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July 31, 2011

FILM

Posted July 31, 11:58 PM

July 29, 2011

TT: Just like new

In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I report on two more Shakespeare & Company productions, Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Is it possible for a play to be so well known that there's no longer anything new to do with it or say about it? If so, then "Romeo and Juliet" would fill the bill with room to spare. No Shakespeare play is more widely performed or frequently adapted. It's been filmed, parodied and turned into operas and ballets. Semi-literate people can reel off its best-known lines without thinking twice. Factor in "West Side Story" and you've got a recipe for saturation-level cultural omnipresence, the kind that can set a drama critic's eyeballs to rolling.

All true--and all blessedly irrelevant to Shakespeare & Company's "Romeo and Juliet," a production so unhackneyed and emotionally immediate that you'll feel as though you're seeing that most ubiquitous of masterpieces through a first-timer's eyes. What's more, Daniela Varon has brought off this miracle without ladling the rancid sauce of cleverness over Shakespeare's text. Instead she's given us a trick-free "R & J" devoid of the slightest hint of directorial manipulation, staged with passionate simplicity and performed by a cast whose youthful spark makes it possible to take the familiar plight of the star-crossed lovers at face value....

It's by no means an original idea to stage "Romeo and Juliet" with exceptionally young-looking players, but Ms. Varon has gone the whole hog: Susannah Millonzi, her Juliet, is tween-slight and sullenly tomboyish, while David Gelles looks as though he'd taken time off from starring in a high-school romcom to play Romeo. Once again, though, there's nothing tricky about this approach, especially in the case of Ms. Millonzi, who burns at both ends with an intensity hot enough to make you sweat....

A production as good as this one is by definition hard to follow, and even more so when you're following it with another play that's almost as familiar. But no apologies need be made for Tony Simotes' "As You Like It," a light and lovely romp charged with festive midsummer energy. Mr. Simotes, the company's artistic director, has chosen to set Shakespeare's great comedy of mistaken identity and romantic reconciliation in Paris in the Twenties, and Arthur Oliver, the costume designer, takes the ball and gallops down the field, dressing the cast in a riotously colorful medley of outfits that make you wish you could put on one of your own and join in the fun....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted July 29, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Compassion is something individual and voluntary. You cannot compel somebody to be compassionate; nor can you be vicariously compassionate by compelling somebody else. The Good Samaritan would have lost all merit if a Roman soldier were standing by the road with a drawn sword, telling him to get on with it and look after the injured stranger."

Enoch Powell, Still to Decide

Posted July 29, 12:00 AM

July 28, 2011

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Jan. 8, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren't actively prudish, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Master Class (drama, G/PG-13, not suitable for children, extended through Sept. 4, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, off-Broadway remounting of Broadway production, original run reviewed here)

IN LENOX, MASS:
• The Memory of Water (serious comedy, PG-13, some adult subject matter, closes Sept. 4, reviewed here)

IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:
• Oklahoma! (musical, G, remounting of 2010 production, suitable for children, closes Oct. 2, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• As You Like It (Shakespeare, G/PG-13, closes Aug. 14, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN CAPE MAY, N.J.:
• The Understudy (comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN PETERBOROUGH, N.H.:
• Ancestral Voices (drama, G, reviewed here)

Posted July 28, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs."

Enoch Powell, Joseph Chamberlain

Posted July 28, 12:00 AM

July 27, 2011

TT: Snapshot

Flanders & Swann sing "A Song of Patriotic Prejudice," from At the Drop of Another Hat, as performed on Broadway in 1967:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

Posted July 27, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

No--through th'extended globe his feelings run

As broad and general as th'unbounded sun!

No narrow bigot he;--his reason'd view

Thy interests, England, ranks with thine, Peru!

France at our doors, he sees no danger nigh,

But heaves for Turkey's woes the impartial sigh;

A steady patriot of the world alone,
The friend of every country--but his own.

George Canning, "New Morality"

Posted July 27, 12:00 AM

July 26, 2011

TT: So you want to get reviewed

Now that I'm starting to plan my fall travels in earnest, it's time for a newly revised repeat performance of this perennial posting. If you've seen it before and aren't interested, my apologies!

* * *

If you read the Friday Wall Street Journal or this blog with any regularity, you probably know that I'm the only drama critic in America who routinely covers theatrical productions from coast to coast. Don't take my word for it, though. Ask Howard Sherman, formerly of the American Theatre Wing, who blogged as follows earlier this year:

To get a regional show to Broadway, one must find a producer who wants to champion the show and take it on as a major commitment. Unfortunately, producers aren't flying to theatres around the country constantly checking out every possible new play and revival for their next Broadway success. And unless you're in a major city and you have a preponderance of positive reviews by long established critics (whose numbers are in decline), your own entreaties aren't likely to cause anyone to jump on a plane unless you already have a relationship with them.

As for "national press" discovering your work and bringing it to the attention of New York bound producers, your only real option is luring The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout to see your show (and Terry regularly publishes his guidelines for what he's likely to be interested in). While The New York Times ventures out of town on occasion (though most frequently to the Berkshires, Chicago or London, it seems), it's rare even for the country's largest newspaper, USA Today, to see work outside of New York; attention from television and radio is even rarer.

So what if you run a company I haven't visited? How might you lure me to come see you for the first time? Now's the time to start asking that question, because I'm hard at work on my reviewing calendar for the first half of the 2011-12 season. Here, then, are the guidelines that I use for deciding which out-of-town shows to see, along with some suggestions for improving the ways in which you reach out to the press:

• Get your schedule to me as soon as possible. That means well in advance of the public announcement. I'll keep it to myself.

• Basic requirements. I only review professional companies. I don't review dinner theater, and it's very unusual for me to visit children's theaters. (Sorry, but I have to draw the line somewhere.) I'm more likely to review Equity productions, but that's not a hard-and-fast rule, and I'm strongly interested in small companies.

• You must produce a minimum of three shows each season—and two of them have to be serious. I won't put you on my drop-dead list for milking the occasional cash cow, but if The Santaland Diaries is your idea of a daring new play, I won't go out of my way to come calling on you, either.

• I have no geographical prejudices. On the contrary, I love to range far afield, particularly to states that I haven't yet gotten around to visiting in my capacity as America's drama critic. Alaska and Colorado continue to loom largest, and I'm also way overdue for a repeat visit to Texas, but if you're doing something exciting in (say) Mississippi or Montana, I'd be more than happy to add you to the list as well.

• Repertory is everything. I won't visit an out-of-town company that I've never seen to review a play by an author of whom I've never heard. What I look for on a first visit is an imaginative mix of revivals of major plays—including comedies—and newer works by living playwrights and songwriters whose work I've admired. Some names on the latter list: Alan Ayckbourn, Brooke Berman, Nilo Cruz, Liz Flahive, Brian Friel, Athol Fugard, John Guare, Adam Guettel, A.R. Gurney, David Ives, Michael John LaChiusa, Kenneth Lonergan, Lisa Loomer, David Mamet, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, Itamar Moses, Lynn Nottage, Peter Shaffer, Stephen Sondheim, Shelagh Stephenson, and Tom Stoppard.

