Archives for November 27, 2008

It’s not exactly a secret that I stay pretty busy, but even by my extreme standards, 2008 has been a bit on the hectic side. According to my records, I reviewed or will be reviewing a total of one hundred and fourteen shows for The Wall Street Journal in 2008, fifty-six of which took place outside New York City. (To put it another way, I reviewed shows in fourteen states and the District of Columbia.) During that time I knocked out roughly ninety columns and other pieces for the Journal and Commentary, plus a dozen or so articles that were published elsewhere, and finished writing A Cluster of Sunlight: The Life of Louis Armstrong and the libretto for The Letter.
I also made four new friends and mourned the deaths of two old ones, read a couple of hundred books and looked at a like number of paintings, saw eighteen performances of fourteen Shakespeare plays (not counting Falstaff and Kiss Me, Kate), bought three pieces of art, stayed in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, visited the grave of Willa Cather, had lunch at the Supreme Court Building, hugged Leontyne Price, posted to this blog with reasonable regularity, and spent as much time as possible in the company of Mrs. T.
I’ve been known to complain from time to time about being overworked, but for most of these things–especially the last–I am profoundly grateful. May you be as grateful for at least as many different and wondrous things on this Thanksgiving Day.

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)

• Dividing the Estate (black comedy, G, far too serious for children, reviewed here)

• Equus (drama, R, nudity and adult subject matter, closes Feb. 8, reviewed here)

• Gypsy (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Mar. 1, reviewed here)

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

• A Man for All Seasons * (drama, G, too intellectually demanding for children of any age, closes Dec. 14, 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:

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

CLOSING SUNDAY IN SUBURBAN CHICAGO:

• Picnic (drama, PG-13, adult themes, reviewed here)

“Sir, gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.”
Samuel Johnson (quoted in James Boswell, A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides)