THE ENCORES! REVIVAL of Mary Rodgers's Once Upon a Mattress and the Broadway premiere of her son Adam Guettel's Days of Wine and Roses makes for a whiplash-inducing double feature.
Mattress is abundantly light and springy, while Guettel's musical rendering of the 1962 film by Blake Edwards (itself based on a teleplay by J.P. Miller) is a darkly adult affair-though it's also clearly a labor, and a story, of love. Actress and singer Kelli O'Hara floated the idea of adapting Edwards's film to Guettel 20 years ago, when they were at work on The Light in the Piazza, a show that would put them in the bright lights, O'Hara with a first-time Tony nomination and Guettel a win for Best Original Score. O'Hara knew she wanted to work with Brian d'Arcy James on the project; Guettel recruited his Piazza collaborator Craig Lucas to write the book. Now, two decades on-and after an Off Broadway run at the Atlantic-the show is palpably personal.
"It is a partnership like no other that I've had," James told the New York Times, while O'Hara said, "I've never been so passionate about anything in my life." Those are some big superlatives, but they feel fair: Days of Wine and Roses was built for O'Hara and James, both of whom are at the peak of their artistry. O'Hara sings all but four of the play's songs, and her voice is the kind of instrument that sends people scrabbling for metaphors. It's a prism, an alpine stream, a Golden Snitch-clear, shimmering, endlessly agile and controlled. She sings like Ginger Rogers dances. James's suave, deceptively mutable baritone is a beautiful complement for her. He's playing a PR man of the Mad Men era and persuasion, and his voice fits the part. Sometimes it's all pleasant surface. Other times, we're let in: It gets high and vulnerable, gains a nasty edge, or-as when he sings the show's imploring central ballad, "As the Water Loves the Stone, to O'Hara-it goes soft and gentle enough to support a newborn's head.
Denne historien er fra February 12-25, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra February 12-25, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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THE BEST ART SHOWS OF THE YEAR
IN NOVEMBER, Sotheby's made history when it sold for a million bucks a painting made by artificial intelligence. Ai-Da, \"the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork auctioned by a major auction house,\" created a portrait of Alan Turing that resembles nothing more than a bad Francis Bacon rip-off. Still, the auction house described the sale as \"a new frontier in the global art market.\"
THE BIGGEST PODCAST MOMENTS OF THE YEAR
A STRANGE THING happened with podcasts in 2024: The industry was repeatedly thrust into the spotlight owing to a preponderance of head-turning events and a presidential-election cycle that radically foregrounded the medium's consequential nature. To reflect this, we've carved out a list of ten big moments from the year as refracted through podcasting.
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - BEST BOOKS
THE BEST THEATER OF THE YEAR
IT'S BEEN a year of successful straight plays, even measured by a metric at which they usually do poorly: ticket sales. Partially that's owed to Hollywood stars: Jeremy Strong, Jim Parsons, Rachel Zegler, Rachel McAdams (to my mind, the most compelling).
THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2024 WAS one big stress test that presented artists with a choice: Face uncomfortable realities or serve distractions to the audience. Pop music turned inward while hip-hop weathered court cases and incalculable losses. Country struggled to reconcile conservative interests with a much wider base of artists. But the year's best music offered a reprieve.
THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE YEAR
IT WAS SURPRISING how much 2024 felt like an uneventful wake for the Peak TV era. There was still great television, but there was much more mid or meh television and far fewer moments when a critical mass of viewers seemed equally excited about the same series.
THE BEST COMEDY SPECIALS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - COMEDY SPECIALS
THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE LOVED Megalopolis, hated it, puzzled over it, clipped it into memes, and tried to astroturf it into a camp classic, but, most important, they cared about it even though it featured none of the qualities you'd expect of a breakthrough work in these noisy times.
A Truly Great Time
This was the year our city's new restaurants loosened up.
The Art of the Well-Stuffed Stocking
THE CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS on the Strategist team gathered to discuss the oversize socks they drape on their couches and what they put inside them.
