Tom Hanks, Playwright (Part 2)

 

[Below are three reposts that constitute Part 2 of “Tom Hanks, Playwright.”  The first piece is excerpts from the interview of well-known film star Hanks by Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’s Late Show, on 3 November 2025.  Following on that posting are two reviews of the Off-Broadway production, the première of This World of Tomorrow, the play cowritten by Hanks with James Glossman, which ran at The Shed from 18 November to 21 December 2025.

[In Part 1, which I recommend reading before the installment below, I posted three articles from the New York Times announcing the coming production, covering the opening night, and presenting Hanks’s own discussion of his inaugural venture as a dramatist.  Those articles contain information that will be referenced below and explanations and commentary from me, including the background and details of the play, that I have not repeated in the second part.]

STEPHEN COLBERT INTERVIEWS TOM HANKS
3 November 2025
(Late Show with Stephen Colbert; Season 11, Episode 31)

[Below are excerpts from the guest appearance of Tom Hanks on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS-TV; Channel 2 in New York City) of 3 November 2025.  Hanks talks extensively about This World of Tomorrow, which was in previews at the time of the broadcast, but he talked also about a number of other, unrelated subjects as well.  I have, therefore lifted only the passages concerning the Off-Broadway play for this posting. (Omitted sections of the show are marked with ellipses.)

[There is no video of this LSSC episode that’s in one take, so this post is taken from YouTube, which posted the show in segments, four of which are devoted to the Hanks interview.  (When the show was broadcast. Colbert did his customary opening, including a monologue, before the first break and after the Hanks interview, he had a musical guest, Mavis Staples, a rhythm and blues and gospel singer and civil rights activist, who performed the last segment of the show.)

[The YouTube videos are broken into separate posts at each point in the show when Colbert takes a commercial break.  (The link above, for those who want to view the whole interview, is the first segment (“It’s ‘Tom Hanks Riding The Subway’ Season In New York City”); the following three segments are at: #2 – “‘They Are Gonna Have A Real Hard Time Firing Me’ - Tom Hanks On His Play ‘This World of Tomorrow’"; #3 – “If You Could Spend 12 Hours In The Past, Where And When Would You Go? - Tom Hanks”; #4 – “Why The Original ‘Toy Story’ Movie Had To Be Thrown Out - Tom Hanks.”  I didn’t look for videos of the opening or closing segments, Colbert’s monologue and Staples’s performance.)

[The transcript published on Rick On Theater is based on the verbatim transcript from YouTube, which is computer-generated.  It’s full of inaccuracies, omissions, and mistranscriptions, so I emended it myself from the audio of the recordings, creating a hybrid.  It’s more accurate and complete than the ones accompanying the YouTube videos online.]

Stephen Colbert: Hey, welcome back, everybody! Give it up for Louis Cato and the Late Show Band, everybody!

Ladies and gentlemen, my friends – you know my first guest tonight, because he is Tom Hanks!

[cheers and applause]

Tom Hanks: Thank you, thank you!

. . . .

Hanks: I’m doing a play right now called – down at . . . uhh –

Colbert: I’m doing it right here [takes out playbill for this world of tomorrow].

You’re in town – you’ve cowritten and starred in a new play, This World of Tomorrow.

There you are – there it is. It’s at The Shed –

Hanks: It’s at The Shed. Directed by Kenny Leon and cowritten by James Glossman. I can’t tell you how much we love the cast.

But – you say you’re on Broadway and everybody knows where Broadway is. We are on Broadway right now. 

[The Ed Sullivan Theatre, where The Late Show is recorded, is a 1927 theater at 1697 Broadway at West 53rd Street, formerly a legitimate Broadway house first named Hammerstein’s Theatre (and then under various names). The Columbia Broadcasting System leased it in 1937 as a radio studio; it was converted for television use in 1949. The theater housed The Ed Sullivan Show from 1953 to 1971, as well as other CBS shows; it was renamed after Sullivan (1901-74) in 1967. The Sullivan was purchased by CBS in 1993 and has housed The Late Show since that year, first under David Letterman, then under Colbert since 2015.]

Colbert: You’re literally on Broadway.

Hanks: Anybody in the world can come to New York and say, ‘Take me to Broadway.’ Or they can walk to Broadway themselves if they know where it is.

You come to New York and say, ‘Come to The Shed,’ and they’re like, ‘What? For discount garden tools?’

It’s an art installation – it’s a space for art and it’s downtown in Hudson Yards. But letting everyone know where The Shed is, is a bit of a challenge. So if I could have a slight shuffle beat.

[scats a beat for the band. the band joins in.]

Yeah, okay.

Ready?

[rhythmic chant. hanks, seated, keeps time with hand and arm gestures as he shifts his upper body and makes animated facial expressions.]

It’s The Shed
Off the High Line
By the Vessel
In Hudson Yards.
It’s The Shed
By the Vessel
Off the Highline
In Hudson Yards.
Wanta see
A show
At The Shed?
Well, just head down
To Hudson Yards.
It’s The Shed
Off the Highline
By the Vessel
In Hudson Yards.

There you go.  So, come on down!

[The High Line is an elevated public park and greenway in New York City, built on a disused freight rail line on Manhattan’s West Side. It extends from Gansevoort Street at Washington Street in Greenwich Village to West 34th Street and 12th Avenue near Hudson Yards.

[The Vessel is an interactive public landmark and art installation in Hudson Yards. The structure is 150 feet tall (equivalent to about 12-15 stories) and consists of 154 interconnected flights of stairs, nearly 2,500 steps, and 80 landings, forming a massive, climbable, honeycomb.

[Hudson Yards is a real estate development on the far West Side of Midtown Manhattan, built over a functioning rail yard, a storage yard for Long Island Rail Road trains. The 28-acre site includes, aside from The Shed and the Vessel, a landscaped public plaza, high-rises with both residential apartments and corporate offices, and a seven-story mall with shops and restaurants. Most of the offerings are strictly high-end.]

Colbert: We have to take a quick break, but we will be right back with more Tom Hanks, everybody. Stick around.

. . . .

Colbert: Hey, everybody, we are back with the star of This World of Tomorrow at The Shed, Mr. Tom Hanks.

Tell the people what it’s about, if you don’t mind.

Hanks: it’s from a collection of short stories. Jim Glossman – I published some short stories. And Jim Glossman said we could string these together under the theme of – let’s just say time travel.

It’s about a guy who decides to – a franchise out of what is now the Milford Plaza Hotel.

[Renamed the Row NYC in 2014, the Milford Plaza Hotel (at 700 Eighth Avenue, between 44th and 45th Streets, in Midtown Manhattan) opened in 1928 as the Hotel Lincoln. It changed hands many times, and was renamed by each new owner. In 1956, it became the Hotel Manhattan; in 1969, it operated as the Royal Manhattan; and it reopened in 1980 as the Milford Plaza Hotel.

[Somewhat typical of the reviews the hotel received over its lifetime, New York magazine said in 2022 that “the reason most people stay here is location; its proximity to the city’s brightest [Broadway theater] marquees ensures theatergoers can be in bed shortly after the curtain drops. Otherwise, the 1,300 rooms are slightly antiquated."]

You may not know this. The Milford Plaza Hotel used to be the Lincoln Hotel and it’s at Eighth Avenue and West 45th Street, and Room 1114 has what is called volume authenticity to allow access to a 12-hour time-bond echo to June 8th, 1939.

[I tried to decipher what Hanks is saying here, thinking he’s using standard or recognized mainstream science fiction terms. According to one source, he isn’t. He’s using terms like “volume authenticity” and “time-bond echo” as technobabble—invented scientific language—to explain the mechanics of his character’s time travel.

[“Volume authenticity” is a fictional scientific requirement in the play. It refers to the idea that for a “time jump” to work, the physical space (i.e., Room 1114 of the Milford Plaza) must perfectly match the historical details of the destination date. The more “authentic” the room’s physical “volume” (decor, smell, newspapers, and atmosphere) is to 1939, the easier it is to “tether” to that time.

[“Time-Bond Echo” is the play’s term for the actual window or “link” between two points in time. It describes a temporary connection (a bond) that allows someone from 2089, the play’s “present,” to interact with the “echo” of 8 June 1939.

[In the play, there is also a 12-hour limit for Bert Allenberry’s (Hanks) technology to allow him to access this “echo” before he is pulled back to his own time, which is why he must keep returning “again and again” to the same day to see the woman he loves (Kelli O’Hara).]

So you can go back to the World’s Fair on June 8th, 1939. And I play a fellow who does that again and again and again, because he just cannot get enough of the World’s Fair.

Now – this is a game around the dinner table. I’m gonna tell you right now, okay – here’s the rules of the game. You get to go to any time in the past you want to for 12 hours. Name the place, name the event. However, homicide is not allowed. You can’t go back and – you know.

Colbert: April 1865, Ford’s Theatre and I prevent a homicide. Is that legal?

[laughter and applause from the audience.]

[President Abraham Lincoln (b. 1809; 16th President of the United States: 1861-1865) was assassinated by actor John Wilkes Booth (1838-65) on 14 April 1865 as he and the First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-82), were attending a performance of Our American Cousin, an 1852 farce by English playwright Tom Taylor, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

[Ford’s Theatre ceased presenting plays for 103 years after Lincoln’s death. It became a museum dedicated to Lincoln until 1968, when it was restored and reopened. The presidential box remains as it was in the 1860s, but is never occupied. Since its reopening, the theater has not restaged Our American Cousin, and has said that it never will out of respect for the assassination.

[(This vow is attributed to Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall (1920-2010; in office: 1961-69), whose department includes the National Park Service, which is responsible for the physical stewardship, preservation, and historical interpretation of the Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, which includes the government-owned theater building. The non-profit Ford’s Theatre Society oversees the site’s artistic programming and educational initiatives.)]

Hanks: Here’s the problem with that. I believe that show was sold out.

Colbert: So I cannot get a ticket.

Hanks: And those laws [are] adhered to. You don’t just get to appear magically. You have to eat the food and go to the bathroom and take a shower – and if you break a leg, you’ll have a broken leg.

So those are the rules. But the fellow I play cannot stop from going back to 1939, for reasons that are evident once you come see the play.

Colbert: That is the World’s Fair, 1939. Did you have a particular fascination with the World’s Fair?

Hanks: Something about the World’s Fair.

Here’s a question. There was a line from the “Futurama,” which was the most attended attraction at the fair, run by our good friends at General Motors.

Colbert: Cars of the future.

Hanks: It was 1939, showing you what 1960 was going to be like and it had this fabulous line that said: “The present is but an instant between an infinite past and a hurrying future.” And if you think about it, that’s a great theme that Jim Glossman and I’d been working on.

[The General Motors exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair was titled “Highways and Horizons.” The core attraction and most popular attraction at the fair was a massive, immersive diorama and ride called “Futurama.” Designed by theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958), the exhibit presented an idealized model of the world 20 years into the future (around 1960), characterized by vast suburbs and extensive, automated highway systems.

[Visitors sat in moving, sound-equipped chairs that conveyed them over a massive, 35,000 square-foot scale model of the American countryside and cities. The Futurama exhibit fit closely with the fair’s overall theme of “The World of Tomorrow” and is credited with popularizing the concept of modern interstate highways.]

You cannot do anything about our infinite past. That’s gone, baby, gone, right? And the future’s going down the pike. Who knows what’s gonna go happen [sic]?

But the present, we have a little bit of control over that, don’t we? And we also know what you’re hurrying future’s going to be, don’t we [a reference to Paramount’s cancellation of The Late Show after May 2026]. And you can’t do nothin’ ’bout the things that got you in trouble, my friend.

So you’re just going to have to make hay right here, right now.

Colbert: Exactly.

Hanks: That’s right.

. . . .

Colbert: We have to take another break here, but stick around. We will be right back with more Tom Hanks, everybody.

. . . .

Colbert: Hey, everybody! We’re back with the star of This World of Tomorrow, Mr. Thomas Hanks.

You’ve done lots of theater.

Hanks: I’ve done just enough, sir, to call myself a professional actor.

Colbert: And last time you were live on stage here in New York, it was 2013.

Hanks: Yes, we did Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy at the Broadhurst Theatre – yes.

Colbert: Now you’re back at The Shed, and we know where that is.

Hanks: Where’s The Shed again? Well, I’ll tell you where it is. It’s –

[chants as the band comes in.]

By the Vessel
And the High Line.

Colbert: Is it different to go on stage knowing that you wrote it?

Hanks: Yes, it is. Number one, because they are going to have a real hard time firing me. If I screw up.

Colbert: Have you gone up on your own line?

[In theater, ‘to go up’ means to forget one’s lines on stage during a performance or rehearsal.]

Hanks: Oh, God, yeah, year. I disappeared the other night, as a matter of fact. And when it happens, Kelli O’Hara on stage, or Ruben Santiago-Hudson – they all just kind of look at me and go, ‘Come on, Man.’

Colbert: If you don’t know it –

Hanks: ‘If I learn my lines – You haven’t – [why] haven’t you learned yours?’

The huge difference between film and stage is, in film, the director is the governor of the story. He can change it, not say it, don’t say that, don’t say this.

On the stage, if it’s not on the page, it is not on the stage. The writers are the definitive arbiters of what is being said.

So, on one hand, you have a discussion. ‘What – what sounds better: “Hey, guys, we better get going because we have a problem,” or, “Hey, guys, we better get going because we have a situation”’?

We had some previews the other night. Kenny Leon said when we’re in rehearsal, the play is ours; when we are performing, the play is theirs. Meaning, that audience gives you something that is just undeniable. And we were out there and we had a difference between blah-blah-blah-blah problem – and the audience was like hmm [making a hand gesture indicating “flat”] – blah-blah-blah-blah situation, and they go, ‘Oh, a situation?’ And this is where you start playing around with it. It’s a very, very malleable, exciting thing.

And being one of the cowriters is just a pleasure and a joy, but it is also as terrifying an experience as I have ever had.

Colbert: Why terrifying?

Hanks: Well, because you just wake up and – ‘problem,’ ‘situation,’ ‘problem,’ ‘situation’ [making hand gesture of weighing two alternatives].

And will they know how to find us. You know how they find us – well,

[chants and snaps his fingers.]

By the Vessel
Off the High Line
Is The Shed
In Hudson Yards.

Colbert: We’re gonna take another break here.

Hanks: I think we should.

Colbert: We’ll be right back with more Tom Hanks, everybody.

. . . .

Colbert: Hey, everybody.  You know who that is, that’s Tom Hanks.

. . . .

Colbert: So, Tom – wonderful to see you, as always.