I also have a select list of older shows I'd like to review that haven't been revived in New York lately (or ever). If you're doing The Beauty Part, The Entertainer, Hotel Paradiso, The Iceman Cometh, Loot, Man and Superman, No Time for Comedy, Rhinoceros, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Visit, or just about anything by Jean Anouilh, Bertolt Brecht, T.S. Eliot, Horton Foote, William Inge, or Terence Rattigan, kindly drop me a line.

Finally, I'm very specifically interested in seeing large-cast plays that no longer get performed in New York for budgetary reasons.

• BTDT. I almost never cover regional productions of new or newish plays that I reviewed in New York in the past season or two—especially if I panned them. Hence the chances of my coming to see your production of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo are well below zero. (Suggestion: if you're not already reading my Journal column, you might want to start.)

In addition, there are shows that I like but have written about more than once in the past few seasons and thus am not likely to seek out again for the next few seasons. Some cases in point: American Buffalo, Arcadia, Awake and Sing!, Biography, Blithe Spirit, Dividing the Estate, Endgame, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Glass Menagerie, Guys and Dolls, Heartbreak House, Life of Galileo, The Little Foxes, A Little Night Music, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Our Town, Private Lives, She Loves Me, Speed-the-Plow, Twelve Angry Men, Waiting for Godot, West Side Story, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (I am, however, going to keep on reviewing What the Butler Saw until somebody gets it right!)

• I group my shots. It isn't cost-effective for me to fly halfway across the country to review a single show. Whenever possible, I like to take in two or three different productions during a four- or five-day trip. (Bear in mind, though, that they don't all have to be in the same city.) If you're the publicist of the Upper Nowheresville Repertory Company and you want me to review your revival of Six Degrees of Separation, your best bet is to point out that TheaterNowhere also happens to be doing Lobby Hero that same weekend. Otherwise, I'll probably go to Chicago instead.

• I don't travel in the spring. Broadway is usually so busy in March and April that I'm not able to go anywhere else to see anything else. If you're going to put on a show that you think might catch my eye, consider doing it between September and February.

• Web sites matter. A lot. A clean-looking home page that conveys a maximum of information with a minimum of clutter tells me that you know what you're doing, thus increasing the likelihood that I'll come see you. An unprofessional-looking, illogically organized home page suggests the opposite. (If you can't spell, hire a proofreader.) This doesn't mean I won't consider reviewing you—I know appearances can be deceiving—but bad design is a needless obstacle to your being taken seriously by other online visitors.

If you want to keep traveling critics happy, make very sure that the front page of your Web site contains the following easy-to-find information and features:

(1) The title of your current production, plus its opening and closing dates.

(2) Your address and main telephone number (not the box office!).

(3) A SEASON or NOW PLAYING button that leads directly to a complete list of the rest of the current and/or upcoming season's productions. Make sure that this listing includes the press opening date of each production!

(4) A CALENDAR or SCHEDULE button that leads to a month-by-month calendar of all your performances, including curtain times.

(5) A CONTACT US button that leads to an updated directory of staff members (including individual e-mail addresses, starting with the address of your press representative).

(6) A DIRECTIONS or VISIT US button that leads to a page containing directions to your theater and a printable map of the area. Like many people, I rely on my GPS unit when driving, so it is essential that this page also include the street address of the theater where you perform. Failure to conspicuously display this address is a hanging offense. (I also suggest that you include a list of recommended restaurants and hotels that are close to the theater.)

This is an example of a good company with an attractive, well-organized Web site on which most of the above information is easy to find.

• Please omit paper. I strongly prefer to receive press releases via e-mail, and I don't want to receive routine Joe-Blow-is-now-our-assistant-stage-manager announcements via any means whatsoever.

• Write to me here. Mail sent to me at my Wall Street Journal e-mail address invariably gets lost in the flood of random press releases. As a result, I no longer recommend that anyone write to me there. I get a lot of spam at my "About Last Night" mailbox, too, but not nearly as much as I do at the Journal. Any e-mail sent to me at the Journal that contains attachments will be discarded unread.

(Really smart publicists will know how to find out my personal e-mail address, and will use it instead of writing to me here.)

Finally:

• Mention this posting. I've come to see shows solely because publicists who read my blog wrote to tell me that their companies were doing a specific show that they had good reason to think might interest me. Go thou and do likewise.

Posted July 26, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"First comes the language of commitment and incitement, then come the corpses."

David Pryce-Jones, Treason of the Heart: From Thomas Paine to Kim Philby

Posted July 26, 12:00 AM

July 25, 2011

CATALOGUE

Posted July 25, 1:10 PM

BOOK

Posted July 25, 1:09 PM

CD

Posted July 25, 1:08 PM

TT: And away we go!

Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, opens on September 15 in Orlando, Florida. Regular readers of this blog will recall that I directed a staged reading of the first part of Satchmo at the Waldorf in Winter Park back in February. (I blogged about the experience here and here.) This, however, is the real thing, a fully staged professional production featuring Dennis Neal, the star of February's reading.

Here's a blurb that I wrote about the play for publicity purposes:

It's a biographer's job to stick to the facts. In Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, I summed up what is known about the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century. But after I finished writing the book, I found that I had questions about Armstrong, and about his complex relationship with Joe Glaser, his longtime manager, that I simply couldn't answer. How did Armstrong really feel about Glaser? And how did he feel, deep down inside, about his own life and work? Did he have any nagging doubts about the hard choices he'd made along the way? It struck me that a one-man play in which Armstrong looked back on those choices at the end of his life might prove to be very dramatic--and that it would be even more dramatic to have the same actor play Armstrong and Glaser. That's how Satchmo at the Waldorf was born.

Satchmo at the Waldorf will be presented at Orlando Shakespeare's Mandell Theatre. It runs Sept. 15-Oct. 2, with performances on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 and Sundays at 2:30. For information, call 407-405-8091 or e-mail SatchmoWaldorfAstoria@gmail.com.

Here's the press release. Pass it on--and watch this space for further details.

* * *

On September 15, Louis Armstrong comes back to life at the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, where Dennis Neal stars in the world premiere of Terry Teachout's Satchmo at the Waldorf, a one-man play about the most beloved jazzman of all time. Set at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong performed in public for the last time before his death in 1971, Satchmo at the Waldorf is a theatrical tour de force, a play in which the same actor portrays Armstrong and Joe Glaser, the trumpeter's controversial manager. Inspired by their actual words, the play takes a searching look at the complex relationship between the genius from New Orleans who turned jazz into a swinging art form and the hard-nosed, tough-talking ex-gangster from Chicago who made him an international icon.

The three men behind this powerhouse production include the playwright, Terry Teachout, drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and author of the best-selling biography, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong; the director, Rus Blackwell, one of Florida's top actor-directors; and the star, Dennis Neal, a familiar face on Orlando stage and in film and television who acts with special insight into the essence of Armstrong.

In addition to being a drama critic and biographer, Teachout has also worked as a professional jazz bassist and written the libretti for two operas. He spent the past two winters as a scholar-in-residence at Rollins College's Winter Park Institute, where he wrote the first draft of Satchmo at the Waldorf last year. Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong was praised by the New York Times as "eloquent and important" and chosen by the Washington Post as one of the ten best books of 2009. Satchmo at the Waldorf is his first play.

