Plain English: May 2012 Archives
Here's my contribution to the Jubilee. In the summer or early autumn of 1986 I was commissioned by the NY Times - Magazine, I think I remember - to write a piece on the queen and her then prime minister, who was Margaret Thatcher. There had been some trivial business about the two of them wearing the same dress, and this led to a piece in the (British) Sunday Times saying there was some tension between the two 60 year-olds. The tiff has been dredged up for the Jubilee and you can read a summary of it at http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/Magazine/Interviews/article1041265.ece
Last night I saw the final, reduced-price "preview" of the new London production of Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys." It opens tonight, and in my review, to be published tomorrow, I express the hope that the play will improve when the run starts for real. Almost exactly the same thing happened at the end of February, when critics were allowed in early to see a revival of Alan Ayckbourn's "Absent Friends."
Then, too, I noted a distinct absence of ensemble playing. A really talented cast, playing a pretty good piece by one of the best living playwrights, just wasn't giving their all. As I wrote in my review, I knew in my bones that the production simply was not as lackluster as it seemed at this last preview: the performances hadn't gelled, but it felt as though some of the actors were holding back. And, sure enough, the actual press night notices were better than those given by my preview colleagues and me.
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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Richard Kessler on arts education
Douglas McLennan's blog
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Art from the American Outback
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
No genre is the new genre
David Jays on theatre and dance
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
John Rockwell on the arts
innovations and impediments in not-for-profit arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
Fresh ideas on building arts communities
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
Joe Horowitz on music
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
visual
Public Art, Public Space
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary