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January 31, 2012

TT: If you happen to be in the neighborhood...

In October I saw Pat Metheny and Larry Grenadier at the Blue Note. It was one of the most exciting musical performances I've heard in my life. Now Pat is en route to Winter Park, Florida, where he'll making two public appearances at Rollins College this week under the auspices of the Winter Park Institute.

It happens that I'm in the middle of my annual stint in Winter Park, so I'm going to lead a public conversation on Wednesday in which Pat talks about his life and work. We'll be joined by the bass guitarist Chuck Archard, who is an artist-in-residence at Rollins. Then Pat and Larry will give a concert at Rollins the following night.

I've known Pat for a number of years--I profiled him for Time back in 2001--and he's one of the most interesting talkers I've had occasion to interview. Here's something he said to me eleven years ago that has stuck in my mind ever since:

Metheny shuns labels for his polystylistic music--particularly fusion, a term he feels has "nothing but negative connotations"--preferring to describe it as jazz, pure and simple. "Jazz is the all-inclusive form," he explains. "There's room for everybody, for anything of true musical substance. Jazz guys like Duke Ellington or Miles Davis have always transformed the elements of the pop culture that surrounds us into something more sophisticated and hipper. It's their job."

I expect he'll have similarly pithy things to say when we get together on Wednesday.

Wednesday's event takes place at Tiedtke Concert Hall and starts at 7:30. For more information, go here.

Thursday's concert takes place at the Alfond Sports Center and starts at 7:30. For more information, go here.

Posted January 31, 12:00 AM

TT: The Eames films (II)

This week I'm posting five films made by Charles and Ray Eames. Today's installment, Tops, was made in 1969. The score is by Elmer Bernstein:

Posted January 31, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Quotation and Originality"

Posted January 31, 12:00 AM

January 30, 2012

TT: Up there on a visit

I don't care for air travel, but long experience has taught me to tolerate it, and on occasion it can be--if only for a few fleeting moments--actively pleasurable. That happened to me when I took off from LaGuardia Airport on Saturday morning, headed for Florida and Mrs. T. It was ten-thirty, the sky was cloudless, and the sun cast a brilliant raking light across the rooftops of New York City. The plane swung north, then south, and all at once I realized that we were going to fly straight down the Hudson River and that my window seat would give me an unobstructed, perfectly lit view of the island below.

We were still low enough that I had no trouble picking out the six-story apartment house where I live, a few blocks south of the Cloisters. I held my breath as the familiar landmarks slipped past me, all shrunken to the size of my thumb: Yankee Stadium, Lincoln Center, Central Park, the Empire State Building, the great gash of Ground Zero. The only thing I couldn't see was the Statue of Liberty, which was a bit too far west to be visible from my window. Having just spent three days rushing from appointment to appointment and show to show, I found it delightful to look down from a great height on the scene of my hectic activity. It felt as though I were being airlifted out of a combat zone.

A few minutes later we were flying over the Jersey Shore, endless and anonymous save for Cape May, the island at its southern tip, whose comma-like shape is unmistakable to anyone who has spent even a day there. I thought of the happy hours that Mrs. T and I had passed on its beaches and in its theaters and restaurants, and hoped that we'd be back soon.

Between Cape May and Orlando I had no idea where I was, so I pulled down the shade and got out my book, William Maxwell's Ancestors. I gratefully immersed myself in its bone-dry ironies and gentle, reminiscent warmth, marveling at the chain of coincidence that had put me in touch with two of the author's friends at the very moment when I started working my way through his oeuvre for the first time in a decade.

Maxwell, like Fauré and Vuillard, is a shy master whose soft-spoken tales of small-town life are not to all tastes. If he's your kind of writer, though, you'll know it the moment you open one of his books for the first time, as Mrs. T did a couple of weeks ago. Within days she was reading passages out loud to me, among them this lovely paragraph from The Folded Leaf:

Accidents, misdirections, overexcitement, heat, crowds, and heartbreaking delays you must expect when you go on a journey, just as you expect to have dreams at night. Whether or not you enjoy yourself at all depends on your state of mind. The man who travels with everything he owns, books, clothes for every season, shoe trees, a dinner jacket, medicines, binoculars, magazines, and telephone numbers--the unwilling traveler--and the man who leaves each place in turn without reluctance, with no desire ever to come back, obviously cannot be making the same journey, even though their tickets are identical....And for the ambitious young man who by a too constant shifting around has lost all of his possessions, including his native accent and the ability to identify himself with a particular kind of sky or the sound, let us say, of windmills creaking; so that in New Mexico his talk reflects Bermuda, and in Bermuda it is again and again of Barbados that he is reminded, but never of Iowa or Wisconsin or Indiana, never of home.

I travel light these days, with no more than a boxful of souvenirs to remind me of the places I've been, and my native accent has faded like a print unwisely hung in direct sunlight. But it never takes much to remind me of Smalltown, U.S.A., my first home, and as I flew over Manhattan, my latest home, I looked down at its towers and parks and squared-off streets with a surge of love that rivaled the ever-enduring love I feel for the place where I grew up. Yes, those streets too often look best at night--or from a great height--but it is the encrustation of memory that makes a home beautiful, and a quarter-century's worth of memories and friendships has caused me to love New York City almost in spite of myself, frustrating and aggravating though it can be.

To be sure, it's a bumpy, awkward kind of love, and I'll always be a small-town boy at heart. Nor would it surprise me in the least if I were to pull up stakes one day and move. But by now I've lived in Manhattan longer than anywhere else, and should I ever move away, I know I'll leave a not-so-small piece of my heart behind.

