Playwright Michael Frayn

The English newspapers, frustratingly, are often a universe better than our own at providing detailed, intelligent analyses of the arts'right along with the gossip items and here's-what's-playing blurbs that provide the meat of coverage on both sides of the Atlantic.

A wonderful article appeared in London's Guardian on Sept. 24, about farce, and specifically the difference between the French and English farce traditions. (Which begs the question of what is the American farce tradition, if there is such a thing')

Alfred Hickling took as his prime examples a trio of current West End offerings: Michael Frayn's contemporary classic Noises Off, a new French play called See You Next Tuesday, and a new British play called Tom, Dick, and Harry.

But Hickling goes much further than the West End, heading right back to Greek tradition and Latin roots and Freudian theory, asking all along how farce can be at once so satisfying and so wholly unbelievable.

Or maybe it's not that unbelievable. Frayn gives a great quote: 'I used to be asked in interviews why I wrote farce instead of writing about real life, which always made me wonder what the lives of the interviewers must be like. Hasn't everyone had one of those days when absolutely everything goes wrong'usually as a result of some minor problem spiralling out of control?'

In trying to ennoble the British farce tradition, Hickling points out that Frayn is no joker'he's one of Britain's great theatrical minds, like Tom Stoppard and Joe Orton, both of whom have used the form. Great art has always flowed from silliness: 'The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi Fan Tutti,' he notes, 'are farces through and through.'

Speaking of noble farce, Playbill.com was first out of the gate with this shocking news item: 'The British sketch comedy team behind Monty Python and the Holy Grail is adapting the work into a musical with a developmental title SPAMELOT.' Don't fall in love with the title'too late?'as book writer and Python alumnus Eric Idle cautions that it's only temporary. 'I like the title SPAMELOT a lot'but I was thinking it might be smart to ask audiences on my upcoming U.S. tour if they liked it as much as I do. After all, they are the ones who will be paying Broadway prices to see the show. So there's a good chance the title may change.'

Returning for a moment to the question of American farce, more than one journalist noted that the California recall election certainly has had its preposterous elements. (Can it be that a crippling budget deficit and wildly unpopular governor is what Frayn means by 'some minor problem spiraling out of control'?)

Joan Ryan in the San Francisco Chronicle found one regular citizen to speak for the many 'angry that porn stars and former child actors and publicity-hungry people with nothing else to do have cluttered up the ballot and made a farce out of the democratic process.'

Ryan's conclusion, however, seems to be that what American politics needs is a healthy dose of high comedy: 'Despite how bizarre and farcical the recall has become, maybe our politicians would get the serious message we're sending: We are not numbers in a poll but actual people with the power to yank them out of office.'

A Blue Note

At the tail end of September, while the blues were being toasted as America's favorite music in newspapers nationwide'thanks to a well-publicized, Martin Scorsese-produced PBS special on the history and artistry of the form'jazz was on the skids, at least in Boston. Readers of that city's Globe newspaper, on Sept. 25, might have noticed a mournful little note saying that 'Midway through its run, the Equinox Music Festival has postponed indefinitely the rest of its concerts because of disappointing ticket sales.' (They might have noticed, that is, if they were paying attention to the festival, which apparently no one was.)

The article, more of a blurb really, reads like the sad, short obituary of an obscure artist, celebrated in his day but now hardly worth a footnote. The president of the three-year old Equinox festival seems genuinely baffled as to why his celebration of an American art form, featuring artists of international stature, was tanking so completely and severely.

'The early events were extremely poorly attended, and the remaining events had extremely poor advance sales,' Thomas J. Duffy told the Globe. 'It just came to the point where we had to pull the plug and stop hemorrhaging money.'

What's ironic is that just a few years ago it was jazz that was being celebrated nationwide, again thanks to a massive press push behind a massive PBS special. That one was Ken Burns' epic Jazz. If this is the state of jazz a few years later, the blues better watch out.

At least the blues special got generally loving reviews'except for in the Washington Times, where Scott Galupo, at least, was unimpressed: 'You'd think the series can't miss, but alas, 'The Blues' is an impressionistic patchwork of competing visions, overlapping footage and repetitive aphorisms; if it were a college term paper, it would warrant an F: convoluted organization, incomplete research and stylistic inconsistency.'

Here Comes the Story of the Hurricane

If anyone has a good sump pump to lend to the Virginia arts community, speak up now. According to the dismal tally taken by reporters David Nicholson and Sam McDonald in the Newport News Daily Press, Hurricane Isabel took a nasty toll on artistic organizations there, and similar stories were run  up and down the Atlantic seaboard, as local communities toweled off and took stock of what had been rained out and what had been swept away.

For example, 'More than three feet of water collected in the [Virginia Ballet Theater], damaging sets, furnishings and the all-important dance floors. The company already has spent more than $80,000 tearing out water-logged materials.'

For at least one company, the storm'and the power outages it left behind'provided a brief boon in a roundabout way. 'Virginia Stage Company had to cancel its opening night performance Friday but the company was back in business Saturday'people who called in asked: 'Are you open?' and 'Do you have air conditioning?' Weary storm survivors without power showed up to enjoy the cool temperatures along with the show.'

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