Book Review: Some Time in the Sun: The Hollywood Years of F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Nathaniel West, Aldous Huxley, and James Agee

(Bought at a used-book store in upstate NY for 50 cents.) Tom Dardis' scholarly study of five distinguished authors who tried their hand at screenwriting during Hollywood's Golden Age is informative if a trifle dry. There's little juice in his chronicling of the quintet's struggles with studio bosses, directors, and, in some cases, alcoholism and depression. It's a scholarly book and also a study of the conflict between art and commerce. All of the authors, to one degree or another, were dependent on their movie money for survival. It's somewhat astonishing to read that literary giants like Fitzgerald and Faulkner had to scramble for cinema dollars in order to pay their bills because the sales of their books, now regarded as classics, were so meager. Though Dardis offers plentiful details such as salary figures and specific studio assignments, he misses the essence of his subjects. I didn't feel I knew any of them any better once I'd finished the book. 

B'way Update: Sarah Snook as Dorian Gray

Sarah Snook in the Sydney Theatre Company
production of 
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
adapted and directed by Kip Williams.
Credit: Marc Brenner

Emmy and Olivier Award winner Sarah Snook (Succession) will make her Broadway debut playing 26 characters in the dazzling production of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The breathtaking stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s only novel is adapted and directed by Kip Williams, the Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company, where the production originated. The Picture of Dorian Gray will open at a Shubert theatre in March for a strictly limited engagement. Snook won an Olivier Award for her performance playing 26 characters including the titular Dorian Gray whose portrait ages while he remains eternally young, leading a debauched, immoral existence.

“It was a singular privilege to bring The Picture of Dorian Gray to life in London and I am thrilled we will be able to share this astonishing production with audiences in New York,” Snook said. “From Oscar Wilde’s timeless words to the masterful reinterpretation Kip Williams has created, this tale of virtue, corruption, vanity and repercussion is an electrifying journey for me as much as for the audiences and I am filled with anticipation as we continue on this ambitious creative endeavor.”

B'way Update: Mincemeat Official

From left: Claire-Marie Hall, Natasha Hodgson,
David Cumming, Zoe Roberts, Jak Malone
of 'Operation Mincemeat'
Credit: Matt Crockett

It's official. As reported yesterday, the Olivier Award-winning musical Operation Mincemeat will open on Broadway this spring. Preview performances begin Feb. 15, 2025 at the Golden Theater with an opening scheduled for March 20. Mincemeat, which opened in London's West End in May 0f 2023, is written by four of the original cast members David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, and Zoe Roberts. The plot is based on the actual Operation Mincemeat, a British intelligence scheme to deceive the Nazis by planting fake documents on a corpse.