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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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TT: Who needs Shakespeare?

August 3, 2007 by Terry Teachout

Once again, this week’s Wall Street Journal drama column was filed from the road. It’s all about Shakespeare & Company, based in Lenox, Massachusetts:

In recent weeks I’ve been checking out regional productions of the plays of Tom Stoppard, whose “Coast of Utopia” trilogy dominated the New York theater scene this past season. Perhaps not coincidentally, Shakespeare & Company decided to have its first go at a Stoppard play this summer, and shrewdly picked one of his lesser-known works. “Rough Crossing” is Mr. Stoppard’s 1984 English-language performing version of “Play at the Castle,” a Ferenc Molnár comedy best known outside the author’s native Hungary in a 1926 adaptation called “The Play’s the Thing” that was written by none other than P.G. Wodehouse….
“Rough Crossing” is first and foremost a farce, meaning that it requires a combination of flawless timing and flamboyant physicality. Accordingly, Kevin G. Coleman, the director, has whipped his six-person cast into a veritable frenzy of laugh-getting. Not since the Peccadillo Theater Company’s Off Broadway revival of “Room Service” have I seen such manic energy expended to such potent effect….
The fun thing about repertory theater is that it allows you to see a troupe of gifted actors in more than one play–sometimes in a single day. Mr. Ingram, Jason Asprey and LeRoy McClain, all of whom made me laugh myself silly in “Rough Crossing,” changed costumes and left me spellbound a few hours later in Joe Penhall’s “Blue/Orange,” a three-hander that is as different from “Rough Crossing” as…well, as blue is from orange.
Mr. Penhall’s play, which was first seen in London in 2000 and has since been making the rounds of American regional theaters, is that rarest of rarities, a nominally political play that steers scrupulously clear of crude propagandizing….

No link, so kindly do the usual. (If you’re already a subscriber to the Online Journal, my column is here.)

TT: Shakespeare the relevant

August 3, 2007 by Terry Teachout

In my “Sightings” column in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, I reflect on the experience of seeing lots and lots and lots of Shakespeare productions, which I do in my capacity as the Journal‘s drama critic. What good does it do to see King Lear over and over again–and what, if anything, does it tell us about the reasons why postmodern audiences continue to embrace the Bard in spite of the fact that he’s soooo sixteenth-century?
To find out, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Journal and turn to the “Pursuits” section.

TT: Almanac

August 3, 2007 by Terry Teachout

“Cellphones are wonderful, but they empower the obnoxious and amplify the ignorant.”
Peggy Noonan, Rich Man, Boor Man (Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2007)

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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