* * *

Dave Frishberg sings "Do You Miss New York?":

Posted January 30, 12:00 AM

TT: The Eames films (I)

This week I'm posting five films made by Charles and Ray Eames. Today's installment, House: After Five Years of Living, is a 1955 documentary about the Eames' self-designed California home. The score is by Elmer Bernstein:

Posted January 30, 12:00 AM

TT: Just because

A rare film clip of Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson singing the blues with Cootie Williams' band in 1943:

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

Posted January 30, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"No steps backward."

Horace, Epistles

Posted January 30, 12:00 AM

January 27, 2012

TT: Into the (spot)light

In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I review the Broadway premiere of Wit and the Florida premiere of The Motherf**ker with the Hat. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Margaret Edson's "Wit" is one of a surprisingly large number of plays that managed to win a Pulitzer Prize without first making it to Broadway. Fourteen years after it opened Off Broadway, "Wit" is finally being presented by the Manhattan Theatre Club in its Broadway house. Why the delay? No doubt the release of Mike Nichols' 2001 cable-TV version, which starred Emma Thompson, had something to do with it. The biggest roadblock, however, is that "Wit" is the story of the death of a woman suffering from late-stage ovarian cancer. The only way to get so dark a play to Broadway nowadays is to hire a big name, and it seems more than likely that this revival, directed by Lynne Meadow, would never have opened there had Cynthia Nixon not agreed to be the star.

Unfortunately, Ms. Nixon's acting is part of what's wrong with the production, for she plays Vivian Bearing, the austere, loveless scholar of 17th-century poetry around whose terrible plight "Wit" revolves, as though she were a precocious schoolgirl rather than a full-grown, forbiddingly chilly intellectual. Only when suffering strips away Vivian's defenses does Ms. Nixon come into her own, and by then it's too late for her to overcome the lightweight impression that she's already made.

What else is wrong with this "Wit"? In 1998 it was still comparatively unusual to see a fatal illness portrayed in anything like a candid way onstage or on the screen. Nowadays, though, such portrayals are common enough that the play's initial shock effect has been significantly diminished...

The best new play of 2011 had the worst title, which helps to explain why Stephen Adly Guirgis' "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" (as it was officially billed) barely eked out a 112-performance run on Broadway. Now it belongs to the regional theaters, and GableStage, one of Florida's top companies, has mounted a first-class production that confirms my initial impression of its excellence.

Mr. Guirgis' play is an anti-romantic romcom about the effects of the therapeutic culture on a group of substance abusers. It's smart, concise (95 minutes, no intermission) and full of pointed punch lines ("If you ever need money for rehab or an exorcism, let me know"). All five characters are drawn with sympathetic sharpness, meaning that the play must be cast very, very well in order to hit the bull's-eye. Chris Rock, the star of the Broadway production, is new to the stage, and his performance, not surprisingly, was promising but far from great. By contrast, GableStage's Ethan Henry, who has plenty of regional-theater experience, is self-assured and commanding in the same role, that of a slick, sociopathic scamster. Gladys Ramirez shines no less brightly as Veronica, the foul-mouthed working-class babe whose brass-plated charms set Mr. Guirgis' farce-style plot in motion....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted January 27, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"But all the authorities, it is pleasant to know, report that the final scene, though it may be full of horror, is commonly devoid of terror. The dying man doesn't struggle much and he isn't much afraid. As his alkalies give out he succumbs to a blest stupidity. His mind fogs. His will power vanishes. He submits decently. He scarcely gives a damn."

H.L. Mencken, "Exeunt Omnes"

Posted January 27, 12:00 AM

January 26, 2012

TT: The things we do for love (of Louis)

This is the scene in my living room, where an Italian TV crew has just set up an improvised studio in which I'll be talking about Louis Armstrong for a documentary:

Posted January 26, 2:57 PM

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 Sept. 9, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, most 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, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Seminar (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Mar. 4, reviewed here)
• Stick Fly (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (monologue, PG-13, closes Mar. 4, 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)
• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, off-Broadway remounting of Broadway production, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN SAN DIEGO:
• Dividing the Estate (drama, PG-13, remounting of Broadway production, adult subject matter, closes Feb. 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN SANTA MONICA:
• Our Town (drama, G, remounting of off-Broadway production, suitable for mature children, closes Feb. 12, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN WEST PALM BEACH:
• The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (drama, PG-13, not suitable for young children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Chinglish (comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Dancing at Lughnasa (drama, G/PG-13, reviewed here)

Posted January 26, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Ambition is the grand enemy of all peace."

John Cowper Powys, The Meaning of Culture

Posted January 26, 12:00 AM

January 25, 2012

TT: Snapshot

José and Amparo Iturbi play the first of Emmanuel Chabrier's Trois valses romantiques:

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

Posted January 25, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."

Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young

Posted January 25, 12:00 AM

January 24, 2012

TT: Home from the sea

A warm breeze mussed my hair as I sat by the pool of the Biltmore Hotel, shuffling through the six thousand tunes on my iPod and thinking of nothing in particular. Having spent the whole morning writing, I felt entitled to spend the whole afternoon basking in the sun. Life is almost never as fair as that, but sometimes things do end up working out the way you think they should, and I was more determined than usual to make them do so.

Having chosen long ago to strap myself to the wheel of ambition, I now spend much of my time--probably too much--staring at the stage of a theater or the screen of my laptop, doing my best to write as well as I can between now and the next deadline. It's the life I wanted, insofar as anybody can know what he wants before he gets it, and I usually find it satisfying. At some point along the way, though, I lost the ability to sit and do nothing. On those infrequent occasions when I find myself with nothing to do, my brain slips back into gear, my fingers start twitching, and before long I'm sitting at the computer once more, tapping away at the keys.

In recent years I've learned what most ambitious people figure out sooner or later, which is that the only way to break free from the clutches of self-imposed responsibilities is to rip yourself out of your daily routine, however briefly, and go to a place where you can't work. Distraction is the key, and for me the sight and sound of moving water is the most powerful of distractions, so I went down to the pool of the Biltmore Hotel, sat beside Mrs. T, and let my mind wander. Though no one was swimming--it wasn't quite warm enough--the breeze made the surface of the water shimmer so delicately that I found it hard to concentrate on my book. I looked at the water and listened to music, and was, for a time, content.

We have it on the best of authority, alas, that nature abhors a vacuum, and in my experience she looks for opportunities to fill it with unwelcome thoughts. On this golden afternoon, the occasion for those thoughts was, much to my surprise, a song by Johnny Mercer that my iPod chose to play for me:

Ah, the apple trees,
Sunlit memories,
Where the hammock swung,
On our backs we'd lie;
Looking at the sky,
Till the stars were strung,
When the world was young.

"When the World Was Young" is, of course, the most gently nostalgic of songs, and no sooner did it start to play than I set sail on the sea of nostalgia, floating idly from memory to memory. Some were sweet, others hurtful--nostalgia can sting like a frightened bee--but all had in common the salient aspect of the emotion that triggered them, which is that they were inaccessible. I longed to be present, to seize the day, and instead I found myself grasping vainly at the unchangeable past, which is ever and always a recipe for unappeasable regret.

Suddenly my memory dredged up a long-forgotten image, one so unexpected that it made me speak out loud. "Do you remember what we were doing three years ago?" I asked Mrs. T. "We were staying at the Biltmore, sitting by the pool, and I was phoning in corrections to the galley proofs of Pops. I was talking to an editor in Boston, and I think maybe it was snowing there."

"I think you're right," she replied.

In an instant my mind snapped back three years, and regret quickly gave way to delight. For in the winter of 2009 I was not only correcting the galleys of Pops but making my final changes to the libretto of The Letter, my first opera, and I had no idea how completely those two projects were destined to upend my life. If you'd told me that the success of Pops and The Letter would soon inspire me to write a play, I would have laughed at you. If you'd gone on to tell me that the play in question was going to be produced by one of my favorite theater companies, acted by one of my favorite actors, and staged by one of my favorite directors, the laughter would have been raucously dismissive.

As I mulled over the improbable coincidence, a phrase popped into my head: This moment, this minute... I knew that it came from a song, but I couldn't recall its name. Then I picked up my iPod and searched for recordings by Mabel Mercer, and seconds later her voice filled my ears:

This moment, this minute,
And each second in it
Will leave a glow upon the sky,
And as time goes by,
It will never die.

Johnny Mercer wrote those words, too. They're the verse to "My Shining Hour," a song that he wrote with Harold Arlen in 1943, midway through World War II. As Mabel Mercer sang them with the matchless warmth and gravity that were hers alone, I steered my boat home from the sea of nostalgia and gratefully embraced the present. To do anything else, I knew instinctively, would be to insult the fate that has given me so much of what I wanted out of life, plus innumerable good things that I didn't know I wanted, or never dared to dream of being given.

For all the seductive power of nostalgia, it is only in the present that we can hope to do anything that will be worth remembering in the future. "Why are you stingy with yourselves?" George Balanchine used to ask his dancers. "Why are you holding back? What are you saving for--for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now."

I'll try to remember those words the next time I find myself sitting by a swimming pool on a golden afternoon.

* * *

Blossom Dearie sings "When the World Was Young":

Joan Leslie and Fred Astaire dance to "My Shining Hour" in The Sky's the Limit, the film for which the song was written:

Posted January 24, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Ambition has no rest!"

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu

Posted January 24, 12:00 AM

January 23, 2012

TT: Two on the road

Mrs. T and I departed Florida's Sanibel Island with the utmost reluctance on Saturday morning. We then drove across the peninsula to Miami Beach, had lunch at Joe's Stone Crab, made our way to Coral Gables, and checked into the Biltmore Hotel. In short, we reversed the first half of our itinerary of three years ago, leaving out the part where I then went from Miami to New York to San Francisco to San Diego to Kansas City to Chicago to New York to Connecticut to Lenox, Massachusetts. I'd forgotten how much travel I packed into that marathon. The thought of it makes me shudder now, even though it was fun--mostly--while it was happening.

Things are different this time around. On Tuesday we're driving up to Winter Park, and I'll be flying back to New York on Wednesday to see Wit, Look Back in Anger, and the DiCapo Opera Theatre's production of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul, after which I return to Winter Park and stay put, more or less, until the end of February. That's kid stuff!

From the (admittedly narrow) point of view of a drama critic, one of the most convenient things about the Biltmore is that GableStage, the company that I came to Coral Gables to see, is in the same building as the hotel, meaning that it's a five-minute stroll from our hotel room to the lobby of the theater. I can think of a number of other hotels that are unusually close to a major regional theater, among them San Francisco's Hotel Diva, but the only other company in America, so far as I know, that shares a roof with a first-class hotel is the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, where Mrs. T and I saw The Norman Conquests six years ago in the middle of an eyelash-freezing cold spell. It was nice enough not to have to go outside to get to the theater, but this is even nicer.

While we're always glad to be at the Biltmore, we already miss Sanibel and can't wait to arrive in Winter Park, where I plan, among other interesting things, to conduct a public conversation with Pat Metheny and roll up my sleeves and write three chapters of Mood Indigo: A Life of Duke Ellington. Time and inspiration permitting, I'll also try to get started on the first draft of my next opera libretto. Today, though, I'll settle for writing the second half of Friday's Wall Street Journal column, a review of the show that Mrs. T and I saw last night at the Biltmore, after which we'll have breakfast and pay a visit to the pool.

See you around, somewhere or other.

Posted January 23, 12:00 AM

TT: Found object

I'm always intrigued by the ill-sorted books that lurk randomly on the shelves of hotels and inns. Our room in the Biltmore Hotel, for instance, contains a bookshelf on which can be found the following volumes:

• A Trial by Jury, D. Graham Burnett's account of the experience of serving on the jury for a murder trial

• Viana La Place's La Bella Cucina: How to Cook, Eat, and Live Like an Italian

• Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround, by Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

• A Reader's Digest Select Editions volume from 2000 containing condensed versions of novels by Nelson DeMille, Linda Nichols, Michael Palmer, and Jennifer Chiaverini

• Pandora's Daughter, a novel by Iris Johansen

• Stormy Petrel, a novel (I think) by Mary Stewart

• The Runway of Life, a self-published book by Peter Legge whose genre was not apparent to me in the modest amount of time I was prepared to spend flipping through it

• Little Women

• Webster's New Century Dictionary

No doubt a more imaginative person than I could write a witty poem or a wistful short story about these nine books, just as Mrs. T is capable of whipping up an edible meal out of whatever happens to be in our refrigerator at any given moment. Alas, all I can do is post their titles and wonder: did any of their authors ever imagine that the books over which they once slaved so hopefully would end up gathering dust in a resort hotel in Florida?

While we're on the subject, here's another question: will the day ever come when I stumble across a book of mine in a similar setting? And if I do, will I have the grace to smile wryly and reflect on the vanity of human wishes?

Posted January 23, 12:00 AM

TT: Just because

An excerpt from Sinatra: An American Original, originally telecast on CBS in 1965, in which Frank Sinatra is seen recording "It Was a Very Good Year." The conductor is Gordon Jenkins and the narrator is Walter Cronkite:

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

Posted January 23, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprizes, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions."

David Hume, The History of England

Posted January 23, 12:00 AM

January 20, 2012

TT: A good day's work

This recording of Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna, which I mentioned in my Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column about Lauridsen, went to #9 on Amazon's classical-music chart today. That makes me really, really happy. I love it when something I write makes a difference in the life of a first-rate artist.

Needless to say--I hope--I never cease to be grateful to the Journal for permitting me to use one of the world's biggest journalistic megaphones, and trusting me to use it responsibly. On days like this, though, I'm even more grateful than usual.

Posted January 20, 11:37 PM

GALLERY

Posted January 20, 1:36 PM

TT: The edge of hopelessness

In today's Wall Street Journal I report on a rare and important revival of The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds at Palm Beach Dramaworks. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

It's puzzling to watch a good play fall out of fashion. Paul Zindel's "The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" was written in 1964, opened Off Broadway in 1970, wowed the New York critics, won a Pulitzer Prize, was turned into a movie by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in 1972 and looked like a deservedly sure thing in the posterity sweepstakes for many years thereafter. But while it continues to be performed by students and amateurs to this day, I'm not aware of any major professional staging that's taken place in recent years.

Palm Beach Dramaworks' new production of "The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" would be worthy of note for that reason alone. Fortunately, there's a better reason to see it: William Hayes, the company's artistic director, has given Mr. Zindel's play the kind of revival of which every frustrated playwright dreams, one so profoundly comprehending and persuasively acted that you'll leave the theater wondering how "Gamma Rays" could ever have been forgotten, however briefly. Enhancing the immediacy of the staging is the troupe's unusually shallow 218-seat theater, whose last row of seats is only 34 feet from the stage. The handsome new venue, which opened in November, manages to preserve the striking intimacy of the fast-growing company's old 84-seat performing space.

At first glance there doesn't seem to be much to "Gamma Rays." It's a one-set drama about the plight of a fatherless family teetering on the edge of abject poverty, a subject that has been done to death ever since "The Glass Menagerie" opened on Broadway in 1945. It has five characters, all of them women, one of whom has a bit part and one of whom never speaks, and it is dominated, as is customarily the case with such plays, by the unhappy mother, whose soul has been crushed by the struggle for survival. It is (mostly) told from the point of view of one of her children, a sensitive young girl who is clearly the author's alter ego, and its tone alternates between delicate poetry and harsh realism.

You've heard it all before? Maybe--but not like this.

To be sure, Mr. Zindel's plot is as simple as his premise. Tillie Hunsdorfer (Arielle Hoffman), the sensitive child, has been encouraged by one of her teachers to compete in a science fair, and she and Ruth (Skye Coyne), her older, epileptic sister, long desperately for Beatrice (Laura Turnbull), their mother, to come to the awards ceremony. But Beatrice, incapacitated by self-pity and drink, is no longer capable of summoning up any love for her children, and when they lose patience with her at last, she lashes out in a way that is shocking enough to make the audience gasp with horror.

Stock stuff, in other words, but Mr. Zindel has charged it with the kind of passionate feeling that can ennoble the least orginal of scripts, and no sooner does "Gamma Rays" get under way than you are drawn irresistibly into the Hunsdorfers' unhappy lives. He also takes care to provide just enough hope to make the play bearable, though never so much as to undercut its hard-earned anguish....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted January 20, 12:00 AM

TT: The best composer you've never heard of

In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column, I write about Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen, a film documentary that will receive its first public screening next month. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

It's been a long time since an American classical composer became famous, much less popular. Philip Glass was probably the last one whose name would become passably well known to the public at large, and even Mr. Glass isn't nearly as famous as, say, Aaron Copland. That says a lot about the marginal place of high culture in America--none of it good.

So who ought to be famous? Or, to put it another way, who's writing classical music these days that's accessible enough to satisfy lay listeners, yet serious enough to impress trained musicians?

Morten Lauridsen, that's who.

