Our Town (Huntington Theatre Company, Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont St., Boston, extended through Jan. 26). David Cromer’s staging of Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece, which ran off Broadway for more than 600 performance, is now being remounted in Boston. It’s the greatest revival of a classic play that I’ve seen in my entire theatergoing life, a re-creative landmark that at once arrestingly original and fundamentally faithful in its approach to the author’s well-loved text. Don’t listen if anybody tries to tell you about the surprise ending–and once you’ve seen the show, don’t tell anybody what happens (TT).
Archives for December 4, 2012
CD
Donald Fagen, Sunken Condos (Reprise). A new solo album from the co-founder of Steely Dan, Sunken Condos is very much in the now-familiar vein of Morph the Cat, its immediate predecessor. That is, however, a compliment, not a knock. Sly lyrics, subtle harmonies, richly textured rock/jazz/R&B instrumental tracks, virtuoso playing from all parties concerned–what more could you possibly want? This is rock for grownups, wholly adult in its musical language and emotional concerns (TT).
TT: Fill the air
Six years ago I posted a list of my favorite Christmas records. I still like all of them, and so, I hope, will you.
TT: Lookback
From 2005:
I recently saw a stage actress I know in an episode of a popular TV series. This was a new experience for me. I’ve watched any number of writer friends hold forth on talk shows, and I’ve even tuned into David Letterman to see a band whose members I know quite well. But all those people were being themselves, more or less, whereas my actress friend was pretending to be someone else. Of course she was in one sense wholly herself (I knew her smile in an instant/I knew the curve of her face), and the part she played drew deeply on her familiar energy. Nor was she made up in any deceptive way: she looked like the person I know. Yet some uncanny transformation had nonetheless taken place, and I found myself to be more than a little bit disoriented as I watched her on the screen….
Read the whole thing here.
TT: Almanac
“When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn’t really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart. And I’ve never forgotten.”
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go