Hanks: Thank you so much.

This World of Tomorrow is currently in previews at The Shed [30 October-18 November 2025]. And where’s The Shed?

Hanks: I will tell you right now, The Shed is . . .

[chants]

By the Vessel
Off the High Line
Is The Shed
In Hudson Yards.
By the Vessel
In the High Line

Colbert: Officially opens November 18th.

Hanks:

[continues]

This World of Tomorrow
Is a play you all can see
Where? At The Shed
By the Vessel
Off the High Line
In Hudson Yards.

Colbert: Tom Hanks, everybody.

We’ll be right back with a performance by Mavis Staples.

*  *  *  *
TWO REVIEWS OF THIS WORLD OF TOMORROW

“THE WORLD OF TOMORROW REVIEW –
TOM HANKS RETURNS TO THE STAGE 
FOR TIME TRAVEL CHARMER”
by Benjamin Lee

[Of the two reviews of This World of Tomorrow I selected to repost, the one from The Guardian of 18 November 2025 was the more positive.  The critical reception of the play was mixed, most giving some form of praise for the performances accompanied, but less enthusiasm, as you’ll read in the second example, for the production (that is, directing and design) and the script.]

The actor indulges his love of the past in a breezily enjoyable play about a man falling for a woman from the 1930s, played by a standout Kelli O’Hara

Tom Hanks [b. 1956] is a star who’s always had one foot squarely in the past. As an actor he’s forever been likened to James Stewart [1908-97; years active: 1932-91], a reincarnation of the charming, essentially good American everyman, a from-another-era lead who’s increasingly been more comfortable in period fare (in the last decade, he’s appeared in just four present-day films [see note below]). As a producer, he’s gravitated toward historical shows such as Band of Brothers [2001; HBO], John Adams [2008; HBO] and The Pacific [2010; HBO] his directorial debut was 60s-set music comedy That Thing You Do! [1996; Twentieth Century Fox] and his undying obsession, outside of acting, is the typewriter, collecting and writing about its throwback appeal.

[Between 2015 and 2025, Hanks’s “present-day” films (out of 19 productions, including the animated Toy Story 4) have been A Hologram for the King (made in 2016, set in 2010; Lionsgate, Roadside Attractions, Saban Films), Sully (made in 2016, set in 2009; Warner Bros. Pictures), Inferno (made and set in 2016; Sony Pictures Releasing), and A Man Called Otto (made in 2020, set in 2020 – with flashbacks to 1960s and mid-2010s; Sony Pictures Releasing).]

In his new play, The World of Tomorrow [sic], his fondness for the “good old days” has led to the inevitable, a story about a man with a fondness for the “good old days” who actually gets to experience one of them for himself. It’s a loosely familiar tale of time travel, based on a short story written by Hanks that tries, and half-succeeds, to bring something new to a table we’ve sat at many times before.

[Several press outlets mislabel the play by substituting ‘The’ for ‘This.’  As I note in Part 1, the play’s title, This World of Tomorrow, is distinct from the official motto and theme of the 1939 World’s Fair, which was “The World of Tomorrow.”  The choice by Hanks and Glossman was deliberate to distinguish their creative work from the historical event it depicts and to shift the focus from a broad, corporate vision of the future to a specific, personal reality experienced by the characters.]

The gimmick here is that while time travel might be possible in the future, it comes with hard restrictions. Firstly, it’s prohibitively expensive, leaving it up to the select few to take advantage (asides about the state of the world in 60 years time are . . . not optimistic). Secondly, it’s only possible to go back to specific places at specific times, reliant on certain spaces remaining the same and certain “echoes” allowing for movement. Hanks plays Bert, a scientist whose trips to the 1939 world fair in New York become more frequent after he meets Carmen (Kelli O’Hara), a local woman treating herself to a day off with her precocious niece (Kayli Carter, a 32-year-old actor fighting a losing, and increasingly grating, battle playing an 11-year-old).

It’s not just love at first sight that keeps him going back, it’s also his fetish for nostalgia (Newspapers! Lower prices! People saying “swell”!) and the alluring promise of a future that never really came. Each time he returns to the present, after a strict cutoff of 11pm [sic], he regales his skeptical colleagues with ideas of how to forge ahead differently. While whimsy is mostly prioritized [sic – British spelling], the dark shadow of reality often threatens to intrude. Bert’s fawning over the past is briefly interrupted when Black colleague and longtime friend M-Dash (played by the wonderful Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who tries hard to add weight to a lightly written dynamic) tells him that the idea of travelling back is less appealing for him, a sharp reminder that the good old days weren’t that good for many people (as he predicts, almost all of the service jobs during Bert’s visits are taken on by Black workers). It’s also the summer of 1939, just weeks away from the second world war [German troops invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, marking the start of World War II in Europe], and Nazism has already started to appear in the US, the dreaded swastika showing up on pin badges.

But Hanks, as ever, chooses light over dark and his focus, with co-writer James Glossman, is the thrill of an impossible romance, a choice that takes a little time to convince (the setup, like in his classic romcoms Sleepless in Seattle [1993; TriStar Pictures] and You’ve Got Mail [1998; Warner Bros.], could have easily warped into a creepy thriller). Before intermission, it’s hard to fully understand why Bert would make the expensive, and increasingly dangerous, choice to keep going back for Carmen, as effervescent as O’Hara might be (like many an adaptation, the writing often suffers without the gap-filling depth of a narrator).

Yet in a far superior second half, after she’s gifted with a piercing monologue, we’re whisked along with them. Visually, the journey is smooth throughout thanks to Tony-winning director Kenny Leon guiding the way. While his recent take on Othello [2025; Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Broadway; see “Film Stars Twinkle on the Great White Way, Part 1” (27 March 2025)] might have underwhelmed on many levels, his decisions here are far more astute, working with what seems like another blockbuster budget but this time allowed to spend it on more than just A-list casting. The stage is filled with rectangular pillars switching between various video-screened backgrounds, from a futuristic conference room to a pokey Bronx apartment, and despite one hiccup (a prop that wouldn’t budge that Hanks himself helped to save), it felt as sleekly transporting as something the actor would have made for the big screen. Its commerciality does also make it an easy fit for a Hollywood transfer, perhaps one that could easily tighten the script, excising the scene-sinking niece and some extraneous diner and home scenes (it’s over two hours and could benefit from being under).

Hanks, who was last on the New York stage in Nora Ephron’s 80s-set newsroom drama Lucky Guy, develops real last-act chemistry with O’Hara, who manages to perfect period intonation without becoming schtick-y. He’s comfortably in his wheelhouse here (also nailing the delivery as expected), but there’s none of the autopilot laziness we often get from actors known for sticking to certain character types. He might be stuck in the past, but it’s hard not to get stuck there with him.

[Benjamin Lee is the east coast arts editor at Guardian US, based in New York.  He was previously deputy editor of the style and culture website ShortList.com.]

*  *  *  *
“DAWN OF A DULL DAY:
TOM HANKS IN THIS WORLD OF TOMORROW”
by Jackson McHenry 

[The review on Vulture (the online platform of New York magazine) that was posted on 18 November 2025 was a largely negative assessment of the Hanks-Glossman play.  As you’ll read, reviewer Jackson McHenry had numerous objections to This World of Tomorrow, both to the script and Kenny Leon’s production.]

Whatever is happening at the Shed right now, it’s not really a play. It’s play-shaped, and actors put on costumes and wander around onstage for a couple of hours, repeating words they’ve memorized. But I’d be more comfortable calling the staging of This World of Tomorrow — starring Tom Hanks, written by Hanks and his collaborator James Glossman, directed by Kenny Leon, and based off elements of Hanks’s short-story collection, Uncommon Type — something more along the lines of “a flight of fancy,” “a doodle on a napkin,” or “a college-drama-club project with the express purpose of making one person happy.” There are plenty of talented folks around Hanks who have been roped into making this, and plenty of people in the audience who might be paying a lot to see him, but they don’t factor into the equation. This thing is entirely about admiring its star. Hey, at least there are some fun hats.

This World of Tomorrow is not malicious in its intent. Tom Hanks, the moral nice-guy mayor of Hollywood, is the closest thing the film industry has to a Jimmy Stewart, and I’m happy to believe that his forays into writing have developed out of genuine artistic interest in good-hearted Americana. (Inevitably, a character speaks admiringly about a typewriter.) Whether a theater company should spend its time and resources developing and staging what he has written is another question. (No.) This World of Tomorrow, largely based on the Hanks story “The Past Is Important to Us,” has him playing Bert Allenberry, a rich tech titan from around the year 2100 who keeps taking expensive daylong trips to the 1939 New York World’s Fair via a company called Chronometric Adventures. He justifies the cost by telling his colleagues that he’s enthralled by the way the past imagined a better future than the one we got, but it becomes clear very quickly that he’s really doing it because he’s infatuated with a winsome divorcée named Carmen Perry (Kelli O’Hara, at home in any role where she wears gloves). Carmen is visiting the fair with her spunky niece, Virginia (Kayli Carter, fumbling for any texture to play and landing on “loud”), and Hanks runs into her by accident, then comes back again and again. In each time loop, Carmen doesn’t remember Bert, he so [sic] keeps reseducing her, using a little more information each time, an unsettling dynamic that’s a blend between Groundhog Day [1993; directed by Harold Ramis; Columbia Pictures], Midnight in Paris [2011; directed by Woody Allen; Sony Pictures Classics], and maybe even the deranged sci-fi drama Passengers [2016; directed by Morten Tyldum; Sony Pictures Releasing], all films that aren’t known for their sensitivity toward women’s agency.

There’s where you might expect a play to develop some dramatic friction, perhaps as a commentary on the dangers of nostalgia or on one extremely rich man’s sense of entitlement. Any such turn might be a current, if obvious, direction for a play like this. But one thing you can say about This World of Tomorrow is that it doesn’t do much of what you might expect. There’s little tension anywhere or really any significant attempt to undercut Bert’s rosy gaze on the past. Hanks and Glossman have written a few throwaway lines that acknowledge the racism of the 1930s — Black members of the ensemble are often called upon to roll their eyes at Bert’s cheeriness about 1939 — and in the play’s announcement, Alex Poots, the Shed’s artistic director, told the New York Times [see Part 1] that “there is reference to the rise in authoritarianism,” which I can translate as “there is a line about how Bert should have used time travel to kill Hitler.”

I wouldn’t say that This World of Tomorrow embraces Bert’s nostalgia, either, so much as it just lets his quest for Carmen happen. The script is too rudderless to navigate toward any specific theme, and Leon, who has become the go-to director for soggy celebrity-driven drama, hasn’t pushed his cast toward any specific idea. (According to a conversation in your program, Leon said the play is about “time and love”; one is a concept an actor can’t play, and the other is something no one is convincingly playing.) Somehow, despite what must have been a substantial budget, the set looks cheap. Derek McLane’s design resembles a cybernetic wilderness, a spare set of moving columns that indicate new locations and settings through screens and projections. If Bert’s so enamored with the innovations of the World’s Fair, couldn’t we see re-creations of a few of them onstage? Why not show us the famous robot or the celebrity cow?

Instead, in the space of where it could allow for wonder and enthusiasm, This World of Tomorrow tends toward overexplanation. The script is remarkably heavy on the technobabble and the scenes in which Hanks’s colleagues from the future throw nonsense time-travel-related nouns around while wearing Star Trek outfits. I couldn’t care less about the acids that supposedly accumulate when you go back and forth in time. The script’s most engaging indulgence is a series of scenes that occur in the second act as Bert and Carmen meet in the 1950s at a Greek diner, which is run by a grumbly Jay O. Sanders. Sanders almost convinces you that you’re watching a real play about a real man, commanding the stage with a gruff bark and mining humor from his character’s insistence on teaching everyone Greek vocabulary as he picks up some English. I’m not sure how his presence is supposed to relate to the rest of the story or why Hanks felt it was necessary to include it — perhaps his wife, the Greek American actress and producer Rita Wilson, had his ear — but at least it’s an interestingly idiosyncratic gesture.

Yet the audience isn’t at the Shed for idiosyncrasies. Hanks is the be-all and end-all of This World of Tomorrow, and, sure, when you’re sitting in the audience a few dozen yards away from him, it’s hard to deny his loping movie-star magnetism. He has something of the energy of a beloved and aging family dog, padding up to you to lay his paws on your lap. It’s hard to judge Hanks’s strengths as a stage actor given that this script gives him so few challenges, but when he delivers several jokes about Bert’s discovery that they have real milk at the World’s Fair — presumably, an unspoken environmental collapse has eliminated dairy — he is deeply charming. In those moments, the audience lets out a sigh of relief, as if to say, Ah, yes, the celebrity we’re here to see is giving us the performance we wanted. It’s his own persona he’s performing, not a character. We come to see plenty of stage actors for a taste of their familiar forms, from Kristin Chenoweth to Laurie Metcalf, but perhaps putting a movie star onstage and asking them to actually perform in a play is an extra hurdle we needn’t ask them to clear. Why not just revert to something more direct, more medieval and churchy? Do away with the scripts, with the directors, with the rest of the ensemble, with the pretense. Have them stand there, in pristine and golden-lit silence for two hours at the center of the stage, and bask in the awe and admiration. Audiences could think of it as a pilgrimage to visit a holy relic — or its own act of sacramental theater. He’s not performing, after all. You are.

[Jackson McHenry is a Vulture critic covering theater, film, and TV.  He’s been covering theater, film, and television since 2015, with a focus on arts and entertainment, pop culture, and cultural movements.  In addition to Vulture, Jackson’s work has been featured in Variety, Magzter, and Entertainment Weekly.]

Film Stars Twinkle on the Great White Way, Part 1

 

[Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, written around 1603-04, opened in its latest Broadway revival with Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 23 March. It started previews on 24 February and is scheduled to close its limited run on 8 June.  The two-act performance runs 2 hours 40 minutes and the production is set “in the near future.”

[The production is directed by Kenny Leon, a Tony-winner for direction of A Raisin in the Sun (2014) and a Drama Desk-winner for Some Like It Hot (2023).  Scenery was designed by Derek McLane, the costumes by Dede Ayite, the lighting by Natasha Katz, and the sound by Justin Ellington.  The fight direction is by Thomas Schall.

[In addition to Washington as Othello and Gyllenhaal as Iago, the cast includes Molly Osborne in her Broadway début as Desdemona, Othello’s wife.  Andrew Burnap is Cassio, Othello’s loyal captain; Julee Cerda is Bianca, Cassio’s lover; Daniel Pearce is Brabantio, Desdemona’s father; and Kimber Elayne Sprawl is Emilia, Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s maid.

[Despite the limited engagement, the scuttlebutt is that there are seats available for the entire run.  Center orchestra tickets are selling for $921; however, there are $49 student rush tickets available for every performance at the Barrymore Theatre box office with a valid student ID, limited to one ticket per person and a limited number of $49 tickets are also available through a digital lottery at Telecharge Lottery + Rush Tickets.] 

“DENZEL WASHINGTON, JAKE GYLLENHAAL
RETURNING TO BROADWAY IN ‘OTHELLO’”
by Katie Houlis

[This advanced report of the revival aired on CBS News New York (WCBS, Channel 2, New York City) on 6 March 2024.]

NEW YORK – Actors Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal are returning to Broadway in an upcoming revival of William Shakespeare’s [1564-1616] classic play “Othello.”

Washington will star in the title role, with Gyllenhaal portraying Iago. Additional casting has not yet been announced.

The production, directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon, will open in spring 2025.

Washington was last seen on Broadway in the 2018 production of [Eugene O'Neill’s (1888-1953)] “The Iceman Cometh” [1939; 26 April-1 July 2018], for which he received a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Play. He previously won the Tony for Best Actor in a Play for the 2010 revival of “Fences” [26 April-11 July].

Gyllenhaal was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 2019 for his performance in “Sea Wall/A Life.” 

[This was a mounting on 8 August-29 September 2019 of two solo one-act dramas; Sea Wall was written by Simon Stephens and performed by Tom Sturridge; A Life was written by Nick Payne and performed by Gyllenhaal. Both actors were nominated for 2020 best-actor Tonys.]

Tickets for “Othello” will go on sale at a later date.

“Othello” was last performed on Broadway in 1982, starring James Earl Jones in the title role, Christopher Plummer as Iago and Dianne Wiest as Desdemona.

[Katie Houlis is a digital producer with the CBS New York web team.  She started her career as an intern with the Pittsburgh CW Green Team and the CBS Pittsburgh web team.  She later joined CBS Pittsburgh as a full-time web producer.  Houlis has also written for Tell-Tale TV, an entertainment news website.]

*  *  *  *
“BROADWAY SEEING STARS FOR OPENING NIGHT OF ‘OTHELLO’
STARRING DENZEL WASHINGTON AND JAKE GYLLENHAAL”
by Joelle Garguilo

[This Eyewitness News report was broadcast on WABC (Channel 7, New York City) on 24 March 2025, the evening after opening night.]

NEW YORK (WABC) – Broadway was seeing stars on Sunday night [23 March] for the opening of ‘Othello.’ [There is a post on another production of Othello in “Some Out-Of-Town Plays from the Archive” (22 December 2020), a Washington, D.C., staging with Avery Brooks as the Moor and the late Andre Braugher as Iago.]

Othello is one of William Shakespeare’s best-known tragedies, and it has not been on Broadway since 1982. [I have a three-part post as a tribute to James Earl Jones, who played Othello in that 1982 staging, entitled “In Memoriam: James Earl Jones (1931-2024)” (22, 25, and 28 September 2024).]

The revival, starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, is set in the near future. It is getting a fresh take thanks to director, Kenny Leon.

“I think Denzel has given his whole self on the stage eight shows a week. He doesn’t have to do that other than he wants to impact lives – his Othello is going on that spiritual journey. It’s just a real special production,” Leon said.

Molly Osborne plays Desdemona.

“It has been a dream working for this company. I hope audiences come and they see something new and fresh even though it’s a 400-year-old play,” Osborne said.

Jamie Lee Curtis [2023 Oscar-winner as Best Supporting Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022); she and Gyllenhaal have appeared in several films together over the years] was at the opening and said it was thrilling to watch Gyllenhaal’s performance.

“To know someone since they were five and watch them become an artist – to be able to watch Jake tonight to take on one of the most challenging roles is just thrilling,” she said.

It was a historic evening.

“Just appreciative that I get to be a part of history. This is a historic evening. Break legs all over the place – it’s gonna be amazing,” said Rosie Perez.

Othello has already broken records as the highest-grossing play in Broadway history. [The production has amassed $2.8 million from eight previews leading up to the official 23 March première. This surpasses the $2.7 million set by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in December 2023.]

It only runs through the first week in June, so those wanting to go are encouraged to get tickets immediately.

[Joelle Garguilo is an Emmy Award-winning entertainment reporter for WABC.  A native New Yorker, she began her career in broadcast television 15 years ago at NBC, interviewing hundreds of stars on the screen and stage including Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Timothee Chalamet, Julia Roberts, Tony Bennett, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, among others.

[Throughout her tenure, she held multiple roles across the network. Most recently, she worked as an on-air entertainment and features reporter for New York Live, correspondent for E! News while contributing at the Today Show with Hoda & Jenna.

[Garguilo’s talents have earned her two Emmy Awards, one for the magazine program New York Live Home for the Holidays and a second for Outstanding Entertainment: Program Features/Segment for New York Live Features/Segments.]

*  *  *  *
“DENZEL WASHINGTON AND JAKE GYLLENHAAL
POWER “OTHELLO” TO ELECTRIC OPENING NIGHT ON BROADWAY”
by Dave Carlin 

[This report aired on CBS News New York (WCBS, Channel 2, New York City), also on 24 March 2025.]

Sunday [the 23rd] was opening night on Broadway for two of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal are taking on the new production of Shakespeare’s “Othello.”

The red carpet was full of VIPs, including Jennifer Lopez, Samuel L. Jackson, Anna Wintour, Colman Domingo and many more. And entertainers weren’t the only ones in attendance. Former President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, were also seen entering the Barrymore Theatre.

Washington plays the conflicted and murderous title character. His jealousy and violence is carefully orchestrated by his backstabbing confidante Iago, played by Gyllenhaal.

Prior to the show, members of the cast explained how horrors and thrills created by Shakespeare now land with a freshness in a modern setting.

“They’ve treated this like a new play,” said Andrew Burnap, who plays “Cassio.”

“I’m excited to share,” said Kimber Elayne Sprawl, who portrays “Emilia.”

“Even if you know it, seeing it happen right in front of you, the conflict that happens in the play, it’s just so human that it will always need to tell the story,” said Molly Osborne, who plays “Desdemona.”

Othello’s director is Tony Award winner Kenny Leon.

“Denzel is an emperor. He’s an emperor of the American stage, of the world stage. He has met this role head on and Jake has met Denzel head on,” Leon said.

In February, while Othello was in rehearsals, CBS News New York sat down with Washington and Gyllenhaal [this is a video; there’s no transcript that I can find]. Both described their roles as exciting, and for each star a dream come true.

“We are given the freedom to break the rules,” Washington said.

“I spent the past eight months really digging in because I’ve never done Shakespeare,” Gyllenhaal added.

Producer Brian Moreland [winner of the 2023 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play for The Piano Lesson; nominated for four Best Play or Best Revival Tonys] said a sizzling Shakespeare is what they were after and he credits the unbeatable cast and creators.

“It’s that good and they’re that good. Night after night they build that same journey, so that you get to the point that we all know is going to happen, it’s all inevitable, but yet you’re there with them on every single word they have to say,” Moreland said.

To call Othello, which runs through June 8, a financial hit is an understatement as it is expected to earn the title of highest grossing Broadway play ever.

*  *  *  *
“DENZEL WASHINGTON AND JAKE GYLLENHAAL’S
UNDERWHELMING BLOCKBUSTER”
by Adrian Horton

[Adrian Horton’s review of the Broadway revival of Othello was published in the U.S. edition of The Guardian on 24 March 2025.] 

The record-breaking take on the Shakespearean tragedy might already be a smash, but it’s disappointingly muddled

With the smell of doom and regression in the air, perhaps it’s not surprising that the hottest ticket on Broadway this season is for a 400-year-old tragedy. There’s been much ado about the box office for Othello, a new rendition of Shakespeare’s classic given movie-star wattage. The show at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, grossed $2.8m during one week of previews – the most of any non-musical during a single week on Broadway ever, in part because some orchestra tickets are going for a whopping $921.

The sticker shock is not just an Othello problem – tickets for two other celeb-driven plays on Broadway – Glengarry Glen Ross [31 March-28 June 2025 at the Palace Theatre, with Kieran Culkin and Bob Odenkirk], and George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck [see “Film Stars Twinkle on the Great White Way, Part 2” (30 March 2025)], aren’t averaging much less, and it has already been a lucrative season for celeb-studded Shakespeare as Romeo + Juliet, starring screen-famous Rachel Zegler and Kit Connor, recouped its $7m capitalization before closing last month. But before it even officially opened, Othello became emblematic of Broadway’s trend toward luxury experience and status symbol over popular entertainment, billing Hollywood names in a hyper-competitive, exclusionary market. (Full disclosure: the Guardian, denied tickets for review, paid $400 for a middle orchestra seat.)

Ticket prices, of course, are not the fault of the show itself, nor typically relevant to a review. But the astronomical ask hangs over this minimalist, almost dystopian production, which puts the burden of imagination heavily on the performers and largely fails to reach the level of transcendence demanded by its cost. Directed by the Tony winner Kenny Leon, who guided Washington to a Tony in 2010’s Fences, this austere, underwhelming take on Shakespeare seems to acknowledge that people are not paying for a revival of this particular play, which hasn’t been on Broadway since 1982 and still has rich insights on the masculinity, human fallibility and race more than 400 years after its debut. Instead, it’s for the opportunity to see Gyllenhaal, one of the most versatile and thrilling millennial actors, and especially the widely beloved Washington, rightly hailed in the Playbill as “the most lauded stage and screen actor of his generation”, without the mediation of a screen.

Othello does provide a showcase for these two heavyweight talents to bend iambic pentameter to their will – to convey, with their considerable magnetism, both the plot and the emotional nuances of this tragedy to an audience that probably does not totally understand what they’re saying. And it does not provide much else. Derek McLane’s scenic design keeps the stage bare except for some peeling columns, the props minimal save for occasional accoutrements of a modern military operation (army fatigues, Apple laptops). A lit message at play’s opening sets this medieval drama in “the near future” – still Venice (and later Cyprus), though when Gyllenhaal’s devious Iago first appears to set the stage for the fateful manipulation of the general, one might mistake him for a hustler at a basement club in Bushwick. His eyes near glow in the spotlight, and a preponderance on blue-white floor lighting (design by Natasha Katz) gives the production, particularly its monologues, the feel of a concert at the ruins of the Colosseum.

Star power does the heavy lifting, though not enough to elevate this Othello into the pantheon of Broadway greats. As expected, Washington, at 70, brings the bearing of an elder statesman to the fallible Venetian general, a role he first played at age 22 [at Manhattan’s Fordham University in March 1977, his senior year]. This has the double-sided effect of making the character feel especially tragic – the well-respected veteran general, imbued with glorious authority by one of the most well-respected actors, felled by a shocking streak of insecurity – and ill-fitting; his chemistry with Desdemona (a much younger Molly Osborne, an English actor with an unwieldy American accent) feels more father-daughter than new husband and wife, despite Washington’s best attempts at charming, sexy beguilement. Washington has moments of sublime melody as Othello descends into jealous delusion, the kind of rhapsodic deliveries that feel worth whatever price of admission, but the overall tone of his performance is one of perfunctory hyper-competence.

The show, instead, belongs to Gyllenhaal, an actor of singular intensity who makes a meal out of Iago’s desperate two-facedness. He opens the show with a hypnotic screed against “the Moor” he so loathes – a denigration of blackness (of soul and skin) in Shakespeare’s time titled just enough to resonate more clearly in ours, and never ceases to mesmerize. At turns preening, desperate, boastful, plaintive, easily convincing in his maneuverings of the guileless lieutenant Cassio (Snow White’s Andrew Burnap), as well as gullible townsman Roderigo (Anthony Michael Lopez), Desdemona and Othello, Gyllenhaal’s Iago is the one truly fun performance to watch throughout the show’s nearly three-hour runtime.

The rest is a muddled affair, in details and delivery – Italian polizia but American uniforms, Iago prejudiced against the black-skinned general yet married to Emilia, played by Black actor Kimber Elayne Sprawl. Even Washington seems, at the play’s ignominious and violent end, confused by his character, his grip on reality or his evolution from hero to villain slippery. His Othello is never not compelling; the whole thing, in fact, is consistently competent and spirited, though weighted down by expectation – enough that it should keep the green-eyed monsters who miss out at bay.

[Adrian Horton is an arts writer for Guardian US.

[After my “recovered” report on the Shakespeare Theatre at the Folger’s 1990 production of Othello, I added a personal comment.  It’s appropriate to repeat here, I think, so I’m appending it to this post as well:

When I was trying to make a career as an actor, there were roles I ached to play—a phenomenon among most actors, I believe.  One I got to do was the title character in George Bernard Shaw’s one-act The Man of Destiny: Napoleon as a 26-year-old general.  [I was 31 at the time.]  Most of the others, I never got to.  At the top of that list was Shakespeare’s Iago, arguably one of the greatest villains in theater. 

I wanted to play Iago so badly, I could feel it in my bones.  I came somewhat close: I got to play Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, a kind of Iago-lite in a comedy rather than in a tragedy.  I loved doing that part, largely because Much Ado is my all-time favorite Shakespeare and it was a lovely production—but it wasn’t the brass ring.  Alas!

[I think most actors long to play Hamlet—including some women (though I believe many female actors long to play Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler as their most coveted classic role.  I went for the bad guy.

[This is the first part of a two-part post.  On Sunday, 30 March, I’ll run the second installment, a collection of pieces on another movie star-led Broadway show, Good Night, and Good Luck starring George Clooney as newsman Edward R. Murrow.  Please come back to Rick On Theater in three days to read the second part of “Film Stars Twinkle on the Great White Way.”]

An Experiment in Reviewing – Popular Songs

by Kirk Woodward

[My friend and frequent guest-blogger, Kirk Woodward, has submitted a new article that combines two of his special interests: review-writing and popular music. Alongside his long-time interest in the work of Bob Dylan and the Beatles, about which he’s written in the past for ROT, Kirk has been a fan of the classic pop group the Beach Boys since the 1960s, so he naturally checked out their new album, That’s Why God Made the Radio, but instead of writing a review of the recording itself, Kirk’s taken the tack of reviewing the reviews, in particular, one from the British newspaper The Guardian, long renowned for its arts coverage. As you’ll read, Kirk has some objections about the ways in which arts reviewers, in particular, pop and rock ’n’ roll music writers, ply their trades. I know you’ll find this an interesting and provocative take on the practice of music reviewing—and you’ll get Kirk’s assessment of the Beach Boys and their new output as well. ~Rick]

It used to be said that everyone in New York City had a play in a back pocket. Nowadays everyone in New York City, and everywhere else, is a reviewer. Numerous websites invite anyone – really, anyone – to write an allegedly critical opinion of anything and publish it on the web. There is even a word now, “trolling,” for the sort of reviewer who routinely posts insulting “reviews” for the pleasure of attacking people’s work, no matter what it is or what it may be worth.

