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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Total immersion

December 1, 2016 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I write about the immersive-art trend. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Not counting “Hamilton,” Broadway’s hottest musical is “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812,” an “immersive” show for which the Imperial Theatre has been remodeled in order to put the cast in the laps of the audience. Runways in the orchestra, onstage cabaret seating inches away from the performers, stairways leading directly from the stage to the balcony: Everybody’s everywhere.

tumblr_mryqiiqz0m1rnv6j7o1_1280“The Great Comet” is a prime example of “immersive theater,” which blurs the borderline separating artists from spectators. It’s the number-one buzzword in theater—but it’s not an exclusively theatrical phenomenon. Broadly similar ideas are popping up throughout the wider world of art, so much so that merely to play a symphony, hang a painting or dance a ballet is becoming almost passé. In London, choreographer Will Tuckett staged a “Nutcracker” in which the audience served as guests at the first-act Christmas party. Major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, are booking “Disney ‘Fantasia’ Live in Concert,” in which the animated film is shown on a giant movie screen while Beethoven, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky are played live….

The target audience for most of these presentations is the under-40 generation, fewer of whose multitasking members go to concerts, plays or museums with any regularity. The idea of buying a ticket to “La Bohème” or “Romeo and Juliet,” then showing up next Tuesday at eight o’clock sharp and sitting down to watch the performance, is increasingly alien to them. “Art” is something they download and experience at a time and place of their choosing, more often than not alone rather than in the company of others.

How to get such folk off their couches? One approach is to present art in a way that, like “Disney ‘Fantasia’ Live in Concert,” appeals to more than one of the senses. Another is to offer them a participatory experience—a “show” that’s active rather than passive. Such is the new conventional wisdom, and there’s something to it…

I have mixed feelings about the participatory-art trend, not because I’m rigidly opposed to it but because it too often seems to exist in tension with the old-fashioned way of experiencing art, which is by paying full attention to it. How well can you see Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” when you’re simultaneously reading about it on your smartphone or hearing it described by a voice in your ear?….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

So you want to see a show?

December 1, 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:
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)
• The Encounter (one-man immersive drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 8, 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, nearly all shows 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)
• Finian’s Rainbow (small-scale musical revival, G, newly extended through Jan. 29, reviewed here)
65-padgett-foster-ghebremichael• Sweet Charity (small-scale musical revival, PG-13, closes Jan. 8, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Love, Love, Love (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Dec. 18, reviewed here)
• Sweat (drama, PG-13, closes Dec. 18, reviewed here)

CLOSING TONIGHT OFF BROADWAY:
• Plenty (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

Almanac: Susan Sontag on taste

December 1, 2016 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Taste has no system and no proofs.”

Susan Sontag, “Notes on Camp”

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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