Southern Bookman

Headed back to New York City

Gearing up for a weekend trip to New York City, my longtime love.

The city has changed dramatically through the years, while its energy and frantic chaos remain the same.

As The New York Times documented in a special section recently, the Manhattan skyline looks far different now then it did even five years ago.

Resembling War of the Worlds aliens, monstrous skyscrapers have risen, blighting street life below. The soaring towers' owners, Mideastern and Eastern Europe billionaires, buy the high-rise apartments as money-laundering vehicles. The ghostly units above the clouds mostly stay vacant. Below the buildings' shadows, small retailers flee, leaving empty storefronts even on Fifth Avenue.

New York's soul shines at the New York Public Library,the Frick, Broadway and off Broadway theaters, the Morgan, the Museum of Modern Art and other places. They too are beset by plans and new directions, while their essence survives.

With rising seas, dominance of the ultra-rich and destruction of the middle class, the city's future looks troubled. At certain moments, when the light softens at Central Park or the curtain rises on a new show, New York's magic feels eternal.

 

Tony Awards fall flat

Watching college baseball, I missed much of the Tony Awards Sunday night. The few musical numbers I caught lumbered with the worst excesses of Broadway, making me glad that I'd mostly remained at the ballpark.

The lackluster and disjointed Tonys show did have the surprise of "Hadestown" winning seven more awards than "To Kill a Mockingbird."

On a night where "Network's" Bryan Cranston beat out "To Kill a Mockingbird's" Jeff Daniels for the aging white male leading man award, "Hadestown" dominated the musical field. It looked more interesting than productions based on Cher, the Temptations, Tootisie and Bettlejuice.

The legendary Elaine May's wry and gracious acceptance speech for her best leading actress award increased my desire to see her performance in Kenneth Lonergan's "The Waverly Gallery." But then I discovered the play had already closed.

I liked host James Corden's collection of jackets, but his cloying, overeager performance wore out its appeal. After mocking the Tonys' low TV ratings in a promising opening production number, he generated more groans than laughs. Corden should remain in the steppes of late night TV.

Oh well, Broadway is booming, according to The New York Times, and the "Hadestown" bonanza and best play recognition for Jez Butterworth's "The Ferryman" indicated an approval for imaginative theater over commercial, crowd-pleasing productions.

Too bad that Broadway couldn't put on a better show for its shrinking national TV audience.

 

Glenda Jackson's "King Lear" on Broadway to close early

The Broadway production of "King Lear" starring Glenda Jackson will close a month early.

Producer Scott Rudin announced that the show at the Cort Theater will have its final performance on June 9, The New York Times reported. The production had been scheduled to end on July 7.

The closure comes a year after the 83-year-old Jackson won her first Tony Award, given for her performance in Edward Albee's "Three Women."

First appearing on Broadway in the 1960s production of "Marat/Sade," the two-time Academy Award winner Jackson has been a favorite of New York critics and audiences.

Even Jackson's immense star power couldn't save a troubled production. Director Sam Gold's innovative interpretation of Shakespeare's 400-year-old tragedy received mixed reviews.

Nor did Jackson draw raves for her portrayal of Lear. She shockingly failed to receive a Tony nomination, with Ruth Wilson's dual performance as the Fool and Cordelia receiving the production's sole nomination.

Wilson's work fulfills a fascinating theory by some scholars that Shakespeare saw the characters as the same person. Both possess a pure love for the mentally failing king, and confront him with searing but healing truth.

London audiences were more receptive to a woman playing Shakespeare's most complex role. Jackson was lauded for her performance as the tormented king in director Deborah Warner's hit production at the Old Vic.

Lear is riven by masculine conflicts of pride, loss of authority and the waning of strength and sexual potency. I assume that Jackson portrays Lear as a primarily male figure, "every inch a king." The gender shouldn't matter. What counts is acting ability.

Gender is one of Shakespeare's major obsessions. Until the era of Charles II, boys played female roles. In "As You Like It" and other plays,women disguise themselves as men, exploring the comedy that rises from the confusion of mixed identities. Rather than radical, Jackson's performance continues Shakespeare traditions.

Shakespeare tragedies have been popular on Broadway, even in the recent past. Gold's production sounds difficult for audience comprehension, but the chance to see a great actress perform the theater's greatest role should be irresistible for theater-goers. The fizzling of Lear on Broadway is a troubling sign of cultural deterioration and the desire for unchallenging escapist entertainment.

 

 

The Portable Dorothy Parker brings back lost world of champagne, and the morning after

Posman Books at Ponce City Market is a bright, cheerful store with a good if shallow selection of books. Along with well-stocked shelves, books lie upon tabletops and tucked away in the space below.

The bookstore's Atlanta location is its only one outside of New York City, where it operates at Chelsea Market, a development similar to Ponce City Market and I believe run by the same company, and at Rockefeller Center.

Concentrating more on paperbacks than new hardback releases, Posman like other bookstores offers gifts, cards, buttons and other items. I was tempted by art-deco posters from different Atlanta neighborhoods, but they were not quite distinctive enough.

The children's section appeared ample, covering the entire back wall and jutting down a side wall, but I didn't peruse it, my children's book days now long gone.

Perhaps I overlooked them, but I didn't see a few recently released books, especially bios of Nelson Algren and John Hersey. Now that I think about it, I didn't come across any biography and memoirs section. I was happy that the poetry offerings are fairly extensive.

A high point was a well-laden table of new Penguin Classics deluxe editions, with fresh new covers displaying imaginative artwork. I was tempted by new editions of "The Dubliners" and "Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass," but decided upon "The Portable Dorothy Parker."

What a treat. The book reprints the full text of the original Portable Dorothy Parker, released in 1944, which showcased her famous short stories and witty, mordant poems. The brassy Jazz Age fizz is tinged with bitters.

In the new edition, that original text in augmented by a selection of her acidic theater reviews and essays for the early Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, along with her later work for Esquire. The book also gives a selection of her letters, including a couple of early ones to her father and sister.

The selection makes clear a major reason for the decline in magazines; writers like Dorothy Parker are gone. Today's humorous essayists lack her light touch, her skill at seasoning her sentences with personal asides. Today's young humorists do a lot of throat clearing before getting to the laughs, which all too often fizzle.

Dorothy Parker's barbs fly right to the target, and land with a sting.

From entertainment to news, the content tides keep churning

Competition grows fierce in the quality TV jungle as the news media landscape shifts.

While more receive information and entertainment through screens, embattled traditional print media still deliver the best guides to the burgeoning universe of choices, the battle for consumers' time.

Showing new Vanity Fair editor Radhika Jones' commitment to extensively reported and well-written long articles as ad revenues and newsstand sales decline, writer Joy Press in the magazine's annual Hollywood issue delves into HBO's efforts to stay atop the TV world as Netflix and Amazon gain strength and Disney, Apple and others enter the streaming world.

Displaying the continued value of old-fashioned business reporting, The Wall Street Journal Wednesday looked into Apple's so far unsuccessful effort to sign publishers like The New York Times and the Washington Post to a news subscription service.

The two articles trace the interconnected lines of the new media world. Along with streaming movies and TV shows, happy couch voyagers can also play video games, engage in virtual reality and listen to music services. Seeking to stay afloat are print magazines, books. movies, traditional TV networks and cable channels and the theater. While ESPN falls, low ratings for the lackluster Super Bowl give warning that mega sports events are no longer guaranteed to draw mass audiences.

While local newspapers die and the online world teems with voices beyond the mainstream, the new TV world gives a fertile market for content producers, once known as writers, playwrights, producers.

Press in her Vanity Fair piece outlines HBO's changing strategy under new owner Time Warner, a cable and media conglomerate seeking to stay ahead of changes such as viewers abandoning their cable boxes.

Credited for launching the "quality TV" era with must-see Sunday-night shows like "The Sopranos," "The Wire" and "Sex and The City," HBO wants to expand its content and move toward the streaming services' watch anytime model. The end of "The Game of Thrones" will leave a void the channel hopes to fill with a prequel related to the fantasy show.

With its much larger content budget, Netflix matched HBO with 23 Emmys. Now Apple, Disney and traditional TV networks are jumping into the streaming world, with HBO also entering the stream.

HBO's established Sunday night model offers advantages. Shows like the recently launched third season of "True Detective" are seen as shared national events, receiving strong media attention. Even high-quality shows can disappear in the Netflix content flood.

As digital models supplant print, Apple's news service would give subscribers a selection of news articles through use of an app, according to the WSJ. Newspapers would share revenue with Apple, based on readership numbers. The New York Times and Washington Post, whose online subscriptions have skyrocketed during the Trump presidency, are reluctant to join, according to the article.

The increasing number of streaming services will make for a chaotic spectrum of choices. From TV dramas and comedies to documentaries and comic specials, consumers can remove themselves from politics, environmental news and international crises. The ability to distinguish between real and fake news will decline. Or perhaps the country's citizens will renew their commitment to keeping informed and remaining involved in civic life.

