Archives for 2018

“Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature—it requires, in fact, the nature of a true Individualist—to sympathise with a friend’s success.”

Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”

Mrs. T is resting fairly comfortably in the New York-Presbyterian ICU, watching movies with me on TCM and undergoing therapy that is aimed at stabilizing her condition and clearing the way for the possibility of a double lung transplant at some point—we hope—in the near future. (To find out why she’s in the hospital, go here.) At present she’s too frail for visitors, but I’ve been telling her about the outpouring of sympathy and concern in the social media, which she finds downright astonishing. It means the world to her—and to me—to know how very much you all care.

Many, many thanks for your kind messages. I’ll keep you posted.

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, 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)

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

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

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:
• Symphonie Fantastique (abstract underwater puppet show, G, closes Sept. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING FRIDAY IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare, PG-13, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Pushkin: A Life Played Out (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 25, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY IN STOCKBRIDGE, MASS.:
• The Petrified Forest (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 25, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• Richard II (Shakespeare, PG-13, reviewed here)

“Who knows what true loneliness is—not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion.”

Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes

“The Life You Save,” a TV adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” written by Nelson Gidding, directed by Herschel Daugherty, and starring Gene Kelly, Janice Rule, and Agnes Moorehead. This film was originally telecast by CBS on March 1, 1957, as an episode of Schlitz Playhouse of Stars. After watching the program, O’Connor told a friend, “The best I can say for it is that conceivably it could have been worse. Just conceivably”:

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

“I have never been anywhere but sick. In a sense sickness is a place more instructive than a long trip to Europe, and it’s a place where there’s no company, where nobody can follow.”

Flannery O’Connor, letter to Betty Hester, June 28, 1956

From 2008:

The Old Burying Ground is shady, quiet, and full of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tombstones, some worn almost smooth and others as legible as on the day they were carved. A fair number of Revolutionary War veterans are buried there, and their graves are marked with small flags. It’s not a spot that ordinary tourists seek out, nor does Cather’s grave appear to draw many visitors….

Read the whole thing here.

“One rediscovers the joy of living, but the gaiety no longer penetrates the heart of things.”

Camille Saint-Saëns, in conversation with Emile Baumann (c. 1907, quoted in Brian Rees, Camille Saint-Saëns: A Life)