Teachout was the first Armstrong biographer to have access to 650 reel-to-reel tapes made by the trumpeter during the last quarter-century of his life, many of which contain astonishingly candid recordings of his private after-hours conversations. These tapes served as the inspiration for much of the dialogue in Satchmo at the Waldorf, in which the offstage Louis Armstrong--raw, frank, and uncensored--is revealed for the first time.

Rus Blackwell, one of the most sought-after actor/directors in the southeast, brings a wealth of experience and a passion for storytelling to Satchmo. Blackwell is a graduate of New York's Circle in the Square Theatre School, where he had the opportunity to study with well-known directors Michael Kahn and Nikos Psachoropolous. Most recently, he directed Sweet Bird of Youth and A Streetcar Named Desire for the Tennessee Williams Tribute in Williams' birthplace of Columbus, Miss. He is a founding member and former artistic director for Mad Cow Theatre Company and SoulFire Theatre here in Orlando and has an extensive resume as an actor in theatre, film and television. Some of his credits include last year's Shotgun for Orlando Shakespeare and such feature films as Monster, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Dolphin Tale, and Battle: Los Angeles. He will be appearing on the Starz series Magic City and in this year's God of Carnage here at the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre.

Dennis Neal, one of Orlando's most respected actors with twenty-five years' experience, is a founding member of Mad Cow Theatre and has performed in such notable productions as The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Jesus Hopped the A Train, Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, The Piano Lesson, and Shotgun. Theatregoers will recognize him from these and many other productions at Mad Cow Theatre, Empty Spaces, the Peoples' Theatre, and the Orlando Shakespeare Festival, as well as from film and TV in Dead Man Walking, Wild Things, Endure, Letters to God, Sunshine State, ABC's The Practice, and NBC's The West Wing. He has performed in works by August Wilson, Athol Fugard, David Mamet, and Stephen Adly Guirgis, and brings his own unique style and brilliance to Satchmo at the Waldorf.

William Elliot, the set and lighting designer, has long been a favorite for his artistic interpretation of a playwright's vision. He was a professor at the University of Central Florida and is currently professor at Stetson University teaching production and acting as the production manager and technical director for the University. Some of his notable designs include All My Sons, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Posted July 25, 12:00 AM

TT: Just because

Louis Armstrong and the All Stars perform "Blueberry Hill" on Australian TV in 1963:

Posted July 25, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"A counterfactual account of history appeals especially to people who are disappointed in the real thing. Settled fact is unsatisfying; history as it occurs seems somehow a cheat."

Andrew Ferguson, "What Does Newt Gingrich Know?" (New York Times Magazine, June 29, 2011)

Posted July 25, 12:00 AM

July 22, 2011

TT: Courtesy of Winslow Homer...

...here's the view from our hotel balcony overlooking the coast of Maine:

Posted July 22, 12:09 PM

THE SNARE OF PERFECTIONISM

Posted July 22, 9:40 AM

TT: Three-sister act

In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review two first-class shows that I saw on the road this past week, Shakespeare & Company's The Memory of Water in Massachusetts and the Peterborough Players' Ancestral Voices in New Hampshire. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Sometimes familiarity breeds not contempt but delight. The dramatic potential of funerals, for instance, is well known to playwrights and screenwriters, since they typically trigger the kind of razor-sharp focus on family life and its discontents that is the stuff of good theater. Yet the subject of death and its immediate aftermath, however familiar it may be, remains inexhaustibly fertile, and Shelagh Stephenson's "The Memory of Water," which had its English premiere in 1996 and was first seen Off Broadway two years later, is a prime example of a play that turns an oft-told tale into something fresh and immediate. So, too, is Shakespeare & Company's revival a wholly satisfying piece of work, a show full of bull's-eye moments that make you sit up straight in your seat and say, "I've been there--that's just how it is."

One of the reasons why "The Memory of Water" rings so true is that the three bereaved sisters who are its central characters are portrayed with such eccentric individuality that you can't help but suspect that they were drawn from life. Played to perfection by Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Corinna May and Kristin Wold, they flounder in the dark waters of sorrow, squabbling one moment and giggling together the next, each unable in her own way to come to terms with the memory of their gravely flawed mother (Annette Miller).

Like an old-time prospector, Ms. Stephenson is forever finding glittering nuggets of dialogue in her pan: "Your idea of getting somewhere was marrying a dentist in a sheepskin coat from the Rotary Club." "The funeral director's got a plastic hand." "I don't think that colonic irrigation was a very good idea. Not for Alzheimer's." But while "The Memory of Water" plays like a comedy for much of its length, many of its most impressive moments take place when the laughter dies away without warning and the characters are overwhelmed by remembered anger and present pain....

A.R. Gurney is another playwright who rarely fails to find new things to say about old subjects, and "Ancestral Voices" ranks among his strongest efforts in that line, a portrait of a family of old-money WASPs from upstate New York whose tight ranks have been cloven by the wedge of divorce. First presented by New York's Lincoln Center Theater in 1999, "Ancestral Voices" was written to be done as a staged reading by five actors who play multiple roles and remain seated throughout the show--but Gus Kaikkonen, artistic director of New Hampshire's Peterborough Players, has chosen instead to mount it as a fully staged play performed by a cast of 13. Though I can't say whether Mr. Gurney would approve, Mr. Kaikkonen has directed "Ancestral Voices" with such fluidity and attention to detail that it works at least as well in this new form.

I confess with embarrassment to having misjudged "Ancestral Voices" when I saw the original production. Back then it struck me as a white-bread rewrite of Woody Allen's "Radio Days." Now I find it extraordinarily moving, a searching look at a class of once-confident Americans who have (in the words of one of the characters) "lost our usefulness" and are seeking new ways to live, some more successfully than others....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted July 22, 12:00 AM

TT: The snare of perfectionism

In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I reflect on the problem of perfectionism in the arts. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Twenty-six years after his death, Orson Welles is back in the news. "Chimes at Midnight," the 1965 film version of Shakespeare's history plays that occupied him throughout his middle age, will be shown in England next month in what is being billed as a "brand-new, never-seen-before restoration." The reason why it had to be restored is that "Chimes at Midnight" was made independently and on the cheap, for by 1965 Welles had so antagonized the Hollywood establishment that no major studio would have anything to do with him. As a result, "Chimes at Midnight" was shot, edited and dubbed under sub-standard conditions, and the prints that have circulated since the film's original release are all of low quality.

Welles' long-standing difficulties with Hollywood are the stuff of legend. At bottom, though, they amount to this: He was a fanatical, impractical perfectionist who was willing to spend any amount of time and money on his films. But it was always other people's money, and the moguls who put up the money in Hollywood did so in order to make still more money. After Welles made "Citizen Kane" in 1941, it was clear that he was neither interested in making box-office smashes nor willing to tolerate the relentless assembly-line discipline of the American film industry. Hence he spent most of the rest of his life wandering in the wilderness of underfunded independent film production, unable to fully realize any of his creative dreams.

Is it fair to say that Welles' perfectionism laid him low? Every great artist, after all, strives for perfection. In fact, that's part of what makes them great: They're never entirely satisfied with anything that they do....

Alas, that kind of suffering goes with the territory. The trick, as every artist knows, is not to let it interfere with getting things done. The wisest artists are the ones who finish a new work, walk away and move on to the next project. Whenever a colleague pointed out a "mistake" in one of Dmitri Shostakovich's compositions, he invariably responded, "Oh, I'll fix that in my next piece."

