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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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When plays became movies

May 5, 2016 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I talk about the decline of the play-based film. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Fifty years ago, “A Man for All Seasons” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” hit big at the box office and tore up the Oscars. Yet both films were screen versions of dead-serious Broadway plays that came out in the same year as the undemanding likes of “Fantastic Voyage” and “Our Man Flint.” How could so challenging a pair of movies possibly have gone over with the popcorn set?

p4397_p_v8_aaViewed from the vantage point of 2016, the year of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2,” the mere existence of these two films may seem like a cultural miracle. Yet it used to be standard operating procedure for Hollywood. In 1966 it was still perfectly normal for hit plays to be turned into big-budget movies. Most of them, to be sure, were fluffy comedies like “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The Odd Couple,” but Hollywood also made a point of filming such critically acclaimed dramas as “The Little Foxes,” “Picnic” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” all three of which did quite well at the box office.

Why were such movies made? Because the plays on which they were based had high name recognition, not just in New York but throughout America. You didn’t have to be a bred-in-the-bone Manhattanite to know who Lillian Hellman, William Inge and Tennessee Williams were: You could read about them in Time, Life and Newsweek, which routinely covered Broadway openings, just as stage actors and playwrights appeared no less routinely on popular TV shows like “Tonight” and “What’s My Line?” Because of this coverage, theater was a part of the national cultural conversation. The citizens of Dubuque knew who Stanley Kowalski was long before they went to the neighborhood movie house in 1951 to see “A Streetcar Named Desire.” They’d already seen Eliot Elisofon’s beefcake-worthy photograph of Marlon Brando kneeling before Kim Hunter in Life’s 1947 feature story about the Broadway production. This meant that a hit play was not merely grist for the Hollywood mill but a hot property in its own right….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

A scene from the film version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf:

So you want to see a show?

May 5, 2016 by Terry Teachout

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, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Eclipsed (drama, PG-13, Broadway remounting of off-Broadway production, closes June 19, original production reviewed here)
• Fully Committed (comedy, PG-13, closes July 24, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, closing Jan. 1, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)
• She Loves Me (musical, G, suitable for bright children capable of enjoying a love story, many performances sold out last week, closes July 10, reviewed here)

newfant11OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:
• Mary Page Marlowe (drama, PG-13, extended through June 5, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Stupid Fu**ing Bird (serious comedy, PG-13, contains nudity, reviewed here)

Almanac: Robertson Davies on Latin quotations

May 5, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“I love Latin quotations. I suspect that nobody ever said anything in Latin which was above the level of barber shop philosophy, but it has a wondrous sonority.”

Robertson Davies, The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks

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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