About Last Night

“In Berlin, Hitler very seldom went to the theater, except to see operettas. He would never miss a new production of the by now classical operettas such as Die Fledermaus and The Merry Widow. I am certain that I saw Die Fledermaus with him at least five or six times in cities all over Germany. He customarily contributed considerable sums from Bormann’s privy purse to have the operetta put on in lavish style.

“In addition he liked revues. He went to the Wintergarten several times to attend a Berlin variety show and would certainly have gone more frequently but for the fact that he was embarrassed to be seen there. Sometimes he sent his house steward in his place and then late in the evening would look over the program and ask for an account of what had gone on. Several times he also went to the Metropol Theater which put on insipid musicals with plenty of scantily clad girls.

“During the Bayreuth Festival every year he attended every single performance of the first cycle. It seemed to a musical layman like myself that in his conversations with Frau Winifred Wagner he displayed knowledge about musical matters in detail; but he was even more concerned about the directing.

“Aside from Bayreuth, however, he very seldom attended performances of operas, and his initially rather keen interest in theater also dwindled. Even his enthusiasm for Bruckner never seemed very marked and imposed no obligations on others. Although a movement from a Bruckner symphony was played before each of his ‘cultural speeches’ at the Nuremberg Party rallies, for the rest he merely took care that Bruckner’s works continued to be fostered at St. Florian. He saw to it, however, that his public image of a man passionately devoted to art was cultivated.”

Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review two Broadway shows, Honeymoon in Vegas and Constellations. Here’s an excerpt.

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How good can a commodity musical ever hope to be? Is it possible to bring a well-remembered hit movie to Broadway in a manner that is both unpredictable and creatively fresh? Judging by “Honeymoon in Vegas,” the new Andrew Bergman-Jason Robert Brown stage version of Mr. Bergman’s 1992 screen comedy about an almost-married schnook who gets into a rigged card game with a gangster and ends up losing his bride-to-be, the jury is still out. The first act is gloriously fine, the second act much less so—but some of the show’s biggest problems stem from some of the casting rather than from the adaptation….

Mr. Brown has crunched the dramatic exposition of the film into a fast-moving sequence of musical numbers whose sterling craftsmanship is marvelous to behold, starting with one of the smartest list songs to hit Broadway in decades: “She likes hockey. No, I swear!/She likes guys with thinning hair!/And I love Betsy!” What’s more, Brynn O’Malley, a stunningly sharp-witted stage performer whose talent has heretofore been squandered on second-banana parts, proves herself more than equal to the challenge of a starring role….

So what’s wrong? Here goes: (1) The second act is slowed down to a slog by a string of superfluous songs right when it needs to gear up to a farcical hurtle. (2) Rob McClure is nebbishy to a fault. (3) Tony Danza is far too nice and not nearly sexy enough to be plausible in a role that was created on screen by James Caan. You simply can’t believe that Jack would find him threatening, or that Betsy would seriously consider sleeping with him….

Nick Payne’s “Constellations,” which has moved to Broadway from London’s Royal Court Theatre, where it was premiered in 2012, starts out like this: A woman (Ruth Wilson) tries to pick up a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) at a party. He tells her that he’s in a relationship. A sound effect is heard and the action starts over. The woman repeats her pickup line, the man brushes her off in a different way, a sound effect is heard and the action starts over again—and again. The situation develops slightly differently each time, and by evening’s end the entire history of a marriage has been played out onstage.

If this “plot” sounds at all familiar, it should, because it is identical in virtually every particular to the structural device that propels David Ives’ “Sure Thing,” a one-act comedy that was first performed in 1988 and was last seen Off Broadway two seasons ago at Primary Stages. To be sure, Mr. Ives’ work is not as widely known in England as it is in the U.S., where “Sure Thing” is very frequently staged,. But the two plays are so closely similar in concept (though not in content) that I couldn’t help but wonder whether their resemblance is altogether coincidental….

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To read my review of Honeymoon in Vegas, go here.

To read my review of Constellations, go here.

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I write about Harold Shapero, an American composer who never received his due. Here’s an excerpt.

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“My day will come,” said Gustav Mahler, and he was right. A half-century after his death in 1911, his near-forgotten music was revived by Leonard Bernstein and other influential conductors. Today he is one of the world’s best-known classical composers, and it looks like he’s going to stay that way. Most artists, however, aren’t so lucky. Some win fame in their lifetimes, then slip into the shadows, while many more start out obscure and remain so—usually with good reason. Saddest of all, though, are the first-class artists whose work is revived time and again, but who somehow never manage to find a lasting place in the bright sun of posthumous renown….

The American composer Harold Shapero, who died two years ago at the age of 93, is a prime example of the perpetually rediscovered artist. He was extravagantly admired by his contemporaries, foremost among them Aaron Copland, who praised his “phenomenal ear” and “wonderfully spontaneous musical gift.” Bernstein gave the premiere of his Symphony for Classical Orchestra in 1948, then recorded it to thrilling effect five years later. Alas, the winds of favor blew elsewhere, and soon Shapero was devoting most of his energies to teaching instead of writing music of his own….

Now Shapero is in the news again, albeit in a modest way: Sally Pinkas, who teaches piano at Dartmouth, has released a superlatively well-played CD of his piano music on Toccata Classics. It actually came out a few months ago, but I only just heard about it last week via a Twitter posting by Richard Brody, a Shapero fan who writes about film for the New Yorker. Somehow it seems fitting that it was a film critic, not a music critic, who drew my attention to this album, which includes an exquisite performance by Ms. Pinkas and Evan Hirsch, her husband, of the sparkling Sonata for Piano, Four Hands that Mr. Shapero wrote in 1941. It’s a masterpiece, but the chances that you’ve heard it, or of it, are microscopic….

The problem, if that’s what you want to call it, is that Shapero Shapero wasn’t the kind of composer whose music grabs you by the lapels, gets in your face and insists on its own greatness….

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Read the whole thing here.

From their new CD of Harold Shapero’s piano music, the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo plays the first movement of Shapero’s Sonata for Piano, Four Hands, composed in 1941:

“You never particularly envied security in others until your own was gone. In fact, if you possessed it yourself, you gave it a different name when you observed it in other people. You called it complacency or dullness or unawareness.”

John P. Marquand, B.F.’s Daughter

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:
• Cabaret (musical, PG-13/R, virtually all performances sold out last week, closes Mar. 29, reviewed here)
• The Elephant Man (drama, PG-13, contains partial nudity, all performances sold out last week, closes Feb. 22, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, many performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, many performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On the Town (musical, G, contains double entendres that will not be intelligible to children, reviewed here)

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

CLOSING SOON IN FORT MYERS, FLA.:
• One Slight Hitch (comedy, PG-13, extended through Jan. 31, reviewed here)

“All at once enthusiasms and loyalty and beliefs became very tiresome. The intelligentsia, the bright planners, working on those streamlined blueprints for the brave new world, were always repeating themselves. She had heard enough of the coined jargon that was all mixed up with cheap synonyms. It made no sense. There was something mechanical about Tom and all those boys with minds like steel traps. Minds equipped with dogmatic lucidity. There was some basic lack of understanding in spite of all their aptitudes. They had convictions, but they still seemed to be working out just what the war was all about. They stood for freedom of speech, except for disloyal fascist columnists, freedom from fear, except that Tom was going to put the fear of God into certain industrialists who still lived in the Dark Ages, and freedom from want, except for the obstructionists who could not see the light. Or you could turn to the other side, to the ones who said the country would be ruined by inflation, and that it was being run by crackpots and Communists. It made her sick to death to hear those people talk, too, because they also had their own jargon and their own intellectual foibles. There was no common understanding any longer, no patience or tolerance—nobody even wanted to understand.”

John P. Marquand, B.F.’s Daughter

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli plays Chopin’s F Minor Fantasie, Op. 49, on Italian TV:

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

“‘I don’t understand women.’

“‘Well,’ Polly said, ‘I can tell you all about them. All they want is attention, Doctor. They don’t want to be understood.’”

John P. Marquand, B.F.’s Daughter