Archives for July 2009

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)

• Avenue Q * (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, closes Sept. 13, reviewed here)

• The Little Mermaid * (musical, G, entirely suitable for children, closes Aug. 30, reviewed here)

• Mary Stuart (drama, G, far too long and complicated for children, closes Aug. 16, 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)

• Our Town (drama, G, suitable for mature children, reviewed here)

• Ruined (drama, PG-13/R, sexual content and suggestions of extreme violence, closes Sept. 6, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:

• The History Boys (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, too intellectually complex for most adolescents, extended through Sept. 27, reviewed here)

• A Minister’s Wife (musical, PG-13, closes Aug. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• The Norman Conquests (three related comedies, PG-13, comprehensively unsuitable for children, playing in repertory and extended through July 26, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:

• God of Carnage * (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes July 19, then reopens Sept. 8 and runs through Nov. 15, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• The Rivalry (historical drama, G, too complicated for children, closes July 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN LA JOLLA:

• Restoration (serious comedy, PG-13, closes July 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Waiting for Godot * (drama, PG-13, accessible to intelligent and open-minded adolescents, closes July 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN LOS ANGELES:

• Oleanna (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

“Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet–whom Plato banned from his Republic–may rise up to save us all.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel lecture, Dec. 8, 1978

By day, among other tasks, I edit a magazine about the University of Chicago’s undergraduate college and its alumni, one of whom is the painter Wolf Kahn. In our last issue, Terry, who is (like me) a fan and (unlike me) an owner of Kahn’s work, interviewed the artist for the magazine. When the interview happened last winter, I dreamed at my desk in Chicago of being a fly on the wall in Kahn’s Manhattan studio while the two of them met, talked, and looked at Kahn’s recent paintings of the Chrysler Building. Terry’s story (and Dan Dry‘s photographs) are the next best thing. Read all about it here.

“The Juggler of Our Lady,” a 1958 animated version of the medieval legend, adapted and designed by R.O. Blechman, directed by Al Kouzel, and narrated by Boris Karloff:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

“An artist must pass judgment only on what he understands; his range is limited as that of any other specialist–that’s what I keep repeating and insisting upon. Anyone who says that the artist’s field is all answers and no questions has never done any writing or had any dealings with imagery. An artist observes, selects, guesses and synthesizes.”
Anton Chekhov, letter to A.S. Suvorin (Oct. 27, 1888)