About Last Night

I regret to write that Terry Teachout, one of ArtsJournal’s original bloggers since 2003, has died unexpectedly at his home in New York at the age of 65. The Wall Street Journal, where Terry was the longtime theatre critic, has an obituary here.

I will write more about Terry in the days to come. He was a generous and valued friend. Though we spoke rarely, we had an active correspondence over the years and he was one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever known. He will be much missed. More later.

• Douglas McLennan, Editor, ArtsJournal

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Irish Rep’s revival of The Streets of New York. Here’s an excerpt.

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Theater lovers throughout America owe a huge debt to the Irish Repertory Theatre for having kept us sane and entertained by streaming exemplary, standard-setting video productions throughout the Covid-19 lockdown. Now the Irish Rep, for me New York’s finest off-Broadway theater, is reopening its doors with a revival of Charlotte Moore’s 2002 musical version of Dion Boucicault’s “The Streets of New York.” In his play, the celebrated 19th-century theatrical ne’er-do-well, who died in New York in 1890 after spending his career shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic, told a succulent tale of melodramatic woe. It is greatly enhanced by Ms. Moore’s songs and is performed to the hilt by her new cast…

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Read the whole thing here.

Alan Pryce-Jones interviews Somerset Maugham at his villa on the Mediterranean in 1965:

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

“Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way.”

Somerset Maugham, A Writer’s Notebook

Richard Strauss leads the Vienna Philharmonic in a 1944 performance of his Till Eulenspiegel. These are a series of single-camera views intended to be cut together. At the end is the only surviving film of Arthur Nikisch conducting. It is silent, and shown sideways:

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

“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.”

Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

There will be no posts this week—I have no shows to review and so will not be filing a Wall Street Journal drama column, and it struck me as appropriate to shut the shop down between the holidays.

See you again on Friday for my annual end-of-the-year sendoff.