My old blog – nyculture-beat.blogspot.com
– “closed out” in late 2011 … and the new one (this is the initial post!)
begins where the earlier blog ended, still emphasizing New York Metro area
culture, but with a somewhat circumscribed focus now: culture “on a shoestring” … and, also, with
“seniors” and their pocketbooks, preoccupations, and, perhaps, tastes and
tolerances in mind.
Right now, as I write, new (and serious) offerings in the
Broadway and off-Broadway theater worlds surface each week. Many, of course, can be seen in previews,
with sometimes, sadly, only short runs to follow. And I tend to see a fair number of these –
some for just, well, nickels on the dollar (see TDF
and its offerings, for example, and the TKTS booth in the Times Square
area, at the South Street Seaport booth in lower Manhattan, and in downtown
Brooklyn). Tens, if not scores, of
plays, of every variety (comedy, tragedy, musical, Shakespearean, experimental,
even “novelistic”), on and off-B’way, seem to be available … so there is, alas,
something for you and just about everyone, at every price, even as low as $9.00
a ticket (with most offerings priced between $25. and $40. per ticket, if you are a TDF member).
Indeed, if you are interested in finely honed, extremely
well-acted drama – and who among us isn’t – two plays brought out last season
and revived right now are, first, “4,000 Miles” (now running through
June 17th at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Lincoln Center) which
explores the relationship between a grandson and his 91-year-old grandmother upon
the young man’s extended visit to her small apartment in Greenwich Village
after a cross-country bicycle trip. Yep,
he brings his bicycle along with an excessive amount of familial baggage for grandma
to deal with and help sort out. And second, there is Bruce Norris’s “Clybourne
Park” (now at The Walter Kerr Theatre on B’way), a multi-prize winning
– including the 2010 Pulitzer – drama which began its life in runs both off-B’way
and in a London production; it is a sensitive and linguistically strident,
funny, satirical examination of a batch of interrelated social issues evolving
gradually but surely out of class and racial differences, and, of course
race-based “turf” (i.e., real estate). Contrasting the content of
a first act set in 1959 (dramatized from within a white neighborhood (and white
“dominant” perspective) with the content of a second act, set in 2009, exploring
many of the same social, racial, and “real estate” issues from the same semi-urban
location (much changed physically), but now primarily depicted from within a black
“dominant” coign of vantage. The play delivers its various messages and
thematic content along a slow, simmering, and subtle dramatic axis, ending up
with the various characters – both white and black – articulating the still
lingering (festering?) caustic and blatantly racist vocabularies (exhibited in
varied instances, anecdotes, jokes, riffs,
and attempts at real communication) that have not really changed
since the 1950s. Kudos to the fine ensemble cast which makes this play so rich,
so subtle, so strong, so memorable.
Equally powerful, and perhaps even more so, is “The
Columnist,” still in previews at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J.
Friedman Theatre (opening on April 25th), featuring a masterful, tour
de force performance by John Lithgow as the
volatile, arrogant, powerful, implacable DC-based newspaper columnist, Joseph Alsop. The
play, with a superb cast all around, looks at Alsop from a multitude of vantage
points – political, sexual, marital – and, of course, through the telescopic
lens of his verbal dexterity and from various historical and personal reference
points … that is, from just before the inauguration and presidency of Jack
Kennedy to post-Vietnam Washington, DC, waist-deep into the power and influence
of the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, and Alsop’s relationship to that power and
to the powerful. Stewart Alsop, Joseph’s
brother, defender, and sometime foil (superbly played by Boyd Gaines), and
Alsop’s wife, Susan Mary Alsop (acted with subtlety and strength by Margaret
Colin), and the celebrated author-journalist David Halberstam (played
by Stephen Kunken) all feature in the verbal gymnastics and dramatic
intrigue. You will not forget this new play
by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, David Auburn; you will not forget the
scintillating production/scenic design, nor the finely tuned direction by
Daniel Sullivan; you will not soon forget Joseph Alsop (amidst a spectrum of
his political battles and personal struggles); and you will surely not forget
this magnificent performance by a roaring and imperious John Lithgow. “The
Columnist,” I feel certain, will prove the dramatic hit of the Spring
theater season on (or off) B’way!
By the way, Joseph Alsop receives quite a few mentions in
David Halberstam’s celebrated book about the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations and the Vietnam War period, The
Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972), and is
characterized thus by Halberstam: “[Alsop]
was an odd man, sophisticated, talented, arrogant; his real talent and perhaps
his real love lay not in writing about politics but about archaeology. If his
political writing did not last long and did not read well years after, it was
not a fault of his intellect, it was something else: it was that Alsop was a man of Washington and
its power, and he wrote to the power play of the day, he wrote not to enlighten
but to effect, to move the principal players on [major political]
decisions.... And in that sense there was a brilliance, for
he had an unerring sense for the raw nerve of each player… (p. 499).
As you are undoubtedly well aware, author readings are
scheduled every day all over the city and many of these are free, from
appearances at book shops like Barnes and Noble (at numerous locations), to McNally
Jackson Books (at 52 Prince St.), and The Strand on lower B’way. Merely scan Time Out New York online
or in the magazine itself for lists of daily (and weekly) details. One additional notable venue where novelists
and short fiction writers read and meet with their readers and other writers in
conversation, is The Center for Fiction,
at 17 East 47th, between 5th and Madison. The Center – housing a new
and used bookstore and some quiet spaces for reading, resting, quiet chatting, and
thinking – hosts a variety of worthwhile programs throughout the Fall and Spring
each year. I just recently heard Louis Begley reading from his piquant new novel,
Schmidt
Steps Back, the 3rd volume in his Schmidt series, following both About
Schmidt and Schmidt Delivered. I just finished the first volume (a first
edition, now signed by Mr. Begley) and have the 2nd poised on my cocktail
table, ready to go. You might have seen
Louis Begley’s Op-Ed piece in The New York Times just a
few weeks ago (“Age
and Its Awful Discontents,” Sunday Review, March 18th),
about aging and, well, its indignities … evoking the plight of the author (Mr.
Begley) and his central character, Mr. Albert Schmidt (both now septuagenarians),
and us all.
One major upcoming week-long annual author/literature event
is PEN World Voices
/ Festival of International Literature, 30th April through 6th
May. Major and little known authors from
all over the world give readings, serve on panels involving wide-ranging
thematic topics, and share the contents (and forms/formats, experiences, hopes,
memories) of their new work during both brief and longer interview sessions. PEN festival events occur in venues
all over NYC – from NYU to the Goethe Institut, from The Cooper Union to MoMA,
from the New School to the Bowery Poetry Club, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Asia
Society, the Brooklyn Public Library, Joe’s Pub, and many more!
And, finally, while just about everyone now knows about The Tribeca Film Festival which began today, April 17th,
too few around the NY Metro area, I suspect, have heard about or attended the Montclair (NJ)
Film Festival, beginning May 1st (through the 6th)
with screenings at venues in town and on the campus of Montclair State
University. Opening night, which might already be sold out, previews “The
Oranges,” a film with Hugh (“Dr. House”) Laurie. The festival is a small one, but presents
broad content, with screenings of comedies, short films, dramatic features,
student films, and documentaries. You
can, for example, see a batch of new feature
films, including Kathleen Turner in “The Perfect Family” and Nellie McKay
in “Downtown Express.” Interested
in film? It’s not yet too late to have a
look …
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