Archives for July 2016

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.”

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude)

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:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, closes Jan. 1, reviewed here)
• The Color Purple (musical, PG-13, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 10, some performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, closes Jan. 1, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• Sense & Sensibility (serious romantic comedy, G, remounting of 2014 off-Broadway production, closes Oct. 2, original production reviewed here)

IN GLENCOE, ILL.:
• Company (musical, PG-13, extended through Aug. 7, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• Fully Committed (comedy, PG-13, closes July 31, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.:
• Fiorello! (musical, G, closes July 23, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CAMBRIDGE, MASS.:
• Twelfth Night (Shakespeare, PG-13, two different stagings of the same play performed by the same cast in rotating repertory, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:
• She Loves Me (musical, G, suitable for bright children capable of enjoying a love story, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude)

Gérard Souzay sings Duparc’s “L’invitation du voyage,” accompanied by Dalton Baldwin, in an undated telecast dating from the early Sixties:

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

“A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth—science—which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.”

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude)

From 2006:

I’m not one of those people who thinks everything was better when he was young, nor do I suffer from excessive respect for politicians, but I do have sharply mixed feelings about the process that brought us from Jack Paar and After Two Years: A Conversation With the President to Peri Gilpin on The Tony Danza Show and George and Laura on Larry King Live. I was tempted for a moment to say that TV did it to us, but of course we did it to ourselves: America is a democracy in the deepest and most far-reaching sense of the word, a truly popular culture whose citizens believe devoutly that they’re as good as anyone else, and who for this reason prefer their celebrities and politicians to be just like everyone else….

Read the whole thing here.

“I felt in that last glimpse of him that many of the ordinary ties of human relationship and of friendship were denied him. He could have enemies and faithful subordinates and obsequious bootlickers, but he could have no friends in the conventional sense. He had attained the category of power that made friendship and sympathy a weakness. He was a piece on the chessboard again, remote, insulated and alone.”

John P. Marquand, Melville Goodwin, U.S.A.

Van Cliburn and the Fort Worth Symphony perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the ballpark in Arlington, Texas, on opening day of the 1994 baseball season:

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