The road to malignant perfectionism, by contrast, starts with chronic indecision. Jerome Robbins, whose inability to make up his mind was legendary throughout the world of dance, was known for choreographing multiple versions of a variation, then waiting until the last possible minute to decide which one to use. Beyond a certain point, this kind of perfectionism is all but impossible to distinguish from unprofessionalism, and Orson Welles reached that point early in his career....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Orson Welles talks about Chimes at Midnight and the character of Falstaff in a BBC interview:

Posted July 22, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"For, in certain moods, no man can weigh this world, without throwing in something, somehow like Original Sin, to strike the even balance."

Herman Melville, "Hawthorne and the Mosses"

Posted July 22, 12:00 AM

July 21, 2011

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Jan. 8, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren't actively prudish, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Master Class (drama, G/PG-13, not suitable for children, extended through Sept. 4, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• As You Like It (Shakespeare, G/PG-13, closes Aug. 14, reviewed here)
• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:
• Oklahoma! (musical, G, remounting of 2010 production, suitable for children, closes Oct. 2, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CAPE MAY, N.J.:
• The Understudy (comedy, PG-13, closes July 30, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN CAPE MAY, N.J.:
• He and She (drama, G, not suitable for small children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Play Dead (theatrical spook show, PG-13, utterly unsuitable for easily frightened children or adults, reviewed here)

Posted July 21, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"There should be no such profession as criticism. Musicologists, of course, are quite different, and this is a sadly neglected profession in this country--but there should definitely be no regular critics. To go through life living off other people's work clearly has too degrading an effect."

Benjamin Britten, "Variations on a Critical Theme"

Posted July 21, 12:00 AM

July 20, 2011

TT: Snapshot

Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten perform Schubert's "Mein," from Die schöne Müllerin:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

Posted July 20, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"I think greatness happens accidentally--that sometimes one can write a little tiny piece for children or for brass band or something like that, and it may quite easily turn out to be much more important for posterity--if one can worry about posterity--than anyone's symphonies in B flat minor. I think Schoenberg himself said that you can't save the world with every Adagio."

Benjamin Britten (interview, CBC, Nov. 21, 1961)

Posted July 20, 12:00 AM

July 19, 2011

TT: Almanac

"Music demands more from a listener than simply the possession of a tape-machine or a transistor radio. It demands some preparation, some effort, a journey to a special place, saving up for a ticket, some homework on the programme perhaps, some clarification of the ears and sharpening of the instincts. It demands as much effort on the listener's part as the other two corners of the triangle, this holy triangle of composer, performer and listener."

Benjamin Britten, On Receiving the First Aspen Award

Posted July 19, 12:00 AM

July 18, 2011

TT: Pops in a box

Satchmo: Louis Armstrong, the Ambassador of Jazz, out on August 9 from Universal, is an elaborately packaged box set that contains seven CDs' worth of classic Armstrong recordings, three bonus discs, a two-hundred-page hardcover book, and various other souvenir-type items. According to Russ Titelman, the producer, Satchmo purports to be "the definitive version of the Armstrong legacy." This is, of course, nonsense. Still, it's certainly possible, at least in theory, to convey a reasonably complete sense of what Armstrong was all about within the compass of a seven-disc set.

Does Satchmo get the job done? I haven't seen it yet, and nobody at Universal asked for my advice, but I have seen a complete track listing, and I can tell you that of the thirty "key recordings by Louis Armstrong" listed in the appendix to Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, twenty-seven will be included on Satchmo. That's a damned good batting average--which figures, since Armstrong scholar-blogger Ricky Riccardi was mainly responsible for selecting the tracks.

For me, the only jaw-dropping omission was "Beau Koo Jack," though it's certainly not one of Armstrong's most famous recordings, nor is it included in my appendix. In addition, there's nothing from the justly celebrated album that Armstrong made with Duke Ellington in 1962. (Alas, Universal doesn't control the rights to that album.) Otherwise, virtually all of the really important sides are present and accounted for, and plenty more besides.

I don't know who's going to buy Satchmo, nor do I think there's much point in purchasing such a megadeluxe package when you can acquire all of Armstrong's greatest recordings separately at very reasonable prices (or download them from iTunes). Still, my preliminary impression is that if you're interested, this set appears to be an excellent piece of work.

* * *

Here's a promotional video for Satchmo, which includes a tour of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens. It's worth watching:

Posted July 18, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"All of us--the public, critics, and composers themselves--spend far too much time worrying about whether a work is a shattering masterpiece. Let us not be so self-conscious. Maybe in thirty years' time very few works that are well known today will still be played, but does that matter so much? Surely out of the works that are written some good will come, even if it is not now; and these will lead on to people who are better than ourselves."

Benjamin Britten, interviewed by Edmund Tracey (Sadler's Wells Magazine, Autumn 1966)

Posted July 18, 12:00 AM

July 15, 2011

TT: A stage for all seasons

In today's Wall Street Journal I review the Royal Shakespeare Company's Lincoln Center Festival staging of As You Like It and another production in Cape May, New Jersey, Cape May Stage's version of Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

The real star of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of "As You Like It" is the stage. In order to perform five Shakespeare plays as part of this summer's Lincoln Center Festival, the RSC has built a replica of the 965-seat Elizabethan-style open-stage auditorium of its Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and installed it inside the Park Avenue Armory. That's quite a trick--but it's not a stunt. The 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall is one of the biggest unobstructed interior spaces in Manhattan, and the only such place where it's feasible to mount a six-week repertory season. What's more, the hall is large enough to be naturally resonant. You can hear the actors reveling in the acoustic "bloom" that envelops their voices--and because the audience is wrapped around three sides of the stage, the sight lines are perfect....

As for the production itself, it's solidly made and frequently inspired, though the first half is straightforward to the point of occasional baldness. Michael Boyd, the company's artistic director, has eschewed high concepts and given us a more or less traditional "As You Like It," the theatrical equivalent of a warm, crusty loaf spread with the very best butter....

If you live in New York and don't see shows elsewhere, then the RSC's visit is by definition a big deal. But while "As You Like It" is really, really good, all you have to do to see something just as good is get out of town--or live somewhere else....

When I first saw "The Understudy," I was struck by how the frenetic zaniness of the first half suddenly gave way to an unexpectedly serious group portrait of disappointment and disillusion. Even though both halves worked, they didn't seem to fit together. But this production, ably directed by Roy Steinberg and very well acted by G.R. Johnson, Luke Darnell and Kristen Calgaro, makes a different impression, perhaps because Mr. Steinberg's cast plays the first half of "The Understudy" more for truth than for laughs. While the Cape May Stage version isn't as obviously funny as the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2009 production, the transition to the second half of the play is smooth and seamless, resulting in a show that makes better emotional sense....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted July 15, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"The fact is, though nobody has perceived it, that a professional play-critic is a monstrosity--a sow with five legs or a man with four thumbs. Nature did not intend him, and that is why we have to conceal our repulsion when he confronts us. A keen playgoer may see, perhaps, ten, fifteen, or even twenty plays a year, and it is for him that dramatists write and that managers dangle their bait. Your newspaper-critic may see a hundred productions in a year. The result is--let me put it with unmistakable simplicity--that he does not see any play as a normal citizen would see it. He is therefore as fantastic a freak as the Yorkshireman who ate half a dozen ordinary breakfasts. However, I must give you an example of my contention. Some years ago I glanced at a play-notice by X.Y.Z., whose conceit would be pathetic if it were tolerable, and in his notice he wrote, 'Then the usual quartet of lawn-tennis players came on, with the usual racquets,' and, we deduce, immediately bored X.Y.Z. Not until I had read these words did I realise, being only an average playgoer, that several playwrights must have recently used the convenient device of a tennis-party for getting their characters on and off the stage. Does not this example demonstrate in a twinkling that X.Y.Z. may black-mark a play for some effect which will seem to me and you unobjectionable and even adroit? He sees too many plays, eats too many breakfasts, is a monster."

