“Nowadays the conflict-of-interest cops would come down hard on any editor who dared to permit a Broadway director to double as a drama critic. So much the worse for journalistic standards! It was precisely because Harold Clurman had worked with people like Inge, Odets, O’Neill, Miller and Williams that he was capable of writing with such lapidary insight about their virtues and flaws…”
Archives for April 6, 2009
TT: A ripping good show
Paul Moravec and I gave our first public presentation on The Letter last Wednesday night at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, where my operatic collaborator is wrapping up a two-year term as artist-in-residence. It was a multi-media extravaganza: we played a synthesized version of the first part of the opening scene, having previously kicked things off by showing the trailer for William Wyler’s 1940 film of The Letter:
In the second half of the program, Paul accompanied the wonderful mezzo-soprano Rosalie Sullivan in an aria from The Letter, then demonstrated the opera’s harmonic language by playing and analyzing excerpts from the score on the piano. For my part, I gave a blow-by-blow synopsis of the action, explaining along the way how we’d changed the Somerset Maugham play on which The Letter is based, and described how I wrote the text of the aria that Rose sang. We then spent a half-hour answering smart questions from the audience.
Many of the people with whom we chatted after the show said that they were surprised by how smoothly Paul and I interacted on stage. They were even more surprised when we told them that our presentation was almost entirely improvised. Truth to tell, I was a bit surprised myself by how easily things went–I prefer to speak from a written-out text–but Paul and I have appeared together so many times that we know how to give an impromptu joint performance that sounds as though it had been rehearsed. Needless to say, it also helps that we’ve spent countless hours talking to one another about The Letter in the past three years. At any rate, our maiden voyage went off without any visible hitches, and we’re looking forward to doing it several more times between now and July 25, when The Letter opens in Santa Fe.
Only one thing went wrong, but it came close to being a show-stopper. Rose and I met at Penn Station that afternoon to catch a train to Princeton Junction. As soon as we sat down, I heard a faint sound that I unwisely ignored. A half-hour later I crossed my legs, felt a draft, looked down, and saw to my horror that I’d somehow contrived to split the inseam of my left trouser leg all the way from knee to crotch, in the process exposing part of a pair of maroon-colored underwear that Mrs. T bought for me last year. Rose, bless her, was kind enough to avert her gaze and refrain from laughing for the rest of the ride.
Not at all to my surprise, Paul was less tactful when he picked Rose and me up at the train station. He hooted all the way to the laundry where I got my pants sewed up, taking care to point out that my mishap reminded him of the following scene from The Pink Panther Strikes Again:
On the other hand, he did know where to get my pants fixed, so I forgave him.
TT: Look to the right
Lots of new stuff in the right-hand column. Take a peek.
TT: Almanac
Why must the show go on?
The rule is surely not immutable,
It might be wiser and more suitable
Just to close
If you are in the throes
Of personal grief and private woes.
Why stifle a sob
While doing your job
When, if you use your head,
You’d go out and grab
A comfortable cab
And go right home to bed?
Because you’re not giving us much fun,
This “Laugh Clown Laugh” routine’s been overdone,
Hats off to Show Folks
For smiling when they’re blue
But more comme-il-faut folks
Are sick of smiling through,
And if you’re out cold,
Too old,
And most of your teeth have gone,
Why must the show go on?
Noël Coward, “Why Must the Show Go On?”