Archives for 2010

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:

• La Cage aux Folles (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Driving Miss Daisy * (drama, G, possible for smart children, extended through Apr. 9, reviewed here)

• A Free Man of Color (epic comedy, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 9, reviewed here)

• Lombardi (drama, G/PG-13, a modest amount of adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• The Merchant of Venice * (Shakespeare, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 9, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, closes Jan. 16, original Broadway production reviewed here)

• Angels in America (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, extended through Mar. 27, reviewed here)

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

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

• Play Dead (theatrical spook show, PG-13, utterly unsuitable for easily frightened children or adults, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN MADISON, N.J.:

• I Capture the Castle (comedy, G/PG-13, suitable for unusually precocious children, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:

• Oklahoma! (musical, G, suitable for children, closes Dec. 30, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (musical, PG-13/R, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

• Fela! (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

• The Pee-wee Herman Show (comic revue, G/PG-13, heavily larded with double entendres, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

“To him boredom was a tragedy, for he had no more realization than if he had been an animal that any state he was in would ever come to an end.”
Rebecca West, The Thinking Reed

An extremely rare kinescope of the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV adaptation of The Fantasticks, directed by George Schaefer and starring Bert Lahr, Ricardo Montalban, and Stanley Holloway, originally telecast by NBC on Oct. 18, 1964 and never shown again. This print also includes the original commercials:

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

“The rightness of a thing isn’t determined by the amount of courage it takes.”
Mary Renault, The Charioteer

“The novelist of manners must be more interested in other people than in himself, and that, unfortunately, is not often found in the places where ostensibly ‘serious’ fiction is now written.”
Jonathan Yardley, “Bard of the Upper Crust” (Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2010)

Nancy LaMott, who died fifteen years ago today, sings “Time After Time”:

It took long enough, but I’ve finally updated the “Top Five” and “Out of the Past” modules of the right-hand column. If you’re looking for gift ideas—or feel like spending a little money on yourself—take note.

“Between too early and too late, there is never more than a moment.”
Franz Werfel, Jacobowsky and the Colonel