Archives for September 2016

“What a silly thing secrets are! They make us solve them somehow.”

Ivy Compton-Burnett, More Women than Men (courtesy of Levi Stahl)

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, I review a regional revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero. I also take note of the off-Broadway transfer of the Berkshire Theatre Group revival of Fiorello!, whose original run I reviewed in June. Here’s an excerpt.

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Kenneth Lonergan is having a very good year. “Hold On to Me Darling,” his first play since 2012, opened off Broadway in March, and “Manchester by the Sea,” his first film since 2011, will be released in November. Would that he were more prolific, but everything Mr. Lonergan does is worth waiting for, and worth revisiting. That’s why I went down to Tysons, a suburb of Washington, D.C., to see 1st Stage’s revival of “Lobby Hero,” in which he rings provocative changes on the simple yet compelling theme with which he has long been productively preoccupied: Life is messy. The results were worth the trip. This enthralling production, staged with absolute assurance by Alex Levy, 1st Stage’s artistic director, is at least as good as—maybe even better than—Playwrights Horizon’s original 2001 version.

“Lobby Hero” is a conversation piece that unfolds in and outside the lobby of a New York apartment house. The characters, two private security guards and two cops, get entangled in a tight snarl of mixed motives arising from a murder that may have been committed by the brother of one of the guards….

Things get progressively more complicated from there, to the point where it becomes impossible for any of the four characters to do the right thing without hurting someone else. This being a Kenneth Lonergan play, you know that nobody, no matter how nice or sympathetic he or she may seem at first glance to be, is going to get off easy.

Because “Lobby Hero” is all talk, its success is entirely reliant on the quality of the talk—and the talkers. As always, Mr. Lonergan holds up his end with the discreet virtuosity of a theatrical craftsman who has spent a lifetime paying close attention to the world around him. All four of his characters sound like honest-to-God working-class folk, the kind you could imagine meeting on the subway. So, too, do the members of Mr. Levy’s cast, who seem as unaffectedly true to life as the characters they play….

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Read the whole thing here.

“RCA Victor Announces Living Stereo,” a 1958 promotional film that explains how stereophonic sound works:

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

“I am bothered by the theater. The performance is not the same every night.”

François Truffaut (quoted in Charles Thomas Samuels, Encountering Directors)

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, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• A Day by the Sea (drama, G, not suitable for children, newly extended through Oct. 23, reviewed here)
• 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 Nov. 20, original production reviewed here)

IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:
• Sense & Sensibility (serious romantic comedy, G, remounting of 2014 off-Broadway production, closes Oct. 30, original production reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN BOSTON:
• Company (musical, PG-13, closes Oct. 9, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON OFF BROADWAY:
• Fiorello! (musical, G, off-Broadway transfer of 2016 regional revival, closes Oct. 7, original production reviewed here)

“No filmmaker likes critics, no matter how nice they are to him. Always he feels that they didn’t say enough about him, or that they didn’t say nice things in an interesting way, or that they said too many of their nice things about other directors.”

François Truffaut (quoted in Charles Thomas Samuels, Encountering Directors)

“Isaac Stern Boosts Jack’s Morale,” an episode of The Jack Benny Program originally telecast by CBS on November 6, 1955. Mel Blanc plays Benny’s violin teacher and Isaac Stern plays himself. The violin piece heard in the episode is Jules Massenet’s “Méditation” from Thaïs:

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

“I never understood the meaning of a film. I am very concrete. I only understand what is on the screen. In my whole life, I have never understood a single symbol.”

François Truffaut (quoted in Charles Thomas Samuels, Encountering Directors)