• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

You are here: Home / 2018 / April / Archives for 13th

Archives for April 13, 2018

Polishing the horses

April 13, 2018 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review Broadway revivals of Carousel and Children of a Lesser God. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Jack O’Brien is very smart, but his Broadway revival of “Carousel” is uneven, enough so that those who know the show may find it a disappointment—though they’ll certainly be staggered by the singing. Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry and Lindsay Mendez, who play Julie, Billy, and Carrie, are all such resplendently fine vocalists that they need make no apologies for sharing a stage with Renée Fleming, who plays Nettie Fowler and so gets to sing “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Voice for voice, I’ve never heard a better-sung revival of a golden-age musical.

So what’s wrong? Mr. O’Brien’s “Carousel” feels slick, like an old-master painting that has been garishly over-restored. Not only are Santo Loquasto’s elaborate sets too pretty—and, in the case of the second-act vision of heaven, too campy—but Mr. O’Brien has also seen fit to have the whole show rechoreographed by Justin Peck of New York City Ballet. It’s not merely that the original dances, by Agnes de Mille, are a time-honored part of “Carousel”: They’re as masterly as the ones made by Jerome Robbins for “West Side Story,” and shouldn’t be replaced unless the new ones are decisive improvements. Not so Mr. Peck’s choreography, most of which is no more than fluent, while his one striking contribution, a vigorous all-male dance in the style of Michael Kidd’s work on “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” is less appropriately characterful than de Mille’s hornpipe….

Mark Medoff’s “Children of a Lesser God,” in which a deaf woman and her speech therapist meet cute, get married and discover that he Just Doesn’t Understand Her, was a huge hit on Broadway in 1979 and an even bigger one when it was filmed seven years later. But unlike Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” a problem play that has remained compelling long after the issues it portrays have evolved almost beyond recognition, “Children” is too dramatically creaky to survive its own transformation into a period piece. Today we want to see inside the deaf culture at whose existence Mr. Medoff hints, instead of merely looking at it through a window. To be sure, it is always instructive to watch a well-meaning liberal being flagellated by the objects of his thoughtless condescension, as happens to the therapist in “Children,” but the only other thing the play now has to offer is a chance for a virtuoso deaf actor to strut her stuff.

That’s the main point of Kenny Leon’s new Broadway revival, which stars Lauren Ridloff, who had never acted professionally prior to starring last summer in the Berkshire Theater Group production of “Children.” Her performance is stupendously bold and expressive….

* * *

To read my review of Carousel, go here.

To read my review of Children of a Lesser God, go here.

An archival silent film of the second-act ballet sequence from Carousel, 1945 Broadway production, including Bambi Linn, Annabelle Lyon, and Robert Pagent, synchronized to a recording of the orchestral score:

The trailer for the Broadway revival of Children of a Lesser God:

Replay: the Rolling Stones on The Mike Douglas Show

April 13, 2018 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAThe Rolling Stones meet three young fans and perform Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” on The Mike Douglas Show in 1964:

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

Almanac: Winston Churchilll on his tenth wedding anniversary

April 13, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“I reproach myself very much for not having been more to you. But at any rate in these ten years the sun has never yet gone down on our wrath. Never once have we closed our eyes in slumber with an unappeased difference.”

Winston Churchill, letter to his wife, September 12, 1918

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...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

April 2018
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30  
« Mar   May »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Simply splendid Sondheim
  • Almanac: Tennessee Williams on theatrical characters
  • What Patricia Highsmith wrought
  • Almanac: Samuel Butler on sickness
  • Snapshot: Lieber and Stoller appear on What’s My Line?

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in