• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Magic act

May 13, 2005 by Terry Teachout

Friday again. My Wall Street Journal drama column again. I’m in a v. good mood, thanks to the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., in which I am well pleased:

In theater as in all other art forms, believe what you see, not what you’re told. On paper, Shakespeare Theatre’s production of “The Tempest” sounds like the worst kind of politico-intellectual stew, Shakespeare run through the theory mill and turned into a Statement for Our Times. On stage, it’s a fantastic procession of sights and sounds that will set your head to spinning. Kate Whoriskey, the director, may fancy herself a purveyor of ideas, but in fact she’s something infinitely more precious–a natural-born stage magician….


I can’t think why we haven’t seen more of her in New York. In fact, I’d like to see her “Tempest” in New York, ideally at the Public Theater, where I’m sure it’d knock everybody sideways. Don’t wait for it, though–instead, go to Washington and let yourself be enraptured by the most imaginative Shakespeare production I’ve seen since Propeller’s all-male “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Meanwhile, back in Manhattan, I was scarcely less delighted by a new revival of She Stoops to Conquer:

Lest we forget, there’s more than one way to skin a classic. The Irish Repertory Theatre’s revival of “She Stoops to Conquer,” which opened last night, is a resolutely unfantastic, straight-down-the-center staging of Oliver Goldsmith’s 1773 farce, devoid of the slightest trace of trickery and played on an old-fashioned drawing-room set whose walls are festooned with no less than 65 gloomy-looking paintings (yes, I counted them). The actors and actresses are bedecked in periwigs and petticoats–and the results couldn’t be more pleasing….

No link. WillyoujustbuythedamnpaperforGod’ssake? Or go here and stride boldly forward into the Information Age. (Psst–it’s a bargain.)

Filed Under: main

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...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

May 2005
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Apr   Jun »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Terry Teachout, 65
  • Gripping musical melodrama
  • Replay: Somerset Maugham in 1965
  • Almanac: Somerset Maugham on sentimentality
  • Snapshot: Richard Strauss conducts Till Eulenspiegel

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in