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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for January 1, 2009

PLAY

January 1, 2009 by Terry Teachout

The Cripple of Inishmaan (Atlantic, 336 W. 20, extended through March 1). Galway’s Druid Theatre Company brings its letter-perfect revival of Martin McDonagh’s 1997 comedy to New York. What would you be waiting for? This soot-black portrayal of Irish village life at its most claustrophobic is immaculately cast and exquisitely staged by Garry Hynes. Yes, it’s a comedy, and a touching one–but be careful where you touch it or you’re liable to come away with burnt fingers. Anyone who’s allergic to stage-Irish clichés will revel in the wildly funny savagery with which McDonagh skewers them through and through (TT).

TT: Off and running

January 1, 2009 by Terry Teachout

Hello, 2009! Mrs. T and I spent the night at a serviceable hotel across the street from LaGuardia Airport. Now we’re about to catch a plane bound for Florida, where we embark on a month of nonstop cross-country travel that will take us to Palm Beach, Coral Gables, Fort Myers, San Francisco, San Diego, Kansas City, Chicago, and Lenox, Massachussetts. En route we’ll be seeing plays by Brian Friel, John Guare, Lillian Hellman, Eugène Ionesco, Theresa Rebeck, William Shakespeare, and Tennessee Williams, watching Miami City Ballet dance George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial and Paul Taylor’s Mercuric Tidings, and visiting four museums. We might even spend the odd hour sitting in the sun.
I expect to blog from our various stops, but I’ll also be filing Wall Street Journal columns and keeping a distant watch on the progress of The Letter and my Louis Armstrong biography, so be so kind as to cut me some slack if I drop a stitch or two along the way.
See you where it’s sunny….

TT: So you want to see a show?

January 1, 2009 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)

• Equus (drama, R, nudity and adult subject matter, closes Feb. 8, reviewed here)

• The Little Mermaid (musical, G, entirely suitable for children, 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:

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

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:

• Gypsy (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

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

• Dividing the Estate * (black comedy, G, far too serious for pre-teens, reviewed here)

• Irving Berlin’s White Christmas * (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• My Vaudeville Man! (musical, G, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

January 1, 2009 by Terry Teachout

“Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.”
Jean Kerr, Finishing Touches

BELIEVING IN FLANNERY O’CONNOR

January 1, 2009 by Terry Teachout

“After she died, Thomas Merton wrote that ‘when I read Flannery O’Connor, I do not think of Hemingway, or Katherine Anne Porter, or Sartre, but rather of someone like Sophocles.’ Though O’Connor herself would surely have scoffed at such praise, she is among a bare handful of American writers, modern or otherwise, of whom such a thing might plausibly be said…”

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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