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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for August 9, 2018

The poet and the pistol

August 9, 2018 by Terry Teachout

In the online edition of today’s Wall Street Journal, I review the off-Broadway premiere of Jonathan Leaf’s Pushkin: A Life Played Out. Here’s an excerpt.

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George Balanchine called Tchaikovsky “Pushkin in music: supreme craftsmanship, exact proportions, majesty.” That says a lot about Tchaikovsky, and even more about Aleksandr Pushkin. But though he was and is Russia’s greatest poet, Pushkin’s work is comparatively little known in the West save in the form of Tchaikovsky’s “Yevgeny Onegin” and Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.” Outside of those operas, whose libretti were adapted by their composers from his two best-remembered works, he has never made much of an impression outside his native land. As a result, few Westerners know anything about Pushkin’s spectacularly eventful life and violent death—he was a compulsive gambler who was killed in a duel in 1837—both of which were as theatrical as his poetry.

That’s where Jonathan Leaf comes in. Mr. Leaf is the author of, among other things, “The Germans in Paris,” a smart, elegantly wrought 2007 comedy of manners about an imagined but plausible encounter between Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx and Richard Wagner. While he has a Stoppard-like knack for spinning thought-provoking drama out of such speculative scenarios, “Pushkin: A Life Played Out,” a history play in verse about the circumstances leading up to Pushkin’s murder, is not a witty game of what-if. It is, rather, a romantic tragedy, the true story of an idealist who refuses to compromise with the lethal realities of power and so finds himself staring down the wrong end of a gun barrel. Tautly told and staged with hurtling momentum by Christopher McElroen, “Pushkin” is one of the best new plays to open in New York in recent memory, and this fabulously well-acted production, performed in an 80-seat black-box theater, puts you a heartbeat away from the action….

“Pushkin” doesn’t look or feel like a small-scale show, much less a low-budget downtown production. Troy Hourie, the scenic designer, has created a simply decorated set that nonetheless suggests the resplendent air of Czarist Russia, and Elivia Bovenzi’s period costumes perfect the illusion: You know at all times where you are and when it is. Nor can I possibly say enough good things about Mr. McElroen’s staging, which builds to the climactic duel so inexorably that you’ll resent the intermission….

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Read the whole thing here.

He made music a laughing matter

August 9, 2018 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I pay tribute to Spike Jones. Here’s an excerpt.

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Humor and music aren’t always strange bedfellows, but they sometimes make for an uneasy fit. From Gilbert and Sullivan’s “My Object All Sublime” to Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song),” most comic songs are in fact musically straightforward ditties that just happen to tell a funny story. Take “Weird Al” Yankovic, pop music’s clown prince of parody, whose modus operandi is to write incongruous new lyrics for familiar songs. Give a careful listen to, say, “Eat It,” his cover version of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” and you’ll be struck by how closely the instrumental backing reproduces that of the original record….

The staying power of Mr. Yankovic’s formula has long since proved itself. But there are other, more specifically musical ways to make funny music. Haydn, the most sophisticated of all musical comedians, did it by spicing up the time-honored formulas of classical music with startling musical jokes, the most celebrated of which is the explosive fortissimo chord that he detonates without warning a half-minute or so into the slow movement of his “Surprise” Symphony. And a century and a half later, Spike Jones and His City Slickers, American pop music’s first great comedy band, dusted off Haydn’s bottomless bag of tricks, using them to cut dozens of records that remain wildly funny to this day….

One of his biggest hits, a 1942 version of “Cocktails for Two,” shows off his method (if you want to call it that) to sensational effect. The original song, written in 1934, is a sugary ballad that tells the tale of a romantic encounter “in some secluded rendezvous/That overlooks the avenue.” Accordingly, Jones’ recording starts off with a straight-down-the-center harp-accompanied vocal-group performance of the verse, one that never hints at the chaos to come. Then someone shouts “WHOOPEE!” and the rest of the band crashes in from out of nowhere with a hard-charging, Dixieland-flavored banjo-and-tuba accompaniment interspersed with such exquisitely timed sound effects as a pistol shot, a bicycle horn, a clanging fire-station bell and—least likely of all—a hoedown fiddle….

Nothing in Jones’ previous life suggested that he longed to become a specialist in musical slapstick….

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Read the whole thing here.

A 1945 “soundie” film version of Spike Jones’ “Cocktails for Two”:

Spike Jones appears as the mystery guest on a 1954 episode of What’s My Line? The panel includes Steve Allen, Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, and Dorothy Kilgallen:

So you want to see a show?

August 9, 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:
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, 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)
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, nearly all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (musical, G, too complex for children, closes Sept. 6, reviewed here)

IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:
• Oliver! (musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Symphonie Fantastique (abstract underwater puppet show, G, closes Sept. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• Richard II (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 26, reviewed here)
• The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• Carmen Jones (musical, PG-13, closes Aug. 19, reviewed here)
• Mary Page Marlowe (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 19, reviewed here)
• Twelfth Night (Shakespeare, G, closes Aug. 19, reviewed here)

Almanac: Dorothy Sayers on quotations

August 9, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.”

Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night

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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