• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

You are here: Home / 2016 / November / Archives for 25th

Archives for November 25, 2016

Two thoughts about music

November 25, 2016 by Terry Teachout

cyj64geukbqq4bxMrs. T and I just got back from seeing Maria Schneider’s first set at the Jazz Standard. Two thoughts come to mind, the first original and the second not:

• In the presence of music, time and trouble stop.

• The band took a couple of corners too fast on “Gumba Blue.” Everything turned out all right, though, and when the number was over, Maria grinned at the audience and quoted something that David Bowie once said to her: “The beautiful thing about music is that if the plane goes down, everybody walks away.”

I’ll co-sign that.

* * *

The video for David Bowie’s “Sue,” accompanied by the Maria Schneider Orchestra:

Sutton Foster, up close

November 25, 2016 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review an important new off-Broadway revival of Sweet Charity. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Why is the New Group, which specializes in hard-headed plays by such contemporary writers as Mike Leigh and Sam Shepard, mounting a fluffy-pie musical like “Sweet Charity”? And why is Sutton Foster, one of Broadway’s biggest stars, playing the title role in a scaled-down off-Broadway revival? I haven’t a good answer to either question, especially seeing as how “Sweet Charity” was revived on Broadway as recently as 2005, very effectively but with only moderate commercial success. Nevertheless, this new version, directed by Leigh Silverman (“Coraline”) and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse (“On the Town”), is the best production imaginable, and Ms. Foster is giving the performance of a lifetime in the title role. I’ve never seen her do anything better—and that’s really saying something.

65-padgett-foster-ghebremichaelMs. Foster, who is endearing without limit and dances as well as she sings, was evidently put on earth to play the part of Charity Hope Valentine, a bruised-but-optimistic sort-of-hooker with a heart of unsmelted gold. “Sweet Charity,” after all, is a dance show if ever there were one: Not only is Ms. Foster’s character a frog-kissing dance-hall “hostess,” but the original 1966 production was staged by none other than Bob Fosse. So let’s also stipulate up front that Mr. Bergasse is worthy of slipping on his legendary predecessor’s shoes. His production numbers steer blessedly clear of derby-over-the-eyes school-of-Fosse clichés, instead incorporating social-dance moves from the ’60s to fresh-faced, quick-witted effect.

The real key to this production, though, is that it is being presented in a small theater (222 seats) on a three-quarter-round scenery-free open stage. This permits the action to move very fast, and with the actors no more than 15 or 20 feet away from most of the audience, nobody needs to exaggerate. Ms. Silverman has used these circumstances to give us a “Sweet Charity” that is emotionally convincing to the highest degree, starting with Ms. Foster’s performance, which owes nothing to the waif-like past examples of Gwen Verdon and Shirley MacLaine. She is by turns feisty and goofy, and whenever somebody hurts her, you feel the sting in your heart….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Sutton Foster talks about Sweet Charity:

Gwen Verdon sings “If My Friends Could See Me Now” (from Sweet Charity) on The Ed Sullivan Show. This performance, originally telecast by CBS on March 5, 1967, reproduces Bob Fosse’s original Broadway staging of the number:

Shirley MacLaine sings “If My Friends Could See Me Now” in Bob Fosse’s 1969 film version of Sweet Charity:

Replay: Peggy Lee sings “Blues in the Night”

November 25, 2016 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAPeggy Lee sings “Blues in the Night,” by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, on The DuPont Show of the Month: Crescendo, originally telecast by CBS on September 29, 1957:

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

Almanac: La Rochefoucauld on gratitude

November 25, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.”

François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

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...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

November 2016
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  
« Oct   Dec »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Terry Teachout, 65
  • Gripping musical melodrama
  • Replay: Somerset Maugham in 1965
  • Almanac: Somerset Maugham on sentimentality
  • Snapshot: Richard Strauss conducts Till Eulenspiegel

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in