Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Aldous Huxley speaks about his beliefs on an undated episode of This I Believe, a CBS radio program hosted by Edward R. Murrow. The series aired from 1951 to 1955:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”
Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means
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, reviewed here)
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The Ferryman (drama, PG-13, Broadway transfer of London production, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• The Lifespan of a Fact (comedy, PG-13, closes Jan. 13, reviewed here)
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, reviewed here)
• The Prom (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)
• The Waverly Gallery (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 27, reviewed here)
OFF BROADWAY:
• The Hard Problem (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 6, reviewed here)
CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Mother of the Maid (drama, PG-13, closes Dec. 23, reviewed here)
• The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (drama, PG-13, closes Dec. 22, reviewed here)
“Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.”
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Josh White gives a concert on Swedish television in 1962:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“The only success worth one’s powder was success in the line of one’s idiosyncrasy. Consistency was in itself distinction, and what was talent but the art of being completely whatever it was that one happened to be? One’s things were characteristic or they were nothing.”
Henry James, “The Next Time”
From 2008:
Ian is old enough to be curious about adult entertainment, so we’ve been trying to introduce him to a somewhat higher class of movie than he’s accustomed to seeing, with mixed but not unpromising results (he liked The Triplets of Belleville but not Shane). A few weeks ago we took him to his first Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to which he responded with enthusiasm, though we ran into a bit of trouble at intermission when he caught sight of a poster advertising a production of Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana. He immediately assumed that it was a play about giant iguanas and demanded that I tell him all about it. “You’re not quite ready for that one, buddy,” I replied….
Read the whole thing here.
“My definition of man is, ‘a cooking animal.’ The beasts have memory, judgment, and all the faculties and passions of our minds ,in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook.”
James Boswell, Life of Johnson