Archives for September 2018

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a New Jersey revival of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child and the Broadway premiere of Richard Bean’s The Nap. Here’s an excerpt.

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Home, Robert Frost said, is the place where, “when you go there, they have to take you in.” But what if they don’t remember who you are? That’s what happens, more or less, in “Buried Child,” the 1978 black comedy that won Sam Shepard a Pulitzer Prize and put him on the map of American theater. Shepard’s reputation has been in a semi-eclipse of late, no doubt owing in part to the long wasting illness (he suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease) that killed him last year. So it is a pleasure to see Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s splendid revival of “Buried Child” and thereby be reminded that at his best, he really was as good as everybody remembers….

At a moment when so many younger playwrights seem determined to beat their audiences over the head with whatever they want them to think, it is a further pleasure to spend an evening watching a play that is at one and the same time effective and elusive, so much so that it’s genuinely hard to describe. Imagine “You Can’t Take It With You” rewritten by Edward Albee or Samuel Beckett, though, and you’ll start to get a sense of what happens, or appears to happen, in “Buried Child,” in the course of which Vince (Paul Cooper) and Shelly, his girlfriend (Andrea Morales), pay a visit his grandparents’ Illinois farm for the first time in six years. No sooner do they knock on the front door than they discover to their surprise and horror what we’ve already learned, which is that the poisonously crotchety members of Vince’s extended family all seem to have gone mad, albeit comically so—at first….

“Buried Child” doesn’t exactly act itself, but it works best when done plainly and straightforwardly, and Paul Mullins’ staging, in which every member of the cast seems as real as a character in a nightmare, is devoid of any trace of trickery….

Why on earth did anyone think it a good idea to mount a Broadway production of a British farce about a transgender gangster named Waxy Bush who attempts to fix the Snooker World Tournament—especially one in which all of the characters speak in a largely unintelligible working-class dialect? Having squirmed without cease through the U.S. premiere of Richard Bean’s “The Nap,” I’m forced to the conclusion that a not-inconsiderable number of New York theatergoers get a thrill out of hearing the words “f—“ and “c—“ pronounced with a Yorkshire accent. I can’t think of another reason to do “The Nap,” especially given the fact that the latest play by the author of “One Man, Two Guvnors” is relentlessly, incapacitatingly unfunny…

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To read my complete review of Buried Child, go here.

To read my complete review of The Nap, go here.

The trailer for Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s revival of Buried Child:

A scene from Writers Theatre’s 2018 Chicago-area revival of Buried Child, directed by Kimberly Senior:

The nineteenth episode of Three on the Aisle, the twice-monthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading.

Here’s American Theatre’s “official” summary of the proceedings:

After a longer-than-normal hiatus, the critics return just in time for the fall theatre season to kick up.
At the top of the episode, critics discuss the demise of Theatre Talk, the longtime talk show hosted by the City University of New York, recently cancelled. All three of the critics have been guests on Theatre Talk, and they reminisce about what they loved about it and what its loss means for New York theatre.

For the first interview of the season, the critics sit down with Eric Tucker, artistic director of Bedlam, “one of the most adventurous” theatre companies in New York City, according to Peter.

The critics close out with what they’re looking forward to this fall…

To listen, download the latest episode, or subscribe to Three on the Aisle, go here.

In case you missed any previous episodes, you’ll find them all here.

Duke Ellington appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line? John Daly is the host and the panelists are Steve Allen, Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, and Dorothy Kilgallen. This episode was originally telecast by CBS on July 12, 1953:

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

“He was too much concerned with his own perfection ever to think of admiring any one else.”

Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson

In the online edition of today’s Wall Street Journal, I review the Broadway premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s Bernhardt/Hamlet. Here’s an excerpt.

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To most people, the name of Sarah Bernhardt is a dead metaphor, a faded reference to over-the-top stage acting (as in “Don’t be such a Sarah Bernhardt, for God’s sake”). Truth to tell, though, even seasoned theater buffs tend not to know all that much about Bernhardt, legendary though she is. This makes sense, since she was chiefly active around the turn of the 20th century, performed exclusively in French and didn’t live long enough to make sound films, though she did cut a few records prior to her death in 1923 on which she sounds to modern ears rather like a comedian spoofing the excesses of an old-fashioned ham actor.

So why has Theresa Rebeck now written a Broadway play about her called “Bernhardt/Hamlet”? Because Bernhardt famously essayed the title role of “Hamlet,” in which she appeared in Paris and London in 1899, well over a century before such exercises in theatrical gender-bending became, if not quite commonplace, then increasingly frequent. Max Beerbohm, who saw and reviewed Bernhardt’s Hamlet in London, dismissed it as humorless and absurd, naughtily claiming that “the only compliment one can conscientiously pay her is that her Hamlet was, from first to last, très grande dame.” But all that survives of her interpretation is “Le duel d’Hamlet,” a two-minute film in which Bernhardt can be seen clashing swords with Laertes, which doesn’t exactly tell you what her acting was like.

The good news is that this leaves Ms. Rebeck plenty of room in which to maneuver. The bad news is that she doesn’t seem to be sure what to do with it. I wish I could say otherwise, for her premise is promising, but “Bernhardt/Hamlet,” in which Janet McTeer plays the title role(s), fails to deliver the goods….

“Bernhardt/Hamlet” never manages to decide whether it’s a comedy à la “Noises Off” or a dead-serious play about a great artist stymied by the prejudices of the 19th-century culture into which she was born. The rehearsal scenes, whose over-obvious humor is mostly rooted in clichés about the vanities of actors, endeavor to be much funnier than they really are, while the serious scenes, in which Bernhardt explains why she is equal to the task of playing Hamlet her way, are unintentionally funny…

Ms. McTeer, perhaps not coincidentally, also played Petruchio in Phyllida Lloyd’s 2016 Shakespeare in the Park production of “The Taming of the Shrew.” She is a distinguished stage actor, but I was struck on that occasion by how completely unfunny she was, and I came away from “Bernhardt/Hamlet” with the same impression….

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Read the whole thing here.

Excerpts from Bernhardt/Hamlet:

“Le duel d’Hamlet,” a 1900 silent film directed by Clément Maurice in which Sarah Bernhardt is seen in an excerpt from Shakespeare’s play. The film was originally released with a synchronized soundtrack—one of the earliest attempts of its kind—but the sound elements have not survived:

A 1903 recording of Sarah Bernhardt speaking a monologue from Racine’s Phèdre:

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, virtually 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)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• Days to Come (drama, G, not suitable for children, closes Oct. 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Heartbreak House (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Be More Chill (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)

“The world is full of love and pity, I say. Had there been less suffering, there would have been less kindness.”

William Makepeace Thackeray, The Adventures of Philip

“The Cop and the Anthem,” a screen version of O. Henry’s short story, adapted by Lamar Trotti and directed by Henry Koster, starring Charles Laughton, David Wayne, and Marilyn Monroe, and introduced by John Steinbeck. This is an excerpt from O. Henry’s Full House, an anthology film released in 1952:

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