Archives for August 2016

“Happiness in life is often constructed from tiny wonderful things—hot toast with butter—not big things.”

Whit Stillman, interviewed by Chris White (Curator, May 23, 2016)

Lotte Lenya sings “Pirate Jenny,” from Marc Blitzstein’s English-language adaptation of the Brecht-Weill Threepenny Opera. This performance was telecast on the BBC in 1962. Lenya created the role of Jenny in the original 1928 production of Die Dreigroschenoper::

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

“An extraordinary people and he wasn’t yet at home with them. One half seemed caught in a caste system which defeated him, the other in a dislike of it which at times came close to malice. In any other country he’d have called it a civil war.”

William Haggard, The Power House

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a New Jersey revival of Exit the King. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Whatever happened to Eugène Ionesco? Nothing, really—he’s still one of the most important and influential playwrights of the postwar era—but his plays are now rarely seen on the New York stage. Only two of them have been done on Broadway in the past quarter-century, neither successfully, and the 2009 production of “Exit the King” only got there in the first place because of the presence in the cast of Susan Sarandon (who, like most movie stars who take belated shots at Broadway, ended up not being much good). Hence it is thrilling news that the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey has opened an impressive production of “Exit the King,” and that “Rhinoceros” will be mounted Off Broadway by the Pearl Theatre Company later this season….

Ionesco, who died in 1994, was one of the European writers whose work inspired the expression “theater of the absurd,” and “Exit the King,” first performed in 1962, displays his method at its most potent. It shows us the last 90 minutes of the life of King Berenger the First (Brent Harris), a 400-plus-year-old monarch who lives in a crumbling castle. He knows the hour of his death—he’s probably always known it—but has chosen to pretend that it’ll never come, preferring to frolic with his nubile young mistress (Jesmille Darbouze) instead of facing the inevitable with suitably regal dignity. “Why was I born,” he asks, “if it wasn’t forever?” Then Queen Marguerite (Marion Adler) and his doctor (Greg Watanabe) inform him that he will die “in an hour and a half…at the end of the show.” All at once his hair turns white and his body starts to disintegrate…

It isn’t hard to find contemporary relevance in “Exit the King,” and the 2009 Broadway revival, directed by Neil Armfield and starring Geoffrey Rush, underlined it to excess by using a new translation by Messrs. Armfield and Rush that was modernized, vulgarized and generally dumbed down. Ms. Monte, by contrast, has chosen to let Ionesco’s masterpiece speak for itself, returning to Donald Watson’s now-standard 1963 English-language version and setting the action in a straightforwardly rendered Gothic throneroom. (The only modern touch is the boom box from which the “derisive rendering of regal music” that sets the play in motion blares forth.) She has also judiciously trimmed the text in order to bring the running time down to the 90 minutes specified by Marguerite, a shrewd decision that improves its dramatic flow. Otherwise, Ms. Monte gives us “Exit the King” as is, trusting in Ionesco and her marvelous cast to get the job done without gratuitously “clever” directorial intrusions—and that they do….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

A video teaser for the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey revival of “Exit the King”:

An undated CBC interview with Eugène Ionesco, conducted in French and subtitled in English:

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

“Nobody loves them, and rightly, for they are creatures of the night. Has anybody ever seen a dramatic critic in the daytime? I doubt it. They come out after dark, and we know how we feel about things that come out after dark. Up to no good, we say to ourselves.”

P.G. Wodehouse, Over Seventy (courtesy of Levi Stahl)

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, many 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, 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, extended through Nov. 20, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 10, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, closes Sept. 4, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:
• Bye Bye Birdie (musical, G, closes Sept. 8, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:
• The Lonesome West (black comedy, PG-13, closes Aug. 27, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• Measure for Measure (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 28, reviewed here)

“Delusions of grandeur are stupid and delusions of past grandeur fatal.”

William Haggard, The Arena