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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Shakespeare: The Miniseries

May 27, 2016 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I report on the premiere of Chicago Shakespeare’s Tug of War: Foreign Fire. Here’s an excerpt.

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It’s become common—even fashionable—to mount Shakespeare’s history plays in bulk. From Edward Hall’s “Rose Rage,” in which the three parts of “Henry VI” were packed into a single five-and-a-half-hour span, to the four-night “Henriad” (“Richard II,” the two parts of “Henry IV” and “Henry V”) that the Royal Shakespeare Company recently brought to the Brooklyn Academy of Music under the portmanteau title of “King and Country,” such festival-like productions have the signal advantage of supplying a wider context for each individual play. And while they require a not-inconsiderable investment of time—not to mention money—the current vogue of “binge-watching” consecutive episodes of arc-based cable-TV series like “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones” has accustomed viewers to grappling with extended narratives over relatively short spans of time.

tn-500_tug8All of which bodes well for the success of “Tug of War,” in which Barbara Gaines, the artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, is presenting six of the history plays in two installments. The first installment, “Foreign Fire,” consists of her own adaptations of “Edward III,” “Henry V” and the first part of “Henry VI,” all performed by a 19-actor ensemble in a single six-hour span that is interrupted by a 45-minute dinner break. (It will be followed in September by “Civil Strife,” which comprises the second and third parts of “Henry VI” and “Richard III.”) Sure enough, Ms. Gaines herself uses the word “binge-watching” to describe the effect of “Tug of War,” but to me it feels more like the theatrical equivalent of an exceptionally well-done Shakespearean TV miniseries, though a more pertinent comparison comes no less readily to mind. Boldly drawn, slashingly direct and as fast-moving as an arrow whizzing toward its target, “Foreign Fire” is everything that the Royal Shakespeare Company’s much-ballyhooed 2015 marathon stage version of “Wolf Hall” should have been—and wasn’t….

Ms. Gaines has an ulterior motive: She has edited and directed “Tug of War” in such a way as to turn the history plays into an antiwar statement. If you cut your Shakespearean teeth on Laurence Olivier’s flag-waving 1944 film of “Henry V,” you’ll be surprised by the way in which she leaches the glory out of her combat scenes. Nary a sword is drawn all night long, and the emphasis goes squarely on what old-time warriors called the “butcher’s bill.”…

Yet “Foreign Fire” never stoops to can’t-we-all-just-get-along Pollyannism. Indeed, Ms. Gaines is true to Shakespeare in suggesting that war, hideous though it is, is also an enterprise to which well-meaning men are somehow irresistibly drawn, a tragedy we seem doomed to repeat—and repeat—in spite of ourselves, or because of ourselves….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for Foreign Fire:

The Battle of Agincourt sequence from Laurence Olivier’s film version of Henry V. The score is by William Walton:

Replay: Frank Sinatra meets Antonio Carlos Jobim

May 27, 2016 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAFrank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim sing a bossa nova medley on Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim. This program was originally telecast by NBC on November 13, 1967:

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

Almanac: Frank Sinatra on his life

May 27, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can.”

Frank Sinatra, interviewed by Walter Cronkite in 1965

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, ran earlier this season at New Orleans’ Le Petit Theatre. It previously closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, … [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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