Archives for 2005

November 2003:

Ingmar Bergman has fallen from fashion, but I well remember when he was the very model of a Foreign Filmmaker, the man whose movies embodied everything that wasn’t Hollywood. Those, of course, were the days when Hollywood wasn’t cool: if you wanted to impress your date, you took her to a Bergman. (A little later on, it was O.K. to take her to one of Woody Allen’s ersatz-Bergman movies.) Now he belongs to the ages, and I know more than a few self-styled film buffs who’ve never seen any of his work….

(If it’s new to you, read the whole thing here.)

– Moss Hart’s share in 1930 of the average weekly box-office receipts for the original Broadway production of the Kaufman-Hart play Once in a Lifetime: $1,867

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $20,172.38

(Source: Steven Bach, Dazzler)

“It is not music’s function to express rational necessities.”

Artur Schnabel, Music and the Line of Most Resistance

“I was reading your drama column,” somebody said to me today, “and I’ve got to know–who are you, anyway? Where are you coming from?”

It was a serious question, asked seriously, and I thought about it for a moment before answering.

“You know what I am?” I finally said. “I’m a regular-guy aesthete. I like fancy sets, but I like bare stages, too. I like Stephen Sondheim and pretty girls. In fact, there’s only two things I never, ever like: pretentiousness and being bored.”

I think that sums me up fairly well, don’t you?

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:

– Absurd Person Singular (comedy, PG, adult subject matter, closes Dec. 18, reviewed here)

– 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)

– Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (musical, R, extremely vulgar, reviewed here)

– 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)

OFF BROADWAY:

– Orson’s Shadow (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, very strong language, closes Dec. 31, reviewed here)

– See What I Wanna See (musical, R, adult subject matter, explicit sexual situations, strong language, closes Dec. 4, reviewed here)

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

– Total royalties earned in 1934 from combined sales of all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books: $58.34

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $832.76

(Source: Matthew J. Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur)

A police car and a screaming siren–

A pneumatic drill and ripped-up concrete–

A baby wailing and a stray dog howling–

The screech of brakes and lamplights blinking–

that’s entertainment.

Paul Weller, “That’s Entertainment” (music by Weller)

A police car and a screaming siren–

The screech of brakes and lamplights blinking–

that’s entertainment.

that’s entertainment.

Paul Weller, “That’s Entertainment” (music by Weller)