New York: culture

Did I do anything more high-cultured in New York than visit historical buildings and eat bagels? Yes, surely.

I had three consecutive musical nights out. One I mentioned before, a house concert in a private apartment with baritone Peter Walker and pianist David Alpher to hear songs by Swann and Vaughan Williams, a very fine performance. The other two were more public.

1. Lincoln Center. I'd known this was there, I'd never been in it. A large concrete plaza surrounded by theaters. The Metropolitan Opera over here, the symphony hall over there. And in this corner, one with a thrust stage currently hosting a touted revival of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, and that's what I saw. The sets were remarkably able in suggesting detail and depth with a minimum of means, and were constantly being flown or twirled on and off stage in an astonishing way (Higgins' house was four roofless rooms on an enormous table, and each would slowly turn to be in front as the actors walked through them). The cast seemed more competent than vivid. Laura Benanti as Eliza had more verve than bite. Harry Hadden-Paton as Higgins seemed almost bland, but his songs seem to stick with me more than most. Danny Burstein had all the energy that Doolittle's songs require. I'll give Christian Dante White the credit to have a powerful enough voice to pull off Freddy's "On the Street Where You Live" without sounding at all sappy. A few points of acting were of note. At the very end, Eliza lightly caresses Higgins' face (when this production first opened, she slapped him: glad they changed that) and then walks off, raising the question, so why did she come back at all? Allan Corduner's facial expressions as Pickering in response to Higgins' theoretical questions about male behavior in "A Hymn to Him" suggest that maybe Pickering is in love with Higgins, and wouldn't that be a kick?

2. At a medium-sized theater on the Upper West Side called Symphony Space, the Irish Arts Center in collaboration with Carnegie Hall (on whose web site I read about this, and was surprised then to learn it wasn't held there) hosted the annual Celtic Appalachian Celebration, and it was two days before St. Patrick's, wasn't it? One Irish-American band (The Green Fields of America: 2 fiddles, mandolin, accordion and concertina), one Appalachian bluegrass band (The New Ballard Branch Bogtrotters: fiddle, banjo, mandolin, guitar, and string bass), and assorted other musicians including a black bluesman (Jerron Paxton), played separately and multi-culturally together. Also accompanied by some free and easy Irish dancing. This was Irish dancing as I saw it at folk events in the 70s: while yes, it's all about the feet, they do still move their arms around freely, not hold them stiffly by the side like those weird Riverdance people did. A fairly genial and friendly evening.

And books: paid brief visits to Argosy and Shakespeare on the Upper East Side, which enabled me to eat up there too; Academy Records, which I escaped without anything; and two lengthy delves into the Strand, meeting up with DGK for lengthy abstruse discussions, and taking out two literary essay collections, the sort of book they're best at in there.