Saturday morning, when I return to New York and resume my regular duties. I'll do my best to keep in touch between now and then, but I've been on the go for twenty hours straight as I write these words, and the very next thing I need is a good night's sleep!

See you tomorrow.

Posted June 01, 12:00 PM

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I either gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened or saw and liked them some time in the past year (or both). For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:
- Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
- Chicago* (musical, R, adult subject matter and sexual content)
- The Drowsy Chaperone* (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)
- Faith Healer* (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
- The Lieutenant of Inishmore (black comedy, R, adult subject matter and extremely graphic violence, reviewed here)
- Sweeney Todd (musical, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)
- The Wedding Singer (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
- Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris (musical revue, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here)
- Slava's Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON:
- Awake and Sing! (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes June 25)
- Bridge & Tunnel (solo show, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes July 9)
- Doubt (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter and implicit sexual content, reviewed here, closes July 2)
- The Light in the Piazza (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter and a brief bedroom scene, reviewed here, closes July 2)

CLOSING THIS WEEKEND:
- Defiance (drama, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here, closes Sunday)

Posted June 01, 12:00 PM

TT: Almanac

"Beauty must be a byproduct of some other intention."

Robert Motherwell (quoted in Irving Sandler, A Sweeper-Up After Artists)

Posted June 01, 12:00 PM