Clifford Bax (quoted in James Agate, Ego 8)

Posted July 15, 12:00 AM

July 14, 2011

TT: Anecdotage

This is my all-time favorite George Cukor story. It comes from No Minor Chords, André Previn's autobiography. I hope it's true!

* * *

While George was in the Army during the war, he was assigned to the Signal Corps Movie Unit, which was run by Frank Capra. One day he was called to Capra's office on Long Island.

"Get a cameraman and an editor, and go to the Pentagon. General Patton is back from Europe and he'd like to make a filmed statement in his office." George duly took off for Washington, D.C., with two cohorts. At the Pentagon they were told to se up the camera and the lights in the general's office and wait for his imminent return. Cukor took a disbelieving look around the stark quarters.

"Good Lord," he said, his sophisticated taste affronted, "crossed swords behind the desk! How on the nose can we get? Let's take them down, move the desk in front of the window, and see if we can get a better chair." His two co-workers were apprehensive. Patton was a man who wore a steel helmet at all times, carried a revolver, and was not given to a lot of patience. But George was not to be swayed; after all, he was back in his element, he was directing film, and the fact that he was a buck private about to deal with the scourge of Rommel did not enter his mind. The swords were taken down and the desk was in mid-move when Patton flung open the door and walked in. His rage was instant and fearful. He screamed at the top of his voice, "What do you think you're doing, you unspeakable Hollywood bastards!" This was only the beginning of a flow of invective of which Blackbeard the Pirate would have been proud. George sighed deeply with resignation. He was not at all frightened. Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo--he had dealt with tantrums all his life. He walked over to the general, who was now nearing the fortissimo apex of his wrath, and put his arm around the shoulder with the four stars on it. "Now, General," he said, soft-voiced and persuasive, "are we going to be silly about this?"

The cameraman and the editor blanched. Visions of firing squads or guillotines danced in front of them. Patton stopped in mid-threat. Never had he heard a sentence remotely like the one this private had just uttered. The insanity of the moment got to him, and he laughed and laughed. The swords were put back, the newsreel was filmed, and George Cukor went back to the Signal Corps bass, innocent of the dire consequences his friends had deemed inevitable.

* * *

George S. Patton gives a speech in Los Angeles in 1945. This clip is drawn from a Signal Corps documentary narrated by Ronald Reagan:

Posted July 14, 12:00 AM

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Jan. 8, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren't actively prudish, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Master Class (drama, G/PG-13, not suitable for children, extended through Sept. 4, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CAPE MAY, N.J.:
• He and She (drama, G, not suitable for small children, closes July 23, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• Play Dead (theatrical spook show, PG-13, utterly unsuitable for easily frightened children or adults, closes July 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN PITTSFIELD, MASS.:
• Guys and Dolls (musical, G, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CHICAGO:
• The Front Page (comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN PITTSBURGH:
• House & Garden (two related serious comedies, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• A Little Journey (drama, G, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• The Motherf**ker with the Hat (serious comedy, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

Posted July 14, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"But Dave's approach to chocolate was actually pretty low-key, in the context of the new foodie movement which has sprung up around fine chocolate. This movement has, alas, spawned its own insufferable rhetoric, such that, in reading over various high-end chocolate catalogs, you are likely to encounter descriptions of this ilk: A saucy single-bean, grown exclusively in the shady lowlands of Ghana and harvested on alternating Tuesdays, at dusk. Notes of cardamom and oak predominate, with an insouciant creosote finish. (Those familiar with other luxury foods--wine and coffee, for instance--are no doubt familiar with this process: the curdling of expertise into hauteur.)"

Steve Almond, Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America

Posted July 14, 12:00 AM

July 13, 2011

TONY KUSHNER'S CHARACTERS SHOULD STOP TALKING NOW

Posted July 13, 11:42 PM

TT: A little traveling music, maestro

Mrs. T and I depart today on a two-week tour of theater companies in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. We'll be doing a lot of driving, and I thought it might amuse you to know what CDs I've packed for the road:

• Pat Metheny, What It's All About

• The Rockin' Hammond of...Milt Buckner

• Stephen Sondheim: The Story So Far...

• John Wesley Harding, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead

• Booker T. and the MGs: The Definitive Soul Collection

• Donald Fagen, Morph the Cat

See you elsewhere!

Posted July 13, 11:52 AM

TT: Snapshot

"All the Cats Join In," a 1946 Walt Disney cartoon animated by Fred Moore and accompanied by Benny Goodman's orchestra. This cartoon originally appeared as part of the animated feature Make Mine Music:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

Posted July 13, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"I had decided to write about candy because I assumed it would be fun and frivolous and distracting. It would allow me to reconnect to the single, untarnished pleasure of my childhood. But, of course, there are no untarnished pleasures. That is only something the admen of our time would like us to believe. Most of our escape routes are also powerful reminders; and whatever our conscious motives might be, in our secret hearts we wish to be led back into our grief."

Steve Almond, Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America

Posted July 13, 12:00 AM

July 12, 2011

TT: English, the not-so-universal language

I just got another wonderful e-mail from the Bulgarian translator of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong. Here it is, verbatim and in its entirety:

I am writing to you again because I am wondering how to interpret Armstrong's explanation of [Sid] Catlett's irresponsibility: "He played the chicks, he ran with the cats, he played the horses, played the numbers" (especially the horses). I am not sure how to understand these metaphors, as well as how exactly they fit together.

Could you also explain to me the meaning of the title of Armstrong's article "Stomping Piano Man"?

Also, I am not sure if I understand correctly the title "Keep the horn percolating" and the related statement, made by Armstrong. Could you say that in other words in order to get closer to the meaning?

And one more question related to a chapter title. Which one of the meanings of "sigh" has to be used in the context of "I don't sigh for nothing"?

Believe me, I did my best...

UPDATE: Several readers have asked how I answered these questions, so here goes:

• "He played the chicks" means "He had romantic and/or sexual involvements with many women."

• "He played the horses, played the numbers" means "He gambled." "To play the horses" is to bet on horse races. "The numbers" was a slang name for an illegal city-wide lottery-like game that was popular in most American cities--and especially in their black ghettoes--prior to the introduction of legal state lotteries in the U.S.

• "He ran with the cats" means "He spent time with his friends."

• In jazz, "stomping" means "hard-swinging," and a "piano man" is simply someone who is known for playing the piano.

• In this context, "Keep the horn percolating" means "Keep me musically inspired by having sex with me."

