Archives for July 2016

“We turn to literature not only for respite, relaxation or escape from the boredom of reality and the gnaw of suffering, but to get away from uncertainty. And certainty is in the past. There, so it seems to us, things have been settled. There we can see a whole picture. For to see something whole becomes a necessity to people like ourselves whose world has fallen to pieces. Perhaps, we think, the certainty of the past will help our minds to substantiate a faith in the kind of certainty we hope for in the future.”

V.S. Pritchett, My Good Books (courtesy of Patrick Kurp)

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review a production of The Merchant of Venice in Lenox, Mass. Here’s an excerpt.

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“The Merchant of Venice,” like “The Taming of the Shrew,” is one of the Shakespeare plays that make modern audiences feel increasingly and understandably uncomfortable. To interpret the tale of Shylock’s downfall as anything other than anti-Semitic is seemingly to go against plain common sense. But Shakespeare, being a great dramatist, took great care to give the devil his due, portraying Shylock not as a pasteboard villain but as a man of flesh and blood whose malevolence arises in part from the contempt in which he is held by the community in which he lives. “If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” he asks us, and his terrible fate is portrayed not as the deserved fate of all Jews but as the result of his individual choice of murder as the instrument of his vengeance. Add a generous helping of exquisite poetry and the result is a permanent masterpiece that makes you squirm in your seat—if it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with you.

All that said, “The Merchant of Venice” inevitably poses problems for actors and directors who are reluctant to give ethnic offense, and the success of their productions necessarily depends on the ingenuity with which they contrive to draw the sting. Tina Packer, to her credit, confronts the problem head on in her thrilling new Shakespeare & Company production, upping the ante as high as possible by boldly underlining the apparent anti-Semitism of Shakespeare’s text— every repetition of such ugly phrases as “villain Jew” and “dog Jew” cracks through the air like lightning—while simultaneously placing it in a wider theatrical context. Her Shylock (Jonathan Epstein) is a cultivated, well-spoken gent, a man at first glance more sinned against than sinning, which makes it all the more shocking (not least to the disapproving members of his own temple) when he lets the mask slip and confesses his thirst for blood.

Performed in the round in a theater that is normally set up as an Elizabethan-style thrust-stage house, Ms. Packer’s production is at once visually spare and unexpectedly opulent in effect. Tyler Kinney’s costumes are old-fashioned and richly colored, while the set, designed by Kris Stone, consists of little more than a white cross painted on the black stage floor and 11 gorgeously lit Venetian-style glass spheres hung from the ceiling. Nothing is permitted to divert your eye from the action, and Ms. Packer has taken to theater in the round as if she’d been directing it all her life. Best of all is the scene in which Shylock delivers his “Hath not a Jew eyes” monologue while three tormentors circle him warily like Jets stalking a Shark. You half expect them to pull switchblades and move in for the kill….

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Read the whole thing here.

Jacqueline du Pré, Daniel Barenboim and the London Philharmonic perform the first movement of Elgar’s Cello Concerto on TV in 1967:

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

“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere’s Fan

In this week’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I talk about a generation of American classical composers who fell through the cracks—and a new attempt to revive their music. Here’s an excerpt.

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What do you think of when you hear the phrase “midcentury modernism”? My guess is that your average educated American is more than likely to respond with the name of a painter like Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko, a building like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, or a piece of furniture like the Eames Lounge Chair. In this country, modernism is a visual phenomenon: It’s something you see. All other manifestations of the modern movement in 20th-century American art take a back seat.

If that generalization strikes you as too broad for comfort, try answering this question: Who were Roy Harris, Peter Mennin, Walter Piston and William Schuman?

The answer is that they were American classical composers active from the ’40s into the ’70s. Among other things, they wrote symphonies that were critically acclaimed and frequently performed by such famous émigré conductors as Serge Koussevitzky, Eugene Ormandy and Leopold Stokowski. Piston and Schuman won the Pulitzer Prize, and all four men used to be fairly familiar to the general public, almost as much so as Aaron Copland, our most popular mid-century classical composer. Schuman actually appeared in 1962 as the mystery guest on the popular TV game show “What’s My Line?” Much of their best music was recorded, and many of those recordings are still in print. Yet I’d be surprised if more than a handful of people reading this column recognize any of their names, nor is their music heard much nowadays. In a column written last month for the Guardian—a British newspaper, mind you—Alan Fletcher cited the following statistic: “Some quick research shows that Harris, Mennin, Piston, Schuman and Elliott Carter (who together wrote more than 100 concert symphonic works) had, in the past five years, a total of just 20 performances by U.S. orchestras.” Four performances apiece. That’s obscurity.

Mr. Fletcher, who runs the Aspen Music Festival, is determined to put America’s midcentury classical-music modernists back on the map. “While we all rightly love 20th-century music from abroad, from Stravinsky to Ravel, for some reason we’re in danger of ignoring so much of our own great music, which is to say our own cultural DNA,” he says in the news release for a new initiative at Aspen called “An American Musical Century.” The programming for this summer’s festival, which runs through Aug. 21, includes symphonies by Harris, Mennin and Piston, all of which Mr. Fletcher describes in the release as “terrifically entertaining—variously colorful, gripping, tuneful and dramatic.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve never understood why the music of America’s midcentury modern composers disappeared from our concert halls….

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Read the whole thing here.

Richard Pontzious leads the Asian Youth Orchestra in a 2002 performance of William Schuman’s American Festival Overture:

William Schuman appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line? in 1962:

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, closes Jan. 1, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 10, 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)
• Matilda (musical, G, closes Jan. 1, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• Sense & Sensibility (serious romantic comedy, G, remounting of 2014 off-Broadway production, closes Oct. 2, original production reviewed here)

IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• Measure for Measure (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 28, reviewed here)

IN GLENCOE, ILL.:
• Company (musical, PG-13, extended through Aug. 7, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• Fully Committed (comedy, PG-13, closes July 31, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.:
• Fiorello! (musical, G, closes July 23, reviewed here)

“It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.”

Oscar Wilde, “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.”

Perry Como and Tony Mottola perform “The Shadow of Your Smile,” written for the soundtrack of The Sandpiper by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster. This performance was originally telecast on Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall on January 24, 1966:

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