Terry Teachout's Blog, page 174

TT: Just because

Harpo Marx plays "Guardian Angels" in the 1945 film The All-Star Bond Rally:



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

TT: Some highlights from Satchmo at the Waldorf

Yes, I'm thrilled that Shakespeare & Company will be producing Satchmo at the Waldorf this August in Lenox, Massachusetts--but that doesn't diminish the delight with which I remember the world premiere in Orlando, Florida, last September. It was one of the great nights of my life.

Now Dennis Neal, who played the dual role of Louis Armstrong and Joe Glaser in Orlando, and Rus Blackwell, who directed the show, have put together a three-minute promo reel of highlights from their production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, which they hope to perform elsewhere in the future. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I did.

Warning: the language in this video is not suitable for children!

Take it away, Satch:

TT: Almanac

"If I were dying, my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. letter to Jingxiong Wu (Apr. 10, 1924)

TT: Everybody was wrong

In today's Wall Street Journal I review two off-Broadway openings, The Lady from Dubuque and Tribes . Here's an excerpt.

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The premiere of Edward Albee's "The Lady from Dubuque" was one of those soul-shriveling disasters that can blight a whole career. It opened on Broadway in 1980 to a raucous chorus of critical raspberries (John Simon dismissed it as "one of the worst plays about anything, ever") and closed after just 12 performances. A decade went by before the author of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" recaptured his professional equilibrium, and even though Mr. Albee has long since gone on to further triumphs, "The Lady from Dubuque" vanished into the memory hole, going unrevived in New York until Signature Theatre surprised everybody by exhuming it this season. And guess what? It turns out to be a good play--very good.

The subject of "The Lady of Dubuque" is death, which is personified by Elizabeth and Oscar (Jane Alexander and Peter Francis James), an urbane, well-dressed couple who pay an unwelcome visit to the suburban home of Jo (Laila Robins), who is suffering from an unspecified ailment that is killing her slowly and painfully, much to the dismay of Sam (Michael Hayden), her loving husband. Jo's suffering has sharpened her tongue and corroded her inhibitions about using it on her friends and neighbors, four of whom have dropped by for drinks as the play gets underway. What follows bears a family resemblance to the "Get the Guests" scene of "Virginia Woolf," with Jo hacking away in all directions until the pain reduces her to inarticulate howling. Then Elizabeth and Oscar make their unexpected entrance just before intermission, and what started out as a hard-edged naturalistic drama becomes a sky-high comedy...

Ms. Robins is beyond any conceivable doubt the star of this show, in which she gives a scaldingly true-to-death performance, the kind that Cynthia Nixon ought to be giving in "Wit." David Esbjornson, the director, has served Mr. Albee exceptionally well, striking just the right balance between amusing archness and horrific realism...

Not much needs to be said about Nina Raine's "Tribes" other than that you should go see it as soon as you can. A well-wrought drama about a self-consciously arty family of compulsive talkers whose youngest member (Russell Harvard) is deaf, "Tribes" is being performed Off Broadway in a theater-in-the-round staging by the nonpareil David Cromer that maximizes the play's considerable strengths...

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Read the whole thing here .

TT: Almanac

"The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "The Path of Law"

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, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Godspell (musical, G, suitable for children, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren't actively prudish, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Other Desert Cities (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes June 17, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

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

• Beyond the Horizon (drama, PG-13, closes Apr. 8, reviewed here)

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

• Look Back in Anger (drama, PG-13, closes Apr. 8, reviewed here)

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

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (monologue, PG-13, closes Mar. 18, reviewed here)

• Galileo (drama, G, too complicated for children, closes Mar. 18, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• Blood Knot (drama, G/PG-13, possible for unusually mature children, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

"Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "The Path of Law"

TT: Snapshot

An excerpt from the TV documentary The Broadway of Lerner and Loewe, directed by Norman Jewison and originally telecast on NBC in 1962, in which Robert Goulet, Richard Burton, and Julie Andrews talk about and perform a scene from the original Broadway production of Camelot. The host is Maurice Chevalier:



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

TT: Almanac

"There is in all men a demand for the superlative, so much so that the poor devil who has no other way of reaching it attains it by getting drunk."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "Natural Law"

TT: Almanac

"Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "The Class of '61" (speech, June 28, 1911)