“Above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.”
Due to an unusually large number of Broadway openings this fall, I’m filing two drama columns for The Wall Street Journal this week. In today’s paper, I review the Broadway transfer of Slave Play. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
When a new play by an unknown playwright is universally described as “controversial” yet meets with near-universal critical acclaim…well, it’s not controversial. In fact, there’s a better-than-even chance that it’s telling its audiences exactly what they want to hear. Witness Jeremy O. Harris’ “Slave Play,” directed by Robert O’Hara, which has now moved to Broadway after a noisily successful 2018 off-Broadway run….
Since there’s no way to review “Slave Play” without giving away its “reveal,” be forewarned that the following paragraph contains a spoiler: “Slave Play” opens with three interlocking scenes that seem to show whites having sex with their black slaves. In fact, what we’re really seeing are role-playing sessions by three present-day interracial couples who are undergoing “Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy,” in which they act out elaborate fantasies of sex with slaves in order to overcome their difficulties in the bedroom (a twist that you’ll almost certainly guess on your own, as I did). Then we watch them participate in a group-therapy session during which it emerges that the whites are all ludicrously earnest “whitesplaining” left-liberal types who cannot begin to fathom why their long-suffering black partners would dream of finding fault with them….
This is, or could have been, fertile material for a take-no-prisoners satire in the manner of Lydia R. Diamond’s superlative “Smart People.” But while Mr. Harris does manage to work in a passable number of sharp-elbowed satirical digs along the way, the first two acts feel more like a short-hitting comedy sketch than anything else….
A friend of mine sent me this color photograph the other day, remarking that he suspected it was the only time that Louis Armstrong and George Bernard Shaw appeared in the same painting.
It is, as I immediately guessed, by Al Hirschfeld, but I knew nothing about it, and was delighted to learn that it’s a detail from a much larger mural by Hirschfeld that hangs on one of the walls of the Frolic Room, a Hollywood bar. The people portrayed therein are all—or, rather, were—celebrities of the Thirties. I recognized most of them, though a few eluded my grasp.
The Frolic Room opened in 1934 and has been in continuous operation since then. It is, I gather, is the last old-fashioned dive bar on Hollywood Boulevard, a fact universally known to historically aware Los Angelenos that had, I blush to admit, escaped my awareness until now. Located next door to the Pantages Theater, it has a long and elaborate history about which it is amusing to read. While I’ve never been to the Frolic Room, I’ve seen it, and so, most likely, have you. Its distinctive neon sign appears in any number of films, most recently in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and most prominently in Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, in which a key scene involving Jack Vincennes, Kevin Spacey’s character, unfolds there. You can bet that Mrs. T and I will have a drink there on our next visit to Hollywood.
As for whether Armstrong and Shaw are portrayed together in any other paintings…well, I doubt it. If Shaw ever took an interest in jazz, I’m not aware of it, and I can’t imagine that he had any notion of who Louis Armstrong was. But I rejoice to remind you of a discovery that I made while doing research for Pops, my 2009 biography of Armstrong, who was one of the first Americans to own a tape recorder and who eventually amassed a 650-reel collection of private tapes that are now part of the Louis Armstrong Collection at New York’s Queens College. As I wrote in Pops,
Most of them are full of music: “I have all my records on tape, interviews, and every classical number that you can think of….And I index them—why, that’s my hobby.” His collection was an eclectic mishmash that comprises, among other things, Walter Gieseking playing Debussy, Helen Traubel singing the Liebestod, Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Shostakovich’s First Symphony, the original-cast albums of The King and I and South Pacific, recordings of Julius Caesar and Don Juan in Hell, and jazz and pop in profusion: Bix Beiderbecke, Bunny Berigan, Bing Crosby, Fats Waller, Bert Williams, and a surprising amount of modern jazz, including albums by Stan Kenton, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, and George Shearing.
That’s right, Don Juan in Hell. Believe it or not, Louis Armstrong owned a copy of the First Drama Quartette’s 1952 LP recording for Columbia of the “Don Juan in Hell” scene from Shaw’s Man and Superman, directed by Charles Laughton, acted by Laughton, Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke, and Agnes Moorehead, and performed by them all across America. (You can read more about it by going here.) I can’t tell you how often he listened to it or what he thought of it, but he definitely owned it, which might just be my all-time favorite piece of Armstrong trivia. Nor would I be entirely surprised to learn that he loved it, for Satchmo contained multitudes.
If you’ve read Pops, you’ll also know that Armstrong was one of Hirschfeld’s favorite subjects. He drew him countless times, most beautifully and memorably in a 1990 caricature of which I am the proud owner of a pencil-signed lithographic version. It is reproduced in Pops, with the following caption: “Many now feel ill at ease with the old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing entertainer portrayed in this 1990 caricature by Al Hirschfeld, but there was nothing false about Satchmo’s unselfconscious smile.” Nor is there anything remotely false about the Armstrong who shares space with Benny Goodman, Bernard Shaw, Eleanor Roosevelt, Tallulah Bankhead, and Albert Einstein on the east wall of the Frolic Room. May they party there to the end of time.
* * *
A scene from L.A. Confidential:
A video feature about the Frolic Room:
The First Drama Quartette’s 1952 recording of Don Juan in Hell:
Much has been written in recent days, most of it silly and some of it ignorant, about the modern art that Barack and Michelle Obama have borrowed to display in the White House….
The thirty-eighth 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.
As was the case last month, only two of us were on hand this time: Peter Marks took a nasty fall on the morning of the taping and did painful damage to one of his knees, forcing Elisabeth and me to forge ahead without him. And while we already had a guest, Adam Feldman of Time Out New York, set for the episode, we had some trouble with Adam’s segment as well: I taped my end of the show in Connecticut, and it seemed that because of a glitch in the control board of our New York studio, we could only record two people at the same time! So Elisabeth and Adam shared the mike for his segment, while she and I handled the rest of the show. To our collective delight and relief, things went well anyway, and we plan to have Adam back later this season on a day when the gremlins are at rest.
In the meantime, here’s American Theatre’s “official” summary of the proceedings:
This week, Peter is out, but Elisabeth and Terry are joined by Adam Feldman of Time Out New York to discuss American Theatre‘s annual list of the most-produced plays in the country. Terry and Elizabeth also go through the mailbag and answer questions from listeners, and talk about recent shows they’ve seen, some good and some… not so good.
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.
An excerpt from Isaac in America: A Journey with Isaac Bashevis Singer, a 1987 documentary directed by Amram Nowak. In this scene, Singer is seen returning to Coney Island and Brighton Beach, where he lived during his early years in New York:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“When a book is boring, they yawn openly, without any shame or fear of authority. They don’t expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1978
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review the Broadway transfer of Freestyle Love Supreme. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
One of the reasons why Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” won over so many older playgoers who couldn’t care less about hip-hop is that it’s not a hip-hop show. It’s an extremely well-made musical about the founding fathers that just happens to have a hip-hop score. Yes, I exaggerate, but not by much, and I can’t tell you how many senior citizens of my acquaintance were pleasantly surprised by how much they liked “Hamilton.” Unfortunately, it was an inherently impossible act to follow, and to date, Mr. Miranda has yet to follow it…
In the meantime, Mr. Miranda has now gotten himself back on Broadway—after a fashion. He is very prominently credited as co-creator and co-producer of “Freestyle Love Supreme,” which just opened at the Booth Theatre after a successful off-Broadway run, and if you didn’t know any better, you could be forgiven for assuming that it’s “Son of ‘Hamilton.’” But you’d be dead wrong: “Freestyle Love Supreme” is the name of a hip-hop improv comedy troupe, which is a fancy way of saying that it’s a nightclub act, not a musical….
Each performance consists of 85 minutes’ worth of hip-hop numbers and sketches made up on the spot by the members of the troupe, who invite the audience to shout out words and phrases on which they improvise. Whatever else that is, it’s not a musical, nor does it purport to be one….
Therein, of course, lies the catch: Improvisational comedy is by its nature a hit-or-miss proposition. Some nights you get lucky, some nights you don’t, and some nights—most nights, truth to tell, unless you’re Elaine May and Mike Nichols—you spend a fair amount of time circling the airport, hoping against hope for inspiration to strike. On Wednesday, that came to about 45 minutes…