Don't be surprised if Mr. Lauridsen's name is unfamiliar to you. If you sing in a choir or go out of your way to listen to new choral music, there's a better-than-even chance that you'll have heard of him. If not, not. Though Mr. Lauridsen's music is more widely performed than that of any other contemporary choral composer, he doesn't get talked about on TV or written about in magazines, and highbrow music critics typically ignore his premieres. Yet he has no shortage of ardent fans, one of whom, the poet Dana Gioia, describes him as "one of the few living composers whom I would call great."

Mr. Gioia, the past chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, speaks these words of praise in a film documentary called "Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen" that will receive its premiere on Feb. 7 in Palm Springs, Calif., followed by screenings in Cincinnati, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and other locations. The film, directed by Michael Stillwater, is a heartening rarity, a thoroughly intelligent classical-music program that strikes an appropriate balance between words and music. Most of the talking is done by Mr. Lauridsen himself and all of it is to the point, but plenty of time is devoted to the music that is the true point of "Shining Night," and by film's end you'll know what it sounds like and whether you want to hear more of it--as I expect you will....

Says Mr. Lauridsen: "There are too many things out there that are away from goodness. We need to focus on those things that ennoble us, that enrich us." The musical language in which he embodies this simple belief is conservative in the best and most creative sense of the word. His sacred music is unabashedly, even fearlessly tonal, and his chiming harmonies serve as underpinning for gently swaying melodic lines that leave no doubt of his love for medieval plainchant. Nothing about his music is "experimental": It is direct, heartfelt and as sweetly austere as the luminous sound of church bells at night....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for Shining Night:

Stephen Cleobury and the King's College Choir perform Morten Lauridsen's "O magnum mysterium" in 2009:

Posted January 20, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"The musical canon is not decided by majority opinion but by enthusiasm and passion, and a work that ten people love passionately is more important than one that ten thousand do not mind hearing."

Charles Rosen, Critical Entertainments: Music Old and New

Posted January 20, 12:00 AM

January 19, 2012

TT: Family album

I spent the morning writing, after which Mrs. T and I went out on a dolphin cruise:

This is where we're staying, seen from the boat...

...and from the beach:

As usual, we ended the day by watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico:

Posted January 19, 6:24 PM

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, extended through Sept. 9, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, reviewed here)
• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren't actively prudish, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Seminar (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Mar. 4, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Stick Fly (serious comedy, PG-13, 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 SAN DIEGO:
• Dividing the Estate (drama, PG-13, remounting of Broadway production, adult subject matter, closes Feb. 12, reviewed here)

IN SANTA MONICA:
• Our Town (drama, G, remounting of off-Broadway production, suitable for mature children, closes Feb. 12, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• Chinglish (comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• Dancing at Lughnasa (drama, G/PG-13, closes Jan. 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN FORT MYERS, FLA.:
• God of Carnage (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Follies (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 22, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

Posted January 19, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Whatever pretended pessimists in search of notoriety may say, most people are naturally kind, at heart."

James Branch Cabell, The Cream of the Jest

Posted January 19, 12:00 AM

January 18, 2012

TT: Snapshot

Leopold Stokowski leads a studio orchestra in his arrangements of Bach's "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" and "Little" Fugue in G Minor in The Big Broadcast of 1937:

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

Posted January 18, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see."

Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

Posted January 18, 12:00 AM

January 17, 2012

TT: Almanac

"There's Hawkeye and Trapper John back in Korea. I never did like those guys. They fancied themselves super-decent and super-tolerant, but actually had no use for anyone who was not exactly like them. What they were was super-pleased with themselves. In truth, they were the real bigots, and phony at that. I always preferred Frank Burns, the stuffy, unpopular doc, a sincere bigot."

Walker Percy, The Thanatos Syndrome

Posted January 17, 12:00 AM

January 16, 2012

TT: Going nowhere

Mrs. T and I are holed up on Sanibel Island, off the coast of south Florida. I'm getting over a lingering cold, so we did as little as possible last week. I did contrive to see and review a play on the mainland, but mostly we slept late, walked on the beach, read books, and watched movies, taking time out each evening to see the sun set. I spent several blissful hours revisiting two beloved novels by William Maxwell, They Came Like Swallows and The Folded Leaf. Mrs. T cooked, I shopped and did the dishes, and a good time was had by all.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I started taking vacations for the first time in my life. I suspect it's no coincidence that I'd never seen the sun set until then. Like so many things discovered in adulthood, sunsets remain a novelty to me, one that is permanently fresh and self-renewing. Each one is different, sometimes subtly and sometimes outrageously, and I never tire of standing beside Mrs. T and watching the golden ball slide out of sight, thinking as its brilliant light dies away of the lovely little poem by Charles Cotton that Benjamin Britten set in his Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings: The day's grown old; the fainting sun/Has but a little way to run,/And yet his steeds, with all his skill,/Scarce lug the chariot down the hill.

I have quite a bit more on my plate this week than last. In addition to Friday's Wall Street Journal drama column, I'll be writing essays about Louis Jordan and Morten Lauridsen, a juxtaposition that promises to keep me hopping. But at least I'll be doing my hopping here, which makes all the difference. We can see the Gulf of Mexico from the living room of our little cottage, and both of us regard that view as the purest of luxuries. Rain or shine, it's the most beautiful sight and sound imaginable. Yes, I have to sing for my supper, for this is, after all, a working vacation (I rarely take any other kind). Still, I don't know when I've been happier, nor can I imagine a time that will be better than this.

* * *

Philip Langridge sings the "Pastoral" from Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, accompanied by Frank Lloyd, Steuart Bedford, and the English Chamber Orchestra:

Posted January 16, 12:00 AM

TT: Just because

Charles Laughton and Deanna Durbin do the conga in It Started With Eve:

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

Posted January 16, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream."

