Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
“‘Now I want you to tell me just one thing more. Why do you hate the South?’
“‘I don’t hate it,’ Quentin said, quickly, at once, immediately; ‘I don’t hate it,’ he said. ‘I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!’”
William Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!
Needless to say, we accepted the offer.
As most of you probably know, Mrs. T has been in New York-Presbyterian’s intensive-care unit since mid-December. I was with her when the call came, after which I returned to our apartment to get some preparatory sleep (we live a mile away). When I awoke, I checked in with the hospital and was advised that this offer, unlike the three previous offers that we’ve received since September, was not a dry run but the real right thing: the lungs proved on inspection to be suitable and have now been “harvested.”
Mrs. T is now on her way to the operating room. As for me, I’ve packed a pillow, an assortment of chargers, and a couple of thick books, my sturdy pocket edition of Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (printed on very thin paper) and both volumes of Tully Potter’s Adolf Busch: The Life of an Honest Musician.
We are, in short, as ready as it’s humanly possible to be.
Please don’t call—I need to keep my cellphone line open. No cards or flowers, either, not until much later on: she knows you care, and so do I. I promise to keep you posted, here and on Twitter and Facebook, though it will likely be quite a while before I have anything new to report. We’ve been told to expect Mrs. T to be on the operating table for eighteen hours or so, after which she will spend two or three days in a drug-induced coma, recovering from the surgery. Beyond that, only time will tell.
For now, thanks for your good wishes. They mean more than you can possibly know.
UPDATE: Mrs. T is in surgery—and somewhere out there, the family of her donor is grieving tonight. What can I possibly tell them? We are grateful beyond belief for the gift they have given us so unselfishly. We vow to use it well—and with love.
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For more recent news about Mrs. T’s condition, go here.* * *
Bill Evans plays “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” The song and orchestral arrangement are by Michel Legrand:
“Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
Stephen King, “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (from Different Seasons)
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Ever since Hollywood put Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” in front of the cameras in 1931, the two great novelistic monsters of the 19th century have been yoked in the public mind. Now Classic Stage Company is producing newly written adaptations of both novels that have little in common save for their modest scale but nonetheless make for a natural, nicely contrasted pairing.
Kate Hamill’s “Dracula,” like her widely performed versions of “Little Women,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility” and “Vanity Fair,” takes a beloved 19th-century novel and turns it into a crisply wrought play with a good-sized cast (nine actors) and a feminist slant (the title page describes it as “a bit of a feminist revenge fantasy, really”). Conversely, Tristan Bernays’ “Frankenstein” is a miniaturization of the 1818 novel in which the parts are divided up between two actors, Stephanie Berry and Rob Morrison….
Here as in her previous plays, Ms. Hamill’s explicitly feminist perspective helps to put a fresh, theatrically potent spin on the novel. Among other things, she herself plays Renfield, Dracula’s creepy, blood-lusty acolyte, with Jessica Francis Dukes cast as Van Helsing, the take-no-guff-from-men vampire slayer (“You were expecting a withered old Dutch man?”) who spends the evening hunting down the title character (Matthew Amendt). This Dracula is pointedly described in the script as a “toxic predator,” a timely piece of characterization and one that Mr. Amendt brings to life—so to speak—with lip-smacking relish. (He reminded me at times of George Hamilton’s wonderfully funny Dracula in the 1979 film “Love at First Bite.”) While the show’s dead-serious premise is that all men are capable under the right circumstances of succumbing to the ever-present temptation to mistreat women, Ms. Hamill has plenty of fun proving her point…
Mr. Bernays’ “Frankenstein” is a tidy piece of storytelling, very well staged by Mr. Douglas, that does a surprisingly good job in its 80-minute span of suggesting the old-fashioned essence of Ms. Shelley’s novel. (I especially like the way in which both novel and play present Frankenstein’s monster as a genteel fellow whose glum utterances are sprinkled with such quaint usages as “withal.”) Would that the acting were more in keeping with the tone of the script, but Ms. Berry and Mr. Douglas both give naturalistic, unmistakably American performances, whereas Mr. Bernay’s approach to “Frankenstein” cries out for something larger than life….
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Read the whole thing here.A video featurette about Dracula:
David Frost interviews Paul McCartney on the BBC on May 18, 1964:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“If there’s one major cause for the spread of mass illiteracy, it’s the fact that everybody can read and write.”
Peter de Vries, The Tents of Wickedness
“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.”
G.K. Chesterton, Heretics
Howard Keel sings Cole Porter’s “Where Is the Life That Late I Led?” in the 1953 film version of Kiss Me, Kate:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)