What happens when a hit show has to replace its star? The New York Post follows around an actor preparing to step in to “Cabaret.” – New York Post
Author: Douglas McLennan
THE SHOW THAT NEVER DIED
When Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” opened in London’s West End, Churchill was still Prime Minister. “Meat, sugar, butter and margarine were still being rationed. Stalin was lording it in Russia. Nobody had climbed Everest, or run a four-minute mile. It was another world.” Now the show is ambling on to its 20,000th performance. – The Sunday Times (UK)
THE REVIEWER-PROOF SCROOGE
It’s “Christmas Carol” time of year again. “Oh, please, Father Christmas, put a stake in its heart! Put it on a boat to Hong Kong! Give those annoyingly noble Cratchits a winning lottery ticket and let them have all the oranges they want! Cook their geese, flame their puddings, and please, burn their chestnuts into ashes.” – Washington Post
STILL STANDING
Arthur Miller is about to open another play on Broadway. And he’s about to turn 85. “Over the years, the critics have been all over the lot when it comes to judging Miller’s work. But in 1984, the critics and the public began re-examining Miller. And most of them liked what they found. So when he accepted the Tony for ‘Death of a Salesman’ last year, it wasn’t without a sense of well-earned, well-honed, irony – a sense that he’s been one of the victims in ‘The Crucible’ who finally got the chance to put his torturers on trial.” – Boston Globe
HOPING FOR A REPEAT:
John Corigliano’s First Symphony, composed ten years ago, and written in commemoration of those with AIDS, has become the most-performed symphony written in the second half of the 20th Century. More than 125 orchestras have performed it. Now Corigliano writes a second symphony. – Boston Globe
TOO CLOSE TO HOME
It’s another month-and-a-half before Ken Burns’ new 19-hour documentary on jazz is scheduled to be broadcast. But already the critics are lining up to take shots. Burns says he’s not fazed: “I’m prepared for the criticism, I care about it…but I didn’t make this film for the jazzerati.” – Chicago Tribune
TIFFED OFF AT THE TURNER
What is it about the Turner Prize? “What gets up my nose most about the Turner is the downright dishonest way in which the whole exercise is presented as rigorous and objective. It would like to compare itself to the Booker, but unlike the book world, in which ultimately the public can have its say by either buying or not buying books, the much smaller art world is maintained largely by the patronage of art institutions and major collectors.” – The Independent (UK)
ALL ABOUT CONTEXT
The Museum of Modern Art’s new temporary digs outside Manhattan promise to change the context of the art and the experience of seeing it. – New York Times
REM KOOLHAAS
“His architecture is bracing and unsettling and even though nothing he has done yet has had the same popular impact as Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim, he is clearly going to be the next big thing.” – The Observer (UK)
MICHELANGELO’S ANATOMY
Scholars have argued for years over the unusual misshapen appearance of the left breast of Michelangelo’s marble statue ‘Night’. Experts have agreed that its unusual appearance is intentional and not due to an error but art historians and plastic surgeons have argued that it reflects the artist’s supposed lack of interest in, or unfamiliarity with, the nude female figure. Now, experts propose that Michelangelo deliberately set out to portray a woman with breast cancer.” – The Independent (UK)