Archives for April 2017

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway premiere of A Doll’s House, Part 2. Here’s an excerpt.

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Hugh Kenner defined conceptual art as that which, once described, need not be experienced. Lucas Hnath’s “A Doll’s House, Part 2” comes perilously close to filling that bill. Staged with ostentatious austerity by Sam Gold, it’s a sequel to the celebrated 1879 play by Henrik Ibsen in which Nora Helmer, a mother of three, walks out on her children and her emotionally null marriage to seek personal fulfillment elsewhere, famously slamming the front door behind her as she departs. In Mr. Hnath’s play, Nora (Laurie Metcalf) returns to her former home 15 years later, having written a best-selling memoir about the evils of bourgeois wedlock that has made her rich and famous. While she has certain residual problems that require 90 melodramatic minutes to work out, she assures her estranged husband (Chris Cooper) in an end-of-show speech that she will soldier on nobly in the hope of making life better for All Women Everywhere: “I know that someday everything will be different, and everyone will be free—freer than they are now.” Curtain. Standing ovation. I just saved you $147….

“A Doll’s House, Part 2” is tensionless: We know going in what we’re supposed to think of Nora, and we know we won’t be asked to change our minds about her. That’s why it’s being performed on Broadway by Ms. Metcalf, Mr. Cooper, Jayne Houdyshell and Condola Rashad instead of in a black-box theater by nobody in particular….

It’s hard to imagine that more than a smallish subset of the people who came to the John Golden Theatre on Wednesday had read “A Doll’s House,” much less seen it produced. They came for the cast, or because of the buzz (Mr. Hnath is very fashionable). If it was the cast that lured the crowd, they got their money’s worth, especially from Mr. Cooper. He is one of the finest character actors we have, a latter-day Spencer Tracy whose unmannered, understated strength and simplicity always impress, and it is a joy to see him make something plausible out of the role of Torvald Helmer, the benighted mansplainer who finally sees the light….

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Read the whole thing here.

In the online edition of today’s Wall Street Journal, I review Bandstand, a new musical. Here’s an excerpt.

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What does it take to lift a Broadway show from mediocrity to adequacy? I found myself pondering this question as I watched “Bandstand,” a new musical about a group of troubled World War II vets who return home to Cleveland, join forces to start a swing band and live happily ever after, or at least until the curtain falls. The first act is straight off the rack, a concatenation of bone-tired clichés strung together on an unexpectedly interesting premise. The second act isn’t any more original, but it’s more agreeable, and you’ll likely feel that you’ve been sufficiently entertained by the time the curtain falls….

What makes “Bandstand” interesting is that the principal characters are all suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder—the bass player, for instance, helped to liberate Dachau—and their singer is a war widow. “Bandstand” is, in other words, a variation on “The Best Years of Our Lives,” which is a great idea for a serious-minded musical, so much so that it’s surprising nobody’s ever tried it. (Are you listening, Michael John LaChiusa?)

What makes the first act mediocre is that the show’s authors, Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor, fail to do anything remotely original with their idea. The members of the band are all central-casting types (the spacey drummer, the boozed-up wisecracker, the school-of-Felix-Unger neat freak) whose PTSD-related suffering is stated ad infinitum but left unshown save in the cornballiest ways possible (they have combat flashbacks every five minutes or so). The show is set in motion by a plot point—a contest to write a song honoring the troops—that’s straight out of an old-fashioned hey-Judy-let’s-put-on-a-show movie. And the original songs, while perfectly professional, are also perfectly forgettable….

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Read the whole thing here.

Jonathan Winters and Art Carney improvise on The Jonathan Winters Show, originally telecast by CBS on February 28, 1968:

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

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

Albert Einstein, interviewed by George Sylvester Viereck (Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929)

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:
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Groundhog Day (musical, G/PG-13, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)
• Present Laughter (comedy, PG-13, closes July 2, reviewed here)
• Six Degrees of Separation (serious comedy, PG-13/R, closes July 16, reviewed here)
• Sweat (drama, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, original production reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, closes June 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• The Price (drama, G, too long and serious for children, all shows sold out last week, extended through May 14, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Vanity Fair (serious comedy, PG-13, closes May 14, reviewed here)

“Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, notebook entry, The Crack-Up

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the new Broadway revival of Six Degrees of Separation. Here’s an excerpt.

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Not only did John Guare’s “Six Degrees of Separation” add a phrase to the English language, but it instantly became what used to be called a “water-cooler show” when it opened at Lincoln Center Theater a quarter-century ago. It’s been a long time since a play last came to town that smart Manhattanites felt similarly obliged to see, then chew over at the office the next morning. Nowadays we look to cable TV to provide us with such unifying experiences. But Mr. Guare is still around, and so is “Six Degrees,” which has just received its first Broadway revival. Directed by Trip Cullman, who mounted the play eight years ago at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, this new production features Allison Janney in the starring role that was so memorably created in 1990 by Stockard Channing. Once again, Mr. Cullman’s staging is exemplary, but it’s the play itself that makes the deepest impression. “Six Degrees” probably won’t get talked about much at anybody’s office this time around, but those lucky enough to see the new revival will go home thinking very hard about it….

In “Six Degrees” we meet Flan Kittredge (John Benjamin Hickey), an art dealer who has sold his sensitive soul for money, and Ouisa (Ms. Janney), his scatty wife, who also loves living well but remembers what it feels like to be a human being. Their jittery existence is upended by Paul (Corey Hawkins), a smooth-talking young con man with a taste for rough trade who cozens his way into the homes of the newly near-rich by claiming to be Sidney Poitier’s son (Mr. Poitier has six daughters) and preying on the liberal guilt of people like Flan and Ouisa. “Six Degrees” is full of witty chat about the fears of such folk: “Having a rich friend is like drowning and your friend makes life boats. But the friend gets very touchy if you say one word: life boat. Well, that’s two words.” But its real strength lies in the searching clarity with which Mr. Guare portrays the deep-seated insecurity shared by Paul and the Kittredges, all three of whom are Gatsbys under the skin, self-made men and women who no longer know who they really are.

I can say no better about Ms. Janney than that her performance is as memorable in its own firmly grounded way as was that of the exquisitely fey Ms. Channing. The difference is that she fits more smoothly into Mr. Cullman’s ensemble cast. In this production, like the comparably persuasive Florida Repertory Theatre revival of “The House of Blue Leaves” that Chris Clavelli directed earlier this season, everyone acts with the high-keyed, anti-naturalistic histrionics that Mr. Guare favors, and the resulting unanimity of tone serves the play well….

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Read the whole thing here.

John Guare talks about Six Degrees of Separation:

A 1931 Fox Movietone newsreel about the death of Thomas Edison, including rare sound footage of an interview with the inventor of the phonograph, the motion-picture camera, and the electric light bulb:

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

“The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he’s done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, quoted in Raymond Durgnat, Jean Renoir

From 2007:

One thing that most teenagers neither know nor expect to see in movies is death, the ultimate reality of life. I’m not talking about the ersatz mass murders that are the subject matter of your average Hollywood shoot-’em-up, but the real wrong thing itself, the knowledge of which is not normally accessible to young people, least of all by going to the local multiplex. Truth sometimes finds its way into the movies–accidents happen–but when it comes to death, Hollywood is incapable of honesty, and the bigger the budget, the balder the lies. Movie stars live forever or die nobly, uttering memorable last words and expiring with a smile; you never see the catheter, or smell the pus….

Read the whole thing here.