Excerpts From Edwin Wilsonâs âMagic Timeâ
A memoir of a lifetimeâs active engagement with American theater, by a former drama critic for The Wall Street Journal.
Broadway at night.
Photo:
Alamy Stock Photo
Dec. 17, 2020 6:13 pm ET
As a schoolboy in the early 1940s, Edwin Wilson saw Al Jolson drop to his knees in the footlights of the Shubert Theatre and belt out âMammy.â As a young man he thrilled to the original Broadway productions of âA Streetcar Named Desire,â âDeath of a Salesman,â âOklahoma!ââthe standard American repertoire aborning. In his memoir âMagic Time,â Mr. Wilson, now 93, writes fondly of how these and other electrifying moments of New York playgoing led him, circuitously, to Yale Drama School and a lifetime of teaching and making theater happenâwriting scripts, directing and producing plays, encouraging young talent, and writing or cowriting three of the most enduring college theater textbooks. At the heart of the book, however, is an account of his long tenure as The Wall Street Journalâs theater critic, from 1972 to 1994. It was work that, with its first-night tickets and aisle seats, returned him to what drew him to the dramatic arts in the first placeâan audience memberâs experience of living theater. More than a reminiscence, âMagic Timeâ is also a mini-anthology of Mr. Wilsonâs favorite reviews and other writings for this paper. The critic excelled at profiles, interviews and memorial tributes, four of which are adapted here.