An excerpt from an interview with Arthur Miller originally telecast by the CBC in 1971:
(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)
Archives for 2015
Almanac: Flannery O’Connor on great expectations
“To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.”
Flannery O’Connor, letter to Cecil Dawkins, Dec. 9, 1958
So you want to see a show?
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, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fool for Love (drama, R, most performances sold out last week, closes Dec. 13, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, many performances sold out last week, closes Jan. 17, 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, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, reviewed here)
• Spring Awakening (musical, PG-13/R, closes Jan. 24, reviewed here)
OFF BROADWAY:
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, ideal for bright children, remounting of Broadway production, original production reviewed here)
• Eclipsed (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 29, 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 CHICAGO:
• The Price (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 22, reviewed here)
CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• First Daughter Suite (serious musical, PG-13, extended through Nov. 22, reviewed here)
CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:
• The Tempest (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Nov. 8, reviewed here)
CLOSING SATURDAY IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO:
• Sweet Charity (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)
CLOSING THIS WEEKEND IN ASHLAND, OREGON:
• Sweat (drama, PG-13, closes Saturday, reviewed here)
• Guys and Dolls (musical, G, closes Sunday, reviewed here)
CLOSING THIS WEEKEND OFF BROADWAY:
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare, PG-13, remounting of Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production, closes Saturday, original production reviewed here)
• Unseamly (serious comedy, R, closes Sunday, reviewed here)
Almanac: Colette on solitude
“Only, well…There are days when solitude, for someone my age, is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.”
Colette, The Vagabond (trans. Enid McLeod)
Snapshot: Sviatoslav Richter plays Prokofiev
Sviatoslav Richter plays excerpts from Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives, Op. 22, in an undated film of a concert performance. He plays Nos. 14, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 15, and 18:
(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.)
Almanac: Bertrand Russell on Lenin’s sense of humor
“When I met Lenin, I had much less impression of a great man than I had expected; my most vivid impressions were of Mongolian cruelty and bigotry. When I put a question to him about socialism in agriculture, he explained with glee how he had incited the poorer peasants against the richer ones, ‘and they soon hanged them from the nearest tree—ha! ha! ha!’ His guffaw at the thought of those massacred made my blood run cold.”
Bertrand Russell, “Eminent Men I Have Known” (courtesy of Richard Brookhiser)
Lookback: could Victor Borge really play piano?
From 2005:
Borge’s act resembled a straight piano recital gone wrong. He’d start to play a familiar piece like Clair de lune or the “Moonlight” Sonata, then swerve off in some improbable-sounding direction, never getting around to finishing what he started. Yet he was clearly an accomplished pianist, though few of his latter-day fans had any idea how good he’d been (he studied with Egon Petri, Busoni’s greatest pupil). He usually made a point of playing a piece from start to finish toward the end of every concert, and I remember how delighted I was each time I heard him ripple through one of Ignaz Friedman’s bittersweet Viennese-waltz arrangements, which he played with a deceptively nonchalant old-world panache that never failed to leave me longing for an encore. Alas, he never obliged, and in later years I found myself wondering whether he’d really been quite so fine as my memory told me.
This story has a happy ending….
Read the whole thing here.
Almanac: Christopher Isherwood on selling out
“I’ll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who’s in the entertainment industry does to some extent.”
Christopher Isherwood (interviewed in the Paris Review, Spring 1974)