Archives for 2019

Mrs. T and I were in truly dire straits a year ago today, enough so that I tremble now to remember what we were going through. Alas, things have been just as bad for us in recent weeks, but we now seem—at least for the moment—to be back to our customary state of waiting and hoping for the best.

As a result, what I posted on this day in 2018 seems identically relevant now: “We may not have had a Christmas tree this year, but we had each other, and still do and always will. Placed next to that shining reality, nothing else matters in the least.” That’s still true, right down to the Christmas tree we didn’t have for the second year in a row, and it doesn’t even matter that we’re in upper Manhattan instead of our beloved Sanibel, Florida. The point is that we’re together, and there’s no place better for two people in love to be.

Such being the case, allow me to quote Ogden Nash, as is my longstanding custom on the last day of the year:

Come, children, gather round my knee;
Something is about to be.

Tonight’s December Thirty-First,
Something is about to burst.

The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.

Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.

If, like me, you have a sneaking suspicion that chance is in the saddle and rides mankind, then I hope the year to come treats you not unkindly, and that your lives, like mine, will be warmed by hope and filled with love—and if you feel otherwise, then I wish for you the very same thing. We all deserve to be loved on New Year’s Eve.

From 2004:

The last sound I heard before I got in my rental car this morning and headed for the Smalltown city limits was a train whistle. My brother tells me that more freight trains have been passing through Smalltown lately, and though the tracks are halfway across town from my mother’s house, you can still hear the whistles loud and clear. My mother thinks they sound mournful, but I never thought so. They used to make me curious about the big world somewhere down the track, and now that I live in that big world, they remind me that I have things to do back there.

Read the whole thing here.

“Those who lack humour are without judgement and should be trusted with nothing.”

Clive James, “Exploring the Medium”

“With Lawrence in Arabia,” a 1927 silent film featurette about T.E. Lawrence. This newsreel-style film, which Lowell Thomas showed to audiences as part of a lecture about Lawrence’s exploits, played a major role in introducing him to the general public. A fictionalized character freely based on Thomas is played by Arthur Kennedy in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia:

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

“She was too haughty to deny herself that luxury of the proud-minded—a sense of justice.”

Sylvia Townsend Warner, Summer Will Show (courtesy of Levi Stahl)

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Irish Repertory Theatre’s off-Broadway revival of Dion Bouciault’s London Assurance. Here’s an excerpt.

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Here’s the good news: The Irish Repertory Theatre’s off-Broadway production of “London Assurance,” Dion Boucicault’s classic comedy about a gaggle of unscrupulous Londoners and Glostonians who are endeavoring either to marry for money or hornswoggle those who already have it, is a perfect production of one of the funniest plays ever written. 

There is no bad news.

Not only has Charlotte Moore, the Irish Rep’s artistic director, staged “London Assurance” in such a way as to keep the laughs flowing like water from a firehose, but every part, big and small, is flawlessly cast. I haven’t laughed harder at a farce since Jeremy Herrin’s Roundabout Theatre Company 2016 revival of “Noises Off.”…

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Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for London Assurance:

A new episode of Three on the Aisle, the bimonthly 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: 

This week, the critics talk with Obie-winning playwright Samuel Hunter about his newest play, Greater Clements, currently running at Lincoln Center Theatre. Sam discusses his approach to the rehearsal process, his many inspirations, and the act of bringing the Idaho of his youth onto the stages of New York.

Then the critics compare notes on Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, currently at the Atlantic Theater; Harry Connick Jr.’s Celebration of Cole Porter, currently on Broadway; and Lauren Gunderson’s Peter Pan and Wendy, currently at Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C.

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

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

Dave Frishberg’s “The Difficult Season,” sung and played by Frishberg at Lincoln Center in 2002:

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