“All About June In The Orpheum Circuit, Gimme A Chance And I Know I Can Work It”

The Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis.

During Northrop Auditorium’s multi-year renovation, the Orpheum Theatre has served as primary venue for local appearances by visiting ballet companies, all the while continuing to host touring Broadway productions too large and too complex for the State and Pantages theaters.

I believe Northrop is scheduled to reopen in 2014, but I may be wrong—I have made no effort at all to keep up with Northrop’s progress, as I truly am not all that interested in the matter.

Bloomington Civic Theatre

Bloomington Civic Theatre’s state-of-the-art facility for the presentation of musicals, the Schneider Theater.

I cannot explain why Bloomington Civic Theatre uses two different spellings of the word, “theater”, for its various facilities (just as I cannot explain why Minneapolis’s Theater In The Round suddenly became Theatre In The Round sometime during the last year). In the United States, the word, “theater”, in all its uses and forms, should always be spelled “theater”; no other rule makes sense.

It is convenient for us to go over to Bloomington to catch BCT’s shows; we attend fairly often. BCT’s productions of musicals are generally presented to a very high standard, and they often sell out. We have seen some very good things at BCT.

One thing we very much like about BCT: the company uses a full orchestra of professional musicians for its productions. No watered-down orchestrations are used, no synthesizers are used, no electronic amplification is used, no soundboard technician is responsible for mixing and balancing the sound.

Updating My Lists

I am, by nature, a maker of lists.

Each year, over July 4 week (which we always spend up at the lake), I update my lists.

Below is a chronological listing of theater performances Andrew and I attended over the past year.

________________________________________________


Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off”, at Jungle Theater, Minneapolis

The John Kander-Fred Ebb-Bob Fosse musical, “Chicago”, in The National Touring Company version of the 1996 Broadway production, at The Ordway Center, Saint Paul

The Harry Warren-Al Dubin-Michael Stewart-Mark Bramble musical, “42nd Street”, at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

Terence Rattigan’s “French Without Tears”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

George Bernard Shaw’s “The Millionairess”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

Githa Sowerby’s “A Man And Some Women”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

The Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens-Terrence McNally musical, “Ragtime”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

John Guare’s “His Girl Friday”, a stage adaptation of the 1928 Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play, “The Front Page”, as well as the Hecht-MacArthur-Charles Lederer screenplay for the 1940 Howard Hawks film, “His Girl Friday”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

George Bernard Shaw’s “Misalliance”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

William Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

Aaron Sorkin’s “A Few Good Men”, at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

John Logan’s “Red”, at Park Square Theatre, Saint Paul

Christopher Hampton’s “Tales From Hollywood”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Tennessee Williams’s “Summer And Smoke”, at Theatre In The Round, Minneapolis

The Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical, “Company”, a presentation of Theater Latte Da, at the McKnight Theatre, Saint Paul

The Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical, “Sunday In The Park With George”, at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

James Roose-Evans’s “84 Charing Cross Road”, a stage adaptation of Helene Hanff’s bibliophile memoir, at Theatre In The Round, Minneapolis

Carlo Goldoni’s “The Servant Of Two Masters”, in a Yale Repertory Theatre production, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

The John Kander-Fred Ebb-Joe Masteroff musical, “Cabaret”, at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Ron Hutchinson’s “Moonlight And Magnolias”, at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

William Shakespeare’s “The Taming Of The Shrew”, in a production by a British theater company known as Propeller, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Alan Ayckbourn’s “Life And Beth”, at Theatre In The Round, Minneapolis

Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap”, at Jungle Theater, Minneapolis

The Cole Porter-Guy Bolton-P. G. Wodehouse musical, “Anything Goes”, in The National Touring Company version of the 2011 Broadway production, at The Ordway Center, Saint Paul

The Leonard Bernstein-Betty Comden-Adolph Green musical, “On The Town”, at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

Crispin Whittell’s “The Primrose Path”, a stage adaptation of Ivan Turgenev’s novel, “Home Of The Gentry”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Nick Stafford’s “War Horse”, a stage adaptation of the Michael Morpurgo children’s novel, in The National Touring Company version of the 2011 Broadway presentation of The National Theatre Of Great Britain production, at the Orpheum Theatre, Minneapolis

________________________________________________


By my calculation, Andrew and I attended thirty theater performances over the past year, exactly the same number we had attended the previous year. Nine of the thirty performances occurred during a five-day stretch when we visited Canada’s Shaw Festival.

By my calculation, Andrew and I have attended 151 theater performances over the past seven years.

I last updated this list on June 29, 2012.

________________________________________________


Five of the presentations we were seeing for a second time: “Noises Off”, which we had seen in Hamburg in 2006; “Present Laughter”, which we had seen on Broadway in 2010; “Sunday In The Park With George”, which we had seen at The Shaw Festival in 2009; “Cabaret”, which we had seen at New Repertory Theater in Watertown in 2009; and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, which we had seen at Theatre In The Round in 2008.

________________________________________________


Eight of the presentations we attended were musicals, a very unusual state of affairs for us—and surely a record. As a general rule, we avoid musicals.

________________________________________________


For the second year in a row, we did not go to New York within the past year. (We had a New York trip planned for October, but Andrew came down with influenza, and we stayed home.)

________________________________________________


Our visit to the McKnight Theatre in Saint Paul was my first—and last—visit to the theater. The McKnight Theatre is currently being demolished to make way for a new concert hall for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

________________________________________________


We attended only one performance at Park Square Theatre. Apparently the company’s 2012-2013 repertory did not much interest us.

Park Square Theatre is in a major growth phase, and is greatly expanding its already-excellent facilities. The company’s intention is to emulate The Guthrie, and offer two productions simultaneously on two stages (The Guthrie, like London’s National Theatre, offers three productions simultaneously on three stages).

________________________________________________


The best thing we saw, by far, was The Shaw Festival’s production of “The Millionaress”.

“The Millionaress” is a great play, thought-provoking and entertaining in equal measure, and I am surprised the play is so little-known. The Shaw production was exceptional, beautifully and boldly designed, well-cast and well-directed—and the actress who portrayed the title character was sensational.

________________________________________________


There were two other productions I enjoyed without reservation.

Bloomington Civic Theatre’s production of “Cabaret” was dazzling. It was, perhaps, the finest staging of a musical I have ever seen (only the Sally Bowles and a couple of small character parts disappointed). The company had staged the original 1966 version, now mostly ignored, and I found the 1966 version sweeter and more subtle than the cynical and acidic revision that has taken precedence in recent years.

Theatre In The Round’s production of “Life And Beth” I found captivating. The play is very small-scale, on the surface nothing more than an intimate, domestic comedy-drama, but “Life And Beth” has meat on its bones and may be a minor masterpiece. The company did justice to the material.

________________________________________________


I think it is fortunate that Andrew and I live in a theater town.

Nonetheless, it must be stated that theater companies in the Twin Cities rigorously ignore challenging material. Only easily-digestible fare is offered here.

One learns not to expect Gerhart Hauptmann plays, or any of the French classics, in Minnesota. Only works considered “commercially viable” ever see the light of day in the Land Of 10,000 Lakes.

Rearranging Calendars

Andrew and I have been scratching things off our calendars left and right.

We have been warned off Park Square Theatre’s production of “Or”, a pseudo-Restoration Comedy by Liz Duffy Adams. We have been told that the play itself is the problem—Duffy apparently has rewritten and watered down Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Compleat Female Stage Beauty”, itself a work unworthy of emulation—and we have been cautioned that the text of the play is so gruesomely bad that the production must be avoided at all costs.

On Friday night, at the very last minute, Andrew, Alex and I decided to skip Theatre In The Round’s production of Shakespeare’s “All’s Well That Ends Well”, our intended project for the evening. We were, at root, not in the mood that night to sit through three hours of Shakespeare—especially since the production, two weeks into the run, has generated zero “buzz” among local theater aficionados.

Owing to lack of interest, we decided to skip Minnesota Opera’s current production of Ambroise Thomas’s “Hamlet”. Andrew says he would beat down the doors of any theater to get into a performance of Thomas’s “Mignon”, but that the composer’s “Hamlet” is not written at the same high level of inspiration.

On Saturday night, Andrew’s parents and Alec and Lizbeth attended a performance of Minnesota Opera’s “Hamlet”—and they reported that the evening was nicht gut. Andrew, Alex and I had a much better time that evening, babysitting the kids.

Penciled into our calendars had been one March performance by the Minnesota Orchestra—but the Minnesota Orchestra remains out of session. Consequently, we shall not hear Mark Wigglesworth lead the orchestra in music of Mozart (Symphony No. 1), Stravinsky (Violin Concerto) and Shostakovich (Symphony No. 10). The soloist was to have been Leila Josefowicz.

Penciled into our calendars had been two March performances by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra—but the SPCO, too, remains out of session. Both SPCO concerts had been scheduled to be conducted by Roberto Abbado, a conductor Andrew and I rather like.

The first SPCO concert was to have featured music of Bartok (Divertimento For String Orchestra), Ravel (Piano Concerto) and Mozart (Symphony No. 38). The soloist was to have been Lisa de la Salle.

The second SPCO concert was to have featured music of Ravel (Le Tombeau de Couperin) and Mozart (Symphony No. 36) as well as contemporary Italian composer Nicola Campogrande, a name totally new to me. The Campogrande work had been a late substitution for a Couperin-inspired piece by Richard Strauss (Divertimento For Small Orchestra), a work that would have made far more thematic sense than the Campogrande.

This coming weekend, in Chicago, we shall encounter a late substitution of a different sort (and, again, a name totally new to me): Christian Macelaru, a conductor stepping in at short notice for an indisposed Pierre Boulez. Macelaru will lead the Chicago Symphony in music of Debussy (Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun), Stravinsky (The Song Of The Nightingale) and Bartok (Divertimento For String Orchestra, Piano Concerto No. 2). The scheduled soloist is Yefim Bronfman.

I think this coming weekend was my one-and-only chance to hear Boulez. Given Boulez’s advanced age, I doubt I shall ever have another opportunity to hear him. I am very disappointed. The appearance of Boulez was our prime motivation for planning a music weekend in Chicago.

Also on our Chicago agenda: performances of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” and Puccini’s “La Boheme” at Lyric Opera Of Chicago.

We shall take my sister to all three performances.

We shall see my sister again at the end of the month. She will be on Spring Break the final week of March, and she will fly to the Twin Cities to spend that time with Andrew and me.

In order to offer her what entertainment we can, Andrew and I plan to “bank” all local plays we want to see until my sister arrives: Shakespeare’s “The Taming Of The Shrew” at The Guthrie; Ron Hutchinson’s “Moonlight And Magnolias” at Bloomington Civic Theatre; Alan Ayckbourn’s “Life And Beth” at Theatre In The Round; and Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap” at Jungle Theater.

I suspect my sister will prefer to see a few plays rather than have Andrew and me attempt to amuse her by reenacting scenes from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”.

Not According To Plan

This week has not proceeded as planned.

Andrew and I were supposed to go to New York on Tuesday. Andrew was to attend a conference on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and I had received permission from my firm to go to New York, too, and to work out of the firm’s New York office.

On Sunday afternoon, Andrew took ill. As things turned out, he had come down with influenza.

Andrew has not yet decided who is to blame for his travails: my sister, visiting us last weekend from Chicago, where influenza has stricken; Tim, several of whose first-grade classmates have taken ill with influenza; or pianist Simone Dinnerstein, whose Sunday afternoon recital, according to Andrew, would have made anyone ill.

Andrew has been bedridden since Monday morning. In almost seven years, I had never seen Andrew sick until this week.

Andrew’s mother has come over every day this week to stay with him while I am at work, always to be at hand in case he needs something. She brings the dog, and she stays all day—and, late each afternoon, she even prepares dinner.

All week, when I have come home from work, my dinner has been ready—and Alex (who lives next door) joins us for dinner, as does Andrew’s father. As soon as dinner is over, everyone returns home, leaving me to look out for a patient who does little else but sleep twenty hours a day and drink a cup of hot tea now and again.

Andrew and I had tickets for several New York performances, and on Monday we gave the tickets to a friend able to make use of them.

Our friend had already arranged to take vacations days for this shortened workweek in order to resurface the floors of her condominium. When we had asked her whether her sister (who lives and works in New York) might want some or all of our tickets, her response was, “Let me see if I can use miles to get a reasonable last-minute fare to New York—if so, I’ll take the tickets myself, and go and visit her.”

And that’s precisely how things resolved themselves.

We had tickets for a Metropolitan Opera performance of Verdi’s “Otello”. The scheduled conductor was Semyon Bychkov, whom some persons believe has become good in the last ten years and whom we were eager to hear. The scheduled Otello was Johan Botha, a singer supposedly in possession of a glorious voice (but a singer not known as much of an actor). The scheduled Iago was Falk Struckmann, a fine Central European artist. The scheduled Desdemona was Renee Fleming, whom I have not heard. Although I am not an opera fan, I am sorry we missed “Otello”. I was actually looking forward to the performance.

We had tickets for three performances of New York City Ballet. It was to be our primary bout of ballet-going for the year.

One of the programs was to feature two rarely-performed high-modernist masterpieces I have never seen (current practice at NYCB is for the two ballets to be performed back-to-back on the same program): the Balanchine/Stravinsky “Momentum pro Gesualdo” (1960); and the Balanchine/Stravinsky “Movements For Piano And Orchestra” (1963).

The program also was to include the Balanchine/Stravinsky “Duo Concertant”, which I already know from a previous NYCB performance (and which NYCB will perform in Minneapolis in two weeks); a Jerome Robbins’s ballet without a musical score, “Moves” (1959), a ballet entirely new to me; and the Balanchine/Bizet “Symphony In C” (1947), which I have seen performed by Miami City Ballet.

The second of the programs was to feature a new Wheeldon/Bizet ballet, “Les Carillons”, premiered in January of this year; a repeat performance of “Moves”; and the Balanchine/Stravinsky “Stravinsky Violin Concerto” (1972), a seminal Balanchine masterpiece I have never encountered.

The final program involved three Balanchine/Stravinsky ballets: “Apollo” (1928), which I know from a Boston Ballet performance; “Agon” (1957), another high-modernist masterpiece I have not seen and which Andrew says is one of the most important works of art from the last 60 years; and “Rubies” (1967), which I have seen danced by Boston Ballet and Miami City Ballet.

