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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for July 17, 2020

From the hill to your home

July 17, 2020 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review American Players Theatre’s webcasts of Arms and the Man and Julius Caesar. Here’s an excerpt.

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Of the artistic havocwrought by the coronavirus pandemic, among the most grievous losses was the cancellation of American Players Theatre’s 2020 season. Located in Spring Green, the rural Wisconsin village that is also home to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, APT is little known outside Wisconsin but universally admired by well-traveled theater buffs for the consistent excellence of its productions. A 13-actor resident “Core Acting Company” augmented by summer-only artists performs classics and modern masterpieces in two spaces, a 1,089-seat outdoor amphitheater atop a wooded hill and a handsome 200-seat indoor house….

For all these reasons, it is a pleasure to report that APT has staked out a significant online presence with “Out of the Woods,” a six-installment series of play readings that are streamed live every Friday—the last one goes up on July 17—and will be available for viewing through July 26. The performances feature the core company and other APT regulars, all of whom are appearing from their separate homes via Zoom….

Of the “Out of the Woods” readings that I’ve seen to date, the most comprehensively satisfying was a performance of George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man” directed by William Brown, an APT veteran who is familiar elsewhere for his sterling work with Chicago’s Writers Theatre….

One reason why this production comes off so well is that Shaw’s plays, this one very much included, are conversation pieces full of witty talk that lends itself to a stripped-down, dialogue-driven presentation….

“Julius Caesar” is an inescapably trickier proposition—not because Stephen Brown-Fried’s staging is any less resourceful but because Shakespeare’s play contains action-based scenes, in particular the assassination of Caesar (Brian Mani), whose visceral impact can only be hinted at in a socially distanced reading….

These qualifications notwithstanding, this “Julius Caesar” is still immensely watchable…

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Read the whole thing here.

Replay: Milton Berle appears on This Is Your Life

July 17, 2020 by Terry Teachout

Milton Berle is the guest on This Is Your Life. This episode, hosted by Ralph Edwards, was originally telecast by NBC on June 6, 1956:

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

Almanac: H.L. Mencken on bureaucracy

July 17, 2020 by Terry Teachout

“The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head.”

H.L. Mencken, “A Time to be Wary”

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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