Archives for August 2016

“One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.”

Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics

The Jimi Hendrix Experience plays “Purple Haze” in 1970 at the Atlanta Pop Festival:

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

“It is the fact, that by the constitution of society the bold, the vigorous, and the buoyant, rise and rule; and that the weak, the shrinking, and the timid, fall and serve.”

Walter Bagehot, “William Cowper”

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the new Broadway revival of Cats. Here’s an excerpt.

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Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” opened in New York in 1982 and closed 18 years later, the fourth-longest run in the history of Broadway. It helped make the Great White Way what it is today, a theme park dominated by long-running, child-friendly “destination” shows that tourists come to town to see. Now it’s back, this time in a restaging by Trevor Nunn, the director of the original production, that is substantially identical to its predecessor and whose marketing slogan, “Let the Memory Live Again,” translates more or less as follows: “You loved it as a kid—now bring your kids!”

This puts me at a disadvantage, for not only am I childless, but I didn’t see “Cats” in my youth. In fact, I never saw it at all, whether on Broadway or anywhere else. On the other hand, I’m now seeing it free of the overstuffed baggage of nostalgia. I came to the show as fresh as I came to “Hamilton.”

So how does “Cats” differ from the musicals that have opened on Broadway since 1982? It has…

• No plot. Nothing much happens in “Cats,” and there’s barely any spoken dialogue. Most of the musical numbers are ballads that describe the appearance and personality of the characters but suggest no particular stage action. It follows that the results are, like “Tommy” or Baron Lloyd-Webber’s own “Jesus Christ Superstar,” dramatically static, a string of vignettes that sounds more like a pop oratorio than a musical (though “Cats” also has much in common with England’s Christmastime “panto” shows).

• One tune. “Memory” is the only number in “Cats” whose melody is at all striking (in part because it’s Puccini-based). Some of the other numbers are chanted, both individually and chorally, and the rest consist of unmemorable jingle-like fragments.

• Old-fashioned lyrics. Except for “Memory,” the lyrics are virtually all by T.S. Eliot, the author, among other things, of “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” the 1939 volume of light verse on which “Cats” is based. It stands to reason that they’re formal-sounding to the point of quaintness…

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Read the whole thing here.

Betty Buckley and the original cast of Cats perform on the 1983 Tony Awards telecast:

“Sears, Roebuck and Co. Introduces the Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art,” a 1962 training film made by Vincent Price to explain to Sears employees how to sell fine art to their customers:

To read more about the Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art, go here.

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

“I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil.”

Edward Teller (quoted in István Hargittai, The Martians of Science : Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century)

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

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

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN PITTSFIELD, MASS.:
• The Pirates of Penzance (operetta, G, closes Aug. 13, reviewed here)

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

“We live and negotiate with the people; if their conversation be troublesome to us, if we disdain to apply ourselves to mean and vulgar souls (and the mean and vulgar are often as regular as those of the finest thread, and all wisdom is folly that does not accommodate itself to the common ignorance), we must no more intermeddle either with other men’s affairs or our own; for business, both public and private, has to do with these people.”

Michel de Montaigne, “Of Three Commerces” (trans. Charles Cotton)