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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for March 11, 2019

Just because: Boris Karloff recounts the legend of Death’s “appointment in Samarra”

March 11, 2019 by Terry Teachout

A scene from Targets, written and directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Bogdanovich and Boris Karloff. In this scene, Karloff delivers a monologue interpolated by Bogdanovich from Sheppey, a 1933 play by W. Somerset Maugham. (The same monologue supplied John O’Hara with the title of his first novel, Appointment in Samarra.)

Karloff is speaking from memory, which explains his deviations from Maugham’s original text:

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

Almanac: Miguel de Unamuno on the need for doubt

March 11, 2019 by Terry Teachout

“Only those who doubt really believe, and those who do not doubt are neither tempted against their faith nor do they truly believe.”

Miguel de Unamuno, The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho (trans. Anthony Kerrigan)

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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