Archives for July 2013

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review an important revival, Westport Country Playhouse’s production of Joe Orton’s Loot, and the off-Broadway transfer of a new musical, Nobody Loves You. Here’s an excerpt.

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Is there a blacker comedy than “Loot”? If so, I haven’t seen it. Alas, Joe Orton’s horrific tale of what happens when a thick-witted police detective in hot pursuit of a sexy multiple murderer takes the law into his own hands is so dark that American audiences have yet to embrace it. First performed in England in 1965 and last seen on Broadway 27 years ago, “Loot” ought to be far more familiar than it is. Not only is it gobsmackingly funny, but its anti-authoritarian message grows more timely by the hour. Yet major revivals remain uncommon on this side of the Atlantic, enough so that Westport Country Playhouse’s riotous production is the first chance that I’ve had in the past decade to write about “Loot.”

The trouble with “Loot,” if trouble it be, is that Orton’s plays, all of which were written between 1963 and his untimely death four years later, have a reputation for being too sexually forthright for the comfort of the matinée crowd. But what was once thought shocking is now anything but: I saw “Loot” on Sunday afternoon in Westport, and nobody in the audience seems to have been appalled. Presumably they were all too busy chortling at the lunatic twists and turns of a whodunit that revolves around a corpse that has been extracted from its coffin, stashed in the nearest cupboard, and replaced with a bagful of cash. Enter Inspector Truscott (David Manis), who suspects Fay (Liv Rooth), the corpse’s nurse, of having done away with her client, not realizing…and that’ll do for the plot of “Loot,” which is so magnificently complicated that a fuller synopsis would spoil at least half the fun, if not more.

The point of “Loot,” of course, is that Truscott, far from being a shining symbol of British justice in action, turns out to be a vicious and corrupt buffoon: “When I make out my report I shall say that you’ve given me a confession. It could prejudice your case if I have to forge one.” But Orton, whose contempt for authority in all its guises was limitless, swathes his anarchic sermon in the gaudy robes of farce…

“Nobody Loves You,” the new Itamar Moses-Gaby Alter musical about a reality-TV series, has transferred from San Diego’s Old Globe, where it had a deservedly successful run last summer, to New York’s Second Stage Theatre. I saw the show in California and found it both ingenious and touching, so I’m pleased to report that “Nobody Loves You” is as fine here as it was there. It is, in fact, the smartest new musical comedy to come along since “The Drowsy Chaperone.”

For those of you just joining us, Jeff (Bryan Fenkart) is a snobby-nerdy philosophy major who gets dumped by his TV-addicted girlfriend and chooses to pursue her by auditioning for “Nobody Loves You,” a “Survivor”-style series hosted by a pretty-boy airhead (Heath Calvert) whose contestants compete with one another to find true love. Instead of courting one of the other contestants, he falls for the show’s no less snobby-nerdy production assistant (Aleque Reid), after which things get really complicated really fast.

So what’s good? Absolutely everything. The book is sharp-witted, the parody-flecked songs clever and catchy….

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Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for the 2012 Old Globe premiere of Nobody Loves You:

“In a close-up the audience is only inches away, and your face becomes the stage. In a large theater it is the entire proscenium arch, so that no matter what you do, it becomes a theatrical event.”
Marlon Brando (with Robert Lindsey), Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me

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, 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, closes Oct. 9, 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 ASHLAND, OREGON:

• My Fair Lady (musical, G, closes Nov. 3, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

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

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

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

CLOSING SOON IN GLENCOE, ILL.:

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

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

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

CLOSING SATURDAY OFF BROADWAY:

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

CLOSING SUNDAY IN MADISON, N.J.:

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

CLOSING SUNDAY IN ORINDA, CALIF.:

• Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, PG-13, reviewed here)

“It is a profession that requires assiduous labour to achieve proficiency, so that by the time an actor knows how to act any sort of part he is often too old to act any but a few; it requires boundless patience; it is fraught with disappointments.”
W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up

Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts the closing sequence of the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, filmed at the Salzburg Festival in 1951:

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

“One often has a misconceived, decorated, even quaint idea of the great actors of our past; it is, as it was in this case, something of a revelation to realize that great acting is always shockingly direct and simple, in the sense that love is.”
Jack O’Brien, Jack Be Nimble: The Accidental Education of an Unintentional Director

Gotham Books, the publishers of Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, sent me some questions a few months ago for use in a canned publicity interview. Here they are, together with my answers.

