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Archives for June 19, 2008

OGIC: Reading diary, part two

June 19, 2008 by ldemanski

Funny that while the fortunes of the sentence flicker, I am immersed in a second consecutive book whose grammatical units–sentences and paragraphs alike–are, one after the other, superlatively made. First it was Netherland, covered in my post yesterday. Now it’s Sybille Bedford’s A Legacy. Fifty pages in, I’m really quite awed. Here’s a sentence about the narrator’s well-to-do German grandparents:

While members of what might have been their world were dining to the sounds of Schubert and of Haydn, endowing research and adding Corot landscapes to their Bouchers and the Delacroix, and some of them were buying their first Picasso, the Merz’s were adding bell-pulls and thickening the upholstery.

And a paragraph that shortly follows:

They took no exercise and practised no sport; they kept no animals–except carriage horses–and none were allowed in the house. The caretaker couple kept a canary in their basement by the furnace, but no truffled nose had ever snuffed the still hot air upstairs, no padded paw had trod the Turkey pile, no tooth had gnawed, no claw ripped the mahogany and the plush, and there was a discreet mouse-trap set in every room. The Merz’s had no friends, a word they seldom used; they saw no-one besides the family, the doctor and an occasional, usually slightly seedy, guest asked to occupy the fourteenth place at the table. They were never alone; when it wasn’t the barber, it would be the manicure. Grandmama Merz had never taken a bath without the presence and assistance of her maid. They did not go to shops. Things were sent to them on approval, and people came to them for fittings. They never read. There was a smoking-room, and a billiard-room nobody used, but there was not so much as a courtesy library, and I cannot ever remember seeing a book about.

Dorothy Parker, a woman not easily scared, called A Legacy “almost terrifyingly brilliant.” I can only account for the terror in her reaction by imagining the encounter with a writer at least her equal for wit and incisiveness posed a threat. The encounter certainly brought out her own incisiveness; her critical comment on the novel (part of an Esquire group review of the best fiction of 1957) begins and ends with these three words. The book’s brilliance is evident from the first page, but, at least so far, it has me feeling merely appreciative.

TT: So you want to see a show?

June 19, 2008 by Terry Teachout

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:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, reviewed here)

• August: Osage County * (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

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

• Boeing-Boeing * (comedy, PG-13, cartoonishly sexy, reviewed here)

• A Chorus Line (musical, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Aug. 17, reviewed here)

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

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

• November (comedy, PG-13, profusely spattered with obscene language, closes July 13, 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)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Adding Machine (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, too musically demanding for youngsters, closes Aug. 31, reviewed here)

REOPENED OFF BROADWAY:

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

IN SUBURBAN CHICAGO:

• The Lion in Winter (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Aug. 3, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:

• Julius Caesar/Antony and Cleopatra (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, too musically demanding for youngsters, performed in alternating repertory through July 6, reviewed here)

WK-AM184_THEATE_20080612165216.jpg
CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN MONTGOMERY, ALA.:

• The Count of Monte Cristo/Romeo and Juliet (drama, G/PG-13, performed in alternating repertory through June 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:

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

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Cry-Baby (musical, PG-13, mildly naughty and very cynical, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• Port Authority (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

June 19, 2008 by Terry Teachout

“True life is elsewhere. We are not in the world.”
Arthur Rimbaud, “Délires I”

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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