Archives for 2018

“The Greek word for ‘return’ is nostos. Algos means ‘suffering.’ So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”

Milan Kundera, Ignorance

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway premiere of The Lifespan of a Fact and a Connecticut revival of The Drowsy Chaperone. Here’s an excerpt.

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Whatever happened to the smart, well-wrought stage comedies of yesteryear? They’re not dead yet—in fact, a new one just opened on Broadway. “The Lifespan of a Fact,” written by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell, is the sort-of-trueish story of Jim Fingal (Daniel Radcliffe), a mild-mannered obsessive-compulsive intern-turned-fact-checker for a New Yorker-type magazine. Jim’s hard-nosed editor (Cherry Jones) assigns him to disentangle truth from untruth in an essay by John D’Agata (Bobby Cannavale), a writer whose self-acknowledged practice is to “take liberties with things that deepen the central truth of the piece.” In other words, John makes stuff up—lots and lots and lots of stuff, as the hapless Jim discovers to his horror and our delight.

For most of its length, this admirably compact play is a rib-bustingly funny farce in which things go from very bad to far worse in nothing flat. Towards the end, though, Messrs. Kareken, Murrell and Farrell skillfully modulate into a darker key as Jim and his colleagues grapple with what it means for journalists to make stuff up…

Mr. Radcliffe’s post-“Harry Potter” career is a vanishingly rare testament to how serious a grown-up child star can become if he has sufficient talent—and resolve. In addition to choosing offbeat, consistently interesting film roles, he’s also turned himself into a stage actor of exceptional quality, one who is more than good enough to go up against Mr. Cannavale and Ms. Jones…

“The Drowsy Chaperone,” one of the 21st century’s best and funniest musicals to date, had a solid Broadway run (674 performances) but hasn’t been seen there since it closed in 2007. Regional productions aren’t as common as you’d expect, either: Goodspeed Musicals’ new revival, directed by Hunter Foster, is the first time I’ve had a chance to see the show since I reviewed it more than a decade ago. Not only does it hold up, but Mr. Foster’s marvelous staging adds further luster to his fast-growing reputation as a musical-comedy director whose work needs to be seen in New York….

Even for Goodspeed, which has an immaculate track record of artistic quality, “The Drowsy Chaperone” is noteworthy: The cast is unimprovable, the costumes gorgeous, and Chris Bailey’s dances gleam with zip and zest….

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To read my review of The Lifespan of a Fact, go here.

To read my review of The Drowsy Chaperone, go here.

The trailer for The Lifespan of a Fact:

The trailer for Goodspeed Musicals’ revival of The Drowsy Chaperone:

A number from the original Broadway production of The Drowsy Chaperone, as performed by Bob Martin and Sutton Foster on the 2006 Tony Awards telecast:

James Brown sings Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind” and his own “World” and is interviewed on The Mike Douglas Show. This episode was originally taped for syndication on December 30, 1969:

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

“If I were Grand Inquisitor, I would try to burn out of the world not so much certain beliefs as certain phrases. I would argue with people about creeds; but I would kill them for catchwords.”

G.K. Chesterton, “Our Notebook” (Illustrated London News, June 15, 1915)

Titus Techera, who hosts a podcast for the American Cinema Foundation on which he and his guests discuss important films of the past and present, invited me back to talk about Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place on his latest episode. Our hour-long chat is now available on line.

Titus and I spoke at length and in detail about the 1950 film, produced by Humphrey Bogart’s Santana Productions, which starred Bogart and Gloria Grahame and was very freely adapted by Andrew Solt from Dorothy B. Hughes’ 1947 novel of the same name. It is, in my opinion, Ray’s masterpiece, a movie that is universally and rightly regarded as one of the half-dozen greatest examples of the film noir genre even though it fails to conform to many of the stock conventions of noir filmmaking (about which we talk in the podcast).

Here’s part of Titus’ summary of our conversation:

Titus and Terry Teachout discuss In a Lonely Place, the 1950 Nicholas Ray noir, Bogart’s most daring performance—a movie with a modern feel, with sophisticated adult characters, men and women, who nevertheless suffer great misery. We talk about Ray’s talent for bending genre to tell stories that feel true to characters he establishes within genre. We also talk about film noir’s connection to tragedy, to post-war America, and to our own times….

To listen to or download this episode, go here.

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The original theatrical trailer for In a Lonely Place:

A scene from the film:

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, most 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, most shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Girl from the North Country (jukebox musical, PG-13, closes Dec. 23, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 28, reviewed here)
• Uncle Vanya (drama, G, not suitable for children, extended through Oct. 28, reviewed here)

“In the war of ideas, it is the crudest and the most simplified ideology that wins. During our own lifetimes we have seen spectacular examples of this. We have seen great and highly civilized countries becoming infected by epidemics of ideological insanity, and whole populations being destroyed for the sake of some irrational slogan.”

Christopher Dawson, The Movement of World Revolution

Life, I’m told, is supposed to slow down as you grow older, but the opposite has happened to me. Instead, it’s become more hectic—and more fulfilling. I spent a few minutes the other day scribbling down some notes about what’s happened to me in the past decade and a half. Here are some of the high points:

• In 2003, I became the Journal’s drama critic and launched this blog.

• In 2005, I fell in love at first sight with the future Mrs. T and, a month later, nearly died of congestive heart failure.

• In 2006, I turned fifty.

• In 2007, Mrs. T and I got married.

• In 2009, The Letter, my first operatic collaboration with Paul Moravec, was premiered in Santa Fe. A few weeks after that, Pops, my Louis Armstrong biography, was published.

• In 2010, I started writing my first play, Satchmo at the Waldorf.

• In 2011, Satchmo was premiered in Florida.

• In 2012, I received a Guggenheim Fellowship. A month later, my mother died. I then spent six weeks working on Satchmo and Duke, my Duke Ellington biography, at the MacDowell Colony, after which Satchmo received its first major productions in Massachusetts and Philadelphia.

• In 2013, Duke was published.

• In 2014, Satchmo was produced off Broadway.

• In 2016, I turned sixty and made my professional debut as a stage director.

• In 2017, Billy and Me, my second play, was premiered.

I’m sixty-two years old. I wonder what will happen to me between now and 2033?

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Jimmy Durante sings “September Song,” by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, on TV in 1955, the year before I was born: