Archives for April 2019

From 2009:

One of my closest friends, a writer whom I admire greatly, has dedicated his latest book to me. I was one of the first people to suggest that he write it, and he claims to have profited from my counsel and encouragement. That’s nice to know–especially since the finished product turned out to be a first-rate piece of work. (I suppose it would feel uncomfortable to be the dedicatee of a piece of junk!) I received a copy of the uncorrected proofs in the mail the other day, and it was a decidedly strange experience to see “For TERRY TEACHOUT” printed on the fifth page. I’ve been written about in a couple of memoirs and mentioned in passing in a half-dozen other volumes of various kinds, but never before have I been the dedicatee of a book….

“To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.”

Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society

Patricia McBride and John Clifford dance George Balanchine’s Tarantella, set to the music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, in an undated telecast:

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

“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak.”

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (February 2, 1816)

Humphrey Bogart endorses major-league baseball in an undated TV commercial filmed and originally telecast in the Fifties:

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

“Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

George Orwell,Nineteen Eighty-Four

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Does the Broadway musical have a future? Only if a new generation of artists walks away from the old-hit-movie-into-stale-new-stage-show model and starts creating musicals that are conceptually more ambitious. “The Band’s Visit” and “Be More Chill,” which also broke free from the twin strangleholds of by-the-numbers pop-rock and synthetic Disneypop, both filled the bill in their very different ways. So, too, does Anaïs Mitchell’s “Hadestown,” which has transferred to Broadway after highly acclaimed runs at New York Theatre Workshop and London’s Royal National Theatre. “Hadestown” isn’t perfect, but it’s so fresh that you’ll gladly look past its forgivable flaws and savor the kaleidoscopic stylistic variety of Ms. Mitchell’s score.

Ms. Mitchell is a singer-songwriter, and “Hadestown” began life a decade ago as a concept album, an Americana-style “folk opera” (her phrase) about the evils of capitalism in which she retold the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the story of a lyre-playing lover who travels to the dark underworld in the hope of restoring his adored fiancée (Eva Noblezada) to life. In Ms. Mitchell’s updated version, a sordid Depression-era New Orleans nightclub is the hellmouth and Hades (Patrick Page) is the slave-driving factory owner to whom the poverty-stricken Eurydice has unwittingly sold her body and soul.

As befits a folk opera, “Hadestown” is through-composed and contains only a modicum of spoken dialogue. Instead, the story is recounted by Hermes, a sharkskin-suited narrator played with urbane slyness by André de Shields who tells his tale in loosely rhymed couplets and quatrains…

Mr. Page, whose bottomless basso voice and regal demeanor have stolen many a show, would likely steal this one as well were it not for Ms. Noblezada, who gives a beautifully sincere, handsomely sung performance that you will find impossible to resist….

All this said, it is Ms. Mitchell’s down-home score, a piping-hot gumbo of folk, jazz, blues, country and gospel, that is the incontestable star of the show….

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Excerpts from Hadestown: