Jacques Joseph Tissot, born in Nantes in 1836, was an Anglophile who went by “James” and moved to London in 1871. He made tender portraits of his Irish lover, Kathleen Newton, until she died of tuberculosis. Back in France, he painted confident Frenchwomen in lively crowds and sensuously cinched dresses, but Parisians dismissed the subjects as too British. He illustrated anguished scenes from the Bible in precisely composed tableaux en gouaches, led by his re-discovered Catholic faith. It can be confounding to try to bind it all together. How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? READ ON

It’s been two and a half months since the West End in London drew its last curtain, following New York City’s Broadway into darkness. And while it’s likely to be years before we see a return to packed productions, a handful of forward thinkers have put their efforts into conceptualizing what exactly proto–pandemic theater has to offer struggling playhouses and captive audiences alike. The result is the return of Claire Foy and Matt Smith to their starring roles in Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs, the first in the Old Vic theater’s new series of virtual productions. READ ON