About Last Night

I’ll be appearing today on Soundcheck, WNYC’s daily music series, to talk with John Schaefer about “The Unsure Artist,” my recent Wall Street Journal column about the uncertainties and anxieties of gifted artists. The show starts at two p.m. ET.
Listen live in the New York area by tuning to 93.9 FM, or go here to listen on your computer via streaming audio. As usual, the program will also be archived and can be downloaded as a podcast.

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

• A Behanding in Spokane * (black comedy, PG-13, violence and adult subject matter, closes June 6, reviewed here)

• Fela! (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• God of Carnage (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• The Miracle Worker (drama, G, too intense for small children, reviewed here)

• South Pacific (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, reviewed here)

• A View from the Bridge * (drama, PG-13, violence and some sexual content, closes Apr. 4, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Boys in the Band (drama, R, adult subject matter, closes Mar. 28, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (drama, G/PG-13, too complicated for children, now being performed in rotating repertory, closes May 8, reviewed here, here, and here)

• Our Town (drama, G, suitable for mature children, reviewed here)

• The Temperamentals (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• Venus in Fur (serious comedy, R, sexual content, closes Mar. 28, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN PRINCETON, N.J.:

• American Buffalo (drama, PG-13/R, violence and very strong language, transferred from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, closes Mar. 28, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN LENOX, MASS.:

• Les Liaisons Dangereuses (drama, R, violence and sexual content, reviewed here)

“It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one’s own absurdity.”
W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Andrés Segovia teaches a master class on the guitar transcription of Bach’s Chaconne:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

In preparation for the Broadway debut of The Addams Family, I’ve been revisiting the wonderful New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams, which are infinitely more artful and sophisticated than any of their offspring.
I ran across this cartoon on the Web the other day, and the reason why it caught my eye is that the visual “joke” Addams was making arises from a now-dead technology, that of the phonograph. As I looked at it, a disquieting thought occurred to me: what percentage of people under the age of thirty are likely to get the point of the cartoon?
Speaking as a middle-aged music lover, I find myself reluctant to poll my younger friends. Some things are better left unknown….

“Like most people who cultivate an interest in the arts, Hayward was extremely anxious to be right. He was dogmatic with those who did not venture to assert themselves, but with the self-assertive he was very modest.”
W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Here’s the front cover of the forthcoming paperback edition of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, which will be published in October. Sharp-eyed readers will note one major correction–the cover photo, which was reversed, has been made right–as well a dozen or so near-microscopic fixes to the text.
Mrs. T is delighted that my name will be on the cover this time around. That never bothered me, but I’m pleased to see a quote from Michiko Kakutani’s rave review of Pops on the cover of the paperback. I was, not surprisingly, quite proud of that review, and still am.
If you haven’t gotten around to buying Pops yet…well, what’s keeping you?

“I have been attached, deeply attached, to a few people; but I have been interested in men in general not for their own sakes but for the sake of my work.”
W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up