About Last Night

“In Beethoven’s music I sense the master mind, fully conscious of the qualities of heartful soaring imagination that are god-like in a man. The striving for entity, oneness in diversity, depth in design, repose in the final expression of the whole—all these are there in common pattern between architect and musician. So I am going to a delightful, inspiring school when I listen to Beethoven’s music—music not ‘classic’—soul language never to be classified. Because of soul-depth and breath of emotional range, Beethoven’s music is in itself the greatest proof I know of divine harmony alived in the human spirit. As trees and flowering things under the changing lights of a beclouded sun pervade the all out of doors, so Beethoven pervades the universe of the soul.”

Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography

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, most 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, some performances sold out last week, 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, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, some performances sold out last week, 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)
• The Weir (drama, PG-13, remounting of original off-Broadway production, extended through Sept. 6, original production reviewed here)

IN NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ONTARIO:
• Sweet Charity (musical, PG-13, closes Oct. 31, reviewed here)
• The Twelve-Pound Look (one-act comedy, G, not suitable for children, closes Sept. 12, reviewed here)
• You Never Can Tell (Shaw, PG-13, closes Oct. 25, reviewed here)

IN SPRING GREEN, WIS.:
• An Iliad (drama, PG-13, closes Oct. 18, reviewed here)
• The Island (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 26, reviewed here)
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Oct. 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 28, reviewed here)
• The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN SPRING GREEN, WIS.:
• A Streetcar Named Desire (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 5, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• On the Town (musical, G, contains double entendres that will not be intelligible to children, closing Sept. 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• Shows for Days (comedy, PG-13, sexual situations, closes Aug. 23, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN OGUNQUIT, ME.:
• Nice Work if You Can Get It (musical, G/PG-13, reviewed here)

“Oh, you’re going to zap me with penicillin and pesticides. Spare me that and I’ll spare you the bomb and aerosols. But don’t confuse progress with perfectibility.”

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia

Tom Stoppard describes how he starts to write a play. This is an excerpt from an episode of Theater Talk originally telecast on February 8, 2008:

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

“The National Gallery is a monument to irrationality! Every concert hall is a monument to irrationality!—and so is a nicely kept garden, or a lover’s favour, or a home for stray dogs! You stupid woman, if rationality were the criterion for things being allowed to exist, the world would be one gigantic field of soya beans!”

Tom Stoppard, Jumpers

From 2010:

Somebody compared me to a Holocaust denier the other day for having spoken ill of Elie Wiesel. While I wouldn’t dream of dignifying such a remark by responding to it, I was struck by its sheer nastiness. It goes without saying that the world has always contained plenty of people who assume that you’re a contemptible idiot if you disagree with them about anything. To be sure, I doubt that such creatures are significantly more numerous today than they were a century ago, or even a quarter-century, but I incline to think that they now talk quite a bit louder than they used to–especially when they’re sitting alone at their computers….

Read the whole thing here.

“There is presumably a calendar date—a moment—when the onus of proof passed from the atheist to the believer, when, quite suddenly, secretly, the noes had it.”

Tom Stoppard, Jumpers

Mrs. T and I returned from our vacation in Maine (which was great, thanks) last Tuesday. We spent a night in Connecticut, drove to New York on Wednesday to see Hamilton, then drove to Lenox on Thursday (pausing briefly in Connecticut along the way) for the Shakespeare & Company premiere of Jane Anderson’s Mother of the Maid. On Saturday we went back to New York to see Penn and Teller on Broadway (about which I’ll have more to say in this space next week) and Cymbeline in Central Park.

What next? As you read these words, I’m flying from New York to Portland, Oregon. I’ll drive from there to Eugene, spend a night, then proceed to Ashland, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, on Tuesday morning. I’ll be seeing three shows and writing two Wall Street Journal columns this coming week. I return to New York on Sunday, driving directly from the airport to Connecticut and Mrs. T.

If you think this is all a bit too much…well, so do I. But it’s my life, and I don’t feel like trading it in on anybody else’s life, so I’ll say only that you shouldn’t expect to find much of anything in this space beyond the regular daily postings until I get back home, unpack my bag, and settle down again. Even I have my limits. At least I think I do.

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Count Basie’s orchestra performs Charlie Christian’s “Air Mail Special” in 1941, with Don Byas on tenor saxophone and Harry Edison on trumpet. Jimmy Rushing, the band’s vocalist, can be seen on the dance floor: