Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
“Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.”
Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale
The Manhattan Transfer sings Claude Thornhill’s “Snowfall” in concert:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
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Throughout the pandemic, New York’s Irish Repertory Theatre has been setting the standard for theatrical webcasts in America. Now all nine of the shows that the company presented in 2020 are being replayed in rotating repertory—four times each—as part of its Theatre @ Home Winter Festival. I reviewed most of them with high enthusiasm during their original runs, but “Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom, ” a revival of Aedín Moloney’s one-woman show adapted by her and the Irish novelist Colum McCann from James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” inexplicably got past me. It is an unmixed pleasure to catch up with it now. Ms. Moloney is one of the Irish Rep’s most gifted actors—I have reviewed her in several of that great company’s productions, including its unforgettable 2011 revival of Brian Friel’s “Dancing at Lughnasa”—and I didn’t see a more impressive individual performance by anyone last year….
Joyce’s unpunctuated run-on sentences, though resistant to the eye, explode into life when read aloud or—better still—acted by an artist like Ms. Moloney, who was born and raised in Dublin and whose accent is as Irish as a triple shot of Jameson….
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Read the whole thing here.
Fredric March appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line? (His first name is misspelled on the nameplate.) John Daly is the host and the panelists are Steve Allen, Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, and Margaret Truman. This episode was originally telecast live by CBS on March 21, 1954:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“One of the difficulties with all our institutions is the fact that we’ve emphasized the reward instead of the service.”
Harry S. Truman, letter to Harold E. Moore (September 27, 1949)
“There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.”
Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up
