Wednesday, December 4, 2019
“The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.” Vladimir Nabokov, “Problems of Translation: ‘Onegin’ in English”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, December 3, 2019
From 2009: I spend a lot of time living out of a suitcase in my capacity as drama critic of The Wall Street Journal, for which I review theatrical performances all over America. Cross-count…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Rowdies are never revolutionaries, they are always reactionary. It is among the young that the greatest conformists and Philistines are found, e.g., the hippies with their group beards an…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, December 2, 2019
I met Evelyn Grace Dukes, my grand-niece, a week and a half after she was born in Houston in February of 2018, and reflected at the time about her likely place in that which remains of my li…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMHelen Beardsley appears as a challenger on To Tell the Truth. The author of Who Gets the Drumstick?, she simultaneously raised twenty children and step-children and was portrayed by Lucill…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“All children, except one, grow up.” J.M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, November 29, 2019
Stephen Hough plays Chopin’s E Flat Nocturne, Op. 9/2, on Queen Victoria’s golden Erard piano at the 2019 BBC Proms. This performance, which took place in London’s Royal Albert Hall, w…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Once a year, at the dark end of November, Thanksgiving Day arrives in the United States. It’s one of those marvellous reminders of the good sort of innocence and naivety you can find in…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, November 28, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review an off-Broadway revival of Horton Foote’s The Young Man From Atlanta. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Sometimes—fairly often, trut…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AM“For all that has been—Thanks. For all that shall be—Yes.” Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, November 27, 2019
The forty-second episode of Three on the Aisle, the twice-monthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for list…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 11:17AMEdward R. Murrow “interviews” Harpo Marx on Person to Person, originally telecast by CBS on January 3, 1958: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that app…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Destiny is something not to be desired and not to be avoided.” Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, November 26, 2019
From 2006: Believe it or not, I don’t live in the past. No working journalist does, especially one with so many young friends. Even so, I do enjoy rummaging around in my well-stocked memor…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines.” Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, November 25, 2019
Orson Welles talks with Huw Wheldon about Citizen Kane on Monitor, originally telecast by the BBC on March 13, 1960: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos tha…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Alexander broke the strength, spent itself in channels …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, November 22, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I write about a new book by Rob Kapilow whose subject is American popular song. Here’s an excerpt. * * * The “listicle,” …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 08:02AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal I review the New York transfer of Bedlam’s off-Broadway revival of The Crucible. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Bedlam’s small-scale revival of Arthur …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AMArturo Benedetti Michelangeli plays Chopin’s B Minor Mazurka, Op. 33/4, on Italian TV in 1965: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“He was no good in discussion, not because any amount of argument could shake his faith, but because the mere fact of hearing another voice disconcerted him painfully, confusing his though…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, November 21, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway opening of The Inheritance. Here’s an excerpt. * * * When the AIDS epidemic laid waste to a generation of gay men, it simultane…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AM“To be a writer is to be an autodidact, with all the limitations, gaps, and gaucheries typical of the autodidact, who belabors clichés as though they were sacral revelation.” Cynthia Oz…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, November 20, 2019
Allegra Kent, Conrad Ludlow, and the New York City Ballet dance the second movement of George Balanchine’s Symphony in C. The score is Georges Bizet’s Symphony in C, composed shortly a…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“In any modern city, a great deal of our energy has to be expended in not seeing, not hearing, not smelling. An inhabitant of New York who possessed the sensory acuteness of an African Bus…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, November 19, 2019
From 2006: I set my iBook on shuffle play the other night and sat down at the kitchen table to fill up my seven-day pillbox. (Don’t let anybody tell you that the life of a Manhattan drama …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“One of the main horrors of journalism is having to produce appropriate emotions for every public event.” Auberon Waugh, diary entry, October 26, 1973
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, November 18, 2019
Various forms of the records-that-changed-my-life meme have been making the rounds lately, so I came up with my own version, which I call “The Twenty-Five Record Albums That Changed My Lif…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:02AMDietrich Fischer-Dieskau sings “Der Leiermann,” a song from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, accompanied by Alfred Brendel. This performance, subtitled in English, was taped for German T…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:01AM“It occurs to me that of all Shakespeare’s plays King Lear is the one I have been and continue to be most moved by. It is probably the bleakest of the plays, the most unconsoling.” A…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, November 15, 2019
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review a Pennsylvania revival of Once. Here’s an excerpt. * * * The commercial triumph of “Once,” which moved to Broadway in 2012,…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:03AM 
