Archives for June 2009

Merce Cunningham, who turned ninety this year, has announced that his world-famous dance company will be disbanded after he dies. That’s a big story, bigger than you might think if you don’t follow dance closely. Most choreographers, after all, do their best to ensure that their companies will outlive them. Why has Cunningham decided otherwise? Because he thinks his dances have a better chance of surviving over the long haul if his associates concentrate on making them available to other companies instead of keeping his own troupe going.
This decision is the subject of my “Sightings” column for Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, in which I talk about the inherent fragility of dance–and what choreographers can do to circumvent it. To see what I have to say, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s Journal.
UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.
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An excerpt from Cunningham’s “Beach Birds for Camera,” danced by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company:

“What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one’s memories.”
W. Somerset Maugham, Points of View

The Letter opens one month from today. Next week Commentary runs an essay by me called “A Critic Takes a Bow.” This is the first paragraph:

On July 25, I expect to step from the wings of an opera house perched atop a 6,900-foot-high mesa in New Mexico, walk to center stage, look out at two thousand people and take the first curtain call of my adult life. The occasion will be the premiere of The Letter, an opera by the composer Paul Moravec that is based on W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 play of the same name and for which I have written the words. If all goes well, the members of the audience will be cheering by the time that Paul and I appear on stage. If not, my career as an opera librettist will come to an abrupt and inglorious end.

And how do I feel about this fast-approaching set of mutually exclusive alternatives? Pretty good, actually, though I’m sure it helps that I’m too busy to think about it very much. Not so Paul, who is spending the week going through the orchestral parts of The Letter in search of microscopic mistakes. I ran into him at the gym on Monday and asked how he was feeling. “I’m still having a lot of dreams about the opera,” he replied, “but they’re not as bad as they used to be.” On Tuesday the two of us dined together–it’ll be the last time we see one another until we meet in Santa Fe–and drew up a list of the ten funniest movies ever made. (We agreed on His Girl Friday, The In-Laws, Some Like It Hot, This Is Spinal Tap, and Tootsie.) Next to nothing was said about The Letter.
As for me, I haven’t had a single dream about our opera, good, bad, or indifferent, which may or may not bespeak a certain lack of imagination on my part. I know perfectly well that the whole thing could blow up in our faces–but I don’t think it will. No, I’m not sure that it’s going to be a hit. I do, however, feel sure of our craftsmanship, by which I mean that I think The Letter is a solid piece of work. Some people will like it, others won’t, but I expect that everyone in the opening-night audience, critics included, will take what we’ve done seriously and respond accordingly.
And after that…what? I haven’t a clue, nor do I much care, at least for the moment. “Why are you stingy with yourselves?” George Balanchine used to ask his dancers. “Why are you holding back? What are you saving for–for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” That’s how I feel about The Letter. For me, the clock stops on July 25.

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)

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

• God of Carnage * (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes July 19, then reopens Sept. 8 and runs through Nov. 15, reviewed here)

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

• Mary Stuart (drama, G, far too long and complicated for children, closes Aug. 16, reviewed here)

• The Norman Conquests * (three related comedies, PG-13, comprehensively unsuitable for children, playing in repertory and extended through July 26, 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:

• Coraline (musical, G, possibly too scary for small children and very problematic for twee-hating adults, reviewed here)

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

• Our Town (drama, G, suitable for mature children, reviewed here)

• The Rivalry (historical drama, G, too complicated for children, reviewed here)

• Ruined (drama, PG-13/R, sexual content and suggestions of extreme violence, extended through Aug. 2, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:

• The History Boys (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, too intellectually complex for most adolescents, extended through Sept. 27, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• Waiting for Godot * (drama, PG-13, accessible to intelligent and open-minded adolescents, closes July 12, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN HARTFORD, CONN:

• Dividing the Estate (black comedy, PG-13, closes July 5, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:

• Design for Living (comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

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

“The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.”
H.L. Mencken, Prejudices, Fourth Series

Here’s a photograph of the scale model of Hildegard Bechtler’s set for the opening scene of The Letter. The first thing the audience hears is gunfire on a darkened stage. Then the lights come up:

Cool, huh?

Erin McKeown, the singer-songwriter who has been praised many times in this space, is presenting a series of four live house concerts over the Web in order to raise funds to underwrite the release of her next album, Hundreds of Lions.
Says McKeown:

My new record, Hundreds of Lions, was made on my own dime and my own time, with no influence, input, or manipulation from any outside source. It has meant so much to me to be able to record the music I’ve written just as I imagined it to sound, with nothing lost in the translation.

The series, which McKeown calls “Cabin Fever,” will be aired on July 7 at seven p.m., July 16 at noon, July 22 at three p.m., and July 26 at five p.m. All times are EST and all performances will be telecast live from McKeown’s home in western Massachusetts. Tickets are $10 per show or $30 for the complete series.
For more information, go here.
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Here’s a video trailer for “Cabin Fever”:

Francis Poulenc, Jacques Février, Georges Prêtre and the Orchestra National de la RTF perform the first movement of Poulenc’s Two-Piano Concerto. Poulenc is the pianist on the left:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)