Archives for 2014

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:
• Cabaret (musical, PG-13/R, closes Jan. 4, reviewed here)
• The Country House (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 9, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Love Letters (drama, PG-13, closes Feb. 1, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, reviewed here)
• On the Town (musical, G, contains double entendres that will not be intelligible to children, reviewed here)
• Once (musical, G/PG-13, closes Jan. 4, reviewed here)
• This Is Our Youth (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 4, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• Indian Ink (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 30, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN SPRING GREEN, WIS.:
• American Buffalo (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 8, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fatal Weakness (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO:
• When We Are Married (comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

“Men give way before the power of genius, they hate it and try to blow upon it because it takes without sharing the plunder, but they give way if it persists; in short, they worship it on their knees when they have failed in their efforts to bury it under the mud.”

Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

Excerpts from an interview with Helen Frankenthaler, conducted in 1995 for the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia:

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

“Beauty, real beauty, is something very grave. If there is a God, He must be partly that.”

Jean Anouilh, The Rehearsal

From 2004:

Whatever the reason, I’ve reached the age of forty-eight without once successfully completing a work of fiction (or unsuccessfully, for that matter), and though it’s not unheard of for incautious writers to unexpectedly extrude a novel in the middle of life, I doubt it’ll happen to me. I regret it bitterly, just as I regret never having learned to speak another language, but by now I’m reasonably content to stick to the cards in my hand and do my best to play them as well as I know how….

Read the whole thing here.

“When you’re forty, half of you belongs to the past—and when you’re seventy, nearly all of you.”

Jean Anouilh, Time Remembered

Just in case you’re wondering why there wasn’t a nice long posting today containing my considered thoughts on something or other, this is One of Those Weeks. Not only do I have two Wall Street Journal columns and a Commentary essay to write, but I also had to knock out two lectures that I’ll be delivering this coming weekend at Baylor University. That’s a whole lot of writing to get done in not quite enough time. Something had to give, and it was “About Last Night.”

Fear not: I’ve already arranged for the usual daily postings, which will appear on schedule.

Glenn Gould plays Bach’s G Minor Concerto, BWV 1058, on the CBC in 1969, accompanied by Vladimir Golschmann and the Toronto Symphony:

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