Archives for June 2018

Johnny Carson sings “Here’s That Rainy Day,” by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen, on an undated episode of The Tonight Show, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar:

Tony Mottola, the guitarist for the Tonight Show orchestra, tells how he taught Carson to play “Here’s That Rainy Day” in an Archive of American Television oral-history interview:

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

“He’d been letting the sea work its timeless therapy, washing away the unconscious frustrations of a man of somewhat austere philosophy who’d been born in a world which he’d never see back. Not that he entirely regretted it for he’d never accepted its values wholeheartedly; he couldn’t with logic bewail a system which twice in its lifetime had turned on itself. In Russell’s private but confirmed opinion it was stupidity reinforced by greed which would destroy mankind and not the devil. Perhaps that was what theologians meant when they still talked on of original sin.”

William Haggard, The Scorpion’s Tail

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the premiere of The Royal Family of Broadway in the Berkshires. Here’s an excerpt.

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Barrington Stage Company, one of the best-known theater companies in the Berkshires, has also become in recent seasons a significant force in regional musical-comedy production. In addition to the 2014 Broadway revival of “On the Town,” which originated there, the company has also mounted Broadway-worthy stagings of “Guys and Dolls” and “The Pirates of Penzance,” and in 2004 it served as the incubator for “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” the best new musical of the past decade and a half. Now William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin, the authors of “Spelling Bee,” have returned to Barrington Stage with “The Royal Family of Broadway,” and it looks like a winner in the making, a musical that is already uproariously entertaining and has the clear potential to evolve into a bulletproof commercial hit.

“The Royal Family of Broadway” is based on the 1927 backstage comedy in which George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber spoofed the eccentricities of Ethel, John and Lionel Barrymore, who once were America’s first theatrical family but are now mostly remembered only by golden-age movie buffs….

Ms. Sheinkin’s book, which derives in part from an earlier, unproduced script by Richard Greenberg, lifts some of its best lines from the play (“Marriage isn’t a career—it’s an incident!”) and leaves the Roaring-Twenties period setting intact but otherwise goes its own merry way with sure-footed skill.

Shapely melody is not Mr. Finn’s strong suit, and his score, in which Great American Songbook-style pastiche is freshened with his own spiky harmonic language, is somewhat uneven in quality. As a result, the middle of the first act, which contains the least musically memorable songs, sags noticeably. Fortunately, all of the pivotal production numbers, especially Tony’s “Too Much Drama in My Life” and “If You Marry an Actress,” a second-act comic waltz for the five leading men, are show-stoppingly effective….

“The Royal Family of Broadway” reunites John Rando and Joshua Bergasse, the director and choreographer of “On the Town,” “Guys and Dolls” and “Pirates,” who work their now-familiar miracles of wit and flair. They’re an ideal musical-comedy leadership team, the very best we have….

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Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for The Royal Family of Broadway:

Blind Faith plays “Can’t Find My Way Home,” a song by Steve Winwood, in concert in London in 1969. The band consisted of Winwood on keyboards and vocals, Eric Clapton on guitar, Ginger Baker on drums, and Ric Grech on bass:

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

“Hatreds are the cinders of affection.”

Walter Raleigh, letter to Robert Cecil (May 10, 1593)

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, alternating in repertory, closes July 15, 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)
• The Iceman Cometh (drama, PG-13, most shows sold out last week, closes July 1, reviewed here)
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Symphonie Fantastique (abstract underwater puppet show, G, closes July 15, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• Three Tall Women (drama, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, closes June 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:
• Macbeth (Shakespeare, PG-13, remounting of Two River Theater Company production, closes June 24, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:
• The Will Rogers Follies (musical, G, closes June 21, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• Travesties (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Our Lady of 121st Street (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

“And at last he had time for what he privately called educating himself. He had discovered the Victorian novelists but had decided that not all were divine. Or at least not divine all the time. But the minor ones like Surtees could make him laugh and as one grew into stoical disillusion laughter was an essential medicine.”

William Haggard, The Vendettists

Count Basie plays “I Don’t Know,” accompanied by Freddie Green on guitar, Norman Keenan on bass, and Sonny Payne on drums. This performance opened “Count Basie Reminisces,” an episode of Ralph J. Gleason’s Jazz Casual, originally telecast by KQED-TV on August 21, 1968:

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