Archives for October 13, 2006

I review two Broadway shows in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Heartbreak House and the Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of Losing Louie:

George Bernard Shaw used to be a near-constant presence on Broadway. Now he’s history. The Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of “Heartbreak House” is only the second Shaw play (not counting “My Fair Lady”) to be seen there since 1993. Could it be that American audiences have finally tired of the garrulous Irishman who devoted his long life to telling the world how to fix itself? Perhaps–but I hope not. Though Shaw could be a frightful bore, his best plays have remained vibrantly stage-worthy, and “Heartbreak House,” the oddest and least characteristic of them, has grown ever more contemporary in the 86 years since it was first performed on Broadway. This production features some fine acting, and if the overall results are no better than goodish, Shaw’s intentions still come through clearly.

Shaw called “Heartbreak House” “a fantasia in the Russian manner on English themes,” by which he meant to suggest a resemblance to the rambling, atmospheric plotlessness of the plays of Chekhov. (Most of Shaw’s own plays, by contrast, are linear to a fault.) It starts off, however, in the cozy manner of a good old-fashioned weekend-in-the-country comedy, the kind in which unsuspecting visitors to an English country house find themselves swept up in amusing romantic hijinks. But Captain Shotover (Philip Bosco), the octogenarian sailor whose living room looks strangely like the stern gallery of a sailing ship, is half-senile–or seems to be–and the other members of his family turn out to be as amusing as a basketful of unfed snakes….

If you think Broadway doesn’t produce enough unfunny comedies of its own, you’ll be happy to hear that Simon Mendes da Costa’s “Losing Louie” has made its way from London to the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Biltmore Theatre, where it came perilously close to putting me to sleep….

No free link. To read the whole thing, buy a copy of today’s paper and turn to the “Weekend Journal” section, or go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you instant access to the complete text of my review. (If you’re already a subscriber, you’ll find it here.)

In my next “Sightings” column, to be published in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, I consider the wider implications of the revival of Grease that opens on Broadway in June. The stars of this production will be chosen not by the director or producers, but by the viewers of You’re the One That I Want, an NBC reality-TV series that makes its debut later this season. Yes, it’s a gimmick–but I have a sneaking feeling that when all is said and done, You’re the One That I Want will prove to have been a very significant episode in the history of commercial theater in America.

To find out why, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Journal, where you’ll find my column in the “Pursuits” section.

– I was interviewed by the BBC last week for Pods and Blogs, a radio series on which I discussed my recent Wall Street Journal column about YouTube and the fine arts. The interview aired on Tuesday. To listen via streaming audio, go here. (If you’re in a hurry, my segment starts roughly forty-four minutes into the hour.)

– Doug Ramsey, a/k/a Mr. Rifftides, reported the other day on a fascinating concert by the Bill Mays Trio (a group I admire without reserve) that blended jazz and classical music to what sounds like brilliant effect. To read what he wrote, go here. I mention it because Doug is now reporting that part of the concert will be broadcast in streaming audio via the Web this coming Sunday at four o’clock Eastern. For further details, go here.

Should the broadcast not fit into your schedule, you can get a taste of the Bill Mays Trio on its own by purchasing this CD. I commend it to your attention.

– A reader reports that Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times recently delivered himself of this one-sentence summary
of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs:

Wotan, the king of the gods, driven by lust and power, makes bad bargains and then is forced by his wife to contend with their consequences, losing control of the world in the process.

That is, if I do say so myself, pretty damn neat. I seem to remember a Comden and Green lyric that dealt no less efficiently with the plots of a number of classic novels, but I’m away from my library this week and so can’t check it out for myself. Can anyone out there oblige me?

– Another reader passes on this quote from the great jazz drummer Art Blakey:

Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.

No source, alas–I’ve done a bit of surfing to try and track it down, but everyone cites it without identifying the occasion on which Blakey said it. Having spent more than a little bit of my spare time running down alleged remarks by H.L. Mencken that turned out to be apocryphal, I’m reluctant to accept it as authentic without a source. Once again, I’d appreciate a steer in the right direction.

“A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it.”

Thornton Wilder, interview, The Paris Review, Winter 1956