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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for March 9, 2018

“This play is called Our Asylum”

March 9, 2018 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the New York premiere of David Rabe’s Good for Otto. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

I can’t remember when I last saw a play or movie that was anything other than earnest and glib about mental illness in general and therapy in particular. That’s why I was betting hard against the New York premiere of David Rabe’s “Good for Otto,” a three-hour-long drama about a small-town mental-health center and the people who go there hoping for help.

Well, I lost. Or, rather, everybody won: “Good for Otto,” the latest offering of the New Group, which has previously produced Mr. Rabe’s “An Early History of Fire,” “Hurlyburly” and “Sticks and Bones,” is one of the best new plays to come along in the past couple of seasons. What’s more, it’s being performed by the very best ensemble cast in town, 14 actors led by Ed Harris and Amy Madigan who get all there is to be gotten out of Mr. Rabe’s heartfelt script….

The excellence of “Good for Otto” is all the more unexpected in light of its well-thumbed dramaturgy, which resembles that of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” The stage is decorated only by a battered piano and a couple of dozen chairs. Mr. Harris (who doubles as the Stage Manager-like narrator) and Ms. Madigan play Dr. Michaels and Evangeline, a pair of counselors at the Northwood Mental Health Center. Most of the other actors are patients, with a gaggle of ghosts thrown in for good measure. The action consists mainly of their therapy sessions, and their problems are the usual ones….

“Good for Otto,” which bills itself as being “inspired” by “Undoing Depression,” a book by Richard O’Connor, a practicing psychotherapist, is impeccably true to everyday life: I spent a year fielding calls on the suicide hotline of a community mental health center, and I’ve never seen a show that was as realistic in its portrayal of therapy and crisis intervention.

Such accuracy is no guarantee that the results will be watchable, still less enthralling. Yet Mr. Rabe has made them so, weaving together his tales of commonplace psychic woe so tightly and imaginatively that your attention never wanders….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Replay: Tony Bennett and Dave McKenna perform “The Very Thought of You”

March 9, 2018 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERATony Bennett and Dave McKenna perform Ray Noble’s “The Very Thought of You” at Boston’s Copley Plaza Hotel in 1982:

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

Almanac: William Hazlitt on perfectionism

March 9, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Those who aim at faultless regularity will only produce mediocrity, and no one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.”

William Hazlitt, “Thoughts on Taste”

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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