Archives for March 2006

Today’s Wall Street Journal drama column is an off-Broadway triple-header: A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, and Grey Gardens. Two I liked, one I didn’t:

I’ve never understood why Amy Irving’s film career failed to pan out. All I know is that she made some good movies in the ’80s, married and divorced Steven Spielberg, moved to Brazil and pretty much dropped off the scope. Now she’s back in Manhattan, giving a dynamite performance Off Broadway in a one-woman play about an American artist who, like Ms. Irving, changed course and went south.

Marta G

Here’s a little taste of my next “Sightings” column, which appears biweekly in the “Pursuits” section of the Saturday Wall Street Journal:

A Colorado teacher was put on leave by her superintendent last month after showing a video of excerpts from “Faust” to one of her classes. Some parents, it seems, didn’t want their kids to see an opera about a devil. Around the same time, a principal in Fulton, Mo., cancelled a student production of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” when he learned that the play was about witches.

You probably read these stories–then forgot about them. Such skirmishes, after all, are commonplace in postmodern America, where long-simmering cultural resentments can boil over without warning. But what happened to Tresa Waggoner, who got in red-hot water for introducing her students to an opera she calls “a great part of our civilization and Western culture,” is more than just another black-and-white tale of blue-nosed intolerance in Red America….

As always, there’s lots more where that came from. See for yourself–buy a copy of tomorrow’s Journal and look me up.

“It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one’s own absurdity.”

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. 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 and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

– Bridge & Tunnel* (solo show, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes July 9)

– Chicago* (musical, R, adult subject matter and sexual content)

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

– The Light in the Piazza* (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter and a brief bedroom scene, closes July 2, reviewed here)

– Sweeney Todd* (musical, R, adult subject matter, 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:

– Defiance (drama, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here, closes May 7)

– I Love You Because (musical, R, sexual content, reviewed here)

– The Lieutenant of Inishmore (black comedy, R, adult subject matter and extremely graphic violence, reviewed here, closes April 9 and moves to Broadway April 18)

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

CLOSING SOON:

– Abigail’s Party (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes April 8)

– Bernarda Alba (musical, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here, closes April 9)

“Like most people who cultivate an interest in the arts, Hayward was extremely anxious to be right. He was dogmatic with those who did not venture to assert themselves, but with the self-assertive he was very modest.”

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

“He knew that an enormous proportion of mankind feels, weirdly but indisputably, a stronger awe for the theatre than almost any other art or activity on earth. He knew that to get in on the inside, to be

I came here looking for something

I couldn’t find anywhere else.

Hey, I’m not trying to be nobody,

Just want a chance to be myself.

I’ve done a thousand miles of thumbin’,

I’ve worn holes in both my heels

Trying to find me something better

Here on the streets of Bakersfield.

You don’t know me, but you don’t like me.

You say you care less how I feel.

But how many of you that sit and judge me

Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?

Homer Joy, “Streets of Bakersfield” (in memory of Buck Owens)

P.S. For a good obit of a great country singer, go here.

“‘But Piers, why did you choose him of all people? I shouldn’t have thought you had anything in common.’

“‘This having things in common,’ said Piers impatiently, ‘how overrated it is! Long dreary intellectual conversations, capping each other’s obscure quotations–it’s so exhausting. It’s much more agreeable to come home to some different remarks from the ones one’s been hearing all day.'”

Barbara Pym, A Glass of Blessings