It is my frequent practice to draft blog posts in bed late at night, email the drafts to my work address, and pass out with the ibook on my lap. In the morning I get to work, spruce up the drafts as time allows, and post them. So went last night, but I stumbled into the office this morning to find my work and personal email down and my drafts adrift in cyberspace. The techies say our email will be back up later this afternoon, which could mean tomorrow. Please do check back in–I’ll have lots to post once email is back, and in the meantime I should be able to muster some bits and pieces. And if you sent me any email since last night? I have a better excuse than usual for being slow to write back [cue eye-rolling among my beleaguered correspondents].

All you Chicagoans, Word Wars is now playing up at Facets. It won’t be there for long. Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Wilmington loved it. Your faithful correspondent is somewhat partial, but loved it, too (scroll down).

I’m in The Wall Street Journal this morning, writing about The Frogs, the new Nathan Lane-Stephen Sondheim musical, greatly expanded from Burt Shevelove’s original 1974 adaptation and choreographed and directed by Susan Stroman. The buzz was bad, and as so often is the case, it was accurate:

Unfortunately, Mr. Lane and his collaborators have forgotten the Iron Law of Modern Musical Comedy, which is that no musical, no matter how good its songs may be, can succeed without a bulletproof book. What works in a straight play does not necessarily supply enough emotional energy to propel a musical. As rewritten by Shevelove and bulked up by Mr. Lane, the largely plotless “Frogs” is driven by its one- and two-liners, which aren’t even close to funny enough to keep the show afloat: “What kind of a god are you? “The kind with lower back problems.”…

So what works? Pretty much everything else. Ms. Stroman’s spectacular staging of the title number, in which evil right-wing frogs fly through the air on bungee cords, is one of her happiest choreographic inspirations. The set and costumes, by Giles Cadle and the peerless William Ivey Long, are unimprovably good. Mr. Sondheim’s score includes three first-class songs, two old and one new. The new one, “Ariadne,” is a spare, elegiac ballad of regret sung by Mr. Lane (limply, I’m afraid, though he does his best). From the original “Frogs” come “Invocation and Instructions to the Audience,” a raucous curtain-going-up prelude, and “Fear No More,” a tender setting of Shakespeare’s poignant lyric from “Cymbeline.” It’s the only time Mr. Sondheim has set another man’s words, and the results are exquisite–one of his most haunting musical inspirations.

You’d think a show with so much going for it would soar like a skyrocket. Instead, “The Frogs,” which runs through Oct. 10, stumbles through the first act and fizzles out at the end, all because of an ill-crafted book. It’s an object lesson in Musical Comedy 101. Too bad it cost the students so much to sign up for the class.

I also wrote about Broadway: The Golden Age Rick McKay’s marvelous documentary, which you will find in the Top Five module of the right-hand column. Some additional details from this morning’s review:

Mr. McKay knows when to ease back on the throttle and simply let his subjects talk. And talk they do, often amusingly and always movingly, about what it was like to work alongside such near-forgotten giants as Laurette Taylor (who is seen in her Hollywood screen test, the only sound film she ever made) and Kim Stanley (where on earth did Mr. McKay dredge up what looks like a kinescope of a live performance of “Bus Stop”?). You’ll weep–I did–to hear them share their fond memories of crummy apartments, Automat meals and big breaks.

Produced and marketed on half a shoestring, this one-man labor of love is slowly making its way across America, one screen at a time. At present it’s playing in Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, with additional openings scheduled for Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Diego, Washington, and other cities. (Go to www.broadwaythemovie.com for further information.) If it’s not coming to an art house near you, call and complain. A DVD will be released in due course, but “Broadway: The Golden Age,” like the performers to whom it pays unforgettably eloquent tribute, deserves to be seen in a theater–even one that sells popcorn.

No link–the Journal expects you to pay for your pleasures. To read the whole thing, buy this morning’s paper and turn to the “Weekend Journal” section, where you’ll find me, Joe Morgenstern on film, and lots and lots of other irresistibly readable things.

“The only difference between comedy and tragedy is the point of view.”

Howard Hawks (quoted in Todd McCarthy, Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood)

When getting my nose in a book

Cured most things short of school,

It was worth ruining my eyes

To know I could still keep cool,

And deal out the old right hook

To dirty dogs twice my size.

Later, with inch-thick specs,

Evil was just my lark:

Me and my cloak and fangs

Had ripping times in the dark.

The women I clubbed with sex!

I broke them up like meringues.

Don’t read much now: the dude

Who lets the girl down before

The hero arrives, the chap

Who’s yellow and keeps the store,

Seem far too familiar. Get stewed:

Books are a load of crap.

Philip Larkin, “A Study of Reading Habits”

I have two intense days’ worth of writing and playgoing ahead of me. Then I’m off to Smalltown, U.S.A., first thing Friday morning (the car comes at 4:30) for a family reunion. Next week I’ll be writing like a madman for a couple of hectic days in New York, after which I’m off again to see plays in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.

My point? You won’t be seeing much of me in this space for the next couple of weeks, save for the odd almanac entry. I’ll look in whenever I can, but mostly I’ll be leaving you in the lovely hands of Our Girl in Chicago. Enjoy the pleasure of her company. I always do.

Later.

“John Pickford, BBC World Service, came to interview me about George Orwell. A pleasant young man, but the questions these people put are impossible to answer. One wonders whether the generality of people expected easy answers to the human condition before their minds were rotted by popular journalism, TV, the notion that all life’s problems could be answered off the cuff by TV ‘personalities,’ suchlike, in two or three sentences. All the same there is perhaps a faint impression of a person given by the worlds, demeanour, of a friend.”

Anthony Powell, Journals 1982-1986, entry for October 27, 1983

Two “About Last Night” readers wrote to let me know that Tim Page, the classical music critic of the Washington Post and an old friend of mine, mentioned me in a Post online chat
earlier today. I’m vain enough to want to pass on what Tim said:

The book that’s dazzled me lately is by another friend, Terry Teachout. A Terry Teachout Reader (Yale) covers all the arts — film, dance, music (of all kinds), literature, and any variety of crossroads. Even when I find myself in disagreement with Terry, the fact remains that this is a book one vividly enjoys disagreeing with — one test of truly stimulating criticism. (How many of us found ourselves in this field in order to “win” arguments with critics of the past — Haggin, Thomson, Schonberg…!) A strong personality — and spectacularly unpredictable.

The part I like is the last two words.