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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for April 4, 2007

OGIC: Fortune cookie

April 4, 2007 by Terry Teachout

“At eleven o’clock that night, in one of my dangerous moods–midnight black, excited and deeply dreading (as opposed to one of my beautiful midnight-blue ones, calm but deeply excited), my nerves strung taut to singing, I arrived alone at the Ritz, only to discover all over again what a difficult thing this was to do. I tended to lose my balance at the exact moment that the doorman opened the cab door and stood by in his respectful attitude of ‘waiting.’ I have even been known to fall out of the cab by reaching and pushing against the handle at the same time that he did. But this time, however, I had disciplined myself to remain quite, quite still, sitting on my hands until the door was opened for me. Then, burrowing into my handbag, which suddenly looked like the Black Hole of Calcutta, to find the fare, I discovered that I needed a light. A light was switched on. I needed more than a light, I needed a match or a torch or special glasses, for I simply couldn’t find my change purse, and when I did (lipstick rolling on the floor, compact open and everything spilt–passport, mirror, the works) I couldn’t find the right change. We were now all three of us, driver, doorman and I, waiting to see what I was going to do next. I took out some bills, counted them three times in the dark until I was absolutely certain that I had double the amount necessary, and then pressed it on the driver, eagerly apologizing for over-tipping. Overcome with shyness I nodded briefly in the direction of the doorman and raced him to the entrance. I just won. Panting and by now in an absolute ecstasy of panic I flung myself at the revolving doors and let them spin me through. Thus I gained access to the Ritz. I had once seen a man in the taxi in front of mine jump out and with a lordly wave at the doorman say something like, ‘Pay him for me Guillaume, my good man,’ and stroll inside. I have never arrived there alone since, without devoutly wishing I was sharing that cab.”


Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

OGIC: Sally Jay is a wild man

April 4, 2007 by Terry Teachout

Terry’s right, I love, love, love The Dud Avocado and couldn’t be more pleased that a new edition will soon be out and graced with his introduction (not to mention a perfect cover).


I first discovered Elaine Dundy’s novel and its grand, green heroine Sally Jay Gorce–wisecracking, world-wandering descendent of Daisy Miller and Isabel Archer–a couple of years out of college when I was working in New York. My friend Elaine, the editor I assisted at my first job and a reader of impeccable taste, had recommended it. I borrowed her copy, brought it along on a train ride to Albany one weekend, and simply inhaled it. (There’s something about discovering a wonderful book on a train trip that draws it even nearer and dearer to my heart. Dawn Powell’s Turn, Magic Wheel is another. I really must contrive to ride on more trains.) I was probably around Sally Jay’s age, or only a shade older, at the time. To read of her misadventures now, with the perspective of more years and greater experience, is still to be charmed and hugely amused; but it’s also one of those stories of youth that makes me feel I wouldn’t be 20 again for the world.


But Sally Jay works it all out, and here’s to her and to Terry. By way of toasting their impending arrival, a week’s worth of tantalizing Dud Avocado fortune cookies starts…right now.

TT: Not-so-trivial trivia

April 4, 2007 by Terry Teachout

I went to Baltimore last weekend to see CenterStage’s revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness!. The program was full of fascinating information about the play and its author, but it neglected to mention one irresistible piece of trivia for which I unfortunately couldn’t find room in my review of the production, which will be appearing in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.

Anybody who knows anything about American theater knows that George M. Cohan, Broadway’s very own Yankee Doodle Dandy, starred in the original 1933 Broadway production of Ah, Wilderness! It was the first time Cohan had ever acted in a straight play of any significance, and by all accounts he was terrific–but he wasn’t the only star of the show. Who played his sixteen-year-old son, the painfully earnest writer-in-the-making that O’Neill based on himself when young?

The answer, I’m staggered to say, is Elisha Cook, Jr., the very same character actor who later moved to Hollywood and spent the rest of his long life playing weirdos and misfits in such well-remembered films as The Big Sleep, Born to Kill, The Killing, The Maltese Falcon, One-Eyed Jacks, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Rosemary’s Baby, and Shane.

What’s more, it turns out Cook was really, really good in Ah, Wilderness! According to Brooks Atkinson, the veteran drama critic who reviewed Ah, Wilderness! for the New York Times:

As Richard, Elisha Cook Jr. has strength as well as pathos. Mr. Cook can draw more out of mute adolescence than any other young actor on our stage

Aren’t you glad you know that now? I sure am.

TT: Almanac

April 4, 2007 by Terry Teachout

“The essence of performance is its ‘now-ness’–no mind, no memory. Just that brief time when one has the chance to be whole, when seemingly disconnected threads of one’s being are woven and intertwined into the complete present. No other. No past. No future. No mind as an entity distinct from the body. Certainly I’ve experienced memorable performances–but what made them memorable was extraneous to the dancing.”


Carolyn Brown, Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham

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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