Terry Teachout's Blog, page 190

TT: Almanac

"Man must be sustained in suffering by a hope so high that no conflict with actuality can dash it--so high, indeed, that no fulfilment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond this world."

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist

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 Apr. 29, reviewed here)

• Chinglish (comedy, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Apr. 29, 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, reviewed here)

• Seminar (serious comedy, PG-13, closes Mar. 4, reviewed here)

• Stick Fly (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

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

• Dancing at Lughnasa (drama, G/PG-13, closes Jan. 29, reviewed here)

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

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

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• Follies (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Jan. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK OFF BROADWAY:

• The Cherry Orchard (drama, G, too serious for children, closes Jan. 8, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• Neighbourhood Watch (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

TT: Almanac

"By 'a good audience,' an artist means, in the first place, a crowd that is receptive, easily roused, which unresistingly succumbs to mass suggestion, whatever the actual musical standard of its members. But an audience may be very cultured musically and yet be 'bad,' namely frosty, critical and fault-finding."

Carl Flesch, Memoirs (trans. Hans Keller)

TT: Snapshot

The opening scene of a rare kinescope of a 1955 Ford Star Jubilee telecast of the original Broadway production of Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, directed by Charles Laughton and starring Lloyd Nolan as Captain Queeg:



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

TT: Almanac

"In any kind of artistic activity, it is always the impulse, the expressive need, the inner compulsion which dictates in the first place, and not the technical equipment. Just as a hungry man will always get hold of food, if need be by force, so every original artist finds, as a rule unconsciously, the necessary technical means to still his spiritual hunger."

Carl Flesch, Memoirs (trans. Hans Keller)

TT: Helen Frankenthaler, R.I.P.

The New York Times obituary is here .

* * *

"Grey Fireworks," 1982:

TT: Almanac

"As teachers, towering individualities usually are vampires who suck out their pupils' personality."

Carl Flesch, Memoirs (trans. Hans Keller)

TT: Almanac

"Now, an ingrained habit of the defensive is a prime condition of defeat."

Hilaire Belloc, Essays of a Catholic Layman in England

TT: Just because

Robert Preston sings Meredith Willson's "Trouble" (from The Music Man) on the 1971 Tony Awards telecast:



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

REVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

" To look back on the year of 'Follies' is to be reminded that it's revivals, not new work, that make American theater go 'round these days..."