Living in Stereo has promoted this Daniel Wolff essay on "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" since its publication in Threepenny Review in 1999. I read it on the occasion of Elvis' 72nd birthday and I agree that it's a fine piece of writing—and well worth linking to.
I don't agree with everything Wolff says, especially his lack of regard for Peter Guralnick's two-volume biography of the King, but he's not completely wrong about Guralnick either. PG wrote much more insightfully about music he loves than music he doesn't care for—and who is really surprised by that?
What struck me so forcefully about "Elvis in the Dark" was Wolff's passion, a quality I find absent from so much contemporary criticism. All too often these days, critics cop a hipster mock-ironic attitude that just makes me tired.
I think the critic's first duty is to fall in love on insufficient evidence. Before seeing Charles Mee's incendiary Iphigenia 2.0 at the Signature Theater Company recently, I read a review of it in Time Out New York that essentially dismissed it as too experimental for old fogies (like me, presumably), but all right in its idiosyncratic way. It quite put me off the play and I was grumpy about having bought a season subscription.
Imagine my surprise to find it a fascinating and incredibly erudite fusion of ancient Greek drama and modern sensibilities—a play that I haven't stopped talking about, or thinking about, since. And, since Time Warner has subsidized the theater company, it's a play ordinary people can afford, with $20 tickets.
Who wouldn't at least champion that? I suspect TONY's critic either didn't know Euripides (is that even possible?) or was unwilling to declare the play a success before his fellow drama desk pals weighed in upon its opening in September. If Ben Brantley writes a rave on opening night, I bet Iphigenia 2.0 will have "improved dramatically" (heh) during its preview run.
Thank goodness for writers like Daniel Wolff, who aren't ashamed about loving art that may not be hip.
