Terry Teachout's Blog, page 258

TT: Almanac

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."

Mark Twain, notebook entry, January/February 1894

TT: Almanac

"He was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie."

Mark Twain, "Brief Biographical Sketch of George Washington"

TT: Almanac

"I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever."

Mark Twain, "Answers to Correspondents"

TT: For Floridians only (cont'd)

If you should happen to be in or near the Winter Park-Orlando area of Florida, I'll be speaking about Danse Russe , the new opera that I'm writing with Paul Moravec, tomorrow night at seven p.m. under the auspices of the Winter Park Institute. Here's part of the press release:

In 2009, the Santa Fe Opera premiered The Letter, an opera by Teachout and Pulitzer-winning composer Paul Moravec based on W. Somerset Maugham's 1927 play. Now the two men are collaborating on Danse Russe, a backstage comedy about the creation of The Rite of Spring that will be premiered by Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater in the spring of 2011. In collaboration with the music department of Rollins College, Teachout presents a sneak preview of excerpts from Danse Russe and talks about the challenge of writing his first original opera libretto....

For more details, go here .

TT: Almanac

"If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's Workshop. After Youth, that is."

Kingsley Amis, Jake's Thing

TT: Twelve superior actors

In today's Wall Street Journal drama column I sing the praises of a show in Sarasota, Florida, Asolo Rep's revival of Twelve Angry Men . Here's an excerpt.

* * *

Great character actors make the world of theater go round. Florida's Asolo Repertory Theatre is proving the point with its exceptional revival of "Twelve Angry Men." Reginald Rose's popular jury-room drama is better known as a movie than a play--it was originally written for a CBS telecast in 1954, then filmed in 1957, and only made it to Broadway a half-century later--and the film version starred Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb, two of Hollywood's best-known faces. In most of its incarnations, though, "Twelve Angry Men" has served as a vehicle for unfamous performers who look and sound (as Jack Webb said of the character actors whom he cast in "Dragnet") "as real as a guy pouring a cup of coffee." That's what Asolo Rep is giving us, and the results are truly inspiring.

Mr. Rose's 1964 stage version of his original "Studio One" teleplay is an astonishingly well-made piece of work. The mechanism that propels the stage action, which is played out in real time, couldn't be simpler--one juror gradually persuades his 11 colleagues not to send a slum kid to the electric chair--but often the simplest devices are the best ones...

The script also contains more than its share of high-minded heavy-handedness, however, and there are more than a few moments when you can all but see "APPLAUD" and "BOO" signs flashing over the proscenium. Not only is the never-seen slum kid who's been accused of killing his father a member of an (unspecified) minority group who Never Had a Chance, but Juror No. 10 (played here by Douglas Jones) is an eye-rollingly self-evident bigot who telegraphs his bad-guy status right at the top of the play by making a clanking reference to "those people." As for Juror No. 8 (Jud Williford), the lone holdout, he's so damn noble that Fonda actually wore a white suit when he played the part in Sidney Lumet's film.

But since I last saw "Twelve Angry Men" in the Roundabout Theatre Company's excellent 2004 Broadway premiere, I've had two eye-opening experiences: I saw a kinescope of the original live-TV version, which was performed much more straightforwardly than Lumet's film, and I served as the foreman for a New York jury. No, I didn't wear a white suit, nor was I especially noble, but I did get to see how seriously my fellow jurors took what we were doing, and I realized in the process was that "Twelve Angry Men" is for the most part surprisingly true to life in its portrayal of what happens in a jury room. So is Asolo Rep's production, which has been staged with bracing clarity by Frank Galati, a member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble....

* * *

Read the whole thing here .

TT: Afraid of the dark

The you-can't-say-that brigade has been out in force lately, and I take on the forces of silence in today's Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column. Here's an excerpt.

* * *

In an age of political correctness run amok, defenders of free speech can never let their guard down. The past couple of weeks, however, have seen a string of particularly egregious incidents:

• In Alabama, Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Montgomery's Auburn University, has edited a sanitized version of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," the greatest of all American novels, in which the word "nigger" is replaced with "slave."

• In Canada, "Money for Nothing," a song by Dire Straits that was a hit single in 1985, has now been banned from the airwaves by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) because Mark Knopfler's lyrics make ironic use of the word "faggot," putting it in the mouth of an envious working-class lout who uses it to refer to a rock star "with the earring and the make-up."

• In Connecticut, David Snead, Waterbury's superintendent of schools, is trying to stop that city's Arts Magnet School from putting on a student production of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" because the characters, all but one of whom are black, make repeated use of the word "nigger."

Since these three incidents were the work of cultural bureaucrats who not only believe in mincing words but want to force you to mince yours as well, I'll put it as bluntly as possible: Messrs. Snead and Gribben and the members of the CBSC are pusillanimous boobs who deserve to be fired. And while one expects such monstrosities these days, what happened in Waterbury is specifically deserving of your attention, embodying as it does a moral cowardice unworthy of anyone who claims to be a teacher....

* * *

Read the whole thing here .

TT: Almanac

"It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children."

Kingsley Amis, One Fat Englishman

TT: Just because

Courtesy of Isaac Butler , one of the most unintentionally funny commercials ever filmed:

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.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

• La Cage aux Folles (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Driving Miss Daisy * (drama, G, possible for smart children, closes Apr. 9, reviewed here)

• The Importance of Being Earnest (high comedy, G, just possible for very smart children, closes Mar. 6, reviewed here)

• Lombardi (drama, G/PG-13, a modest amount of adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Angels in America (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Mar. 27, reviewed here)

• 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)

• Play Dead (theatrical spook show, PG-13, utterly unsuitable for easily frightened children or adults, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (drama, PG-13/R, adult subject matter, closes Feb. 13, transfers to Washington, D.C., Feb. 25, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN FORT MYERS, FLA.:

• Sylvia (comedy, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here)