Archives for August 2015

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:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hand to God (black comedy, X, absolutely not for children or prudish adults, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, ideal for bright children, remounting of Broadway production, original production reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• The Flick (serious comedy, PG-13, too long for young people with limited attention spans, reviewed here)

IN ASHLAND, OREGON:
• Sweat (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 31, reviewed here)

IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO:
• Sweet Charity (musical, PG-13, closes Oct. 31, reviewed here)
• You Never Can Tell (Shaw, PG-13, closes Oct. 25, reviewed here)

IN SPRING GREEN, WIS.:
• An Iliad (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 18, reviewed here)
• The Island (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 26, reviewed here)
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Oct. 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO:
• The Twelve-Pound Look (one-act comedy, G, not suitable for children, closes Sept. 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN LENOX, MASS.:
• Mother of the Maid (drama, PG-13, closing Sept. 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN SPRING GREEN, WIS.:
• A Streetcar Named Desire (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 5, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• The Weir (drama, PG-13, remounting of original off-Broadway production, closes Sept. 6, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• On the Town (musical, G, contains double entendres that will not be intelligible to children, closing Sept. 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING THIS WEEKEND IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Friday, reviewed here)
• The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Saturday, reviewed here)

“A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.”

Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

Bette Davis and Bert Lahr perform “Jealousy,” a sketch by Billy Friedberg from the 1952 Broadway revue Two’s Company. (Lahr’s role was played on Broadway by David Burns.) This performance was telecast on The Hollywood Palace on February 20, 1965:

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

“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.”

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

From 2005:

You have to live in Manhattan to know how hot it gets here in the middle of August. The only film I can think of that conveys the sheer awfulness of the kind of heat wave that now has us in a tight, slimy stranglehold is Rear Window, whose noirish subject matter puts me in mind of one of my favorite Raymond Chandler quotes: “It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.” Alas, there was nothing dry about the heat in New York this weekend. No sooner did you step outside than it smacked you in the face like a steamy towel wielded by a sadistic barber. (See? Heat waves make everyone Chandleresque, or at least me.)….

Read the whole thing here.

“I try not to pay attention to notices, reviews. I try not to read them. But I have no discipline. I try to be cool about the good ones; the bad ones kill me.”

Edward G. Robinson (with Leonard Spigelgass), All My Yesterdays

Liberace plays an excerpt from Liszt’s A Major Piano Concerto on an undated episode of The Liberace Show filmed in the Fifties. He had previously performed the entire concerto with Hans Lange and the Chicago Symphony in 1940, when he was twenty years old. The cello solo is by Ennio Bolognini:

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

“Cut any sentence in the play that needs a comma. A semi-colon is disastrous. In fact, the best play has no punctuation whatsoever.”

Wolcott Gibbs (quoted in Marjory Adams, “Principals of ‘Season in the Sun’ Eat Well Before Premiere Verdict, Boston Globe, Nov. 12, 1950)