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Exactly how important a composer was Duke Ellington?

Ellington was the most important jazz composer of the twentieth century, and one of the greatest composers in any genre of music. Not only was he a major composer of purely instrumental music, but he wrote some of the century’s most successful popular songs, including “Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady,” many of which continue to this day to be performed and recorded. No jazz composer has left a deeper mark on world culture.

What kind of a person was he in private life? Was he trustworthy? Loyal? Honest?

That’s a tricky question! Like many geniuses, Ellington was almost entirely self-centered, though his selfishness didn’t exclude kindness and benevolence–on his own terms. But a fair number of his sidemen considered him unscrupulous, and I can’t say that I blame them for feeling that way.

Was Ellington as great a lover as he’s said to have been?

Even greater, by all accounts. Throughout his life Ellington was catnip to women, and he rarely said “no” when they invited him into their beds. I didn’t even try to count his lovers–I can’t count that high.

Did Ellington really write all of his hit songs and instrumental compositions–or did he have unacknowledged collaborators?

He had many unacknowledged collaborators, starting with Billy Strayhorn, his closest musical associate. He wasn’t a plagiarist, but to an extent that’s not generally realized or fully understood by most of his fans, Ellington created his music collectively–though he was always the auteur, the man who made the ultimate decisions, and he was solely responsible for writing most of his major instrumental pieces. On the other hand, bits and pieces of the melodies of most of his big pop hits were written by his sidemen. To be sure, he usually gave credit where it was due, but not always, and he tried whenever possible to buy those bits and pieces for flat fees instead of cutting his collaborators in on the songwriting royalties.

What effect did Ellington’s middle-class family background have on his personality and music?

It was absolutely central to his personality–as well as to his music. Ellington saw himself as a member of the light-skinned black bourgeoisie, an elegant, cultivated gentleman who insisted on being taken seriously by the white world and performing not only in nightclubs but in concert halls.

For the uninitiated, what should be the three Ellington songs one should listen to first? Why?

I’d start with Ko-Ko, Ellington’s most perfect instrumental composition, written and recorded in 1940. It’s an explosively dynamic blues that comes as close as any record can to summing him up in three minutes. Then I’d choose the original 1930 recording of Mood Indigo, which shows us Ellington in a quiet, pensive mood. Last of all, I’d opt for the frenzied live recording of Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue that he made in 1956 at the Newport Jazz Festival. Not only will that give you a taste of Ellington’s large-scale compositions, but it’s of enormous historical importance as well, for its popular success shaped the last part of his life.

What was the most surprising fact you came across in your research of his life?

Speaking as a musician and a scholar, I was most surprised by the extent of his borrowings from other musicians. I knew he was in the habit of doing so, but I didn’t fully realize the extent to which his compositional process was shaped by his need to collaborate–which arose in large part from the fact that he found it difficult to write memorable tunes. (I’ll admit, though, that the details of his very enthusiastic sex life occasionally surprised me as well!)

How did Duke get that scar on his face? Why was he so ashamed to show it?

Edna, his wife, attacked him with a razor when she found out that he was sleeping with another woman. I think he was ashamed of the scar because he hated the idea of anyone knowing that he’d ever been at the mercy of a woman. He had enormously complicated feelings about women, a fascinating mixture of attraction, hatred, and–above all–distrust.

Now that you’ve extensively researched Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, who do you have more of an affinity for? Why?

Again, that’s a tricky question. Louis Armstrong was clearly the more likable man, in part because his personality was so completely open and unguarded. Ellington, however, was far more intriguing, for the opposite reason: he only showed you what he wanted you to see, and nothing more. I guess I’d have to say that I would have preferred to be Armstrong’s friend–though I think it would have been great fun to hang out with Ellington on occasion. I’m not sure I would have wanted to work for him, though.

From 2004:

I do think, however, that under the aspect of modernism, we’re taught to distrust happiness, at least as represented in art (and probably also in life as well). I myself don’t feel this way, which is why I gravitate to a great many artists whose view of the world is essentially sunny. On the other hand, that doesn’t stop me from embracing the dark side of art, so long as it isn’t ponderously dark…

Read the whole thing here.