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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for September 15, 2006

TT: Shakespeare, straight up

September 15, 2006 by Terry Teachout

This week my Wall Street Journal drama column is devoted in its entirety to an account of my recent visit to the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia, where I saw Othello, As You Like It, and Macbeth:

In theater, seeing is believing, and the best way to learn about 17th-century theatrical performance practices is to watch a Shakespeare play acted on a modern re-creation of an Elizabethan-style stage. The most famous of these is the replica of Shakespeare’s own open-air Globe Theatre that was built on the banks of London’s Thames River in 1997. The U.S. is home to a half-dozen such houses, including the indoor theater at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and the open-air theaters that I saw earlier this year at the Oregon Shakespeare and Utah Shakespearean Festivals. Most of the American replicas, however, are variously modernized structures that incorporate such anachronistic devices as theatrical lighting. If you want to see the real thing–and to see it used in a convincing way–the place to go is Staunton, home of the American Shakespeare Center, whose performances are given in a dazzlingly exact re-creation of the Blackfriars Playhouse, originally built in London in 1596….


To pass through the lobby doors into the 300-seat auditorium is like jumping into Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine and setting the controls for 1600, with some allowances made for fire safety. Actors and audience are lit by the same electric chandeliers–there are no spotlights–and if you’re fortunate enough to hold a ticket for one of the 12 “Lord’s Chairs” placed on either side of the stage, you’ll be close enough to the players to reach out and touch them.


All this would be of purely historical interest were it not for the high quality of the ASC’s fast-moving productions, which are authentic (no sets, no scene breaks) but not antiquarian. The company consists of 11 mostly young men and women who perform in a cheerfully eclectic mishmash of period and modern dress. They speak their soliloquies and asides straight to the audience, and the uncomplicated stagings give the impression that you’re seeing the play itself, naked and self-sufficient….

No free link, but you can read the whole thing by buying today’s Journal or–better yet–going here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you instant access to the complete text of my review. (If you’re already a subscriber, you’ll find it here.)


ELSEWHERE: To read what Mr. My Stupid Dog wrote about the same performance of Othello I attended, go here.

TT: The Met goes digital

September 15, 2006 by Terry Teachout

In my next “Sightings” column, to be published in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, I take a second look at last week’s much-discussed announcement by the Metropolitan Opera:

Following extensive, groundbreaking negotiations with its three largest unions, the Metropolitan Opera announced plans today that will revolutionize the live electronic distribution of its productions. In an historic first for any major performing arts institution in this country or abroad, this season the Met will use advanced distribution platforms and state-of-the-art technology to attract new audiences and reach millions of opera fans around the world. Beginning on December 30, the Met will transmit six of its performances live in high definition into movie theaters in the United States, Canada, and Europe that have been equipped with high-definition projection systems and satellite dishes. In addition, over 100 live performances will be broadcast either over the internet or on digital radio….

Naturally, the movie-house broadcasts got the headlines–but the real news was buried in the fine print. The Met, it turns out, is on the verge of making a major move into the brave new world of online, on-demand music. To learn what Peter Gelb has up his sleeve, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Journal, where you’ll find my column in the “Pursuits” section.

TT: Incoming

September 15, 2006 by Terry Teachout

I’m either reading or about to start reading these books:

– Simon Callow, Orson Welles: Hello Americans


– Peter Carey, Theft: A Love Story


– Robert Hughes, Things I Didn’t Know: A Memoir


– John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life


– Maureen Ogle, Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer


– Roger Scruton, Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life


– Michael Streissguth, Johnny Cash: The Biography


– Aleksander Wat, My Century


– Michael Webb, Modernism Reborn: Mid-Century American Houses


UPDATE: A friend writes:

Nine out of ten of your book titles include a colon.

I’m soooo not going there….

TT: Almanac

September 15, 2006 by Terry Teachout

“You’re television incarnate, Diana: indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy.”


Paddy Chayefsky, screenplay for Network

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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