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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for December 4, 2012

PLAY

December 4, 2012 by Terry Teachout

Our Town (Huntington Theatre Company, Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont St., Boston, extended through Jan. 26). David Cromer’s staging of Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece, which ran off Broadway for more than 600 performance, is now being remounted in Boston. It’s the greatest revival of a classic play that I’ve seen in my entire theatergoing life, a re-creative landmark that at once arrestingly original and fundamentally faithful in its approach to the author’s well-loved text. Don’t listen if anybody tries to tell you about the surprise ending–and once you’ve seen the show, don’t tell anybody what happens (TT).

CD

December 4, 2012 by Terry Teachout

Donald Fagen, Sunken Condos (Reprise). A new solo album from the co-founder of Steely Dan, Sunken Condos is very much in the now-familiar vein of Morph the Cat, its immediate predecessor. That is, however, a compliment, not a knock. Sly lyrics, subtle harmonies, richly textured rock/jazz/R&B instrumental tracks, virtuoso playing from all parties concerned–what more could you possibly want? This is rock for grownups, wholly adult in its musical language and emotional concerns (TT).

TT: Fill the air

December 4, 2012 by Terry Teachout

Six years ago I posted a list of my favorite Christmas records. I still like all of them, and so, I hope, will you.

TT: Lookback

December 4, 2012 by Terry Teachout

ff2.jpgFrom 2005:

I recently saw a stage actress I know in an episode of a popular TV series. This was a new experience for me. I’ve watched any number of writer friends hold forth on talk shows, and I’ve even tuned into David Letterman to see a band whose members I know quite well. But all those people were being themselves, more or less, whereas my actress friend was pretending to be someone else. Of course she was in one sense wholly herself (I knew her smile in an instant/I knew the curve of her face), and the part she played drew deeply on her familiar energy. Nor was she made up in any deceptive way: she looked like the person I know. Yet some uncanny transformation had nonetheless taken place, and I found myself to be more than a little bit disoriented as I watched her on the screen….

Read the whole thing here.

TT: Almanac

December 4, 2012 by Terry Teachout

“When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn’t really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I’ve never forgotten.”
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

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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