Pardon my absence, but I’ve been grappling with a combination of technical problems, personal distractions, and a flood of back-to-back openings on and off Broadway, and I simply haven’t had time to post on this blog for the last three weeks. I’m glad to be back!
Here are links to the pieces I’ve published in The Wall Street Journal since my last posting:
• I reviewed a superb streaming webcast of A Phoenix Too Frequent, Christopher Fry’s rarely produced three-character verse play, directed by Keira Froom and performed by Wisconsin’s American Players Theatre. To read what I wrote, go here.
• I wrote an all-flags-flying rave of Bedlam’s new off-Broadway stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, directed by Eric Tucker. Read all about it here.
• I wrote with identical enthusiasm about the Broadway transfer of Lackawanna Blues, Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s one-man autobiographical play, but didn’t think much of Six, a new concert-style pop musical about the six wives of Henry VIII. My review is here.
I recently made a new friend, an occurrence that is unfailingly gratifying for the middle-aged, since the constant friction of life has an unfortunate way of robbing us of the old ones. People are forever dying or moving away or getting married, having children, and withdrawing into the increasingly private sphere of family life, and if you don’t continually replenish your reserve of friends, you’re likely to look up one day and find that you haven’t any….
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review a streaming webcast of the stage version of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Streaming webcasts of theatrical performances are growing increasingly scarce as Broadway producers and drama companies begin opening their doors once more. Yet their value remains undiminished, for streaming video gives regional companies a national profile and makes shows available to viewers who either find it difficult to go to the theater or are nervous about Covid-19. What’s more, it doesn’t necessarily require a budget-busting cash outlay from producer: One of the things I learned from reviewing streaming theater during the lockdown was that you don’t need multiple cameras to capture a play for webcast. It turns out that some (though by no means all) of the single-camera videos routinely made by theater companies for their archives can also be watched with pleasure at home.
Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse, for example, has just made available on its website an archival video of a live performance of its 2008 production of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” staged by Mark Lamos, the company’s artistic director. While there’s nothing fancy about the camerawork, the production itself comes through transparently and persuasively, enhanced by the audible presence of a fully involved audience. What’s more, Mr. Lamos and his 10-person cast, led by Brian Hutchison and Mark Mineart as George and Lennie, have given us a first-class version of Steinbeck’s 1937 novella, one in which the familiar tale of two itinerant ranch hands who share a tragic rendezvous with fate is told in an unadorned style that makes it fresh and new…..
The 1939 film version of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, starring Burgess Merideth and Lon Chaney Jr., directed by Lewis Milestone, and scored by Aaron Copland:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
