Archives for March 11, 2010

Alexander Woollcott, the critic-broadcaster-anthologist who figured in the first posting in this series, was on my mind this week. I’ve been rereading Cakes and Ale, Somerset Maugham’s best novel, in preparation for a review I’m writing of a new Maugham biography that will be published in May. It happens that my personal copy of Cakes and Ale is part of Woollcott’s Second Reader, an anthology that Woollcott edited in 1937. I tweeted about this fact the other day, and in the process of looking for an interesting image of Woollcott to run with the version of my tweet that I posted on Facebook, I ran across this wonderful advertisement:

Being a critic and train buff, you can imagine how delighted I was by this ad. Imagine–if you can–a time when critics were solicited to provide paid endorsements for high-profile products!

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:

• A Behanding in Spokane (black comedy, PG-13, violence and adult subject matter, closes June 6, reviewed here)

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

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

• The Miracle Worker (drama, G, too intense for small children, reviewed here)

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

• A View from the Bridge * (drama, PG-13, violence and some sexual content, closes Apr. 4, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

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

• The Boys in the Band (drama, R, adult subject matter, closes Mar. 28, reviewed here)

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

• The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (drama, G/PG-13, too complicated for children, now being performed in rotating repertory, closes May 8, reviewed here, here, and here)

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

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• Venus in Fur (serious comedy, R, sexual content, closes Mar. 28, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN PRINCETON, N.J.:

• American Buffalo (drama, PG-13/R, violence and very strong language, transferred from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, closes Mar. 28, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN LENOX, MASS.:

• Les Liaisons Dangereuses (drama, R, violence and sexual content, closes Mar. 21, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN ORLANDO, FLA.:

• Hamlet (Shakespeare, PG-13, reviewed here)

“The public does not like bad literature. The public likes a certain kind of literature and likes that kind of literature even when it is bad better than another kind of literature even when it is good. Nor is this unreasonable; for the line between different types of literature is as real as the line between tears and laughter; and to tell people who can only get bad comedy that you have some first-class tragedy is as irrational as to offer a man who is shivering over weak warm coffee a really superior sort of ice.”
G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens