Terry Teachout's Blog, page 246

TT: New leaf

I walk up these one hundred and twenty-eight steps nearly every day when I'm in Manhattan. They are the climax of my daily walk, which takes me past Bennett Park, the highest natural point on the island of Manhattan, down to the bustling Dominican enclave that surrounds 181st Street, over to a side street called Overlook Terrace, and up the long, long staircase that leads to Hudson Heights, my new neighborhood. I usually spend a half-hour on this hilly circuit, a pretty fair chunk of walking for a middle-aged man who, left to his own devices, would probably get next to no exercise at all.

Why do I do it? Because Mrs. T and my doctor want me to, and because I share their feeling that the world is a better place with me in it. Would that physical exercise came more naturally to me, but it never has, partly because I'm clumsy (a typical by-product of lifelong left-handedness) and partly because I was always the sort of kid who preferred reading or practicing piano to playing in the street. As a result, I weigh too much and have hypertension, for which I take an assortment of pills twice a day and strive to eat more austerely. Nearly dying five years ago fired my resolve to take care of myself, and getting married sealed the deal...or so I thought. But the summer and fall of 2009 were so hectic, what with the premiere of The Letter and the publication of Pops, that I fell off the wagon of self-maintenance, and by last fall I was out of shape and feeling the consequences.

The good news is that moving to Hudson Heights, perhaps not surprisingly, has inspired me to straighten up and fly right again. No, I don't like it, and somehow I doubt I ever will. But I do like exploring my new neighborhood very much, and I also like the thought of living longer. I have books and operas and plays to write, and I also have a wife who, for reasons of her own, enjoys my company and would prefer not to be deprived of it unexpectedly.

So now I'm eating smarter, getting smaller, and trudging up that 128-step staircase once a day, and maybe one day I'll learn to like it. Probably not, though.

TT: Almanac

"For one thing, creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity; the ditchdigger, dentist, and artist go about their tasks in much the same way, and any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better."

John Updike, Picked-Up Pieces

TT: At it again

In case you haven't noticed, there's new stuff in the right-hand column. Take a gander when you get a chance.

TT: The Letter is back

Paul Moravec and I aren't so busy prepping for the world premiere of Danse Russe that we've forgotten about ouf first opera . The New School is putting on an arts festival called Noir, and The Letter is part of it.

Quoth the press release:

The theme of our first arts festival is Noir, a cinematic style of shadowy expressiveness that had its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. Coined by a French critic in 1946, the term film noir refers to movies depicting a morally ambiguous world of cynical private eyes, lonely gangsters, and femme fatales. Since then, the influence of noir has been felt in areas ranging from fashion design to fine art, graphic art to fiction, suggesting the alienation and disorientation of modernism through stark silhouettes, sexual frankness, stylized emotion, and the absence of sentimentality. Join The New School community in an exploration of noir in a festival of iconic films, hard-boiled storytelling, graphic art, and illustration inspired by this uniquely 20th century style.

That's right up our alley, The Letter being what Paul has called an "opera noir," and so we're taking part in the festival, which will also feature appearances and presentations by such interesting folk as Mary Gaitskill, Molly Haskell, Todd Haynes, Ben Katchor, Greil Marcus, Frances McDormand, and Luc Sante.

For our part, Paul and I will be presenting and discussing excerpts--both live and on video--from The Letter at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 7. Our joint appearance will take place in the New School's Arnhold Hall, which is at 55 W. 13th St. in Manhattan.

Admission to this and other festival events is free, but seating is limited and you must make an advance reservation to get in. To do so, or for more information about the festival, go here .

YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD CRITIC

" The reason artblogs caught on in the first place is that they frequently offered a sharper, better-informed alternative to the bland arts coverage published in regional newspapers--and that they were, to use a word coined by no less a journalistic authority than Joseph Pulitzer, 'indegoddamnpendent.' They still are, and that's why people continue to read them. It remains to be seen whether any institutional blog will ever pack that kind of punch..."

DVD

Topsy-Turvy (Criterion Collection, out Mar. 29). Mike Leigh's 1999 film about Gilbert, Sullivan, and the making of The Mikado, newly remastered and reissued by the Criterion Collection with all the usual goodies, is the best backstage movie ever made, as well as a surpassingly fine exercise in cinematic time travel. To watch it is to feel closer to the tone and texture of Victorian life than you ever thought possible. Intelligent, provocative, hugely entertaining...what's not to like? (TT).

