Terry Teachout's Blog, page 156

TT: Almanac

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet"

TT: Just because

Bernadette Peters sings Stephen Sondheim's "Not a Day Goes By":



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

TT: The long goodbye (I)

Sooner or later, the approach of death imposes an iron economy of illusion. The euphemisms that once sustained you start to cloy, and at length a time comes when you can no longer bear to speak or hear them. I saw it happen to a friend of mine who was dying by inches of a degenerative disease. One day he told me that he could no longer stand the company of optimists who urged him to "think positive." He knew he was dying and that the end would be terrible, and his only comfort, such as it was, came from being able to talk about it honestly with those of his friends who were willing to hear him do so. Not many were.

I remembered that conversation when the bottom fell out of my mother's life last December. She, too, was dying by inches, but none of us, including her, had been ready to face the truth until she was assaulted by pain of the most savage and unrelenting kind, an agony to which all normal remedies were unequal. Then, on the night after Christmas, she looked at me and said, matter-of-factly, "I think I'm going to die."

I replied, half stupidly and half practically, "Do you mean eventually, or now?"

"Now," she said.

It was no time for gentle evasions. I promised that we'd do our best to take care of her and make what was to come as easy as we could. Then I stepped into the corridor, called my brother on his cellphone, and repeated to him, word for word, what she had said. He rushed to the nursing home, and within the hour a hospice-care representative met with us in my mother's room. The talk was simple and straightforward. Not long after that, she was given a dose of morphine strong enough to soothe her pain, and the only question that remained was the simplest one of all: how much longer would she live?

What is true for the dying turns out to be no less true for those who love them. Set aside the language of hope and you soon start speaking in another tongue, one that is frank enough to horrify innocent outsiders who don't know what it's like to watch a parent die. I loved my mother no less after I accepted the awful fact of her coming death, but I also caught myself saying things out loud that not so long before I wouldn't have allowed myself even to think. First came It's time, then She'd be better off dead, and eventually If she dies tomorrow, I won't have to reschedule our flight to California. It was crass and callous and I hated myself for it, above all because I knew that it was nothing more than the plain truth.

Try as you will, you can't ignore the daily necessities. As W.H. Auden wrote of human suffering in Musée des Beaux Arts , "It takes place/While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along." Barely an hour after my father died, I took my mother to a Burger King around the corner from the hospital, where we ordered Whoppers and chatted lovingly about his quirks and foibles. He was dead, after all, and we hadn't eaten the whole day long. It would no more have profited my father for us to starve ourselves than it would have profited my mother for me to forget that when the funeral is over, the mourners must go back to work sooner or later--usually sooner.

* * *

From the end of December, when I returned to New York, to the beginning of May, not a day went by without my thinking of my mother's death. At first I thought about it constantly, taking for granted that it would happen in a matter of weeks and--yes--at what I assumed would be an impossibly inconvenient moment for me. (Shame! shame! I told myself, unable to repress the selfish thought and unwilling to acknowledge, much less accept, that everyone thinks such unworthy things at one time or another.) But she didn't die, and I got used to the idea that she might cling to life for an unknowable amount of time, and that every day she stayed alive would be a day of suffering, not only for her but for all those who knew her best and loved her most. Dostoevsky said it: "Man gets used to everything--the beast!"

Having long been in the habit of calling my mother every night or two from wherever I happened to be, I now found myself conducting one-sided phone "conversations" in which she whispered the feeblest of greetings, then listened in silence while I rattled on at length about what I'd done that day, trying in vain to distract her. She was too weak to say anything more than hello, or even to grasp the receiver in her hand. Instead my brother stood at her bedside and held it to her ear, assuring me afterward that he could tell from the look in her eyes that she was glad to hear my voice.

In March I carved four days out of my schedule and flew to Smalltown. I knew that the last month of the Broadway season would be unusually crowded with opening nights, and feared that if I didn't see my mother at once, I might not be able to get back again until the final crisis. By then, though, I had grown accustomed to the notion that she might linger indefinitely. It never occurred to me that she would have deteriorated so much in the preceding three months that the sight of her would stun me. I had to exert the utmost self-control to keep my knees from buckling when I first saw her lying in bed, ashen and wasted. ("I didn't try to warn you because I figured it wouldn't help," my ever-sensible brother told me later that night. "Nothing could have prepared you for the way she looks now.")

