Archives for 2007

O.K., I’m not that tired, but I’ve been pretty damn busy seeing shows, writing pieces, and tearing around New England. In between extended stretches of working like a lunatic, I had lunch in Connecticut with my cool new friend the jewelry designer, then spent a tranquil night in a lakeside cottage in deepest Rhode Island. If you’re into birdsong, Blueberry Pointe is a feast of sound. Curious as to whether the avian residents would recognize a human tribute to one of their own, I played a recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Le merle noir as I sat on the deck at dusk. Sure enough, a bird responded on cue. (Go here if you want to see and hear the difference between Messiaen’s blackbird and the real thing.)
Was my visit to Blueberry Pointe restorative? Miraculously so–but, then, I had a lot to restore. In fact, the combination of travel, deadlines, performances, excessive blogging, and general overwork has gotten the best of me, psychologically speaking, so I’m handing the keys to Our Girl and going up the spout for a week. I’ll be posting the usual almanac and theater-related entries, but otherwise you won’t be hearing from me again until next Monday…on which day OGIC and I will unveil a great big surprise.
Curious? I’d be.
See you next week. Happy Fourth of July!

“Look, mister, I’m so tired you’d be doin’ me a big favor if you’d blow my head off.”
Samuel Fuller, screenplay for Pickup on South Street

In this week’s Wall Street Journal I report on two Shakespeare productions, one in New York and one in Washington, plus a rare revival of John Van Druten’s Old Acquaintance:

The best show in town this month is in Central Park. The Public Theater’s outdoor version of “Romeo and Juliet” is contemporary in flavor, visually striking, crisply staged and emotionally direct–everything, in short, that a Shakespeare in the Park production should be, right down to the no-holds-barred swordplay. It also marks the arrival of a new star in the theatrical sky: Lauren Ambrose, lately of “Six Feet Under,” who made a strong Broadway debut in last year’s revival of “Awake and Sing” and now confirms that she is an extravagantly gifted stage actress whose potential appears to be unlimited….
Unlike the Public’s “Romeo and Juliet,” the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s modern-dress “Hamlet” is sabotaged by its youth-friendly, obtrusively clever high concept: It’s all about teen angst. Director Michael Kahn gives us a pouty blond Prince of Denmark (Jeffrey Carlson) who whines his way from scene to scene, brandishing a bottle of pills (Prozac, no doubt) as he lurches into his soliloquy on suicide. Earlier we see him reading A. Alvarez’s “The Savage God: A Study of Suicide,” a directorial touch that deserves some sort of prize for pretentiousness….
John Van Druten is one of the forgotten men of American theater. Twenty of his plays opened on Broadway between 1925 and 1952, but until now none of them has been revived there, not even such long-running hits as “The Voice of the Turtle” or “I Remember Mama.” Now the Roundabout Theatre Company has exhumed “Old Acquaintance,” a 1940 comedy that was bought by Hollywood three years later and turned into an unmemorable vehicle for Bette Davis. I went to see it mainly out of curiosity–but stayed to cheer. Far from being a musty old relic, “Old Acquaintance” is a fabulously well-made play that has lost nothing of its freshness and bite….

No free link. You know what to do. Buy today’s paper, or go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will give you immediate access to my column and the rest of the Journal‘s arts coverage. (If you’re already a subscriber, the column is here.)

“Poetry is adolescence fermented, and thus preserved.”
José Ortega y Gasset, “In Search of Goethe from Within”

To all the people who thought they read this post: I said you couldn’t pay me to see most of them. What makes you think you know which ones I had in mind?

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:
• Avenue Q * (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)
• A Chorus Line * (musical, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
• The Drowsy Chaperone (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)
• Frost/Nixon * (drama, PG-13, some strong language, reviewed here, closes Aug. 19)
• 110 in the Shade * (musical, G, suitable for children old enough to enjoy a love story, reviewed here, extended through July 29)
• The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Beyond Glory (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Aug. 19)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children old enough to enjoy a love story, reviewed here)

CLOSING THIS WEEKEND:
• Intimate Exchanges (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Sunday)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK:
• Company (musical, PG-13/R, adult subject matter and situations, reviewed here, closes July 7)

“Summer afternoon–summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
Henry James (quoted in Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance)