Archives for 2017

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.

“Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.”

Margot Fonteyn, Autobiography‎

Charles Lane is interviewed on Late Night With David Letterman. He played character roles in more than 250 films, including Ball of Fire, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Nothing Sacred, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, as well as on such TV series as The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, Dennis the Menace, I Love Lucy, and Petticoat Junction. This episode, which is thought to be the only surviving TV interview with Lane, was originally telecast on July 15, 1982, when he was seventy-seven years old. He gave his last performance in 2006 and died the following year at the age of 102:

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