Archives for November 13, 2009

Two thumbs-up reviews in today’s Wall Street Journal: I raved about Goodspeed Musicals’ revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the off-Broadway transfer of Avenue Q. Here’s an excerpt.
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Some musicals are funnier than others, but few of the most memorable ones rise or fall on the strength of their jokes. “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” which opened on Broadway in 1962 and has been playing somewhere or other ever since, is an exception. It’s the funniest musical ever written, give or take…well, nothing. The book, by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove, could be performed without the songs and still work–and the songs are by Stephen Sondheim! To see “A Funny Thing,” even in a fair-to-middling production, is to be enraptured, and Goodspeed Musicals’ revival, directed and choreographed with whirlwind flair by Ted Pappas, leaves nothing at all to be desired in the make-’em-laugh department….
Except for “Comedy Tonight,” Mr Sondheim’s songs are rarely heard outside the context of the show, and most critics, myself previously included, typically fail to appreciate the contribution that they make to the total effect of “A Funny Thing.” This time, though, I got it: Mr. Sondheim’s neatly turned rhymes and clean, crisp harmonies, especially in “Free,” play cleverly against the plot, adding a pinch of sweetness that sharpens the savor of the knockabout humor….
If you didn’t catch it the first time around, “Avenue Q” is a parody of “Sesame Street” whose characters, a gaggle of underexperienced, overeducated college grads, move to New York City in search of fame, fortune and entry-level jobs, none of which they find. The show remains both fresh and timely–I know plenty of twentysomethings who are having at least as much trouble getting work as did their older brothers and sisters–and its digs at political correctness are, if anything, even more pointed today.
Most of the “stars” of “Avenue Q” are head-and-torso puppets that are manipulated by the performers in full view of the audience. Anika Larsen, who was playing Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut when “Avenue Q” ended its Broadway run, has made the transfer to New World Stages as well, and she proves to be equally adept as a puppeteer and as a singing actor…
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Read the whole thing here.

Like most columnists, I try to keep up with anniversaries, but the centennial of Art Tatum’s birth–October 13–slipped past me. No wonder, since scarcely anyone seems to have taken note of it, whether in print or on stage. Yet Tatum, who died in 1956, is still the most admired pianist in the history of jazz, and it seems likely that he will hang onto that status for decades, even centuries, to come. On the other hand, he isn’t especially well known to the general public, at least not by comparison with Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington.
Why isn’t Tatum a household name? Is it because jazz itself is no longer as popular as it used to be? Or might there be something about his elaborately virtuosic style that has kept him out of the public eye? I’ll be exploring this question in my “Sightings” column for Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. If you’re curious, pick up a copy of tomorrow’s paper and see what I have to say.
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UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.
Art Tatum plays his jazz interpretation of Dvorak’s “Humoresque” on The Faye Emerson Show in 1950:

“A difference in taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.”
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda