Archives for May 2017

Jeri Southern sings Ray Noble’s “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You” on Stars of Jazz, originally telecast by KABC-TV on April 22, 1957:

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

“These songs are cold and clear-sighted, there is a direct realism in them, faith in ordinary life just like in early rock and roll.”

Bob Dylan, “Q&A with Bill Flanagan” (bobdylan.com, March 22, 2017)

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:
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Groundhog Day (musical, G/PG-13, most shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• On Your Feet! (jukebox musical, G, closes August 20, reviewed here)
• Present Laughter (comedy, PG-13, closes July 2, reviewed here)
• Six Degrees of Separation (serious comedy, PG-13/R, closes July 16, reviewed here)
• Sweat (drama, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, original production reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Pacific Overtures (musical, PG-13, closes June 18, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, closes June 4, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Vanity Fair (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CHICAGO:
• Linda Vista (serious comedy, R, reviewed here)

“I can’t say who’s great or who isn’t. If somebody does achieve greatness it’s only for a minute and anyone is capable of that. Greatness is beyond your control—I think you get it by chance, but it’s only for a short time.”

Bob Dylan, “Q&A with Bill Flanagan” (bobdylan.com, March 22, 2017)

A scene from a TV version of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, originally telecast live by CBS on October 21, 1954 as an episode of Climax!. James Bond is played by Barry Nelson and Le Chiffre is played by Peter Lorre. This was the first screen version of any of Fleming’s novels. The teleplay was written by Charles Bennett and Anthony Ellis, the program was directed by William H. Brown, Jr., and the score is by Jerry Goldsmith:

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

“I can’t believe that people really prefer to go to the concert hall under intellectually trying, socially trying, physically trying conditions, unable to repeat something they have missed, when they can sit home under the most comfortable and stimulating circumstances and hear it as they want to hear it. I can’t imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen.”

Milton Babbitt (quoted in Glenn Gould, “The Prospects of Recording”)

From 2007:

Now that I’ve spent four years on the aisle as a theater critic, attending two or three performances each week in houses that rarely hold more than a thousand or so people, I find the monstrous scale of the Met to be even more problematic than I did when I was a working critic of music and dance. No doubt that’s one of the reasons why I no longer go there very often. For me, opera is drama or it’s nothing. Its purely musical values can be experienced just as well at home. Yes, I’ve seen some Met productions that made dramatic sense. John Dexter’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Mark Lamos’ Wozzeck, and Elijah Moshinsky’s Queen of Spades all rank high on my list of unforgettable nights at the theater. But they’re exceptions to a rule that I find increasingly antipathetical….

Read the whole thing here.

“I seldom go to the opera; it is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral. The spectacle of fat women sweating, with their mouths wide open, is very offensive.”

H.L. Mencken, letter to Isaac Goldberg (May 6, 1925)