 

 

Terry Teachout, Ben Brantley swing their laptops at Broadway revival of "True West"

The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout and The New York Times' Ben Brantley trained their big guns Friday on the Broadway revival of Sam Shephard's "True West."

Like David Rabe's "Hurlyburly,"" Shepard's kichen-table rumble between two brothers is a  career showpiece for macho actors.

Over the years, Tommy Lee Jones, Peter Coyote, Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Gary Sinese and Chad Smith have flung their acting chops at the voluble play.

John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman starred in the original Broadway production, switching roles between the emerging playwright Austin and his destructive alcoholic brother, Lee.

Now, Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano notch the play on their career highlight board. In a production photo, a leering Hawke as Lee looks as if he's swallowed a large swath of scenery. Dano appears more subdued.

As usual in the Brantley-Teachout faceoffs, Brantley was more enthusiastic about the Roundabout Theater Co. production, directed by James MacDonald at the American Airlines Theater.

Teachout finds the play seriously flawed after the first act, but recommends the production to those who want to immerse themselves in Hawke and Dano's fevered acting.

While Teachout faults Hawke for over-emoting and taking too much pleasure in the role, he praises Dano for what he views as a more subtle performance.

In contrast with Teachout, Brantley sees both performances as electric and the play as a classic worthy of Eugene O'Neill. While Brantley lauds Hawke's portrayal of the malevolent Lee, he sees Dano as not quite achieving full emotional intensity.

With Hawke and Dano starring, the production likely will be a hit, if not a runaway smash like Aaron Sorkin's "To Kill a Mockingbird." It's shaping up as a good year on Broadway for drama.

Innovative editor Adam Moss leaving New York magazine

The beleaguered magazine industry received another shock Tuesday with the annoucement that New York magazine editor Adam Moss will be leaving in March, as The New York Times reported.

Under Moss, New York magazine and its online branches Vulture and the Cut produced outstanding coverage of politics, business, international relations and climate change while riding ahead of the wave in TV, fashion, film, books, theater and art reporting.

Former editor of the New York Times Sunday magazine, Moss carried New York's legacy inherited from founder Clay Felker into the Internet age.

Despite its incisive and far-ranging coverage of New York City and the national scene, profits remained sluggish. Recently, the magazine announced a pay wall for its web site.  That seemed to conflict with the web site's free-wheeling style.

As with Graydon Carter and Tina Brown at Vanity Fair and Anna Wintour at Vogue, New York closely reflected Moss' personality. Moss' departure is another sign that the era of strong editors and vivid magazines is passing away.

 

 

Aaron Sorkin brings Atticus Finch to Broadway

Will Atticus Finch be as big a Broadway sensation as Alexander Hamilton?

Aaron Sorkin's play based on Harper Lee's classic novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" opens Tuesday night on Broadway, propelled by a big media fanfare and major advertising campaign. Tickets won't come open until March, according to breathless ads in The New York Times.

Along with Sorkin's reputation for dramatic narrative and crisp dialogue, the play is directed by Broadway titan Bartlett Sher, a consistent hit-maker with musicals, comedies and serious drama. 

The play stars Jeff Daniels, a deft character actor who has achieved enduring stardom in movies, TV and the theater. Although Gregory Peck defined the role in his Academy Award-winning movie performance, Daniels possesses the acting range and vocal dexterity to make the role his own.

Sorkin says he's conceived a fresh conception of Lee's character. He brings the play to New York after withstanding a suit by Lee's estate concerned about changes he made. Apparently not bound by a settlement with the Lee estate, Sorkin promises that the play will be different from the book, and Horton Foote's movie screenplay.

Will New York critics agree that it's a sin to kill a mockingbird, or Sorkin's version of it? 

I expect New York Times lead critic Ben Brantley to review the play, and I'll be surprised if he doesn't go along with the pre-opening excitement. Brantley tends to follow the prevailing popular mood.

The reaction of The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout will also be telling. Teachout is known for deflating the bubble of productions lauded elsewhere.

No matter what the critics say, the theatrical version of "To Kill a Mockingbird" is all but guaranteed to be a hit rivaling "Hamilton."

Lee's Atticus Finch and her story of a small Alabama town's reckoning with justice touch deep chords in the American conscience. 

 

A charming afternoon with Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins

That old Rodgers and Hammerstein tune was right after all: There's nothing like a dame.

Four is even better, especially when the dames are Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins.

Director Roger Michell's delightfully low-tech film, "Tea With the Dames," captures the four great ladies of the English theater as themselves, seated at a table enjoying conversation, laughter, tea, and a bit of champagne.

