• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

Seeing Steinbeck anew

September 17, 2021 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a streaming webcast of the stage version of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Here’s an excerpt.

*  *  *

Streaming webcasts of theatrical performances are growing increasingly scarce as Broadway producers and drama companies begin opening their doors once more. Yet their value remains undiminished, for streaming video gives regional companies a national profile and makes shows available to viewers who either find it difficult to go to the theater or are nervous about Covid-19. What’s more, it doesn’t necessarily require a budget-busting cash outlay from producer: One of the things I learned from reviewing streaming theater during the lockdown was that you don’t need multiple cameras to capture a play for webcast. It turns out that some (though by no means all) of the single-camera videos routinely made by theater companies for their archives can also be watched with pleasure at home.

Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse, for example, has just made available on its website an archival video of a live performance of its 2008 production of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” staged by Mark Lamos, the company’s artistic director. While there’s nothing fancy about the camerawork, the production itself comes through transparently and persuasively, enhanced by the audible presence of a fully involved audience. What’s more, Mr. Lamos and his 10-person cast, led by Brian Hutchison and Mark Mineart as George and Lennie, have given us a first-class version of Steinbeck’s 1937 novella, one in which the familiar tale of two itinerant ranch hands who share a tragic rendezvous with fate is told in an unadorned style that makes it fresh and new…..

*  *  *

Read the whole thing here.

Filed Under: main

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...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

September 2021
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930  
« Aug   Oct »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Terry Teachout, 65
  • Gripping musical melodrama
  • Replay: Somerset Maugham in 1965
  • Almanac: Somerset Maugham on sentimentality
  • Snapshot: Richard Strauss conducts Till Eulenspiegel

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in