Archives for December 2010

After a long and unbroken string of too-bad-to-be-true incidents, Mrs. T and I arrived last Friday at the alarming conclusion that we were both in a Philadelphia. For those unfamiliar with the one-act plays of David Ives, a Philadelphia is a metaphysical black hole “inside of what we know as reality.” When you fall into a Philadelphia, everything—but everything—goes wrong.
No, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m too tired. The two of us only just started to crawl out of our Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon, just in time to drive to New Jersey (which is, of course, dangerously close to Philadelphia) to dine with an aunt and uncle and see the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s production of I Capture the Castle. So in lieu of sharing the gory details, I’ll post an excerpt from “The Philadelphia” that explains everything. Metaphysically speaking, that is.
* * *
AL: Because in a Philadelphia, no matter what you ask for, you can’t get it. You ask for something, they’re not gonna have it. You want to do something, it ain’t gonna get done. You want to go somewhere, you can’t get there from here.
MARK: Good God. So this is very serious.
AL: Just remember, Marcus. This is a condition named for the town that invented the cheese steak. Something that nobody in his right mind would willingly ask for.
MARK: And I thought I was just having a very bad day….
AL: Sure. Millions of people have spent entire lifetimes inside a Philadelphia and never even knew it. Look at the city of Philadelphia itself. Hopelessly trapped forever inside a Philadelphia. And do they know it?
MARK: Well what can I do? Should I just kill myself now and get it over with?
AL: You try to kill yourself in a Philadelphia, you’re only gonna get hurt, babe.
MARK: So what do I do?
AL: Best thing to do is wait it out. Someday the great cosmic train will whisk you outta the City of Brotherly Love and off to someplace happier.

American Ballet Theatre dances Antony Tudor’s Pillar of Fire in 1973. The score is Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht:

“Facing it—always facing it—that’s the way to get through.”
Joseph Conrad, “Typhoon” (courtesy of Books, Inq.)

I’m taking a day off from my Wall Street Journal drama column. See you next Friday!

Rudolf Serkin, Eugene Ormandy, and the Vienna Philharmonic play the first movement of Mozart’s C Major Piano Concerto, K. 467:

“Life—how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.”
V.S. Pritchett, Midnight Oil

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:

• Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (musical, PG-13/R, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

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

• Driving Miss Daisy * (drama, G, possible for smart children, closes Jan. 29, reviewed here)

• Fela! (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

• A Free Man of Color (epic comedy, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 9, reviewed here)

• Lombardi (drama, G/PG-13, a modest amount of adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• The Merchant of Venice * (Shakespeare, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 9, reviewed here)

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

• The Pee-wee Herman Show (comic revue, G/PG-13, heavily larded with double entendres, closes Jan. 2, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, closes Jan. 16, original Broadway production reviewed here)

• Angels in America (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Feb. 20, 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)

• Play Dead (theatrical spook show, PG-13, utterly unsuitable for easily frightened children or adults, reviewed here)

IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:

• Oklahoma! (musical, G, suitable for children, closes Dec. 30, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:

• The Pitmen Painters (serious comedy, G, too demanding for children, closes Dec. 12, reviewed here)

“To be young is painful but exhilarating: to be certain and to pass into uncertainty and on to new certainties; to be conscious of the changes from one hour to the next; to be intolerant of others and blindly interested in oneself. It is so hard to remember youth, simply because one loses dramatic interest in oneself. One is harsh; one is all sentiment.”
V.S. Pritchett, Midnight Oil (courtesy of Anecdotal Evidence)