Where's Higgs?

California: An East Coaster’s Perspective

2009-01-10T19:28:00.004-05:00

Part I: Where’s Higgs? Goes to California
(an introduction of sorts)

Until the end of August, I had never before set foot on California soil.

People generally seem pretty shocked when I tell them this. I’m a fairly well-traveled individual, and I suppose, given both my proclivities toward things of a fictional nature as well as the fact that I (ostensibly) work in “showbiz,” I seem like the kind of person who would have been to California least once by this point in her life. However, since I don’t work in film and since most of my professional and personal base has hitherto been located on the east coast, I’ve never had a reason strong enough to warrant a trip out west.

This all changed this summer, during which my parents, formerly lifelong east coasters, moved from Boston to the Greater Los Angeles Area. More specifically, they moved to Pasadena.

Now, I realize that I am a fully-grown adult. I also realize that most fully-grown adults don’t willingly use vacation time to visit their parents. However, I’ve noted before that my family and I get along ridiculously well, and as a result, I have no problem using vacation time to visit the folks. The pros tend to outweigh the cons: besides the spending-time-with-the-family thing (which, if you’ve got my family, is certainly not a con), I get to escape my Spartan existence in favor of hanging out in a comfy house, I get to cuddle with the adorable cuteness that is my dog, my mum feeds me, and I get a change of scenery. Having parents now located in California means that every time I go “home” to visit them, I also get the added plus of taking an ACTUAL VACATION. New places to explore! Warm weather during the winter! The Pasadena Playhouse!

Interestingly, though, now, when I tell people that my parents moved out here, the question they most frequently ask is “Oh my god! Are you okay with that?”, to which I can really only respond, “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

I suppose the shock and surprise most people tend to display is a reaction not only to the facts that a) my parents moved out of my childhood home, and b) they up and moved literally to the other side of the country, but more importantly, the fact that c) they moved to a place to which I had never, in my entire life, been. My concept of California-- specifically of Southern CA-- has hitherto been based primarily on pop culture. I suppose the most predominant source of Californiana that factors into my understanding of the state is the Joss Whedon version of the place: that is, the world in which Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are set (we have, in fact, adequately established my status as a nerd by this point, yes?). Indeed, Pasadena itself is much as I imagine Sunnydale might be, albeit minus the Pacific coast and the Hellmouth. The rest of my California “knowledge” is culled from the usual sources: Academically, a basis in American history and film history, combined with a love of stories (both true and otherwise) and an overactive imagination give me a pretty solid understanding of what the Hollywood Golden Age was and was not; and more recently, television shows and films set in and around LA (24, Heroes, yadda yadda yadda) and a decent working understanding of the film industry provide a slightly updated vision of the place. I can only assume that when people ask me if I’m “okay” with the move (bearing in mind that I’ve been based primarily in New York since I was 18), what they really mean is, how are you dealing with having to make a concept into a reality?

I am currently in the middle of my third trip to California. The first was for about a week at the end of August/beginning of September; the second was over Thanksgiving (though, to be honest, I’m not sure how much that one counts, given that I was only in town for three days and that my grandmother was here at the time as well, severely restricting all of our movements in and around town); and I’m just now nearing the end of a lengthy two-week stay, for much of which we had a pleasantly full house (Mum, Dad, my brother, his wife, a close family friend, and myself). Accordingly, I’ve had a pretty good amount of time by now to begin getting the lay of the land and whatnot, and since I love traveling and exploring new places, it’s been fun. Here’s the weird thing: while I feel perfectly at home out here-- that is, walking into my parents’ place does, in fact, feel like stepping into a place to call home-- and while Pasadena seems very much to be agreeing with my folks, I’m still coming at it all from a northeasterner’s perspective. I’m learning how things work round here, but though I can be quite the chameleon when needed, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to pass as a native Californian. I think the northeast is too deeply ingrained in me. I’m not going to lie: I laugh when I see Californians breaking out the Uggs in 68-degree weather. Because, to someone used to vicious, snowy, negative-degree winters, it’s FUNNY.

It’s true that traveling to a place of preconceived notions is always a bit of a mind-trip. This usually happens for one of two reasons: either the place looks NOTHING like you thought it would, or it looks EXACTLY like you thought it would. Walking around Pasadena the other day, I had one of those eye-opening moments wherein something you’ve always intellectually understood finally hits you as an actuality. I think it had something to do with the landscape itself: as you walk down wide, open boulevards lined with palm trees, seeing honest-to-goodness mountains rising up in the distance really does a number on you. Not unpleasantly, though, mind you; it was actually rather heart-stopping. I mean, when you suddenly see something that seems like it should be a picture you’re looking at, wherein you yourself are one step removed from it, except that it’s fantastically, wonderfully REAL… well, that’s really something else. When all you’ve known your entire life are narrow, northern streets, or avenues that carve valleys between mountainous buildings so high they block out the sun, these sunshine-drenched expanses of road surrounded by open space and actual mountains seem like another world.

That said, though, none of this is a bad thing, per se. At this stage in the game, it’s mostly just sort of intriguing. And for the next year and a half, at least, I’ll probably have a pretty decent amount of time to head west every so often and keep getting widening the base—heading further north, perhaps, to San Francisco; out to the coast; down to San Diego for a spell, maybe; and so on and so forth. So much time, so little to do!...

…Wait. Strike that. Reverse it!

***

Up next on California: An East Coaster’s Perspective:
Part II: Where’s Higgs? Goes to Hollywood!

Did I mention that it also travels in time?

2009-01-04T20:06:00.006-05:00

As every Doctor Who fan undoubtedly knows by now, Matt Smith has been cast as the 11th Doctor and will be taking over the iconic role from David Tennant, who will leave the show at the end of 2009. At 26, Smith is the youngest actor to have ever been cast as the Doctor (up til now, 5th Doctor Peter Davison carried that title, having been cast at the age of 29); he has previously been seen on television (alongside former Who companion Billie Piper) as Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart novels, The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North, as well as in numerous roles on the British stage, including Lockwood in the second cast of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys.

I know I’m not the only one to be a bit baffled by the casting choice. Personally, I’ve been pulling for Paterson Joseph, whom I’ve thought would be a fantastic Doctor ever since seeing him as the Marquis de Carabas in the BBC miniseries of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere-- a mini which is, admittedly, mediocre (Gaiman’s subsequent novel is FAR superior), though Joseph himself is absolutely wonderful-- but even if Joseph was not to be, quite frankly, Smith came out of the very large and proverbial left field. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve seen The Ruby in the Smoke, in which I rather liked him, and I’m sure he did some great work in The History Boys, which I had the good fortune to see featuring the original cast-- but there’s a potentially huge problem inherent in this piece of casting. Simply put: he’s young. Very, very young. Besides the obvious question of whether or not he’s got the worldly experience to play a 900-year-old Time Lord, this problem also comes with a couple of sub-problems attached: first, he’s sort of got that tall, dashing, cheeky thing going on, which I fear will make him too much like Tennant to provide enough differentiation between Doctors 10 and 11; and second, it puts him dangerously close to heartthrob territory. This may be just me (well, not just me, but me representing a good portion of Who fans), but concerning the relationship between the Doctor and his companions, I take a rather strong no-romance-in-the-TARDIS stance. This is one of the reasons I don’t think Martha worked very well as a companion: honestly, I was never able to buy that a mere crush would give her the fortitude to do what she had to do while traveling with the Doctor (that, and the fact that she screamed so damn much). If we’ve got a sweet-young-thing Doctor and they pair him with another sweet-young-thing companion, we’ve got what might very well be a recipe for disaster.

That said, Steven Moffat, who has previously been announced as lead writer Russell T. Davies’ successor for the end of series four onward, has been my favorite writer on the new series, and given his consistently fantastic writing (see exhibits A through F: “The Empty Child”, “The Doctor Dances”, “The Girl in the Fireplace”, “Blink”, “Silence in the Library”, and “Forest of the Dead”), I have faith in his judgment. If he thought Smith was the man for the job, and if he, his team, and Smith himself can come up with a fantastically new and interesting take on the Doctor, then I’ll be happy. Furthermore, I think a lot of the success of a Doctor this young is going to depend on who he’s paired with in terms of companions. As mentioned previously, I think a sweet-young-thing companion with a Doctor this young would be a mistake; however, Moffat is a smart man and a brilliant writer, so I’m hoping that he’ll realize this. Donna (oh, Donna! How I wish she’d lasted more than one series!) began to break the sweet-young-thing mold, and having an older companion (at 40, actress Catherine Tate clocks in at three years older than Tennant) was not only refreshing, but also worked wonderfully for Tennant’s dashing, everyone-wants-to-snog-him Doctor, insofar as that she had absolutely no interest in carrying out any sort of romance with him. She could be as stubborn as he could be, she was daring, she challenged him, and they played extraordinarily well off of each other. That said, now that we’ve got an outwardly 26-year-old Doctor, how interesting would it be to have someone old enough to be his Earth age equivalent mum or dad-- or even grandparent-- traveling around with him? Or, conversely, someone closer to the age of a child? Food for thought.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait and see what they come up with; Smith’s Doctor won’t debut until 2010. I remain skeptical, but they’ve got six months to develop the character before they go into production, so we’ve got a good long journey in front of us. Time, as always, will tell.

Also, I do have to admit, I’m a wee bit tickled at the thought of a man named Smith being cast as a man who regularly uses the name Smith as an alias. What can I say; I’m easily amused.

For a fairly in-depth interview with Matt Smith, try this extended interview from yesterday’s Doctor Who Confidential.

***

Also, yes, I realize I’m horribly, HORRIBLY backlogged on writing. I shall attempt to remedy this in the future, though some writings may seem dreadfully out of date. In the meantime, though, happy 2009!

What did you expect, a turkey card?

2008-11-27T10:51:00.001-05:00

Gobble, gobble!

Indecision 2008

2008-11-04T14:57:00.003-05:00

I saw Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard (complete with Trigorin beard) at my polling station today.

But more importantly, I voted. Which you should be doing, too. So go! Vote! NOW!

***

UPDATE: 11:36pm eastern

HISTORY IS MADE.

Film: BOTCHED

2008-08-03T13:56:00.006-05:00

It’s been a while since I’ve written about anything morbid or macabre, so perhaps it’s time to get back to form. Accordingly: I give you BOTCHED. Directed by newcomer Kit Ryan and written by Derek Boyle and Eamon and Raymond Friel, Botched is a horror-comedy that took the prize of Best Feature Film at the 2007 New York City Horror Film Festival-- and you know what? It’s a prize well-deserved. I can safely say that this was one of the most entertaining and unique horror films I’ve seen in a long, long time.

The premise is this: After emerging as the only survivor from a diamond heist gone terribly wrong, professional thief Ritchie Donovan (B-movie standby Stephen Dorff) is forced to take the blame for the disaster. As penance, his shady employer sends him to Russia to steal a priceless antique cross locked in a safe on the penthouse floor of a Moscow skyscraper. Ritchie soon finds himself trapped on the 13th floor of the building with a lift full of strangers, and when people start disappearing and leaving behind a series of rather messy pools of blood, Ritchie realizes he may be in over his head. Botched boasts a combination of decent writing, stylish direction, and a supporting cast including Jaime Murray (recently commented on here), Hugh O’Connor, Geoff Bell, and Jamie Foreman, the result of which is something slightly bizarre, slightly hilarious, significantly bloody, and oddly fascinating.

To quote Truman Capote as played by Toby Jones in Infamous: “When you're tiny, you have to be tough. This world isn't kind to little things.” Accordingly, there are a number of “tough” skills that I take a certain amount of pride in having. For example, I can hold my liquor; I can do a couple of pretty badass bar tricks; I’m good with knots; and I tend not to yell at my television while watching horror flicks. This not-yelling-at-the-television thing is the result of having seen far too many of the aforementioned flicks: that is, when you’ve seen as many as I have, there aren’t too many conventions left which you haven’t encountered, and consequently, there is very little most horror films can do to surprise me anymore. I know pretty much every trick in the book, and I can usually see it coming a mile away. Sometimes this foresight can be useful-- when handled correctly, it ups the suspense-- but more often than not, it hinders the film, rather than helps it. Let’s face it: there is nothing more boring than a predictable horror film.

With this in mind, then, let it be said that Botched had me yelling at my television.

Furthermore, it wasn’t the sort of yelling one typically does during, say, a slasher flick (“NO, Jamie Lee Curtis!!! What are you doing??? Don’t run upstairs! RUN OUT THE FRONT DOOR!!!”). This sort of yelling usually stems from the predictability of characters doing stupid things. With Botched, however, it was different. It was more along the lines of the “I’m sorry-- WHAT?!” sort of yelling that tends to accompany occurrences of a surprising or mind-boggling nature. And, really: not to boast or anything, but if you can surprise ME with a horror film, you know you’re doing your job.

A few notes on horror-comedy: The horror-comedy is a sort of anomalous genre that has been around for a considerable amount of time (intentionally or not; see Plan 9 From Outer Space), but which has gained prominence in recent years, most likely due to the success of 2004’s Shaun of the Dead. Although it may seem something of an oxymoron-- combining horror with comedy? What madness!-- upon further consideration, the genre makes more sense than you might at first think. Consider: what do people do in high-pressure situations? They do the unpredictable. Frequently, this results in reactions such as breaking out into hysterical laughter. Bearing this in mind, then, one of the principle rules of drama thus follows: the more serious a situation is, the more need there is for laughter. This is what makes black comedy so effective. It’s also what makes horror-comedy work. Never underestimate the power of the ridiculous.

So how does Botched fit into all this? Well, there’s a lot about Botched that’s utterly ridiculous: chance occurrences, dumb luck, and seemingly random characters, genre conventions, and plot devices abound. Note, however, that I say “seemingly.” The beauty of it is that I didn’t QUESTION the ridiculousness. The world of the film was set up in such a way that it just sort of made sense to have Eomer on crack running around the corridors of the 13th floor of a building in Moscow. As long as a situation is believable within the world in which it exists, anything goes, ridiculousness included. Here, especially, we are most emphatically NOT in a naturalistic setting, so I never needed to judge anything based on the rules of a naturalistic (read: our everyday) world. Botched had its own set of rules, and it abided by them; so, everything still made sense, even if in our own world, it all would have exploded in a puff of logic.

I suppose this, then, might ultimately be why we have become such a media-saturated culture: we love to lose ourselves in worlds that are not our own. In the grand scheme of escapism, it’s what fiction has always been there for: exploring and venturing forth. The physical world may be pretty much known these days; but the unknown, however, still exists in fiction. It continues to evolve and change, and every so often, it still manages to be unpredictable. It keeps us guessing, which in turn keeps us thinking.

And, I mean, hey, if a low-budget horror film can get us thinking this much, it can’t possibly be a bad thing, can it?

friends, Friends, and windows.

2008-07-24T15:20:00.009-05:00

Composer and musician Jason Robert Brown has maxed out his Facebook account.

I'm mostly sharing this just because I'm tickled about the fact that he has a Facebook account in the first place; however, he's also got some interesting and rather well-put things to say about the phenomenon of social networking and its effect on time and personal history. Consequently, I figured it was worth passing on.

And, on a not-unrelated note, I also present to you my dear friend and roguish nemesis (before you ask: yes, it is possible to be at once both friend and nemesis) The Libertine's thoughts on the topic of "Defriendestration."

Happy reading!

The Con Is On: the BBC's Hustle

2008-07-20T19:45:00.006-05:00

There is always something thrilling about a well-done magic trick. Once we reach a certain age, we know that the dove did not really disappear and reappear, that the rabbit could not really have come from the hat, and that coins and cards cannot really be drawn out of thin air; but the cleverness of the trick and the skill with which it is executed never fails to entertain. Likewise, one cannot help but admire a really clever con. There may be more at stake than a rabbit or a card, and consequently, it may be more dangerous than a simple magic trick; but at the heart of the con is the same sort of cleverness and the same type of skill, and for that reason, we cannot help but watch and be entranced.

Perhaps it is this, then, which prompted the BBC to create the absurdly watchable show Hustle. Hustle ran for four series (seasons, in American terms) between 2004 and 2007, with each series consisting of six sixty-minute episodes, and although its title sounds vaguely euphemistic, its premise is not: the show follows the exploits of a crew of London con arts as they convince, deceive, and lie their way through the upper echelons of society.

Naturally, it is nothing short of addictive.

Some useful info about the world of the con: The term “con” itself is an abbreviated form of the phrase “confidence trick” (sometimes called a “confidence game”). The trick itself is so named because it involves swindling the victim, or “mark,” by gaining his or her confidence. The first known usage of the term occurred in 1849 during the trial of William Thompson, a thief who conducted his business by chatting with strangers, to whom he would eventually pose the question, “Have you the confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?” That done, Thompson would then walk off with the watch once it was in his possession, never to be seen by the mark again.

This particular trick is what is known as a “short con” or a “street grift.” Games of this sort are quickly played, and the take is limited to whatever a mark has on their immediate person: cash, jewelry, etc. Card tricks (“Where’s the Queen?”), outlandish bets (“Bet you ten quid I can bite me own eyeball!”), change-raising (“$19.20 total? I’ve got a twenty, will that do? 80 cents change, then… oh, wait, I’ve got two dimes I can give you. A dollar back should do it, then”-- and by confusing the sales clerk, the con-man walks off with more change than he should), and the pigeon-drop (as seen in the opening scene of the 1973 film The Sting) all fall under the heading of the short con. The long con, by contrast, is played for the big bucks. The figures are usually in the thousands, at least, and they involve complex deceptions that play out over an extended period of time (days, weeks, even months). In some ways, the long con is not unlike an undercover police operation; but, rather than being geared towards making arrests, the game is geared towards making money. This, then, is the game the crew of Hustle plays.

Each member of the Hustle team fills a specific role in the long con: Michael Stone, aka “Mickey Bricks” (Adrian Lester), acts as the crew’s mastermind and plays the inside of each scam; Stacie Monroe (Jaime Murray, most recently seen as Lila in the second season of Dexter) functions as the Lure; Albert “Albie” Stroller (the venerable Robert Vaughn), Mickey’s mentor, plays the role of the Roper, literally “roping” in marks; Ashley “Ash” Morgan (Robert Glenister, brother of Philip Glenister of Life On Mars) is the crew’s Fixer, getting a hold of anything the team needs to complete the con; and the team’s newest member, Danny Blue (Marc Warren), plays the second Inside Man alongside Mickey. With this framework in place, each episode tracks the inception and execution of a con, taking us along for the ride.

It is important to note that the crew members of Hustle are no mere criminals. “Career criminals” is probably closer to the mark, but even that term doesn’t quite fit. At base, they’re really a business. The take from each con is divided up evenly into wages, with a healthy amount going into the company account reserved for working capital. Naturally, in order to run such a business without getting caught, there are rules that must be abided by, the first being that you can’t cheat an honest man. Others include making sure that you’ve covered all your angles, that you’ve left no holes, and that you leave yourself an out, so that if anything feels off, you walk away. If you’ve played the game right, you’ll make the score, and your mark will never even know they’ve been conned.

Tied up within the rules of the game, however, is an additional element that makes the characters more sympathetic than they might otherwise seem: a code of honour. They emphasize time again and that they are not thieves. Rather, they consider themselves “miners”—miners of greed. They only rope marks who a) can afford to lose, and, perhaps more importantly, b) deserve to lose. In a sense, the long con here operates as a sort of justice system, taking out those who make their livelihood swindling honest folk and turning a solid profit for the crew in the process.

The genre of the heist tale has existed in literature, television, and film for ages (centuries, in the case of literature), but it has been kept alive and has steadily grown in popularity over the past few decades largely through film. The Sting, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Grifters, The Usual Suspects, Catch Me If You Can, Matchstick Men, the Oceans flicks—all of these enormously popular films involve long cons, and Hustle owes a debt of influence not only to them, but also to countless others. Consequently, Hustle occasionally tips a very conscious hat towards these greats. For example, early in the first episode, when Danny first attempts to talk his way into the crew, Mickey, unwilling to give Danny a chance, mockingly suggests that Danny has learned everything he knows about the long con by watching The Sting. This thread is then followed through to the first series finale, resulting in an episode which is both a send-up of The Sting, as well as an update of it. The game played in The Sting-- a racetrack betting con called The Wire-- involves convincing the mark to bet on races that have already been won (though of course the mark doesn’t know this). At the height of the con in the early half of the 20th century, this was done via telegraph (the wire); these days, the game is the same, except that it is played with broadcast television coverage instead. Clever?

Oh yes.

Though there can be some variation, each episode follows a similar format: the crew identifies the mark, plans the con, ropes the mark, and plays the con. The clever bit of this format, though, is that the storytelling unfolds in a manner which reflects one of the primary elements of the con: misdirection. Even if you think you’ve got the game figured out-- or, even if it looks like the game has gone pear-shaped—the real point of it has always been concealed, with the reveal coming only after the con has, in fact, been completed.

And that, in a way, is really what keeps us watching: the hope that once-- just once-- we might be able to figure out the details of the con before it’s revealed to us. Because the fun of a magic trick is always trying to figure out how it’s done. Isn’t it?

So keep on the lookout.

You never know what you might see.

***

(In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m catching up on my backlog of British television this summer.)

Devilish Telvisions and Other Tales

2008-07-18T11:10:00.008-05:00

NYAC presents:

CONTROL
a wicked new play by jessica hinds

Hold on to your remotes!! When vertically challenged and sexually confused Brady gets fired, he is forced to move in with loudmouth, college-dropout Holly. Together they crash into a quarter-life crisis, leaving them susceptible to the manipulation of bizarrely accurate infomercials.

CONTROL takes a hard a humorous look at the media's role in the rise of anxiety disorders among America's youth.

Premiering at the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival. Tickets on sale now!

Visit http://www.controltheplay.com for more information.

Joss Whedon + Nathan Fillion + Neil Patrick Harris = WIN

2008-07-15T16:17:00.004-05:00

Please mosey on over to Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog at your soonest convenience. Act I is available for viewing now; acts II and III will make their debuts later this week. I promise you won't regret it!

Rogues, Peasant Slaves, the Lot: Hamlet at Shakespeare in the Park

2008-07-06T15:16:00.004-05:00

I’m posting this review somewhat after the fact, a) having seen Hamlet a week ago, and b) having seen its final performance. This one is also, shall we say, more casual in style than a review really ought to be, so I’m sure that my writing isn’t quite up to snuff; it also involves a lot of dramatic theorizing on my part, so apologies about all that. Call it more of a reaction or a response to something than a review of something. That said:

Hamlet in the Park!

Shakespeare in the Park is curiously like a combination of going to the theatre and going to a baseball game. The Delacorte was originally built as a temporary structure, but the idea of an open-air amphitheatre sort of stuck, and voila: Shakespeare in the Park, courtesy of the Public Theatre. As you enter the Delacorte, you get the same sort of feeling you get when you emerge out of the tunnels and onto the field at most ballparks-- except that you’re there for Shakespeare, rather than for sport. Because it’s free, getting tickets to Shakespeare in the Park requires effort. More specifically, it involves having enough dedication to queue up at eight in the morning and wait in said queue for five hours before the box office opens at 1pm. This difficulty has in recent years been impounded by the fact that there are more and more Big Names in the productions—in 2006, for example, people were queuing up at three o’clock in the morning to see Liev Schreiber as the Scottish king. Consequently, even though I’ve lived in this city for five years, this year is the first time I’ve ever actually made it to Shakespeare in the Park (I conveniently have a friend who lives on Central Park West, so in exchange for me being her partner in crime for the evening, she was willing to wait for the tickets). Fittingly, this year’s season opener was my personal favorite Shakespeare: the one and only Hamlet.

Now, I’m not saying I’m not glad I went to see it-- I’m of the belief that everything is useful to see, even if not everything blows you away with awesomeness, so I try to get at least something out of everything I see-- but honestly, this production was a wee bit disappointing, and I think most of its problems were due to poor direction (which is even more depressing, considering that it was directed by Oskar Eustis). Some of it boiled down to a bad handling of Shakespeare-- for example, the pacing was horrifically slow. Your audience should never be ahead of the play; it’s a surefire way to bore them. Furthermore, given that Shakespeare’s blank verse is so specific in its meter that he even tells you were to breathe, there is no excuse for an overabundance of unearned pauses. Ultimately, though, the major down falling came from missed opportunities. These opportunities could have been stunning if they had been harnessed properly; but somehow, they just weren’t, leaving this production unsatisfying to the last.

Let’s begin with concept:

It’s somewhat in vogue these days to emphasize the military nature of the warring states that compose the worlds of many Shakespearean tragedies and histories through the style of modern dress: Ian McKellen’s Richard III (staged in 1992, adapted to film in 1995), for instance, set the play in a Third Reich-inspired England, and more recently, the Patrick Stewart production of the Scottish play existed in a Stalin-esque Scotland. What made both of these interpretations work was the level of specificity. We know that the plays have not literally been set in Germany or Russia, respectively; but the visual cues were so specific that we automatically knew what rules would govern the world we had been thrown into. This Hamlet attempts to go a similar route, but it falls prey to one of the worst theatrical pitfalls: it’s all far too general.

Generality is the enemy of the theatre. The more specific the choices made, the stronger the production. If those choices are too general, though, not only is the result confusing-- that is, the audience has no idea when or where the play is supposed to be taking place-- but, far worse, it’s boring. The visual cues of this Hamlet reads only as general military state, rather than as a sturdy, era-inspired world, and the result is bland and uninteresting. True, it gives a level of distance to the goings-on of Denmark; but the distance doesn’t come across as a conscious choice. It just sits there and looks messy.

This conceptual problem was not helped by the costuming. Let it be said that very rarely do I comment on design elements, largely due to the fact that I am most emphatically not a designer. As a director, I can identify designs that help in the storytelling; however, in the event that they don’t, I don’t usually feel I’m qualified to be harping about them. That said, though, I will make an exception here: the costume designer deserves to be SHOT. Like the concept for the production itself, the concepts behind the costumes were also horrifically general (yes, I saw military uniforms; but what type of military uniforms? Reeeeeally couldn’t tell ya), and furthermore, the color palette was just ugly. And not a calculated ugly; oh no. It was just. Ugly. Flat mustard browns, burgundies, blues, and teals were not meant to be put within close proximity of each other.

Other problems in the costuming: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (or RosNGuil, if you will) and Ophelia. Now, yes, it is universally acknowledged that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are essentially interchangeable (indeed, it is this fact that forms part of the conceit of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead); consequently, I understand the draw of wanting to costume them similarly. However, while it’s a good idea in theory, in practice, for the love of god, please don’t ever dress Ros in grey slacks and a teal blazer and Guil in teal slacks and a grey blazer. It looks silly. And again, I wouldn’t have a problem with it if it was a calculated silly; but it’s not. It looks dumb. End of story. As for Ophelia: Lauren Ambrose clearly couldn’t walk in the shoes she had been given. Any costume designer worth their salt would have spotted that problem during tech and immediately fixed it by getting her a different pair of shoes.

Next on the list: the acting. The cast is mostly serviceable-- that is, no one is absolutely awful or anything, and while there may not be any stunning stand-outs, Sam Waterston’s Polonius comes as close to the mark as this production can get. That said, though, there were a lot of missed opportunities, the most obvious one perhaps being David Harbour as Laertes.

I like David Harbour as an actor quite a lot. His notable work includes the role of Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and a variety of characters in the Coast of Utopia trilogy (particularly Stankevich in part I), and when I first heard that he had been cast as Laertes, the casting immediately made sense to me. However, this interpretation of the character does not sit well on Harbour, and again, the problem here I think lies in the direction. As much as I’m a fan of avoiding typecasting, the truth is that there are some things that some actors just can’t do. Harbour was never meant to play ranting, raging, explosive, angry characters, so if that’s the kind of Laertes you’re looking for, don’t cast him. If you do cast him, lead him to a Laertes that is uniquely him. One of Harbour's gifts is that of a marvelous deadpan, which, when applied to the right sort of character works brilliantly. Applied to Laertes, I thought it would give him a great cover behind which to hide all the seething rage and sadness which builds up as a result of Polonius’ and Ophelia’s deaths. But because he seems to have been directed towards this sort of I-cry-out-to-the-heavens Laertes, the carefully covered Laertes never emerges, and instead we end up with a one-note screamer with an anger-management problem.

But the main event, of course, is always Hamlet himself, and it is here that I believe there to be something really worth watching. In spite of the mixed reviews his portrayal of the character has gotten, Michael Stuhlbarg, who made waves as the damaged and dangerous Michal in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman during the 2004-2005 Broadway season, is on to something in his subtle, sensitive interpretation of the part.

One of the most popular academic theories of the play states that the tragedy is a result of trying to fit a particular man into a mold he is not meant to fill. Hamlet has been trained as a scholar-- not as a soldier, not as a warrior, and certainly not as a revenger. And yet, he finds himself forced into the role of the revenger, something which becomes increasingly problematic for him. Like Hieronymo in Thomas Kydd’s The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet will have read his Seneca, and as a result, he knows what a revenger is supposed to look like and what a revenger is supposed to say. However, having read about them isn’t enough to enable him to act as one, and it is from here that the tragedy arises: it simply is not in his nature to be a revenger.

Now, in spite of the prevalence of this theory in the academic world, very rarely do we see it in practice. Contemporary portrayals of the Danish prince tend more towards the manic, with the dynamism and flash of a loose-cannon-Hamlet disguising the character’s trademark inertia with something that looks at least on the surface like action. Stuhlbarg’s Hamlet, however, breaks from the frenzied type that has become so common, instead basing the character’s metaphorical sea of troubles in his inability to reconcile his identity as a scholar with that of a revenger.

In addition to grounding the tragedy, this discrepancy between scholar and revenger also affords Hamlet several very funny, very human moments; for instance, consider the end of I.v. After the ghost of his father has just vanished, bidding him “Remember me” (I.v.91), Hamlet has a moment alone before Horatio and company catch up with him: “O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?/ And shall I couple hell? O fie!” (I.v.92-3). These two lines are frequently delivered as a Lear-esque White Cliffs of Dover rant, in which case the audience is allowed to see the storm raging beneath Hamlet’s exterior. The way in which Stuhlbarg plays the scene, though, shows us something different: “What else?” plays not as an external explosion of internal turmoil, but rather, as a moment in which Hamlet must stop and scroll through his mental Revenger Reference Sourcebook to find out what it is a revenger in his position is supposed to be saying. The result is both hilarious and truthful.

Adding onto the inherent problems of a personality crisis is also the one question that must always be considered when discussing Hamlet: is the prince actually mad? He might be; but he also might be dissembling. Or, he might be some combination of both. In Stuhlbarg’s characterization, Hamlet is most certainly, shall we say, a little left of center. To be honest, he’s more fragile than anything else, a mouse-like boy of a man lacking the confidence even to stand up to his mother in his desire to return to Wittenberg after her o’erhasty marriage. In addition, Hamlet seems to have a bit of an obsessive-compulsive bent, with a handful of physical tics the inner distress of the character. Stuhlbarg makes solid choices and executes them well, making his performance refreshingly different from the usual 21st Century Hamlet.

So, then. Acting: check; moving on. The ending: and here, the production falls apart again.

Hoo boy.

The ending was the most unsatisfying ending to Hamlet I have ever witnessed. Sword fights should be badass, right? Unfortunately, this one is just bad. From the fact that Hamlet and Laertes held their sabres like epées to the actual choreography itself, the whole thing comes across (like much of the play itself) as messy and uninvolved. Furthermore, none of the big moments are earned properly, which kills the tragedy stone-cold dead—and not in a “let these bodies high on a stage be placed to the view” sort of way. The one redeeming feature of the ending was the use of Fortinbras’ final line “Go and bid the soldiers shoot” not as a salute to the dead, but rather as an execution order. By purging Elsinore of the one remaining relic of the old regime, Fortinbras ends the play in fine tragic form, clearing the old corrupt government in order to make way for a new and hopefully better one. One thing’s for sure: Horatio ain’t speaking to no yet-unknowing world about SQUAT.

Ultimately, the problem is that this production doesn’t shed any new light on the play, but it also doesn’t carry off what’s already been done before well enough to justify itself. Ah well, though; can’t have everything.

Next up at the Delacorte: Hair, also known as “that musical about the 60s with a song about sodomy in it!”

A Time for Legends: the BBC's Robin Hood (and other tales)

2008-06-02T19:09:00.008-05:00

Greetings, blog-o-sphere!

I know, I know, I know-- it’s been months. And months, and months, and months. Needless to say, January through May proved to be impossibly busy, and while I’ve seen a lot of things that probably deserved being written about, there was neither the time nor the reserves of energy required to do it. So, the short version:

The Homecoming: Flawed, but certainly worth seeing. The cast was wonderfully together on everything, with some solid direction from Dan Sullivan. Surprised Ian McShane and Michael McKean were passed over for Tony nominations.

Rock and Roll: The perfect mix of mind and soul. Questions: What is the human machine? The body? The brain? The mind (which is entirely different from the brain)? How can you reconcile these questions when the body is falling apart, but the mind is sound? Then, in the moment directly following this scene, when the strains of Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine” blasted through the theatre… my heart dropped into my stomach, and stayed there. These are the best moments in theatre-- when the mind and the heart act together.

Young Frankenstein the Musical: I honestly enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I was going to. The performances are crisp, and while the production is rather big, I maintain that it is not “bloated,” as some critics seem to think. The most surprising thing was how well the jokes translated from screen to stage.

Macbeth: Also flawed, but also worth seeing. I commend the strength of the choices made and the mettle with which they stuck to them, even if all of the choices didn’t quite work. Notably, this is the only Macbeth I’ve ever seen that actually managed to scare me at times.

Sunday in the Park with George: Another flawed piece of work, but still extremely creative (there’s a theme here: just because something doesn’t work 100% doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing. There’s worth in everything, good or bad). The one Sondheim score that makes me cry for the beauty of it, every time.

The 39 Steps: One of the most creative pieces of theatre I’ve seen in years. Truly hilarious-- sometimes a company of four actors, some steamer trunks, and a ladder is all it takes.

Cry-Baby the Musical: Interesting purely because I was able to watch it grow and change through previews (the perks of knowing Mark Brokaw). It will never be a great piece of musical theatre; but it is fun, in spite of itself.

Iron Man: Far better than anyone expected it could possibly be. A wonderful job done updating the story; furthermore, this is the one superhero franchise film in which the fact that Movie 1 is the origin story did not bother me. This is because the plot centers around the creation of the suit and who gets ownership of it-- as a weapon, or as a system of defense.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day: Charming. Wonderful performances.

The Fall: Fascinating. Warning: it’s not an adventure story, so if that’s what you’re looking for, you won’t find it here. Visually stunning. Lee Pace is wonderful, as is the little girl.

Speed Racer: Fun. Not great, but fun. Go, Speed Racer, Go!

Progressive Nation concert: You know, no matter who they play with, Dream Theater always blows the other bands out of the water (unless that band happens to be Yes). The expected superb musicianship. Also, the opener band 3 was a glorious surprise.

Indiana Jones (warning: some spoilers): Honestly, it was just thrilling being able to see Indy on the big screen. I had a little trouble with the aliens at first, but then it occurred to me, “Well, of course there would be aliens. In the ‘30s, the pulps had ghosts and religion and the occult. What was in the pulps in the ‘50s? ALIENS.”

Prince Caspian: Peter Dinklage as Trumpkin totally steals the entire film.

So that, in a nutshell, is what I’ve been up to in the rare moments of free time I’ve had since Christmas. So: at this point in time, I’ve survived my first year as a graduate student, I’m about to go into rehearsal for a new play I’m directing for the NY Fringe this summer, and while I’m job-hunting, I’m having a bit of down time.
Which brings me to this:

***

The BBC’s ROBIN HOOD

***

After rather a lot of hemming and hawing, I’ve started watching the BBC drama Robin Hood. It took me quite a bit of time to actually get myself to sit down and watch it-- I tried tuning in for bits of it while idly channel-surfing (my channel-surfing habits tend only to alternate between Sci Fi and BBC America-- sad, I know; and yet…) and failed to be able to pay attention to it for more than five minutes at a time-- but finally, now that I’m somewhat between projects, I decided I’d give it a shot starting from the beginning of the series.

Now, see, here’s the thing: it’s not particularly good television. I mean, it’s not BAD television; but it’s certainly not knock-your-socks-off great, which (quite honestly) is usually what it takes for me to get invested in a show. Ready for the weird bit?

I CAN’T STOP WATCHING IT.

It basically consists of a whole bunch of absurdly beautiful (and far too clean, given the era) people running around a forest (yes, that one) with some bows and arrows and the occasional sword. There’s some swashing, there’s some buckling, and there’s some buckling of swashes; the guards of Nottingham Castle are idiots; the Sheriff is despicable; Robin is cheeky and clever; and his men are usually quite merry, even in the aftermath of losing beloved comrades. Historically accurate it is not (though I suppose one might argue that legends can’t ever be really historically accurate, purely by the virtue of the fact that they are indeed legends)-- especially in the dialogue, wherein characters frequently speak in the contemporary vernacular (“yeah” abounds). And yet I wonder if it isn’t that which keeps us riveted. It’s not that it’s dumbed down in any sense-- but it is made accessible, which is entirely necessary to pull modern-day audiences into what might easily be termed a cheesy costume drama. Yes, this does mean that there are occasional cheap jokes-- for instance, a dying rebel’s wondering cry of “I did it… I shot the sheriff…” is brought down by the Sheriff appearing above him with a sword and saying, “No. You shot the deputy.”-- but they’re funny all the same, and they make the characters human in fashion that well-spoken Shakespeare does. The maxim of the only two things which are certain in life holds just as true for these medieval characters (and, indeed, appears as a line of dialogue in an early episode) as it does today.

To be fair, the Beeb has done its best to up the stakes and darken the tone of the show: Robin (Jonas Armstrong) and his manservant Munch (Sam Troughton, grandson of the Second Doctor) have returned from the Holy Wars changed men, haunted by bloody nightmares, and it is for this reason that Robin will no longer willingly take a life. Little John (Gordon Kennedy) has given up a wife and a child who has never known him in order to protect them. Allan A Dale (Joe Armstrong), no traveling minstrel, is an untrustworthy thief. And Will Scarlett (Harry Lloyd) has lost nearly his entire family to the oppressive rule of the law.

Furthermore, the writers have attempted to complicated matters by making Sir Guy of Gisborne (an appropriately chiseled Richard Armitage) not entirely unlikeable-- indeed, Gisborne comes across as a tragic character, one who has the potential to be good, and yet lacks the strength to follow that path. He knows that he lives under the thumb of the Sheriff (Keith Allen, deliciously wicked), and he hates it; yet he covets power too much to break out from the Sheriff’s regime. Additionally, his courtship of the Lady Marian (Lucy Griffiths) is not simply to win her as a prize or a trophy-- he seems genuinely to care for her, and it kills him that no amount of generosity or gift-giving can earn him her respect. I think in short he actually lacks the people skills to be a good guy (no pun intended. No, really.); but it’s not out of malice. It’s because no one seems to have taught him otherwise.

The bottom line is, though, that the show is true romance. It’s adventure, yes; it’s drama, yes; but really, it’s romance. It’s the romance of a bygone era, where the rebels best the authority, where there’s always a trick up someone’s sleeve, and where there’s death, yes, but with a smile shortly to follow. People are brave, people are true, and there’s no confusion between right and wrong. Legends always exist for a reason: it’s what people need to hear at specific moments in time. And I think it is no accident that so many of these legends-- from Robin Hood to Iron Man--have been resurfacing in recent years. The question is whether or not we are now capable of taking the heroic aspects of these tales and bringing them into reality.

A call to arms.

Nerds of the world, unite!

2008-03-22T22:54:00.004-05:00

Hugo award nominations are out.

I'd like to take this moment to comment on the fact that my brother worked as a PA on the set of Star Trek New Voyages, which has been nominated (along with Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Galactica) for Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

And another one...

2008-03-18T20:40:00.002-05:00

Mourning Arthur C. Clarke and Anthony Minghella.

*Sigh*.

(And yes, I will write properly again at some point...)

The Baby Jee

2007-12-25T08:08:00.000-05:00

“That ‘Partridge in a Pear Tree’ song, the only bit we like of it is that ‘Fiiiiiiiive goooooold riiiiiiiiings!’ People go BERSERK at that point! People come running in from other rooms: ‘FIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE GOOOOOOOOLD RIIIIIIIIIINGS!’ The rest of it, we don't know; above that, it's just, ‘Twelve… monkeys mating, eleven… donkeys dancing, ten pygmies farming, nine… socks… a-swimming… FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGS!!!!!!!’”

"Seven… Five… Three… One… Seven… Five… Three… One…": THINGS WE WANT

2007-12-09T21:46:00.000-05:00

The big problem with working the theatre is this: when you’re working, so is everyone else. This leads to an issue of timing: that is, when you work in the theatre, it’s nearly impossible to go see theatre, because the rare moments you have off from work, everyone else has off as well.

Case in point: this past Friday night was the first time I had time to go to the theatre for un-work-related reasons since August.

Did I mention that it’s currently DECEMBER?

For those of us who live and breathe this art, that’s far too long a time to go without; however, when you’re juggling multiple rehearsal schedules that involve as many as two directors, twelve actors, two designers, and two playwrights, naturally, your time is at a premium, and very rarely do you have any of it free. However, miracle upon miracles, this week the planets aligned and I found myself with the time, money, and inclination to head to the theatre as a patron. The New Group boasts special “$10 @ 10 student and starving artist” performances, allowing those of us who are usually working or rehearsing until 8 or 9pm to go see good theatre at affordable prices. Needless to say, I think this is a marvelous idea. So, on Friday night, I found myself with one of the aforementioned playwrights at the Acorn Theatre on Theatre Row, ready to take in a 10pm performance of Things We Want, the new play by Jonathan Marc Sherman.

Sherman is perhaps best known for Women and Wallace, a play stunning for many reasons, and all the more so for the fact that it was written by Sherman at the age of 18 and produced before its playwright had turned 20. A fairly classic tale of a theatrical wunderkind thrown into a frantic spiral of substance abuse subsequently unfolded, until finally in 2001, a panic attack so violent as to resemble a heart attack, Sherman went into rehab. Now 39, he has been sober and in therapy ever since, and after a nearly ten-year hiatus from the theatre, his play Things We Want, directed by Ethan Hawke, opened on 7 November 2007, in association with the New Group.

Things We Want centers around three brothers, the youngest of who has just returned to his childhood home after dropping out of culinary school and being dumped by Zelda, the (unseen) love of his life. Of course, the apartment to which he returns is the apartment in which he and his brother grew up. It also happens to be the apartment in which both of their parents committed suicide by jumping out of the prominent living room window within five years of each other, and the ghosts of these events haunt both the apartment and the brothers who can’t bear to move out of it. What unfolds is how these three over-grown boys cope with these and other ghosts of their scattered, shattered lives-- or, rather, whether or not they CAN cope with them.

If the plot seems a touch old, Sherman’s trademark pithy dialogue keeps it interesting, and the action is well-structured. The window looms over the play in the same way the portrait of the General looms over Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, and while the symbolism sometimes comes across as hit-you-over-the-head-obvious (everything ranging from t-shirts to video tapes to remote controls to people end up threatening a trip out the window), it also allows for a solid selection of funny and/or heart-wrenching moments that propel the story forward with athletic leaps and twirls. Hawke’s direction handles the pace and rhythm of the play well, though occasionally it loses sight of the poignancy of the tale within; I’ll confess that there were a number of moments that didn’t hit me quite as they should have. However, I could see how they were supposed to land, which is infinitely better than missing the mark completely, so points for trying. Hawke’s staging also uses the space well. Designed by Derek McLane, the naturalistic, and therefore mostly enclosed, set contained enough suggestions of continued space (a hallway with doors to two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen with a door to a third bedroom, as well as the front door of the apartment itself and the gigantic living room window) to build an apartment that extended beyond the reach of the visible, rounding out the world in a wonderfully complete way.

The small ensemble cast features Paul Dano (widely known for not speaking because of Friedrich Nietzsche) as Charlie, the would-be chef; Josh Hamilton (Sherman’s original Wallace; also last seen as Nicholas Ogarev in The Coast of Utopia at LCT) as Teddy, the oldest brother, who works for and follows the creed of a self-help guru calling himself Dr. Miracle; Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent, Death at a Funeral, Richard III at the Public) as Sty, the middle brother and raging alcoholic; and Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of that Kazan) as Stella, the young woman who undoes, but perhaps ultimately saves, all three of the men. Dano and Kazan both show some fine, if slightly inconsistent, work. Hamilton turns in a solid performance, notable because he manages to make an unlikeable character watchable. More importantly, though (and perhaps it is because of this that Teddy is so watchable), he makes him understandable without condoning his actions. We see where he’s coming from; but this doesn’t excuse him, and Hamilton’s Teddy offers no excuses. However, it is Dinklage’s performance that truly stands out.

A wonderful actor with a magnificent sense of how the stage works (quite honestly, he could sit there and page through the phone book and it would be absolutely riveting), Dinklage is in fine form here. While it is undeniable that in order for there to be drama and conflict, characters must play action and objective, rather than emotion, things get really interesting when you consider what physical and emotional state or condition in which the character is. This affects how the action and objective are played, and while of course we’re usually interested in whether or not the character achieves his or her objective, what makes it worth watching is how they get there. To that end, consider the following: two of the most difficult things to pull off onstage are klutziness and drunkenness. Mishandled, these two conditions can come across as messy, unformed, and lazy. However, in the extremely capable hands of Dinklage, Sty’s Act One drunkenness comes across with the same clarity and precision as Billy Crudup’s klutziness as Belinsky in The Coast of Utopia did: admirable both because of the reality for the character and the awareness of the actor, it’s like watching Chaplin. More than this, though, Dinklage provides at once weakness, strength, bullheadedness, and heart in a way that rings so true that it hits you right in the gut before reaching up and tugging on your heartstrings a bit on its way up to settle in your mind for some well-motivated thought.

The title of the play is perhaps transparent; but in a way, it makes an otherwise naturalistic play into a metatheatrical comment that is bigger than the sum of its parts. “What do you want?” Teddy questions Charlie, who answers tearfully, “I want to be happy!” Now, as noted above, characters (or rather, the actors who portray them) have to play action and objective, or there is no drama and no conflict. The objective is what you want; the action is how you go about trying to get it. “Be-ing” anything-- such as “being happy”-- is never a choice any decent actor will make in terms their want because of its passivity. So the conundrum then becomes: if the character Charlie says he wants to be happy, what does he actually, actively want? Maybe he wants “to love”; maybe he wants “to find somebody to love”; maybe he wants acceptance. The bottom line is that what he thinks he wants is not actually what he wants, and it is only in bridging the gap between the perceived want and the actual, slightly subconscious want that Charlie can begin to engage in any sort of conflict-- that is, to come alive as a character.

And this, I think, is ultimately what the play is about: it’s about learning that what you think you want isn’t necessarily what you want, and discovering this vital fact is the only possible way to move on, to grow, and, indeed, to grow UP. After all, in the words of the great philosophers Jagger and Richards, if you try sometime, you just might find…

…You get what you need.

"Wintery Mix"

2007-12-02T15:09:00.001-05:00

I WILL write a new post eventually. I promise. In the meantime, happy December. It's snowing!

Bonfire Night

2007-11-05T11:27:00.001-05:00

Remember, remember the fifth of November
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot;
I know of no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Happy Guy Fawkes Night! Go out and burn an effigy. You know you want to.

That's right-- I AM THE PUMPKIN KING!

2007-10-31T11:37:00.000-05:00

Boys and girls of every age
Wouldn't you like to see something strange?
Come with us and you will see
This, our town of Halloween

This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Pumpkins scream in the dead of night
This is Halloween, everybody make a scene
Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright

It's our town, everybody scream
In this town of Halloween

I am the one hiding under your bed
Teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red

I am the one hiding under yours stairs
Fingers like snakes and spiders in my hair

This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Halloween! Halloween!
Halloween! Halloween!

In this town we call home
Everyone hail to the pumpkin song

In this town, don't we love it now?
Everybody's waiting for the next surprise
Round that corner, man hiding in the trash can
Something's waiting no to pounce, and how you'll...

Scream! This is Halloween
Red 'n' black, slimy green
Aren't you scared?
Well, that's just fine

Say it once, say it twice
Take a chance and roll the dice
Ride with the moon in the dead of night

Everybody scream, everbody scream
In our town of Halloween!

I am the clown with the tear-away face
Here in a flash and gone without a trace

I am the "who" when you call, "Who's there?"
I am the wind blowing through your hair

I am the shadow on the moon at night
Filling your dreams to the brim with fright

This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Halloween! Halloween!
Halloween! Halloween!

Halloween! Halloween!
Tender lumplings everywhere
Life's no fun without a good scare
That's our job, but we're not mean
In our town of Halloween

In this town
Don't we love it now?
Skeleton Jack might catch you in the back
And scream like a banshee
Make you jump out of your skin

This is Halloween, everyone scream
Won't ya please make way for a very special guy
Our man jack is King of the Pumpkin patch
Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King!

This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Halloween! Halloween!
Halloween! Halloween!

In this town we call home
Everyone hail to the pumpkin song

La la-la la, Halloween! Halloween!

Seasonal Specialties

2007-10-27T19:07:00.000-05:00

Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale > Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale.

October in the Chair

2007-10-24T21:30:00.000-05:00

Colors turn, leaves fall, the air bites and snaps, and change is all around. It is more than just a literal change of season (though that, of course, cannot be ignored); under the literal is the figurative, the mutable, the elusive and nearly impossible to grasp.

October is a time for ghosts.

Though I remain baffled by the 76-degree weather, the fact remains that this is the time of year in which things come back to haunt us. Perhaps it stems from the fact that while the year officially begins in January, somehow the autumn has always been a more important marker, with phrases like “back-to-school” meaning more than “Auld Lang Syne.” Whereas New Year’s exists in the middle of the winter-- a time of dormant life-- “back-to-school,” as a child, meant new clothes, new shoes, new notebooks and Trapper-Keepers and backpacks, new pens and pencils and colorful erasers; it meant new teachers, new classes, and new collections of people. We existed in the same space, of course: the school itself never changed (though long after my time, a remodeling knocked down the building I knew and replaced it with something different and almost foreign), and nor did the schoolyard, with its swings and jungle gyms and abandoned volleyball nets. Even so, we found ourselves in new rooms, with new decorations, freshly pinned to the freshly painted walls by freshly waiting teachers. A touch of apprehension, perhaps: would the new teacher be nice? Or would we be unlucky enough to be stuck with the stickler, the matron, the strictest of the bunch? And maybe the largest question, the one left unspoken, was this: what, exactly, would the new year hold?

There: a ghost. A memory, the details of which have been un-thought for years, yet still somehow leaking through the cracks. Across the street, outside my window, another ghost: a vacant lot. With one building gone and another yet to come, the space exists as an in-between, stuck somewhere between the past and the future.

Some would call that place the present.

Here, though, it is suspended, trapped between a brick wall and a chain-link fence, existing neither here nor there, and yet full of possibility.

It’s the possibility that clinches it, I think; even if we can’t necessarily prove that ghosts can or do exist, we like to think that the possibility is there. It lends some comfort to the uncertainty. For this time of year is a time of certain uncertainty, of knowing that there might be something lurking in the darkness… or that there might not.

Presence optional.

October: a time for ghosts, and by extension, a time for ghost stories. Here’s one:

There is a corner in my grandparents’ house into which I have never liked to go. It sits tucked away behind the stairs, seemingly isolated from the rest of the house, though not by any visible means. In it, there are several chairs, a sofa with a curved wooden back, and a handful of small tables; on the tables, there are ancient photographs. Some of the photographs are framed in heavy metal. Some are loose, resting in piles on the tabletops. They are not photographs of anyone I recognize.

For no reason I can explain, I have always stayed far away from this corner. When answering the front door, I keep my left shoulder turned in, and while climbing the stairs, I keep my gaze firmly focused on the steps themselves. I do not venture downstairs late at night.

We were in the kitchen, all of us, as was our custom. The kitchen has traditionally been a gathering place, a splotch of neutral territory around which to center an evening; so accordingly, we had settled ourselves there, where bright lights, clinking glasses, and a sea of voices kept the gloom at bay. However, one of us was absent. Not noticeably; but absent all the same. It was then that the absent one reappeared: my uncle, poking his head round the door. “You’ve got to come see this,” he insisted, his tone an uncharacteristically soft whisper and his eyes wide.

We went.

Just through the kitchen, past the dining room, he led us towards the corner by the stairs. The two dogs-- my cousins’ Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and our own teacup Maltese-- both stood facing the corner, hackles raised, growling ratchet sounds deep in their throats. The quiet, fierce rrrrrrrr rattled on uninterrupted for several minutes…

…and then like that, it ceased. The dogs backed down, suddenly uninterested, and wandered aimlessly off.

We never knew what they had felt.

The weight of memory can be an unpredictable thing.

Skeletons in the closet.

Skeletons: there’s an interesting thought. During this time of year, everything appears skeletal. Whether we like it or not, we can see exactly where things have been and roughly where they might be going. Rather than lush, verdant green, the treetops hold a scattered array of drying orange and brown, their branches not hidden, but displayed. Sometimes, though, skeletons can be even more opaque than the thickest of disguises. There is a topsy-turvyness to them at this time of year, a reversal, an inside-out method of distraction not unlike the motive behind a child’s skeletal Halloween costume. It’s as if by showing the insides, we can hide the outsides even more thoroughly. We duck and we dodge, afraid of what we can’t see in the dark, but even more afraid of what we might see in the light. We exist in afterimages. In negative space.

Ghosts, ghost stories, memories, and time: this is the recipe of autumn. Colors, leaves, biting and snapping; new things, old things, lost things and found things; suspension and possibility, uncertainty and fact. Skeletons, in closets or otherwise. Winds blowing. Skies moving. And everything around, changing.

This is the October Country.

Hey, aren't you gonna stay to greet the Great Pumpkin?

2007-10-05T18:24:00.000-05:00

I WANT ONE OF THESE.

(Check out X-E for more Great Pumpkin-y goodness.)

Speechless.

2007-09-23T18:00:00.000-05:00

Mourning Marcel Marceau.

ARRRRRRRR!

2007-09-19T09:50:00.001-05:00

Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Listen to My Story: Julie Taymor's Across the Universe

2007-09-17T19:19:00.000-05:00

Julie Taymor's film Across the Universe has a long, troubled history involving the all-too-common battle between the artist and the studio system. I'm a little hazy on the details of this particular battle, so I won't try to recount it here; but what I do know is that finally, at last, the film has finally had its long-awaited release, and that it's of a make all its own.

First things first: "plot" and "story" are not the same thing. I just want to clear this up for the purposes of discussion. "Plot" is literally what happens, the irrefutable facts and events ("Jane and Barry woke up. They took a walk. They came home. They made breakfast." etc.). "Story," on the other hand, is where the interpretive work comes in, and this is what we're looking for when we ask what something is "about." It's deeper than plot, and in the end, it's what makes a tale worth telling. In the world of contemporary film especially, it sometimes seems that plot is put above all else (a symptom, I'm sure, of the studio system); but plot is not the only way to tell a story, and it is this perhaps that makes Across the Universe so remarkable.

It's not that Across the Universe doesn't have a plot or a narrative; on the contrary, it most certainly does. But in a departure from what we have come to expect as audiences, the plot is not the convention through which the story gets told. Here, rather, it gets told through less tangible images and music (Beatles, in case you missed that point), resulting in an extraordinarily effective sort of visceral storytelling. It's a difficult type of storytelling to describe; I think the closest I can get is this: It's one of those tales that hits you simultaneously in the head, gut, and heart, leaving you gasping for breath and dizzy as hell, but absolutely certain of the beauty in it all. Julie Taymor's oeuvre as an artist has always been very much in the visual realm (the puppets used in The Lion King are spectacular, and the image of Livia with sticks for hands and a red ribbon streaming out of her mouth in Titus Andronicus cannot be readily forgotten), and Across the Universe takes its cues from the music before launching off into a landscape of sight, using the lyrics and the sounds themselves to create a visual world that ultimately is composed of story.

The story is really Jude's. A dockworker from Liverpool, Jude travels to the States on a search to find his absent father. This goal is accomplished early on (Dad is a janitor at Princeton); but more importantly, while on the search, Jude meets Max, a delinquent with a good heart who abandons his collegiate career at Princeton to move to New York with Jude in tow. Eventually Max's sister Lucy, with whom Jude falls desperately in love, moves in with them, and from there, it's really about the push and pull of the forces of the 60s on this collection of people: Vietnam, the draft, SDS, the cesspool that is New York, art, war, love, revolution, and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, though, it's Jude's eyes through which we see everything. It's Jude's eyes we begin with as he sings "Girl" simply and beautifully directly into the camera, and it's Jude's eyes we end with as he and Lucy reunite, separated by the distance of a rooftop, but irrevocably connected in spite of it. This is his tale.

Is there anybody going to listen to my story,
All about the girl who came to stay?
She's the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry;
Still, you don't regret a single day.

The characters, of course, draw their names from Beatles tunes: "Hey" Jude, Max(well's) "Silver Hammer," Lucy "in the Sky with Diamonds," Max and Jude's landlady "Sexy" Sadie, Sadie's guitarist JoJo ("Get Back"), and their friend "Dear" Prudence. Strong performances abound (particularly from Jim Sturgess as Jude and Joe Anderson as Max), but more importantly, every performance bonds together into a stunning ensemble, with everyone giving and taking with equal weight. Additionally, a handful of inspired cameos include Bono as "Doctor Robert," a Ken Kesey-esque character with a tie-dyed bus and his own band of Merry Mischief Makers known as Pranskters, Salma Hayek as the scariest nightmare nurse you'll ever meet, and Eddie Izzard as the psychedelic circus ringleader, "Being for the Benefit of" Mr. Kite. Some sequences of note include the drunken frat boy antics of "With a Little Help from My Friends," the falling-in-love bliss of "I've Just Seen a Face," the heartbreak of "Let It Be," the bitter destruction of "Strawberry Fields Forever," and the recruitment terror of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." I give particular weight to that last one (no pun intended); I've been seeing visions of those human-sized toy soldiers reminiscent of something out of Pink Floyd's The Wall in my nightmares ever since.

The buzz on a handful of online forums keeps asking, "Does anyone else think this movie is kind of like Moulin Rouge?," sometimes going so far as to ask whether it's a "Moulin Rouge/Baz [Luhrmann] rip off." And you know, I've got to disagree: I don't think Across the Universe is at all like Moulin Rouge. I can see where the argument is coming from-- besides the obvious parallel in the use of popular tunes, there are some similarities in the set-up, i.e., a young artistic man leaves his home shores for a foreign place, subsequently falling in love with both the place and a girl he finds there, and in the color-saturated palette of the filmmaking-- but I think these and a handful of other observations simply aren't substantial enough on which to base a claim of one film having ripped off another (and bear in mind that I say this as someone who quite likes Moulin Rouge). Moulin Rouge uses a mixture of popular and original songs with a text-heavy script to create something akin to musical theatre-- so like it, in fact, that I'm surprised no one has tried to adapt it for the Broadway stage yet, especially given the current trend of turning movies into musicals (The Producers, Legally Blonde, The Wedding Singer, most of the Disney shows, the upcoming Young Frankenstein, and so on). Across the Universe, on the other hand, is something inexplicably different. There are scenes with dialogue, yes, but the meat of the film is in the (for lack of a better term) musical sequences. In some ways, it's kind of like a whole bunch of music videos which, when taken together as a whole, form a complete story, beginning, middle, and end.

I have the sneaking suspicion that when it comes to Across the Universe, there is very little grey area: I think you'll either like it or you won't. But either way, it helps to bear in mind as you go into it that this is a different type of storytelling than most cinematic audiences expect. If you spend the entire time wishing it were something it isn't-- an old-fashioned Hollywood genre musical, a documentary of life in the 60s, or whatever-- then you'll miss what it actually is, which is at least worth thinking about, even if it's not your cup of tea. Don't look for perfection, because perfection, it is not-- I'll even confess that a few times towards the beginning of the film, I felt the impulse to roll my eyes at the goings-on on screen. But as the story unfolded, I got sucked in, almost in spite of myself, and I left the cinema in a state of bliss. Nothing could touch me the entire way home: not the crowds, not the tourists, not the trains that refused to arrive or leave the stations on time... nothing. I rode back over the river, passing by the Brooklyn Bridge in the light of a crescent moon, and I remembered for a moment just how beautiful the living world can be.

On and on--
Across the universe.

The fourth dimension is time, and the fifth... is Tesseract.

2007-09-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

Mourning Madeleine L'Engle.

...the rest is...

2007-08-16T18:41:00.001-05:00

Apologies for another lengthy bout of silence; between my brother's wedding and my own moving to a new apartment, time has been short, to say the least. But fear not! Things are beginning to even out, so with luck, I'll be back in the game sooner rather than later. Until then, may this bring you much merriment.

SPLAT!, or, A Meditation on the Genre of the Horror Film

2007-07-13T18:22:00.000-05:00

I really should stop writing articles about the various subjects of my strange and morbid fascinations. People are going to start getting the wrong ideas about me.

That said:

Horror movies.

I love horror movies. I'm the type who will come home from work at 11 pm, grab a beer, flip on the telly, and watch horror movies all by my lonesome in the semi-darkness of the flickering screen. I will then be able to fall asleep with no thought to the axe murderers, serial killers, or supernatural beings that may or may not be lurking in my closet.

Some call me crazy. I prefer to look at it as living on the edge.

Of course, nine times out of ten, the horror films I end up watching are awful. Really, truly, absolutely god-awful. I sat through the entirety of Gothika (2003) and realized that at the end, I had no idea what I had just watched. It made NO. SENSE. I couldn't tell you a thing about it, it made that much non-sense. But this never stops me from seeing nearly every horror film I can get my hands on. From Hitchcock to Hammer, from Carpenter to Craven, from Romero to Raimi-- I love 'em. And I love following the trends of what's popular at any given time. Similar to what my brother does with science fiction (and he does that for a living!), I like to track what's going on in the genre, looking to see where it might be going next.

My first exposure to the genre of horror in film came through the classics of the 70s and 80s: Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984). All of these films fall more or less into the category of the slasher flick. Nightmare is the possible exception, given that Freddy a) attacks people in their dreams, rather than in reality, b) is more supernatural than natural (though admittedly, both Michael Myers of Halloween and Jason of Friday the 13th became more super and less natural over time) and c) can talk. Usually, the slasher is a hulking sort of figure granted the ability to walk faster than any normal person can run, albeit without the power of speech. Perhaps it's a trade-off: "Okay, Michael. You can either talk, or you can move faster than humanly possible, but you can't have both. Which is it?" Other classics quickly followed as I raided my local video store, puzzling the clerks to no end (there really is nothing quite like seeing a ten-year-old girl rent out the entire horror section). These films, however, while technically belonging to genres, tend to stand apart as unique anomalies in the horror movie canon: there was The Amityville Horror (1979, the haunted house genre); there was Poltergeist (1982, ghosts in general); The Exorcist (1973, genre of flying pea soup); and Child's Play (1988, better known as the Chucky movies, offering a blend of the slasher flick and the demonic doll story). Then there was the zombie genre, something I didn't get into until my teenage years: made famous by Romero, brought back into prominence by Danny Boyle, and forever changed by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg.

My crash course in horror movies of the past aside, though, here's what I've seen going on in recent years (note: obviously, this is by no means a comprehensive list):

In the 90s, there was a resurgence of the slasher genre. However, it wasn't just the same ol' hack-n-slash anymore; rather, with the advent of Wes Craven's Scream franchise (Scream, 1996; Scream 2, 1997; Scream 3, 2000), the genre gained a new dimension: self-aware characters. The characters populating the Scream flicks were well aware of the fact that they were in a horror movie. Furthermore, with film nerd Randy (Jamie Kennedy) on hand as a useful reference, they were able both to follow and exploit the rules of the slasher genre while simultaneously making fun of them. Everyone always loves a little meta.

Notably, this era of slasher resurgence also saw the production of additions to well-established horror movie franchises, such as Halloween H2O (1998), which saw Jamie Lee Curtis reprising Laurie Strode, Curtis' classic scream queen role from the first two films in the Halloween franchise. The Child's Play series, begun in 1988, took a seven-year break during most of the 90s, but resurfaced along with Halloween H2O in 1998 in the form of Bride of Chucky. The Nightmare on Elm Street series continued with Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) and New Nightmare (1994). Jason, meanwhile, went to Hell. Literally.

Then, in 2002, an American remake of a 1998 Japanese film called Ringu brought the Next Big Thing in the horror industry: Asian horror. The Ring was followed by a sequel, The Ring 2 (2005); Ju-On became The Grudge (2004), with The Grudge 2 following in 2006; Dark Water in 2005 came from a 2002 film of the same name; and so on and so forth. When the industry finally realized that the originals were all better than the remakes (with, I put forth, the possible exception of The Ring), and that rather than going to the cinema to see Americanized versions of these terrifying, atmospheric tales, Americans were instead simply adding the originals to their Netflix queues, these remakes started to taper off.

Of course, during these various eras, there have been other types of horror films: ghost flicks (The Others, 2001), low-budget cult favorites (the Blair Witch phenomenon, 1999. Coincidentally, Jeff Donovan of Blair Witch 2 has a new show on the USA network-- "Burn Notice." It's really rather good; check it out.), remakes of classics (Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Omen, House of Wax, The Amityville Horror, the soon-to-be Halloween remake by Rob Zombie, etc.), and a few genre-benders, such as Wes Craven's Red Eye (2005). Now, Red Eye isn't strictly a slasher flick-- it might be more appropriate to classify it as a "thriller"-- but consider this: at the end, after the terrorized Lisa (Rachel McAdams) gives her in-flight captor Jackson (Cillian Murphy) a surprise tracheotomy with a novelty pen, Jackson loses the power of speech. That's right: he becomes the hulking speechless slasher of old. Some things never change.

And then there's the Splat Pack.

At approximately the same time that the Asian horror craze started to wane (though a The Ring 3 and The Grudge 3 are both in the works, due for release in 2008), films written and directed by a handful of filmmakers unofficially dubbed The Splat Pack began changing the face of horror once again. These Splat Pack-ers became infamous as makers of the genre known as "torture porn." If you don't know what that is, then you've clearly been living under a rock for the past couple of years. However, just to make sure that we're all on the same page, I'll elaborate. Torture porn is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a horror genre in which the primary point is to kill as many people off as possible in increasingly gory and creative ways. Now, cruel and unusual punishments are certainly no rarity in the world of horror films; however, unlike in, say, The Last House on the Left (Wes Craven's 1972 debut film), where the torture is a VEHICLE for the story, in torture porn, the torture IS the story. Blood runs thick and entrails dangle freely. Basically, it's as close to a snuff film you can get without it actually being a snuff film. Examples include Eli Roth's Cabin Fever (2002), Hostel (2005), and Hostel Part II (2007); James Wan and Leigh Whannell's Saw (2004) and all successive follow-ups helmed by Darren Lynn Bousman; Turistas (2006); and Captivity (2007).

Naturally, there has been a hefty amount of controversy surrounding the whole genre, most recently in reaction to a billboard campaign for Captivity. Left and right, there are champions defending it and critics attacking (Joss Whedon has a particularly astute angle on it), and for a while, I kind of sat on the fence about the issue; I mean, I can definitely see the concern that these types of films will promote and inspire the type of violence depicted within them, but I also like to think that people aren't so mindlessly stupid that they'll actually go out and Abduct, Confine, Torture, and Terminate.

But be that as it may...

Here's the thing with torture porn: It's not that it makes me angry. It's not even that it grosses me out. The problem, ultimately, is that it's not dramatically compelling. And when there's no real story being told, the inevitable happens: I get bored.

I've seen Hostel, and I had no desire to see Hostel Part II. I will admit that this was in part from the gross-out factor: when it comes to cinema violence, I have a stomach of steel, but Hostel was a bit much even for me, and I don't generally go to the cinema in order to make myself vomit. But even beyond the stomach-churning, the issue was that I couldn't see what could possibly be any different about the story this time around. Sure, there would be different deaths, and sure, I had no doubt that they would be even more spectacular than those in the first film; but when the point of a movie is to watch scores of people get tortured and killed, how many stories can there be to tell about it? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Take the Saw franchise: I saw the first Saw movie in the cinemas on Halloween, 2004, and you know what? I rather liked it. It was the first horror movie I'd seen in a long time that I wasn't able to predict every moment of, and there's something that appeals to some primal instinct somewhere within myself about The Most Dangerous Game. I also saw Saw II (let's face it: there's no graceful way to say that you saw Saw. It's starting to sound like I went on a see-saw or something.) during the fall of 2005, and you know what? Not as good. This was predictable; I call it Sequel Syndrome, wherein (with a few exceptions) most sequels are significantly suckier than their parent films. It was predictable in all the ways the first one wasn't, and guess what? You guessed it: I got bored. I didn't bother to see the third film, and I probably won't see the fourth.

This summer, as the hype for Hostel Part II and Captivity kicked up, it finally occurred to me exactly WHY, among the Splat Pack films, the first Saw film is the only one I've liked: in it, the torture is the SET-UP, but not the POINT of the film. The point of the film is to see what happens when two guys wake up chained to a pipe in a room with a dead body and a hack saw. It's a classic what-if scenario wherein the stakes as high as they can get, and that-- THAT-- is dramatically interesting, especially since the two guys have exactly one thing in common: they can't leave. They're stuck there, in that room, together, with a dead body in the middle of the floor. What then? How will they react to their situation? What's the dynamic between them? Will they get out? How? When? What's going on? How did they get there in the first place? What if they can't get out on their own? What if no one comes for them? Is there anything keeping them there other than the chains? What will it take for one or both of them to snap? And so on and so forth. It's a hell of a lot more interesting than "Gee, I wonder what happens if I stick my hand in this glass box through a razor-lined hole?" We know EXACTLY what happens if you stick your hand in that glass box through that razor-lined hole—you'll lose your damn hand. And then you'll have to stare at your severed hand while you sob and bleed to death for several hours.

Snore.

I've remarked before on the fact that I'm no political activist, so my angle on this is solely that of a storyteller. As someone who works in the theatre, it's both my job and in my nature to tell stories, and in short, when dealing with a story-telling medium, the goal should be to create a well-told story. If you haven't achieved that, then something is wrong. And this, really, is what I think the problem of torture porn is springing from: without a story to guide it, the violence is not only gratuitous, but also pointless and boring.

Although I suppose that I should just be grateful that no one has tried to shoot Jason into outer space lately.

*

I promise that it is completely coincidental that I'm writing this article on Friday the 13th. No, really. It is.

For another angle, featuring the filmmakers behind torture porn, check out this article at IGN: http://movies.ign.com/articles/804/804194p1.html

Blue Moon

2007-07-01T11:24:00.000-05:00

My parents have a summer place overlooking the ocean in southern Maine, and I'm taking full advantage of the fact that I've actually got some vacation time for once this summer by spending a good deal of my time there. Last night, we headed over to Inn on the Blues for some live blues and funk. It's my understanding that Inn on the Blues is the only place nearby for live music; the only other options are either heading north to Portland or south to Portsmouth, NH. But believe you me: in spite of the fact that it's a tiny a place in a tiny town, the tunes at the Inn were quality. Last night's band was the Evan Goodrow Band, a Boston-based quartet. Check them out-- they play extremely well together, and their saxophonist and bassist are particularly good. Nice night out.

Crank It Up: Rock, Musical Theatre, and Spring Awakening

2007-06-25T13:22:00.000-05:00

I'm preparing myself for getting a lot of flak about the following statement:

I have issues with Spring Awakening, and I don't think it deserved most of the awards it got this season.

I wanted to like it. I really did. And I tried, oh so very hard. It's got some catchy tunes; it's got loads of energy; its lighting design is very... neon; but quite honestly, I think the show has problems. Lots and lots of problems.

The facts that it is lyrically awkward and boring ("Oh, I'm gonna bruise you,/ Oh, I'm gonna be your bruise," from "The Word of Your Body," Spring Awakening's "Song That Goes Like This." How scintillating.), musically uninteresting (I walked out of it only being able to remember roughly how two numbers went: "The Bitch of Living" and "Totally Fucked") and visually... um, blinding (neon lighting; leaping teenagers; choreography that draws silly-looking circles around breasts) are the least of its troubles. The major issue stems from its treatment of Frank Wedekind's original play. During a conversation over lunch a month ago with dramaturg, critic, and professor Shawn-Marie Garrett, what came out about Spring Awakening is this: In the musical, complicated issues of sex and sexual awakening are reduced to mere shock value, with bare flesh and onstage nudity replacing the real meat (no pun intended) of the play. Take the scene in the hayloft between Melchior and Wendla: In Wedekind's play, when it really comes down to it, even setting aside the question of whether or not Wendla consents, the fact remains that Melchior knows what is going on, and Wendla does not-- which, in most circles, makes the instance of intercourse between the two of them rape. Somehow, in the musical, this becomes a Love Story with Capital Letters, when in the play, it is by no means that simple. Making it into one such Love Story knocks out the very foundations on which the play stands, making it a teetering mess of romanticism, rather than the troubling collection of questions it should, by nature, be.

But, for the sake of argument, say that we set the differences between the play and the musical aside. It is, after all, an adaptation, and artistic license can be granted in such circumstances. Let's look at the musical itself. Structurally, it's a cop-out. It's one of those shows that just sort of STOPS, pretending to tie up the loose ends without making the effort to actually do so. "The Song of the Purple Summer" exists as one of those "But even though everything is awful, WE CAN ALL STILL SING TOGETHER!" endings, which rings horribly false in this particular story. Now, I understand that "The Song of the Purple Summer" was added in for the Broadway production, not having existed in its off-Broadway incarnation; but that doesn't justify it. Not by a long shot. If anything, it spells out even more glaringly that the ending was a problem in its first form, and that rather than trying to fix it properly, they chose the easy way out. I offer a metaphor that is perhaps over used, but apt: it's like trying to use a Band-Aid when what's needed is twenty stitches and some reconstructive surgery. I also suspect that this ending issue stems from the previously problems with the treatment of Wedekind's play: if they had tried to tell the story that is actually there, rather than trying to tell a story that forced another mold on top of its existing one, I wonder if the ending might not have been less of a problem.

And now for the biggie: What I REALLY don't understand is why the show has kicked up such a huge fuss as a rock musical. Rock musicals are not new inventions: they've been around for ages. In his article "On This Rock, Build a Future for Musicals," Charles Isherwood of the New York Times writes, "Rock music has made intermittent and sometimes dubious forays onto Broadway since Elvis and the Beatles met Ed Sullivan. And yet it has never become a staple sound-- or even a frequent one-- of musical theater, which has for the most part continued to descend from the early pioneers like Jerome Kern and George Gershwin through Rodgers and Hammerstein and Hammerstein’s protégé Stephen Sondheim to Mr. Sondheim’s many imitators or homage payers." Isherwood goes on to mention The Who's Tommy, Rent, and Hair ("the granddaddy of rock musicals"). Yet I disagree with his diagnosis that it has never become a "staple" or "frequent" sound of Broadway (and why, while we're here, are we limiting musical theatre to Broadway musical theatre? What about off-Broadway? Spring Awakening began off-Broadway!). What about Jesus Christ Superstar? The Rocky Horror Show? The Wiz? Hedwig and the Angry Inch? Or even Grease and Bye Bye Birdie, shows that have 50s rock scores, rather than contemporary ones? The sound of rock is by no means foreign to musical theatre; indeed, these days, almost every new musical has at least some sort of rock or pop influence audibly apparent in its makeup. Wicked. Legally Blonde. The Color Purple. Not to mention the myriad juke-box musicals that, happily, seem to be fading out. We've even now got what I might call "piano rock musicals"-- the name of Jason Robert Brown comes to mind, and his two-person show The Last Five Years. Listen to "Movin' Too Fast," and tell me that it's not a piano rock song that just happens to be a blast for actors to perform. Seriously.

What really struck me is that despite all its hype and hope, Spring Awakening doesn't really break any new ground. In the world of rock musicals, there is nothing extraordinary that sets this one apart, other than the fact that its entire principle cast is under the age of 25. Isherwood comments, "Setting aside “The Who’s Tommy,” which began as a concept album and became a movie before Des McAnuff staged it for Broadway, Mr. Sheik is probably the only popular rock songwriter to achieve a similar success in musical theater;" and yes, perhaps this is true. Sheik is a music artist first and foremost, a quality which is a rarity in musical theatre. However, his style isn't one that I would readily classify as out-and-out "rock," a term which is tricky to define under the best of circumstances. "Rock," in all honesty, seems to me to be a sort of catch-all term, a word meant to be augmented and clarified through the use of adjectives ("Soft." "Hard." "Alternative." "Indie." The list goes on.). Anyone remember "Barely Breathing"? Sheik is probably best known for this radio hit, and I'll admit to liking the tune immensely when I first heard it... oh... must've been about ten years ago (my, how time flies). However, I'll note that when it hit the Boston airwaves, it didn't play on any of the "rock" stations. It played on KISS 108-- the pop station. Do with that what you will.

The question still remains, though: is a rock musical written by a theatrical composer any less a rock musical than one written by an "actual" rocker (whatever that means)? Of course not. It's not the person who writes the show that defines what it is; it's the sound of the show itself.

Consider Superstar. I am by no means a Lloyd Webber fan, but in the era during which he wrote Superstar, he was young and rebellious and breaking rules, which (naturally, some might say) led to rock scores. "Heaven on Their Minds"? Brilliant rock song! Top-notch! And of course, you can't play or sing rock without some heavy amplification (if it's rock, it's GOTTA be loud); but, since wireless microphones didn't yet exist, Superstar had to make due with what was available: microphones with long chords. Consequently, the entire production was choreographed around the mic chords-- necessary, and stylistically fantastic, upping the rock quotient immeasurably. Think Roger Daltrey and his microphone-twirling antics. Now imagine Jesus doing the twirling. Great image, isn't it? Superstar is undeniably a rock musical, regardless as to whether Lloyd Webber ("The PHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! TOM OF THE OPERA IS THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!") is a rocker or a theatrical composer.

Also consider that rock musicals have been being written by rock artists for decades. Any concept album-- The Who's Tommy and Quadrophenia, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Dream Theater's Scenes from a Memory and (to a lesser extent) disc two of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, etc.-- is essentially a rock opera, wherein the goal is to use the album to tell a cohesive story. As demonstrated by the 1993 Broadway production of Tommy, these sorts of albums work extremely well when staged. Indeed, there continues to be buzz about bringing Quadrophenia and The Wall to the Broadway stage.

The problem, I think, runs deeper than simply the idea that musical theatre needs rock to rejuvenate itself right now. And perhaps I have no conclusions about what musical theatre needs right now. Wait, no. That's not true. What musical theatre really needs is to be written properly once again. It can be written as modern rock; it can be written as old-fashioned musical comedy; it can be written as orchestral and grand. The underlying issue is that the music in musical theatre should exist as a mode of storytelling, not of emoting. When mere words are no longer sufficient to express what's going on-- that's when the music should kick in. And it should always function in such a way as to drive the story forward. That's what theatre is: a medium of storytelling. If the stories aren't getting told, then something is wrong. And I believe that it is because of this that it has been so long since we've really had a dynamite new musical, rock or otherwise, hit the stage.

So why don't we work on fixing that?

Though I dabble in songwriting myself, I'm no musical theatre composer; but if anyone else out there has a fantastic musical story out there, waiting to be produced, let me know. I'd love to direct it. Let's be the first to start changing things.

It's time.

Sorry, Don't Mind the Mess of Webslinger on the Floor: Spider-Man 3

2007-06-05T22:27:00.000-05:00

Spider-Man has long been my favorite Marvel superhero. He may not have the dark charisma of Batman (a DC creation); but he's someone we can all relate to. Unfortunately, the third film in the franchise loses sight of this very important quality, giving us instead a sprawling mass of Superhero with too much content and not enough form.

First things first: I don't understand this multiple-villains obsession. Tim Burton's sequel to the single-villain'ed Batman, Batman Returns, was one of the first to utilize this convention, with the Penguin and Catwoman teaming up to bring down the Bat. Unfortunately, as much as love Batman Returns, Hollywood has since embraced the multiple-villain convention a tad too firmly. This is not to say that a comic book movie (or any movie, for that matter) must have one villain, and only one. If treated correctly, it can work extraordinarily well: Batman Begins, for example, used both Ras Al Ghul and Crane/Scarecrow to great effect. The nature of Batman Begins, though, was more... well, maybe "realistic" isn't quite the word I'm looking for, but there is an element of realism in the Batman mythos that doesn't exist in the Spider-Man world. Batman deals with regular people. Those regular people may have money, gadgets, and a few loose screws; however, they don't have "superpowers," and I think that allows their relationships to be more realistic. When you get down to it, Ras and Crane weren't supervillains working side by side to bring down Gotham; they were more like businessmen working in a trade agreement.

Spider-Man 3 most definitely abuses the convention. Although in the first two movies, we were mostly dealing with one villain at a time, suddenly, in 3, we've got not one... not TWO, even... but sort of two and a half, or perhaps two and two different halves, which adds up to THREE.

Two words:

Too. Much.

The shame of it is the fact that all of these ideas are good ones-- what academics would term "potentially fruitful." Putting them all together in the same film, however... is a mistake. There's just too much going on, but because there's so much going on, none of it is allowed the time to develop as much as it needs to, and in the end, the effect is less of a "WHOA!" and more of "...huh."

Idea #1: Harry Osborn. I don't deny that Harry needed to be dealt with; after all, he's really just been sort of chilling and brooding since the end of the first film. I also will admit that I rather liked his story arc in this one-- James Franco is much more engaging when he's not scowling. It gave him a chance to see and deal with Harry in a different light: that of a regular guy. The importance of this regular-guy-light is the core lesson of Drama 101: acting is reacting. The problem with Brooding Harry was that he was a brick wall of a denial, and from an acting standpoint, this makes any scene with him almost impossible. There's only so much you can do when playing opposite a brick wall. Not-Brooding Harry was naturally infinitely more responsive, and that added a drama to his scenes with others, and subsequently his story, that was just generally lacking before.

However, I couldn't help but feel that in this film, Harry was only getting dealt with because he was a loose end from the earlier films. Poor Harry. It sure does suck being a throw-away.

Idea #2: Sandman. Now, I know that once you think about it, a villain made of sand is fairly worthy, given that he's got the power of a brutal and angry desert behind his methods of destruction while being virtually indestructible himself. But, I mean, really. I just want to have been in the room when they were pitching this idea: "And then he gets bonded on a particle level with-- now GET THIS-- SAND. Get it? Sand? Man? Sandman? Trust me, it's gonna ROCK!"

Sounds lame, doesn't it?

I thought so too.

Sandman's function is unabashedly to instill enough rage in Peter Parker to force him to have to deal with Idea #3: The Dark Side of Oneself. Trouble is, Peter has already been dealing with this idea throughout the past two films. True, it goes a little further than it's gone before, but not much further-- it gives us some amusing clips of Peter trying to be badass, which are worth watching purely for the Funny, but that's about it. I can't help but feel that Sandman was weak technique that only kept this issue on the table, rather than further it.

However, I will say that the scene where Sandman literally pulls himself together for the first time after The Accident is fabulous.

Idea #4: Venom. Venom is one of my favorite Spider-Man villains, and he is pulled off here with an appropriate mix of arrogance, nastiness, and charisma by Topher Grace. However, while we meet Eddie Brock early in the film, Venom doesn't appear until the last third of it, and since by that point, we're already busy dealing with Ideas 1 through 3... well, this fourth idea makes things a bit crowded.

Furthermore, Bryce Dallas Howard's character is completely unnecessary. Brock uses the fact that Peter's exposing his incriminating photograph of Spider-Man as a fraud is supposedly to blame for losing her as a justification for his getting revenge-- but the excuse is paper-thin. "I'm thinking... Humiliation. Like what you did to me. You remember, Parker? Remember? You took my girl away from me. Now, I'm gonna take yours away from you," Brock tells Parker. But here's the problem: I don't buy for a minute that his "girl" is his motive for revenge. We barely saw them having any sort of relationship, let alone a healthy romantic one, and one of Brock's (and, subsequently, Venom's) defining features is his lack of humanity. He isn't capable of love. He's just a mean, nasty guy, and the only person he cares about is himself. I would be more willing to buy his ruined career as a motive—the stakes are higher for him. For someone that selfish, the only stakes worth anything are those directly concerning himself.

So, those are the ideas. And while I've got some quibbles with the details of each of them, I still think they're all kind of neat. But there isn't any sort of cohesion between them; they're sloppily patched together with the weakest glue imaginable, resulting in a story that bottoms out a few too many times.

Ultimately, I think the problem lies in this particular treatment of this particular superhero. Spider-Man is not an epic hero, and he never has been; at the end of the day, he's just a nerd who happened to get bitten by a radioactive/mutant spider. His problems have always been very real: girl problems, popularity problems, and being misunderstood. He is constantly dealing with them, as well, as he learns that they don't vanish after high school; they just change form. The trick is in learning how to adapt. However, Spider-Man 3 widened the scope out too far for this Average Joe sort of superhero and tried to create an epic where one was never meant to exist.

So, in the event of any further sequels, I put forth this plea: let Spidey's story be what it needs to be-- no more, no less. He's not epic. Nor is he forgettable.

He's just our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Of Music and Spider-Men: A Night in Austin, TX

2007-05-29T11:08:00.000-05:00

My family and I are liberal northerners through and through. Though I believe I classify as the only real Yankee amongst the clan, being the only one of us to have been born in Boston, we've all got our roots in the north: my mother was born and raised in Jersey, my brother spent the first year of his life in Jersey before the family relocated to Massachusetts, and my father, as I've already noted, spent much of his childhood in Jersey once his own father retired from the army. We've all traveled fairly extensively, but in terms of where in the States we've made our home(s), we tend to stick to the northeast. We've grown rather fond of having all four seasons.

It may seem rather counterintuitive, then, for me to say that two years ago, my brother moved to Austin, Texas.

Granted, he didn't just up and move there on a whim; he was about to start grad school, and when the choice came down to NYU or UT Austin, UT had the better program for what he does (And what does he do, you ask? The academic answer is that he works in media, communications, and culture; the real answer is that he's a professional Trekkie. Ask me about it if you want to know more.). So, during the summer of 2005, we all hoofed it down to Austin for a week to help him apartment-hunt, he moved in during August, and he started school in September. Two years later, his fiancée has moved in with him, he has earned his MA, and I found myself back in Austin for the first time since the initial apartment search.

It's funny-- I don't think my brother and my soon-to-be sister-in-law will readily admit it, but Austin seems to have agreed with both of them extremely well. There's a maxim emblazoned on souvenir shot glasses, t-shirts, and bumper stickers there that proudly orders us to "Keep Austin Weird," and though this is primarily intended as a badge for tourists to sport upon their return home, there is more than a little bit of truth in it. During the four days we were there this time, we found things that I have never seen anywhere else before, which, coming from someone who has spent most of her life living in or around a variety of major cities both in the States and abroad, is really saying something. Austin is an extremely unique (and liberal) city, and its quirks are what make it so much fun. Because that's really what it is, when you get down to it: fun!

Ian's graduation ceremony was early on the morning of Saturday, 19 June (the doors of the auditorium opened at 8:15 am), so after the ceremony, we kept the afternoon pretty low-key; but that night was... somethin' else.

One of the things I love about my family is that we're also all friends, which enables us to do things together such as go to rock concerts without my brother or I suffering from parental embarrassment (my freshman year in college, for example, my dad let me cut Latin to fly back to Boston for a Dream Theater concert we went to together. How cool is that?). I've become increasingly aware over the past few years that this quality of our familial relationship is rather rare, and it's one of the things that I love about us, as bizarre as we might otherwise be. It's also a source of amusement to anyone who meets us all-- we're an extraordinarily cohesive unit of nerddom. The upshot of this cohesion is the fact that all of us-- my brother, my sister-in-law, my parents, and myself-- have absolutely no problem spending Saturday nights out on the town in ways that would probably make most parents want to run and hide, and having a blast doing it.

First stop: the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. It functions on a similar principle to the one behind Smitty's Cinema-Pub, a place we frequent while at the summer place in Maine: rather than being a pub attached to a cinema (and by "pub," I mean a TGI-Friday's type of restaurant), it's a pub INSIDE a cinema-- that is, each theater has tables rather than rows, and you can have a marvelously unhealthy dinner while watching the movies. However, unlike Smitty's, the Alamo (which is sort of a chain, but not really-- it's a purely Texas thing, and the one in downtown Austin is the original one) doesn't play the current cinema releases. Oh no. It plays old-school grindhouse flicks, B-movies, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Sing-A-Longs (including one of "Once More, With Feeling," the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as part of their all-night celebration of Joss Whedon's birthday on 23 June), campy classics, modern classics (The Princess Bride, for example), underground festivals, marathons (Ian and Kelly recently went to a Lord of the Rings one)... you get the idea. It's glorious, and I wish we had one up north. What we went to was one of their signature events: a little something called (drum roll, please)...

FOLEYVISION!

The basic idea of Foleyvision is rather like one of my favorite, yet rarely played, games on Whose Line Is It, Anyway?, the one where they take a short film clip, edit out the sound, and have the oh-so-fabulous comedians dub over their own dialogue. Now imagine two hours' worth of that (scripted dialogue rather than improvised, but absolutely hysterical), plus music, plus Foley sound effects, to obscure movies and television shows, all of course done live, and you've got a pretty good idea of the brilliance that is Foleyvision. The particular Foleyvision show we went to, however, takes the cake. Two words:

Japanese.

Spider-Man.

(Okay, that may have technically been three words, but I'm counting the hyphenated word as one.)

First released in 1978 in Japan, this live-action television show did things to the webslinger I'm sure no one ever thought could even be fathomed, let alone actually produced. Rather than being bitten by a radioactive/mutated spider, in this version, our intrepid hero instead stumbles upon a man in a cave who fell to Earth from outer space and is apparently the last remaining one of a race of Man-Spiders. Old Man-Spider Man then slaps a chunky, plastic bracelet on Peter Parker's wrist, which injects him with the blood of the Man-Spider race, making Peter into a Man-Man-Spider hybrid.

If this sounds ridiculous to you, you are absolutely correct.

Peter also now has a racecar.

And a giant robot.

A GIANT TRANSFORMING ROBOT.

Power Rangers-esque in style, Peter then spends each episode battling highly-costumed evil people and monsters ("THESE ARE NOT MEN! THESE ARE MAN-DUCKS!"), usually resulting in a fight during which the primary Big Bad for the episode grows to eight million times its normal size, only to be bested by Spidey's giant Transformer, who first throws his hat at it, then chucks his sword at it and makes it explode.

Now, combine the inherent bizarreness of the show itself with the idea of Foleyvision.

Has your head exploded from the awesomeness yet?

I thought so.

We arrived at the Alamo at 6:30; four episodes of Supaida-Man, a variety of tasty little individual pizzas, a couple of beers, and a pitcher of mediocre sangria that tasted like the sort of punch you float sherbet in later, we left the Alamo, still laughing our arses off.

However, the night was still young, and the Alamo happens to be conveniently close to 6th Street. Not unlike Beale Street in Memphis, 6 Street is Austin's center of nightlife. Austin's reputation for being the "Music Capital of the World" means that most, if not all, of the bars lining the street have live music and no cover charge. Additionally, every Saturday night, the city closes the street to traffic, essentially turning the place into a gigantic block party.

Naturally, we hit 6th Street next.

Though things start earlier in Austin (and pretty much everywhere else) than they do in New York, it was still only about 8:45 by the time we headed to 6th, so it was relatively calm. After walking past the most haunted bar in Austin (Mum refused to go in), we settled ourselves at the Chuggin' Monkey, a place Ian and Kelly are fond of and which I liked purely because of its name. There was a rock trio playing when we got there, who, were pretty good; I'm a rocker at heart, so anything with a good beat will get me drumming on my knees. A couple of Shiner Bocks later and we were ready to head out; and what should we find just up the street but a dueling piano bar!

In addition to being a rocker, I'm also a pianist, so piano-rock is kind of my thing. Perhaps I should mention that by "kind of," I mean that I proudly BLEED BLACK AND WHITE. Consequently, I have a deep and passionate love of piano bars, and dueling piano bars? Man, they are the BEST. Oddly enough, the first dueling piano bar I went to was in Disney World: Jellyrolls, located at Disney's Boardwalk. Though the place is 21+ and militant about ID-ing, it's still located on Disney property, and therefore, the jokes made by the musicians have to be kept on the tame side; that said, though, it was still a blast (there really is nothing like bellowing a full-chorus rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" led by two remarkably coordinated piano rockers with a beer in your hand and good company at your side). Pete's, on the other hand, is most certainly NOT on Disney property, and hoo boy, did that loosen things up. It was absolutely brilliant, though, and we spent several hours downing a few more Shiner Bocks and singing loudly and raucously to the tune of two dueling pianos. Highlights included "Sweet Home Alabama," "Great Balls of Fire," a some Journey, "Walkin' in Memphis" (my request), "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" (my mum's), "Big Shot" (my brother's)/"Only The Good Die Young"/"Piano Man", and perhaps most memorably, "Joy to the World" (the one about Jeremiah the bullfrog, not the Christmas carol). The reason "Joy to the World" in particular sticks out was because there were a number of bachelorette parties going on, and when people get called to the stage when you're not on Disney property... well, you do the math.

Sometimes I wonder if I might not end up working at a piano bar at some point in my life; the money's good, and it's a fun gig to have, though also terribly demanding. Ultimately I think that at this point, I just don’t know how to play enough tunes, but that can be remedied. It's kind of interesting-- especially if you request a long song, piano bar versions will almost always get truncated. You'll get the first verse and chorus, but if there's a second verse, the musicians will skip it and go right to the bridge before carrying through with the rest of the song. Occasionally, though, they'll go all out-- the aforementioned "Bohemian Rhapsody" at Jellyrolls, for example, or the shenanigans of "Joy to the World" at Pete's. And when they do? Oh, is it ever worth it.

Shortly after the Billy Joel medley, we decided to pack it in for the night; by that point, it was nearing 1 in the morning, and given that we'd been up early that morning and started the evening's entertainment at 6:30, we were all starting to crash. Plus, we were heading out to San Antonio the next morning to go see the actual Alamo (the "REMEMBER THE ALAMO!" one). So, after putting Ian and Kelly in a cab to send them home, my parents and I walked the four blocks from 6th back to the hotel, and conked out, exhausted but blissed out.

Though it's not a place I would ever have thought to visit if my brother weren't living there, Austin really is a neat place, and I'm glad I've got an excuse to go there. As much as I love the northeast, it's good to get out every now and again, and believe you me, there are MUCH worse places to go than Austin. So if you ever find yourselves out that way-- go for it. Take in as much as possible. I promise you, you'll never find another place like it.

Keep Austin weird.

Zen and the Art of Roller Coaster Maintenance

2007-05-25T12:40:00.000-05:00

The Amusement Park: One of my all time favorite Great American Attractions. Like many supposedly "All-American" constructs, the ideas behind amusement parks have existed throughout history and across the globe long before we got to them, largely in the forms of fairs, carnivals, boardwalks, and the like; however, the actual creation of the park itself seems to be a uniquely American thing, and one that we apparently can't get enough of (in addition to bastardizing other peoples' ideas). From the extravagant productions of Disneyland and Disney World to the humbler and still-independent parks such as Canobie Lake Park (the park I grew up going to as a kid), they're all over the place here; perhaps most ubiquitously, we have the wonder that is Six Flags.

Some history: The first Six Flags park was Six Flags Over Texas, created in 1961. Named for the six different flags that have flown over Texas during its history (Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States of America, and, somewhat regrettably, the Confederate States of America), Six Flags Over Texas was built halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth and originally boasted a Native American village, a gondola ride, a railroad, some Wild West shows, a stagecoach ride, a pirate-themed adventure attraction called Skull Island, and a boat-ride not unlike today's animatronic staples, featuring moving puppets rather than robots. The chain grew and changed hands several times over the years, eventually ending up with Time Warner in 1998. Time Warner's acquisition of the chain allowed the parks to become the Warner Bros. version of parks such as Disneyland, Disney World, and Universal Studios. The parks now prominently feature DC superheroes, and the most popular rides are frequently themed after Superman.

On the Fourth of July, 1974, an amusement park and safari opened in Jackson, NJ, a town that has more trees than people. Incidentally, it's also where my dad grew up. Apparently the park was woefully under-prepared for its opening; furthermore, unfortunately, no one involved in the park's planning had realized that monkeys like to chew on vinyl. Given that the safari vehicles were FULL of vinyl, well... you get the idea. Somehow, though, the park stayed open, and in 1977, it was purchased by Six Flags, becoming Six Flags Great Adventure.

And it was bright and early on Friday, 11 May, that I found myself on a bus with two friends and partners-in-crime-- er, flatmates-- headed out of New York and towards this Great Adventure.

There was something poetically symmetrical about the trip. Towards the end of last summer, Jols and I had decided over an extraordinarily unhealthy lunch of milkshakes and chips fries at Tom's that we needed to go to an amusement park sometime over the next year. The idea of Six Flags came up then; however, so did the idea of Coney Island, which was both more affordable and easier to get to. Come September, Jols, Katie, Jenny, and myself did indeed make the pilgrimage to Coney Island, and of course, we had an absolute blast. Coney Island itself is fascinating from an almost endless array of viewpoints, the most obvious being its draw as an amusement park. But then there's its historical significance, something about which I probably know too much for my own good; given the opportunity, I can deliver a lengthy discourse about leisure at the turn of the century and Coney Island's three original parks, Steeplechase (the oldest of the three), Dreamland, and Luna Park. Then, once you've gotten beyond the general present and the historical past, if you put the two together, you get something similar to an anthropological and cultural study in examining the state of Coney Island today. The place is somehow simultaneously frozen in time and yet still progressing into the future, and the experience of being there is unlike anything else.

So, having made the trip to Coney Island, we considered the goal of going to an amusement park together completed. However, I seem to have an insatiable appetite for amusement parks, and subsequently spent New Years' in Disney World with my brother, his fiancée, and my parents-- which was also an absolute blast, although, of course, a completely different experience from that of Coney Island. I'm always dumfounded at the sheer magnitude of Disney World; when you stop to think about it, it's just staggering how a place like that can run as much like clockwork as it does, all day, every day.

After that, you'd think I'd have had my amusement park itch satisfied for at least a while; but no. So when the opportunity arose to return to Jols' and my original Six Flags idea, we took it with a will.

These days, Six Flags Great Adventure is a park composed almost entirely of roller coasters, which suits me just fine. Home to Nitro, Medusa, El Toro, Superman: Ultimate Flight, Batman: The Ride, Batman and Robin: The Chiller, and the utterly terrifying Kingda Ka, it's a thrill-seeker's paradise. Once Katie and Jols and I got off the bus and through security (a rather entertaining affair that involved a 20-something security guard about our age looking at our keys and exclaiming, "You've got rape whistles? Where are you from?!" Apparently, Jackson isn't a place where rape whistles on key chains are the norm.), we headed straight for the Medusa.

I love upside-down coasters. Love 'em. They go fast, and they spin. Glorious. Usually, though, the upside-down coasters I go on happen to be in the dark, so you can't really see which end is up, making the ride significantly more bearable, especially for people like my father, who hates coasters and especially hates upside-down coasters (Somehow I managed to coerce him to go on the Aerosmith coaster with me in Disney World; and though I can't say that he necessarily enjoyed it, he did say that that's really the way to do it: it's dark, so you can't see that you're upside-down, and there's Aerosmith blaring in your ears, so you've got something to distract you from the fact that you're upside-down.). The Medusa, however, is most expressly not in the dark, so you can see exactly how high up you are and how upside-down you are at any given time. Provided that you can get over the Terrifying Factor, though, this, of course, strategically adds to the thrill of the ride. I must say, this one is a highly enjoyable ride. We returned again at the end of the day to give it one last spin before heading back into the city, and oddly enough, though the ride was just as fun this time round, all three of us stepped off of it at the end feeling extremely calm to the point of its needing to be described as "Zen." We all seriously doubted that one was supposed to feel Zen after riding a roller coaster; but somehow, we did. Perhaps this is a testament to how frantic our lives usually tend to be: that we can ride a high-thrills coaster and come off it feeling calm and collected. I'm not sure if that's a good commentary or a bad one, but either way, we left in an extremely blissed-out state of mind, and that, at least, can only be a good thing.

After the Medusa, we headed towards something that we saw and were intrigued by: what we discovered to be El Toro. When it opened in 2006, El Toro had the distinction of being the first wooden coaster to be built in a significantly long amount of time. Now, usually wooden coasters are hair-raising because of their age; for instance, while riding the Cyclone at Coney Island, we were all convinced the thing was going to collapse with us on it, which understandably made it absolutely terrifying. However, El Toro uses modern coaster technology fused with the wooden coaster, so that sort of "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" feeling doesn't result from the fear of it being structurally unsound. Rather, it's the speed of the ride. Seriously, this coaster is so fast that my hair elastic almost fell out of my hair due to the speeds we were traveling at. Also, the perk of it being a wooden coaster is that it makes extremely satisfying sounds as the cars zoom along the track: it's the deep bass rumble of thunder in the distance, the kind you can feel in your gut as it reverberates around you. Brilliant.

Lunchtime at Six Flags: Amusement parks are places where you're intended to eat junk food. Lots of it. And, having the advantages of being young and fairly fit, Jols, Katie and I fully embraced this, inhaling pieces of pizza nearly the size of the ones at Koronet. While we were embracing our inner children, it seemed only fitting that the music blaring over the speakers in our little corner of the park was from the mid-90s, stuff that was on the radio ten years ago when we were wee little middle/junior high schoolers. And what are amusement parks for, if not nostalgia?

Figuring that another coaster right after lunch probably wasn't the wisest idea, we opted next for something we had spotted earlier called Houdini's Great Escape. Housed in a mock-up of a whacky mansion, we had no idea what this thing was going into it. Turns out that it still falls under the category of "thrill ride," though not the traditional sort of whip-you-round-sharp-corners type. Rather, it works as follows: the back-story is that together, the riders will attempt to summon Houdini from beyond the grave. This, however, does not turn out to be the main feature. Houdini instead does successfully get summoned during the pre-show, rather than the ride itself. After he has been brought back (in the form of a floating head in a crystal ball, using the same technique Disney uses for Madame Leota in the Haunted Mansion), he tells the riders that they are about to witness his final illusion.

Now, the best I can figure is that the ride is built from two cylinders, one nested within the other to create the look of a complete room. The riders sit in the inner cylinder, which is probably more like a half-pipe than a full tube. This half-pipe then gently swings back and forth, like a slightly less dramatic version of the Buccaneer ride that seems to be a staple of amusement parks the world over. Then, the outer cylinder which contains the decorations that complete the appearance of the room from about halfway up the walls to the ceiling (lamps, portraits, etc.), swings in the opposite direction, giving the riders the illusion that either they're spinning upside-down or that the room is spinning upside-down. It's a pretty neat idea, actually; though far from being a scream-worthy ride, it's a thrill-ride based more around perception than around going fast or dropping dramatically, and like many illusions, it's more interesting to think about how the effect is accomplished than about the effect itself. All you've got to do is literally keep your perspective.

After Houdini, we went back to the coasters, exploring something called Skull Mountain, an older, relatively tame indoor coaster (we really only went on it because of its name), before heading to Batman and Robin: The Chiller. A dual-tracked ride, only the Robin side of which was running, this coaster uses the same sort of blast-off technology employed by Disney's Aerosmith coaster. Rather than cranking its cars up a hill before letting gravity do its work, this technology allows coasters literally to blast off, shooting their riders from 0 to 60 mph in about three seconds. The Chiller is another upside-down coaster as well; however, with this one, once you reach a certain point on the track, the car stops for moment—before shooting you through the ride backwards. The crazy part?

The ride is over in 30 seconds.

I kid you not. Fast and furious, it gets you in and out almost quicker than you can say your favorite Batman and Robin cliché ("Holy rusted metal, Batman!" "...What?" "The island. It's made of metal. It's... full of holes!").

The coasters I skipped: Nitro, Superman, Batman (as much as I adore Batman), and Kingda Ka. My preference in coasters leans towards speed and twists, rather than drops; consequently, the idea of Nitro as a mostly drops-oriented coaster didn't really do much for me. It also has the unfortunate type of lap restraint that amounts to little more than a yellow triangle jammed into one's stomach, something which made Katie a touch nervous. Superman and Batman are both bottomless coasters-- by which I mean that rather than having cars sitting on a track, they have shoulder-oriented restraints hanging suspended from a track located above the heads of the riders, with the riders' feet left dangling. My two cohorts and I also took issue with this (calls us wusses if you want, but though there is intellectually no reason to believe a track below your feet is sturdier than a track above your head, psychologically, it's a thought I can't get beyond, no matter how hard I try), so we passed; however, I give the Batman coaster especially a nod of approval, largely because of its nature as an upside-down coaster. Check this out: the loops and inversions of most upside-down coasters have the riders on the inside of the track, right? Well, Batman: The Ride has them on the outside, with the riders' heads closest to the track and their feet fanning out around it. For this reason, it's probably more appropriately referred to as an inside-out coaster than as an upside-down coaster.

And Kingda Ka?

Hoo boy.

As we pulled into the park, every single person on that bus suddenly was plastered to the window, staring at this green monstrosity that rose straight up, perpendicular to the ground; then turned around at the top and plunged straight back down at the same 90-degree angle. The thing was tall enough to need a light at the top of it for airplanes. A murmur went round the bus: "...The hell is that?... Can't be a ride... Just can't..."

Then we saw a tiny coaster car hurtling along the track.

And it does exactly what it looks like it does: shoots you straight up, then plunges you nose first straight back down. The next murmur to pass round the bus was really less of a murmur than a gasp of disbelief and was something along the lines of, "WHAT THE HELL WOULD POSSESS ANYONE TO WANT TO DO THAT?!"

Clearly, we did not discover an answer to this question.

After zipping back over to the other end of the park to re-ride Medusa, we finished up the day by eating more junk food (with Katie getting a milkshake from Johnny Rocket's, and Jols and I splitting some magnificently messy and terribly tasty funnel cake) and heading home, exhausted but happy.

I realized on the bus ride back to the city that Six Flags Great Adventure is the only amusement park I have ever been to that does not have a spook house. Now, as I've noted before, I love-- some might say luuuuurve-- any and all ghost-, supernatural-, and otherwise morbid-type things. Movies, books, stories, rides-- I'm shamelessly addicted to things that are intended to be frightening. Note that by "intended," I suggest that not all of these movies, books, and rides actually succeed in being frightening. Indeed, most of them are not. But that never stops me. Oh no. I just keep watching, reading, and experiencing everything I can lay my metaphorical hands on. Rides and walk-through haunted houses are the closest we can ever get to actually being a part of all those stories, a simulation which greatly intrigues me. Disney's Haunted Mansion is, unsurprisingly, the best of the best purely because the effects are so good (oh, to have the largest budget imaginable...); but Canobie Lake Park at least makes an effort in their Haunted Mine Shaft, a ride which did succeed in scaring me enough as an idea that I refused, on principle, to ride it until I was at least 12; and even Coney Island has the slightly perplexing Dante's Inferno, which really has nothing to do with either Dante or his Inferno and was probably mostly broken when we went on it (I think the fact that we all came out of it saying, "Now, I know spook houses are meant to be dark, but was it really supposed to be THAT dark?" speaks to that).

With a background like mine, naturally, I was a little put off by the lack of spook house. I learned later that Great Adventure did once have one, a walk-through known as the Haunted Castle-- it opened in 1978 and was expanded in 1979, in spite of the fact that it allegedly was only a "temporary" ride-- but that after a fire in 1984 killed eight teenagers (one of the teens, attempting to light his way in an especially dark area of the castle with a cigarette lighter, bumped into something made of foam rubber, which subsequently went up in flames), it was never rebuilt. My legend-loving brain wants the rest of the tale to read as follows: "...And since then, no spook house has stood on the grounds of Six Flags Great Adventure. Whether this is out of respect for the ill-fated teens or out of fear that their ghosts still haunt the park today remains to be seen; but no one will ever forget that night in 1984." I'm fairly certain I didn't see any spectral figures today other than the holograms in Houdini's Great Escape, so I think we can rule out a possible haunting; but I honestly don't know whether the first claim in the ending I've written for the legend might not actually be the case. At any rate, though it is perhaps a dubious distinction, the spook house deficiency sets Great Adventure apart from the other parks I've been to, so do with that what you will.

I suppose the remaining question is, why am I so obsessed with amusement parks? What is it about them that continually draws me back, again, and again, ad infinitum? Unlike my morbid streak, I think this one is easier to explain: you're never too old for amusement parks. We pretend that they're built for kids, but really, they're built for adults who aren't willing to give up the kid inside yet—which, furthermore, I don't think should ever be given up. Being able to pretend and imagine is what keeps us from turning into automatons, and amusement parks are all about the making the fantastic into reality.

And besides:

What's the point of being grown up if you can't be a kid every now and again?

*

For information about Six Flags, Great Adventure, the Haunted Castle fire, and general amusement park history, check out these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_flags
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Flags_Great_Adventure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_Castle_at_Six_Flags_Great_Adventure
http://history.amusement-parks.com/amusementparkhistory.htm

[[radio silence]]

2007-05-22T16:36:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the extreme nothingness written of late-- things have been a little, shall we say, busy (which is, in fact, putting it EXTREMELY mildly). I've got a couple of articles in the works, though, so stay tuned in the next few weeks and I'll hopefully be back in full swing shortly.

In the meantime, happy summer for those of you in the northern hemisphere, and happy winter for those south of the equator!

Taking It Back

2007-04-19T23:08:00.000-05:00

I am by no means a political activist. I'm not even really that much of a feminist. This is not to say that I don't care about political issues, or that I buy into the antiquated belief that women are meant to stay at home and have the babies; on the contrary, anyone who knows me knows that the things I get up in arms about, I REALLY get up in arms about, and that I have never seen any reason why women shouldn't be able to do whatever we damn well please. But I'm not the type to head down to Washington for weekend protests or spend my days reading The Feminist Mystique. I tend to think a little more abstractly; whatever action I do take usually finds its form in my work in the theatre, where I am a firm believer of a) never putting a story onstage unless it's got one hell of a reason to be there, and b) giving the audience the pieces they need, then letting them take those pieces and do with them what they will.

But Take Back The Night... now, that's something different. It's something that I always get swept up into, and it's always when I'm out there, side by side with both close friends and total strangers that suddenly, it means something—really means it.

19 April, 2007, marks the second time I've marched. The first was two years ago. I wasn't able to participate last year, due to the fact that I was abroad for the semester; and while I thought it was big in 2005, I could hardly believe how huge it has gotten since then. As we rounded the corner of 116th and Broadway, heading west to Claremont and Riverside, I caught a brief glimpse behind me, and was literally struck dumb by the sheer number of people. CBS news had reporters, cameras, and a van to cover the march; numerous photographers and journalists were snapping photos as we went; and all around, some of the strongest women I will ever know celebrating the freedom we can and should have to Take Back The Night.

You will shout yourself hoarse. In spite of my actor's voice training, I've fallen into the post-march rhythm of constant, involuntary coughing, the kind that wracks your body until you can barely breathe. But was it worth it? Oh yes. The crowds of women, bound together, bellowing their lungs out as they march through the streets of New York, daring to defy convention and fear, can only give you strength.

And then there are the men, those who march with and support us, even if none of their friends will—they join in, they shout with the best of them, even if it means doing it on their own. Brilliant.

Frats, on the other hand, are tricky. Greek life isn't huge at Columbia University; it exists, and W. 114th and 113th are known collectively as Frat Row, but things like frat parties become redundant when you've got the entire city of New York to spend your weekends carousing about. The frat boys themselves have been known to pull stunts during Take Back The Night: for instance, in 2005, we bore witness to a couple of them streaking down Amsterdam Ave. This, however unexpected, was at least rather innocent; apparently, in the past, they have actually thrown things at the marchers. This year, though...

I think the most empowering moment of the march came when the frats all unrolled banners out their windows in support of us and our cause. The idea of a bunch of frat boys literally waiting until we got to their street, and then unraveling banners emblazoned with their letters and the inscription "T.B.T.N.", hit home in a way that I never could have predicted. Especially given the general reputation of frat boys the world over for frequently perpetuating the very violence we speak out against, the banners were a validation we had never before seen during our time here. They gave it an unexpected push as we continued by.

Participating in something like this reminds you that there are things out there bigger than you—and that you're a part of them, whether you want to be or not. You're left with a choice, then: do you let it slide by the wayside?

Or do you get up and do something about it?

This is why we march.

*

For more information:
Take Back The Night NYC

Po-tee-weet?

2007-04-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

Mourning Kurt Vonnegut.

555-TALK

2007-03-31T17:23:00.000-05:00

Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio is a bit of a theatrical puzzlement for two reasons. The first is Barry Champlain. Possibly one of the least likeable characters ever written, Barry is loud, obnoxious, arrogant, and belligerent. No one likes him; he hates everyone; and though he never says it, I suspect he hates himself as well. The second reason is perhaps best demonstrated by the play's very title: Talk Radio consists of... talking. Of course, one can argue that all theatre is just a bunch of people on a stage talking-- I beg to differ, because I think it's a more nuanced issue than just that-- but this isn't even talking in the English Renaissance sense, wherein the speech must be the action for the play to work. Because of these two reasons, it would seem that Talk Radio is inherently doomed to fail, no matter how it's approached.

But, I mean, hey. This is Eric Bogosian we're talking about. The respect that name garners speaks for itself.

Talk Radio was first written and produced for the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1987 and later became a film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Bogosian in 1988. The current revival, which opened at the Longacre Theatre on W. 48th St. on 11 March after three weeks of previews, is directed by Robert Falls and stars Liev (which, I might add, my spell check keeps trying to turn into "Live"-- how appropriate) Schreiber as the inimitable Barry Champlain. Both Falls and Schreiber are also names that pull in the kind of artistic respect that Bogosian's does, and when you put the three of them together...

There are not words.

Ironic, no?

Barry Champlain is a bastard. There is no other way to describe him: he is a chain-smoking, loud-mouthed, alcoholic, coke-headed, womanizing, insufferable bastard. Oh, and he's also got a god complex. He just can't get enough of himself-- indeed, his former friend and DJ Dan Woodruff remembers a time when Barry had laryngitis and nearly went mad because he missed the sound of his own voice. You ever play the "Which Fictional Character Would You Most Like To Sit Down And Have Lunch With?" game? Well, try playing the "Which Fictional Character Would You Most Like To Kick In The Balls?" game, and I promise you, Barry will be at the top of your list.

Somehow, though... In spite of the fact the he is composed of a round-up of every single character flaw known to man, he's fascinating. Or perhaps it's BECAUSE of that fact. The man commands your attention, daring you to look away, and grinning because he knows you can't.

However, this quality about himself is ultimately what puzzles him most of all. Barry's crisis comes when he realizes, probably not for the first time, but more poignantly than ever before, that despite his brashness, his arrogance, and his downright meanness, people. keep. calling. Even when he tells them to stop-- they don't. And he just can't figure it out.

So: what's a bastard to do?

Liev Schreiber has a miraculous gift for making totally unlikable characters into extremely watchable human beings. I had the good fortune to see his turn as Rick Roma in Joe Mantello's revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross several years ago, and again, Rick Roma is not the kind of guy I'd want to sit down and have lunch with; but was he worth watching? Absolutely. Schreiber owned that role-- it's right up there with his Iago. And now we can add Barry Champlain to the list.

Besides the fact that he's completely fearless, Schreiber's uncanny ability to literally disappear into any character never ceases to amaze me. The fact that he's a Name Actor just makes it even more impressive: when he's at work, never do I look at him and see "Liev Schreiber As!..." I always see the character. Without fail. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that he's quite possibly the greatest American actor of his generation and of our current age.

Barry spends the play knocking back whiskey after whiskey. Now, bear in mind that there is only one true reason you ever have a character get drunk on stage: when they're drunk, they've got no inhibitions, and when they've got no inhibitions, they will tell the absolute truth. Schreiber uses this to its full advantage throughout the course of the play. As he spends most of his time sitting down, you may not realize what is going on-- but the handful of times he stands up and moves, he begins to stagger just a touch while mobile and sways just slightly while still. Eventually, of course, that evening's edition of Nighttalk, the high stakes, the alcohol, and the mess of his own life plow towards one inevitable conclusion.

I'll let you go see for yourself exactly what that conclusion is. Suffice to say, though, that I have never seen anyone show this sort of mastery over the cardinal rule of it being interesting not to watch someone cry onstage, but rather, to watch someone try not to cry onstage.

And as for that second puzzlement about Talk Radio? The fact that it's just talk? One of the most interesting things about Talk Radio is that fact that most of the drama takes place up in the ether. We've got Barry to ground us, and he's the one that things ultimately happen to; but though he's got a few others around him-- his boss, his sometime girlfriend, etc.-- for the most part, he's dealing entirely with disembodied voices. Talking. And yet, it's positively riveting.

Why?

I suspect this has more than a little something to do with Barry himself. As mentioned previously, Barry has a bit of a god complex (as Dan Woodruff of the laryngitis comment says, "He had a gleam in his eye. He had seen god. In the mirror."); however, it's not so much the draw of cutting people down that is the clearest manifestation of this (though it certainly is a part of it). Rather, it's his ability to cut people OFF-- to dictate when their stories begin and end based on the simple actions of either picking up the phone or hanging it up. Barry has the power to create the drama within the drama, which makes him "out of control" (in his own words) to the world, but in control of himself. When he realizes that perhaps he isn't quite as in control as he might like to think, everything begins to slide away for him.

What makes Talk Radio so fascinating is its ability to use sound with picture, sound without picture and, ultimately, even picture without sound to tell its story. Talking heads ain't got nothin' on the radio.

"They're Heeeeeeeeere...": Edinburgh's City of the Dead

2007-03-19T16:41:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a probably unhealthy fascination with the macabre. Beneath this unassuming and innocent exterior lies a hidden obsession with ghouls, ghosts, serial killers, torture, plague, murder, and witchcraft. As such, I have an extraordinary weakness for ghost tours.

One of the few tourist attractions I embrace whole-heartedly, I use the term "ghost tour" as a catch-all term for walking tours that explore (and, indeed, play up and emphasize) the darker side of a city's history. They can address any of the aforementioned subjects-- ghosts, serial killers, and the like-- or they can deal with any of a hundred or more others. Generally, though, I tend to lump them into a general category with the name of "ghost" applied to it because no matter what the subject, they're designed to terrify.

