• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

You are here: Home / 2013 / July / Archives for 18th

Archives for July 18, 2013

TT: Solo flight (II)

July 18, 2013 by Terry Teachout

12O_2759-RAW-ashland-autumn.jpgFrom San Francisco I flew north to Ashland, the arty mountain resort that is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a place of which I’ve been enormously fond ever since I first came here in 2006 to see shows.

My oft-expressed fondness, to be sure, has always been tempered with a touch of skepticism, for Ashland, like San Francisco, is not quite my kind of town. To the outsider it looks like a Disney-neat, lily-white community peopled by well-heeled tourists, well-off retirees, and the exceedingly nice people who wait on them, leavened by a light sprinkling of superannuated hippies.

If such is your thing, you’ll love Ashland, and even if it isn’t, you’ll likely find the town to be pretty as a picture (it actually has a street whose official name is Scenic Drive) and hard to resist. You can eat well there, which I did, and I’ve testified repeatedly in The Wall Street Journal to the consistent seriousness and high quality of the shows put on by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (I saw three this year).

0715131802.jpgAll that said, I can no more imagine moving to Ashland than to San Francisco, perhaps because I’ve never succeeded in scratching its surface. I don’t doubt that it’s a more complicated place than this bald description suggests, and it might be that closer acquaintance would make it more attractive to me. It wasn’t until I peeled off from the center of town and dined at Omar’s, a roadside steakhouse which claims to be the oldest restaurant in Ashland, that I felt I’d gotten anything remotely approaching a glimpse of the way the locals live.

Or maybe it’s just that I happened this season to come to Ashland by myself, Mrs. T having decided not to brave the two-leg transcontinental flight that is the only way for New Yorkers to get there. The longer we live together, the less we like being apart.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that theater is a social art, and it’s been quite some time since I last saw three shows in a row without somebody I know well sitting next to me. For me, no small part of the fun of seeing a play is talking about it. I didn’t get to do that this time around, or to share my excellent meals with a companion. Mrs. T says I’m simply not cut out to be a singleton, and now that I’m not one anymore, I guess she’s right.

0714131357.jpgInstead of seeking out the company of strangers, I kept to myself, got a considerable amount of writing done, and drove up to Mount Ashland on Sunday afternoon. When I first went there in 2009, I hiked to the top of the mountain, a lunatic improvisation that I undertook without preparation and for which I received a stern lecture from Mrs. T when I called her from the summit to brag about my derring-do. This time I was content to drive up to the ski area, dreaming of past glories all the way there and back.

A solitary traveler treasures kind waitresses (thank you, Janell and Sascha, for taking such good care of me!) and quiet moments. Alone or not, there is much to be said for sitting in an outdoor hot tub at dusk, watching the moon set over the mountains and thinking of nothing in particular. Still, I was more than ready to hit the road when the time came for me to do so on Wednesday. It seems that the charms of Ashland aren’t meant to be experienced alone–at least not by me.

(Second of three parts)

TT: So you want to see a show?

July 18, 2013 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.


BROADWAY:

• Annie (musical, G, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Matilda (musical, G, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• The Trip to Bountiful (drama, G, extended through Oct. 9, reviewed here)

• Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (comedy, PG-13, remounting of off-Broadway production, closes Aug. 25, most performances sold out last week, original production reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• 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)

IN CHICAGO:

• Big Lake Big City (comedy, PG-13/R, completely unsuitable for children, extended through Aug. 25, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• The Nance (play with music, PG-13, closes Aug. 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• The Weir (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN GLENCOE, ILL.:

• The Liar (comedy, PG-13, extended through Aug. 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• A Picture of Autumn (drama, G, too serious for children, closes July 27, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN MADISON, N.J.:

• Fallen Angels (comedy, PG-13, closes July 28, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CHICAGO:

• Tartuffe (comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

July 18, 2013 by Terry Teachout

“In the long run, it may turn out that rascality is necessary to human government, and even to civilization itself–that civilization, at bottom, is nothing but a colossal swindle.”
H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy

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...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

July 2013
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Jun   Aug »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Terry Teachout, 65
  • Gripping musical melodrama
  • Replay: Somerset Maugham in 1965
  • Almanac: Somerset Maugham on sentimentality
  • Snapshot: Richard Strauss conducts Till Eulenspiegel

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in