T.K. Whipple, Study Out the Land

Posted January 16, 12:00 AM

January 14, 2012

PLAY

Posted January 14, 9:41 AM

January 13, 2012

TT: Porgy for prigs

In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I report on the Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess and a Florida production of God of Carnage. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

It ought to be good news that "Porgy and Bess" is back on Broadway for the first time in 35 years. Sad to say, the new version, which is billed by express order of the Gershwin brothers' estates as "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess," is a sanitized, heavily cut rewrite that strips away the show's essence so as to render it suitable for consumption by 21st-century prigs. If you've never seen or heard "Porgy," you might well find this version blandly pleasing. Otherwise, you'll be appalled.

The "Porgy" "problem," if you want to call it that, is twofold. "Porgy and Bess" is a full-scale opera, not a musical--an uncut performance runs for three and a half hours--and it is written in dialect, which makes some modern-day listeners squirm. Hence this nannyish adaptation, in which Suzan-Lori Parks has neutered DuBose Heyward's book to make the characters seem more dignified. (Old version: "Crown dead, ain't he?" New version: "Crown is dead. Or do you know different?") Among other ludicrously euphemistic touches, the grievously crippled Porgy, who in the opera must ride around on a goat-drawn cart, now walks on his own with what Ms. Parks calls "a modest cane," suggesting that there's nothing wrong with the poor fellow that couldn't be fixed up by a visit to his friendly neighborhood chiropractor. Diedre R. Murray has done comparable damage to the score, tarting up some numbers, "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" (pardon me, "I Got Plenty of Nothing") in particular, almost beyond recognition. Her musical tampering is tasteless, condescending and, above all, unnecessary: Anyone who thinks that George Gershwin's great score needs to be "modernized" in order to make it palatable to Broadway audiences is by definition unqualified to touch a note of it.

Diane Paulus and Ronald K. Brown, the director and choreographer, have given this Disney-style "Porgy" an emotionally null staging that is utterly devoid of any sense of place....

"God of Carnage," whose film version was released a couple of weeks ago, had already been making the regional-theater rounds for the past year and a half. Small wonder: Yasmina Reza's four-character stage farce, which tells the tale of two well-heeled married couples who come to blows after their children get into a playground scrap, is a lightweight, deftly wrought comedy of bad manners that can be mounted without breaking the bank (it requires a single set). Having reveled in Matthew Warchus' star-studded 2009 Broadway production, I was curious to see how "God of Carnage" would hold up when played by less familiar faces, so I flew down to Fort Myers to check out the Florida Repertory Theatre's production.

I'm delighted to report that Florida Rep's staging, directed with hair-trigger precision by Dennis Lee Delaney, is at least as good as the Broadway version, and better in one respect: The casting is less predictable. On Broadway, the presence of James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels signaled from the start that the husbands weren't as nice as they looked. Not so Craig Bockhorn and Chris Clavelli, whose transformation into beasts of prey is a well-kept surprise....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted January 13, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"People always try to find base motives behind every good action. We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil."

Eugène Ionesco, Paris Review interview (Fall 1984)

Posted January 13, 12:00 AM

January 12, 2012

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 Apr. 29, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Chinglish (comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Apr. 29, reviewed here)
• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, most 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, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Seminar (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Mar. 4, reviewed here)
• Stick Fly (serious comedy, PG-13, 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 SAN DIEGO, CALIF:
• Dividing the Estate (drama, PG-13, remounting of Broadway production, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

IN SANTA MONICA, CALIF:
• Our Town (drama, G, remounting of off-Broadway production, suitable for mature children, closes Feb. 12, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Dancing at Lughnasa (drama, G/PG-13, closes Jan. 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• Follies (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN BRISTOL, PA.:
• Gypsy (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

Posted January 12, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Perhaps I abandoned criticism because I am full of contradictions, and when you write an essay you are not supposed to contradict yourself. But in the theater, by inventing various characters, you can. My characters are contradictory not only in their language, but in their behavior as well."

Eugène Ionesco, Paris Review interview (Fall 1984)

Posted January 12, 12:00 AM

January 11, 2012

TT: Snapshot

Zero Mostel performs "An Actor Prepares," a sketch from An Evening with Zero Mostel, his one-man stage show, telecast in 1962:

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

Posted January 11, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"I have no ideas before I write a play. I have them when I have written the play or while I am not writing at all."

Eugène Ionesco, Notes and Counter-Notes

Posted January 11, 12:00 AM

January 10, 2012

TT: A little taste

Here's a publicity photo of John Douglas Thompson as Louis Armstrong in the upcoming Shakespeare & Company production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, shot by Kevin Sprague:

Posted January 10, 5:03 PM

TT: Going to the show

Shakespeare & Company of Lenox, Massachusetts, announced today that it will produce Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, in August. John Douglas Thompson, one of this country's top classical actors and a longtime member of Shakespeare & Company, has been cast in the dual role of Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, the greatest jazz musician of the twentieth century, and Joe Glaser, Armstrong's mob-connected manager.

The director is Gordon Edelstein, the artistic director of New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre, who staged the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca, which opens on Broadway next week. The show will be performed on the company's main stage, the 413-seat Founders' Theatre.

"No summer drama festival in America is more consistently satisfying than Shakespeare & Company," I wrote in The Wall Street Journal in 2009. As for John, I agree wholeheartedly with Ben Brantley of the New York Times, who has called him "one of the most compelling classical stage actors of his generation," and Gordon's brilliantly original revivals of The Crucible, The Glass Menagerie, and Uncle Vanya all rank high on my short list of great nights at the theater.

I'm seeing shows in Florida and wasn't able to get up to Lenox for today's announcement, so Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Shakespeare & Company's publicist, asked me for a quote. Here's what I told her:

I'm still trying to get used to the idea that Shakespeare & Company is going to produce Satchmo at the Waldorf, much less that John is going to act in it and Gordon is going to stage it. I'm thrilled, honored, and astonished--all at once. I never dreamed that I'd have the chance to collaborate with such remarkable artists, or with a theater company whose work has meant so much to me for so long.