Or at least, they should terrify. They don't always; in fact, frequently, they don't. This is often because the "tour" is ultimately a campfire session on legs: an excellent storyteller telling excellent stories while moving around fairly arbitrary locations between tales.

I've been on a lot of these tours-- and I do mean a LOT. In New Orleans, two separate tours explored the ghosts of the city and the cemetery in which Marie Laveaux, voodoo priestess extraordinaire, is buried; in Austin, we tracked down a whole bunch of crazy Texans who incidentally happened to be dead (including "THE SERVANT-GIRL ANNIHILATOR!"); in London, we chased theatre ghosts, pub ghosts, ghosts in general (sensing a theme here...), and Jack the Ripper; and now, in Edinburgh, Scotland, we can add a trip into a poltergeist-infested cemetery to the list.

And you know what?

Out of all of these tours, this one was hands-down the best one I've been on.

Ever.

So:

What makes a good ghost tour?

Well, rule number one is that the stories have got to be good. There is nothing lamer than wimpy ghost stories. Rule number two is that the stories have got to be told well. There is an undeniable element of theatricality built into these things, and you've got to play with it as a storytelling medium. This doesn't necessarily mean that the tour guides have to dress up in long cloaks, frilly shirts, and swashbuckling boots-- though many of them do-- but it does mean that they can't merely be reciting information. It isn't a lecture. Like any long-running show, the script has to sound fresh night after night, as if the words have never been spoken before. Timing is also important; like a good joke, a good ghost story has to be well-timed in order to have its full effect, and it should have a pretty hefty punch line at the end. Also, never underestimate the worth of comedy. Comedy has the effect of lulling you into a false sense of security, which makes the impact of a truly frightening tale told later on all the more potent. For example, tonight I had my left thumb blown off.

Well, not really. Perhaps that statement requires a bit of explanation. At the start of the tour, outside St. Giles Cathedral, we got the obligatory "Edinburgh has some nasty history; allow me to tell you about it in graphic detail" introduction, which included a bit on witches, or perhaps more accurately, a bit on trying them and killing them.

And torturing them.

Yum.

Anyway, life, as they say, is in the details, and as such, it's always a good idea to tell a story about a particular person or specific group of people, rather than one about people in general. Accordingly, this particular history lesson told of a family of four. The mother? Accused, tried, convicted, and subsequently burned as a witch. The kids? Accused of being witches by association, tortured in order to get them to confess to being witches, and subsequently dead because of blood poisoning. The husband? Also accused of being a witch (or warlock, whichever you prefer) by association, and eaten straight through the middle by a very large rat. Lovely, isn't it?

To add a little more punch and pizzazz to the tale, four of us lucky ghost hunters were forcibly volunteered to help demonstrate these methods of doom, death, and destruction. In looking round for someone to represent the eight-year-old child, Lesault, our rather entertaining tour guide, mused in his thick Scottish brogue, "All right, none of you are eight years old... but you're rather small, so you'll do."

And of course, this "you'll do" referred to yours truly.

I grinned good-naturedly and stepped up; as I did so, Lesault continued, saying, "I'll probably get hit for that one night." I arched a brow at him. He paused. Then he chuckled and added, "Tonight might be the night!" I made as if to punch him; he ducked; everyone laughed; then we got down to business, and he exploded my thumb.

Which I still haven't explained. Here's what happened:

Apparently, the eight-year-old "witch" I was standing in for had suffered torture in the form of the periwinkle. In spite of its charming name, the periwinkle, we discovered, is not quite so charming when you get to know it; it is, in fact, a close relative of the thumbscrew. I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that the eight-year-old's thumb eventually popped off as a result of the periwinkle, and she died of blood poisoning. As Lesault was telling us the particulars of how the periwinkle worked, he held up my left thumb as an example. While he was doing this, I noticed him tuck something from his unoccupied hand into the palm of the hand that was holding onto my thumb. I kept my poker face on (as a side note, a good poker face is essential to surviving ghost tours if you don't want to be seen as a pansy) and waited. At the moment the "witch's" thumb popped--

-- so did mine. The small explosive our fearless leader had concealed in the palm of his hand made a sizeable bang and sent up a bright spark, making my thumb appear to have spontaneously combusted. Everyone jumped, and then laughed.

Exactly as planned.

Now, bear in mind that this tour was called "The City of the Dead," and it was here that things began to take a decidedly darker turn-- leading us to rule number three: reversal, or, for those of you who know your Aristotle, peripeteia. The comedy of a small explosive "blowing up" a thumb sets you up; then you turn the tables, and all bets are off.

The cemetery in question for this particular tour was Greyfriar's Kirkyard, a cemetery which only has a couple hundred markers, but which houses several thousand bodies. In essence, the place is a landfill of human bones. It should be noted that during heavy rains, these bones have a habit of resurfacing with the washing away of the top soil. At the far end of the cemetery is Covenanter's Prison.

A brief history lesson: Upon his restoration to the throne following the era of Oliver Cromwell, Charles II decided that if he was going to rule over both Scotland and England, then both Scotland and England should worship in the English style. Needless to say, the Scottish Presbyterians weren't exactly chuffed about this, and as an act of rebellion, they signed the National Covenant in 1693. On 22 June, 1679, the Battle of Bothwell Bridge took place; of the approximately thousand and a half prisoners that were brought to Edinburgh in the wake of this battle, four hundred or so were held captive in the spot now called Covenanter's Prison. Over the course of five winter months, the captive Covenanters were kept outside, starved, and tortured on a daily basis. They all died horrible, painful deaths.

Long story short: Covenanter's Prison is a bad place. Once open to the public, it is now kept locked at all times by the law of the city of Edinburgh; only one organization holds the keys, and that organization is Blackhart Tours.

The reason?

Covenanter's Prison also happens to house one of the best-documented supernatural cases in history: that of the Mackenzie Poltergeist.

Believe the tales or not, the city has locked that area of the cemetery because of the physical damage that was being done to visitors. People have described it as being mugged by something they couldn't see-- in broad daylight. The place is small and there are only so many places to hide, so you do the math. But that aside, without staking a claim as to whether or not there actually is a poltergeist there, something about the place feels wrong. And it's not because of the build-up (though admittedly, it helps)-- it's just the way it is.

And here we get rule number four: the hauntings must be real. The locations can't simply be somewhere in the vicinity of the supposed haunting-- you've got to be there.

In a haunted mausoleum.

With no light.

And with only one way out.

Our guide's torch stopped working as we filed into the Black Mausoleum, by the way.

Interestingly, the one cheap scare on the tour was also a practical one: a bloke named Chris who is an official "jumper-outer." And he does just that-- during the time in which groups are all crowded in the Black Mausoleum, he strategically leaps into the tomb wearing a mask and screaming, then leaps out again (for which he earns £10 a tour, putting the jumper-outer on my list of Best Jobs Ever). Yes, it's a great moment when an entire crowd of people completely loses it; but apparently, Chris is also there for two other reasons: 1) Because of the number of people who have gotten knocked out by strange forces on this tour, the company requires another guy to be there to help drag people out if need be; and 2) It's generally at the fifteen-minute mark of being in Covenanter's Prison that activity begins. Accordingly, Chris jumps out at the fifteen minute mark to make sure that tours are on their way out of the place sooner, rather than later.

Smart.

And as for the particulars of whether or not I believe in the poltergeist, or in ghosts in general? Frankly, I'm not sure. I'd like to, but I've got no solid proof. The closest I've got is that during the tour while we were in the Black Mausoleum, the back of my head kept getting pushed forward and down. I'm fairly certain that this was because my mother was clutching me from behind as if she was using me as a shield and kept leaning her head into my right shoulder. However, I will stress that she was leaning on my shoulder, and she says she never went anywhere near my head. She most likely was hitting my head and just couldn't see it (pitch-black mausoleum, no torch, remember?), but do with that what you will.

A word about tone: in short, the delivery of the tour is everything. The campfire-tales variety of ghost tours can be very entertaining if they are led by someone who is truly a storyteller. However, I think the reason the City of the Dead tour really hit home is because it did NOT-- I repeat, NOT-- have the air of legend about it. It's like the difference between Shakespeare and stand-up comedy: it was down-to-earth and factual, while still being fantastical. My mother, who had been on the tour with me, kept asking me afterwards whether or not I thought any of it was true, and I think in some ways the facts that a) she kept asking, and b) I'm not sure, are exactly the point. Our guide approached it as much from the scientific side of paranormal investigation as he did from the storytelling side of things, and it's that blurring of fact and fiction that makes it as fascinating as it is.

Bottom line is, this tour had a real edge to it, which most of them don't. Standing outside the gate to Covenanter's Prison, it is strongly emphasized that you choose to enter at your own risk. There is an element of danger which preys on your sense of your own mortality. There is a price to pay for everything.

So tread carefully.

Bobby, Baby: Raul Esparza in Company

2007-03-09T14:24:00.000-05:00

I frequently get embarrassed about admitting that I've seen shows on Broadway more than once. I get even more embarrassed about it if the two viewings of the show have less than six months between them. It's mostly a money issue-- as a student on a budget, I really do have better things to be spending my money on than expensive tickets to shows I've already seen, even if I've gotten as much as a 50% discount on the tickets each time.

That said, though, I usually won't see something more than once unless it's really worth it-- and I mean REALLY worth it.

John Doyle's revival of Sondheim's Company?

Definitely worth it.

My dear friend Anthony, whom I haven't seen in nearly a year, is currently in town and crashing on my floor. Of course, as a good little theatre student, one cannot come to this city and not go to the theatre. It's just not done. Consequently, we braved TKTS in the freezing cold and secured tickets to Company for the evening of Wednesday, 7 March. Many things about this particular date were good: a) given that it was the middle of the week, rather than a Saturday, we were able not only to get seats in the stalls/orchestra/whatever you want to call it depending on what country you're in, but also to get seats in row E-- that is, very, very close to the stage; and b) this time, I got to see Raul Esparza.

And BOY, was that a performance worth seeing.

You'll recall, dear reader, that a month ago, I saw Esparza's understudy and had issues with him. None of those issues apply to Esparza himself. All the things that didn't make sense the first time round made perfect sense this time, and the difference in the experience is astronomical. I will admit that Bradley Dean has a technically better voice than Raul Esparza; however, while Dean has an unfortunate tendency to Sing-with-a-capital-S too much and play the tone of the music, rather than the actual goings-on of the song, Esparza is an actor first and foremost. He just happens to sing as well. And in defense of his rougher sound, it makes his voice unique-- rather than being one of those awful cookie-cutter types that seem to populate most musicals these days, his has real character. It's memorable.

Given that Esparza is such a wonderful actor: instead of sitting there doing nothing but emoting during "Someone is Waiting" and "Marry Me a Little," what we see now is Bobby trying to emote, failing, and consequently struggling with that very problem. Rule number one of theatre: conflict! We also see Bobby coming unhinged both much more clearly and much more subtly throughout the show, his unflappable façade cracking and peeling in moments of brilliant specificity-- the kazoo moment during "Side by Side by Side/What Would We Do Without You," for example, or the not-quite-a-proposition scene between him and Peter. The moment during the scene following "Here's To The Ladies Who Lunch" in which Bobby finally melts down—"I'll take care of you." "...But who will I take care of?" "Did you just hear yourself?" "I didn't mean that!"-- shows him utterly deflating; and then "Being Alive"?

Hoo boy.

Let me just say that if the poignancy of something onstage can bring me close to tears, that's the highest praise I can possibly give. While the interpretation of the entire song was positively brilliant, I will say that his "Make me confused,/ Mock me with praise,/ Let me be used,/ Vary my day..." in particular hit home like nobody's business. It's that moment of hitting bottom when all you've got left is the desperation of longing that's so strong it hurts. It's a palpable feeling-- something somewhere around the heart. Really. You feel it-- and it's a killer.

I honestly have very little to say in conclusion other than, "Words cannot express." Because they really can't. Go see for yourselves. Just go.

*

Coming soon on Where's Higgs?: Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia parts II and III: Shipwreck and Salvage. Stay tuned!

The Tale of the Replacement Cast: Monty Python's Spamalot

2007-02-17T00:24:00.000-05:00

Very rarely do I see long-running shows on Broadway more than once; of all of the theatre I've seen over the years, both musical and non, I can only think of a handful I've seen multiple times. The Producers is on the list, which I first saw in the post-Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick era, but still fairly early in its existence. I saw it a second time this past summer with my brother, who hadn't yet seen it. Also on the list is Phantom of the Opera, seen first as a touring production in Boston when I was about ten years old, and later as an eighteen-year-old in New York. Though technically I only saw Beauty and the Beast once, I also count it in this category, due to the fact that I saw it towards the end of its run (it's due to close in order to make way for Disney's latest Broadway venture, The Little Mermaid: The Musical) and can very easily extrapolate how it must have been when it first opened (energetic and awash with color and life) from how it was when I saw it (tired). I don't count John Doyle's revival of Sweeney Todd in this list, because even though I saw it multiple times, that was a) an accident and b) a limited engagement.

On Saturday, however, my partner-in-crime Jenny and I were astounded to find that Spamalot had finally (finally!) hit TKTS, and consequently, I found myself in the audience at the Schubert Theatre for a second time, this time at the show's 16 February performance.

I had the good fortune to see Spamalot's original cast on 18 March, 2005, which was also incidentally the day after the show officially opened here in New York. An idea that initially raised eyebrows, Monty Python's Holy Grail in the form of a musical comedy turned out to work surprisingly well. This was due in part to two factors: 1) It was spearheaded by Eric Idle, and 2) they wisely turned it into a sort of Forbidden Broadway-type deal, Python-style. It should be noted that this second factor is one of the reasons The Producers also works so well on stage: everyone loves a bit of humourous metatheatre (consequently, "The Song That Goes Like This" brings down the house every time). Mostly, it's just fun. In all honesty, there's nothing really revolutionary about Spamalot-- but, I mean, come on. It's Python. Live. With singing and dancing. What's not to love?

Jenny made the observation that this cast seems more balanced than the original (in which everyone was fantastic, but also in which Sara Ramirez blew everyone out of the water), and I think she's right. I do think that some of the performances weren't as crisp as the originals-- Tom Deckman, for example, is fine, and very funny as Herbert in particular, but lacks the sort of boundless energy and precision that Christian Borle infused with Herbert, the Historian, and Not Dead Fred-- but overall, the cast functioned well together as an ensemble. Two performances in particular stand out: Rick Holmes as Sir Lancelot/French Taunter/Knight of Ni/Tim the Enchanter, and David Hibbard as Patsy.

I love seeing actors I've accidentally followed throughout their careers. Love it. Opening up a Playbill and seeing the name of one such actor printed in the cast list is like running into an old friend whom you haven't seen for years. Following Norbert Leo Butz from the MC in the national tour of Cabaret I saw in Boston when I was twelve to Jamie in The Last Five Years to Fiyero in Wicked to Freddy in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and his subsequent Tony was a blast-- it makes me feel all fuzzy inside ("You've finally made it! Good for you!"). Ironically enough, in that same production of Cabaret ten years ago, I saw a young guy named Rick Holmes as Cliff. At the time, I hadn't yet developed a critical eye for the subtler things in the theatre; consequently, while I thought Norbert Leo Butz was great as the extremely flashy MC, I didn't think much of Cliff because I found the role to be forgettable. Six and a half years later, a month or two after I'd first moved to New York, I found myself sitting in the nosebleed section of Studio 54, watching Cabaret again shortly before it was to close. Looking at the program, I saw next to Cliff the name Rick Holmes. It jumped out at me as one I knew, and sure enough, when I read his bio, I discovered that it was the same guy. This time round, I was able to honestly appreciate Cliff's importance to the story: he's the lens through which we the audience are able to experience it. We can't experience it through the MC, because, though stunning, he's too far away from who and what we ourselves are. Cliff is our window in, and while he frequently comes across as disengaged with the story being told-- which actually makes a lot of sense, given that his character is a writer and an observer-- it is through him that we are able to get the real emotional push of the show. At the end, when he is leaving Germany-- after getting the living daylights kicked out of him-- when the MC starts his now empty schtick, which is heartbreaking in its own right-- it's then, when we see Cliff's reactions to everything that he has borne witness to, that it really hits home. And all of the nuances and subtleties came through with perfect clarity from Holmes' performance of a character I had once written off as boring and inconsequential.

Given the dramatic push of Cliff and Cabaret, you can imagine the double-take I did when I opened the program to Spamalot and found Rick Holmes' name there, and paired with Lancelot's, no less. Let me just say this: versatility is a marvelous thing. Honestly (and prepare yourselves for some heresy), I think he's better in the role than Hank Azaria was. Hank Azaria was great, don't get me wrong; but he was really funny because we knew he was Hank Azaria. Non-brand name actors.... they've got to prove themselves by actually, you know, acting. And Holmes is FANTASTIC. Besides the all-important quality of being utterly committed to everything he does (and conviction always makes funny things funnier), his characters never bleed into each other, and he captures the spirit of Python in ways that not even John Cleese as the (prerecorded) Voice of God does. Lancelot is especially well-conceived; from his bluster to his physicality, the character is just so present, so THERE. At 43, he still very easily pulls off the dashing Leading Man look; he just happens to also do brilliant character work as well. And did I mention that he's an utterly fearless actor?

Patsy tends to be one of the more overlooked elements of Holy Grail; I was therefore pleasantly surprised when Mark McGrath, Spamalot's original Patsy, was nominated for the Tony for Best Supporting Actor during the show's first year. David Hibbard fills the role brilliantly, sporting not only the most believable accent in this particular cast, but also lighting up the stage with a burst of positive energy every time he appeared. Nimble, spry, funny, and honest, his rendition of "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" is inspired, a song-and-dance-man's finest; and perhaps more impressively, during the frequent and long amounts of time he spends on stage hovering mainly in the background, he never goes dead. He's always reacting, he's always present, and he's always fantastically alive.

This is not to say that the rest of the cast fades into the background; on the contrary, they all put in strong performances, especially considering the shoes they've all got to fill. Of course, Marin Mazzie deserves a mention as the Lady of the Lake-- this being the third time I've seen her (the other two times being as the Mother in Ragtime and as Kate in the revival of Kiss Me, Kate with Brian Stokes Mitchell), I knew going into it that she's a powerhouse, and she certainly didn't disappoint. Jonathan Hadary as Arthur, Lewis Cleale as Galahad, Martin Moran as Robin, and the previously mentioned Tom Deckman all do fine, as well. When you really get down to it, though, I suppose what automatically drew my eye to Holmes and Hibbard every time they were onstage is the fact that they looked like they were having so much FUN. An all-too-frequently overlooked quality, having fun is essential to a good performance, and nowhere is this truer than in Grand Ol' Musical Comedies. Holmes and Hibbard had a sparkle in their eyes that I could see from the back of the house. And that, my friends, is what makes a performance truly watchable. Here endeth the lesson.

At the end of the day (or night, or knight), though it's perhaps suffering from a touch of Long-Running-Show-itis, Spamalot is still highly enjoyable. Camelot is indeed a silly place; but we like it that way.

Not a bad place to visit.

All Caught Up

2007-02-16T12:20:00.000-05:00

And with that, we're all caught up on the archives. Stay tuned for new and exciting articles and reviews!

HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME: Dystopian Futures and Children of Men

2007-02-16T12:13:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Tuesday, 6 February, 2007)

Like many of my morbid fascinations, I've never quite been able to understand my obsession with visions of dystopia in film, literature, and theatre; be that as it may, though, the obsession persists, so obviously I've got no choice but to feed it.

Consequently:

It's been many years since we've had a really good future dystopia film resonate with audiences as strongly as they can, and, indeed, as they should. The last honest-to-goodness dystopia film I can remember coming out in recent memory is Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, which was released in 1995 (over ten years ago. I'm getting old.). Besides being the film which prompted me to realize that Brad Pitt CAN, in fact, ACT, if he chooses to, 12 Monkeys made quite a splash and was the source of many mindfuck-headaches for those inclined to think too much about these types of things. Since then, there have been a couple of dystopian films of note-- Philip K. Dick came back in vogue, with films being made of Minority Report (2002), Paycheck (2003), and A Scanner Darkly (2006) (I suppose the world of The Matrix must necessarily be classified as a dystopia, though something about it feels a bit different); but none have been as potent as Children of Men.

Dystopia through art, especially film, is by no means a new concept; interestingly, though, the majority of the films I can think of off the top of my head rarely take place in an identifiable city. A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Blade Runner (1982) are the exceptions, taking place in London and LA, respectively; but beyond that, if asked to place 12 Monkeys, Brazil (1985), Gattaca (1997), or any of a number of other films, I always come up short. The trend in recent films, though, sets each story in one very identifiable city: London. I remember seeing V for Vendetta close to a year ago, and while it’s a decent, if not fantastic, adaptation of the comic, I also realized that it was infinitely more powerful for having been seen in the city it took place in. London is recognizably London, and believe you me, there is nothing quite like seeing an alternate version of a city that you happen to be seated in at that very moment to give you pause.

Even so, while V for Vendetta’s London is not quite "comic book" in appearance-- that is, it avoids the cartoon-y look that comic book films frequently develop-- it is quite stylized: it’s real, but without looking too real. We are given a city that we can distinguish, but we see it through a lens of stylization that provides a sort of buffer zone, surrounding it, giving it distance, and consequently making it somehow "safer."

I also just re-watched 28 Days Later, first released in 2002, a viewing which was notably the first time I had seen it since before I had even left for London, let alone returned from it. Now, I know 28 Days Later tends to be classified as a zombie flick, and I do give it credit for single-handedly reviving the zombie genre; but I would also argue that it's more a dystopian film than a zombie film. Watching it with the experience of my time in London still lurking very prominently in my mind, I was struck with an eerie sort of déjà vu-- an "Oi, I know that place!" that frequently was accompanied by a "Wait a minute-- I’ve BEEN there!" The "I've been there" thoughts got even eerier as they began to pop up in reference not to the places and things that scream London (Piccadilly Circus, Westminster Bridge, Trafalgar Square), but rather to the lesser-known icons and the not-quite-as-tourist-y locations (Haymarket, Horse Guard's Parade, Canary Wharf). My brother once commented that the shop in which Jim, Selena, Frank, and Hannah stop to load up on provisions was one that he frequented during his time there. This is London as it is today-- there just happen to be rage-infected zombies on the loose. It's something that could happen... but it probably won't. At least, not any time soon.

And then there's Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men, which...

...Well, let's just say it hits closer to home.

I find the London depicted in this film to be the most stirring of the alternate Londons, and I think this is because of it being in the near future, rather than in a stylized fascist state or a contemporary nest of zombie infestation. It's not completely out of the realm of possibility, and the look of the film really nails that idea home. And of course, it's all in the details: digital forms of the normally handwritten bills and sandwich boards that stand sentry by every news stand; equally technologically advanced adverts on the red buses; the buses themselves, still present, but dulled over and drab; and so on and so forth. The city was still the city as I know it; but coated over with a layer of ash, grime, and depression, it was both familiar and strange, mine and not mine.

To get technical for a moment: Children of Men is simply a very well-made film, so even if dystopia isn't quite your cup of tea, it's worth seeing. The writing is great, and strong performances abound; though, with a cast including Clive Owen and Sir Michael Caine, this is far from surprising. Claire-Hope Ashitey also does very well as the refugee girl with the Really Big Secret. Furthermore, while I'm certainly no filmmaker, the techniques used to shoot the story work to great effect. Handheld camera work gives moments of the film an in-the-thick-of-it point of view, drawing you even more deeply into the world in which this tale exists, but without being overused and without having the all-too-frequent side effect I call "What the hell is going on?!" syndrome ("What the hell is going on?!" syndrome: A condition in which the excessive and inexpert use of handheld camera work renders the viewer blind). Equally effective are the lengthy tracking shots, which, aside from being impressive because of the intricacies involved with setting up and executing such extended sequences, lend a war-journalist feel to the storytelling, bringing you right along with the story as it unfolds.

