Bill Evans plays “My Foolish Heart” on British TV in 1965, with Chuck Israels on bass and Larry Bunker on drums:

(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 impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.”

Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

From 2006:

When I was young, everybody I knew watched The Andy Griffith Show. Today there are no TV shows that “everybody” watches, and no movies that everyone has seen. Indeed, the American film industry is about to devote its annual prime-time infomercial to celebrating five movies that most Americans haven’t seen, don’t plan to see, and couldn’t even if they wanted to (at least not until they come out on DVD)….

Read the whole thing here.

February makes a bridge, and
March breaks it.

George Herbert, “Jacula Prudentum”

The Miles Davis Quintet plays “My Funny Valentine” on Italian TV in 1964:

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

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver, “Late Fragment”

In today’s Wall Street Journal, I review streaming webcasts of Patrick Page’s All the Devils Are Here and the Lantern Theater Company’s production of Molly Sweeney. Here’s an excerpt.

*  *  *

On Broadway, Patrick Page usually plays bad guys, most notably the monstrous villains of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” and “Hadestown.” Elsewhere, though, he is best known as one of America’s greatest classical actors, blessed with a bass voice so resonant that it can actually make your theater seat shake—I’ve felt it—without benefit of amplification.

To capture such a force of nature on a screen is no small trick, but “All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain,” a solo show written and performed by Mr. Page and produced by Washington’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, does the job with seeming ease. Not only does it clearly convey the immense force of his stage presence, but it is also an illuminating introduction to an insufficiently appreciated aspect of Shakespeare’s genius….

The three characters in Brian Friel’s “Molly Sweeney,” one of whom is a blind woman whose sight is temporarily restored by surgery, speak to the audience but never to one another. This makes the play a natural for webcasting, though it is not nearly so easy to stage as it looks at first glance. Fortunately, Lantern Theater Company’s revival, directed by Peter DeLaurier and taped in an empty theater on a semi-naturalistic set designed by Nick Embree, is so fine as to be worthy of unapologetic comparison with the Irish Rep’s 2020 video version…

*  *  *

Read the whole thing here.

Patrick Page talks about All the Devils Are Here:

Laurence Olivier talks about delivering Shakespearian blank verse in an undated TV clip. Also heard from is John Gielgud:

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