Archives for December 2012

On Sunday morning Mrs. T and I flew south from New York City to Florida, where we took up residence on Sanibel Island in a modest, affordable little cottage (there are such things!) that is steps away from the Gulf of Mexico. We came here in January of 2011, loved it so much that we came back the following year, and are now making our third consecutive visit.
For Mrs. T, this is a vacation, pure and simple. We weren’t able to take one last summer–life got too complicated, to put it very mildly–and she is much in need of a break. So am I, but it isn’t going to be that simple. Not only will I be filing columns and reviewing shows in Fort Myers and Sarasota during our three weeks here, but I plan to write several chapters of Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington as well. On top of all that, I’ll be flying up to New York on my own next weekend for a two-night stay, in the course of which I’ll see no less than four plays, three on Broadway and one off.
So yes, I’ll be working like a man possessed–but at least I’ll be doing it in a tranquil and beautiful place where it isn’t cold. Longtime readers of this blog have watched me learn by installments how to take vacations. I also learned that even if you can’t take a full-fledged vacation, it’s almost as therapeutic to go somewhere nice to work. Coming to Sanibel for the first time drove home that lesson, and our annual visit is now an important part of my life.
Since all work and no play is a recipe for frenzy and collapse, you can rest assured that I’ll be going well out of my way to eat tasty meals, stroll up and down the beach with Mrs. T, read a few irrelevant books, and knock off at the end of each day to watch the sun set over the ocean. That said, I know perfectly well what I’m here for, as do my editors at Gotham Books and The Wall Street Journal, so don’t expect to hear from me as compulsively as usual. If you’re somewhere cold, try not to be too jealous. Remember what I’m up to, and wish me luck.
Happy New Year!

The Mills Brothers sing “Lazy River”:

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

“As the Spanish proverb says, ‘He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.’ So it is in travelling: a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.”
Samuel Johnson (quoted in James Boswell, Life of Johnson

Today’s Wall Street Journal drama column is devoted to my best-of-2012 list. Here are some of the items on it:

• Best performance in a play. Greta Wohlrabe was luminous as Kyra, the troubled lover of David Hare’s “Skylight,” which was revived with piercing sensitivity by Wisconsin’s American Players Theatre.
• Best performance in a musical. The slight, huge-eyed Cristin Milioti vaulted into the spotlight in the Broadway transfer of “Once.” She’s here to stay.
• Best revival of a play. The competition was stiff, but Bedlam took the prize with its Off-Off-Broadway version of George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan,” directed with uncanny ingenuity by Eric Tucker. All 24 roles were divvied up among a crack cast of four led by Andrus Nichols, and the result was the most exciting Shaw revival I’ve ever seen.
• Best revival of a musical. Another small-scale production, this one in Glencoe, Ill., rang the bell: William Brown staged “A Little Night Music” to emotionally overwhelming effect in Writers’ Theatre’s 108-seat house, accompanied by a five-piece pit band and graced by the perfect performance of Shannon Cochran as Desirée Armfeldt….

To see the rest of the list, including my picks for best musical, playwright, and company of the year, go here.

“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.”
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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.

BROADWAY:

• Annie (musical, G, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Dead Accounts (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Feb. 24, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Evita (musical, PG-13, closes Jan. 26, reviewed here)

• Glengarry Glen Ross (drama, R, closes Jan. 20, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Golden Boy (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 20, reviewed here)

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (musical, PG-13, most performances sold out last week, closes Mar. 10, reviewed here)

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (drama, PG-13/R, 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)

• Tribes (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 20, reviewed here)

IN BOSTON:

• Our Town (drama, G, remounting of off-Broadway production, closes Jan. 25, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• The Piano Lesson (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 13, reviewed here)

• Golden Age (comedy, PG-13, closes Jan. 13, reviewed here)

• The Great God Pan (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 13, reviewed here)

• Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (comedy, PG-13, closes Jan. 13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN MADISON, N.J.:

• Trelawny of the “Wells” (comedy, G, not well suited to young children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Bring It On (musical, G, reviewed here)

• A Christmas Story (musical, G, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

“Men are what their mothers make them.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life

The Jim Hall Trio plays “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You”:

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