Eight vital, essential Balanchine works, danced by the world’s finest ballet company: we shall miss everything. We both are very disappointed.

We also had tickets for two shows on Broadway: a new production of Ibsen’s “An Enemy Of The People”; and a revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, “Evita”—which, for inexplicable reasons, both of us had wanted to see.

We also were in possession of sixteen complimentary tickets to four different performances of a single program at the New York Philharmonic—we had four complimentary tickets for each night of this week’s subscription concerts.

The New York Philharmonic is papering Avery Fisher Hall like crazy these days for nights on which Alan Gilbert is on the podium. The organization is so desperate to get people into the hall that anyone and everyone can obtain unlimited complimentary tickets to New York Philharmonic concerts on Alan Gilbert nights.

We were almost certain NOT to use the NYPO tickets on account of principle. A couple of years ago, a summer music camp in Scandinavia founded and formerly run by this week’s NYPO guest artist had been quietly seized—it was first taken over, and later shut down entirely—by the musician’s national government on account of pedophilia allegations (for which the musician, his nation’s most prominent instrumentalist, has not been prosecuted). We had retained the tickets in the event we were to experience an unlikely change of heart and wished to see—and photograph—a Jerry Sandusky-like figure playing a musical instrument while Alan Gilbert beat time alongside.

Our friend who took our various tickets ended up throwing away all sixteen NYPO tickets yesterday. Her sister, who works for a Big Three Accounting Firm, had tried to give the tickets away at her office on Tuesday and Wednesday. There was not a single taker—not even for the Friday and Saturday night concerts.

Last night’s concert and tonight’s concert played to virtually empty houses, as one may see from numerous Twitter photos tweeted by concertgoers.

For instance, tonight a NYPO concertgoer tweeted a photo showing that the orchestra level was less than one-fifth occupied. A second concertgoer tweeted a photo showing that tonight’s left-side balcony boxes were occupied by only a handful of persons.

It was not a good night for Alan Gilbert.

Nor for pedophiles.

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today, we were in London.

That evening, we attended a thoroughly incompetent performance of a thoroughly incompetent production of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” at the Comedy Theatre.

Before the performance, we dined at what must be London’s cheapest restaurant with edible food, the Stockpot, located right across the street from the Comedy Theatre.

Given the price, our dinner was entirely satisfactory.

The Wurtele

The Guthrie auditorium with the thrust stage, one of three theaters at the new Guthrie.

The theater with the thrust stage has a capacity of 1100 patrons, 340 fewer than the original Guthrie, which also had featured a thrust stage (the original Guthrie was, shamefully, demolished in 2006 after only 43 years of use).

Updating My Lists

July 1 approaches—which signals that it is time for me to update my lists!

Below is a chronological listing of theater performances Andrew and I attended over the past year.

________________________________________________


Simon Gray’s “Butley” at the Duchess Theatre, London

Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” at the Comedy Theatre, London

Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead” at the Haymarket Theatre, London

George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” at the Garrick Theatre, London

Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” at The National Theatre, London

The Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein II musical, “Oklahoma!”, at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

William Inge’s “Bus Stop” at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

Tracy Letts’s “August: Osage County” at Park Square Theatre, Saint Paul

Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

Sam Shepard’s “True West” at Minneapolis Theatre Garage, Minneapolis

William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” at Jungle Theater, Minneapolis

William Douglas-Home’s “The Reluctant Debutante” at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

The Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields-Neil Simon musical, “Sweet Charity”, at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

Doug Wright’s “I Am My Own Wife” at Jungle Theater, Minneapolis

A. R. Gurney’s “The Dining Room” at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya”, a presentation of The University Of Minnesota Department Of Theatre Arts And Dance, at the Rarig Center, Minneapolis

Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard”, a presentation of The University Of Minnesota Department Of Theatre Arts And Dance, at the Rarig Center, Minneapolis

Brandon Thomas’s “Charley’s Aunt” at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Peter Quilter’s “End Of The Rainbow” at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Frederick Knott’s “Dial M For Murder” at Jungle Theater, Minneapolis

Jean Anouilh’s “The Lark”, as adapted by Lillian Hellman, at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever” at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

Neil Simon’s “Lost In Yonkers” at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

Donald Margulies’s “Time Stands Still” at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt” at Park Square Theatre, Saint Paul

Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Compleat Female Stage Beauty” at Minneapolis Theatre Garage, Minneapolis

Beth Henley’s “Crimes Of The Heart” at Bloomington Civic Theatre, Bloomington

Agatha Christie’s “The Hollow” at Theater In The Round, Minneapolis

Neil Simon’s “Laughter On The 23rd Floor” at Park Square Theatre, Saint Paul

________________________________________________


By my count, we attended thirty theater performances, five in London and twenty-five in the Twin Cities. The total is roughly double the number of performances we attended in any of the previous three years, when Andrew and I were living in Boston. Boston is not a theater town, while Minneapolis very much IS a theater town.

