Classic movie buffs, take note: TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" celebration begins Thursday! Here are some highlights I'm hoping to catch; check out the full schedule (a pdf, with the movies broken down by Oscar category) and let me know your picks!
Feb. 1, 10:30 AM - Brief Encounter (1945)
My "British Literature since 1945" professor screened this in college. Attendance wasn't mandatory; he just wanted to enhance our feel for the era. It's quiet and rich, and deeply adult (as in "mature," not "dirty") for 1945. It's based on a Noel Coward play, so I guess that's no surprise, but the overall seriousness might be. Nominated for direction, leading actress (Celia Johnson) and screenplay.
6:00 PM - The African Queen (1951)
I've seen it 3 times already and wouldn't mind going for a 4th. It's a great story, and the performances by Bogie (who won an Oscar) and Hepburn (who was nominated) are basically a master class. Be sure to catch the first 10 minutes; Robert Morley kills me every time.
Feb. 2, 5:00 PM - Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The boyfriend's DVR, which (as a gift to me) is programmed to record anything with the keywords "Judy Garland," picked this up recently. Judy's non-singing, non-dancing, Oscar-nommed performance is not the only reason to watch this movie, although it might be the best one; Spencer Tracy (also nominated) is as excellent as ever, and the scene where Maximilian Schell switches from German to English, winning an Oscar in the process, is one of my top ten favorite movie moments. (Not that I actually have a list.) [ETA: Discussed at length here.]
Feb. 3, 4:00 AM - Two for the Seesaw (1962)
I've never seen this one, but it stars Shirley MacLaine and was directed by Robert Wise (3 years before The Sound of Music), with Oscar-nominated cinematography, so I have high hopes. Shirley MacLaine is good in everything.
Feb. 5, 12:00 PM - Sunset Boulevard (1950)
If you haven't seen this yet, now's your chance. Musical theatre fun fact: did you know Stephen Sondheim once planned to make this into a musical? Sometimes I dream about what that musical might have been like. And then I weep bitterly.
9:30 PM - The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Don't try to follow the plot -- some plots weren't meant to be followed. Just soak in the atmosphere. Once you've seen this best-picture winner, you'll know pretty much all you need to know about an entire genre.
Feb 7, 8:00 PM - Inherit the Wind (1960)
As Judy Garland fascinates in Judgment at Nuremberg, so Gene Kelly fascinates here. The movies also have matching best actor nominations for Spencer Tracy, and best black-and-white cinematography noms for Ernest Laszlo. The play will be on Broadway later this season, but will it have Gene Kelly? I think not.
Feb 8, 6:00 AM - A Free Soul (1931)
What do movie geeks mean when they talk about "pre-code" pictures? Why is Norma Shearer my favorite actress? Just how stupid would Clark Gable look without that skeevy mustache? This is the film to answer all your questions. Norma, definitely not wearing anything under that satin gown, scored an Oscar nom; Lionel Barrymore, haggard but still hammy, won.
6:00 PM - The Philadelphia Story (1940)
I hate Cary Grant and I always will. And I'm not sure I really like the story, when all is said and done. But I'm hard pressed to name a better, or funnier, screenplay, and anything directed by George Cukor is bound to be worth watching. Plus, I love Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey and Virginia Weidler so much -- always, but especially in this movie -- that I'm more than willing to overlook Cary's unctuous yet wooden presence. Stewart won the Oscar, as well he should have.
Feb 9, 8:00 PM - The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
My favorite of the Muppet movies (it won an Oscar for Joe Moss's music), and the source of my longstanding crush on Lonny Price. Watching it still makes me think, "Someday I want to live in that magical place called Manhattan!" And then I realize: ...Oh.
Feb 13, 11:45 AM - Harvey (1950)
More Oscar-nominated drunkenness from Jimmy Stewart, and a triumph for the theatre in Josephine Hull's Oscar win! Funny, heartwarming, memorable. You'll feel like a better person for having watched.
Feb 15, 2:15 AM - Camille (1936)
A Valentine's Day(ish) showing of this classic Garbo romance, which for years I knew only as "the movie they go to see at Radio City in Annie." It wasn't till this year that I realized Camille was directed by George Cukor; I caught a captivating half-hour on TCM once and have been hoping to see the rest ever since.
1:15 PM - Born Yesterday (1950)
Judy Holliday is incredible, and if your response to that is, "Who?" I insist that you see this movie. (Ditto if you're thinking, Wasn't Melanie Griffith in that?) Holliday won the Oscar; director Cukor was nominated, of course. [ETA: Discussed at length here.]
Feb 24, 6:30 AM - On The Waterfront (1954)
From a distance, this movie looked -- to quote Sars -- On the Boring as Hell. But I'm glad I checked it out anyway (and on the big screen, too!), because holy shit is this a good movie. It won 8 Oscars, including best picture, and was nominated for 4 more. Made me want to go to film school so I could spend the rest of my life writing papers about how good it is. Just thrilling.
8:00 PM - A Man for All Seasons (1966)
I have a deep devotion to St. Thomas More... but sometimes I think I'm really devoted to Robert Bolt's play about his life, and Paul Scofield's Oscar-winning performance in the film version. Catholic or not, do yourself a favor and check it out. Comes complete with bonus scene-stealing bloat from Orson Welles!
Feb 25, 2:00 PM - Gone With the Wind (1939)
Watch at least the first two hours; the rest is soapy and melodramatic (and still pretty great), but the first half is difficult to overpraise. Won 8 Oscars, including best director for Victor Fleming - but you and I know the best scenes were directed by my man George Cukor.
Feb 28, 12:00 AM - The Little Foxes (1941)
Another great film adaptation of a great play. The combination of director William Wyler and star Bette Davis will knock your socks off; Patricia Collinge and Teresa Wright also do their profession proud. 9 noms, including one for Lillian Hellman's screenplay.
March 2, 10:15 PM - Awakenings (1990)
Like most Penny Marshall films, this makes me cry every damn time. Think you hate Robin Williams? See this before you decide. Embarrassing admission: this was my introduction to the (Oscar-nominated) acting stylings of Robert De Niro, and now, whenever I see him in anything else, I can't quite shake the impression that he's playing a mentally handicapped person.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Seen on the subway this morning
A teenage boy in a yarmulke, reading Saint Augustine's Confessions. (See, the subway isn't always harrowing.)
Monday, January 29, 2007
Not one word apt, one player fitting
I knew I was in trouble as soon as I read the "Director's Note." Directors and academics are always claiming to have found The Best Approach to interpreting and/or performing Shakespeare, but it takes a special kind of pomposity to claim, as director Ike Schambelan does in his notes for the Theater by the Blind production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, that "this is a deeply revolutionary production, so entertaining and clear that you never want to see another Shakespeare that doesn't let him speak in his own form, his own voice."