I'll let you know more about the production as it continues to take shape. For now, I invite you to rejoice with me. This is a great day.

UPDATE: The company's official season announcement is here.

Here's the Berkshire Eagle's story about the press conference at which the production was announced.

* * *

The first photograph shows Louis Armstrong in costume as Bottom in Swingin' the Dream, a musical version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that ran briefly on Broadway in 1939. The second shows John Douglas Thompson and Juliet Rylance in Theater for a New Audience's 2009 production of Othello.

Posted January 10, 10:30 AM

TT: Almanac

"Every work of art (unless it is a psuedo-intellectualist work, a work already comprised in some ideology that it merely illustrates, as with Brecht) is outside ideology, is not reducible to ideology. Ideology circumscribes without penetrating it. The absence of ideology in a work does not mean an absence of ideas; on the contrary it fertilizes them."

Eugène Ionesco, "A Reply to Kenneth Tynan: The Playwright's Role"

Posted January 10, 12:00 AM

January 9, 2012

TT: Here we are

This is the view from our porch. You could write a book here. Or a play. Or both. Or neither. Or you could just get over a cold:

Posted January 09, 10:55 AM

TT: Retreat

I don't want to talk about the past four days of my life. I don't even want to think about them. Suffice it to say that I flew from New York to West Palm Beach on Thursday, saw a show there on Friday, flew back up to New York on Saturday to see Porgy and Bess on Broadway that same evening, then flew back down to the west coast of Florida the next morning. That is way too much time in the air, even for an old hand like me.

No, it wasn't a total loss. Nothing like it. In addition to seeing the new home of Palm Beach Dramaworks, one of my favorite regional theater companies, and dining at Havana before the show, I also got to say hello to my good friend Steven Caras, the great dance photographer. He even brought me a present, a signed archival copy of Last Bow, the best known of his countless photos, in which George Balanchine is seen taking the final curtain call of his long life.

It happens that I took part in the making of Steven Caras: See Them Dance, Deborah Novak's 2011 film documentary about Steve's life and work, and flew down to West Palm Beach last February to lend a hand with the first public screening, in return for which Steve promised to strike and sign a print of "Last Bow" for me. He delivered it on Friday, and I brought it back to New York with the utmost care the next day. Now it will occupy a place of honor in the Teachout Museum.

So yes, things could have been a lot worse. That said, I was still greatly relieved when Mrs. T and I met at the Fort Myers airport on Sunday morning and headed straight for Sanibel Island, one of the prettiest and most tranquil places I know. Needless to say, I'm here for professional reasons--I've come to see Florida Rep's production of God of Carnage--but I also hope to write a chapter or two of Mood Indigo on the island and, if at all possible, get some much-needed rest.

For the record, we're staying at the same unpretentiously comfortable place where we holed up last January, a stone's throw away from the Gulf of Mexico, and we plan to spend as much time as we can walking on the beach and watching the sun set.

See you later.

* * *

The trailer for Steven Caras: See Them Dance:

Posted January 09, 12:00 AM

TT: Just because

Tuesday in November, a documentary short subject released by the Office of War Information in 1945 for distribution in foreign countries, directed by John Berry and Nicholas Ray, written by Philip Dunne and Howard Koch, scored by Virgil Thomson, and produced by John Houseman:

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

Posted January 09, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them."

Václav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless"

Posted January 09, 12:00 AM

January 8, 2012

CD

Posted January 08, 10:28 PM

CD

Posted January 08, 9:45 PM

PLAY

Posted January 08, 9:37 PM

January 6, 2012

TT: Mother knows worst

In today's Wall Street Journal I report on a revival of Gypsy at Pennsylvania's Bristol Riverside Theatre in which Tovah Feldshuh plays Mama Rose. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

If you're looking for a really big pair of shoes to fill, try playing Mama Rose in "Gypsy." Not only did Ethel Merman, the greatest of all musical-comedy stars, create the role back in 1959, but subsequent Broadway revivals featured Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and, most recently and stunningly, Patti LuPone. As if that weren't competition enough, Rosalind Russell played Mama Rose (badly, alas) in Mervyn LeRoy's ill-fated 1962 film version, and Bette Midler did the honors three decades later on TV. Throw in Betty Buckley's insufficiently remembered 1998 performance at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse and you've got...well, a storeful of fancy shoes.

All of which brings us to the Bristol Riverside Theatre revival of "Gypsy," directed by Keith Baker, in which Tovah Feldshuh takes on the challenge of playing the ultimate stage mother. Ms. Feldshuh is not a natural musical-comedy star--she was charmless and uncharismatic in the "Hello, Dolly!" mounted by Paper Mill back in 2006--but Mama Rose, unlike Dolly Levi, is her kind of part, and though her singing is less than ideal, she still makes a strong impression.

What is most appealing about Ms. Feldshuh's performance is its modesty of scale. Her Rose is a tough, determined, sexually appealing woman who clearly comes from the wrong side of the tracks and does her best to conceal her vulnerability, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Yes, she can be scary, and rightly so. To turn a mousy little nobody like Louise (Amanda Rose) into the world's most famous stripper, as Rose does in "Gypsy," is not a job for the faint of heart. But even though ambition has soured and twisted her personality and comes perilously close to wrecking her daughter's life, you are at all times aware that Ms. Feldshuh's Mama Rose is a human being, not a Godzilla-like monstre sacré made of pig iron or solid brass.

It's hard to say whether this approach would work in a Broadway-sized house, especially since Ms. Feldshuh's near-baritonal singing voice lacks the two-fisted punch to which her illustrious predecessors have accustomed us....

Fortunately, Bristol Riverside's 302-seat auditorium is small enough to let Ms. Feldshuh play Rose without any sense of strain....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted January 06, 12:00 AM

TT: Drunk on the aisle

In today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column, I write about Wolcott Gibbs' career as a drama critic. The occasion is the publication of Backward Ran Sentences, the first collection of Gibbs' work to appear since his death in 1958. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Sixty-one years ago last September, Wolcott Gibbs, the drama critic of the New Yorker, did something that by all rights should have earned him a place in the annals of chutzpah. He wrote a play--and it was a hit.

Gibbs' "Season in the Sun," a fluffy comedy that ran for 367 performances, is the last non-musical play by an American drama critic to have opened on Broadway. Part of what made its success so surprising is that Gibbs, who covered theater from 1933 until his death in 1958, was one of the cattiest critics ever to sit on a Broadway aisle. Among other things, he suggested that the stars of a flop called "Anybody Home" "ought to be arrested for disturbing the peace." The fact that he then had the nerve to write a play of his own inspired Life to run a story called "A Critic Awaits His Critics" whose anonymous author reported that "a highly expectant swarm of first-nighters, whiffing blood like spectators at a Roman circus, were on hand to watch Gibbs come to grief or glory."

Though "Season in the Sun," like most Broadway comedies, has failed to hold the stage and is now forgotten, Gibbs' literary quiver was full of other, sharper arrows. A newly published anthology called "Backward Ran Sentences: The Best of Wolcott Gibbs from the New Yorker" (Bloomsbury) reveals him to have been formidably talented at magazine writing of all kinds, and in addition he was one of the New Yorker's most admired editors. It was Gibbs who penned one of the wisest sentences ever written about an editor's job: "Try to preserve an author's style if he is an author and has a style." But he was also a misanthropic alcoholic who believed drama criticism to be "a silly occupation for a grown man," and it was not uncommon for him to dull the edge of his self-loathing by drinking heavily before a show. Indeed, Gibbs came to the opening night of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" so drunk that he had to be carried to his seat....

Perhaps not surprisingly, Gibbs' review of "The Crucible" has been omitted from "Backward Ran Sentences," but Thomas Vinciguerra, the editor, has reprinted a good-sized chunk of his other writings about theater, and they make for interesting reading. Part of what makes them so interesting is Gibbs' point of view, which was that of an unintellectual but highly intelligent playgoer who knew what he liked and was amply endowed with horse sense....

"God, he's brilliant, he doesn't like anything!" said one of Gibbs' fans. What redeemed his venomous ferocity was the gusto with which he wrote about the shows he did like--and there were plenty of them--as well as the judiciousness with which he weighed the merits of serious plays about which he had mixed feelings....

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Posted January 06, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"People always complain about muck-raking biographers saying 'Leave us our heroes.' 'Leave us our villains' is just as important."

Alan Bennett, diary entry, Feb. 11, 1996

Posted January 06, 12:00 AM

January 5, 2012

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 Apr. 29, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Chinglish (comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Apr. 29, reviewed here)
• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, most 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, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Seminar (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Mar. 4, reviewed here)
• Stick Fly (serious comedy, PG-13, 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)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Dancing at Lughnasa (drama, G/PG-13, closes Jan. 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• Follies (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN PHILADELPHIA:
• The King and I (musical, G, suitable for children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• The Cherry Orchard (drama, G, too serious for children, reviewed here)

Posted January 05, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed."

Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

Posted January 05, 12:00 AM

January 4, 2012

TT: Snapshot

The Royal Ballet dances Les Noces, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska to a score by Igor Stravinsky:

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

Posted January 04, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent."

James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

Posted January 04, 12:00 AM

January 3, 2012

TT: Feeling new strength

My brother, who is taking care of my mother in Smalltown, U.S.A., reports that she's doing quite a bit better today. I'll let you know how things develop, but Mrs. T and I are allowing ourselves to feel somewhat more hopeful.

More later.

Posted January 03, 8:45 AM

TT: Almanac

"Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself."

Aldous Huxley, "Wordsworth in the Tropics"

Posted January 03, 12:00 AM

January 2, 2012

TT: Scenes from a marriage (cont'd)

Time: 11 p.m., toward the end of a long and exhausting day. Place: A nursing home in Smalltown, U.S.A. A nurse has given my mother a dose of Ativan to help her sleep. She mumbles a sentence repeatedly but unintelligibly.

HE Mom, I'm sorry, but I just don't understand you.

MOTHER (very clearly and emphatically) YES, YOU DO.

SHE (teasingly) He's pretending not to understand you. Smack him up the side of the head.

MOTHER I would, if I could get my hand loose.

Laughter, followed by relief.

Posted January 02, 12:00 AM

TT: Just because

Benny Goodman plays "Sing, Sing, Sing" in the 1937 movie Hollywood Hotel, with Harry James on trumpet and Gene Krupa on drums:

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

Posted January 02, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac

"I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead."

Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing

Posted January 02, 12:00 AM

January 1, 2012

RED-STATE BALLAD

Posted January 01, 11:48 AM

TT: Irresolute

I'm not making any clever resolutions this year--I'm too distracted by my mother's illness, and 2011 was so complicated a mixture of success and sorrow that I scarcely know what to think about the year that's just arrived. I'll try my best to be a good husband, a good son, a good friend, and a good writer, and that will have to do.

May all of you know comfort and joy in 2012.

Posted January 01, 12:00 AM

TT: Snapshot (special New Year's Day edition)

Glenn Gould plays the opening aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations in 1981:

Posted January 01, 12:00 AM

TT: Almanac (special New Year's Day edition)

"Either life entails courage, or it ceases to be life."

E.M. Forster, "The Poetry of C.P. Cavafy"

Posted January 01, 12:00 AM