“Those who lack humour are without judgement and should be trusted with nothing.”

Clive James, “Exploring the Medium”

“With Lawrence in Arabia,” a 1927 silent film featurette about T.E. Lawrence. This newsreel-style film, which Lowell Thomas showed to audiences as part of a lecture about Lawrence’s exploits, played a major role in introducing him to the general public. A fictionalized character freely based on Thomas is played by Arthur Kennedy in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia:

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

“She was too haughty to deny herself that luxury of the proud-minded—a sense of justice.”

Sylvia Townsend Warner, Summer Will Show (courtesy of Levi Stahl)

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Irish Repertory Theatre’s off-Broadway revival of Dion Bouciault’s London Assurance. Here’s an excerpt.

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Here’s the good news: The Irish Repertory Theatre’s off-Broadway production of “London Assurance,” Dion Boucicault’s classic comedy about a gaggle of unscrupulous Londoners and Glostonians who are endeavoring either to marry for money or hornswoggle those who already have it, is a perfect production of one of the funniest plays ever written. 

There is no bad news.

Not only has Charlotte Moore, the Irish Rep’s artistic director, staged “London Assurance” in such a way as to keep the laughs flowing like water from a firehose, but every part, big and small, is flawlessly cast. I haven’t laughed harder at a farce since Jeremy Herrin’s Roundabout Theatre Company 2016 revival of “Noises Off.”…

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Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for London Assurance:

A new episode of Three on the Aisle, the bimonthly 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 American Theatre’s “official” summary of the proceedings: 

This week, the critics talk with Obie-winning playwright Samuel Hunter about his newest play, Greater Clements, currently running at Lincoln Center Theatre. Sam discusses his approach to the rehearsal process, his many inspirations, and the act of bringing the Idaho of his youth onto the stages of New York.

Then the critics compare notes on Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, currently at the Atlantic Theater; Harry Connick Jr.’s Celebration of Cole Porter, currently on Broadway; and Lauren Gunderson’s Peter Pan and Wendy, currently at Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C.

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.

Dave Frishberg’s “The Difficult Season,” sung and played by Frishberg at Lincoln Center in 2002:

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

“The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.”

W.H. Auden, foreword to The Viking Book of Aphorisms

“If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?”

Graham Greene, The Comedians

Peter Warlock’s “Bethlehem Down,” performed by Stephen Cleobury and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, in 2016:

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

“It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.”

William James, “Is Life Worth Living?”