Archives for April 15, 2010

Vladimir Horowitz plays the slow movement of Mozart’s A Major Piano Concerto, K. 488:

Is there a more beautiful piece of music in all the world?

A reader writes:

I’ve been reading Pops with tremendous pleasure–it was the ideal book to take with me on a recent trip to New Orleans for the French Quarter Festival. A parking attendant saw me there carrying it one day and shouted out, “Good book!”

That might just be the best review I’ve ever gotten.

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:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, original Broadway production reviewed here)

• 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)

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

• The Temperamentals (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• 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)

CLOSING SATURDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• The Cocktail Party (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

“Be sure to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on the gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn, without asking, in the street and the train.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Books”