Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
The Band performs “Tears of Rage,” by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel, at Woodstock in 1969. The lyrics are by Dylan. Manuel is the lead singer and wrote the music:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“A generation which ignores history has no past—and no future.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
From 2005:
Read the whole thing here.Ever since I was old enough to understand what it meant, seeing the Confederate battle flag on display has made me squirm—and the fact that it continues to fly over state houses in the Deep South makes me genuinely angry. That said, I’m also not fond of “debates” driven by self-righteousness, of which vast amounts have been evident on both sides of this particular fence. Nor do I usually think it wise to take action on anything in the heat of the moment, which is, needless to say, what’s happening right now.
But it’s also true that America is a country in which things tend to get done either in the midst of a crisis or (more often) not at all….
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
Dwight Eisenhower, first inaugural address
Donna Murphy sings Stephen Sondheim’s “Loving You” in the original 1994 Broadway production of Passion, directed by James Lapine:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or woman.”
Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
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None of Shakespeare’s plays is better suited to outdoor staging than “The Tempest,” whose setting is an enchanted island, and it is hard to imagine a better place to see it than under the tent of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, pitched on a wooded bluff overlooking the Hudson River. There being few finer summer theater companies in America, I expected much of Ryan Quinn’s new production, and I got all I hoped for: This was a “Tempest” that gave pleasure of every conceivable kind, one in which Shakespeare’s tale of forgiveness and redemption is retold in such a way as to give like delight to those who know the play well and those who are seeing it for the first time….
Mr. Quinn’s “Tempest” is characteristic of the HVSF’s now-familiar “house style.” Utterly straightforward, with no obscuring high directorial concept superimposed on Shakespeare’s text, it is played out on a plain dirt stage floor devoid of sets and, for the most part, props, with pop-style dancing (skillfully choreographed by Susannah Millonzi) used to set the scene. The magical powers of the furious Prospero are brilliantly suggested by the sound design of Charles Coes and Nathan Roberts and the lighting of Lucrecia Briceno. All else is left to the actors, the text, and the viewer’s imagination….
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Read the whole thing here.
My latest Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column is about the possible effects of vax-and-mask safety protocols on theater in America. Here’s an excerpt.
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Broadway’s theater owners and operators have announced that adults who want to go to a show must both show proof of Covid-19 vaccination before entering the theater and wear a mask throughout the performance (children under 12 can still get in with just a negative test). Not only are these double-barreled safety protocols being enforced at previews of “Pass Over,” which opens Aug. 22, but they are already emerging willy-nilly as a national standard, and I expect that they will ultimately be adopted by virtually every theater in the U.S., indoor and outdoor alike.
Will they work?…
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Read the whole thing here.