About Last Night

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway transfer of Deaf West Theatre’s revival of Spring Awakening and the Chicago transfer of the Aaron Posner-Teller production of The Tempest. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

It’s been twelve years since Hollywood’s Deaf West Theatre brought its sublime staging of “Big River,” the 1985 musical based on “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” to Broadway. I couldn’t imagine going in how a mixed cast of deaf and hearing actors would manage to make theatrical sense out of a musical, but I was cheering my head off by evening’s end. So I’m not at all surprised that the Broadway transfer of Deaf West’s revival of “Spring Awakening,” directed by Michael Arden, makes an impression that is, if anything, even more overwhelming than “Big River.”

I say this even though I’m not a fan of the Steven Sater-Duncan Sheik rock-and-roll version of Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play about pubescent sexuality, which I found cloyingly sentimental when it opened in 2006. Few things in theater are rarer than a production so fine that it cries out to be seen in spite of the show, but that’s the case with Deaf West’s “Spring Awakening”: It ranks among the most emotionally charged renderings of a musical to come to Broadway in the past decade, one that all who love the genre should rush to see….

Mr. Arden’s work is new to me, but I think it’s safe to say that he’s going to be big, not least because he has triumphantly solved the problem—so well that it no longer seems problematic—of fusing deaf and hearing actors into an indissoluble whole. Every word of “Spring Awakening” is also “spoken” in American Sign Language, sometimes individually and sometimes in chorus, and Mr. Arden has found a seemingly endless number of ways to use this convention to stunningly beautiful, almost ballet-like effect….

Chicago Shakespeare Theater has remounted the magic-show staging of “The Tempest” by Aaron Posner and Teller (better known as the quieter half of Penn & Teller) that I saw last year in Cambridge, Mass., and praised as “fanciful, mysterious and full of cheerily broad comedy….It is—in a word—magical.”

Why review it a second time? Because American Repertory Theatre’s original production featured a troupe of youthful actors who weren’t quite able to make magic out of Shakespeare’s verse. Not so this much more strongly cast version, in which Prospero, Shakespeare’s vengeful sorcerer, is played by Larry Yando, the Chicago-based performer whose appearances in Writers Theatre’s “Dance of Death” and Chicago Shakespeare’s “King Lear” established him as one of this country’s foremost classical actors. Once again Mr. Yando outdoes himself, giving a performance in which the sardonic rasp of rage gives way to the quiet voice of reconciliation….

* * *

To read my review of Spring Awakening, go here.

To read my review of The Tempest, go here.

The trailer for Spring Awakening:

The trailer for The Tempest:

Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan talk about technology on The Summer Way, originally telecast on the CBC in 1968:

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

Nor is the people’s judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few.

John Dryden, “Absalom and Achitophel”

Apropos of this really embarrassing piece, my kind of person…

• …prefers hot dogs to hamburgers.

• …prefers trains to planes—in theory.

• …likes Johnny Mercer best:

• …likes Carolyn Leigh second best:

• …thinks funny is sexy.

• …isn’t cynical about anything except politicians and journalists.

• …can cry at the drop of a hat, even when he knows perfectly well that he’s being manipulated into doing so.

• …would give a lot to have written this scene:

• …is bone-tired of mere cleverness (except when it’s so virtuosic as to be completely irresistible).

• …is always happy to be somebody else’s straight man.

• …will go to any film or play that has Zoe Kazan in it.

• …prefers cats to dogs, though not militantly so (unless they slobber).

• …loves most of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals, but doesn’t think he’s God.

• …thinks the original version of The In-Laws is the funniest movie ever made, not excluding His Girl Friday and Some Like It Hot.

• …thinks The Glass Menagerie and Our Town are the greatest American plays, not excluding Long Day’s Journey into Night.

• …thinks this is the most beautiful piece of music by an American, not excluding the first take of Charlie Parker’s improvisation on “Embraceable You”:

• …likes John Wayne movies.

• …dislikes Woody Allen movies (except for Radio Days).

• …likes Steely Dan, but is O.K. about it if you don’t.

• …likes this just as much:

• …is never, ever afraid to praise what he loves and knock what he hates. (You’d be surprised how many people are—some of whom are professional critics.)

• …is too enthusiastic to be cool.

• …isn’t a snob about anything—not even snapping on one and three:

• …doesn’t confuse taste with virtue.

And yes, this is a self-portrait. Why shouldn’t it be?

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.

BROADWAY:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, mos performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, many performances sold out last week, closes Jan. 17, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hand to God (black comedy, X, absolutely not for children or prudish adults, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, most performances sold out last weekreviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, ideal for bright children, remounting of Broadway production, original production reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• The Flick (serious comedy, PG-13, too long for young people with limited attention spans, reviewed here)
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare, PG-13, remounting of Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production, closes Oct. 31, original production reviewed here)

IN ASHLAND, OREGON:
• Guys and Dolls (musical, G, closes Nov. 1, reviewed here)
• Sweat (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 31, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:
• The Price (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 22, reviewed here)
• The Time of Your Life (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 25, reviewed here)

IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO:
• Sweet Charity (musical, PG-13, closes Oct. 31, reviewed here)
• You Never Can Tell (Shaw, PG-13, closes Oct. 25, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN SPRING GREEN, WIS.:
• An Iliad (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 18, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN BOSTON:
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, closes Oct. 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN SPRING GREEN, WIS.:
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare, PG-13, reviewed here)

“He who has never hoped can never despair. Caesar, in good or bad fortune, looks his fate in the face.”

George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

I was playing records for Mrs. T in our hotel room late last night. She claimed to be more than usually pleased by my eclectic playlist, so I thought I’d share it with you as well:

• Johnny Hodges, “Castle Rock”

• Lucinda Williams, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”

• Mabel Mercer, “The Best Is Yet to Come”

• Pete Steele, “Coal Creek March”

• Brahms Waltzes, Op. 39 (played by Nadia Boulanger and Dinu Lipatti)

• Dave Dudley, “Six Days on the Road”

• The Dominoes, “Sixty Minute Man”

• Dave Frishberg, “Slappin’ the Cakes on Me”

• The Sons of the Pioneers, “Cool Water”

• Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, “Cherry Red”

• James P. Johnson, “Caprice Rag”

• Stan Getz and Chick Corea, “Captain Marvel”

• Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “Up Above My Head”

• Britten Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo: Si come nella penna (performed by Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten)

• Charles Trenet, “La Mer”

• Bill Stepp, “Bonaparte’s Retreat”

• John Scofield with Medeski, Martin & Wood, “Boozer”

• Chopin Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 42 (played by Josef Hofmann)

• The Louvin Brothers, “Cash on the Barrelhead”

• Chabrier Villanelle des petits canards (performed by Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc)

• Frank Sinatra and the Hollywood String Quartet, “Close to You”

• Robert Johnson, “Come On in My Kitchen”

Frank Sinatra and Count Basie perform “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Please Be Kind,” “Too Marvelous for Words,” “Everybody Has a Right to Be Wrong,” and “The Gal That Got Away” on The Hollywood Palace, originally telecast on ABC on October 16, 1965. The conductor is Quincy Jones:

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