My list reveals a few notable facts.

For the first time since I met Andrew, we did not go to New York within the last year and, consequently, we saw nothing on Broadway.

We did not attend any of the touring Broadway productions playing in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

We caught only two musicals, and both were in Bloomington.

Local repertory companies avoided challenging plays last season, perhaps because of the economy.

We went to The Guthrie only five times.

For the sixth consecutive year, no play by Henrik Ibsen was staged in the city in which we were residing.

For the first time, we saw two productions of the same play within a single season. Since the play was “The Cherry Orchard”, one of the greatest dramas ever written, we were engrossed in the onstage proceedings both times.

________________________________________________


The best production we witnessed within the last year was an extraordinary production of “True West” at tiny Minneapolis Theatre Garage.

Park Square Theatre’s presentation of “August: Osage County” was better than the original Broadway production. It was much subtler, with a better-balanced cast, and nowhere near so much played for laughs as what we had encountered in New York.

The Guthrie’s presentations, dripping money, were overstuffed and overproduced. Except for “End Of The Rainbow”, a London import, the Guthrie productions we experienced were more or less awful (but very expensive-looking).

________________________________________________


By my calculation, Andrew and I have now attended 121 theater productions since February 2006.

I last updated this list on July 3, 2011.

“Custom Will Reconcile People To Any Atrocity”

George Bernard Shaw, more gadfly than thinker, offered aphorisms by the truckload—and the aphorisms, more often than not, contained little if any truth.

Festivals

More than five years ago, Andrew, writing about our plans for a 2007 summer trip, revealed that his parents, for years and years and years, had requested brochures from Canada’s two summer theater festivals, The Stratford Shakespeare Festival and The Shaw Festival, without once attending a single performance at either festival.

To this day, Andrew’s parents still have not gone near Stratford or Niagara-On-The-Lake (although, in an internet age, they no longer find it necessary to order brochures through the mail in order to learn about the summer productions at each venue).

That situation will change within the next two months.

Three years ago, over Labor Day Weekend 2009, Andrew and I decided to attend The Shaw Festival.

Andrew and I were living in Boston at the time, and there was nothing in Boston we had wanted to do over Labor Day Weekend—and, looking for a short out-of-town trip for the holiday weekend, we had settled upon The Shaw Festival, there being frequent and convenient flights between Boston and Buffalo. It had been a snap for us to fly to Buffalo, cross the Canadian border, and be in Niagara-On-The-Lake in no time flat.

We enjoyed that long weekend, even though summer 2009 had not, from a repertory perspective, been a good year for The Shaw Festival. 2009 was the year The Shaw presented all ten of Noel Coward’s one-act plays, and such a concentration of little-known Coward was not a hit with critics or the public.

We saw five plays that weekend: two Shaw plays, neither from his top drawer (“The Devil’s Disciple” and “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days”); an O’Neill play not among O’Neill’s finest (“A Moon For The Misbegotten”); a cynical, post-war commercial comedy (“Born Yesterday”); and a Sondheim musical, lamely staged and lamely presented (“Sunday In The Park With George”). We had managed to avoid all the Coward plays, but we had been forced to see other plays we would never have gone out of our way to see.

That weekend, Andrew and I had found the quality of performance at The Shaw somewhat lower than we had expected. In 2009, we thought The Shaw had been two notches below London’s National Theatre and one notch below The Guthrie—which would not have mattered much had the repertory on offer been more pleasing to us.

This summer, The Shaw has a splendid lineup of plays, much better than 2009—and we are going to return to Niagara-On-The-Lake the week after Labor Day and see all ten mainstage productions.

Andrew’s parents will join us—in fact, it was they who suggested the trip once they saw how appealing was this year’s Shaw repertory—and Alex will be participating in the trip, too. The Shaw will be everyone’s 2012 summer vacation.

It should be a low-key and stress-free few days: a daily matinee and a daily evening performance, interspersed with lots of good food. Andrew’s father proclaimed that we will be required to be in STRICT relaxation mode, sleeping in each morning, enjoying a nice breakfast, moseying around town for an hour or two, enjoying a nice lunch, attending the matinee, enjoying a post-matinee afternoon tea (if we feel like it), enjoying a nice dinner, and attending the evening performance (followed by a light late-night supper if we feel like it).

Andrew’s mother should love it—and so should everyone else.

We shall fly into Toronto (much easier to get to from Minneapolis than Buffalo), rent a car, and drive down to Niagara-On-The-Lake. Our hotel will be the same hotel at which Andrew and I stayed three years ago. Andrew and I liked that hotel very much, and we are confident that Andrew’s parents will like it, too. It is perfectly situated for walking to all three venues used by The Shaw.

There are many parallels between The Shaw and The Guthrie.

The Shaw has roughly the same annual budget as The Guthrie. Both The Shaw and The Guthrie use three theaters. Both institutions offer roughly the same number of productions each year. Both employ literally hundreds of persons full-time. Both tend to offer traditional stagings. Both are, I believe, inherently conservative institutions, in the business of preservation, not innovation. The Shaw’s Jackie Maxwell and The Guthrie’s Joe Dowling are at the very top of their profession, among the most respected theater professionals in the English-speaking world.

Both institutions have weathered the economic downturn with ease, neither reducing the number of annual presentations and neither suffering a loss of quality.

The same apparently cannot be said of The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, which has seen its audience contract for years on end. (The Shaw Festival’s audience grew by five per cent in 2011; The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s audience contracted by thirteen per cent in 2011, its tenth consecutive annual decline.)

There must be something wrong with The Stratford Shakespeare Festival. If its audience is dwindling, either it is offering the wrong repertory mix or its productions are displeasing.

According to Andrew’s father, The Stratford Shakespeare Festival was a major theatrical destination in the 1970s—in fact, it was THE unmissable summer festival for a period lasting more than ten years, beginning in the late 1960s and ending in the early 1980s.

Apparently EVERYONE interested in theater—whether Canadian, American, British or Australian—attended the festival in its glory years. Productions featured the finest actors and directors from London, New York and elsewhere. Festival presentations attracted worldwide, in-depth press coverage. Productions often became the basis for major theatrical hits on both sides of The Atlantic.

Something happened in the 1980s. The festival lost its status as the world’s most vital summer festival—and with that loss came a permanent loss of cachet. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is today just one more in an endless series of summer festivals throughout North America and Europe. No one pays much attention to it any more.

Someday I would like to attend The Stratford Shakespeare Festival—but not this year. Its announced presentations for 2012 are of far less interest to me than the presentations at The Shaw.

Someday I would also like to attend The Spoleto Festival in Charleston, and the summer opera festivals in Glimmerglass and Santa Fe. In Europe, I would like to attend, at least once, the summer festivals at Edinburgh, Glyndebourne, Aix-En-Provence, Salzburg and Bayreuth—even though I am told, by persons in positions to know, that standards at all such festivals have declined grievously in recent decades.

In 2009, Andrew and I (and my family) were in Salzburg for two days coincident with The Salzburg Music Festival. The cheapest ticket to a festival event was $450.00—for a Martha Argerich recital—and, needless to say, we were unwilling to shell out $450.00 per seat to hear Argerich (unless she had promised to blow up the concert hall for a final encore). It is no wonder that Andrew’s father refers to The Salzburg Music Festival as The Salzburg Money Festival.

Festival prices are getting out of hand. Five days at The Shaw Festival will cost us more than ten days in Paris—an alternative destination we considered but rejected—because we are laying out thousands of dollars for theater tickets (it is too late for us to acquire money-saving season passes). Festivals may now be within reach only of the well-heeled—and, for me, that detracts significantly from their appeal.

In the Upper Midwest, the most important summer festival, oddly, is in the State Of Minnesota. It is The Minnesota Beethoven Festival, a three-week-long event held each July in Winona and devoted primarily—but not exclusively—to chamber music.

The Minnesota Beethoven Festival, not yet ten years old, is largely unknown outside Minnesota—yet it has attracted leading musicians from all over the world since its inception. Its performances invariably sell out before the festival even commences.

Next month, for the first time, we shall attend a performance at The Minnesota Beethoven Festival. We shall attend one of two performances by the Leipzig String Quartet.

It will be our only concert or recital of the summer.

Niagara-On-The-Lake

A Trip Has Been Planned!

For immediately after Labor Day (and Paris as a prospect has been scratched for 2012).

Our destination:


Over five days, we shall attend eight plays, one musical and one opera.

In the order we shall see them:

Terence Rattigan’s “French Without Tears”

Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter”

George Bernard Shaw’s “The Millionaress”

Leonard Bernstein’s “Trouble In Tahiti”

Githa Sowerby’s “A Man And Some Women”

Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”

The Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens-Terrence McNally musical, “Ragtime”

John Guare’s “His Girl Friday”, adapted from the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play, “The Front Page”, and the Charles Lederer-Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur screenplay for the film, “His Girl Friday”

George Bernard Shaw’s “Misalliance”

William Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba”


Andrew and I still have our baseball caps from three years ago!

Performances

Andrew and I have not attended any theater performances since December, when we caught The Guthrie’s unsuccessful “Charley’s Aunt” on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve.

Minneapolis is a theater Mecca. On a per capita basis, Minneapolis boasts more professional theater companies, more professional theater productions, and a larger number of theater seats than any city in the English-speaking world. Given that Minneapolis, unlike London or New York, is not a tourist destination, the theater figures here are remarkable.

