Archives for January 2018

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review John Lithgow: Stories by Heart. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

The solo show is one of Broadway’s best-established genres, but it’s also enervatingly unvaried. Far too many of the one-person shows that open there are cliché-encrusted exercises in theatrical taxidermy in which a famous actor pretends to be a famous historical figure. While the best such shows can be spectacularly effective vehicles for a great performer, most of them leave you sneaking peeks at your watch and muttering, “Is he ever going to die?” Not so “Stories by Heart,” in which John Lithgow, following in the hallowed footsteps of Charles Laughton, reads two of his favorite short stories out loud and tells us how he came to know them. That’s all there is to “Stories by Heart,” and it’s more than enough. Rarely have I spent so entertaining a night at the theater—or witnessed so touching a tribute to a departed parent.

Therein lies the secret ingredient of “Stories by Heart,” which is both a one-man show and an act of filial piety. Arthur Lithgow, Mr. Lithgow’s late father, spent much of his life founding summer Shakespeare festivals at a time when such enterprises were rare. He was, as Mr. Lithgow gently hints in “Stories by Heart,” a bit of a ne’er-do-well, but one whose passion for theater usually kept his head above water. It was his long-standing custom of reading short stories out loud to his four children that inspired his now-famous son to put together this show, most of which is given over to “readings” of Ring Lardner’s “Haircut” and P.G. Wodehouse’s “Uncle Fred Flits By,” two of the family’s favorite tales.

I put the word “readings” in scare quotes because Mr. Lithgow doesn’t really read either story: He acts them, quickly disposing of his only prop, the very same battered copy of Somerset Maugham’s “Tellers of Tales” from which his father read to the Lithgow children once upon a time. What’s more, he acts them to the hilt, turning “Haircut” into a dramatic monologue with a head-turning reveal and “Uncle Fred Flits By” into a one-disaster-after-another farce from which the only thing missing is pratfalls….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Excerpts from John Lithgow: Stories by Heart:

The Miles Davis Quintet plays Davis’ “So What.” The band consists of Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums. This performance was originally telecast live by CBS on April 2, 1959, as part of “The Sound of Miles Davis,” an episode of The Robert Herridge Theater Show produced and introduced by Herridge and directed by Jack Smight. Davis had recorded “So What” for the first time a month earlier during the sessions for Kind of Blue:

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

“When a country produces a man of genius he is never what it wants or believes it wants; he is always unlike its idea of itself.”

W.B. Yeats, The Death of Synge: Extracts from a Diary Kept in 1909

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:
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all 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)

“I thought of the perpetual desire of all lovers to talk of their love and how many lovers’ quarrels have come from it.”

W.B. Yeats, Estrangement: Extracts from a Diary Kept in 1909

New York City Ballet dances George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, choreographed in 1946 to a commissioned score by Paul Hindemith. The pianist is Gordon Boelzner and the soloists are Richard Rapp, Patricia Wilde, Arthur Mitchell, and Patricia Neary. This studio performance was originally telecast by the CBC in 1964 on L’Heure du Concert:

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

“Only the greatest obstacle that can be contemplated without despair rouses the will to full intensity.”

W.B. Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil

From 2008:

Unless you happen to own a newspaper, you don’t get to read your own obituary. And that’s probably as it should be. I’ve written some pretty sharp remarks about the recently deceased, after all, and I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody remembered them when my own time comes–or maybe not. Perhaps I’ll outlive my own minor renown and be remembered solely, as I once speculated in this space, for having owned a Max Beerbohm caricature. Would I want to know that now? Not really. I have a pretty good sense of irony, but I’m not sure it’s that robust….

Read the whole thing here.