"I'm here, Mom," I said, trying to sound unshaken. "I told you I was coming, and now I'm here."

She looked up and asked, "Is it really you?" It was the first full sentence that she'd spoken to me in a month.

"It's me. And I love you."

"How much?"

I stretched my hands as far apart as I could. "This much," I said, and she smiled one last time at the ritual that had sprung up between us not long after she went into the nursing home the preceding summer.

No matter how ill she might be, my mother had always been able to pull herself together whenever I came to see her. For a few minutes it almost seemed as if she might still have the power to draw back from the brink of death. But such energy as she was able to muster soon ran out, and I spent the rest of my visit sitting by her bedside, telling her what was new with Satchmo at the Waldorf and playing the songs she loved on my laptop.

The bare, banal words "failure to thrive" ran insistently through my mind as I looked upon her shrunken form. That, the doctors said, was what was wrong with my mother, pretending to explain what they could only describe. For months she had eaten less and less, then next to nothing. Though she assured us throughout the summer and fall that she wasn't ready to die, she was no longer doing the one thing that might have made it possible for her to live. We understood: she was tired, and it was time.

I went home to New York knowing that I might be called back to Smalltown without warning. Thereafter I took care to keep my cellphone turned on and fully charged. I continued to call my mother every day or two, but most nights my brother would gently tell me that she was asleep, and finally I understood that there was no point in trying to speak with her any more. The time for talk was over.

(First of three parts)

GO TO HELLMAN

" Of the making of books about Lillian Hellman, there is no end. Since her death in 1984, she has been the subject of three full-scale biographies, a book-length memoir by one of her lovers, and a 350-page portrait of her long-term relationship with the mystery novelist and screenwriter Dashiell Hammett. An admiring PBS documentary and an adoring one-woman Broadway show have also been on offer. What is surprising about this posthumous réclame is that by 1984, Hellman had come to be widely viewed as an embarrassment to the republic of letters..."

TT: Almanac

"Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life

TT: Another chance to see Satchmo at the Waldorf

If you should happen to be at Martha's Vineyard on July 9, the Vineyard Playhouse will be presenting a one-night-only staged reading of Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, as part of its "Monday Night Specials" series of performances. Like the full-scale productions at Shakespeare & Company and Long Wharf Theatre , the play will be performed by John Douglas Thompson and directed by Gordon Edelstein.

Alas, I'll be ensconced at the MacDowell Colony and thus inaccessible, so if you happen to see the performance, write and tell me what you thought!

For more information, go here .

TT: Next stop, Broadway

In today's Wall Street Journal I review two new San Diego-area musicals, Nobody Loves You and Hands on a Hardbody . Here's an excerpt.

* * *

In case you've been worrying that the American musical is all washed up, fear not: I just got back from San Diego, where I saw two noteworthy shows that filled me with hope. Granted, they're still in development, and one of them is considerably more finished than the other, but both of these shows are already far more interesting than any of the new musicals ("Once" excepted) that made it to Broadway last season.

"Nobody Loves You," in which a geeky philosophy major (Adam Kantor) auditions for a "Survivor"-style reality TV show to make his ex jealous, could transfer to New York pretty much intact. The book, by Itamar Moses, is part open-hearted romcom, part dead-on satire (Mr. Moses, who has written for "Boardwalk Empire" and "Men of a Certain Age," knows his way around a TV studio). The songs, by Mr. Moses and Gaby Alter, are instantaneously catchy pop-rock ditties with brainy lyrics: "I hate naïve idealists/And cynical nihilists/I like open-eyed realists/With an idealistic core." Every number pushes the plot forward, resulting in a musical that seems even shorter than it is...

Truth to tell, this musical is close to bulletproof. It's tailor-made for Off Broadway, though I can just as easily see it transferring to a compact Broadway house like Circle in the Square. Either way, it has the smell of a hit....

The producers of "Hands on a Hardbody" announced on Wednesday that the show, commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse and currently running there, will move to Broadway this coming season. That's good news. Even though "Hardbody" still needs quite a bit of revision before making the big leap, it bears the unmistakable marks of a musical that is at once charmingly quirky and genuinely affecting...

