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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for April 2018

Almanac: Chekhov on writers of fiction and their characters

April 17, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“I have read your story ‘On the Road.’ If I were the editor of an illustrated magazine, I should publish the story with great pleasure; but here is my advice as a reader: when you depict sad or unlucky people, and want to touch the reader’s heart, try to be colder—it gives their grief as it were a background, against which it stands out in greater relief. As it is, your heroes weep and you sigh. Yes, you must be cold.”

Anton Chekhov, letter to Lidya Alexyevna Avilov, March 19, 1892 (trans. Constance Garnett)

Just because: Johnny Hodges plays Billy Strayhorn

April 16, 2018 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAJohnny Hodges plays Billy Strayhorn’s “Passion Flower” with Duke Ellington’s band in Copenhagen in 1967:

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

Almanac: Merrill Markoe on the difference between actors and comedians

April 16, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“Rule of thumb: Actors are people who know how to pretend to be someone else. Comedians are people who know how to pretend to be themselves.”

Merrill Markoe (Twitter, March 6, 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

Travels with Beatriz

April 12, 2018 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review two musicals, Miss You Like Hell and Mean Girls. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Most of today’s hit musicals are fluffy romances based on hit movies—but there are other ways to draw a crowd. So far, the Public Theater has rung the gong twice with a pair of shows, “Fun Home” and “Hamilton,” that flew in the face of all the rules of contemporary box-office success. Now it’s trying again with “Miss You Like Hell,” a new musical by Quiara Alegría Hudes and Erin McKeown that has a timely political edge, an ethnically diverse cast and a score by a singer-songwriter who knows how to rock. What’s more, it’s good—really good.

“Miss You Like Hell” is the story of Beatriz (Daphne Rubin-Vega), an undocumented immigrant who shows up one morning on the doorstep of Olivia (Gizel Jiménez), her eggheady, long-estranged daughter. Beatriz wants Olivia to join her on a cross-country road trip, but she isn’t just looking to tighten the ties that bind: She urgently needs a character witness to testify at her deportation hearing….

Based on a play by Ms. Hudes, who wrote the book for “In the Heights” and won a Pulitzer for “Water by the Spoonful,” “Miss You Like Hell” is in no way a piece of pamphleteering (set in 2014, it makes no mention of Donald Trump). Its real subject is the tattered relationship between Beatriz and her wholly deracinated child, who lost her mother in a custody battle and cannot forgive Beatriz for giving in so easily…

Like “Water by the Spoonful,” “Miss You Like Hell” steers a bit erratically between sentiment and sentimentality, but it scarcely ever descends to outright tearjerking, and Ms. McKeown’s score heightens every emotion so skillfully that you’d think this was her third or fourth show instead of her theatrical debut….

Every generation has its own what-high-school-is-like movie. For the millennials, it’s Tina Fey’s “Mean Girls,” a softened-up 2004 variation on “Heathers” that retells the old, old story of the pretty but nerdy girl who sells her soul to the most popular girl in town. It’s funny enough, and so, I suppose, is the new musical version, which stars Erika Henningsen and Taylor Louderman and into which Ms. Fey has inserted a shovelful of once-over-lightly topical references (“I liked your post about Intersectional Veganism”) but which is otherwise hard to distinguish from the film…

* * *

To read my review of Miss You Like Hell, go here.

To read my review of Mean Girls, go here.

Erin McKeown and Gizel Jiménez perform “Sundays,” a song from Miss You Like Hell:

So you want to see a show?

April 12, 2018 by Terry Teachout

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:
• Angels in America (two-part drama, R, most shows sold out last week, alternating in repertory through July 1, reviewed here)
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, nearly 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)
• Lobby Hero (drama, PG-13, virtually all shows sold out last week, closes May 13, reviewed here)
• Three Tall Women (drama, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, closes June 24, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Symphonie Fantastique (abstract underwater puppet show, G, closes June 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• Pygmalion (comedy, PG-13, closes Apr. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING THIS WEEKEND OFF BROADWAY:
• Good for Otto (drama, PG-13/R, closes Sunday, reviewed here)
• Later Life (drama, PG-13, closes Saturday, reviewed here)

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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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