• "I don't sigh for nothing" means "I have no regrets."

Posted July 12, 12:00 AM

TT: Just because

Duke Ellington performs "Mood Indigo" in 1952:

Posted July 12, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Most forms of rage, after all, are only sloppy cloaks for grief."

Steve Almond, Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America

Posted July 12, 12:00 AM

July 11, 2011

TT: Forty-three things you may already know about me

Pardon my redundancy, but:

• Music is my first language, words my second. At bottom I still think of myself as a musician.

• I'm a pessimist--but an ebullient one.

• I'm a workaholic, but only out of necessity. If I became a rich man tomorrow, I'd probably stop writing for publication as soon as I made all of my outstanding deadlines--though I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't stop blogging or tweeting.

• I love hot dogs, trains, waterfalls, and the lyrics of Johnny Mercer.

• I loathe yappy dogs, preachy art, most of the music of Wagner, and all people who talk loudly on cellphones in public places.

• I'm almost never attracted by conventionally beautiful women. I prefer sharply drawn or "funny" faces, and I can rarely resist a jolie laide.

• With three exceptions, I've never been attracted to blondes.

• I am, alas, almost entirely indifferent to my personal appearance.

• I think--perhaps wrongly--that I have a gift for friendship.

• I wish I could live next to the sea.

• I enjoy pretending to be an Anglophobe, especially when in the company of Anglophiles.

• The secret of my literary success (such as it is) is that I write fast, know what I think, and don't equivocate.

• So long as I didn't have to lie in print, I'd be perfectly glad never to write another bad review. Nothing makes me happier than to be told that one of my reviews helped a show to sell out.

• Unrequited love's a bore, and I've had it pretty bad.

• I wish I wrote more simply.

• I talk a lot--often too much--but mainly as a tool to figure out what I think. I'd rather listen. (Really.)

• I snore.

• I hate being clumsy, but I've learned to live with it.

• Galliard is my favorite typeface.

• I try very hard to be fair.

• I'm not afraid to be wrong--and not unwilling to admit when I am.

• If I had to spend the rest of my life listening to one kind of music, and it couldn't be classical music or jazz, I'd pick Brazilian music.

• To me, all politicians are guilty until proven innocent, and sometimes even afterward.

• I wish I were funnier, but at least I'm a good audience. Make me laugh and I'll love you forever.

• I hate clutter.

• I can always watch a film noir or a good western.

• The professional achievement of which I'm proudest is my libretto for Paul Moravec's The Letter. Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong comes next.

• I'm also very proud of having written about Diana Krall and Maria Schneider early in their careers.

• I prefer plays to novels. If absolutely necessary, I could go the rest of my life without reading another novel, though I wouldn't want to.

• That said, the book I most wish I'd written is The Great Gatsby.

• I think The Rules of the Game is the greatest of all movies, Falstaff the greatest of all operas, The Four Temperaments the greatest of all ballets, and David Cromer's productions of Our Town and The Glass Menagerie the greatest shows I've ever seen on stage.

• My top five classical composers are Haydn, Schubert, Ravel, Copland, and Britten. (Note that I didn't say "greatest"!)

• Jim Hall is my favorite living jazz musician.

• I adore being a critic, but if I could make a decent living working in the theater, I'd do that instead.

• I almost never use semicolons.

• My proudest possession is my Max Beerbohm caricature of Percy Grainger.

• If I could have anybody else's speaking voice, it'd be James Mason's.

• If I could play piano like anybody else, it'd be Nat Cole or Ellis Larkins. (I'd happily flip a coin to choose between them.)

• I'm bad with names, and even worse with birthdays.

• Samuel Johnson is my hero.

• I bore easily--too easily.

• I have two mottoes, Always look forward and If there's no alternative, there's no problem.

• I fell in love with Mrs. T at first sight.

* * *

Jim Hall plays "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" in 1964, with Steve Swallow on bass and Pete LaRoca on drums:

Posted July 11, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Sociopaths love power. They love winning. If you take loving kindness out of the human brain, there's not much left except the will to win."

Martha Stout (quoted in Jon Almond, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry)

Posted July 11, 12:00 AM

July 9, 2011

CD

Posted July 09, 7:54 PM

July 8, 2011

WHY DOES NEW YORK NEED TWO OPERA COMPANIES? CAN ANYONE TELL US?

Posted July 08, 11:07 AM

TT: A footnote to "Sightings"

Apropos of my column in today's Wall Street Journal about the institutional mission of New York City Opera, here's an additional thought:

• "The people's opera" was a great mission statement.

• "The place where Beverly Sills sings" was a good (if limiting) mission statement.

• "The opera company that does some of what the Metropolitan Opera does, only not as often and not as well--and by the way, where are we performing next week?" is a really, really bad mission statement.

Posted July 08, 11:02 AM

TT: Maria Callas gets the guests

In today's Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway revival of Master Class and a production of Rachel Crothers' He and She by the East Lynne Theater Company of Cape May, New Jersey. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Maria Callas, the most famous and admired opera singer of the 20th century, taught a series of master classes at New York's Juilliard School in 1971, six years after she retired from the stage, and Terrence McNally, who in addition to being a much-produced playwright is a well-informed opera buff and occasional librettist, used them as the basis for a 1995 play called "Master Class" that hit big on Broadway and has since been revived frequently elsewhere. Now "Master Class" has returned to Broadway by way of Washington's Kennedy Center, this time in a production starring Tyne Daly, who has admitted in numerous interviews to knowing nothing about opera, and staged by Stephen Wadsworth, a theatrical director who also has extensive opera-house experience. It's a toothsome piece of melodrama, though you'll likely enjoy it more if you don't know much about opera, or about Callas.

It happens that Callas' master classes were recorded--you can hear them on YouTube--and so the first thing that needs to be said about "Master Class" is that it has very little to do with what happened at Juilliard 40 years ago. Except for Callas' last speech, which is drawn more or less verbatim from the tapes, Mr. McNally's play is mostly made up out of whole cloth, and while the teaching scenes are generally pretty believable, he has elsewhere sugared the pill thickly with over-obvious humor of his own....

Not surprisingly, it's in the teaching scenes that Mr. Wadsworth's operatic know-how pays off richly: They give an uncanny sense of how a teacher conveys hard-won knowledge to a responsive pupil. Ms. Daly, of course, looks nothing like Callas, but she does contrive to look like a diva in "Master Class," in part because she's been made over with uncanny skill by Martin Pakledinaz and Angelina Avallone, the costume and makeup designers. Her acting, though it's a bit broad, smolders with remembered heartbreak....

Rachel Crothers wrote 24 plays that were mounted on Broadway between 1906 and 1937, most of which she directed herself. Today she's almost entirely forgotten, but the Mint Theater's Off-Broadway productions of "Susan and God" and "A Little Journey" (which has just been extended through July 17) showed that Crothers was an author of considerable accomplishment. If you seek further proof of her gifts, head down to Cape May, the island resort town at the southern tip of New Jersey, where the East Lynne Theater Company is putting on a solidly satisfying revival of "He and She," written in 1911 and last seen on Broadway in 1920.

