Archives for 2018

“Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.”

G.K. Chesterton, Manalive

Mrs. T was discharged from New York-Presbyterian Hospital this afternoon and is now resting comfortably at our New York apartment. I’ve promised not to wake her up in the middle of the night to give her shots or take her temperature.

No visitors yet, please—I’ll let you know when she’s up to seeing people again. For the moment, what she needs are megadoses of uninterrupted sleep and tender loving care, plus a reasonable amount of edible food. Tincture of time should take care of the rest.

Bottomless gratitude to the good, kind people at New York-Presbyterian and Cape Regional Medical Center. Without them, Mrs. T wouldn’t have made it. And thanks again for all your heart-lifting messages of love and support. They mattered, and still do.

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:
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, virtually all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all 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)
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, nearly all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Be More Chill (musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 30, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN EAST HADDAM, CONN.:
• Oliver! (musical, PG-13, closes Sept. 13, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (musical, G, too complex for children, closes Sept. 6, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Symphonie Fantastique (abstract underwater puppet show, G, reviewed here)

“Further, all realized that the sympathy they were to arouse in their readers was, finally, an effect independent of whatever the actual facts and merits of an action or an incident might be. And to whom could one repair for their verification? To no one, all realized, save to the press, all of whom knew each other to be not only jaded unto death, but distrustful of every human utterance and gesture.”

David Mamet, Chicago: A Novel

I rejoice greatly to announce that my beloved Mrs. T will be released from New York-Presbyterian Hospital some time in the next couple of days. She responded to treatment much more quickly than the doctors there and in Cape May originally expected, and they decided yesterday afternoon that she’s now in sufficiently good shape to continue recuperating at our apartment in upper Manhattan, which is close enough to the hospital for us to get back there in short order should anything untoward occur.

No visitors for now, please: Mrs. T still doesn’t have enough steam to receive guests. The good news, though, is that she’s well enough to have spent much of Tuesday reading some of the innumerable messages of love, concern, and support that so many of you have been posting on Twitter and Facebook throughout the past two weeks. I can’t begin to tell you how much those heartfelt messages have meant to her—and to me.

To those of you who decided to become organ donors after reading about Mrs. T’s plight now and last November, a special word of appreciation. She is a very private person, and the only reason why she consented to let me write about her illness was that she hoped thereby to increase public awareness of the chronic shortage of donor organs in New York and elsewhere in America. We are overjoyed by your unhesitating response.

If I may mix my metaphors, we’re not out of the woods yet—but we’re still afloat.

UPDATE: These two tweets have had special meaning for us.

* * *

Raúl Esparza sings Stephen Sondheim’s “Being Alive” in the 2006 Broadway revival of Company, directed by John Doyle:

A scene from David Mamet’s Oleanna, written in 1992 and revived in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum in 2009, starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles and directed by Doug Hughes:

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

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

I am, needless to say, greatly preoccupied these days with Mrs. T’s health, for the moment to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. Nevertheless, life goes on, and so does Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, which has now reached the stage in the life of a successful show when it starts to be scheduled for production without my knowledge by theater companies of which I know nothing. Satchmo is, in other words, all grown up, and it pleases me to watch from a distance as it goes its merry way.

I only just found out in recent weeks about two upcoming 2018-19 productions of Satchmo. The first one is by New Orleans’ Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré, which has been performing in its present theater, located in the city’s French Quarter, since 1922, This production, directed by Maxwell Williams, Le Petit Théâtre’s artistic director, opens on October 5 and runs through October 21. For more information, go here.

The second production, by Actors’ Warehouse of Gainesville, Florida, opens next June 21 and run through July 7. For more information, go here.

To everyone at Le Petit Théâtre and Actors’ Warehouse: I hope all goes well with your stagings of Satchmo. Drop me a line sometime and let me know how you’re doing!