Old chums Plowright, Smith, Dench and Atkins, arrayed before a stationary camera, share gossip, jokes, laments of aging and career triumphs and regrets.

As they laugh and banter with each other, small jewels of theater lore glitter. Atkins vividly describes how she suffers from stage fright. The closest they come to performance is displaying some of their vocal exercises. Their conversation is interspersed with video from some of their celebrated performances as young actresses.

Oliver, the domineering Shakespearian actor and director of the British national theater, looms over the conversation. Each of them gives anecdotes about the difficulty of working with the demanding theater titan. Video shows some of his noted performances, including starring in "The Entertainer" with Plowright and playing Othello in blackface.

Along with Oliver's lauded portrayal of the aging comedian Archie Rice in "The Entertainer, " he's shown playing Hamlet and Henry V.  Plowright remembers writing a fan letter to him as an adolescent girl, and how she thought his signature on the return letter was authentic until she learned when married to him that his secretary stamped his responses to fans.

Smith is the most forthcoming, with memories of visiting Oliver and Plowright's home when their children were small. She also remembers filling in for Plowrightt to comfort Olivier during one of his breakdowns. Plowright recalls the excitement of her marriage to Olivier, before characterizing it as "hell."

Looking back at their younger days, Plowright mentions that none of them were considered great beauties. Yet they glow with glamour in the excerpts from their early performances. As Plowright says, they excelled at creating the "illusion" of theater.

Now blind, Plowright most poignantly shows the ravages of old age. Also in their 80s, Smith, Dench and Atkins laugh about the roles they still receive, and how the acting techniques they considered revolutionary in their youth are now disparaged by a new generation. In their youth, they also mocked older stars.

Reluctantly discussing her starring role in the TV hit "Downton Abbey," Smith disparages the series and discloses that she's never watched it. Dench draws gibes for her recent starring turns in James Bond films and other projects.

Their stories are charming and bittersweet. With their beautiful accents and perfect English, they would be captivating reading the phone book.

 

Searching for the Charleston roots of "Porgy and Bess"

The "Porgy and Bess" movie soundtrack was one of my favorite albums during my childhood, frequently played on my father's 1960s-vintage cabinet hi-fi.

George Gershwin's "Summertime," "It Ain't Necessarily So," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" and "There's a Train That's Leavin' Soon for New York" have remained bright in my mind along with songs from another classic musical that brought joy to those long summer afternoons: "My Fair Lady."

While criticized through the years for racial condescension and stereotypes, Gershwin's opera remains a landmark musical achievement, mainly because of its classic songs. After an initial 124 performances on Broadway, the opera has risen in popularity, although a Broadway revival several years ago sputtered. 

The 1959 film version, starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge and directed by Otto Preminger, of all people, was a critical disappointment and quickly pulled from theaters because of the racial controversy and refusal of Southern theaters to book it.

"Porgy and Bess" takes place in Charleston's black community of "Catfish Row" during the 1920s, and I wanted to delve more into the opera's background during a recent trip to the old South Carolina port city.

My wishes were fulfilled by an excellent walking tour of downtown Charleston led by professor, historian and author Damon L. Fordham. With his encyclopedic knowledge of Charleston, Fordham detailed the rich history of virtually every inch of sidewalk covered. Titled a tour of black Charleston,  the experience uncovered the intimate intertwining of black and white culture.

After beginning the tour with a soul-stirring harmonica rendition of "Summertime," Fordham eventually led us to the site of "Catfish Row," where a crippled street vendor named Samuel Smalls peddled his wares from a goat-pulled cart. The white novelist Dubose Heyward used Smalls as a model for the main character in his 1925 novel "Porgy," the basis for the opera. Along with others who've read the book, Fordham praised the novel as a literary work.

Heyward is given co-credit for the opera's libretto with Gershwin. Although he is often credited with writing the lyrics for "Summertime"  and other songs, Gershwin's brother and regular partner Ira Gershwin also receives credit from ASCAP. Stephen Sondheim believes Heyward wrote "Summertime," and praises him for its haunting quality.

Close to Heyward's home, Catfish Row is now an upscale gated residence. Porgy's cries of "devil crab, devil crab" would cause today's wealthy residents to shudder. Fordham pointed out that the area, including nearby East Bay Street, was once the site of rough bars and prostitution until massive gentrification following Hurricane Hugo. Now, the area's tapestry of voices and personalities remains only in the opera and book.

While Gershwin and Heyward now would be accused of cultural appropriation, the opera's songs stand apart as testaments to the human spirit.