I think one of the reasons I find dystopian films as a whole so interesting is because of the evolution of the subject matter over time. In A Clockwork Orange, it's the violence of youth and the weakness of "authority;" with Blade Runner, it's robots; Brazil, bureaucracy; 12 Monkeys, biological warfare (and, of course, insanity); and Gattaca, biological engineering. Gattaca comes the closest to Children of Men, though Gattaca deals with what happens when we can control everything about childbirth, whereas Children of Men presents an image on the opposite end of the spectrum: what happens when we've got no control over childbirth, to the point of it not happening at all. I hesitate to say whether or not the film takes its cues from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," but the no-man's-land look of the film, the repeated refrain of "Shantih shantih shantih," and, indeed, the film's very subject matter (barren-ness and infertility) make the comparison too strongly for me in my liberal arts university mindset to ignore; and consequently, I find the resurfacing in this day and age of issues surrounding the First World War extremely interesting, and in a bizarre sort of way, encouraging. It means that we're not simply sitting still as the world goes to hell. It means that we're looking at what's going on. It means that we're commenting on it.

And it means that, in whatever small way, we're doing something about it.

*

A BRIEF AND LIMITED TIMELINE OF DYSTOPIA THROUGH FILM (i.e., films referenced above):

1971: A Clockwork Orange, dir. Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess.

1982: Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott, based on Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

1985: Brazil, dir. Terry Gilliam.

1995: Twelve Monkeys, dir. Terry Gilliam, based on the 1962 short film La Jetée.

1997: Gattaca, dir. Andrew Niccol.

2002: Minority Report, dir. Steven Spielberg, based on the 1956 short story by Philip K. Dick.

2002: 28 Days Later, dir. Danny Boyle.

2003: Paycheck, dir. John Woo, based on the 1952/1953 short story by Philip K. Dick.

2005: V for Vendetta, dir. James McTeigue, based on the 1982-1988 comic by Alan Moore.

2006: A Scanner Darkly, dir. Richard Linklater, based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick.

2006: Children of Men, dir. Alfonso Cuarón, based on the 1992 novel by P.D. James.

All Those Photos Up On The Walls: John Doyle’s Company

2007-02-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Saturday, 28 January, 2007)

Art imitating life.

It’s eerie how frequently it occurs; though perhaps it’s not so much imitation as it is personal relevance. The things that resonate strongly with us do so because something in them reminds us of ourselves, our lives, our moments in time... in short, they smack of reality. And we can’t help but feel some sort of connection to these things that are ourselves, because they are the things that assure us that we are alive.

My knowledge of Sondheim’s Company, unlike that of Sweeney Todd, is limited. I know that it ran from 1970 to 1972, that it was groundbreaking, and that it was directed by Hal Prince; I have a passing familiarity with the music; and I know that Elaine Stritch is supercool. That is the extent of my knowledge, however, and consequently, I went into John Doyle’s revival of Company more or less blind. Highly stylized with both the unit set and the "I am my own orchestra" (turn of phrase courtesy of Ben Brantley) conventions Doyle employed in his version of Sweeney Todd, this Company is slick, sleek, and sharp, with the air of a walk-in freezer pervading the production (not a bad thing). Rather than facing straight out, the square playing space has been tilted at an angle, giving it the functionality of a baseball diamond. This makes perfect sense; people rotate in and out of out-of-touch bachelor Bobby’s life, while Bobby frequently stays anchored to the elegant grand piano stage right, the Roman column stage left, or sometimes literally straddling the two in a sort of form of aerial acrobatics which, when executed by a dashing bloke in an Armani suit, show us the only times Bobby loses his trademark cool.

The performances are strong, for the most part; the litmus test is always whether or not the characters, and perhaps more importantly, what they do, are believable, and I can safely say that I believed every one of them. Of particular note are Barbara Walsh, who, with the shoes of Elaine Stritch to fill, turns in a wonderfully sarcastic and world-weary Joanne, culminating in the drunken desperation of "Here’s To The Ladies Who Lunch," and Heather Laws, whose Amy brings the house down with her manic yet precise delivery of "I’m Not Getting Married." Interestingly, though the cast is only larger than that of Sweeney Todd by four people, the difference those four people make in the scope of the show is enormous. Whereas the orchestrations of Sweeney Todd sounded stylistically sparse (an active choice that worked marvelously with the concept of the production), those four additional people in Company give the show the sound of a full orchestra. Ben Brantley notes in his Times review that here, we finally see exactly what it is that Bobby is missing throughout the show demonstrated in a quantifiable form: the ability to make music, literal or figurative, with other people.

Alas, although Raul Esparza has gotten rave reviews for his portrayal of Bobby, I can’t comment on his performance, because we saw his understudy. One of things I love about Raul Esparza is his vocal quality-- it’s quite distinctive, and not at all like the scads and scads of American Idol-type voices that seem to be taking over musical theatre these days. Which is not to say that the understudy, Bradley Dean, has that pop-singer quality; he doesn’t (thankfully), but he does go a bit too far to the other side of the spectrum: he has a lovely voice, but he also has the tendency to sort of Sing-with-a-capital-S too much. He relies on the tone of the music itself to anchor his performance, rather than letting the story come through courtesy of the words coming out of his mouth-- what we in the business generally call "acting." Getting a wee bit technical, he also tends to place his sound further back in his mouth and throat, which, while giving it a deep, lush sound, means that we rarely get the sort of "ping" (and yes, that is a technical term) which is so essential to musical theatre. When the sound is placed so far back, it’s terribly apparent that one is Singing; ping brightens the sound and lets more of the actual acting come through-- and in Sondheim, yes, the music is brilliant (and anyone who knows me knows what a champion for Sondheim I am), but the man has said it himself: the story comes first. That’s what makes his stuff so good.

That aside, my big issue with Dean’s Bobby is less about the technicalities of his singing and more about the effect it has on the storytelling. In the first act, his scene work is fine; but the two songs in the act that are Bobby’s alone ("Someone Is Waiting" and "Marry Me A Little") consist of him... emoting. This, however, is precisely Bobby’s problem: that he CAN’T. There’s no emoting for the Bobster-- he’s too disconnected, even when he’s in his own head and meditating on that fact. Instead of seeing the emoting, we should see the struggle of him trying to connect, but being unwilling or otherwise unable to do so. Consequently, the songs simply don’t make much sense because their delivery is so at odds with what’s actually going on in them.

Ultimately, though, Dean redeems himself in the second act. During "Side by Side by Side," as everyone closes in around Bobby, he runs with increasing frequency upstage to the bar to get himself bourbon after bourbon, and it is here that we really started to see what makes Bobby so interesting. He holds this thread through his seduction of April and his subsequent regret at asking her to stay instead of flying off to Barcelona, and when he finally steps up to the piano at "Being Alive" to join the rest of the world, the moment holds all the significance it should. His final breath, blowing out his birthday candles alone on a darkened stage, means only one thing, and the one thing it must necessarily mean: release.

Bobby (I never think of him as Robert) is one of those characters that I think everyone can relate to in some way, shape or form, so the fact that I feel like I’m on a sort of "he is me" level with him is far from unusual. This, however, does not stop the parallels and the sense of empathy from being both striking and terrifying. For example: the big thing is that Bobby’s turning 35 and he’s not yet married. When asked why, he replies that there had been too many other things he wanted to do before settling down.

Gee, what’s that like?

To further the rather frightening congruence, as a conversation in act I turned to relationships and marriage, Jols and I turned to each other with eyes wide, both of us recalling an almost identical conversation we had had with our other three flatmates the previous night.

Of course, it’s not really the idea of marriage that’s the issue; more generally, it’s about companionship, relationships, and change. We comfort ourselves with the logic that if these folks are 30-somethings and facing the same conundrums we’re facing as 20-somethings, then once we get past the first push, we’ve got a good ten years before we have to face them again.

The bottom line is, though, that it’s all about turning points, and right now, we happen to be at one of the biggest ones there is. We’ll all continue to be terribly retrospective and inward-thinking for the next year or so; and by then, maybe things will even out, if only for a short time.

Side by side by side.

Theatre review: The Coast of Utopia, Part I - Voyage

2007-02-16T11:36:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Tuesday, 19 December, 2006)

Saturday night saw me going to the theatre for reasons other than bringing home a paycheck for the first time in months-- and what a night it was. Tom Stoppard’s trilogy has been performed in its entirety once before, having seen its debut under the direction of Trevor Nunn at the Oliver auditorium of London’s [Royal] National Theatre (featuring, among its many illustrious cast members, Anna Maxwell Martin of the His Dark Materials stage production, the recent and extremely well done miniseries Bleak House, and of course the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Long Game"). The current production, in repertoire at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont theatre until 13 May 2007, is directed by Jack O’Brien (Henry IV, The Invention of Love, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, etc.) and includes among its distinguished company Richard Easton, Jennifer Ehle, Martha Plimpton, Ethan Hawke, David Harbour, Brían F. O’Byrne, and Billy Crudup.

In reading the play, it’s easy to see that Stoppard is in direct dialogue with Chekhov, if only because it’s Russian and a period piece, and Stoppard only does period pieces if he has a very good reason for doing so. But it’s really in performance that you can see exactly how Chekhovian it is, right down to direct references-- the shot heard before Pushkin’s death (The Seagull), all the women (especially sisters) running about (Three Sisters), and so on and so forth. But Stoppard isn’t just aping Chekhov (he’s too smart for that); the second act takes us outside of the country estate, whereas Chekhov’s characters are invariably prisoners to their surroundings. Voyage takes us first to Moscow, then briefly to St. Petersburg, before returning us back to the country, and we get to see what’s been going outside the borders of the estate-- lifestyles of the rich and famous, if you like, but also of the poor and nameless. And, as always, Stoppard never simply tells a story; he’s always got a very specific way of telling it, and time often factors largely into the equation. Here, we get things in bits and pieces, making the play as much a mystery as anything else.

Genre-wise, this isn’t a play that’s easily categorized. It’s a mystery; it’s also naturalism to an extent; it’s a meditation on philosophy; it’s about a family; it’s about history; and it’s about a million other things. I suppose it’s because it’s so hard to pin down that I find it so fascinating.

From a production stand-point, O’Brien has done a very smart job in how he has staged the piece. Like the Olivier, the Vivian Beaumont’s stage is huge. And by huge, I mean ginormous. It’s extremely deep, and in addition to a proscenium, it’s got a three-quarters thrust rotating drum (a feature which the Olivier also has) that sticks out on front. Most of the play is stage on the three-quarters bit, with the depth of the stage shrunk by the use of some strategic scrims and a whole lot of bodies, that is, mannequins. The effect is both haunting and analytically sound: the scrims have torn edges, likening them to the sails of a ship, and the mannequins allow the seldom heard but always present serfs to haunt the play and the history surrounding it. Like Chekhov, so much of this is not about what you see and hear, but about what you DON’T see and hear.

The rest of the production is done with elaborate costumes and simple set pieces-- a good choice. It puts the play in a realistic enough setting for the naturalism not to seem at odds with the production, while still allowing for the mutability that Stoppard’s work almost invariably calls for. A table, some chairs, a hammock, a desk... very little is needed to create the environment, but it’s quite effective. The stage’s revolving drum is also used to great effect, especially during ballroom scenes and other social situations-- the shift of focus as people come and go works rather nicely.

Acting?

Brilliant.

Just brilliant.

There were especially strong performances from the men in the cast. Richard Easton, quite honestly, requires nothing more to be said than his name. He’s so comfortable on the stage that he may as well have been born on one. I can’t really say more than that-- I believe every word that comes out of that man’s mouth, no questions asked. Brían F. O’Byrne turns in another fine performance as Herzen, again never ceasing to amaze me with his chameleon quality and his uncanny knack for accents (no one ever believes me when I tell them he’s Irish because he does such a fantastic American accent). David Harbour, last seen as Nick in the revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin (and who I had the good fortune to seen reprise the role when the production moved to London last winter), does spectacular things with the role of Stankevich-- as a philosopher concerned more with the hypotheticals of the physical world than the physical world itself, watching him deal with falling in love is priceless. He’ll be trying to teach Bakunin a lesson in philosophy using the image outside the window as an example, where Liubov has strategically placed herself so as to have maximum effect on him, and the most romantic descriptions of Liubov reading, fixing her hair, etc. will be pouring out of his mouth in the most deadpan, logical voice imaginable, and the contrast between those two facets of his personality is fascinating. There’s an especially memorable courtship scene between him and Liubov at a piano in Moscow during the second act where the awkwardness is so palpable you can taste it even from the back row of the Loge.

When I first read the play, I could see how Bakunin would be a good role for Ethan Hawke the same way that I knew Hotspur in Henry IV would be a good role for him. My one concern is that he’s either ill or not taking care of his voice properly, because he’s starting to sound a bit like Harvey Fierstein. I fear it’s the latter; reports from performances back in October made the same observation. That aside, though, I give him credit for bringing to light all sorts of characteristics of the character that I didn’t pick up from the page. Hawke’s performance brings out exactly how fucked up (pardon the colloquialism) being raised by a bunch of women has made Bakunin, even down to his physical tics and mannerisms-- elegantly turned wrists, for instance, and a physical sense of decadence that is decidedly feminine. Furthermore, because of his upbringing, Bakunin is unable to distinguish romantic love from sisterly love, which, as you can imagine, gets him into quite a considerable bit of trouble. A solid performance, if a little hoarse and scratchy.

However, it’s Billy Crudup who really steals the show (and I do mean steal-- he makes off with the thing running). Belinsky happens to be my favorite character in the play, so perhaps I’m a little biased; but Crudup’s characterization of him is close to, if not, perfection. Crudup is of the type that I like to call the character-actor-trapped-in-a-leading-man’s-body actor; accordingly, he has the remarkable ability, despite his leading-man good looks and chiseled features, to make himself look tiny, awkward, and decidedly squidgy. Though he has a fantastic command of the language-- which, given the sorts of things that tend to come out of Belinsky’s mouth, is no mean feat-- the most impressive part of his performance is his physicality. He’s fabulously clumsy, but it’s executed with such precision of movement that it’s like watching Chaplin.

An interesting overall note about the performances is that despite the fact that the play is a period piece, all of the performances-- every last one of them, American, Irish, and British actors alike-- are extraordinarily contemporary. Now, if it had been any other playwright, this would have bothered me to no end. But this is Stoppard. And something tells me that Stoppard would love that. Indeed, perhaps it’s even the point.

All in all, a very well-done production of a difficult play. I’ve got tickets to see parts II and III in February; here’s hoping the rest of the trilogy is as fine as the first part!

God, That’s Good!, or, The Tale of the Demon Barber Who Rescued Broadway

2007-02-15T18:03:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Saturday, 15 July, 2006)

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.
His skin was pale and his eye was odd.
He shaved the faces of gentlemen,
Who never thereafter were heard of again.
He trod a path that few have trod,
Did Sweeney Todd...
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Every culture has at least one equivalent of the bogeyman. Japan has the fox spirit; many Native American cultures have the Wendigo; Africa and the Caribbean have zombies; and Britain has Sweeney Todd.

The legend of the demon barber of Fleet Street dates back to the penny dreadful tales of old, with his first appearance thought to be in 1846, in Thomas Prest’s story "The String of Pearls: a Romance." Todd has since appeared in numerous stories, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, sometimes working alone, and often working with his murderous neighbor Mrs. Lovett, who bakes his victims into pies; but his story is always one of tragedy, of blood, and of revenge.

Is there any truth to the tale? It’s debatable. Peter Haining seems to think so, and crimelibrary.com fully agrees; however, Haining’s claims are not widely accepted by the academic community due to a lack of substantiated evidence (a fact reminiscent of Patricia Cornwall’s attempt to prove painter Walter Sickert to be Jack the Ripper based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence). The story that survives is that Todd was tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of a sailor and hanged at Tyburn in 1802 before a large crowd, but there is no record of the trial in the Old Bailey session papers, and there are no press reports of any kind either about the trial or the execution.

That said, though, it’s one hell of a story, and it’s absolutely terrifying. The thought of either being killed while sitting in the barber’s chair and then being baked into a pie is horrifying enough; in some ways, though, the thought of unknowingly consuming a person contained within a meat pie is even worse. Oddly enough, this thread of cannibalism is rife throughout the world of the theatre, going back to the Greeks with the Oresteia, passing through the English Renaissance with Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and eventually ending up on Broadway in 1979, courtesy of master of musical theatre Stephen Sondheim.

Composer/lyricist Sondheim and book writer Hugh Wheeler based their version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on British playwright Christopher Bond’s 1973 play of the same name. Directed by Hal Prince, the original production of the musical featured a cast of nearly thirty, a twenty-someodd-piece orchestra, a gigantic and almost constantly moving set, and the world’s most fearsome barber chair. The idea of spectacle in the theatre goes back to Aristotle’s Poetics, and while, in order of importance, it is the last element on the list, audiences love a spectacle, and the beauty of Hal Prince’s direction is that he somehow always manages to give a fantastic spectacle without overdoing it (yes, I know, it’s Phantom; but you know what? From a purely production standpoint, it’s amazing, and we’ve got Hal Prince to thank for that). In Prince’s production, much of the show revolved around Todd’s barber chair, a device that would drop its victims through a trap door into a chute, depositing them directly into Mrs. Lovett’s bake house at the pull of a lever. As far as gimmicks go-- this one is pretty original. And it’s fantastic. Taking its cues from the penny dreadfuls the story originated in, the production and the characters were larger than life, featuring powerhouse performances by Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou, and a very young Victor Garber (among others), and resulting in a whirl of madness, mystery, and mayhem.

Of course, production values aside, Sweeney Todd wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if the show itself just wasn’t so bloody good (no pun intended). Widely accepted to be one of the most difficult musical theatre scores ever written, it is also one of the most satisfying, with so many layers of complexity that new things can be heard on every listen. Lyrically, too, it’s one of Sondheim’s bests, with such gems as (describing Todd) "His voice was soft, his manner mild/ He seldom laughed, but he often smiled;" (Mrs. Lovett, trying to convince Todd to retire by the sea with her) "With a nice, sunny suite for the guest to rest in/ Now and then, you can do the guest in/ By the sea...;" and particularly (describing the variety of pies Todd’s victims will make) "And we have some shepherd’s pie peppered/ With actual shepherd/ on top." But ultimately, what Sondheim does so well when his musical talent is married with his proclivity for words, is tell a story. The problem with most contemporary musicals is that very few people actually write musical theatre now. They write pop. And while the tunes that punctuate The Color Purple and Hairspray and pretty much every new musical that Broadway sees these days are catchy, they’re not musical theatre-- they don’t help tell the story. There will be a scene; then suddenly, the scene will stop, and the story will be put on hold while a song is sung; and then, at the song’s conclusion, the scene and the story will resume. Music in musical theatre should never, under any circumstances, stop the story. Music should be reserved for moments when mere dialogue is no longer sufficient for the characters to tell the tale-- and then it should push the story forward.

It is his ability to do this-- to put the story first-- that makes Sondheim so brilliant.

And it is also this which makes his work so adaptable to so many different interpretations.

Case in point: John Doyle’s revival of Sweeney Todd.

First produced at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, UK, then transferred to Trafalgar Studios before being moved to the New Ambassadors Theatre in London, Doyle’s conception of the show pared down the cast and the orchestra and combined them into one group of ten extraordinarily talented performers who acted, sang, and played this ridiculously difficult show (beautifully orchestrated by Sarah Travis)-- all at once. With this idea, all of a sudden, a trilling violin became an expression of love, a trembling cello denoted fear, and a muted trumpet gave out a sound of warning. Doyle’s production was also much more subtle than Hal Prince’s, with a unit set composed of chairs, a step ladder, and a black wooden coffin, and a Marat/Sade-style frame that blurs the lines between several different realities. And here’s the rub: while all these elements do, in fact, come together seamlessly, what I admire and respect the most about this production are the extreme risks that were taken in its conception. To take something as well-established and firmly rooted in one style as the original production of Sweeney Todd and reinvent it so thoroughly takes a lot of thought, a lot of ambition, a lot of work, and a lot of guts, and you know what? It. paid. off.

Doyle’s Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway on 3 November 2005 after a month of previews at the Eugene O’Neil theatre on 49th St., starring Patti LuPone and Michael Cerveris as Lovett and Todd and featuring Benjamin Magnuson (Anthony), Lauren Molina (Johanna), Diana DiMarzio (Beggar Woman), Alexander Gemignani (Beadle Bamford), Mark Jacoby (Judge Turpin), Donna Lynne Champlin (Pirelli), John Arbo (Jonas Fogg), and (the absolutely wonderful) Manoel Felciano (Tobias Ragg), and believe you me, they could not have possibly assembled a better cast for this production. I’ve now seen this conception of the show three times, two of which were this particular cast in this particular production. Back in December, the show had been running for about two and a half months (including preview month), and even then, it was fantastic; now, seven months on, it’s positively unbelievable. Last week, when I was in line at TKTS, someone asked me what the draw of doing a long-running show is, besides job security; I answered, “the chance to let it evolve.” And evolve, Sweeney has done. The already-brilliant performances are even fuller now, and the whole production has tightened up and found its footing in such a way that only an extended run allows. Moments that were almost there, but not quite, back in December, have been fully realized; moments that already worked have been explored to new depths; and the pacing of the show just drives and drives and drives, precisely the way it should.

Individually, each performer is extraordinarily watchable-- always alert, always in the moment, and always responsive to the world around them, but without distracting attention from the main action at any given time (a feat to be commended). Manoel Felciano in particular stands out in this respect; his Tobias, much darker than Ken Jenning’s in the original production while still remaining the most sympathetic character in the show, has very clear relationships with each and every person onstage, whether it be a relationship of love (Mrs. Lovett), a relationship of need (Pirelli), distrust (Todd), envy (Anthony), or romance (Johanna). Benjamin Magnuson and Lauren Molina, too, do wonderful jobs reinventing Anthony and Johanna, turning them from cookie-cutter young lovers to impulsive and real young people, with more than a hint of danger about them. In "Green Finch and Linnet Bird," Johanna, rather than simply singing like a bird trapped in a cage, shows more rage at her situation than the character has ever been known to have before; and for Anthony, a moment of particular note comes when, his attempt to break Johanna out of Fogg’s asylum having gone not quite according to plan, he reprises bits of "Ah, Miss" mixed with "No Place Like London" and his act one beauty "Johanna." In the original production, this snippet of song was a gentle and romantic apology sung to Johanna; here, however, we see Anthony’s desperation as he realizes that his plan is on the brink of collapse. He’s got the girl, but he doesn’t know what to do with her; he knows where he needs to go, but he realizes that getting there is going to be more difficult that he had imagined (and quite probably impossible); and in the event that they do escape and sail safely to France-- what then? They can marry, but they hardly know each other. Heartbreaking.

Of course, all she has to do is look at him, and he’s off again, certain that he can never fail. Oh, the misconceptions of youth.

What I think is most intriguing about all of these new visions of old characters is that they’re all crazy. Every single one of them-- simply put, they’re nutters. But this idea of madness is not something unconnected to the show that they’ve all layered on top of it; it’s all there, in the text. They’ve just dug it out and given it life. Anthony’s fixation on Johanna truly does border on the unhealthy. Johanna has spent her life locked away with her guardian lusting after her. Tobias has been beaten down since the day he was born. And Todd and Lovett... well, they’re Todd and Lovett. They’re worldly, and yet not; they’re funny, yet dark; they’re dangerous, they’re terrifying, and they’re absolutely fascinating. Cerveris’ Todd is a ticking time bomb, sitting and waiting, getting more and more wound up until there’s only one possible conclusion for his tale. LuPone’s Lovett, less flippant than Angela Lansbury’s, has been around the block more than once, never giving up hope that she might one day see happiness, but knowing anyway that she’s not likely to. And together-- they’re a tour de force.

It’s productions like this that give me hope that musical theatre isn’t dead. More than just fluff, it’s a story worth thinking about, and it’s a story worth telling. So go see for yourself.

