Archives for June 21, 2019

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review Kate Hamill’s new stage version of Little Women. Here’s an excerpt.

*  *  *

Kate Hamill has made a name for herself by writing ingeniously wrought stage versions of popular 19^th-century novels that treat their source material with mischievous freedom….In taking on “Little Women,” though, she’s drawing to an inside straight: Not only is Louisa May Alcott’s 1869 novel about the four March sisters and their journey to adulthood one of the most beloved of all children’s books, but it’s been adapted countless times for both stage and screen, most famously and successfully by George Cukor in 1933, with yet another version, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, set for big-screen release in December. As clever as Ms. Hamill is, what new wrinkle can she bring to so familiar a tale?

The answer is that in this “Little Women,“ directed with fizzy energy by Sarna Lapine, Jo (played by Kristolyn Lloyd) is more sexually equivocal than the old-fashioned “tomboy” of the novel….

*  *  *

Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for Little Women:

An excerpt from the 1933 screen version of Little Women, directed by George Cukor and starring Katharine Hepburn and Douglass Montgomery:

Betty Comden and Adolph Green appear as the mystery guests on What’s My Line? The panel includes Phyllis Newman, Green’s wife. The mystery-guest segment begins at 12:01. John Daly is the host and the other panelists are Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, and Kevin McCarthy. This episode was originally telecast by CBS on July 2, 1967:

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

“Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of charm.”

Cyril Connolly, “Told in Gath”