Archives for August 2018

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”

James Boswell, Life of Johnson

Just in case you’re wondering why there’s no drama column in today’s Wall Street Journal, I’ve been so preoccupied with Mrs. T’s illness that my editors strongly suggested I take a week off. Not that they had to push too hard! Ever since my beloved spouse crashed and burned in Cape May a week and a half ago, I’ve spent most of my waking hours at her bedside, watching old movies, running errands, and generally spreading sweetness and light in all directions.

I’m about to restart the professional machine again: I saw two shows in Cape May last week and will be seeing another one off Broadway tomorrow afternoon, and I expect to crank up the word processor and start generating prose early next week. For the moment, though, I’m devoting all of my energies, such as they are, to helping the ICU staff at New York-Presbyterian look after the woman I love. Can you blame me? Like the man says, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Richard Wilbur and Robert Lowell read and talk about their work on an undated episode of USA: Poetry, originally telecast by NET, the predecessor of PBS, in 1966:

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

“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature—it requires, in fact, the nature of a true Individualist—to sympathise with a friend’s success.”

Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”

Mrs. T is resting fairly comfortably in the New York-Presbyterian ICU, watching movies with me on TCM and undergoing therapy that is aimed at stabilizing her condition and clearing the way for the possibility of a double lung transplant at some point—we hope—in the near future. (To find out why she’s in the hospital, go here.) At present she’s too frail for visitors, but I’ve been telling her about the outpouring of sympathy and concern in the social media, which she finds downright astonishing. It means the world to her—and to me—to know how very much you all care.

Many, many thanks for your kind messages. I’ll keep you posted.

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:
• Be More Chill (musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 30, reviewed here)

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

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

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

CLOSING FRIDAY IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Pushkin: A Life Played Out (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 25, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.:
• The Petrified Forest (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 25, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• Richard II (Shakespeare, PG-13, reviewed here)

“Who knows what true loneliness is—not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.”

Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes

“The Life You Save,” a TV adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” written by Nelson Gidding, directed by Herschel Daugherty, and starring Gene Kelly, Janice Rule, and Agnes Moorehead. This film was originally telecast by CBS on March 1, 1957, as an episode of Schlitz Playhouse of Stars. After watching the program, O’Connor told a friend, “The best I can say for it is that conceivably it could have been worse. Just conceivably”:

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