“Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra–not choreography to the audience.”
George Szell (quoted in Newsweek, Jan. 28, 1963)
Archives for November 2008
CD
Mel Tormé and the Marty Paich Dek-Tette (Bethlehem). Originally recorded in 1956, this immensely sophisticated collection of pop standards teamed Tormé with a ten-piece jazz ensemble whose arrangements were based on the influential 1949-50 recordings of Miles Davis’ “Birth of the Cool” nonet and played by such heavy West Coast hitters as Bud Shank, Red Mitchell, and Mel Lewis. It established Tormé as a world-class jazz singer at a single stroke and remains wonderfully listenable to this day. The opening track, “Lulu’s Back in Town,” became one of Tormé’s trademark songs, though his sensitively sung version of Harold Arlen’s “When the Sun Comes Out” is, if possible, even better (TT).
BOOK
Aljean Harmetz, The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II. This book, originally published in 1992 as Round Up the Usual Suspects, is not a standard-issue piece of celebrity-oriented fluff but a snappily written, hugely entertaining primary-source history that delves deeply into the genesis of the iconic studio-system picture of the Forties. It may well be the most informative book ever written about the making of a Hollywood picture, and among many other useful things, it leaves the attentive reader in no possible doubt that the auteur theory of film is utterly irrelevant to the creation of an assembly-line film like Casablanca (TT).
PLAY
Dividing the Estate (Booth, 222 W. 45, closes Jan. 4). Horton Foote’s grimly funny portrait of a houseful of Texans who’ve been sponging off their mother for so long that they’ve forgotten how to earn an honest buck is the best-written, best-acted play in town, not excluding August: Osage County and A Man for All Seasons. It’s the go-to show for theater buffs who long to spend a whole evening on Broadway without having their intelligence insulted. Give yourself a ticket for Christmas (TT).
BOOK
John Adams, Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life (FSG, $26). A hugely important, exceedingly well-written memoir in which the composer of Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic explains with engaging clarity why he broke with modernism to forge a new, more accessible style of classical composition. Even if, like me, you find it impossible to warm up to Adams’ minimalist music, this book will leave you in no doubt of why it has made so deep an impression on a generation of American composers and listeners (TT).
CD
John McCormack, Deutsche Lieder 1914-1936 (Hamburger Archiv für Gesangskunst). When not singing “Mother Machree” and “The Garden Where the Praties Grow,” Ireland’s favorite tenor was a dead-serious recitalist who had a knack for bringing out the ballad-like quality of German art songs. This beautifully remastered imported CD contains all twenty-seven of his surviving recordings of songs by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Raff, Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf. Some are performed in English, others in Irish-tinged German, but all are sung with a combination of straightforwardness and sweet lyricism that I find completely charming. Would that McCormack had recorded twice as many Lieder, but to hear him singing Wolf’s “Herr, was trägt der Boden hier” (his favorite art song) is to be reminded of how lucky we are to live in the age of recorded sound (TT).
THE GHOSTS OF STUDIO ONE
“Even in its present, somewhat dilapidated state, the TV version of Reginald Rose’s courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men, which aired on Studio One in 1954, shows with stunning clarity what the finest live-drama series had to offer…”
TT: Road to nowhere
Three new shows this week, one disappointing, one great, one pretty good. Read all about Road Show, Dividing the Estate, and American Buffalo in today’s Wall Street Journal drama column. Here’s an excerpt.
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Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman got their wish: “Road Show” finally made it to New York. This much-revised musical about two brothers who can’t decide whether to love or hate one another has been under construction for a decade, but only now has the show, which was previously known as “Wise Guys” and “Bounce” and made it as far as a 2003 tryout in Washington, D.C., taken definitive shape as the one-act chamber musical currently being performed downtown at the Public Theater. I wish I could say it was worth the wait, but “Road Show” isn’t up to the high standards of the creators of “Pacific Overtures.” The book is flat, the score fluent but pale, and my reluctant guess is that the Public will be the last stop on its long trip….
[Mr. Sondheim’s] stylistic fingerprints are all over the score–no one else could have written a bar of it–and it may be that closer acquaintance will make its beauties more apparent. Alas, my first impression is that the songs lack the lyrical bite and sharp melodic profile that one takes for granted from the reigning genius of postwar American musical theater.
About the failings of Mr. Weidman’s book I have no doubts, for they’re painfully evident: “Road Show” is all tell and no show, a string of talky, undramatic ensemble numbers that feels more like an oratorio than a musical….
Horton Foote’s “Dividing the Estate,” which had an extravagantly well-received run Off Broadway last fall, has now transferred to Broadway with its original 13-person cast intact. It’s a bitingly macabre comedy about a family of Texans who’ve been sponging off the money of their mother (Elizabeth Ashley) for so long that they’ve forgotten how to live their own lives. No doubt Primary Stages and Lincoln Center Theatre, the co-producers, hope to profit from the protracted hoopla over Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County,” a similarly dark study of American family life. They deserve to get their wish: “Dividing the Estate” is the best show now playing on Broadway, give or take “Gypsy.” Not only is it at least as good a play as “August: Osage County,” but this production, directed by Michael Wilson, is a stunner, a gorgeous piece of ensemble theater in which nobody puts a foot wrong….
The word is that “American Buffalo,” the second David Mamet revival to open on Broadway this season, will close on Sunday unless ticket sales take an upward turn between now and then. Too bad. This isn’t a perfect production, but it’s worthy and definitely ought to be seen….
Cedric the Entertainer, the comedian-turned-movie-star who made a splash in “Barbershop,” is less a stage actor than a stage presence–but a strong one. He delivers Mamet’s highly stylized dialogue in a too-naturalistic manner, but it’s easy to imagine him making a powerful impression in a more straightforward show, and I very much hope that somebody casts him in an August Wilson play one of these days….
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Read the whole thing here.
Watch my wsj.com video review of American Buffalo here: