Archives for 2007

“Being in a hurry is one of the tributes he pays to life.”
Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco, Balloons

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)
• LoveMusik * (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
• 110 in the Shade * (musical, G, suitable for children old enough to enjoy a love story, reviewed here, extended through July 29)
• Talk Radio (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
• 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:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children old enough to enjoy a love story, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON:
• Company (musical, PG-13/R, adult subject matter and situations, reviewed here, closes July 7)
• Crazy Mary (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here, extended through June 26)

She said to me about American compositions: “There is a picture that one sees, a picture with an old man, and a man, and a little boy–they have drums and he a piccolo, and they are all ragged. I do not know its name.”
I said, “It’s called ‘The Spirit of ’76.'”
“The part that I like least in your American compositions is the part where these people come into the piece. Why should a piano concerto, or a ballet, or a description of how dawn comes over your American prairies, need always a little march with a piccolo?”
I said, “It’s put into the piece to show that it’s an American piece.” Irene replied, “Ah, no doubt. It is like that little sign Made in America that one sees on objects–without it, perhaps, the piece could not be exported.”
Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution

That’s what I’ve been doing all day in between packing my bags. Tonight I’ll be in New Jersey. (See next Friday’s Wall Street Journal for details.) Tomorrow morning I cast off and set sail for Greensboro, North Carolina, followed by points north, east, and west, not in that order. Along the way I’ll be seeing four shows, dining with Ms. Asymmetrical Information and Ms. Tingle Alley, and listening to new CDs in my rental car. And blogging. Maybe.
More from the road….

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
Elmore Leonard, “Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing”

I am, in theory, back in New York. The flies in the ointment number four:
(1) I spent twelve hours on the road yesterday and so am not entirely myself this morning.
(2) Neither is my iBook. The wonder-working women of Ms Mac are on their way over to my apartment at this very moment to pour Drano into its ports and make it happy again.
(3) Just in case the problem is more serious than it seems, I have to try to finish writing this week’s Wall Street Journal drama column before they get here.
(4) I depart for North Carolina and Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Between now and then, I need to see two shows and do all the stuff I left undone last week in Smalltown, U.S.A.
For all these reasons, I can’t promise that I’ll be doing a whole lot of blogging between now and my departure. If that changes, though, you’ll be the first to know….

“One time, years ago, the veteran Baltimore newspaperman, H.L. Mencken, was checking copy coming in from the night editor and sighing at the rising number of errors he was noticing, errors of fact but also of syntax, and even some idioms that didn’t sound quite right. He shook his head and said, as much to himself as to the editor at his side: ‘The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.'”
Alistair Cooke, “Memories of the Great and the Good” (courtesy of George Will)

“Beauty consists of an eternal, invariable element, whose quantity is excessively difficult to determine, and of a relative, circumstantial element, which will be, if you like, by turns or all together, the era, its fashion, its morals, its passions.”
Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life