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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for October 23, 2020

From the Mint, another gem

October 23, 2020 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review a webcast of the Mint Theater Company’ 2018 revival of Miles Malleson’s Conflict. Here’s an excerpt.

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The thing I miss most about live theater is seeing shows in small houses, sitting in the midst of happy audiences who know they’re watching something special. For me, one of the off-Broadway troupes that best satisfies this craving is the Mint Thearer Company, which specializes in unjustly forgotten 20th-century plays. The works they choose, no matter how obscure, are always worthy of revival, and their finely wrought small-scale productions make the strongest possible case for the plays.

Imagine my delight, then, when the Mint announced earlier this year that it’s been stockpiling broadcast-ready three-camera archival videos of its productions since 2013, and that it plans to brighten up pandemic life by webcasting several of them while New York’s theaters remain closed. The latest one, Miles Malleson’s “Conflict,” was taped during a live performance at the 99-seat Beckett Theatre in 2018. I saw it then and reviewed it with great enthusiasm in this space. Now that I’ve watched the show with earphones on my laptop—an experience directly comparable in intimacy to seeing it at the Beckett—I can confirm that my first impression was on the mark: “Conflict” is an outstanding play, and the Mint’s production, directed by Jenn Thompson, was and is platinum-plated….

“Conflict” is a most unusual piece of work. It’s a highly political play—Malleson was a passionate advocate of socialism and, later, a Communist fellow traveler—that sounds for much of its length like a drawing-room comedy….

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Read the whole thing here.

An introduction to the Mint Theater Company:

Replay: Langston Hughes reads “The Weary Blues”

October 23, 2020 by Terry Teachout

Langston Hughes reads his poem “The Weary Blues” on the CBC in 1958, accompanied by a jazz combo:

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

Almanac: G.K. Chesterton on evil

October 23, 2020 by Terry Teachout

“Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.”

G.K. Chesterton, “The Flying Stars”

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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