Directed by Neil Pepe and performed by a top-of-the-line ensemble cast led by Keith Carradine and Hunter Foster, "Hands on a Hardbody" is a fictionalized version of the much-admired 1997 film documentary about a Texas endurance competition whose contestants must keep one hand on a brand-new pickup truck until they walk away in frustration or collapse from exhaustion. The last man (or woman) standing wins the truck. The book is by Doug Wright, the author of "I Am My Own Wife," who has set "Hardbody" in the present, emphasizing the brutalizing effects of the recession on the 10 contestants...

Mr. Wright has done a lovely job of suggesting the way in which real-life Texans talk. Not only does he never condescend to his characters, but he even takes their old-time religion seriously. The score, by Amanda Green ("High Fidelity") and Trey Anastasio, who is better known as the guitarist of Phish, is uneven in spots, but all of the ballads are beautiful...

What's wrong? The premise of "Hardbody," whose characters are required to stand in one place most of the time, makes it too physically static to fill the space of a Broadway stage. In addition, Mr. Wright's book is loose-jointed to a fault....

Even in its present form, "Hardbody" is sweet, sincere, refreshingly uncynical and full of fine songs. That's a lot to like. All that's needed is craft to match.

* * *

Read the whole thing here .

The Old Globe's trailer for Nobody Loves You:



Excerpts from Hands on a Hard Body, the 1997 film documentary:

TT: The sound of life itself

The Wall Street Journal has given me an extra drama column this week with which to report from California on South Coast Repertory's revival of August Wilson's Jitney . Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Has there been an American playwright who was better than August Wilson at turning the everyday speech of ordinary people into poetry? Maybe Clifford Odets, but I'd be hard pressed to name another rival. Scarcely a page of "Jitney," the first installment of Mr. Wilson's 10-play cycle about the black experience in America, goes by without at least a line or two that sets the air to dancing. One of the glories of South Coast Repertory's distinguished revival is that each member of the cast is fully, excitingly alive to the play's verbal music. For all its beauties, "Jitney" is not the most soundly made of Mr. Wilson's scripts, but in this staging, directed with unobtrusive but uncommon finesse by Ron OJ Parson, its flaws are rendered irrelevant by the sheer quality of the performance.

"Jitney" is set in 1977, five years before the play received its premiere. The scene is the rundown station of a gypsy-cab company in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Becker (Charlie Robinson), who runs the station, is a world-weary man of a certain age who has just received a pair of bitter blows. Not only has he learned that the city is about to tear down the decaying building that houses the station, but Booster (Montae Russell), his son, who went to prison 20 years ago for killing a woman, has served out his term and come back to Pittsburgh. Booster's unwelcome presence will trigger a confrontation with his father in which the price of pride is dramatized with a force that is worthy of Shakespeare--or Sophocles.

The first act of "Jitney" is a perfect piece of theatrical carpentry that may well be the best thing Mr. Wilson ever wrote. The climactic showdown between Becker and his son has an operatic thrust and weight, and even the most casual of conversations elswehere in the play ring with the sound of life itself....

Not only is Mr. Parson's staging as earthy and right as a 12-bar blues, but Shaun Motley's sad, shabby set and Vincent Olivieri's precisely calculated sound design supply the frame for a winningly fine display of ensemble acting by the entire nine-person cast, led with unimpeachable realism by Mr. Robinson....

* * *

Read the whole thing here .

TT: So you want to see a show?

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:

• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Sept. 9, reviewed here)

• The Best Man (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 9, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• The Columnist (drama, PG-13/R, closes July 1, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Evita (musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, reviewed here)

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• 4000 Miles (drama, PG-13, closes July 1, reviewed here)

• Man and Superman (serious comedy, G, far too long and complex for children of any age, extended through July 1, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, off-Broadway remounting of Broadway production, closes June 24, original run reviewed here)

• Tribes (drama, PG-13, closes Sept. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes June 17, reviewed here)

• Venus in Fur (serious comedy, R, adult subject matter, closes June 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• The Iceman Cometh (drama, PG-13, closes June 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:

• Timon of Athens (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes June 10, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN LOS ANGELES:

• Follies (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, transfer of Kennedy Center/Broadway revival, closes June 9, original run reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Death of a Salesman (drama, PG-13, unsuitable for children, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN CHICAGO:

• Angels in America (drama, PG-13/R, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO:

• Endgame/Play (drama, PG-13, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

"All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if the nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears."

Rebecca West, The Meaning of Treason