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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for August 28, 2009

TT: Y’all don’t cut down that cherry tree!

August 28, 2009 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, I report on a recent visit to the Los Angeles area, where I saw the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum‘s production of a modernized adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, which is currently being performed in repertory (along with five other classic plays) in the company’s woodsy outdoor amphitheater. I liked it very much, a couple of quibbles notwithstanding. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Whenever I hear about a new staging of a Shakespeare play, my first question is, “Where’s it set?” Contemporary production style all but demands that the action of Shakespeare’s plays be moved to a different time and place–but the language is never changed accordingly. On the other hand, it’s become equally common for the plays of Anton Chekhov and Henrik Ibsen to be performed in up-to-date English-language “adaptations” that depart widely from the original Russian and Norwegian texts–but the period settings are almost always retained. Now the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum has split the difference with a biracial rewrite of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” set in Virginia in 1970. Does it work? Most of the time, and even when it doesn’t quite come off, it’s still worth seeing.
In this version, written by Heidi Helen Davis (who also directs) and Ellen Geer, the Ranevskayas, Chekhov’s impecunious Russian aristocrats, become the Randolphs, a cash-poor upper-class family from Charlottesville whose plantation estate is about to go on the block. Not only are their servants black, but so is Lawrence Poole (Steve Matt), the American counterpart of Lopakin, the ex-serf turned status-hungry businessman who buys the Ranevskaya estate and chops down its beloved cherry orchard at play’s end. This transposition gives the Davis-Geer adaptation a sharp-edged racial angle that is its most telling feature, in part because it arises so naturally from Chekhov’s original play….
* * *
Read the whole thing here.

TT: Points west

August 28, 2009 by Terry Teachout

american-players-theatre.jpgMrs. T and I hit the road today. Our final destination is Spring Green, Wisconsin, where we’ll be seeing American Players Theatre perform two plays by Shakespeare, one by George Bernard Shaw, and one by Eugene O’Neill. That’s a lot of theater to consume in a single weekend, and it also entails a lot of driving–we’ll be flying into Chicago this afternoon, renting a car, and driving north to Wisconsin. I’d be skeptical about pouring so much time and energy into a single reviewing trip were it not for the fact that my previous visits to American Players Theatre have been enormously satisfying. I have similarly high hopes for this one.
180711668_6888dd3e75.jpgOn the way back home, we’ll be spending a night at Muirhead Farmhouse, the only Frank Lloyd Wright house (so far as I know) that is currently being operated as a bed-and-breakfast. It’s just far away enough from O’Hare Airport to serve as a convenient stop for travelers en route between Spring Green and Chicago, and our last visit there was so pleasing that we decided to go back this year.
We won’t return to Connecticut until Tuesday night, so don’t expect to hear from me again before Wednesday or Thursday (though I might surprise you). I trust that Our Girl and CAAF will keep you properly amused while I’m out and about.

TT: Almanac

August 28, 2009 by Terry Teachout

“Wedged as we are between two eternities of idleness, there is no excuse for being idle now.”
Anthony Burgess, Little Wilson and Big God, Being the First Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess

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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