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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for July 24, 2015

Let them see you sweat

July 24, 2015 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I report on American Players Theatre’s revival of A Streetcar Named Desire and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production of The Winter’s Tale. Here’s an excerpt.

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Outdoor theater is one of the joys of summer in America—when the weather cooperates. When it doesn’t, the results can be hell. I just saw an outdoor production of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” that took place in 90-degree heat and 90% humidity in American Players Theatre’s open-air hilltop amphitheater, where air conditioning is, at best, a state of mind. The circumstances put me in mind of the best-remembered punch line from Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues”: “Man, it’s hot. It’s like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot.”

558825cd335b4.imageOn the other hand, “Streetcar” is set in New Orleans in early May, a season whose vicious weather is epitomized in the grumbling of Stanley Kowalski, the unwitting villain of the piece, who can’t understand why his sister-in-law Blanche insists on spending so much time in the bathroom: “Temperature 100 on the nose, and she soaks herself in a hot tub.” It is, in fact, the quintessential hot-weather play, a steamy tale of subtropical passion gone wrong, and William Brown’s stark, deliberately unpoetic revival makes the most of Wisconsin’s sometimes brutal midsummer climate….

It is a truth universally acknowledged by actors that good casting is two-thirds of good directing. If so, then Mr. Brown, whose recent Chicagoland staging of John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt” already ranks as a highlight of the season, deserves all the credit in the world for casting Tracy Michelle Arnold, an actor of colossal force and incisiveness, as Blanche. Too often Blanche is played as a fluttery lost soul, when in fact she’s a strong, unabashedly sexual woman whose only “sin” is the bone-bred prudery that prevents her from coming to terms with the tug of her sexual urges. Ms. Arnold and Mr. Brown are clearly on the same page here…

11667489_10153106946228893_6080208298093203823_nDavis McCallum, the new artistic director of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, has made his company debut with a production of “The Winter’s Tale” that labors under the disadvantage of playing in repertory with Eric Tucker’s outrageously innovative five-actor version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” So let me say right up front that Mr. McCallum, whose off-Broadway directorial work has left no doubt of his exceptional talent, needn’t worry about playing second fiddle to anybody. His “Winter’s Tale” is a festive, fanciful garden-party romp that makes creative use of the full depth of the huge lawn of the Boscobel House and Gardens, on which the company pitches the jumbo tent under which it performs each summer….

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To read my review of A Streetcar Named Desire, go here.

To read my review of The Winter’s Tale, go here.

William Brown talks about his APT production of A Streetcar Named Desire:

Replay: Frank Sinatra sings “Witchcraft”

July 24, 2015 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAFrank Sinatra sings “Witchcraft,” written by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, on The Frank Sinatra Show, originally telecast on February 7, 1958. The arrangement is by Nelson Riddle:

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

Almanac: George Bernard Shaw on imagination

July 24, 2015 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.”

George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

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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