Archives for 2017

My most recent appearance on Theater Talk, the weekly TV series hosted by Susan Haskins and Michael Riedel, is being telecast in two parts. As was the case last week, I’m part of a panel of drama critics discussing the spring season on Broadway. Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, Linda Winer, and I have even more to say on the latest hit shows, some of it testy but all of it, I hope, good-humored. (The remainder of the episode is devoted to an interview with Joel Gray.)

If you live in the New York area, our second episode will air on WNET at 1:30 a.m. on Friday (or, to be exact, Saturday morning) and 11:30 a.m. on Sunday. As always, it will also be televised on other channels, and you’ll be able to view the episode on line next week by going here.

For more information on air dates and times, go here.

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, some shows sold out last week, 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 LENOX, MASS.:
• 4000 Miles (drama, PG-13/R, closes July 16, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• Present Laughter (comedy, PG-13, closes July 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Sweat (drama, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, original production reviewed here)

“Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the world.”

Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

My latest appearance on CUNY-TV’s Theater Talk, a discussion of the second half of the Broadway season just past, can now be viewed online. The hosts are Susan Haskins and Michael Riedel and the other panelists are Peter Marks of Washington Post, Elisabeth Vincentelli of the New York Times and The New Yorker, and Linda Winer of Newsday:

Suzanne Farrell Ballet dances an excerpt from George Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15, set to the music of Mozart, at the 2005 Kennedy Center Honors ceremony. Farrell is briefly seen watching the performance:

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

“Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there may never be two that love one another equally well.”

Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (courtesy of Shoshana Greenberg)

From 2004:

Anyone who writes a serious book with the expectation of making a lot of money and/or becoming famous is a fool. If you can’t afford to write a book in your spare time for its own sake, you’re in the wrong business….

Read the whole thing here.

“A flawed book gives no one license to flog it in print. If there are mistakes, why not sound regretful when pointing them out instead of smug? If the book doesn’t measure up to expectations, why not consider the author’s own expectations with regard to it? While no one wants shoddy work to escape detection, a critic must persuade not only the impartial reader but also the biased author—as well as his biased editor and biased family—that the response is just.”

Arthur Krystal, “Should Writers Reply to Reviewers?” (Chronicle of Higher Education, March 18, 2012)