Archives for March 27, 2020

To everyone who’s written to me here and in the social media with kind and encouraging words of all sorts, both for me and for Mrs. T, I want to thank you very much for being in touch. It means the world to me to know that you think I’m doing a good job of covering the arts in these fearsome times, and it means even more to know that you are so concerned about my beloved spouse and life’s companion.

I wish I could write to you all individually, or even to a few of you, but I’m afraid that I’m so pressed with deadlines and swamped with incoming mail that I have to resort to this impersonal but truly heartfelt note. Bless you for sending your good wishes. Now as always, they buoy me up.

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a webcast of Syracuse Stage’s revival of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. Here’s an excerpt.

*  *  *

Syracuse Stage’s revival of Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus,” directed by Robert Hupp, is a thrilling staging of one of the best English-language plays of the 20^th century, and it comes across online with exhilarating clarity. You’ll have to move fast to see it: Online “tickets” are only available at syracusestage.org through this coming Sunday. Once you purchase a ticket, though, you can view “Amadeus” at any time during the next two weeks, so I suggest you buy your ticket now, then come back and finish reading this review.

Mr. Shaffer’s best-remembered play, first performed by London’s National Theatre in 1979, tells the story of the troubled relationship between Antonio Salieri, a now-forgotten 18^th-century court musician, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, by common consent the greatest of all classical composers. It is not, however, a work of history but a profound, deeply unsettling parable of the mystery of human inequality. Mr. Shaffer’s Salieri, a successful but mediocre composer, cannot bear to live in the same universe as Mozart, a genius who is (in Mr. Shaffer’s heavily fictionalized rendering) ill-mannered, grossly vulgar and unworthy of his transcendent gift….

“Amadeus” was a colossal success when it transferred to Broadway, running for 1,181 performances and winning five Tonys. Since then, though, U.S. revivals have been rare to the point of invisibility, partly because the play calls for a big, costly cast (Syracuse Stage is fielding 19 actors) and partly because Miloš Forman’s Oscar-winning 1984 screen version, in which F. Murray Abraham brilliantly replaced Paul Scofield as Salieri, was so memorable….

This version, jointly mounted by Syracuse Stage and the drama department of Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, whose students cover the smaller ensemble parts, is artistically successful in every way, above all because of Jason O’Connell’s performance as Salieri. Mr. O’Connell, familiar from his appearances with Bedlam and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, is a burly stand-up comedian turned classical actor who is best known for his comic roles. He’s always had more in him, though—the excellence of his performance as Don Juan in the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s 2013 off-Broadway production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Don Juan in Hell” staggered me—and his Salieri is a heartbreaking study in malignant envy….

*  *  *

Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for Syracuse Stage’s Amadeus:

Paul Scofield in a scene from the original National Theatre production of Amadeus:

F. Murray Abraham in the screen version of the same scene:

I’ve written an essay for the weekend Wall Street Journal that minces no words: the coronavirus pandemic is already a disaster for the performing arts in America, and things will get worse. Here’s an excerpt.

*  *  *

Of all the bad tidings brought by the coronavirus, here’s the scariest piece of news for lovers of the performing arts: The Metropolitan Opera is canceling the rest of its current season—and furloughing its orchestra members, choristers, dancers and stagehands. That reportedly comes to more than 500 people….

The Met is America’s largest performing arts organization. While it’s weathered severe budgetary problems in recent seasons, it’s successfully dealt with all of them—until now. As a result of the social-distancing lockdown in New York caused by Covid-19, the Met is staring down losses of up to $60 million. That’s a hit the company can’t survive without drastic measures in response….

What’s happening at the Met is happening at every performing-arts organization I know of, large and small alike. Opera, orchestras, dance companies, theater troupes, nightclubs: All have seen their revenues collapse overnight. And unlike the Met, which has a $300 million endowment, most of them have next to nothing in the bank to see them through the crisis….

I’m hearing much the same thing from coast to coast, though the institutional damage done by the coronavirus looks at first glance to be especially devastating to theater. Even the biggest regional theaters have either laid off staff or are days away from doing so…..

*  *  *

Read the whole thing here.

Lotte Lenya sings “Pirate Jenny” (from The Three-Penny Opera) on “The World of Kurt Weill,” an episode of NET Playhouse originally telecast in 1967. Bertolt Brecht’s lyrics are sung in Marc Blitzstein’s English-language translation:

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

“Every smart person wants to be corrected, not admired.”

Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind