Archives for 2018

“He is a poet without contemporary nonsense, including the nonsense of having no nonsense about him.”

Anthony Powell, review of Larkin at Sixty (ed. Anthony Thwaite), originally published in the Daily Telegraph in 1982 and collected in Miscellaneous Verdicts: Writings on Writers

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway transfers of Travesties and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Here’s an excerpt.

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Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties,” in which James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin and Tristan Tzara, Dada’s founding father, share a stage to lunatic effect, was the unlikeliest Broadway semi-hit of 1975 (it ran for 156 much-discussed performances). Some theatergoers found “Travesties” impenetrably complex, but everybody had an opinion about it, and Mr. Stoppard was thereafter viewed on this side of the Atlantic as a man of consequence. Now he’s the greatest living English-speaking playwright, more or less, and “Travesties” is back on Broadway at last…

I couldn’t begin to summarize “Travesties” accurately in a review three times as long as this one. I’ll say only that it’s a whirligig variation on “The Importance of Being Earnest” in which Mr. Stoppard, having taken note of the unlikely but true fact that Messrs. Joyce, Lenin and Tzara (played here by Peter McDonald, Dan Butler, and Seth Numrich) were all in Zurich in 1917, uses that coincidence as the point of departure for a farce-flavored fantasy….

In addition to the Broadway transfer of the original Royal Shakespeare Theatre production, I’ve seen “Travesties” done twice, by New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre in 2005 and Wisconsin’s American Players Theatre in 2014. All of those productions were extraordinarily fine, and so is this one, in which Tom Hollander is sensational as Henry Carr, the now-senile British diplomat in whose fast-disintegrating memory the events of “Travesties” take place…

Rarely has a show been less in need of good reviews, from me or anyone else, than “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the latest line extension of J.K. Rowling’s franchise of novels, films and theme parks, which has come to New York after a stupendously successful 2016 opening in London. This two-part, five-hour extravaganza is the most expensive non-musical production ever to open on Broadway, and every dollar of the $68.5 million ponied up by the producers is visible. The special effects are sensational, especially if you like theatrical “black magic,” and each one was dutifully applauded by the audiences at the previews I saw.

Beyond that, I can do no more than to warn those who care that “The Cursed Child” plays like a musical—most of the show is underscored and all of the putative song cues are self-evident—and might have been slightly more fun had it been one….

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To read my review of Travesties, go here.

To read my review of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, go here.

A montage of scenes from Travesties:

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:
• Angels in America (two-part drama, R, many shows sold out last week, alternating in repertory through July 1, reviewed here)
• 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, reviewed here)
• Three Tall Women (drama, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, closes June 24, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• Lobby Hero (drama, PG-13, most shows sold out last week, closes May 13, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:
• Macbeth (Shakespeare, PG-13, remounting of Two River Theater Company production, closes June 24, original production reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Seafarer (drama, PG-13, closes May 24, reviewed here)
• Symphonie Fantastique (abstract underwater puppet show, G, closes June 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Miss You Like Hell (musical, PG-13, closes May 13, reviewed here)

“If the intellectuals in the plays of Chekhov, who spent all their time guessing what would happen in twenty, thirty, or forty years, had been told that in forty years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed with iron rings; that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath; that they would be trussed up naked to be bitten by ants and bedbugs; that a ramrod heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the ‘secret brand’); that a man’s genitals would be slowly crushed beneath the toe of a jackboot; and that, in the luckiest possible circumstances, prisoners would be tortured by being kept from sleeping for a week, by thirst, and by being beaten to a bloody pulp, not one of Chekhov’s plays would have gotten to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to insane asylums.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

A 1958 kinescope of an unidentified telecast of part of Carol Burnett’s standup comedy routine:

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

“As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is a mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all.”

G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

The latest 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.

In this episode, Peter, Elisabeth, and I chat together about a wide-ranging assortment of topics:

This week starts with the subject of whether some shows are too hopelessly dated to be brought back. What prompted this? The Broadway revival of Children of a Lesser God, which they agree is not very good, as director Kenny Leon seemed unsure of how to handle Mark Medoff’s now-period piece about the conflict between the Deaf and hearing communities. Ironically, they point out that Angels in America, which ostensibly treats more topical issues, actually fares better as a timeless work….

Next is a (too-brief) overview of their picks for summer events all around the country. Terry chooses American Players Theatre in Wisconsin for its exquisite setting and on-point curating…

Then the critics host their first ever mailbag segment! Elisabeth goes through recent questions from listeners….

We wrap up the episode by discussing other shows that we’ve seen lately.

To listen, download the episode, read more about it, or subscribe to Three on the Aisle, go here.

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

From 2008:

Few of us are destined to be remembered very clearly or very often, save by our nearest and dearest. We know this in our bones, which is why some monied folk seek to elude the anonymity of the ever-beckoning grave by pasting their names on concert halls or museum wings. For those of us who have done less well in life’s lottery, there is always the elaborately planned funeral….

Read the whole thing here.