Archives for May 2010

“So large a part of human life passes in a state contrary to our natural desires, that one of the principal topics of moral instruction is the art of bearing natural calamities. And such is the certainty of evil, that it is the duty of every man to furnish his mind with those principles that may enable him to act under it with decency and propriety.”
Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, July 7, 1750 (courtesy of Anecdotal Evidence)

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I weigh in on the New York premiere of Polly Stenham’s That Face, and I also report on the opening of another Chicago show, David Cromer’s staging of A Streetcar Named Desire. Both reviews are flat-out raves. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
“That Face” is a commanding piece of work that never puts a foot wrong. I watched it with the sense that I was present at the debut of an artist who might someday have even better things in her.
Outside of her age, Ms. Stenham has nothing in common with Ms. Delaney. She is a child of privilege, the daughter of a twice-divorced businessman who attended Eton and Cambridge, and “That Face,” not at all surprisingly, is a tale of a grossly dysfunctional upper-middle-class family whose two children are choking on their own rage. I can’t think of a less interesting subject on paper–nothing is more tiresome than the whiny angst of well-off adolescents–but Ms. Stenham has somehow contrived to portray the over-familiar plight of Henry and Mia (Christopher Abbott and Cristin Milioti) with a freshness and force that took me aback.
Part of this, I’m sure, is due to the galvanic performances of Ms. Milioti, who first caught my eye in the Irish Repertory Theatre’s 2007 revival of “The Devil’s Disciple,” and the unfailingly excellent Laila Robins, who plays a drunken mother whose attachment to her son is too close for comfort. I’m just as sure that Sarah Benson, whose staging is shriekingly taut, has made the most of “That Face.”
Yet the play is deserving of its production–and in a way that is itself unusual enough to be worthy of note, since nobody says anything eloquent or even especially memorable in “That Face.” Instead of giving her principal characters high-flown speeches to speak, Ms. Stenham has put them at the center of a near-pure drama of situation and event, one in which the blame for their collective plight is distributed with a fair-mindedness that is rare in a very young writer….
David Cromer, the foremost stage director of his generation, has outdone himself with Writers’ Theatre’s revelatory new production of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” You’d think that all there is to say about so popular a play would have been said long ago, but it is Mr. Cromer’s special gift to make old plays seem new without rendering them unrecognizable. His “Streetcar,” like the productions of “Our Town,” “The Glass Menagerie” and “Picnic” that came before it, strips the accumulated layers of convention and preconception off the surface of a classic and brings the viewer face to face with the play itself.
Mr. Cromer and his set designer, Collette Pollard, have reconfigured Writers Theatre’s 108-seat performance space as a theater in the round and placed the two-room railroad flat of Stanley and Stella Kowalski (Matt Hawkins and Stacy Stoltz) in the center of the house, putting the members of audience as close to the action as it is possible to get. (I was seated eight feet from the Kowalskis’ bed.) The intimacy of this setup makes you feel as though you’re eavesdropping on “Streetcar” rather than merely watching it. It also makes it possible for the members of Mr. Cromer’s ensemble cast to underplay a show that is almost always overplayed….
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Read the whole thing here.

“It was with my special concurrence, and indeed at my suggestion, that he went on with his law studies with undiminished zeal, as there is nothing so repugnant to me as a musician who is that alone, without any higher general culture.”
Richard Wagner, letter to Franziska von Bülow, Sept. 19, 1850

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:

• La Cage aux Folles * (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

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

• Fences * (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes July 11, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, 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, closes June 13, reviewed here)

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

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• Killer Joe (black comedy-drama, X, extreme violence and nudity, closes June 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

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

• God of Carnage (serious comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes June 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• Doctor Knock, or The Triumph of Medicine (satire, G, not easily accessible to children, closes June 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:

• The Good Soul of Szechuan (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes May 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• The Temperamentals (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes May 30, reviewed here)

Nothing has ever been too good for the public.

Nothing has ever been good enough for the public.

Orson Welles, undated memorandum, 1942

Webb Pierce sings “There Stands the Glass”:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

“I like music that is proud of itself.”
Bernard Herrmann (quoted in Steven Smith, A Heart at Fire’s Center)

Believe it or not, I’m still giving speeches about Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, and my next one will take place on Thursday at the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library. The address is 455 Fifth Avenue and the festivities get underway is six-thirty sharp.
If you’ve somehow managed to miss my dog-and-pony show until now, it’s time to plug this yawning hole in your life–and to get your copy of Pops signed, assuming that you own one, no other assumption being possible. I do have one more Pops-related New York appearance set for Bryant Park on August 11, but why wait until then when you can see me now?
For more details, go here.