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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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An optimist’s despair

June 2, 2017 by Terry Teachout

In the online edition of today’s Wall Street Journal, I review Hartford Stage’s production of Heartbreak House. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

What makes a play classic? One possible benchmark is that of permanent relevance: It portrays its own time in a way that illuminates ours. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better example of that kind of classicism than “Heartbreak House,” in which George Bernard Shaw, writing in 1919, cast a cold eye on his own class, the educated liberals of Vicwardian England, and came to the damning conclusion that World War I had revealed them to be morally bankrupt. “Heartbreak House” was insufficiently appreciated in Shaw’s own time and for long afterward, in part because of its length (the first performance ran for four hours). But now that the script has entered the public domain, meaning that it can be performed in abridged versions, “Heartbreak House” has become one of Shaw’s most frequently produced plays, especially in this country. Now it’s come to Hartford Stage in a version staged by Darko Tresnjak, the company’s artistic director, that is not without flaw—more about that later—but nonetheless brings an elusive play to life in a way that is lively and immediately accessible….

The setting, a country house that looks like “an old-fashioned high-pooped ship,” is the home of Captain Shotover (Miles Anderson), an octogenarian seaman whose bristling energy cannot conceal the fact that he’s losing his wits. He has two daughters—one a frivolously sexy bohemian (Charlotte Parry), the other a high-society prig (Tessa Auberjonois)—who between them embody all that Shaw thought wrong with the English national character.

This being a country-house comedy, the Shotover house is full of guests, nearly all of whom are, as one of them says, “most advanced, unprejudiced, frank, humane, unconventional, democratic, free-thinking, and everything that is delightful to thoughtful people.” The capitalist in the woodpile is Boss Mangan (Andrew Long), a bloated, parasitical businessman. He is, of course, doomed—but so, too, are the other delightful but ineffectual occupants of Heartbreak House, who lack the will to reconstruct their corrupt society along properly Shavian lines….

The younger Shaw might well have written “Heartbreak House” as a didactic comedy with a hopeful ending. By 1919, though, World War I had blown the progressive optimism out of him, leaving nothing but the frustrated will to power that would lead him to embrace Soviet Communism in his senescence. Before that, though, he wove his despair into a tragicomedy that works as theater precisely because it offers no neat solution, only the enraged poetry of a great artist.

Understanding this, Mr. Tresnjak, who has a near-miraculous knack for staging “well-made” plays, has given us a “Heartbreak House” that is bright in tone and light on its feet, thereby allowing you to take the point by yourself….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

A trailer of scenes from Heartbreak House:

Replay: “The Capitol Tower”

June 2, 2017 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERA“The Capitol Tower,” a 1958 promotional short about Capitol Records’ Hollywood headquarters, designed by Lou Naidorf. Among the Capitol recording artists featured in the film, which is narrated by Tennessee Ernie Ford, are Ray Anthony, John Browning, Moura Lympany, and Leonard Pennario. The actual singing voice of “Kathy” was dubbed by Sue Raney, another Capitol artist:

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

Almanac: Jules Renard on old age

June 2, 2017 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“When you rejoice over being young, and notice how well you feel, that is age.”

The Journal of Jules Renard (entry, March 1903)

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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