Archives for December 2009

“Work is the price which is paid for reputation.”
Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

I review two shows in today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, the Broadway premiere of David Mamet’s Race and the New York premiere of Brief Encounter. Both disappointed me, albeit in very different ways. Here’s an excerpt.
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David Mamet’s characters struggle for power over one another like scorpions in a bottle, determined to sting or be stung. They have no past or future, only the unremittingly bleak present. Yet they somehow manage to entertain us–if that’s the word–because of the manic energy with which they do their dances of death. “Race,” his new play, sizzles with that energy, and for most of its length I found it involving, if not quite up to form. But Mr. Mamet doesn’t quite make it to the finish line this time, and when the curtain came down I felt the kind of frustration that can only be inspired by a first-class talent who fails to deliver the goods.
The problem with “Race” is that it’s a bit too familiar. Specifically, it plays like a cross between Mr. Mamet’s “Oleanna” and his screenplay for “The Verdict.” I can’t say much more than that without giving away the “surprises” sprinkled throughout the plot, in which two lawyers, one white (James Spader) and one black (David Alan Grier), decide whether to defend a famous millionaire (Richard Thomas) who is accused of raping a young black woman–a decision complicated by the fact that one of their employees (Kerry Washington) is also a young black woman. But those who know Mr. Mamet’s work more than casually will likely be able to guess many of the directions in which he takes this conceit…
If you loved “Brief Encounter,” you might be amused by “Brief Encounter,” the Kneehigh Theatre’s avant-garde stage version of the Noël Coward-David Lean film about two stiff-lipped Brits who stumble almost inadvertently into an extramarital affair. Or, like me, you might bristle at the sniggering cuteness with which Emma Rice, who adapted Coward’s 1945 screenplay for the stage and directed this production, has sought to deconstruct his celebrated study of the emotionally constricting effects of British reticence….
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Read the whole thing here.
The original theatrical trailer for David Lean’s 1945 film of Brief Encounter:

In this week’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I look back at Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty–not the Oscar-winning 1955 film version, but the original live TV drama telecast in 1953 that made a star out of Rod Steiger and has been remembered ever since as a landmark of television’s early years. It only aired once, save for a 1981 replay on PBS, and only now has it been transferred to DVD as part of the Criterion Collection’s Golden Age of Television box set. How does it hold up today? Pick up a copy of Saturday’s paper and find out.
UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.
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The original theatrical trailer for the film version of Marty:

“Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.”
P.G. Wodehouse, The Adventures of Sally

Today I’m in Philadelphia, where I’ll be making four radio appearances in support of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, after which I speak about the book at the Philadelphia Free Library, located at 1901 Vine St. The show starts at seven-thirty. For more information, go here.

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, closes Jan. 10, reviewed here)

• Fela! * (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Finian’s Rainbow (musical, G, suitable for children, dramatically inert but musically sumptuous, reviewed here)

• God of Carnage (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)

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

• Superior Donuts (dark comedy, PG-13, violence, closes Jan. 3, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

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

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

• The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Part 1 (drama, G/PG-13, too complicated for children, will be performed in rotating repertory with second and third parts of cycle starting on Dec. 3 and Jan. 7 respectively, closes Mar. 27, reviewed here)

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

• The Understudy (farce, PG-13, extended through Jan. 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• Biography (comedy, PG-13, closes Dec. 19, reviewed here)

• The Starry Messenger (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Dec. 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• My Wonderful Day (farce, PG-13/R, unsuitable for children, reviewed here)

“I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare–or, if not, it’s some equally brainy bird–who says that it’s always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.”
P.G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest”

I stumbled on the following passage in some old papers from my book publishing days, when one photocopied rather than bookmarked pieces of writing one hoped to return to. It’s Roger Rosenblatt on “culture-writers” (he’s thinking of Ken Kesey in particular) versus “writer-writers” (he doesn’t name any):

A writer-writer writes to be read. A culture-writer writes to be oohed….
…the errors of the culture-writer are more than matters of style. He mistakes invention for imagination, and he adopts craziness as a view of the world. The first of these errors leads him to believe that bizarrerie is sufficient for art. Invent some wacky, improbable, unheard of person, language, or circumstance, and that will do it. (The influence in recent decades of “magical realism” has only made the situation worse.) Think of it this way. Invention in literature is like building a house starting with the porch. Imagination begins at the hearth, usually something quite simple and recognizable in human experience. From that core it may sprout wings, beaks, and flames, but the reader is always drawn to, and by, the core.
The culture-writer’s most serious error, however, lies in his sense of life. He comes to see human experience as essentially wild and crazy. Whether he is led to this view by style and invention, or whether style and invention are the products of the view, the result is a literature that sees the world as purposeless and freakish. This is something much less strict and serious than irrationalism. Of such writing one does not ask, “What is here?” What is here is painfully obvious. One asks instead, “What is missing?” And what is missing are recognizable human conflicts and the thoughts and feelings of people one cares for. The collapse of such writing into mere effects is no surprise: this is literature that has lost touch with everything but itself.

The occasion for this is a 1992 review in the New Republic of Kesey’s novel Sailor Song. The other example Rosenblatt offers of a culture-writer is Norman Mailer in the second half of his career. It’s a little bit James Wood avant la lettre, isn’t it?