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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Give that woman a Tony

October 24, 2003 by Terry Teachout

William Nicholson’s The Retreat From Moscow, starring Eileen Atkins, John Lithgow, and Ben Chaplin, opened Thursday at the Booth Theatre, and I reviewed it in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s the money graf:

Can a great performance save a lousy show? It depends on the show. The post-opening buzz on “The Boy From Oz,” for instance, is that Hugh Jackman is worth the price of the ticket, but I’d happily pay good cash money never to see that sugar-coated dud again, with or without the excellent Mr. Jackman. On the other hand, Eileen Atkins has definitely done the silk-purse trick at the Booth Theatre, albeit with a higher-quality sow’s ear. William Nicholson’s “The Retreat From Moscow,” which opened last night, is your standard-issue British domestic drama, all dolled up to look like a serious play, but Ms. Atkins tears into it as if it were Chekhov (which is pretty much what Mr. Nicholson wants you to think it is), and even though I wasn’t fooled for a second, it didn’t matter….you won’t find better acting on Broadway, or anywhere else. She is totally present, totally convincing, totally right.

As usual, no link, so to read the whole thing (which also includes my thoughts on Primary Stages’ production of A.R. Gurney’s Strictly Academic), buy a copy of this morning’s Journal and turn to the “Weekend Journal” section, which is full of readable goodies.

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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