“Anyone who goes to the theater or to classical-music performances has long been accustomed to sitting among a sea of bald and gray heads. Even such technologically up-to-date enterprises as the closed-circuit opera telecasts transmitted from New York’s Metropolitan Opera House to movie theaters across America draw crowds consisting mainly of senior citizens. A sobering report issued in November has put statistical flesh on the bones of the anecdotal evidence of a looming disaster for the arts in the United States…”
Archives for April 1, 2010
TT: So you want to see a show?
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)
• South Pacific (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, closes Aug. 22, 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 Glass Menagerie (drama, G, too dark for children, extended through June 13, 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)
• The Temperamentals (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)
CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• A View from the Bridge * (drama, PG-13, violence and some sexual content, reviewed here)
• The Miracle Worker (drama, G, too intense for small children, reviewed here)
TT: Almanac
“If you cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use reading it at all.”
Oscar Wilde, “The Decay of Lying”