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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for November 16, 2018

Winking to the choir

November 16, 2018 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review two new issue-driven New York shows, The Prom and Natural Shocks. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

In the wake of the midterm elections, the pollsters are telling us that America is growing even more politically polarized, and that we’re less willing than ever before to listen to those with whom we disagree. If that’s so, what effect will this heightened polarization have on the world of theater, a one-party state whose citizens usually vote for the most progressive candidate?

For my part, I expect to see fewer political plays whose purpose is to persuade the unsure, and more that seek instead to lift the spirits of true believers, rather in the manner of an old-fashioned revival meeting. Fortunately, there’s more than one way to stimulate the faithful. Witness “The Prom,” the new Broadway musical about what happens when Emma (Caitlin Kinnunen), a small-town lesbian, tries to take Alyssa (Isabelle McCalla), her closeted girlfriend, to the senior prom. The results are a bit sanctimonous in spots, but most of “The Prom” is really, really funny—and much of it, to my happy surprise, is funny at the expense of the good guys….

It starts out not in middle America but on Broadway, where Barry Glickman (Brooks Ashmanskas) and Dee Dee Allen (Beth Leavel), a pair of preposterously self-centered stage stars, have just gotten the worst reviews of their lives for a musical in which the critics blitz them for being “aging narcissists.” In order to change the narrative, they resolve to become celebrity activists, teaming up with two other actors suffering from mid-career crises (Angie Schworer and Christopher Sieber) and flying to Edgewater, Indiana, to lend a hand to Emma and Alyssa. Instead, they make matters worse by condescending to the natives…

Mr. Ashmanskas, who specializes in Paul Lynde-type parts, gives a performance that is not merely campy but affecting….

Would that there were anything half so surprising about “Natural Shocks,” the new one-woman play by Lauren Gunderson, whose work is popular throughout America but rarely seen in New York. I was much taken with Ms. Gunderson’s “The Book of Will,” which I saw last summer at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, but this time around she’s given us an all-too-predictable 70-minute monologue by a battered wife (Pascale Armand) whose husband collects guns. Like “The Prom,” “Natural Shocks” is an example of what I call the theater of concurrence, whose practitioners take for granted that their audiences agree with them about everything and thus assert instead of arguing…

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Excerpts from The Prom:

Replay: Edward R. Murrow interviews Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis

November 16, 2018 by Terry Teachout

TV CAMERAEdward R. Murrow interviews Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis on Person to Person. This segment was originally telecast by CBS on July 2, 1954:

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

Almanac: T.S. Eliot on television

November 16, 2018 by Terry Teachout

INK BOTTLE“It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”

T.S. Eliot (quoted in the New York Post, September 22, 1963)

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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