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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Enemy of the mere

June 9, 2017 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a Connecicut revival of Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

A year after his death, Peter Shaffer has receded into the shadows of forgotten fame. It scarcely seems possible that the playwright who gave us “Amadeus” and “Equus,” two of the biggest theatrical hits of the postwar era, should now be so ill-remembered on this side of the Atlantic, but it makes unhappy sense of a sort. Most of his plays are big machines that require large and costly casts to bring off, which makes them dicey for Broadway and riskier still for even the most ambitious regional theaters. In any case, his old-fashioned brand of serious middlebrow theater has fallen from favor: “Amadeus” and “Equus” are the only major plays by Mr. Shaffer ever to have been revived on Broadway, and neither revival was more than modestly successful. So it’s great news that “Lettice and Lovage,” Mr. Shaffer’s last hit, is now being performed by Westport Country Playhouse. Written in 1987 as a vehicle for Maggie Smith, it’s a chokingly funny farce enriched by a savory touch of seriousness, and Mark Lamos’ smart staging never puts a foot wrong.

In “Lettice and Lovage,” we make the acquaintance of Charlotte (Mia Dillon), an imperious bureaucrat whose shell of melancholy prissiness is smashed to bits when she makes the acquaintance of Lettice (Kandis Chappell), a splendidly flamboyant tour guide whose job it is to tell bored tourists about “the dullest house in England.” Instead of sticking to the colorless story of Fustian House, Lettice starts rolling her own anecdotes, the wilder the better, and Charlotte, her supervisor, is forced to fire her. Naturally, the two women become friends, and this being a farce, their friendship soon attracts the attention of the police….

The role of Lettice, created by Dame Maggie, is the plummiest of plum parts, and Ms. Chappell wears it like a perfectly tailored, fabulously elaborate period costume. It’s pure pleasure to catch the loony glint in her eye as she elaborates with quick-rising implausibility on the dull history of Fustian House. Ms. Chappell was forced to step into the part a week before the show opened when the actor originally hired by Mr. Lamos fell ill, but you wouldn’t have known it from her opening-night performance, which was totally assured. As for Ms. Dillon, she’s nothing short of ideal as Charlotte…

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Dame Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack appear in an excerpt from the 1990 Broadway production of Lettice and Lovage, originally telecast as part of that season’s Tony Awards show:

Replay: Jonathan Winters leads a platoon of Marines in close-order drill

June 9, 2017 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAJonathan Winters leads a platoon of eight Marine recruiting sergeants in close-order drill on I’ve Got a Secret. (He had served as a Marine in World War II.) This episode, hosted by Garry Moore, was originally telecast by CBS on April 16, 1962. The panelists are Merv Griffin, Henry Morgan, Bess Myerson, and Betsy Palmer:

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

Almanac: Don DeLillo on how to survive in New York City

June 9, 2017 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“He’d once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it.”

Don DeLillo, White Noise

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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