Archives for July 2017

Lizabeth Scott sings “He Is a Man,” by Carroll Coates and Ronnie Selby, on The Big Record, originally telecast by CBS on April 23, 1958. This was Scott’s public singing debut:

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

“If you begin a sentence—or, particularly, if you begin a book—with the word ‘When,’ then something just about has to happen right away.”

Brian Garfield, interviewed by Kristi McGuire (The Chicago Blog, April 4, 2011)

This blog is my diary, the only one I’ve ever managed to keep for more than a couple of months. It is, to be sure, a specifically public diary: there are any number of important aspects of my life about which I’ve chosen to say nothing here. On the other hand, I’ve posted more than 12,000 entries since I opened up shop fourteen years ago today, and among them are a fair number of miniature essays that I think have been passably revealing, including some of the entries to which I linked when “About Last Night” turned ten in 2003.

On occasion—not often, but once in a while—I flip randomly through the “pages” of my electronic diary, and whenever I do, I’m often reminded of things about which I’d either forgotten or hadn’t recalled for ages. A couple of weeks ago, for instance, I stumbled across this 2009 account of my improvised climb to the summit of Oregon’s 7,533-foot-high Mount Ashland, and marveled at the wonderful foolhardiness that inspired me to walk to the top alone and without preparation of any kind. (Yes, I’m glad I did it. No, I wouldn’t do it again.)

The great thing about keeping a diary, be it public or private, is the way in which it reminds you of such adventures, which have a way of slipping through the cracks of a crowded life, especially if you’re the kind of person who, like me, tends as a matter of course to look forward rather than backward.

Whenever I do have occasion to think about my life, I’m struck by how it’s been a succession of surprises, never more so than in the decade and a half that I’ve been chronicling it day by day. Among many other things, I never expected to become a drama critic, to live in a sunlit Upper Manhattan apartment full of modern art, to fall in love at first sight and marry, to write biographies of George Balanchine, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington, to win a Guggenheim Fellowship and go to the MacDowell Colony, or to become an opera librettist and playwright and, most recently, a stage director.

That most of these surprises came after my fiftieth birthday is very probably the biggest surprise of all. Most fifty-year-olds are content to play the hand that life has dealt them. That was what my parents did, and I always assumed that I’d do the same. Instead, I ended up drawing a handful of new cards, and writing in this space about how I played them. I won’t say that I regret nothing—no honest person, not even a saint, regrets nothing—but truth to tell, there’s damned little that I do regret.

If the past fourteen years have taught me anything, it’s not to try to predict what will happen in the next fourteen minutes, much less the next fourteen years. Perhaps I’ve run out my string of surprises. I suspect not. I still have several unsatisfied ambitions, and I’m determined to make at least a few of them come true. But if it’s my destiny to coast downhill from here to the dark encounter that awaits us all, then my plan is to enjoy the rest of the trip insofar as possible, and to revel in my blog-enriched memories of all the wonderful things that I’ve gotten to do so far.

I can’t say it often enough: I’m a lucky guy.

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Louis Armstrong and the All Stars perform “What a Wonderful World” on the BBC in 1967:

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Public Theater’s new production of Hamlet. Here’s an excerpt.

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Sam Gold is a top contender for the title of America’s Hottest Stage Director. A still-new face who made his professional debut less than a decade ago, everything he does these days attracts attention. Nor is he any kind of phony: I’ve been quite impressed by some of his shows, “Fun Home” in particular. On the other hand, certain of Mr. Gold’s other productions have showed signs of an ostentatious, self-regarding austerity that is the mark of a director who cares more for his interpretations than the plays that he’s interpreting. It’s suggestive that his revivals tend to be less sure-footed than his productions of new plays…

All of which brings us to Mr. Gold’s new Public Theater production of “Hamlet.” Like his “Othello,” in which Daniel Craig played Iago, it’s a vehicle for a movie star, in this case Oscar Isaac, lately of “X-Men: Apocalypse,” whose mere presence in the cast ensured that tickets to “Hamlet” would be as scarce as orchestra seats for “Hamilton.” Nevertheless, this Hamlet is no stunt: Mr. Isaac, like Mr. Craig, is an accomplished actor with classical training and extensive stage experience, and there’s a good reason why Mr. Gold should have chosen to work with a man who looks much younger than his 38 years. His “Hamlet” is all about youth—youth and the intimacy made possible by the fact that the Public is presenting the play in its 275-seat Anspacher Theater, where everyone in the audience is no farther from the playing area than a pebble’s toss….

It’s a conversational “Hamlet,” one well suited to the tastes of theatrical novices who’ve never seen a Shakespeare play and might well be discomfited by the space-filling rhetoric of classical acting. But it’s no less serious in purpose for its modesty of scale, and if it isn’t exactly my kind of “Hamlet,” it’s still exciting in its own up-close-and-personal way….

Mr. Isaac’s performance would make little sense in a large theater, for his throaty, colorless tenor doesn’t have anything like the range and rainbow-like vocal variety of a true classicist. Nevertheless, his interpretation is singularly intelligent—every line reading is fresh and spontaneous…

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Read the whole thing here.

The Mills Brothers sing Hoagy Carmichael’s “Lazy River,” Sidney Arodin and Hoagy Carmichael. This “soundie,” which was originally filmed to be played on video jukeboxes, was released in 1944:

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

“To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”

G.K. Chesterton, “The Paradise of Thieves”

In my latest “Sightings” column, which appears in the online edition of today’s Wall Street Journal, I plan a theater season devoted exclusively to women playwrights. Here’s an excerpt.

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Do female playwrights get a fair shake? Not according to the numbers. The best available statistics indicate that somewhere between one-fifth and one-quarter of the plays professionally produced in the U.S. are by women. And who’s to blame for this gender gap? Paula Vogel, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 but only just made it to Broadway this past April with “Indecent,” claimed in a recent tweet that white male critics “help close us down.” To which Lynn Nottage, another Pulitzer laureate who had an equally belated Broadway premiere in March with “Sweat,” replied, “The patriarchy flexing their muscles to prove their power.” I very much doubt it’s that simple, but whatever the reasons, there’s surely something amiss.

As a result, a growing number of women now support “gender parity” in American theater, which is too often a euphemism for more or less rigid gender-based quotas in programming and hiring. That road, alas, leads to all sorts of unintended and potentially destructive consequences. Nevertheless, it’s incontestable that there are lots of high-quality plays by women that aren’t as well-known as they ought to be—and, in the case of pre-1960 plays, simply aren’t being staged at all….

So what’s to be done? I’ve conducted a thought experiment. If I were running a regional theater company and decided to devote an entire season to plays by women, which ones would I choose? Within five minutes, my imaginary season was planned. Not only did I make a special point of including two pre-1960 works that are now largely (if not entirely) forgotten, but I made a point of steering clear of the usual staples. No “Little Foxes,” no “Raisin in the Sun,” no Caryl Churchill or Sarah Ruhl—just six fine plays that I picked for no other reasons than that I think they’re good and are likely to appeal to the average playgoer, regardless of gender….

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For the record, my six picks were Rachel Crothers’ Susan and God, Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden, Lynn Nottage’s Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Julia Cho’s Durango, Amy Herzog’s After the Revolution, and Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People.

Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for the 1940 film version of Susan and God:

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, closes August 20, reviewed here)

IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• Pride and Prejudice (comedy, G, closes Sept. 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• The Book of Will (serious comedy, PG-13, closes July 28, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• The Traveling Lady (drama, PG-13, extended through July 30, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN LENOX, MASS.:
• 4000 Miles (drama, PG-13/R, closes July 16, reviewed here)