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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for March 11, 2016

Their big fat Zimbabwean wedding

March 11, 2016 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review four New York shows, Familiar, Eclipsed, Blackbird, and Disaster! Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Danai Gurira is the zombie-whacking star of “The Walking Dead” and the author of “Eclipsed,” a dead-serious drama about the Second Liberian Civil War that transferred to Broadway this week after a deservedly successful 2015 run at the Public Theater. Now she’s written a new play in which nobody gets killed—onstage, anyway.

26-familiar.w529.h352“Familiar” is a comedy of assimilation that centers on Donald and Marvelous (Harold Surratt and Tamara Tunie), an upper-middle-class Zimbabwean couple who have escaped the poverty and violence of their native land by emigrating to suburban Minneapolis and wholeheartedly embracing the American way of life (lasagna for dinner, football on Sunday afternoon). Tendi (Roslyn Ruff), their oldest daughter, has followed in their footsteps by shedding her African accent, converting to Christianity, becoming a lawyer and getting engaged to a nice white boy…

Given the potential of its subject matter, it saddens me to report that “Familiar” is so familiar. Think “Abie’s Irish Rose” or “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and you’ll get the idea: Ms. Gurira has rehashed all the clichés of its well-worn genre as if they hadn’t long since been done to death…

As for the Broadway transfer of “Eclipsed,” which features Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”) and the four other members of the original off-Broadway ensemble cast, Liesl Tommy’s production has lost nothing by being moved to a larger house. The play remains a staggeringly potent, perfectly performed snapshot of five African women who are fighting for their lives amid the roiling chaos of an unimaginably bloody war of all against all….

David Harrower’s “Blackbird,” a pruriently manipulative tale of pedophilia that made a lot of noise off Broadway in 2007, has finally made it to Broadway in a big-stage revival similar to the smaller-scaled production that I reviewed in this space nine years ago: Jeff Daniels is the star, Joe Mantello the director, with Michelle Williams, lately of “Cabaret,” replacing Alison Pill as the vengeful victim of the piece. It’s a have-it-both-ways shocker that seeks to make us sympathize (but not really!) with a 40-year-old man (Mr. Daniels) who molested a 12-year-old girl (Ms. Williams)…

If you’ve been waiting impatiently for the Broadway transfer of a cheesy, campy off-Broadway jukebox musical that spoofs the disaster flicks of the ’70s, “Disaster!” will be your huckleberry. Somehow, though, I doubt the world is full of sixtysomething fans of “The Poseidon Adventure” who long to see what can best be described as an only-the-jokes-have-been-changed knockoff of “Airplane!”…

* * *

To read my reviews of Familiar and Eclipsed, go here.

To read my review of Blackbird, go here.

To read my review of Disaster!, go here.

Replay: James Brown performs on The Hollywood Palace

March 11, 2016 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAThe James Brown Revue performs a medley of “I Can’t Stand It,” “If I Ruled the World,” “Cold Sweat,” “Try Me,” “I Feel Good,” and “There Was a Time” on The Hollywood Palace. They are introduced by Phil Silvers. This episode was originally telecast by ABC on February 3, 1968:

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

Almanac: Fred Chappell on humanity and the artist

March 11, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“I have got to where I should like for my work to be humane, and I do not much care if it even becomes sentimental.”

Fred Chappell, afterword to The Fred Chappell Reader

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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