Leaving the theatre two hours later, the boyfriend said to me, "He was right about one thing -- I never want to see another production of Shakespeare."
If it weren't for the claims made in that program note, and in an equally off-putting preshow announcement by TBTB co-artistic director Schambelan, I would feel a little bit bad reporting on the awfulness of this production. But I don't like being told that what I am about to see will be brilliant, even when it turns out to be true, and when it turns out to be anything but true, I'm not inclined to be charitable.
Schambelan's "revolutionary" approach involves double-casting -- hardly a new idea, especially when it comes to Midsummer, but Schambelan claims that his production has been cast (with a total of 6 actors) exactly as Shakespeare intended, a claim that is hard to credit once you've sat through the final scene, which here is much longer and much less funny than it ought to be, because the Athenians keep dashing offstage and coming back on as Mechanicals, and then dashing back offstage and coming back on again as Athenians. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In his preshow announcement, Schambelan informed us that since we were seeing a preview, we should expect things to go wrong. He added that, because of his revolutionary, just-as-Shakespeare-intended doubling scheme, entrances might be late or otherwise flubbed. Now, I would argue that you can either claim to be doing the best of all possible Midsummers or ask an audience to indulge the limitations of your approach to the script, but you can't do both (and I would further argue that professional standards discourage doing either).
Another of Schambelan's claims is that Shakespeare is best performed with no intermission or scene breaks. It's certainly true that "Shakespeare" and "3-hour running time" need not be synonymous, but if I may make one argument in favor of intermissions: they give the audience a chance to escape. I have been known to make a grateful dash for freedom at the intermission of a particularly awful play, but, try as I might, I could find no opportunity to escape from this one. The onstage action never stopped, and we were seated too far from the only entrance to the performance space to sneak out discreetly. Even so, I considered making a run for it when George Ashiotis (the blind co-artistic director of TBTB) was alone, or mostly alone, onstage, figuring he might not be too distracted by our obvious flight... but the cast occasionally used the theatre's only exit as a stage entrance, and I was afraid I'd run smack into an entering performer while beating a retreat. So I remained in my seat, despairing, for the entire two-hour nightmare. And yes, it lasts a full 2 hours, rather than the advertised 90 minutes. The extra running time might be due to Ashiotis's failure to learn his lines -- I don't think he got through a single speech without stumbling. And speaking of Ashiotis, artistic director he may be, but he is still by far the least charismatic performer in the cast, and yet he had somehow been cast as Bottom. A completely unfunny Bottom -- you can't tell me that is what Shakespeare intended.
Before I go on, let me be clear about one thing: I really, really wanted this play to be good. The mission of Theater by the Blind -- to create opportunities for and increase awareness of visually-impaired and otherwise disabled artists -- is a vital one, and if I could think of a single positive thing to say about this production, I would gladly say it. I wish, for example, that I could say this production gave me new insight (heh) into the imagery of eyes and seeing, sight and blindness, that Shakespeare employs throughout A Midsummer Night's Dream. I wish I could say that the presence of disabled actors onstage added new depth to the lovers' ruminations on beauty and their desire for independence. It certainly might have been so: Ann Marie Morelli played Hermia in a motorized wheelchair, and in a good production that would have added a deliciously dark subtext, as well as a novel comic touch, to the lovers' slapstick argument in Act 3, Scene 2. Think of the possibilities! Hermia, from her wheelchair, shrieking, "I am not yet so low / But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes." And Helena taunting her in return: "Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray; / My legs are longer, though, to run away." How wonderful in the imagination! And yet how dull onstage!
Midsummer is probably the funniest of Shakespeare's plays -- and maybe one of the funniest plays, period -- but you wouldn't know it from this production. Oh, you might amuse yourself, as I did, by listening for line readings indicating that the actor doesn't understand what he or she is saying -- you'll find plenty. But the director isn't content to let his actors simply misread their lines. In order to differentiate the rude mechanicals from the other characters (played as they were by the same actors, in not-at-all evocative costumes), Schambelan has the actors speaking their lines in heavy, completely random accents -- Peter Quince was Jamaican, Bottom was Slavic, etc. I only wish I were kidding. The actor playing Puck also adopts a different accent for each appearance, which I suppose was meant to be "funny." The costumes add nothing in the way of clarity or imagination; Schambelan is very proud of the actors' quick changes, but it would have been far more effective to simply dress everyone in black, rather than to have them change, however quickly, from one boring costume to another. The set design is equally boring, and the double casting requires all of the spell-casting and such to take place offstage, which makes the plot nearly impossible to follow. People are forever delivering their lines into the wings, or shouting from offstage (you are supposed to guess which character is talking, presumably, based on the accents). The action that does happen onstage is blocked so that much of it takes place in downstage corners of the playing area (it isn't exactly a "stage"), where the actors are all but hidden from view for anyone not in the front row. And as for the "9 songs" advertised? Let's just say we're working with a really loose definition of "song."
As I said above, the final scene, where the Athenians watch the mechanicals' production of "Pyramus and Thisbe," is interminable and totally unfunny, which is hard to believe, since it makes me laugh out loud on the page. Now that I think about it, though, I begin to wonder whether Schambelan's approach isn't successful after all. Describing his ("revolutionary") casting philosophy, he writes in his program notes, "The troupe doing the play-within-the-play is the whole troupe, so the piece snaps into focus." And it is true that, seen through the filter of the play-within-a-play, this production of Midsummer makes a perverse kind of sense. From the unnecessary prologue telling the audience how to interpret the play to the bad casting, incomplete memorization of lines, silly directorial choices and unfunny comedic touches, this production comes very close to suggesting what Midsummer would look like if it were performed entirely by Bottom and Co. So if that was the intention, TBTB has found success, and if, like Theseus, Duke of Athens, you are inclined to see a play you know will be terrible, you could hardly find a better candidate. "If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men" -- truer words were never spoken. But I myself take more after Hippolyta, in that "I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharged," and I must say, Puck's final apology to the audience -- "If we shadows have offended," etc. -- has never seemed so necessary, or so inadequate.
Leaving the theatre two hours later, the boyfriend said to me, "He was right about one thing -- I never want to see another production of Shakespeare."
If it weren't for the claims made in that program note, and in an equally off-putting preshow announcement by TBTB co-artistic director Schambelan, I would feel a little bit bad reporting on the awfulness of this production. But I don't like being told that what I am about to see will be brilliant, even when it turns out to be true, and when it turns out to be anything but true, I'm not inclined to be charitable.
