Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
A scene from the film version of Somerset Maugham’s “The Alien Corn,” directed by Harold French, adapted for the screen by R.C. Sherriff, introduced by Maugham. The film is one of four sections of Quartet, a Maugham anthology film released in 1948. The aspiring young pianist is played by Dirk Bogarde:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“’If I thought you had in you the makings of an artist I shouldn’t hesitate to beseech you to give up everything for art’s sake. Art is the only thing that matters. In comparison with art, wealth and rank and power are not worth a row of pins.’ She gave us a look so sincere that it was void of insolence. ‘We are the only people who count. We give the world significance. You are only our raw material.’”
Somerset Maugham, “The Alien Corn”
“Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.”
Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale
The Manhattan Transfer sings Claude Thornhill’s “Snowfall” in concert:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
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Throughout the pandemic, New York’s Irish Repertory Theatre has been setting the standard for theatrical webcasts in America. Now all nine of the shows that the company presented in 2020 are being replayed in rotating repertory—four times each—as part of its Theatre @ Home Winter Festival. I reviewed most of them with high enthusiasm during their original runs, but “Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom, ” a revival of Aedín Moloney’s one-woman show adapted by her and the Irish novelist Colum McCann from James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” inexplicably got past me. It is an unmixed pleasure to catch up with it now. Ms. Moloney is one of the Irish Rep’s most gifted actors—I have reviewed her in several of that great company’s productions, including its unforgettable 2011 revival of Brian Friel’s “Dancing at Lughnasa”—and I didn’t see a more impressive individual performance by anyone last year….
Joyce’s unpunctuated run-on sentences, though resistant to the eye, explode into life when read aloud or—better still—acted by an artist like Ms. Moloney, who was born and raised in Dublin and whose accent is as Irish as a triple shot of Jameson….
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Read the whole thing here.
Fredric March appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line? (His first name is misspelled on the nameplate.) John Daly is the host and the panelists are Steve Allen, Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, and Margaret Truman. This episode was originally telecast live by CBS on March 21, 1954:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