BOOK

Simon Nowell-Smith, The Legend of the Master: Henry James as Others Saw Him . The subtitle says it, but conveys nothing of the elegance and resourcefulness with which Nowell-Smith put together this 1947 anthology of first-hand anecdotes and impressions--all of them carefully verified. To see James through the varied eyes of Arnold Bennett, E.F. Benson, Edith Wharton, Desmond MacCarthy, and dozens of other contemporaries is to see him with the utmost immediacy, and the results are far more readable, even for pure pleasure, than any volume of this kind has any right to be (TT).

TT: Almanac

"Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order."

Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann

TT: Everybody but Mohammed

I review The Book of Mormon and Ghetto Klown in today's Wall Street Journal. Neither show passed muster with me. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the naughty boys of "South Park," have teamed up with Robert Lopez, one of the co-creators of "Avenue Q," and the results of their collaboration are pretty much what you'd expect: slick and smutty. "The Book of Mormon" is the first musical to open on Broadway since "La Cage aux Folles" that has the smell of a send-in-the-tourists hit. Casey Nicholaw ("The Drowsy Chaperone") has staged the musical numbers with cheery energy and the cast, especially Nikki M. James, is terrific. But don't let anybody try to tell you that "The Book of Mormon" is suitable for anyone other than 12-year-old boys who have yet to graduate from fart jokes to "Glee." A couple of reasonably effective production numbers notwithstanding, it's flabby, amateurish and very, very safe.

The plot is exiguous. Two shiny-faced young Mormons (Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells) are sent to Uganda to evangelize the natives, promptly discover that life in Africa is more complicated than they thought, and prevail by being geeky and lucky. This is, in other words, a one-joke show, the joke being that Mormons are unworldly nerds who think that "bullpoop" is a deletable expletive. Most of the other jokes in the show are derivative of this one and are just as obvious, including the Obligatory Song About a Closeted Gay Mormon: "Being gay is bad, but lying is worse/So just realize you've got a curable curse!" This being a "South Park" spinoff, we also get several other songs which operate on the mistaken assumption that four-letter words are automatically funny when sung, plus an assortment of AIDS-in-Africa "jokes" that are to black comedy what pies in the face are to screwball comedy.

The creators of "South Park" like to call themselves "equal-opportunity offenders," but if you think there's anything risky about "The Book of Mormon," you're kidding yourself. Making fun of Mormons in front of a Broadway crowd is like shooting trout in a demitasse cup....

John Leguizamo has turned to straight autobiography in "Ghetto Klown," his fifth one-man show. No, his parents didn't understand him. Yes, he became an actor and started getting work in Hollywood, albeit in stereotypical wisecracking-Latino-with-an-Uzi roles. Yes, he started writing one-man stage shows in order to understand himself. Yes, his screen career went into the tank, in part because of his undisciplined behavior and general mouthiness. No, his first marriage didn't work out. Yes, his second marriage did, which gave him the courage to write "Ghetto Klown" and return to the stage after an eight-year hiatus...but enough already! Mr. Leguizamo is an energetic and resourceful performer and "Ghetto Klown" has its moments. The problem is that you've heard them all before...

* * *

Read the whole thing here .

TT: Counting down

Danse Russe, my latest operatic collaboration with Paul Moravec, opens in Philadelphia on April 28. It's a backstage comedy about the making of The Rite of Spring (we call it a "vaudeville") whose four characters are Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Pierre Monteux. If you've ever wondered how the greatest composer of the twentieth century might have done the old soft shoe, now's your chance to find out.

Commissioned by Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater, Danse Russe is part of a triple bill called "Rites, Rhythm...Riot!" that also includes the local premieres of Renard, a one-act opera by Stravinsky, and Ragtime, a newly choreographed version of Stravinsky's 1918 homage to American popular music that will be performed by Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers.

You'll only get three chances to see Danse Russe, twice in Philly and once in Camden, New Jersey, so you'd better make plans now if you don't want to be left out in the cold. To buy tickets or find out more about the production, go here .