Schambelan's "revolutionary" approach involves double-casting -- hardly a new idea, especially when it comes to Midsummer, but Schambelan claims that his production has been cast (with a total of 6 actors) exactly as Shakespeare intended, a claim that is hard to credit once you've sat through the final scene, which here is much longer and much less funny than it ought to be, because the Athenians keep dashing offstage and coming back on as Mechanicals, and then dashing back offstage and coming back on again as Athenians. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In his preshow announcement, Schambelan informed us that since we were seeing a preview, we should expect things to go wrong. He added that, because of his revolutionary, just-as-Shakespeare-intended doubling scheme, entrances might be late or otherwise flubbed. Now, I would argue that you can either claim to be doing the best of all possible Midsummers or ask an audience to indulge the limitations of your approach to the script, but you can't do both (and I would further argue that professional standards discourage doing either).
Another of Schambelan's claims is that Shakespeare is best performed with no intermission or scene breaks. It's certainly true that "Shakespeare" and "3-hour running time" need not be synonymous, but if I may make one argument in favor of intermissions: they give the audience a chance to escape. I have been known to make a grateful dash for freedom at the intermission of a particularly awful play, but, try as I might, I could find no opportunity to escape from this one. The onstage action never stopped, and we were seated too far from the only entrance to the performance space to sneak out discreetly. Even so, I considered making a run for it when George Ashiotis (the blind co-artistic director of TBTB) was alone, or mostly alone, onstage, figuring he might not be too distracted by our obvious flight... but the cast occasionally used the theatre's only exit as a stage entrance, and I was afraid I'd run smack into an entering performer while beating a retreat. So I remained in my seat, despairing, for the entire two-hour nightmare. And yes, it lasts a full 2 hours, rather than the advertised 90 minutes. The extra running time might be due to Ashiotis's failure to learn his lines -- I don't think he got through a single speech without stumbling. And speaking of Ashiotis, artistic director he may be, but he is still by far the least charismatic performer in the cast, and yet he had somehow been cast as Bottom. A completely unfunny Bottom -- you can't tell me that is what Shakespeare intended.
Before I go on, let me be clear about one thing: I really, really wanted this play to be good. The mission of Theater by the Blind -- to create opportunities for and increase awareness of visually-impaired and otherwise disabled artists -- is a vital one, and if I could think of a single positive thing to say about this production, I would gladly say it. I wish, for example, that I could say this production gave me new insight (heh) into the imagery of eyes and seeing, sight and blindness, that Shakespeare employs throughout A Midsummer Night's Dream. I wish I could say that the presence of disabled actors onstage added new depth to the lovers' ruminations on beauty and their desire for independence. It certainly might have been so: Ann Marie Morelli played Hermia in a motorized wheelchair, and in a good production that would have added a deliciously dark subtext, as well as a novel comic touch, to the lovers' slapstick argument in Act 3, Scene 2. Think of the possibilities! Hermia, from her wheelchair, shrieking, "I am not yet so low / But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes." And Helena taunting her in return: "Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray; / My legs are longer, though, to run away." How wonderful in the imagination! And yet how dull onstage!
Midsummer is probably the funniest of Shakespeare's plays -- and maybe one of the funniest plays, period -- but you wouldn't know it from this production. Oh, you might amuse yourself, as I did, by listening for line readings indicating that the actor doesn't understand what he or she is saying -- you'll find plenty. But the director isn't content to let his actors simply misread their lines. In order to differentiate the rude mechanicals from the other characters (played as they were by the same actors, in not-at-all evocative costumes), Schambelan has the actors speaking their lines in heavy, completely random accents -- Peter Quince was Jamaican, Bottom was Slavic, etc. I only wish I were kidding. The actor playing Puck also adopts a different accent for each appearance, which I suppose was meant to be "funny." The costumes add nothing in the way of clarity or imagination; Schambelan is very proud of the actors' quick changes, but it would have been far more effective to simply dress everyone in black, rather than to have them change, however quickly, from one boring costume to another. The set design is equally boring, and the double casting requires all of the spell-casting and such to take place offstage, which makes the plot nearly impossible to follow. People are forever delivering their lines into the wings, or shouting from offstage (you are supposed to guess which character is talking, presumably, based on the accents). The action that does happen onstage is blocked so that much of it takes place in downstage corners of the playing area (it isn't exactly a "stage"), where the actors are all but hidden from view for anyone not in the front row. And as for the "9 songs" advertised? Let's just say we're working with a really loose definition of "song."
As I said above, the final scene, where the Athenians watch the mechanicals' production of "Pyramus and Thisbe," is interminable and totally unfunny, which is hard to believe, since it makes me laugh out loud on the page. Now that I think about it, though, I begin to wonder whether Schambelan's approach isn't successful after all. Describing his ("revolutionary") casting philosophy, he writes in his program notes, "The troupe doing the play-within-the-play is the whole troupe, so the piece snaps into focus." And it is true that, seen through the filter of the play-within-a-play, this production of Midsummer makes a perverse kind of sense. From the unnecessary prologue telling the audience how to interpret the play to the bad casting, incomplete memorization of lines, silly directorial choices and unfunny comedic touches, this production comes very close to suggesting what Midsummer would look like if it were performed entirely by Bottom and Co. So if that was the intention, TBTB has found success, and if, like Theseus, Duke of Athens, you are inclined to see a play you know will be terrible, you could hardly find a better candidate. "If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men" -- truer words were never spoken. But I myself take more after Hippolyta, in that "I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharged," and I must say, Puck's final apology to the audience -- "If we shadows have offended," etc. -- has never seemed so necessary, or so inadequate.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
You told Harpo to beat me?!
I saw the Broadway musical The Color Purple back when it was in previews (in November 2005), and the best thing about it was the cast. The show has an entirely nonwhite cast (or almost entirely, anyway -- if you can remember any white characters, let me know), and since great roles for black performers are still pretty rare on the Great White Way, the casting company (Bernard Telsey Casting, for the record) had an opportunity to bring a lot of new talent to Broadway. To their great credit, they took all the time they needed and looked outside the New York pool where necessary, and the result was a stage full of overwhelmingly talented performers, many making their Broadway debut and all singing, dancing and acting their hearts out. The show is fair-to-middling, but the energy coming from the stage (and, consequently, from the audience) made it a very positive experience for me.
