Archives for 2013

“A writer–and, I believe, generally all persons–must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”
Jorge Luis Borges, Twenty Conversations with Borges

In today’s Wall Street Journal I give thumbs up to a pair of out-of-town shows, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s revival of Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels and the premiere in Chicago of Keith Huff’s Big Lake Big City. Here’s an excerpt.
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Everybody likes Noël Coward’s plays, but everybody does the same ones. “Private Lives” and “Blithe Spirit” get done all the time, “Present Laughter” and “Design for Living” somewhat less often, with “Hay Fever” popping up on occasion. Fine plays all, but it’s time for a change, and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey has filled the bill with a top-flight revival of “Fallen Angels,” which is at least as funny today as it was in 1925.
Julia and Jane (Julie Jesneck and Melissa Miller), the best-friend heroines, are married ladies who find their oh-so-respectable husbands (Jeffrey M. Bender and Ned Noyes) to be a bit on the dull side. According to Julia, this is a good thing: “We’re not in love a bit now, you know….It’s so uncomfortable–passion.” Maybe so, but her conviction is put to the test when Maurice (Michael Sharon), a Pepé Le Pew-type Frenchman with whom both ladies once had premarital flings, pays them a visit after a protracted absence, thereby triggering general mayhem.
Coward himself cast a cool eye on “Fallen Angels”: “It was extremely light and needed a stronger last act…I cannot honestly regard it as one of my very best comedies, but it is gay and light-hearted.” Truth or humblebrag? I know what he meant about the last act, but stage “Fallen Angels” with sharp timing and sufficient zest and the slight loss of climactic momentum will go unnoticed. In any case, you’ll laugh so hard at the second act, an extended drunk scene for Julia and Jane, that you’ll welcome the respite. Matthew Arbour, the director, has got the timing nailed…
Keith Huff, a Chicago playwright who also writes for “Mad Men,” made it to Broadway in 2009 with “A Steady Rain,” a two-man play about a pair of crooked beat cops that was mounted as a vehicle–and a powerfully potent one, too–for Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman. I was so impressed by “A Steady Rain” that I resolved to seek out Mr. Huff’s next play, which is what brought me to Chicago for the premiere of “Big Lake Big City,” a black farce about a police detective (Philip R. Smith) whose wife (Katherine Cunningham), an ex-hooker turned dental technician, has taken a shine to a pathologist at the Cook County Morgue (Kareem Bandealy) whose own spouse (Beth Lacke) is a celebrity shrink and anti-death-penalty advocate with whom the detective in question has lately crossed swords.
Got that? If not, don’t worry. Part of the point of “Big Lake Big City” is that it moves so fast that you have to scramble to keep up, and David Schwimmer (yes, the “Friends” guy) and Sibyl Wickersheimer, the director and set designer, have gone to much trouble to make sure that the show roars down the track like a bullet train….
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Read the whole thing here.

“We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us–and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle or amaze with itself, but with its subject.”
John Keats, letter to John Hamilton Reynolds, Feb. 3, 1818

The indispensable Maria Popova recently pointed to a cache of “seven-word autobiographies of famous writers, artists, musicians, and philosophers.” Some are clever, some coy, some smug. (Joan Didion: “Seven words do not yet define me.”)
I decided to play and came up with the following:
In flux. Musician, critic, biographer, librettist, playwright….
Not especially clever–except, perhaps, for the ellipsis–but at least it’s accurate. So far.

Here are the books I brought with me to read (or reread) on my trip to California and Oregon:
• Three sets of bound galleys: Stanley Crouch’s Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker, Chuck Haddix’ Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker, and Alisa Solomon’s Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof
• Larry Birnbaum’s Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock ‘n’ Roll
• Jack O’Brien’s Jack Be Nimble: The Accidental Education of an Unintentional Director
• Brian Priestley’s Chasin’ the Bird: The Life and Legacy of Charlie Parker
• Tom Wolfe’s Back to Blood

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)

• Matilda (musical, G, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

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

• The Trip to Bountiful (drama, G, extended through Oct. 9, reviewed here)

• Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (comedy, PG-13, remounting of off-Broadway production, closes Aug. 25, most performances sold out last week, original production 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)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• The Nance (play with music, PG-13, closes Aug. 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• A Picture of Autumn (drama, G, too serious for children, closes July 27, reviewed here)

• The Weir (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN GLENCOE, ILL.:

• The Liar (comedy, PG-13, extended through Aug. 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:

• Tartuffe (comedy, PG-13, closes July 21, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN PITTSFIELD, MASS.:

• On the Town (musical, G/PG-13, reviewed here)

“O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!”
John Keats, letter to Benjamin Bailey, Nov. 22, 1817

In addition to my trusty iPod, I’m traveling with the following compact discs for in-car listening:
• An advance copy of Chris Thile’s Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1, out next month from Nonesuch
• The complete recordings of the Alec Wilder Octet, burned for me by Alastair Robertson of Hep Records (I’m writing the liner notes for Hep’s upcoming reissue of the octet sides)
• Jim Hall Live! Vol. 2-4
• Booker T. and the MGs: The Definitive Soul Collection
In the immortal words of Spencer Tracy, what’s there is cherce!