About Last Night

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:

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

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

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

IN LENOX, MASS.:

• Les Liaisons Dangereuses (drama, R, violence and sexual content, closes Mar. 21, reviewed here)

IN MANALAPAN, FLA.:

• Sins of the Mother (drama, PG-13, violence and adult subject matter, closes Mar. 7, reviewed here)

IN ORLANDO, FLA.:

• Hamlet (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Mar. 13, reviewed here)

CLOSING FRIDAY IN FORT MYERS, FLA.:

• You Can’t Take It With You (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN ORLANDO, FLA.:

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (serious comedy, PG-13, far too complicated for children, reviewed here)

But little people are so difficult.

They’re lousy snobs, the lot of them.

Talk like an Englishman, they think you’re Jesus Christ.

Bertolt Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (courtesy of Mary Foster Conklin)

Donald E. Westlake (a/k/a Richard Stark) talks about the creation of Parker:

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

“If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is God.”
E. M. Cioran, All Gall Is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms

Among the fascinating tidbits in David Grann’s The Lost City of Z. is a mention of a “Gumption-Reviver machine” used by Francis Galton — Darwin’s cousin and an adventurer, statistician, and inventor (later in life he would expand on and warp Darwin’s theories to create eugenics) — while he was an undergraduate at Cambridge.
I’ve been putting in a lot of writing time at my desk lately and the idea of a Gumption-Reviver is infinitely appealing. A couple sources credit Galton with the machine’s invention, but in the same letter excerpted below he mentions that a tutor recommended it to him so it may have already been in use at the college. The basic idea: A portable funnel suspended overhead drips a steady stream of water on your head to keep you awake. As Galton writes, “We generally begin to use this machine about 10 at night and continue it till 1 or 2; it is very useful.”
Should you want more specific instructions to create your own, I direct you to Galton’s letter to his father on the subject, found in Karl Pearson’s Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton. All you’ll need is a funnel with graduated stopcock, a supporting apparatus, a napkin and a servant to keep the funnel filled with water!

My dear Father,
I should have sent a letter to you yesterday if it had not been that the one that I had written was spoilt by an accident in my Gumption-Reviver machine which covered it with water. This machine as it has perhaps come into use since your time I describe to you.
[Sketch of the Gumption-Reviver machine: a student sits reading at a table, elbows on table and hands support head, lamp in front to right; funnel dripping water which runs off a cloth bound round head to left. Additional sketches of gallows to carry funnel and of method of arranging cloth.]
A large funnel is supported on a double stand about 6 ft. high, it has a graduated stopcock at the bottom by which the size of the aperture can be regulated. This as you read is placed above your head and filled with water. Round the head a napkin is tied, dependent on one side where the bow and end is so [arranged] that the water may drop off. Now it is calculated that as the number of hours of study increases in an arithmetic ratio, so will the weariness consequent on it increase in a geometrical ratio, and the stream of water must in that ratio be increased…

Galton explains that your “gyp” (Cambridge slang for servant) should refill the funnel every quarter-hour. You will not wish to spread a sheet or towel across your clothing as their wetness is desirable; as Galton says, “damp shirts do not invite repose.” However, the mention of the ruined letter makes me think that you may want a protective guard for your notebook or laptop.

“Celebrity is what a democratic society has instead of aristocrats.”
John Leonard, Smoke and Mirrors: Violence, Television and Other American Cultures

I wrote the first paragraph of my next book yesterday morning. The working title, subject to change without warning, is Black Beauty: A Life of Duke Ellington. I’m not going to share it with you just yet–I want to wait until I’ve got at least a couple of dozen pages under my belt and can see whether or not I’m really off to a convincing start–but the fact that I’m now officially at work on a book for which I’ll be signing the contracts later today strikes me as propitious enough to pass along.

I wanted to get started on Black Beauty right away in order to capitalize on the psychic momentum generated by the events of the past year. A colleague remarked to me at breakfast the other day that 2009 must have been the most eventful year of my professional life to date, and I couldn’t argue with him. The twin successes of Pops and The Letter have left me with an exhilarating sense of possibility, a feeling that I can do anything to which I set my mind.

When you’re feeling that way, it’s a good idea to pinch yourself blue at regular intervals, though life usually gets around to doing that for you sooner or later. I got just such a pinch in the mail the other day. A couple of years ago I blogged about an alleged cat-related quote of mine that turned out, much to my surprise, to be authentic. It first came to my attention when it popped up on a cat calendar, and not long after that I got a letter from the Borealis Press, a greeting-card company, asking if they could use it on one of their cards.

Though Borealis wasn’t offering much money–I was invited to choose between a small flat fee and a royalty–I was amused by the idea of seeing my name and words on a greeting card, so I opted for a royalty, signed the contract, and sent it back. A few weeks later I received a boxful of cards, and a few months after that I got my first check. If memory serves, I think it was for eight or nine dollars. Ever since then I’ve received four embarrassingly small checks each year from Borealis. When I got back from Florida, all full of myself and ready to pass miracles, I went through my snail mail and found yet another check, this one for the grand and glorious sum of $6.45.

I was tempted to frame the check as a reminder to stay humble, but then I thought of an even more profitable spiritual exercise: I went down to the bank last week, made out a deposit slip, took the check to a teller, and deposited it in my account.

The teller, bless her, didn’t crack a smile…but I did.