The most exciting Broadway debut I witnessed was that of Felicia P. Fields, who played Sofia (the Oprah role, for those who've seen the movie). I walked out of there saying, If she doesn't win the Tony this year, there is no justice in the world. Well, she didn't win the Tony, and I admit I did not see, and still have not seen, The Drowsy Chaperone, so it is possible, just possible, that Beth Leavel deserved it more. But I still think Felicia was robbed. In any case, because of the way the show is written, Felicia is not only permitted but actually required to upstage the nominal "star" at every opportunity, so I suppose that has been some consolation. However, I am sad to read that she is leaving the show as of today. The good news is, she is staying in the role, so if you catch The Color Purple on tour, you have at least one thing to look forward to.
The most exciting Broadway debut I witnessed was that of Felicia P. Fields, who played Sofia (the Oprah role, for those who've seen the movie). I walked out of there saying, If she doesn't win the Tony this year, there is no justice in the world. Well, she didn't win the Tony, and I admit I did not see, and still have not seen, The Drowsy Chaperone, so it is possible, just possible, that Beth Leavel deserved it more. But I still think Felicia was robbed. In any case, because of the way the show is written, Felicia is not only permitted but actually required to upstage the nominal "star" at every opportunity, so I suppose that has been some consolation. However, I am sad to read that she is leaving the show as of today. The good news is, she is staying in the role, so if you catch The Color Purple on tour, you have at least one thing to look forward to.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
...everybody look busy!
Last night the boyfriend and I tripped on down to the Village to see Your Secret Admirer, because we're just that kind of fun, young NYC couple. The set was very enjoyable -- they have a great sound to go with their great band name and great posters -- and Elvis Costello fans, which is probably most or all of you, should definitely check them out. The best part was, they played at 8:30, so we had our fun night out and still made it home for Law & Order at 10!
Today's subway entertainment: a middle-aged black woman with a heavy Caribbean accent singing spirituals, or maybe just one long spiritual, with not much talent but lots of passion. "Jesus is coming," she insisted. "Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming." The performance lasted most of the ride, and I started to wonder if she was making it up as she went along, until one of my fellow passengers started to sing along. Anyway, I'd still prefer a quiet car, but at least this woman's heart seemed to be in the right place (I cannot vouch for her mind). She didn't want to intimidate or assault anybody; she didn't even want money; she just wanted to save our souls. As we approached 96th St. she stopped singing and started preaching, and she was getting a bit emphatic toward the end there, paying special attention to the car's few African American passengers (who, to be fair, kind of asked for it by singing along with the refrain of her song). I escaped without incident. Maybe I looked saved already.
Her performance reminded me of the time Borat sang the national anthem of Kazakhstan at a Georgia minor-league baseball game, and so I looked that up on YouTube for your amusement. Don't say I never gave you anything!
Today's subway entertainment: a middle-aged black woman with a heavy Caribbean accent singing spirituals, or maybe just one long spiritual, with not much talent but lots of passion. "Jesus is coming," she insisted. "Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming." The performance lasted most of the ride, and I started to wonder if she was making it up as she went along, until one of my fellow passengers started to sing along. Anyway, I'd still prefer a quiet car, but at least this woman's heart seemed to be in the right place (I cannot vouch for her mind). She didn't want to intimidate or assault anybody; she didn't even want money; she just wanted to save our souls. As we approached 96th St. she stopped singing and started preaching, and she was getting a bit emphatic toward the end there, paying special attention to the car's few African American passengers (who, to be fair, kind of asked for it by singing along with the refrain of her song). I escaped without incident. Maybe I looked saved already.
Her performance reminded me of the time Borat sang the national anthem of Kazakhstan at a Georgia minor-league baseball game, and so I looked that up on YouTube for your amusement. Don't say I never gave you anything!
Friday, January 26, 2007
They call it that 'cause of the electri-city!
Three old Office episodes don't quite add up to one new one, though I certainly didn't mind revisiting any of last night's reruns. (Did you realize there were 2 more eps on at 10:00? If my Mom hadn't tipped me off I'd never have noticed... and I still almost missed it! Pretty sneaky, NBC.) The power struggle in "The Coup" is so entertaining; the trick Michael plays on Dwight shows him simultaneously at his most intelligent and his least mature. And that scene where Dwight is in the diner with Jan? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Rainn Wilson should win every TV award for which he is eligible just for his performance in that one scene.
If you tuned in again at 10 you saw "Grief Counseling," notable for Pam's newly active role in office hijinks, and "Initiation," which is my least favorite episode of the season. The whole "Dwight lives on a beet farm" thing isn't very funny, in my opinion, and it undermines the other, less farfetched information we have about Dwight. (Like, on Valentine's Day, he gave Angela a key... to his beet farm? Where he lives with Mose and no indoor plumbing? Does anybody else find that distractingly unlikely?) Also not very funny: Ryan and plots that revolve around him. All the secondary stuff in that episode is great, though -- "This is pretzel day" -- and even if it weren't, it would all be worth it for the Jim/Pam phone conversation at the end. Watching that again, so many episodes later, was a great reminder of how much the unfolding storylines enhance my enjoyment of this show. That's pretty rare for a sitcom, when you think about it. Anyway, I still thought their whole conversation about Pam's one kitchen and all that was funny and sweet and everything this time around, but the first time I saw it, when it was the first contact Jim and Pam had had since their kiss the previous season? When Pam heard Jim's voice and said, "Oh my God," I think I also said "Oh my God." I was that wrapped up in it. I'm not proud to admit that, but there it is.
Anyway, speaking of initiation, I hope all my Scranton readers have seen "Lazy Scranton." And even if you have, it certainly wouldn't hurt your civic pride to watch it again (it's got a little bit of a zing to it!). From there you can explore the official Office site, if you wish, but I don't recommend it. It's surprisingly lame. And speaking of surprisingly lame, I watched 15 minutes of Ugly Betty last night, and, wow, I was right. It's not nearly as good a show as The Office. My problem wasn't so much the writing, which isn't really clever but comes close now and then, but the pace, which is far too slow. If you're going to lean on every joke until you're really sure we've gotten it, why not just have a laugh track already?
What do you think? Am I missing some crucial element of Betty's charm? Did you have a favorite moment in last night's Dunder Mifflin feast?
If you tuned in again at 10 you saw "Grief Counseling," notable for Pam's newly active role in office hijinks, and "Initiation," which is my least favorite episode of the season. The whole "Dwight lives on a beet farm" thing isn't very funny, in my opinion, and it undermines the other, less farfetched information we have about Dwight. (Like, on Valentine's Day, he gave Angela a key... to his beet farm? Where he lives with Mose and no indoor plumbing? Does anybody else find that distractingly unlikely?) Also not very funny: Ryan and plots that revolve around him. All the secondary stuff in that episode is great, though -- "This is pretzel day" -- and even if it weren't, it would all be worth it for the Jim/Pam phone conversation at the end. Watching that again, so many episodes later, was a great reminder of how much the unfolding storylines enhance my enjoyment of this show. That's pretty rare for a sitcom, when you think about it. Anyway, I still thought their whole conversation about Pam's one kitchen and all that was funny and sweet and everything this time around, but the first time I saw it, when it was the first contact Jim and Pam had had since their kiss the previous season? When Pam heard Jim's voice and said, "Oh my God," I think I also said "Oh my God." I was that wrapped up in it. I'm not proud to admit that, but there it is.
Anyway, speaking of initiation, I hope all my Scranton readers have seen "Lazy Scranton." And even if you have, it certainly wouldn't hurt your civic pride to watch it again (it's got a little bit of a zing to it!). From there you can explore the official Office site, if you wish, but I don't recommend it. It's surprisingly lame. And speaking of surprisingly lame, I watched 15 minutes of Ugly Betty last night, and, wow, I was right. It's not nearly as good a show as The Office. My problem wasn't so much the writing, which isn't really clever but comes close now and then, but the pace, which is far too slow. If you're going to lean on every joke until you're really sure we've gotten it, why not just have a laugh track already?
What do you think? Am I missing some crucial element of Betty's charm? Did you have a favorite moment in last night's Dunder Mifflin feast?
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Maybe I should just think of it as a live theatre event
I told you, back when I started this here blog, that I might be posting about weird subway encounters from time to time, and I said that because I knew, sooner or later, some unpleasant subway situation would burn itself into my brain, and the only way to get it out would be to blog about it. So, a warning: anger follows.
Yesterday morning I was riding an uptown 1 train with just a handful of passengers in the car -- everybody sitting, and there were still lots of seats. I was reading last week's New Yorker (I was right in the middle of that article about the color consultant, the one that starts out really fun but ends up being mostly about industrial siding, which couldn't be less interesting), but as the doors closed at 72nd Street, I heard: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to disturb you..."
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I hear the beginning of a panhandling spiel, I do a quick mental assessment (without looking up, if possible): How easy will this person be to ignore? Or, to put it another way, How likely is it that this person will become confrontational before we get to the next stop? This particular guy looked kind of familiar, and maybe you've seen him too: white guy, short, dark hair, probably in his 40s; dirty, obviously, and kind of wild-eyed. Something about the way he was talking set off alarm bells -- his pitch was loud, fast and nervous, and he was pacing up and down the car while he talked. The words were pretty typical -- "Any food you can spare, or if you don't have food, if you can spare some change, even a penny will help" -- but where most panhandlers shoot for "pathetic" and/or "grateful" in their delivery, his tone was oddly impatient, even hostile, as though we were wasting his time by refusing to surrender the food we had hidden on our persons. This made me nervous, and I considered bailing at the next stop, but he hadn't done anything too out of the ordinary by the time we arrived at 79th street, and I didn't want to wait for another train, so I kept staring at my magazine and hoping he would go away. The train pulled out and he finished working the car, having collected whatever he was going to get. Then, without warning, he approached 2 women who were sitting across from me. They were a mother and daughter, maybe 60 and 30, and as far as I know they had done nothing to attract this man's attention. But he leaned over them until his face was inches from theirs and treated them to a long and vile tirade. I couldn't hear everything he said, but I could tell from the words he emphasized that it was violent, sexual, and generally disgusting. The women stared straight ahead, pretending not to notice him, which is almost definitely what I would have done in their shoes. Having said his piece, he strolled down to the end of the car, said something similarly crazy (but much more polite) to a white-haired man sitting near the door, and then walked back along the length of the car, muttering something about how it was "his stop," and disembarked at 86th Street.
Act two started when the doors shut behind him, and the younger woman came to life. "Did you hear what he said to us?!" she asked the old man at the end of the car, who just shrugged. She turned her attention to the man sitting across from her (and a few seats down from me), and asked him, "Did you hear what he said?!" That man didn't answer audibly, either, which I found extremely provoking. "I would have punched him in the face if he weren't obviously crazy," she said; still no response from the man next to me (other than a "whaddaya-gonna-do" shrug). Not even a "Me too." I'd like to think that, if I were a young and able-bodied man, I would have come to the women's rescue while they were actually being harrassed; probably just a "Do you have a problem with these ladies?" delivered with the proper emphasis would have been enough to make the guy back off. But even if that's not true -- even if a male me would still have just sat there, pretending not to notice what was going on and trying to avoid being cursed at/spat upon/stabbed in turn -- I would at least be willing to acknowledge, once out of danger, that what had just happened was horrifying and unacceptable and unfair, if only to redeem the honor of men in general. Maybe this guy was ashamed of himself for not doing anything, or maybe he was afraid to "get involved," but the whole thing was making me fume. I was about to say so, but then the woman turned back to her mother, who was shushing her, to argue. This might be a good time to mention that these women were Asian; I don't know if that has anything to do with the mother's reaction, but for whatever reason, she felt strongly that her daughter should not be making a fuss. You know, let's all just put this unpleasantness behind us. This made me even more angry, but I didn't want to get between them. They argued about that until the train reached my stop, and I got off the train wondering what, if anything, I could have done differently, and whether I can take anything but resentment away from the experience.
I am absolutely certain that, if those 2 women had been accompanied by a man, the crazy panhandler guy would not have harrassed them. He wasn't that crazy; he was a predator who knew an opportunity when he saw one. And who guessed, correctly and probably based on past experience, that none of the other passengers would interfere. The other thing I know for sure is that if I had gotten off at 72nd Street, like my brain was telling me to, I would have avoided witnessing the whole ugly scene. So does that mean, from now on, knowing what I do, I should never ride the subway without a man to protect me? Or, if I must, I should be sure to give myself an extra 15 minutes to get where I'm going, so I can afford to switch trains whenever things are looking a bit dodgy? I hope you can appreciate why I'm not really satisfied with those conclusions.
From time to time I hear people complain about the draconian authority of the transit police: they fined me for putting my feet on a seat; they gave me a ticket for having my bike on a train even though it was totally empty; etc. But I have witnessed situations like the one I just described many times, and never once has a police officer been around to intervene. So I want to know what lines they're actually policing, because it isn't the ones I ride. However, whether or not they're around to enforce the rules, I do know that there is a rule against subway panhandling. And that's because panhandlers make the subway not just uncomfortable, but unsafe. So I don't give money to anybody on the subway, regardless of their talent or sob story. That seems responsible, but it doesn't really do anything about the problem of men victimizing women, for kicks, because they know they can get away with it. It doesn't alleviate any of the fear and frustration those 2 women are now carrying around. So what's the answer? A return to "women only" subway cars (which they have in other countries, I am told)? Do you New Yorkers have a coping mechanism for these situations? Have you been victimized, and/or have you fought back? I would really love to hear about it.
Yesterday morning I was riding an uptown 1 train with just a handful of passengers in the car -- everybody sitting, and there were still lots of seats. I was reading last week's New Yorker (I was right in the middle of that article about the color consultant, the one that starts out really fun but ends up being mostly about industrial siding, which couldn't be less interesting), but as the doors closed at 72nd Street, I heard: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to disturb you..."
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I hear the beginning of a panhandling spiel, I do a quick mental assessment (without looking up, if possible): How easy will this person be to ignore? Or, to put it another way, How likely is it that this person will become confrontational before we get to the next stop? This particular guy looked kind of familiar, and maybe you've seen him too: white guy, short, dark hair, probably in his 40s; dirty, obviously, and kind of wild-eyed. Something about the way he was talking set off alarm bells -- his pitch was loud, fast and nervous, and he was pacing up and down the car while he talked. The words were pretty typical -- "Any food you can spare, or if you don't have food, if you can spare some change, even a penny will help" -- but where most panhandlers shoot for "pathetic" and/or "grateful" in their delivery, his tone was oddly impatient, even hostile, as though we were wasting his time by refusing to surrender the food we had hidden on our persons. This made me nervous, and I considered bailing at the next stop, but he hadn't done anything too out of the ordinary by the time we arrived at 79th street, and I didn't want to wait for another train, so I kept staring at my magazine and hoping he would go away. The train pulled out and he finished working the car, having collected whatever he was going to get. Then, without warning, he approached 2 women who were sitting across from me. They were a mother and daughter, maybe 60 and 30, and as far as I know they had done nothing to attract this man's attention. But he leaned over them until his face was inches from theirs and treated them to a long and vile tirade. I couldn't hear everything he said, but I could tell from the words he emphasized that it was violent, sexual, and generally disgusting. The women stared straight ahead, pretending not to notice him, which is almost definitely what I would have done in their shoes. Having said his piece, he strolled down to the end of the car, said something similarly crazy (but much more polite) to a white-haired man sitting near the door, and then walked back along the length of the car, muttering something about how it was "his stop," and disembarked at 86th Street.
Act two started when the doors shut behind him, and the younger woman came to life. "Did you hear what he said to us?!" she asked the old man at the end of the car, who just shrugged. She turned her attention to the man sitting across from her (and a few seats down from me), and asked him, "Did you hear what he said?!" That man didn't answer audibly, either, which I found extremely provoking. "I would have punched him in the face if he weren't obviously crazy," she said; still no response from the man next to me (other than a "whaddaya-gonna-do" shrug). Not even a "Me too." I'd like to think that, if I were a young and able-bodied man, I would have come to the women's rescue while they were actually being harrassed; probably just a "Do you have a problem with these ladies?" delivered with the proper emphasis would have been enough to make the guy back off. But even if that's not true -- even if a male me would still have just sat there, pretending not to notice what was going on and trying to avoid being cursed at/spat upon/stabbed in turn -- I would at least be willing to acknowledge, once out of danger, that what had just happened was horrifying and unacceptable and unfair, if only to redeem the honor of men in general. Maybe this guy was ashamed of himself for not doing anything, or maybe he was afraid to "get involved," but the whole thing was making me fume. I was about to say so, but then the woman turned back to her mother, who was shushing her, to argue. This might be a good time to mention that these women were Asian; I don't know if that has anything to do with the mother's reaction, but for whatever reason, she felt strongly that her daughter should not be making a fuss. You know, let's all just put this unpleasantness behind us. This made me even more angry, but I didn't want to get between them. They argued about that until the train reached my stop, and I got off the train wondering what, if anything, I could have done differently, and whether I can take anything but resentment away from the experience.
I am absolutely certain that, if those 2 women had been accompanied by a man, the crazy panhandler guy would not have harrassed them. He wasn't that crazy; he was a predator who knew an opportunity when he saw one. And who guessed, correctly and probably based on past experience, that none of the other passengers would interfere. The other thing I know for sure is that if I had gotten off at 72nd Street, like my brain was telling me to, I would have avoided witnessing the whole ugly scene. So does that mean, from now on, knowing what I do, I should never ride the subway without a man to protect me? Or, if I must, I should be sure to give myself an extra 15 minutes to get where I'm going, so I can afford to switch trains whenever things are looking a bit dodgy? I hope you can appreciate why I'm not really satisfied with those conclusions.
From time to time I hear people complain about the draconian authority of the transit police: they fined me for putting my feet on a seat; they gave me a ticket for having my bike on a train even though it was totally empty; etc. But I have witnessed situations like the one I just described many times, and never once has a police officer been around to intervene. So I want to know what lines they're actually policing, because it isn't the ones I ride. However, whether or not they're around to enforce the rules, I do know that there is a rule against subway panhandling. And that's because panhandlers make the subway not just uncomfortable, but unsafe. So I don't give money to anybody on the subway, regardless of their talent or sob story. That seems responsible, but it doesn't really do anything about the problem of men victimizing women, for kicks, because they know they can get away with it. It doesn't alleviate any of the fear and frustration those 2 women are now carrying around. So what's the answer? A return to "women only" subway cars (which they have in other countries, I am told)? Do you New Yorkers have a coping mechanism for these situations? Have you been victimized, and/or have you fought back? I would really love to hear about it.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
What is golden, and implies consent?
I took a popular lecture course in college called "Nature and Human Nature in the Middle Ages." The class was popular for two reasons: one, it was team-taught by two very charismatic professors, and two, the readings were fun. This might come as a surprise to anyone who has made the necessary pilgrimage through at least a few of The Canterbury Tales, since - alack and weladay - for all his ribaldry, Chaucer can be a bit of a slog. And if you try to level the path by updating the English, as was done in my high school's dumbed-down edition of the Tales, you remove the only real reason to bother with Chaucer in the first place. However, many of the Medieval poems and stories we read in this particular course had been translated with brio into modern English, and they turned out to be extremely absorbing, often rather scatalogical tales of chivalry and courtship and mythical beasts. I enjoyed doing the reading assignments so much I felt like I was cheating, a little bit, by counting it as a class; when the class was over, I saved all my books so that I could return to them when I graduated and had time for leisure reading. I never did follow through on that, I now realize, but perhaps someday they'll make good bedtime stories for my kids?
