Archives for September 25, 2008

“Imagine a Carthage sown with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earh, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden? Light would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to fruit heavily with bright globes of water–peaches and grapes are little more than that, and where the world was salt there would be greater need of slaking. For need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know anything so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing–the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand in one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us, smooths our hair, and brings us wild strawberries.”
Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

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)

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

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

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

OFF BROADWAY:

• Enter Laughing (musical, PG-13, extended through Oct. 26, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

IN CAPE MAY, N.J.:

• To the Ladies (comedy, G, closes Oct. 18, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN HARTFORD, CONN.:

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (comedy, G, surprisingly child-friendly, closes Oct. 5, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN SPRING GREEN, WISC.:

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream/Widowers’ Houses (comedies, G, playing in repertory through Oct. 5, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN CAPE MAY, N.J.:

• Doubt (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• Around the World in 80 Days (comedy, G, reviewed here)

“The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn’t deserve it, give it to him anyhow.”
John Ciardi, “The Reviewer’s Duty to Damn”