Archives for 2014

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I write about the “original-cast” albums of two modern masterpieces, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. Here’s an excerpt.
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Four months after “Virginia Woolf” opened, the original cast made a studio recording of the play. Columbia Records released it as a pricey four-LP set that went out of print a few later and was never reissued–until now. Masterworks Broadway has finally released “Virginia Woolf,” both as a digital download and as a two-CD set. What’s more, it’s even more of a rarity than you might suppose. The “Virginia Woolf” album is still, so far as I know, the only uncut commercial sound recording of a major 20th-century English-language play to have been made by the entire original cast. (Original-cast recordings of Broadway musicals are commonplace, but they’re usually heavily abridged.)
And what’s it like? Astonishing. All four actors plunge into their roles with caustic, unsparing ferocity. Naturally it would have been wonderful if their performances had been filmed, but you don’t have to see Ms. Hagen and Mr. Hill clawing drunkenly at one another to be staggered by their black desperation. Merely to hear them is to know how great they were.
Great…but not definitive.
I’ve seen many stagings of “Virginia Woolf” over the years, some of which, like the 50th-anniversary Broadway revival, were at least as impressive as this one. And since Mr. Albee didn’t direct the original production, this particular version, priceless and illuminating though it is, cannot claim to be anything other than one of many possible ways to perform “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”…
The same thing is true of “creator recordings,” classical-music recordings made by some or all of the artists who gave the premiere of a piece. It even holds true when the composer is also one of the performers….
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Read the whole thing here.
An excerpt from the original-cast recording of Virginia Woolf:

“Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves,–sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence.”
Henry David Thoreau, “Life Without Principle”

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:

• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, reviewed here)

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

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, 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)

• London Wall (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Apr. 13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:

• Middle of the Night (drama, PG-13, closes Mar. 29, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• No Man’s Land/Waiting for Godot (drama, PG-13, playing in rotating repertory, closes Mar. 30, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Outside Mullingar (comedy, PG-13, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”
John Kenneth Galbraith, letter to John F. Kennedy (Mar. 2, 1962)

Josef Hofmann performs the finale of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto in 1945 with a radio orchestra led by Donald Voorhees:

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

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness

From 2004:

In my experience, it’s usually not that hard to pick a One Best–absolute excellence is by definition self-evident–but no sooner do you venture below the pinnacle than all sorts of other factors crowd into your viewfinder. When Time asked me to pick the best dance of the 20th century, for instance, I didn’t have to think twice before choosing George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, but I found it much harder to decide on two runners-up, though I finally opted for Paul Taylor’s Esplanade and Antony Tudor’s Jardin aux Lilas. Up to a point, the problems of choice multiply as the list grows longer, though eventually they subside. I suspect that most serious moviegoers’ lists of the 50 greatest films (as opposed to their 50 personal favorites) would overlap substantially, but their Top Ten lists would wander all over the map….

Read the whole thing here.

“Vivacity, leadership, must be had, and we are not allowed to be nice in choosing. We must fetch the pump with dirty water, if clean cannot be had.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Power”