Archives for June 2008

While looking at them

have we prolonged the

life of flowers?

Haiku inscribed on Utagawa Hiroshige’s “Morning Glories” (Art Institute of Chicago)

Gérard Mortier, the New York City Opera‘s incoming general manager and artistic director, is closing the New York State Theater down next season for much-needed remodeling. As a result, the company will not perform staged opera again until the fall of 2009, when Mortier’s first season will consist of six twentieth-century operas, Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Leos Janacek’s The Makropulos Case, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice, Olivier Messiaen’s St. Francis of Assisi, and Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach. Rarely in the history of American opera has the director of a company taken a bigger pair of chances.
Is City Opera’s new boss visionary or crazy–or both? I’m not sure I can answer that one just yet, but I’ll be taking a preliminary stab at the question in my next “Sightings” column, which appears in the “Weekend Journal” section of today’s Wall Street Journal. Pick up a copy this morning and see what I have to say.
UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.

In the first of a series of reports from Chicagoland, I review Writers’ Theatre’s production of James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, coupled with an off-Broadway opening, Edward Albee’s Occupant. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Now that New York City is playing host to Chicago’s “August: Osage County” and “Adding Machine,” I decided to fly west and spend the next couple of weeks reporting in person on some of the plays currently being performed in and around Second City, which ranks second to none–Broadway most definitely included–when it comes to the quality of its theatrical offerings. My first stop was out in the suburbs, where Writers’ Theatre is putting on a ferociously funny production of “The Lion in Winter” that is one of the finest shows I’ve seen in recent seasons, not just in Chicagoland but in all of America.
Nowadays James Goldman, who died in 1998, is mainly remembered for having written the book for Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies.” In his lifetime, though, “The Lion in Winter” was his best-known piece of work–but not for the original Broadway production, which ran for just 92 performances in 1966. It was the success of the 1968 film version, which won Goldman a best-screenplay Oscar, that made “The Lion in Winter” a regional-theater staple. The film, which starred Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn, was a faithful adaptation of Goldman’s stage script, which takes the story of England’s Henry II (played in Glencoe by Michael Canavan) and Eleanor of Aquitaine, his estranged wife (played by Shannon Cochran, Mr. Canavan’s real-life spouse), and uses it as the framework for a dysfunctional-family domestic drama which is, despite its 12th-century setting, as contemporary in tone as a news flash….
Katharine Hepburn is a hard act to follow, but Ms. Cochran is up to the challenge: Her Eleanor is a sexy, scaldingly hot-blooded woman of a certain age whose passion and anger are never far from the surface. If she had given this performance on Broadway, she would have been a shoo-in for a Tony nomination….
Part of what makes “The Lion in Winter” so theatrically effective is that James Goldman bent its historical characters to his own imaginative purposes. Far too many one- and two-person biographical plays, by contrast, stick closely and uncreatively to the record, meaning that they can do little more than offer their viewers a watered-down history lesson. Edward Albee’s “Occupant,” a portrait of the famously flamboyant sculptor Louise Nevelson, falls somewhat awkwardly–if interestingly–between these two stools.
Mr. Albee, who knew Nevelson, was fascinated by her penchant for making up successive versions of her life story, many of which bore only a coincidental resemblance to the truth. In “Occupant” he pairs Nevelson (Mercedes Ruehl) with a slightly dense interviewer (Larry Bryggman), by turns chummy and pushy, whose purpose is to cut through her dazzling anecdotage and get the facts, while she seeks in turn to seduce the audience with her hard-nosed charm. Unfortunately, Mr. Albee has put his portrait of the artist in a too-cute frame, informing us at the outset that it is being conducted posthumously: “I’ve never interviewed someone who is dead before.” “Yeah? Well, I haven’t been interviewed since I’m dead.” And because “Occupant” tries to cover most of Nevelson’s very long life–she died in 1988 at the age of 89–it never gets very far below the level of flashy superficiality…
* * *
Read the whole thing here.

If you’d like to know what the real Louise Nevelson looked and sounded like, here’s a video of her being interviewed in 1986, two years before her death:

James Goldman, The Lion in Winter (filmed in 1968)

…but you’ll have to wait to hear about it! I spent the morning in my hotel room writing tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal drama column while Mrs. T slept. Our Girl is at the office, and CAAF and her husband are headed for parts north. Sooner or later, though, one or more of us will check in, so stay tuned.

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.

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

BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, reviewed here)

• August: Osage County (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• Boeing-Boeing (comedy, PG-13, cartoonishly sexy, reviewed here)

• A Chorus Line (musical, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Aug. 17, reviewed here)

• Cry-Baby (musical, PG-13, mildly naughty and very cynical, reviewed here)

• Grease * (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

• Gypsy (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• In the Heights (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

• The Little Mermaid * (musical, G, entirely suitable for children, reviewed here)

• November (comedy, PG-13, profusely spattered with obscene language, reviewed here)

• Passing Strange (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• South Pacific * (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, reviewed here)

• Sunday in the Park with George (musical, PG-13, too complicated for children, closes June 29, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Adding Machine (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, too musically demanding for youngsters, closes Aug. 31, reviewed here)

IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:

• Julius Caesar/Antony and Cleopatra (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, too musically demanding for youngsters, performed in alternating repertory through July 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• Port Authority (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes June 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN BOSTON:

• She Loves Me (musical, G, a bit too complicated for young children, closes June 15, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• From Up Here (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

“Chicago is not the most corrupt American city, it’s the most theatrically corrupt.”
Studs Terkel, The Dick Cavett Show (June 9, 1978)