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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for March 30, 2018

Vistas of decline—and triumph

March 30, 2018 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway revivals (and premieres) of two important plays, Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women and Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Edward Albee may have been one of America’s greatest playwrights, but he couldn’t get a decent review between 1975, when he won a Pulitzer Prize for “Seascape,” and 1994, when the off-Broadway premiere of “Three Tall Women” brought him a third Pulitzer and restored him to critical favor after a string of flops. That “Three Tall Women” subsequently failed to move to Broadway remains an impenetrable mystery, but it’s there now at last, staged with no-nonsense clarity by Joe Mantello and starring Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill….

“Three Tall Women” is a conversation piece set in the bedroom of a rich, senile woman (Ms. Jackson) who is looked after by a long-suffering paid companion of a certain age (Ms. Metcalf) and is being visited by a young lawyer who takes care of her estate (Ms. Pill). In the first part of the play, Ms. Jackson’s character gabbles randomly, incessantly and revealingly about her long and eventful life. Then she has a stroke, at which point the three actors suddenly metamorphose without authorial explanation into herself when young, middle-aged and very old….

Ms. Jackson, who is returning to Broadway after a 30-year hiatus, gives an acrid, wised-up performance that is as pointed as you’d expect from so celebrated an actor. It’s no better, though, than than that of Ms. Metcalf, who’s as memorable here as she was in “Lady Bird,” while Ms. Pill acquits herself well as their foil….

Kenneth Lonergan is far from prolific, but everything he writes, whether for stage or screen, is worth seeing. “Lobby Hero,” which was first performed off Broadway in 2001 but is only just receiving its Broadway premiere, is his most provocative play to date, a study of what it means—and what it costs—to tell the truth in a corrupt world. In it, two security guards (Michael Cera and Brian Tyree Henry) and two cops, one badly bent (Chris Evans) and the other young and naïve (Bel Powley), come together in the lobby of a New York apartment house to talk for two and a half hours about a murder in which they are variously and complicatedly involved….

Mr. Cera and Mr. Evans are well known from TV and the movies, which accounts for the presence of shrieking fans in and outside the theater. The true star of the show, however, is Mr. Henry, who is calm, solid and touchingly troubled as the guard whose dilemma (he knows that his brother may have done something unforgivably terrible) sets “Lobby Hero” in motion….

* * *

To read my complete review of Three Tall Women, go here.

To read my complete review of Lobby Hero, go here.

The cast of Lobby Hero talks about the play:

Replay: Angels in America on Broadway in 1993

March 30, 2018 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAExcerpts from a live performance of the original 1993 Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, shot for use by the press. The cast included Ron Leibman as Roy Cohn, Joe Mantello as Louis, and Stephen Spinella as Prior, and and the production was directed by George C. Wolfe. Also included are contemporary interviews with Kushner, Mantello, and Spinella:

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

Almanac: Steve Gadd on art and craftsmanship

March 30, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“I don’t consider myself an artist. I go out there and I try to play what’s right for the music. It seems to be a much more open approach and it would seem to allow me to be able to expand as the music of the time expands. I think people who get hung up in their own artistry often get into a certain style they think is them and if they do anything different the public won’t be able to identify their artistry, which is kind of limiting. I don’t think that way. I have a good time playing. I try to play the best I can. I know I can play the drums and I want to play the best that I can possibly play. I want to play better a year from now than I’m playing now, not because my artistry is at stake, but just because I like it.”

Steve Gadd, in conversation with Julie Coryell (quoted in Coryell and Laura Friedman, Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music )

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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