Archives for June 2, 2016

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I hold forth on the subject of books about art that are both thorough and opinionated. Here’s an excerpt.

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Some books take a lifetime to write—and repay a lifetime’s reading. I’ve recently spent many happy hours with just such a book, William C. Agee’s newly published “Modern Art in America 1908-68.” It is that rarity of rarities, an opinionated but not eccentric scholarly history by a veteran museum curator whose every page crackles with original thinking and bears the stamp of a preternaturally sharp eye. It’s also impressively thorough: Even if you were to read nothing else about 20th-century American art, you’d still come away knowing most of what you needed to know about it.

I have a special liking for books on the arts that are, like “Modern Art in America 1908-68,” at once thorough and strongly personal. Not surprisingly, a fair number of biographies fill that bill. If you were going to read only one book about Beethoven, for instance, you couldn’t possibly do better than Lewis H. Lockwood’s “Beethoven: The Music and the Life,” just as W. Jackson Bate’s “Samuel Johnson,” published in 1977, remains to this day the best modern biography of the Great Panjandrum of English letters. But there are also plenty of other books which, like “Modern Art in America,” come close to telling you everything you want to know about a larger subject, and do it with flair.

Here are five of my favorites….

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Read the whole thing here.

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, some 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, extended through July 31, 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, 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)

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

CLOSING SOON IN HOUSTON:
• Saint Joan (drama, PG-13, remounting of off-Broadway production, closes June 18, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN BALTIMORE:
• Death of a Salesman (drama, PG-13, closes June 12, reviewed here)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (drama, PG-13, closes June 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN BROOKLYN:
• The Judas Kiss (drama, R, closes June 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:
• Tug of War: Foreign Fire (Shakespeare, PG-13, six-hour marathon staging of Edward III, Henry V, and Henry VI, Part One, closes June 12, reviewed here)

“Art lies in understanding some part of the dark forces and bringing them under the direction of reason.”

Robertson Davies, A Voice from the Attic