January is a big month for theater in the Twin Cities—the weather encourages indoor activities—but Andrew and I skipped everything. We had a new house to settle into, and other things on our plate. Moreover, the January theater offerings by and large did not appeal to us.

By intention, we skipped Theater In The Round’s presentation of Lee Blessing’s “Independence”, a play that sounded like a rewrite of “August: Osage County” (except that “Independence” preceded “August: Osage County”).

Once the reviews for The Guthrie’s “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” were published, we crossed “Cat” off our list. The reviews were mixed—and, in the Twin Cities, mixed reviews generally signify a production that safely may be missed. That we had attended two other productions of “Cat” in recent years made our decision an easy one.

Bad word-of-mouth scared us off The Acting Company’s “Julius Caesar” at The Guthrie.

The musical, “Ragtime”, recently mounted at Park Square Theater, mildly intrigued us—but we have decided to give the production a pass. No one in the family has seen a staging of “Ragtime”, and Park Square Theater is said to have done the show justice: $300,000 was budgeted, making “Ragtime” the costliest show ever for Park Square Theater, and a cast of 35 actors was assembled after more than a year of auditions, unprecedented in the Twin Cities. Nonetheless, there is something about “Ragtime” that rubs us the wrong way—it may be the “American Pageant” quality to the show that is off-putting—and we have decided not to bother to make a trek to Saint Paul.

We had tickets for Torch Theater’s production of Christopher Hampton’s “Dangerous Liaisons” for Friday night, but we turned in our tickets after Andrew’s aunt passed. We did not feel like attending “Dangerous Liaisons” two days after a funeral—and the production closed after last night’s performance.

There were other theater productions in the Twin Cities during the month of January, but none of the other productions held any interest for us (the same may be said of the touring Broadway shows that regularly play the large theaters downtown; we invariably ignore the touring shows, most of which are musicals).

Next weekend, however, there are two plays we intend to catch: “Dial M For Murder” at Jungle Theater; and a play about Judy Garland at The Guthrie.

When The Guthrie season was announced, we had rolled our eyes at the notion of a play about Judy Garland. However, the production recently opened—and received rave notices. The production is supposed to be stupendous, mostly because the actress playing Judy Garland gives a once-in-a-lifetime performance.

The Judy Garland play at The Guthrie is a London import—the director, the designers, the lead actress all recreate the London production—and the production will move directly to Broadway as soon as The Guthrie run ends.

Consequently, a play that at first blush had seemed ridiculous to us now has us eager to see what all the excitement is about. According to those who have already seen the production, the Judy Garland play is the highlight of The Guthrie season (I am not sure what that says about The Guthrie).

Other than “Dial M For Murder” and the Judy Garland play, I doubt whether we attend any other plays this month—although, if the notices are good, we may consider “The Lark” at Theater In The Round, a production due to open in another week or so.

There are, however, other items on our schedule for the rest of the month of February.

We intend to hear two Minnesota Orchestra programs before the month is out, and two Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra programs. We have tickets for a recital by violinist Julia Fischer.

This afternoon, we went to Saint Paul to hear Minnesota Opera’s presentation of Massenet’s “Werther”.

“Werther” is an exceedingly beautiful opera.

It was an afternoon well-spent.

"Butley"

Dominic West as Butley in Simon Gray’s “Butley” at the Duchess Theatre, London.

To be blunt, West stunk. The whole production stunk.

West is uglier than sin, which did not contribute to our enjoyment of the afternoon.

The theater was practically empty the afternoon we saw “Butley”. The many unoccupied seats were exceptionally well-deserved.

The production has closed since we attended the August 4 matinee.

"Betrayal"

Kristin Scott Thomas in Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” at the Comedy Theatre, London.

To be blunt, Thomas stunk. The whole production stunk.

Thomas is uglier than sin, which did not contribute to our enjoyment of the evening.

The theater was practically empty the evening we saw “Betrayal”. The many unoccupied seats were exceptionally well-deserved.

The production has closed since we attended the August 4 evening performance.

"Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead"

Samuel Barnett and Jamie Parker as the title characters in Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead” at Theatre Royal Haymarket, London.

To be blunt, Barnett and Parker stunk. The whole production stunk.

“Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead” was the London production I had most looked forward to seeing. It turned out to be the very worst of the productions we attended.

The theater was practically empty the evening we saw “Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead”. The many unoccupied seats were exceptionally well-deserved.

The production has closed since we attended the August 5 evening performance.

"Pygmalion"

Rupert Everett as Higgins in George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” at the Garrick Theatre, London.

To be blunt, Everett stunk. His may have been the single worst performance I have ever witnessed (although it would be unfair to deny the Eliza of the production the right to compete for such honor).

Everett is uglier than sin, which did not contribute to our enjoyment of the afternoon.

The theater was half-full the afternoon we saw “Pygmalion”. According to a British gentleman sitting near us, “there would not be five people in the paying audience this afternoon were it not for the fact that everyone is here to see Diana Rigg”.