"He and She" is a proto-feminist play of ideas about two married sculptors (played with sympathy and verisimilitude by Tom Byrn and Molly O'Neill) who enter the same competition. You can probably guess what happens next, but you'll never guess what happens after that. Notwithstanding a slightly talky first act, Crothers makes their plight real, building to a denouement fraught with unexpected emotional complexity....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

To see Maria Callas interviewed by Lord Harewood in 1968, go here.

Terrence McNally talks about Master Class, with excerpts from Tyne Daly's performance at Washington's Kennedy Center:

Posted July 08, 12:00 AM

TT: Why does New York need a City Opera?

Next Tuesday New York City Opera announces its 2011-12 season. In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column I use the occasion to comment on the company's plight. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

The opera company that made stars out of Beverly Sills and Placido Domingo is now, as the world knows, on the brink of extinction. New York City Opera, long a fixture at Lincoln Center, has said that it can no longer afford to perform at America's largest performing-arts complex. Instead, George Steel, NYCO's general manager and artistic director, wants to present a cut-down season (five staged operas and several concert performances) at various locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Members of City Opera's chorus and orchestra responded by holding a demonstration in Lincoln Center Plaza last Thursday. They believe that leaving Lincoln Center would be the coup de grâce for a company that is already in desperate financial straits. According to Alan Gordon, the national executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, one of the unions that represent NYCO's employees, Mr. Steel's plan is a "formula for continued failure...In that form, City Opera doesn't deserve to exist, and if [Mr. Steel] can't run City Opera as the people's opera, then someone who can should take over."

Unfortunately, Mr. Gordon's statement amounts to little more than a plea for a manager-messiah with a magic wand. It does, however, contain one phrase worthy of closer consideration. It was Fiorello LaGuardia, the New York mayor who played a key role in the creation of NYCO, who dubbed the company "the people's opera" when it was founded in 1943. That was more than just a slogan: It was what businessmen have since learned to call a "mission statement." According to Mayor LaGuardia, NYCO existed to perform popular operas at popular prices. In later years it moved away from that goal, but the slogan stuck--and rightly so. No opera company has ever formulated a clearer statement of its institutional mission....

What now? Is there a sufficiently large audience for new and unfamiliar operas to keep NYCO afloat? Should the company instead turn back the clock and stick to "Carmen" and "La Bohème"? Or is there yet another road to solvency for City Opera? I don't have an answer, but I do know this: Whether it leaves Lincoln Center or stays put, New York City Opera must redefine its institutional mission in a way that makes sense to the public.

That's not a simple matter of coming up with a catchy slogan. Good mission statements grow naturally out of sound strategic thinking. Peter Drucker, the great management consultant, said that a mission statement should be "short and sharply focused. It should fit on a T-shirt. The mission says why you do what you do, not the means by which you do it....A mission cannot be impersonal; it has to have deep meaning, be something you believe in--something you know is right." That's what made "The People's Opera" so effective: It summed up in three crystal-clear words a mission that made sense.

Nearly seven decades later, NYCO is in urgent need of the same strategic clarity....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted July 08, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Contrary to Pascal's saying, we don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities."

Jacques Maritain, Reflections on America‎

Posted July 08, 12:00 AM

July 7, 2011

TT: Voices from the past

This is, or purports to be, the original laugh-track machine, invented by Charles Douglass in 1950:

I remember some of those canned laughs!

Posted July 07, 12:00 AM

TT: So you want to see a show?

Here's my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Jan. 8, reviewed here)
• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren't actively prudish, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Play Dead (theatrical spook show, PG-13, utterly unsuitable for easily frightened children or adults, closes July 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:
• The Front Page (comedy, PG-13, extended through July 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN PITTSBURGH:
• House & Garden (two related serious comedies, PG-13, closes July 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN PITTSFIELD, MASS.:
• Guys and Dolls (musical, G, closes July 16, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• A Little Journey (drama, G, extended through July 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• The Motherf**ker with the Hat (serious comedy, R, adult subject matter, closes July 17, reviewed here)

Posted July 07, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"A musical is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery. You can have all the elements, the right songs, the right book, the right cast, the right director, the right costume designer--and the lighting man can screw it up."

Johnny Mercer, in conversation with Gene Lees (quoted in Lees' Portrait of Johnny, courtesy of Michael Greenspan)

Posted July 07, 12:00 AM

July 6, 2011

TT: On the beach

National Review Online recently asked me to choose a short stack of books for summer reading. To see my list, go here.

Posted July 06, 11:15 AM

TT: Travels with Mrs. T (III)

WEDNESDAY No, this isn't a vacation. (What's a vacation?) I have to hit my weekly deadlines regardless of where I am at any given moment, so I got up shortly after sunrise and spent the morning writing and polishing my Wall Street Journal review of House & Garden while Mrs. T slept.

After I finished Friday's drama column and e-mailed it to my editors in New York, we ate omelets at a seaside spot a couple of blocks from our front door, then hit the beach. I'm one of those indoor types who gets sunburned roughly a minute and a half after stripping off my shirt. Instead of repining, I accepted the inevitable and plunged promptly and heedlessly into the sea, knowing that I'd pay the price a day or two later. It was, as always, worth it. Those who grow up landlocked don't take waves for granted. Indeed, I like listening to the ocean as much as I like swimming in it. No big surprise, I guess, but I never get tired of hearing the surf.

For dinner we went to our favorite Cape May restaurant, Louisa's Cafe, a hole-in-the-wallish seafood place whose cuisine is too eccentric for most tourists (every dish on the menu comes with brown rice and cabbage slaw on the side) but which suits us right down to the ground. The dining room is so tiny that you have to call at the start of the week to make a reservation, but we managed to wangle one. Mrs. T and I shared bluefish, crabcakes, and a generous helping of dark chocolate bread pudding, then strolled through town to the First Presbyterian Church of Cape May, in whose handsome polygonal sanctuary the East Lynne Theater Company performs. Along the way we stopped to call my brother in Smalltown, U.S.A., who told us that my mother, who nearly died three weeks ago, will go home from the rehab center on Friday. They don't make 'em like they used to!

THURSDAY Because of the way my schedule works, Mrs. T and I have to grab our weekends whenever and wherever we can. Ours came today. No shows and no deadlines, so we slept late, then spent the rest of the day on the beach. (Oh, to be able to squeal like a small boy riding a big wave!) In the evening we took a sunset dinner cruise on a Cape May Whale Watch boat, which cruised up and down the coast as we nibbled on pizza and hot dogs and scanned the horizon in search of whales, dolphins, and pretty clouds.

FRIDAY I rose at seven, toasted a bagel, planted myself in a rocking chair on a porch across the street from the Atlantic Ocean, and spent the morning reading Simon Morrison's The People's Artist: Prokofiev's Soviet Years, wishing with all my heart that we didn't have to leave after lunch. The hardest part of living out of a suitcase is that you're forever leaving places that you love.

I've been on a Prokofiev-Shostakovich kick for the past week, and Morrison's book, which somehow escaped my attention when it was published in this country last fall, is a major contribution to the Prokofiev literature, a brutally honest study of a self-centered émigré composer who returned to the Soviet Union in order to advance his career, then discovered to his dismay that life there was infinitely harder and more hazardous than he'd been led to believe. It doesn't make for pretty reading, though I don't love Prokofiev's music less for having learned that he was a ruthless opportunist--especially given the fact that he paid so high a price for his selfish folly.

