Archives for December 29, 2005

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated each Thursday. In all cases, I either gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened or saw and liked them some time in the past year (or both). For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

– Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter, strong language, one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

– Chicago (musical, R, adult subject matter, sexual content, fairly strong language)

– Doubt (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, implicit sexual content, reviewed here)

– The Light in the Piazza (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter and a brief bedroom scene, closes Mar. 26, reviewed here)

– Sweeney Todd (musical, R, adult situations, strong language, reviewed here)

– The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)

– The Woman in White (musical, PG, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

– Abigail’s Party (drama, R, adult subject matter, strong language, reviewed here, closes Feb. 1)

– Slava’s Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

– The Trip to Bountiful (drama, G, reviewed here, closes Feb. 19)

CLOSING THIS WEEKEND:

– Orson’s Shadow (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, very strong language, closes Saturday, reviewed here)

“If I got out of this, I would know it for ever. I would be grateful for every breath I breathed, every meal I ate, every night I felt the cool kiss of sheets, the peace of a bed behind a closed, a locked, door. Why had I never known this before? Why had my parents, my lost religion, never taught it to me? Anyway, I knew now. I had found it out for myself. Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the dread of it. Nothing makes one really grateful for life except the black wings of danger.”

Ian Fleming, The Spy Who Loved Me (courtesy of Eric Felten)

Box of Books offers up five good reasons to read Henry James. I’m touched by the protectiveness of the post generally, and particularly by this intimation that he’s discussed routinely enough to be the continual butt of humorous remarks at fashionable parties: “But I do like him, and in an effort to share the love, here’s five reasons why you shouldn’t laugh on cue the next time someone makes a Henry James joke.” Unless you are going to be running into the ghost of H. G. Wells–

It is a magnificent but painful hippopotamus resolved at any cost, even at the cost of its dignity, upon picking up a pea, which has got to the corner of its den.

–it doesn’t seem all that likely an eventuality. I think we should all agree now, though, that if any of us do find ourselves in such a painful situation we’ll channel and even escalate Box of Books‘s admirable protective instinct, make a beeline for our coats, and storm out in righteous indignation. C’mon, he’s the Master, it’s the least you can do!

(Link courtesy of Dan Green.)

Of the new books I read and reviewed this year, these were the most memorable:

– Kevin Canty, Winslow in Love

– Caryl Philips, Dancing in the Dark

– Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown

– Kelly Braffet, Josie and Jack

– Nadeem Aslam, Maps for Lost Lovers

– Michael Ruhlman, House: A Memoir

Ruhlman is the exception here for contributing the only nonfiction title and for being the author whose other books I wasted the least time in acquiring–I believe Amazon had my order before I had finished off House. More on the delightful Mr. Ruhlman very soon–he has provided all of my pleasure reading for the last little while, I’m a little fixated on his work, and I’m in the middle of writing a long post about why. With any luck at all, I’ll get it up here tomorrow night. With a bit more luck, I’ll find time to say a little something about all of the titles listed above shortly thereafter. Stay tuned.