Archives for April 2008

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

• August: Osage County (drama, R, adult subject matter, closes Apr. 20 and reopens Apr. 29 at the Music Box Theatre for an open-ended run, reviewed here)

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• A Chorus Line (musical, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Grease * (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

• Gypsy * (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• In the Heights (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

• The Little Mermaid * (musical, G, entirely suitable for children, reviewed here)

• November (comedy, PG-13, profusely spattered with obscene language, reviewed here)

• Passing Strange (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• South Pacific * (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, reviewed here)

• Sunday in the Park with George * (musical, PG-13, too complicated for children, extended through June 29, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Adding Machine (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, too musically demanding for youngsters, reviewed here)

• The Four of Us (comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, extended through May 18, reviewed here)

IN PROVIDENCE, R.I.:

• Blithe Spirit (comedy, G/PG-13, some adult subject matter, closes Apr. 27, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• The Homecoming (drama, R, adult subject matter, closes Apr. 13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• The Seagull (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Apr. 13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN BALTIMORE:

• A Little Night Music (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Apr. 13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CAMBRIDGE, MASS.:

• The Tempest (drama, G, possible for very intelligent tweens, closes Apr. 13, reviewed here)

ON TOUR:

• Moby-Dick–Rehearsed (drama, G, not suitable for children, touring the U.S. through May 17, reviewed here)

REOPENING THIS MONTH ON BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps * (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, reopens at the Cort Theatre on Apr. 29, reviewed here)

“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”
Erich Fromm, Man for Himself

• At Library Thing, a wiki-type group is cataloging the libraries of the great departed, including those of Samuel Johnson (Terry, I’m looking at you), Sylvia Plath, and Walker Percy. (Via The Mumpsimus, who hopes they get to Borges soon.)
• Asheville alert: Junot Díaz reads at Warren Wilson College this Friday, April 11. It’ll be his first appearance since winning the Pulitzer for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I expect it’ll be a MADHOUSE, enough so that it’s been a real war of conscience for me whether to even spread the word (and thus possibly lose a chance at a seat). What you’re seeing here is the triumph of moral fiber.
Also worth a look, this charming interview with Díaz from Newsweek.

Haven’t you heard enough from me this week? No? Well, ain’t that too damn bad! I’m going to spend the day writing about Satchmo and playing in the sunshine (such as it is) with Mrs. T.
See you tomorrow.

“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”
V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

Three chords are a journey. Two chords are a ride on a seesaw.

I hope I’m not any more vain than I need to be in order to get through the day, but I won’t deny that I find it encouraging to know that some people not only read my theater reviews but act on them. This posting, for instance, pleased me immensely. The author read what I wrote about the Acting Company, took her daughter to see their touring production of Moby-Dick Rehearsed, and enjoyed it immensely. Even better, so did her daughter.

It also pleases me to see my name in front of a Broadway theater. A blogfriend recently sent me a snapshot of the Gypsy marquee, beneath which hangs a sign on which my name and enthusiastic words can be seen by passers-by. Did it tickle me? You bet.

That, however, is mostly vanity, albeit of an innocent kind. Of course I like seeing my name in lights on Broadway, but I think I’m realistic about what it means, to me as well as others:

The kick I get out of seeing my name under a marquee is not to be confused–nor do I ever confuse it–with the justifiable pride a playwright or actor or director or producer takes in his work. It’s simply the forgivable (I hope) vanity of a small-town boy turned big-city critic who never imagined that such things would happen to him, and it’s a far cry from the vulturine posings of, say, Addison DeWitt.

I’ve lived in New York for twenty-three years, and I have yet to start feeling blasé about it. Nor do most of the New Yorkers I like best. As I wrote on the day this blog was launched in 2003, “I hear there are places to live that are almost as much fun as New York City, but I wouldn’t know–I live here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

The friend who sent me the snapshot of the Gypsy marquee moved here last year, and after we saw South Pacific together a couple of weeks ago, she told me that none of the excitement she felt on her arrival in Manhattan had diminished in the slightest.

May she always feel that way–and me, too.

“When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”
Samuel Johnson (quoted in James Boswell, Life of Johnson)