At noon Mrs. T and I headed back to Connecticut. It took us nine hours to get there, three more than usual. In order to take our minds off the unmitigated hell of pre-Fourth-of-July traffic, we fired up the CD deck and listened to the Byrds, Neneh Cherry, Kiss Me, Kate and Lee Wiley all the way home, then fell with relief into bed and got a good night's sleep.

(Last of three parts)

Posted July 06, 12:00 AM

TT: Snapshot

A rare, undated sound film of Sergei Prokofiev playing an excerpt from his operatic version of War and Peace, followed by a brief Russian-language interview:

For a translation, go here and scroll down.

To hear Prokofiev speak in English, go here.

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

Posted July 06, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, such as falling in love at first sight."

Rudyard Kipling, "Lisbeth"

Posted July 06, 12:00 AM

July 5, 2011

TT: Travels with Mrs. T (II)

SUNDAY I asked my Twitter followers to suggest places to eat in Pittsburgh. Several of them said that Pamela's Diner was a must, so we went there on Sunday for a pre-matinée brunch. I ordered chorizo and eggs with Lyonnaise potatoes and a short stack of crepe-style pancakes on the side, and I wolfed down every last bite on my plate. Likewise Mrs. T, who opted for her standard combo (bacon and eggs over easy) and was, like me, staggered by the accompanying pancakes, whose crispy edges melt on the tongue. I like haute cuisine as much as the next flâneur, but high-quality all-American diner food rings my bell just as loudly, and Pamela's made it clang.

After seeing the second installment of Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre's production of Alan Ayckbourn's House & Garden, about which I raved a few days later in The Wall Street Journal, we drove halfway across Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is a good-news-bad-news affair, a monstrously busy thoroughfare surrounded by green fields and forests. Mrs. T looked at the scenery, I at the traffic, and by the time we got where we were going, I was worn out.

Fortunately, our not-too-fancy roadside hotel somewhere in the middle of the state had a hot tub, which helped dispel the horrors of the journey. What's more, we put two bucks in the soda machine and it promptly disgorged three bottles of Coke and change, which we did not return to the front desk. Honesty has its limits, especially after a long day on the road.

MONDAY We breakfasted at a Cracker Barrel across the parking lot from the hotel. Sneer if you must, but long experience as a road warrior has taught me that you can count on getting decent food and friendly service whenever you patronize a Cracker Barrel. The grits are only fair, but the hashbrown casserole is terrific, and you can also buy Goo Goo Clusters in the Old(e) Country Stores that are attached to every Cracker Barrel restaurant. Mrs. T, being a New Englander, had never eaten a Goo Goo. Now she knows what she's been missing.

After breakfast we returned to the road, and in mid-afternoon we arrived at Exit 0 on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway, meaning that Cape May, the seaside resort town at the southern tip of New Jersey, was around the corner and over the bridge. Longtime readers of this blog know that I adore Cape May, a quaint little island village whose beach is lined with Victorian mansions that have been spruced up and turned into inns and guest houses. Mrs. T fell in love with Cape May the first time I took her there, and we've been going back ever since. So long as you don't go at the height of the summer season, it's cheery, companionable, surprisingly quiet, and nothing like the Jersey Shore of reality-TV renown.

TUESDAY One of the blessings of my busy life as a peripatetic drama critic is that Cape May is home to two serious theater companies. Cape May Stage is performing Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy, whose 2009 off-Broadway premiere impressed me so much that I've been wanting to see another production of the play to find out whether it has staying power. In addition, the East Lynne Theater Company has revived He and She, a rarely seen 1911 play by Rachel Crothers, a near-forgotten American playwright in whose work I've lately taken an interest. Having seen two of Crothers' other plays mounted to memorable effect by New York's Mint Theater, I was eager to find out whether this one was as good as Susan and God and A Little Journey, and East Lynne, like the Mint, specializes in giving a second chance to once-popular plays that have dropped off the scope.

Given all this, it made sense for me to pay a working visit to Cape May this summer. Alas, there's no easy way to get there from Pittsburgh, so Mrs. T and I decided to make the trip by car, then drive the rest of the way home to Connecticut. That adds up to seven hundred miles on the road. Don't let anybody tell you that I'm not serious about covering regional theater!

(Second of three parts)

* * *

Bette Davis and Walter Pidgeon perform a radio adaptation of Rachel Crothers' Susan and God on Screen Guild Theater, originally broadcast by CBS in 1946:

Posted July 05, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work.

William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I

Posted July 05, 12:00 AM

July 4, 2011

TT: The way we were

To hear Harry Reasoner report the death of Ernest Hemingway on CBS Radio, go here.

Radio has changed a lot since 1961, hasn't it?

Posted July 04, 12:00 AM

TT: Salute!

John Philip Sousa introduces a 1931 performance of "The Stars and Stripes Forever," played by Sousa's Band and conducted by the composer:

Posted July 04, 12:00 AM

TT: In lieu of the real thing...

...Robert Casadesus plays Debussy's "Fireworks":

Posted July 04, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"A man who loves humanity and ignores patriotism is ignoring humanity."

G.K. Chesterton, "The Patriotic Idea"

Posted July 04, 12:00 AM

July 3, 2011

FILM

Posted July 03, 5:11 PM

ORIGINAL-CAST ALBUM

Posted July 03, 4:54 PM

JAZZ

Posted July 03, 4:24 PM

July 1, 2011

TT: Up the down staircase

I report in today's Wall Street Journal on Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre's production of Alan Ayckbourn's House & Garden. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

When is a stunt not really a stunt? When it's dreamed up by Alan Ayckbourn. In addition to being the most prolific playwright of modern times, Mr. Ayckbourn is also a master of ingenuity, as New York audiences discovered two years ago when London's Old Vic brought its revival of "The Norman Conquests" to Broadway. But "The Norman Conquests," three interlocking plays set in different parts of the same country house on a single weekend, is far more than just a piece of consummate cleverness. So is "House & Garden," a 1999 diptych consisting of two plays that take place simultaneously in the sitting room and garden of the same house and are designed to be performed in adjacent theaters by the same cast, with the actors racing from stage to stage as needed. (Only the audiences stay put.)

"House & Garden" is a high-speed whirligig of theatrical trickery, but as always with Mr. Ayckbourn, there's more to it than that. In between the riotous farce-style sequences, he paints a bleak portrait of the dilapidated state of modern marriage as seen through the eyes of two unhappy couples, and the funnier the jokes, the darker the shadows. It makes for an impressive package--but one that can only be performed by a company that has access to two stages on the same site.

That's where Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre comes in. Founded in 1996, PICT operates out of the University of Pittsburgh's Stephen Foster Memorial, a purpose-built theatrical complex that looks like a Gothic-style church. It contains two houses, the 454-seat Charity Randall Theatre and 153-seat Henry Heymann Theatre, that are connected by a backstage spiral staircase, making it possible for PICT to mount "House & Garden" with relative ease. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, but PICT has taken the measure of "House & Garden" and put together a cast whose members are equal to the challenge of conveying its technical and emotional complexities....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted July 01, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Our century is probably more religious than any other. How could it fail to be, with such problems to be solved? The only trouble is that it has not yet found a God it can adore."

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man

Posted July 01, 12:00 AM