Archives for February 2015

Like everyone I know who works or has ever worked in the news business, I’ve been following the Brian Williams story with the closest possible attention. I don’t know, however, that I have anything to add to what we already know: Williams repeatedly lied about his wartime experiences in Iraq in 2003, and did so in a particularly shameful way. That’s about the size of it.

On the other hand, it does strike me that it might be worth drawing your attention to one of the most celebrated radio newscasts to come out of World War II. On December 3, 1943, Edward R. Murrow, broadcasting live from London on CBS, described for his American listeners how it felt to hitch a ride on D for Dog, a Royal Air Force bomber that had attacked Berlin the preceding night. It’s also worth pointing out something that may not be self-evident to many modern-day readers, which is that Murrow personally wrote every word of that broadcast.

This is part of what he said:

The clouds below us were white, and we were black. D-Dog seemed like a black bug on a white sheet. The flak began coming up, but none of it close. We were still a long way from Berlin. I didn’t realize just how far. Jock observed, “There’s a kite on fire dead ahead.” It was a great, golden, slow-moving meteor slanting toward the earth. By this time we were about thirty miles from our target area in Berlin. That thirty miles was the longest flight I have ever made.

Dead on time, Buzz the bomb-aimer reported, “Target indicators going down.” At the same moment, the sky ahead was lit up by bright yellow flares. Off to starboard another kite went down in flames. The flares were sprouting all over the sky, reds and greens and yellows, and we were flying straight for the center of the fireworks. D-Dog seemed to be standing still, the four propellers thrashing the air, but we didn’t seem to be closing in. The clouds had cleared, and off to the starboard a Lanc was caught by at least fourteen searchlight beams. We could see him twist and turn and finally break out. But still, the whole thing had a quality of unreality about it. No one seemed to be shooting at us, but it was getting lighter all the time. Suddenly, a tremendous big blob of yellow light appeared dead ahead; another to the right and another to the left. We were flying straight for them.

Jock pointed out to me the dummy fires and flares to right and left, but we kept going in. Dead ahead there was a whole chain of red flares looking like stoplights. Another Lanc was coned on our starboard beam. The lights seemed to be supporting it. Again we could see those little bubbles of colored lead driving at it from two sides. The German fighters were at him. And then, with no warning at all, D-Dog was filled with an unhealthy white light.

I was standing just behind Jock and could see all the seams on the wings. His quiet Scots voice beat into my ears, “Steady lads, we’ve been coned.” His slender body lifted half out of the seat as he jammed the control column forward and to the left. We were going down. Jock was wearing woolen gloves with the fingers cut off. I could see his fingernails turn white as he gripped the wheel. And then I was on my knees, flat on the deck, for he had whipped the Dog back into a climbing turn. The knees should have been strong enough to support me, but they weren’t, and the stomach seemed in some danger of letting me down too….

That’s what real journalism—and real courage—sound like.

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An aircheck of Murrow’s actual 1943 broadcast:

To read the complete text of the broadcast, go here.

To learn more about the broadcast and its historical context, go here.

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The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress, William Wyler’s 1944 War Department documentary about an Army Air Force bomber and its crew. The combat footage seen in this film was shot by Wyler and other cameramen during actual air battles over enemy territory:

Edward R. Murrow interviews Bing Crosby on Person to Person in 1954:

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

“Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God.”

Jean Anouilh, Becket

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review an important Florida revival, Asolo Rep’s production of Maxwell Anderson’s Both Your Houses. Here’s an excerpt.

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For much of the 20th century, Maxwell Anderson was as hot as a playwright can be. Between 1923 and 1958, he wrote or collaborated on 29 plays and two musicals that made it to Broadway, a dozen of which were hits. Stage stars like Katharine Cornell, Rex Harrison, Helen Hayes, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne clamored to appear in his verse dramas, whose popular success led to a short-lived revival of the genre. He won a Pulitzer Prize, made the cover of Time and penned the lyrics to Kurt Weill’s “September Song,” which continues to be sung today. But Anderson’s over-earnest poeticizing became démodé long before his death in 1959, and none of his plays has ever been revived on Broadway.

The only one to hold the stage today is the Pulitzer-winning “Both Your Houses,” a 1933 prose drama about corruption in Washington that has received a fair number of regional revivals, most recently by Chicago’s Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, which mounted it last October, and Florida’s Asolo Repertory Theatre, whose production has just opened. Never having seen a Maxwell Anderson play, I feared that this one would prove to be a dusty museum piece. I couldn’t have been further off target: “Both Your Houses” is a take-no-prisoners satire that crackles with fast-talking vitality, and Frank Galati’s slam-bang staging is as good as anything you’re likely to see on Broadway, or anywhere else, this season….

In Anderson’s play, a starry-eyed schoolteacher from Nevada with the too-good-to-be-true name of Alan McClean (Tom Coiner) wins a seat in the House, unaware that he was elected with the help of a cabal of unscrupulous contractors who expect him to unwittingly do their bidding by shoehorning a half-billion-dollar dam into the next appropriations bill….

What makes “Both Your Houses” so fresh, paradoxically enough, is its old-fashioned tone: It plays like a pre-Code Hollywood comedy full of plot twists and snappy comebacks. Most of the latter are delivered by Sol Fitzmaurice (Douglas Jones), a hard-drinking congressman of boundless cynicism (“By God, if there’s anything I hate more than store liquor, it’s an honest politician!”) who endeavors without success to school his fresh-faced friend in the profitable ways of politics. The women in the 16-person cast are just as hard-boiled—you half expect to see them chewing gum….

Mr. Galati, who also staged Asolo Rep’s flawless 2011 revival of “Twelve Angry Men,” clearly knows how to crack the whip in big-cast plays. Not only does he keep “Both Your Houses” charging forward, but he’s trimmed Anderson’s wordy script so skillfully that you’d never guess anything was missing. He also has at his disposal a redoubtable ensemble cast, with Mr. Jones, who stole the show in “Twelve Angry Men,” giving a raspy-voiced performance so deeply etched that you can all but feel his colleagues rising to the occasion….

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Read the whole thing here.

A scene from Remy Bumppo Theatre Company’s 2014 revival of Both Your Houses, directed by James Bohnen:

“‘Ah, music,’ he said, wiping his eyes. ‘A magic far beyond all we do here!’”

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

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:
• Cabaret (musical, PG-13/R, most performances sold out last week, closes Mar. 29, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• It’s Only a Play (comedy, PG-13/R, extended through June 7, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, reviewed here)
• On the Town (musical, G, contains double entendres that will not be intelligible to children, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

IN SARASOTA, FLA.:
• The Matchmaker (romantic farce, G, closes Apr. 11, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN SARASOTA, FLA.:
• Knock Me a Kiss (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CAMBRIDGE, MASS.:
• Saint Joan (drama, PG-13, remounting of off-Broadway production, original production reviewed here)

“By habitually identifying beauty with reputability, it comes about that a beautiful article which is not expensive is accounted not beautiful.”

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class

Maria Callas is interviewed by Edward R. Murrow on Person to Person, originally telecast by CBS on January 24, 1958:

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