One of the key concepts that those two charismatic professors tried to communicate about "Human Nature in the Middle Ages" was that the people of the Middle Ages weren't so very different from us. We enlightened 20th-century folks might think we invented the concept of gender studies, for example, but the anonymous author of Silence, a twelfth-century French narrative poem about a girl raised as a boy and her confusing (and confused) adventures, was way ahead of us. I bring all this up because Silence was adapted for the stage by Moira Buffini, and it won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (for the best play written in English by a woman... but you knew that already, didn't you?) in 1999. I confess that I would not have known this if it were not for The Roundtable Ensemble's current production of Silence, but this is a chance to make up for not knowing anything about this apparently important woman playwright, and I figured, if the play is half as entertaining as the poem, it would be worth seeing.
There is something refreshingly old-fashioned in the way Silence tells its story, start to finish, with no metatheatrical digressions or ironic asides to the audience. There are moments, here and there, where Buffini leans a little too hard on the Womyn's Issues in play, but for the most part she lets the story speak for itself, and in her hands it speaks very beautifully. In this production, though, it speaks a little too seriously: the performances are all excellent, and gratifyingly sincere (especially a very strong Greg Hildreth as Roger, the priest), but a lighter touch from director Suzanne Agins would have helped to keep things lively, especially during the draggy second act. Kelly Hutchinson, beautiful and regal and appealingly contemporary as Ymma (pronounced "Emma" - and may I take this opportunity to say that, unless your first language is Medieval French, it is not okay to name your child Ymma-pronounced-"Emma," so don't get any ideas) reminded me of Robin Wright (Penn) as Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride, but not quite enough. The Artistic Director's note in the program describes the show as "hilarious," but I remember the poem as being a lot more fun than this.
The production and design elements also fail to set any particular mood or frame the story in any coherent way: the costumes are very good, the set and lighting design are fine, and the music is bad, but at no point do they seem to be working together, and so they give little support to the actors - who, it bears repeating, are excellent. There is a thrill in reading something written many hundreds of years ago and finding it still alive and relevant; there is a similar thrill in witnessing so many good and intelligent young actors bringing a story to life before you on one small stage. That alone is reason enough to see Silence.
For a change, my view was in no way restricted - the theatre (above the police station on West 54th St.) is small and the audience was smaller. But what a strange audience it was. Aside from a group of people who were clearly friends of one of the actors, and who giggled every time he appeared, my fellow audience members seemed so disconnected from what was happening onstage that I began to wonder whether I'd stumbled into a special performance for the catatonic. I was the only one in the room who applauded when the lights went down at the end of the first act; when the lights came up in the house, the people around me were confused about whether or not the play was over. A couple behind me finally settled on No, it's just intermission, but the man decided he was "bored" (he announced this loudly, twice), so they left anyway. The people next to them stayed in their seats until the second act started; 60 seconds into the first scene, they all got up, noisily, and left. And then, 2 minutes after that, they all came back, just as noisily. ...I don't know. Then two women from that same group had this conversation, re: one of the actors onstage:
"What's he got on his feet?"
"...Shoes."
The audience didn't seem hostile, just completely uninvolved; it was as though the stage manager went to a nearby McDonald's and talked all the people killing time there into sitting around in the theatre instead. So, if you happen to be one of the 6 excellent actors (Hildreth, Hutchinson, Helen Coxe, Chris Kipiniak, Makela Spielman and Joe Plummer) who performed for that weirdly unresponsive audience last night, I apologize. It wasn't you, it was us. (And by "us" I mean "everybody but me." Naturally.)
One of the key concepts that those two charismatic professors tried to communicate about "Human Nature in the Middle Ages" was that the people of the Middle Ages weren't so very different from us. We enlightened 20th-century folks might think we invented the concept of gender studies, for example, but the anonymous author of Silence, a twelfth-century French narrative poem about a girl raised as a boy and her confusing (and confused) adventures, was way ahead of us. I bring all this up because Silence was adapted for the stage by Moira Buffini, and it won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (for the best play written in English by a woman... but you knew that already, didn't you?) in 1999. I confess that I would not have known this if it were not for The Roundtable Ensemble's current production of Silence, but this is a chance to make up for not knowing anything about this apparently important woman playwright, and I figured, if the play is half as entertaining as the poem, it would be worth seeing.
There is something refreshingly old-fashioned in the way Silence tells its story, start to finish, with no metatheatrical digressions or ironic asides to the audience. There are moments, here and there, where Buffini leans a little too hard on the Womyn's Issues in play, but for the most part she lets the story speak for itself, and in her hands it speaks very beautifully. In this production, though, it speaks a little too seriously: the performances are all excellent, and gratifyingly sincere (especially a very strong Greg Hildreth as Roger, the priest), but a lighter touch from director Suzanne Agins would have helped to keep things lively, especially during the draggy second act. Kelly Hutchinson, beautiful and regal and appealingly contemporary as Ymma (pronounced "Emma" - and may I take this opportunity to say that, unless your first language is Medieval French, it is not okay to name your child Ymma-pronounced-"Emma," so don't get any ideas) reminded me of Robin Wright (Penn) as Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride, but not quite enough. The Artistic Director's note in the program describes the show as "hilarious," but I remember the poem as being a lot more fun than this.
The production and design elements also fail to set any particular mood or frame the story in any coherent way: the costumes are very good, the set and lighting design are fine, and the music is bad, but at no point do they seem to be working together, and so they give little support to the actors - who, it bears repeating, are excellent. There is a thrill in reading something written many hundreds of years ago and finding it still alive and relevant; there is a similar thrill in witnessing so many good and intelligent young actors bringing a story to life before you on one small stage. That alone is reason enough to see Silence.
For a change, my view was in no way restricted - the theatre (above the police station on West 54th St.) is small and the audience was smaller. But what a strange audience it was. Aside from a group of people who were clearly friends of one of the actors, and who giggled every time he appeared, my fellow audience members seemed so disconnected from what was happening onstage that I began to wonder whether I'd stumbled into a special performance for the catatonic. I was the only one in the room who applauded when the lights went down at the end of the first act; when the lights came up in the house, the people around me were confused about whether or not the play was over. A couple behind me finally settled on No, it's just intermission, but the man decided he was "bored" (he announced this loudly, twice), so they left anyway. The people next to them stayed in their seats until the second act started; 60 seconds into the first scene, they all got up, noisily, and left. And then, 2 minutes after that, they all came back, just as noisily. ...I don't know. Then two women from that same group had this conversation, re: one of the actors onstage:
"What's he got on his feet?"
"...Shoes."
The audience didn't seem hostile, just completely uninvolved; it was as though the stage manager went to a nearby McDonald's and talked all the people killing time there into sitting around in the theatre instead. So, if you happen to be one of the 6 excellent actors (Hildreth, Hutchinson, Helen Coxe, Chris Kipiniak, Makela Spielman and Joe Plummer) who performed for that weirdly unresponsive audience last night, I apologize. It wasn't you, it was us. (And by "us" I mean "everybody but me." Naturally.)
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Wah-wah wee-wah!
I'm not surprised to learn that Dreamgirls wasn't nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, since, hype notwithstanding, it wasn't a very good movie. Jennifer Hudson did give a pretty good performance, although she's not an especially good actress, so I don't begrudge her the Oscar nomination (or the Golden Globe she already won), but her career options are probably pretty limited whether she wins or not. Every few years we start hearing about how the Hollywood musical is back! But I'm not holding my breath. I guess there are still a few musical biopics to be made, though, and so I'll look for Jennifer to star in Billie in 2009. (After that, how about a movie about the Supremes? I hear they have a pretty good backstory!)
I'm also not surprised that Sacha Baron Cohen didn't get an Oscar nod, but I was thrilled to see him win the Golden Globe. I was sick of hearing about Borat long before I finally saw it, but in all the analyses I read of Baron Cohen's art - racist or progressive? crude or cerebral? significant or silly? - I never saw anyone paying much attention to the quality of his performance. It is an absolute joy to watch Baron Cohen embody the character of Borat, and that's true regardless of what he's saying, or whether a given scene is scripted. He had me laughing every time he crossed the screen with his awkward pants-too-tight gait. And the best part of his in-character appearance on Letterman was his entrance: just watch him sit down.
Having seen Baron Cohen in character as Ali G or Bruno, whose physical presences are completely different and just as fully realized, makes his performance as Borat all the more remarkable. So I thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for not being too snobby to recognize the year's most committed performance. I'm not sure the award will do Cohen much more good than it will do Hudson - obviously "Borat" can't take people by surprise anymore, and I don't think I'd want to see the character in an entirely scripted format. But any other character he creates would be worth seeing. And I wouldn't mind seeing more of Cohen out of costume. I feel a little weird thinking it while watching that acceptance speech, but it must be said: the man is handsome.
I'm also not surprised that Sacha Baron Cohen didn't get an Oscar nod, but I was thrilled to see him win the Golden Globe. I was sick of hearing about Borat long before I finally saw it, but in all the analyses I read of Baron Cohen's art - racist or progressive? crude or cerebral? significant or silly? - I never saw anyone paying much attention to the quality of his performance. It is an absolute joy to watch Baron Cohen embody the character of Borat, and that's true regardless of what he's saying, or whether a given scene is scripted. He had me laughing every time he crossed the screen with his awkward pants-too-tight gait. And the best part of his in-character appearance on Letterman was his entrance: just watch him sit down.
Having seen Baron Cohen in character as Ali G or Bruno, whose physical presences are completely different and just as fully realized, makes his performance as Borat all the more remarkable. So I thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for not being too snobby to recognize the year's most committed performance. I'm not sure the award will do Cohen much more good than it will do Hudson - obviously "Borat" can't take people by surprise anymore, and I don't think I'd want to see the character in an entirely scripted format. But any other character he creates would be worth seeing. And I wouldn't mind seeing more of Cohen out of costume. I feel a little weird thinking it while watching that acceptance speech, but it must be said: the man is handsome.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Doing the math
Full disclosure: Kathryn Walat is a friend of mine. So when I went to see the Women's Project production (and world premiere!) of her play Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen, I wasn't at my most hypercritical. That said, now that I have seen it, I feel a little bit like I'm bragging when I mention (did I mention?) that Kate and I are friends. Because—and I didn't know this for sure until I saw this show—she's quite a good playwright. And in VM:MTQ she has managed to write a comedy about high school students that is fully aware of the absurdities inherent in that world, but also somehow respectful of the high school experience. I always feel like, when adults write about teenagers, the teens end up trivialized and caricatured, or else overdramatized and oversexed (and sometimes both at once). But I think Kate gets it just right here; the comedy is broad, but the details felt true to my high school experience. Of course, neither Kate nor myself is so terribly far away from our high school days, but this play reminded me of things I'd forgotten, like elaborately folded notes, and the choreography of seeing this person in that stairwell between this class and that one, and the social implications of having a driver's license, and the major significance of grade level (how much better to be a sophomore than a freshman, and yet, how far below the seniors you remain!). And while I can look at all that now and realize it's silly, I know it wasn't silly to me at the time, and I didn't think the characters in this play were silly because all that mattered to them. They're just in high school, and that's what being in high school is like.
The show is not only funny and honest, but also family-friendly, another impressive feat, since it doesn't feel like anyone compromised themselves to make that possible. The production is good from every angle—great set, great costumes, great sound—and the cast is likeable and convincing (they really look like teenagers!). Adam Farabee is especially good as the sweet and geeky freshman Jimmy. And Jessi Campbell seems completely at ease, physically, in the title role, so it blew my mind a bit when I realized she was also the title character in last year's Inky (by Rinne Groff, also at Women's Project). That show called for an entirely different kind of physical presence, all awkward ungainliness where this character is the embodiment of perky confidence, and Campbell was equally convincing as both.
VM:MTQ made me glad I'm not still in high school, but at the same time a little nostalgic for my high school days. (For me it was speech and debate, not math team, but the cultures aren't so far apart.) Fortunately, unlike high school, this play only lasts 2 hours, and it's well worth your time!
P.S. You can hear Kate saying insightful and intelligent things about the play on NPR's Talk of the Nation.
The show is not only funny and honest, but also family-friendly, another impressive feat, since it doesn't feel like anyone compromised themselves to make that possible. The production is good from every angle—great set, great costumes, great sound—and the cast is likeable and convincing (they really look like teenagers!). Adam Farabee is especially good as the sweet and geeky freshman Jimmy. And Jessi Campbell seems completely at ease, physically, in the title role, so it blew my mind a bit when I realized she was also the title character in last year's Inky (by Rinne Groff, also at Women's Project). That show called for an entirely different kind of physical presence, all awkward ungainliness where this character is the embodiment of perky confidence, and Campbell was equally convincing as both.
VM:MTQ made me glad I'm not still in high school, but at the same time a little nostalgic for my high school days. (For me it was speech and debate, not math team, but the cultures aren't so far apart.) Fortunately, unlike high school, this play only lasts 2 hours, and it's well worth your time!
P.S. You can hear Kate saying insightful and intelligent things about the play on NPR's Talk of the Nation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)