This cheerful process of people with no accomplishments giving their uninformed opinion on a work that, in many cases, took years of difficult creation, often seems like a harmless enough spectacle, until something or someone we like is reviewed, like (as someone remarked about Bertolt Brecht’s appearance before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee) a zookeeper being examined by a committee of apes. When we actually know something about a work, or even, worse yet, care about it, the process may not seem so harmless.

I wrote about principles of reviewing in a book called The Art of Writing Reviews (available at Lulu.com). In this article I’d like to apply ideas from that book to a particular situation – in fact, to a particular CD, a recently released recording by the Beach Boys called That’s Why God Made the Radio (referred to from now on in this piece as Radio).

Because the album was released in conjunction with a reunion tour by the band to celebrate its fiftieth (well, fifty-first – they began working together in 1961) anniversary as a musical group, the album (people of my generation call them “albums”) has received considerable attention. In its first week of sales it charted at #3 on the Billboard sales chart, the highest an album by the group has ever placed in its first week of release.

I want to approach the reviewing of the album from a methodological point of view, but, as will be seen, it’s not irrelevant to give my personal opinion of the album right off the bat: I think it’s a wonderful recording, outstanding in many ways. Note, please: that’s not a review, it’s an opinion. It’s how I feel. Reviews must do more than just report whether the reviewer likes the work at hand or not.

Or must they? Let’s think about that, using as a basis for discussing the album, which I will now describe for those who haven’t heard it. First, a description of the album: it is divided thematically into three sections: Prologue (three songs), Summer (five songs), and Fall (four songs). (These are my divisions, not anything identified on the recording.)

The Prologue begins with a haunting, melancholy duet between voices and piano reminiscent of the French composer Erik Satie, called “Think About the Days,” setting up a theme of looking to the past. This theme is amplified in the next song, the rocking, majestic title number “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” written over insistent triplets (think of the old song “Silhouettes”) and full of chord changes difficult enough that I still haven’t been able to completely map them out on the piano.

The last song in what I’m calling the Prologue is almost the opposite of its predecessor: “Isn’t It Time” uses for rhythm a deliberate four-four beat; for instrumentation, a ukulele (plus guitar, percussion, and bass); and for vocals, as close to a doo-wop sound as the Beach Boys get.

The Summer section begins and ends with what one might think of as songs typically representative of the Beach Boys, “Spring Vacation” and “Beaches in Mind,” the latter preceded by the equally sun-oriented number “Daybreak Over the Ocean.” None of the songs in the section, however, have the typical “Beach Boy sound” of the famous recordings of the sixties. “Spring Vacation” begins with a relaxed, swinging groove that makes its leisurely way into a driving chorus, one of many songs on the album that start relatively calmly and move into an irresistible last section. So, for example, does “The Private Life of Bill and Sue,” which is Caribbean flavored and practically leaps from the verses that set up the story, to a multi-layered chorus that begs to be danced to. “Shelter,” which follows, matches a sweet lyric to a slightly Mexican sound. “Daybreak Over the Ocean” is a dreamy up-tempo ballad, and “Beaches In Mind” is a loose rocker with an emphatic chorus.

The third section of the album, which I’ve called “Fall,” begins with a mid-tempo song called “Strange World” that sets up the theme of unsettledness that fills the rest of the album, a theme continued in “From There to Back Again,” featuring a sensational vocal by the seventy-year old Al Jardine, who also supplies jaunty whistling. The song is actually a sort of mini-suite, with a kaleidoscopic section of fragments at the end that further disconnect the listener from the earlier summer theme. Next, another massed vocal chorus, reminiscent of the one that opens the album, introduces “Pacific Coast Highway,” a deeply melancholy song about getting on the road and leaving. Finally, “Summer’s Gone,” a lonely song of resignation, leads to the sound of the ocean, and the album ends.

In summarizing the album I’ve tried to do briefly what any review should first do: come to terms with what the work under consideration is, before beginning to make judgments about it. I’ve tried to describe as best I can what the album is trying to do, what its intention is. I should add to that picture that the album also wants to present the well-known Beach Boy harmonies in as many facets as possible, and it does: the variety and quality of vocal writing in the album is not to be matched, as far as I’m concerned.

Now, how has the album been reviewed? Many reviews have been favorable. However, a distressing number have focused on a few themes:

The Beach Boys are old. Reviewers, apparently, never get old, and so they are able to spend time talking about the fact that other people age. One sees, perhaps, the news value in pointing out that a group with “boys” in its name has an average age of around seventy. What, however, does that fact have to do with the work at hand? A reviewer shouldn’t be reviewing the Great Circle of Life, but the album.

As I was working on this piece, my daughter played for me a CD of aggressive, minimalist rock by a band she had seen. I assumed the members of the band were kids. Not at all, she said, they were considerably closer to my age!

So the question is, what would we think of the work if we didn’t know biographical facts about the artists? I think it’s always worthwhile to try as far as possible to approach a work by familiar artists as though we didn’t know anything about them. The mental exertion involved in approaching a piece in that way can be huge, but the alternative is critical laziness. It’s easy to describe how old someone is – it’s less easy to describe the work they’ve done.

And related is a second theme often cited in reviews of Radio:

The Beach Boys have spent years suing each other. Again, true in part, but what in the world does that have to do with a new album? It exists. Is it worth listening to or not? Or should we hope they sue each other some more so we can hear them testifying in court? And is that a reviewer’s business?

The Beach Boys often write dopey lyrics. This complaint doesn’t point to subject matter, but to what used to be called infelicity of phrasing. (Beach Boy songs come from many writers, the most prominent being group members Brian Wilson, one of the greatest rock composers, and Mike Love, who tends to specialize more in lyrics. The other major writer on Radio is its producer, Joe Thomas.) It’s true that sometimes the various writers for the Beach Boys create wonky lyrics, like everyone else. Sometimes they write lovely lyrics. In “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” I really don’t like the rhyme

It’s paradise when I
Lift up my antennae

which reminds me too much of bugs. On the other hand, the next lines of the song seem to me to redeem the verse:

Receiving your signal
Like a prayer
Like a prayer

The larger point is this: a reviewer may not demonstrate the allegedly inferior quality of a popular song lyric by quoting it. Lyrics are meant to be sung, and only make sense in the context of a song. “A wop bop a loo bop a bop bam boom” is a brilliant lyric in the song ”Tutti Frutti,” no matter how it looks on the printed page.

The “Summer” songs are trivial; the “Fall” songs are profound. Here we come to an issue of more significance than the previous ones. There is substantial critical opinion – completely wrongheaded, in my opinion – that “serious” work is better than “light” work.

Think, for example, of Academy Awards for Best Picture. When Annie Hall won that award, it was an astonishing event, because the Motion Picture Academy consistently ignores comedy and rewards turgid spectacles that practically announce themselves as “important.” The same phenomenon can be seen in other fields of art, and certainly in popular music.

The Beach Boys have spent much of their careers taking light subjects (the sun, the beach, surfing, and so on) and presenting them with overwhelming imagination and beauty. Yet they are only accorded major recognition when they furrow their brows and announce that life can be sad. (The group has never won a Grammy award, and Brian Wilson only won for a piece called “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” that was voted Best Rock Instrumental Performance although there clearly are voices on it.)

The idea that “serious” work is more valuable than “light” work is a prejudice and a critical evasion, nothing more. It will not bear examination on its own. The best reviewers do not fall for the notion. The treatment for such prejudices is to remember the three questions that Goethe said a critic (and a reviewer) must always ask about a work of art – in this order:

1. What does it try to do?
2. Does it do it?
3. Is it worth doing?

Here, for an example that illustrates all these points, in a negative way, is a review of Radio from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/31/beach-boys-thats-why-review. It was written by Alexis Petridis on 31 May 2012:

It’s easy to be sceptical about the Beach Boy’s reunion. Indeed, if you look at the messageboards, diehard fans seem the most distrustful of the lot, which figures: for all the warmth and open-heartedness of the band’s best music, if there’s one thing being a Beach Boys fan teaches you, it’s scepticism. There are only so many times you can be told Brian Wilson has been restored to full physical and mental health, the better to make himself and a lot of other people a great deal of money, before you develop what the Clash called a “bullshit detector”, and Beach Boys fans have been told that on a regular basis – and with a great deal of evidence to the contrary – for the last 36 years.

Anyone looking to the music itself to check for signs of cynicism need only turn to “Spring Vacation”. It opens with a verse in which Mike Love claims to be “living the dream … cruisin’ the town, diggin’ the scene”. The Beach Boys’ music has often involved a suspension of disbelief – all those songs depicting a perfect, gilded California youth, written by a man whose own youth had been mired in physical and mental abuse – but this seems to push unreality to its limit. You find yourself wondering why on earth a 71-year-old would be cruisin’ the town and diggin’ the scene: perhaps he’s plannin’ on askin’ them to keep the noise down so an old man can get some rest. Then it moves on to the subject of the reunion itself: “We’re back together, easy money,” he sings, as indeed you might if, after years of playing fairgrounds and casinos, you found yourself shifting $70m [£45m] of concert tickets simply by hooking up with the cousin you have spent most of the last 20 years suing. “All I can say is, we’re havin’ a blast!” he offers, which isn’t what a recent profile in Newsweek – depicting Brian Wilson “in various stages of distress” on stage with the band – suggested.

If the lyrics are disingenuous, the song itself isn’t up to much, the music slick but unremarkable. The first two-thirds of the album passes in similarly ho-hum style, notwithstanding the wordless introduction, “Think About the Days”, which is beautiful. The title track is a decent pastiche of Wilson in his prime, its cascading chorus equal parts “Kiss Me Baby” and John Barry’s “Theme from Midnight Cowboy”; “The Private Life of Bill and Sue”, however, a satire on reality TV, makes you want to curl up and die of embarrassment.

But just as you’re about to dismiss the album entirely, something extraordinary happens. The final three tracks – “From There to Back Again”, “Pacific Coast Highway” and “Summer’s Gone” – form a kind of suite that is easily the best thing Brian Wilson has put his name to in the last 30 years. Episodic, occasionally lapsing into silence, filled with shifts in tempo, the melodies impossibly beautiful, it takes the melancholy at the heart of Wilson’s greatest work – from “Pet Sounds” to “Til I Die” – and repurposes it. In contrast to the rest of the album, which relies on creaky nostalgia, it concerns itself with ageing (“sunlight’s fading and there’s not much to say”, sings Wilson on “Pacific Coast Highway”), death and the Beach Boys’ legacy. “Our dreams hold on for those who still have more to say . . . it’s time to go,” offers “Summer’s Gone”, undercutting all the gung-ho, we’re-havin’-a-blast guff that comes before it in the same way the wistful, autumnal intro to ”California Girls” seemed at odds with that song’s sunkissed lechery. Wilson’s vocals sound engaged with the subject, which seems faintly incredible given that on every other recent record he’s made, he’s sounded like a man forced at gunpoint to read his lyrics off a broken autocue.

For all its flaws, That’s Why God Made the Radio is an infinitely better way for the Beach Boys’ story to end than their last album of new recordings, 1992’s disastrous country outing Stars and Stripes Vol. 1, or indeed the last album that bore their name – Mike Love, Bruce Johnston & David Marks of the Beach Boys salute NASCAR – on which the trio rerecorded old hits for the benefit of a chain of US petrol stations. Exquisite beauty nestles alongside stuff that’s wildly misjudged, painful honesty alongside the constant burnishing of a myth about youth and sunshine and a California that everyone stopped believing years ago, the whole thing wrapped in stories of non-existent fraternity, harmony and good vibrations: it’s the Beach Boys in a nutshell. Perhaps without realising it, That’s Why God Made the Radio tells you almost everything you need to know about America’s Favourite Band.

I don’t think I need to repeat the points I made earlier, particularly the point that for the writer, “serious is better.” What I do want to highlight is how much of the article’s evaluation of the album is opinion without criteria, or with criteria dubious at best. For example, Petridis slams “Spring Vacation” for being unseemly for a singer in his seventies. Are we then reviewing a musician’s age and not the music? Does it matter that one of the Beach Boys, Al Jardine, sounds like he’s maybe twenty years old? To paraphrase the old baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, how old would the Beach Boys be if we didn’t know how old they were?

Aside from the point about ageism, what criteria is Petridis using to criticize a song that glorifies the singer’s supposed way of living? He criticizes “Spring Vacation” for the singer’s attitude; does he use the same criteria to criticize rap musicians who brag about their prowess and their popularity, whether their claims are true or false? I’m guessing he does not. And why is “Bill and Sue” an embarrassment? Because it’s a satire on reality TV? That’s the only clue Petridis gives us. What are the criteria involved in that judgment?

I understand and in a way even admire the way Petridis has structured his review. He wants to tell a story to keep his readers’ attention, so he forms a dramatic narrative out of the album and out of what he knows about its participants. He succeeds in his intention, too. He does write an article that holds the attention. However, he is not really reviewing. He is storytelling. His narrative takes the place of the job of critical evaluation.

And I sympathize with his approach, because there simply is not time or space enough in the life of a regular music reviewer to follow Goethe’s three steps for every song he writes about. Radio contains a dozen songs. Hundreds of thousands of new songs are released every year. Petridis has five paragraphs in which to write about an album. There’s no way that math works out for a reviewer.

But we must be aware of what we’re reading. Opinions and reviews are not the same. Particularly where songs are concerned, but in other fields of art as well, we need to take reviewers and their opinions with a grain of salt, realize what they can do and what they can’t, and resolve to make our judgments based on best principles, and for ourselves.

[Kirk provided the URL for Lulu, the publisher of his book, The Art of Writing Reviews (well worth reading, by the way), but I also want to point out that I posted a four-part commentary on the book on ROT which readers of this blog might also enjoy. “The Art of Writing Reviews by Kirk Woodward,” Parts 1 through 4, was posted on 4, 8, 11, and 14 November 2009. “The Beatles and Me,” a reminiscence by Kirk, was posted on ROT on 7 October 2010; and “Bob Dylan, Performance Artist,” Kirk’s discussion of a Dylan concert, was posted on 8 January 2011.]