Terry Teachout
Terry Teachout
Terry Teachoutis an American critic, biographer, librettist, author, playwright, and blogger. He is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal, the critic-at-large of Commentary, and the author of "Sightings," a column about the arts in America that appears biweekly in the Friday Wall Street Journal. He blogs at About Last Night and has written about the arts for many other magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times and National Review...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth6 February 1956
CountryUnited States of America
Even the Impressionists, the most innovative artists of their time, sought to paint realistically. They believed that their freer way of portraying the visible world was truer to life than the literal realism of the 'salon painters' who dominated French art throughout the 19th century.
The only thing that surprised me about 'Lincoln' is that most of the critics who reviewed the film seem not to have grasped what should have been apparent right from the start, which is that 'Lincoln' is at bottom a play with pictures, not a screenplay.
Useful though they are, the vast majority of dictionaries and encyclopedias are poker-faced pieces of work that stick to the facts and present them as soberly - and unstylishly - as possible.
The good news is that 'High School Musical' seems to be getting a lot of youngsters excited about theater.
Few of us boggle - though we should - at the fact that Louis Armstrong sang and played trumpet with similar panache, or that Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Britten were equally adept as composers, conductors and pianists.
What's the funniest play ever written? I used to think it was 'Noises Off,' but now that I've seen 'The Liar,' I'm not so sure.
What is true of ballet is no less true of the other lively arts. Change is built into their natures. You watch a performance, and then... it's gone.
There is still a lot to be said for the well-made, witty, clever, three-act comedy.
I don't know anybody in the opera business who isn't worried sick about how best to reach out to underpaid millennials who were suckled on the new on-demand pop culture, which supplies them with cheap, unchallenging amusement around the clock.
I don't know of any American playwrights who earn the bulk of their living writing plays. Many of the older ones teach, while a growing number of younger ones write for series television.
Most of us remember Nat King Cole as a vocalist. His warm, grainy baritone is still so closely identified with such familiar ballads as 'Stardust' and 'The Christmas Song' that it's hard to imagine anyone else performing them.
One reason why Shakespeare's plays remain so popular is that they're now regularly presented in updated stagings with a contemporary flavor.
Nobody reads a reference book to be amused, much less charmed.
Only the tone-deaf doubt the power of music, though some feel it more strongly than others.