The production, which we saw on the afternoon of August 6, will close on Saturday.

"The Cherry Orchard"

Zoe Wanamaker as Madame Ranevskaya in Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” at The National Theatre, London.

To be blunt, Wanamaker stunk. The whole production stunk.

Wanamaker is uglier than sin, which did not contribute to our enjoyment of the evening.

The production has closed since we attended the August 6 evening performance.

“The Cherry Orchard” performance we attended was sold out. That fact doesn’t speak well for London audiences or London critics (who largely heaped praise on the production). The production should have been booed to the rafters.

I cannot help but observe that Ben Brantley of The New York Times, whom I do not generally admire, likened the London “Cherry Orchard” production to Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies”, referring to the London “Cherry Orchard” staging as “that Chekhov play about aging vaudevillians who get together to put on one last show”.

Updating My Lists

The month of July has arrived—which signifies that it is time for me to update my lists!

Over the last twelve months, Andrew and I attended twelve theater performances. The performances are listed below in the order in which we attended them.

________________________________________________


The William Finn-Rachel Sheinkin musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”, at The Lyric Stage Company, Boston

William Inge’s “Bus Stop”, at The Huntington Theatre Company, Boston

George Bernard Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”, at American Airlines Theatre, New York

Michael Frayn’s “Alphabetical Order”, at The Harold Clurman Theatre, New York

Arthur Kopit’s “Wings”, at Second Stage Theatre, New York

David Edgar’s Dickens adaptation, “The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby”, at The Lyric Stage Company, Boston

Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance Of Being Earnest”, at American Airlines Theatre, New York

Willy Russell’s “Educating Rita”, at The Huntington Theatre Company, Boston

Joseph Kesselring’s “Arsenic And Old Lace”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

The Stephen Sondheim-Burt Shrevelove-Larry Gelbart musical, “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum”, at Jungle Theater, Minneapolis

The Frank Loesser-Jo Swerling-Abe Burrows musical, “Guys And Dolls”, performed by The 5th Avenue Theater of Seattle, at The Ordway Center, Saint Paul

Yasmina Reza’s “God Of Carnage”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

________________________________________________


During our three years in Boston, our rate of theatergoing slowed to a trickle. Boston is simply not a theater town, and Andrew and I found very little Boston theater to be of interest. Of the twelve performances we caught over the past year, four performances were in New York and four performances have been here in Minneapolis just in the last four weeks. Only four performances occurred in Boston, and we caught two of those four Boston performances—the first two items on my list—on the very same day.

However, the most memorable theater performance from the last year was a Boston production, “The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby”, a presentation of The Lyric Stage Company.

Nothing else was especially gripping, although I thoroughly enjoyed Brian Bedford’s portrayal of Lady Bracknell in an otherwise unremarkable “The Importance Of Being Earnest” in New York.

In terms of sheer quality, the two Guthrie Theater productions were head and shoulders above anything else on the list, including the New York presentations, although I was not fond of either play we saw in a Guthrie production.

None of the twelve plays or musicals on my current list has appeared on my previous lists.

When I last updated my theater list almost one year ago, I noted that Andrew and I had attended seventy-nine theater performances since early 2006. With the addition of twelve new performances, the total is now ninety-one.

Our rate of theatergoing is sure to pick up over the next year. We have counted twenty-six Twin Cities productions of some interest to us scheduled for the 2011-2012 season, although it is very unlikely that we shall be able to find time to attend all twenty-six productions. In addition, we intend to catch five theater performances in London in August.

One of the advantages of living in the Twin Cities is that Minneapolis/Saint Paul is America’s top theater town after New York—as well as home of America’s largest and finest and most important theater company.

A thriving theater culture is one of the things that makes the Twin Cities unique.

Tyrone Guthrie knew what he was doing when he selected the Twin Cities as home of his great enterprise.

From the mighty Guthrie, a thousand flowers have blossomed.

Dances At A Gathering

Tomorrow afternoon, Andrew and I will head to New York for the weekend.

The primary enticement in New York for us: three interesting programs at New York City Ballet.

I am not certain I can say I am a partisan of ballet—but I can state that I am definitely a partisan of the work of George Balanchine. Balanchine was unquestionably a genius, although I am confident I possess only a superficial understanding of the breadth and depth of his genius.

We shall see four Balanchine ballets I have already seen (although not all were danced by New York City Ballet). We shall see another three Balanchine ballets I have not yet seen (one of which will be new to Andrew, too).

We shall also see an Alexei Ratmansky ballet that I have already seen, and a Jerome Robbins ballet that will be new to me.

To end the weekend, we will catch Brian Bedford’s production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance Of Being Earnest”. The current Broadway production is based upon Bedford’s 2009 staging for The Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Bedford himself portrays Lady Bracknell, one of the great gorgon roles of the British stage.

It should be a fun weekend.