“At one point, he [Ravel] wound up a speech with the words: ‘Il faut toujours être de mauvaise foi en art [In art, you’ve got to be dishonest].’ Terrified and uncomprehending, I replied, with bated breath: ‘Oui, maître.’ Since then I have often thought of this statement, and it seems to me to be the whole explanation of art.”

David Ponsonby, unpublished manuscript (cited in Tony Scotland, Lennox and Freda)

The thirty-sixth episode of Three on the Aisle, the (usually) twice-monthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading.

Here’s an excerpt from American Theatre’s “official” summary of the proceedings: 

First, the critics are joined by Regina Castellanos, a recent graduate of the legendary performing arts summer camp Stagedoor Manor, to chat about her experiences there and what theatre means to her and her peers more generally. Then, they turn to fellow Stagedoor alumnus Larry Owens, who’s now starring in A Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizons. They discuss the classic musicals that first cemented his love of the genre, his own time at Stagedoor (including one particularly memorable summer performing alongside Beanie Feldstein), and how  those experiences have informed his art ever since.

Finally, Peter, Terry, and Elisabeth reflect on the best and worst shows they’ve seen lately, including Halley Feiffer’s Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow, George Brant’s Tender Age, and David Auburn’s production of The Skin of Our Teeth at the Berkshire Theatre Festival….

To listen to or download this episode, read more about it, or subscribe to Three on the Aisle, go here.

In case you’ve missed any previous episodes, you’ll find them all here.

From 2009:

The Santa Fe Opera will perform The Letter six times, and it’s entirely possible that it will never be seen again after that. Even if it should be taken up by other companies, it won’t be done in the same way that it’s being done here and now. Is it any wonder, then, that I want to hurl myself into this unrepeatable, irreplaceable experience–that I want, as actors say, to be as “present” as I can possibly be?…

Read the whole thing here.

“The motivations of his characters are described with infinite subtlety, but they themselves are boring (one would surely run a mile rather than actually encounter the princess de Guermantes or M. de Charlus).”

Lennox Berkeley, diary entry, December 1, 1973

Artie Shaw appears as the mystery guest on the third episode of What’s My Line? John Daly is the host and the panelists are Arlene Francis, Richard Hoffman, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Louis Untermeyer. Shaw’s segment begins at 16:46. This episode was originally telecast live by CBS on March 2, 1950:

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

“No matter how insecure, almost all the stars I’ve worked with have a high degree of self-knowledge. They may hate what they see, but they do see themselves.”

Sidney Lumet, Making Movies

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review an important regional revival of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth. Here’s an excerpt.

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The recent return of Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth” to America’s professional stages is long overdue—though it’s easy to see why it went missing for so long. First mounted on Broadway in a 1942 production directed by Elia Kazan and starring Fredric March, Tallulah Bankhead and Montgomery Clift, “The Skin of Our Teeth” ran for 359 performances, won Wilder the third of his three Pulitzer Prizes, and was widely and rightly taken at the time to be comparable in quality to “Our Town.” But while it was soon taken up by schools and amateur troupes, the play’s large cast (30 actors) and longish running time (two hours and 40 minutes) made it too unwieldy for most professional companies to consider, and it hasn’t been seen on Broadway since 1975, when a revival directed by José Quintero closed in less than a week. 

Not until Arin Arbus’ warmly received 2017 Brooklyn staging did a new generation of playgoers rediscover and embrace the quirky beauties of “The Skin of Our Teeth.” The Berkshire Theatre Group’s new production, directed with total understanding by David Auburn, is the third version that I’ve reviewed in the past two years, and I’ll now be surprised if it doesn’t come back to Broadway sooner rather than later.

Why the collective change of heart? Because Wilder’s “fantastick comedy” (his spelling) about the history of humankind, which received its premiere when the United States was fighting a war whose outcome was as yet far from sure, was written to give hope to its viewers at a moment of high national anxiety….

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Read the whole thing here.

Stephen Sondheim gives a master class in which he rehearses a group of students from London’s Guildhall School in “Getting Married Today,” a song from Company:

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