What happened then, well that’s the play,
And he wouldn’t want us to give it away--
Not Sweeney
Not Sweeney Todd...
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street!

Film review: Rent

2007-02-15T09:13:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Friday, 02 December, 2005)

Went to see Rent (the movie) the other night with Jenny and realized right when we were leaving for the theatre that I'd unintentionally dressed sort of like Mark. I think it was the way I was wearing my scarf that clinched it.

Whoops.

Even if I hadn't done that (and I SWEAR I didn't mean to), though, I'm still a big, big nerd. It doesn't matter how long it's been since I've listened to Rent (occurrences of that are few and far between now); I still know every word. And I freely admit that I was shamelessly singing along (well, mouthing the words-- I tried not to be too obnoxious)-- and it was a rollicking good time.

Did the film have problems? Yes-- in abundance. I don't quite understand it, but Chris Columbus has made a career out of screwing up adaptations of existing source material. It was kind of odd hearing "December 24th, 9 pm, eastern standard time, from here on in I shoot without a script-- see if anything comes of it, instead of my old shit" spoken instead of sung, and while I know most of the lyrics for the show are dialogue set to music anyway ("December 24th, 9 pm, eastern standard time, Roger went out to buy some mayonnaise..."), the fact that there were sort-of rhymes all over the place in what was now spoken dialogue was a little jarring. There cuts made within some of the songs that sounded bizarre and sort of half-assed-- for example, the title song featured only Roger, Mark, Collins, and the other tenants of their building. Now, I can understand cutting Benny and Joanne from the song, seeing as they're not physically in the same location as the others-- a device that works fine on the stage, but is more difficult to do on the screen-- but there ended up being these gaping holes where their parts would have been. I mean, "The music ignites the night with passionate fire!" followed by a giant pause kind of takes all the air out from underneath the song and drops it flat, you know? If you going to rearrange a song, then REARRANGE it, don't just chop it to bits. Then there were a whole bunch of songs that were missing entirely, and then add to that an awful lot of music-video moments-- most notably "What You Own" (which happens to be my favorite song in the entire show), where Mark was cycling round New York and Roger was cruising round the Southwest, only to finally UNITE TOGETHER TRIUMPHANTLY ON THE ROOFTOP OF THEIR APARTMENT!... 16 bars too early. Then they just kind of stood there singing into each other's faces for another minute and, as Jenny says, looking like they were about to kiss. The overall effect of all these tweaked, changed, and absent songs was that the whole thing was a movie with songs in it, rather than a musical where the songs have a purpose, that is, to express what regular ol' dialogue can't. Something seems off in that to me.

Ultimately, the film ended up being told mostly from Mark's and Roger's point of views, and therefore the story wound up being more about Mark and Roger than anyone else, which I think is wrong; one of the points of the original show is that it's a year in the life of this group of people/friends/lovers/whatevers, not just one or two of them. Some characters were less present than they should have been (Benny, specifically), which definitely had an effect on the poignancy of the relationships and triangles that the show is made up of. I also had issues with Maureen and Joanne's relationship-- it was far too easy. I mean, they'd fight, but then one of them would start crying, and they'd immediately fall back into each others' arms and everything would magically be okay. Also, "Take Me Or Leave Me" made no sense whatsoever (though Maureen's mum turning to Mark and saying "Maybe now you two can get back together?" right after it was brilliant).

However, most of the emotional push of the show was still there. "Santa Fe" was positively inspired, and I wouldn't have done the opening sequence of "Seasons of Love" any other way. "Seasons of Love" especially worked in its simplicity, something Chris Columbus isn't known for; but for that one song, for once, he nailed it. On bringing back most of the original cast: Yes, it's kind of weird to think that the actors are now all about ten years too old to be playing these parts; but accordingly, the characters have changed somewhat. Roger, for instance, was a lot less ANGRYYOUNGMAN! and more dark and brooding, which worked, I think (though I will say this: Adam Pascal, for the love of god, STOP RUINING YOUR VOICE). Of all the original cast members, Anthony Rapp and Idina Menzel seemed the most comfortable dropping back into their roles, which made them great fun to watch-- they had all the familiarity of character that comes with a long run of a show, the energy of the original production, and the extra mileage of ten more years used in a way that added to the characters instead of bogging them down. They were really living in the characters-- they were fully invested in everything they did. Fantastic.

When it gets down to it, if you're a Rent-head, even if the film has its problems, there's no way you won't enjoy it. So rock on and rock out.

Don't Hassel the Hoff.

2007-02-13T11:43:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted 10 August, 2005)

What is up with David Hasselhoff?

No, seriously. What... just... whaaaaa???
Okay. Here's what happened: My brother found a used video cassette of the Broadway show Jekyll and Hyde for cheap earlier in the summer (I have no idea where-- maybe it’s better that I don’t ask), so he bought it. Now, it’s true, my brother does have a habit of amassing videos and DVDs that nobody else really wants for no reason that anyone can explain; but this time, he actually had a reason for buying the tape. That reason... was David Hasselhoff.

Yep. Robert Louis Stevenson’s macabre tale of the sinister beasts that lurk within the hearts of us all, starring MICHAEL KNIGHT FROM KNIGHT RIDER!

And yes, it’s just as funny as I’m sure you’re thinking it is. Funnier, even. I mean, it would be one thing if he could sing decently but couldn’t act, or could act decently but couldn’t sing, but... sorry, David. Ya got nothin’. You were better off with the talking car. Really, it was like watching a 13-year-old wannabe first-year acting student try to play the part. Sometimes, I felt kind of embarrassed for him; then I forgot to be embarrassed because I started laughing so bloody hard.

Oh man. I was going to attempt to write about some of the more hysterical moments from it, but I honestly don’t even have the words to describe it. You’ve really got to see it for yourself. What words could illustrate the bizarre expression on Hasselhoff’s face as he flung lighter fluid around while jumping up and down like a schoolgirl? How could I begin to tell you how funny he looked sliding around on a floor that had apparently been recently waxed as he supposedly transformed into Hyde? Might I accurately depict my confusion about Hyde looking and sounding exactly like Jekyll? Oh no. Nothing I could say would give you the full impact of any of it. Because it was just. that. hilarious.

Henry Jekyll, a lone crusader in a dangerous world. The world...

...OF THE KNIGHT RIDER!

Music News!

2007-02-11T14:45:00.000-05:00

A couple of exciting new album releases:

Ben Lee is heading into the studio in a couple of weeks to start recording his first album since 2005's Awake Is The New Sleep;

Rufus Wainwright's new album Release the Stars will be released on 15 May;

And Dream Theater, newly signed to Roadrunner Records, are currently busy recording Systematic Chaos, their ninth studio album, with plans for a world tour due out shortly.

Hoorah!

Concert review: Odd Men Out

2007-02-11T14:17:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Sunday, 07 August, 2005)

... And then there was the concert at Harbor Lights-- no, the Fleet Pavilion-- ah, fuck it, the Whatever The Hell They’re Calling It Now Pavilion. There’s really nothing quite like live music to get the blood flowing through your veins again. Well, my veins, at least.

BEN LEE:

I’m the first to admit that I’m a really big music snob. And I do mean SNOB. This is one of the myriad reasons I stay away from most pop music; to me, the good majority of pop is brainless and has no musical value, either compositionally or technically. It’s probably going to come as a pretty big surprise to everyone when I say that I quite like Ben Lee, who is undeniably pop. However, my dad said to me earlier today about Ben Lee and me, "I’m really glad you listen to this sort of stuff. There’s nothing wrong with a well-written song." Keep in mind, this is my dad speaking, who’s also kind of a music snob. But he’s right. Ben Lee is a songwriter in the truest sense of the word. He’s not a particularly amazing guitarist, but he writes lovely songs and arranges them well, and he’s one hell of a lyricist. Also, he’s adorably nerd-- he’s a big goofball, and he’s got a sense of humor about everything (including the fact that he was the opening act: "I promise you, this will be the most memorable filing-in music you’ve ever heard!").

gamble everything for love
begin
no right angles
into the dark ("This is a song about being happy." It also gets stuck in my head ALL THE TIME. But that’s okay.)
catch my disease (featured in Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo: "Cinema will never be the same again!")
we’re all in this together ("And you’re all gonna sing, and it’s gonna be corny, and you’re gonna love it.")

Then he leapt out into the audience. That scores big in my books.

BEN FOLDS:

Now, here’s the thing about Ben Folds: he’s one of those musicians who doesn’t have to talk to his audience a lot or "put on a show." He loves what he does so much that all he needs to do is sit down (or stand up, as is his habit) and rock out. I’ve said it before and I’ve no doubt I’ll say it again, but MAN, I wish I could play like Ben does. He’s got this sort of reckless abandon coupled with the ability to do anything on the piano that gives him an incredible ease on stage (even when he’s sick, which he was-- I gather that he was so sick that he was carted off to the doctor as soon as his set was finished. God love him for performing in spite of that). Also, the kickass riff of "Heaven On Their Minds" from Jesus Christ Superstar played over the loudspeakers before he took the stage. That’s just cool.

Concerning Songs For Silverman: What I’ve heard from other people is that they either love it or hate it. I happen to love it, but that aside, I also have enormous respect for where Ben has gone as a musician over the years. Silverman is a lot mellower, simpler (not in terms of the music-- more in the arrangements. None of the crazy synth stuff from Rockin’ The Suburbs; it’s down to just piano, bass, and drums), and less "funny" than most of his other albums and EPs have been, both solo and with Ben Folds Five. I’ve heard complaints that he doesn’t sound like he’s having as much fun as he was on the first Ben Folds Five album, but I beg to differ. I hear the solo in "You To Thank," and yeah, he’s not leaping all over the place and banging the hell out of his piano during it, but I hear how much he’s enjoying just playing and jamming, and that’s worth just as much, if not more. I mean, he’s nearing forty, and often, as you get older, you just can’t do the crazy shit you did as a kid. The beauty of it is that Ben has managed to "grow up" without losing his sense of fun. He’s just going with it. And you have to respect him for that.

bastard
gone
jesusland (Okay, so the strings part sounds a little less impressive when played as one line on the piano instead of by an orchestra, but oh well.)
you to thank
still fighting it
landed
bitches ain’t shit (This was quite possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen/heard. EVER.)
rockin’ the suburbs
one angry dwarf and 200 solemn faces (I have never before seen him play this song that fast. Whoa.)
late
not the same ("I couldn’t leave you guys without playing the song about the guy who climbed up a tree...")

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT:

Oh, Rufus. You are such a diva. But I love you anyway. Rufus seemed a lot more confident this time round than he did last time I saw him, and I think this has something to do with the fact that he had his band with him this time. Last summer, Ben (Folds-- I’m kind of struggling with the fact that because of Ben Lee, I can’t just say "Ben" and just have it be understood that I’m talking about Folds) was touring with just his piano, so Rufus ended up doing that too-- and somehow, it just doesn’t seem to suit him the way it suits Ben. Rufus was in fine form, though, and vocally he was amazing, as always. I still firmly believe that recordings don’t do his voice justice. I do have to say, though, that his band kind of sucks. And herein lies the dilemma: though you can’t always hear how fantastic his voice is on his records, the records are where most of his best work is done. More than anything, Rufus is a composer. His art lies in not only how he writes his songs, but also in how he orchestrates them. Sometimes, this just doesn’t really translate to the stage.

But you do have to give props to a man who will wear a bright pink shirt on stage.

maker makes
the art teacher
rebel prince (He didn’t play this one last summer and I really wanted him to, so I was sad. Now I am happy. Even if he did accidentally start with the second verse.)
the one you love
vibrate (I can’t take this song seriously. Honestly. "My phone’s on viiiiiiiiiiiibraaaaaaaaaaaaaate foooooooooooor yoooooooou"? It’s the one Rufus song that I always have to turn my face to the sky and shake my fist and bellow "WHY?!" about.)
katonah
poses
between my legs ("This song is gonna be a big hit!... But then, I said that about 'California' and 'April Fools,' so...")
pretty things (Stops in middle of song: "I want to dedicate this show to Ted Kennedy. It’s been on my mind all day." Then resumes.)
memphis skyline
hallelujah
beautiful child ("What? You want to be my assistant? Oh, somebody needs my *assistance*?")
gay messiah
little sister (encore)

Film review: Batman Begins

2007-02-09T15:09:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Sunday, 19 June, 2005)

Just to reiterate, Batman really does rock my socks. The beauty of Batman Begins is that it’s not just an action-fest comic book flick. It’s actually a terrific film, and it’s terrific on all fronts. We already know Chris Nolan is a fantastic director who really knows how to tell a story, a quality that all too often seems to be lost nowadays; add to that a well-written screenplay (and by well-written, I mean that not only is the story compelling and fantastical yet plausible given the world of the film, but also that the actual dialogue is both realistic and memorable) and an assortment of (oddly enough) the UK’s finest actors as well as a few notable American actors, and boom: you’ve got something worth watching.

Batman is a franchise that I’ve always been fascinated by. In many ways, I think that out of all the comic book franchises, Batman’s has been one of the most varied and interesting. First introduced in Detective Comics (DC) 27 in May of 1939, what made Batman distinguishable was that he had no “super powers,” per se. He hadn’t been exposed to gamma rays, no radioactive insects had bitten him, and he didn’t come from another planet; instead, he relied on martial arts training, a mechanical mind, some neat gadgets, an impressive intellect, and lots and lots of money. In May 1964, the “new look” Batman was introduced, and this is the image that I think predominates the world of Batman comics now; the “new look” had the bat symbol on the Batsuit enclosed in a yellow oval. The 60s also saw the advent of a live-action television series as well as a highly entertaining movie starring Adam West as the caped crusader. Both the series and the movie were ultimately spoofs of the comic book genre, full of “POW!”s and other elements rating high on the cheese factor. Then in 1989, Tim Burton brought us Batman the motion picture, starring Beetlejuice. As if I couldn’t possibly love Tim Burton enough already, he made Batman dark and frightening in a way that only Burton could-- so much so that I wouldn’t go near the damn film for years because the Joker terrified me too much. I mean, sure, Jack Nicholson can be a scary guy, but seriously. I think I was close to 14 years old by the time I finally managed to sit down and watch the film without freaking out. Now THAT’S what I call a good Batman. Burton followed this up with 1992’s Batman Returns, and we all love him for it. Around this time, Batman also saw the first of many cartoon adventures. Then all of a sudden Jim Carrey was the hot new thing, and then some crazy person let Joel Schumacher near the franchise. With Schumacher turning Batman into a joke once more, the whole legacy was almost lost, and the world despaired.

Until now.

One of the complaints my dad has about most of the comic book films that have come out in recent years is that they spend half of the film trying to explain an entire origins story before getting to the actual plot and point of the damn thing. Burton’s films wisely didn’t do this, choosing instead to leap right into the action (in Latin, we call that “in medias res,” literally, “in the middle (of) things”). Batman is too complicated a character to try to explain away in thirty minutes. So now, after the franchise has reached a nice vintage (almost 70 years), we get an ENTIRE FILM to deal with the topic of “the origin."

Batman Begins is not about Batman. It’s about Bruce Wayne. It’s about Bruce figuring out all of the different sides there are to him, from Batman to justice-driven serious guy to billionaire playboy, and when to use them and how to use them most effectively. In some ways, this is what makes this film even more compelling than Burton’s films: the conflict in this younger Bruce is much greater than it was in his older self. Christian Bale really does a marvelous job with this; I think I may actually like his portrayal of the character better than Michael Keaton’s. Bale nailed all the nuances and extremes, and the result is riveting to watch.

Another departure from the Batman that we’re all used to seeing is that this one is much grittier and much more human, largely due to the whole situation with the “bad guys.” Instead of having the film revolve around the craziness of some acid-disfigured freak with green hair and a purple suit, this new one takes place at the end of an era in Gotham’s history, an era full of mob bosses and crime lords, but without a cartoon-y rogue’s gallery. Thus the Scarecrow, arguably one of the sillier villains created, has been almost completely reworked, and while Cillian Murphy was originally being considered for the role of Batman himself, he’s put to much better use as Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow. He’s a completely unassuming little guy, so when the Doc’s ruthless nature is revealed, it’s just that much creepier. Also, Crane’s own terror really looks rooted in something gut-wrenchingly real. Not easy to pull off, but boy, does he do it with panache.

Of course, the rest of the cast is fantastic as well; Liam Neeson is always enjoyable (the truth finally comes out: Batman was trained by a Jedi!), Michael Caine makes Alfred more involved than I’ve ever seen the character (ever), Gary Oldman is wonderfully understated as the not-quite-Commissioner Gordon, and Morgan Freeman is perfect as gadget-man Fox (the man has such an ease on screen; it’s always quite remarkable. He’s like an old-fashioned movie star). My only complaint is Katie Holmes-- as usual, she’s thoroughly uninteresting, though at least she doesn’t actually detract from the film itself. The big problem is that Rachel Dawes needed to be feistier than Holmes made her. Dawes is stubborn, she’s a fighter, and she’s not naïve by any means. She’s seen the darker sides of Gotham, and she’s trying to do something about it; bottom line is that she needed to be stronger, and Holmes isn’t that kind of actress. But as I said earlier, she didn’t detract from the film as a whole, which is a relief.

Acting aside, one of the reasons I found Batman Begins so interesting is that I love knowing how things work, what makes them tick, and so on and so forth. I work in a field concerned with illusion-- how to create it, how to sustain it, and how to break it, and what the effects and implications of making or breaking it have on art specifically and on the world generally. Tying in with the more realistic nature of this film, here, we see not only that Batman has the uncanny ability to vanish, but also how he as a human vanishes while simultaneously making himself seem more than human. It’s all smoke and mirrors, but it takes muscle, sweat, pain, and thought to make that smoke and those mirrors work to your advantage. Showing this is one of the film’s greatest strengths.

All in all, quite the film. Enough of a film to make me sit down and write a 1,250 word essay about it. What can I say, I’m a nerd. But I’m a storyteller, and I react strongly to well-told stories. There are worse things to be.

I leave you with this:

“Dr. Crane isn’t here right now. But if you’d like to make an appointment...”

"I Put LIME On Them!": Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman

2007-02-08T18:08:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Monday, 16 May, 2005)

I knew this play was something special when I read it back in December. Putting aside the fact that Martin McDonagh is already one of my favorite contemporary playwrights, The Pillowman is a terribly ambitious play, more complicated, I think, than anything McDonagh has ever written, and it's positively brilliant. Unlike, say, The Cripple of Inishmaan, or the Leenane trilogy-- the plays that first got him on the map-- The Pillowman is not an Irish play (interestingly, while McDonagh was born to Irish parents, he's not Irish-- he's a Londoner). It's more Kafka than anything else, something vaguely reminiscent of The Trial; and yet it is unmistakably McDonagh's work, with more humour than you might expect it to have, given its subject matter.

Summarized in an overly simplistic fashion, in The Pillowman, "a writer in a totalitarian state is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of child-murders that are happening in his town." However, it is one of those remarkable pieces of work that is so unpredictable that you must see the story through to the end, no matter what. You can't stop for a moment; you can't give up, go have a cup of tea, and come back to it later; you just have to finish it. On my first read-through of it, I couldn't put the thing down until I'd gotten to the end. As soon as I'd read the last word, I promptly thought, "Whoa. I have to read that again. RIGHT NOW." So I did.

Like many of McDonagh's plays, themes addressed in The Pillowman include odd families, extraordinary situations, and dark twists and turns. But the two most predominant themes are these: the nature of stories and storytelling, and the nature of truth and lies.The story centers around Katurian Katurian Katurian (concerning his name, he says that his parents were "funny people"), a writer who lives in an unnamed totalitarian dictatorship with his mentally challenged brother Michal (yes, that's Michal, not Michael, though both names are pronounced the same way). Katurian finds himself being interrogated (and often tortured) by two policemen, Tupolski and Ariel, about his stories, fables that often run along the Shockheaded Peter vein. He has no idea why this is happening, or what he may have done to cause it to happen, other than the fact that there appear to be a number of children who have been murdered in accordance with several of his stories. On the surface, it's a mystery, and Katurian must get to the bottom of it before he and Michal are both executed; but there is much, much more to it than that. I'm reluctant to say anymore about the play itself here-- anything else I say will give bits of it away, and believe you me, it's not something you want spoiled if you intend to read or see this play any time soon. And I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO. The beauty of it is that McDonagh is a master of revealing what you need to know only when you need to know it-- in the immortal words of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, it's "one of those on-a-need-to-know-basis things. Like one of those James Bond films."

The Pillowman was first produced at the National Theatre in London, with a cast consisting of Jim Broadbent as Tupolski, Nigel Lindsay as Ariel, David Tennant (the next Doctor Who, as well as Barty Crouch, Jr. in the next Harry Potter film) as Katurian, and Adam Godley as Michal. After its success in London, director John Crowley brought the production to the States, to Broadway, starring Billy Crudup as Katurian, Michael Stuhlbarg as Michal, Zeljko Ivanek as Ariel, and Jeff Goldblum as Tupolski. And just let me say, this production has it all: writing, design, direction, acting... everything. It's stunning.

The design is simple, but very clever and very, very effective. The bulk of the play takes place in a dank, dimly-lit interrogation room with rusty metal walls. There is almost nothing in the room itself; there's a table and three chairs center, with an ancient filing cabinet stage right next to a small waste basket and one hanging light above the table. The door of the room, noticeably placed up left, is metal with a small, opaque glass window at the top. Up left: the area of the stage reserved for conspiracies, mysteries, and uneasy crosses from stage left to right (which, to an English-speaking audience, reads as a right-to-left cross-- opposite of the direction in which we read). High on each of the stage right and stage left walls, there are grates through which sounds from other rooms-- namely, painful screaming-- can be heard from time to time. The walls are high. There are no windows.

This room transforms into a prison cell that looks much like the interrogation room did-- same walls, same door, same grates, etc.-- but this time, there is only a chair for furniture, and a beat-up, thin, old mattress with a ragged blanket and pillow. There are two lights hanging from the ceiling. The clever bit is that for the changeover, the walls, which look terribly solid, have hidden panels that slide up, allowing the table and chairs to be carried out and the filing cabinet and waste basket to vanish. And I do mean vanish-- now you see it, now you don't, all in the space of no more than a few seconds during the blackout between scenes.

Then there's the REALLY clever bit. There are several... shall we say, reenactments of stories and things past during the course of the play. So how to deal with these? Katurian, the storyteller, narrates them seated alone in a chair, lit by a small spot on an otherwise dark stage. Far above him, the walls grow thin, and we see through them tableaus of these terrible tales. Shan't say any more than that; that would be telling.

The direction was fantastic. Visually memorable without being distracting or looking "blocked," and boy, does John Crowley know how to work with actors. As an actor, this play is both relatively simple and amazingly difficult; simple in that it gives you so much to work with it's almost ridiculous, difficult in that it... well, let me put it this way: just the thought of putting on one lone performance of it, let eight performances a week for an as-yet-undetermined run of it, is enough to make me feel physically and emotionally spent. But, as terrific as your actors may be, it's the director's job to make sure that there's an arc (or two, or three, or eight) that will keep the play a) moving, b) interesting, and c) coherent and cohesive. There has to be a shape there in order for the drama to work properly, and it's the director's job to find that shape and refine it until it's what it needs to be. Crowley gets the job done and more. Brilliant. Beautiful.

And then there's the acting. I'll admit, if there's a weak link in the cast, it's Jeff Goldblum-- but, even though I'm not usually that fond of him, his deadpan delivery works wonderfully here. Zeljko Ivanek does a great job with Ariel, who I find to be one of the most fascinating characters in the play, largely because McDonagh tells us just enough about him to start us wondering about him, without actually giving everything away. However, the really amazing work comes from Michael Stuhlbarg and Billy Crudup during their 31-page scene together in the prison cell. The way they work together... wow. It's rare to find two people who play so well off of each other and who have such a bond, but these two definitely have it. Brothers-- especially brothers of this sort-- are hard to get right, because the dynamic is so weird. It's a love-hate-dependency-something-else relationship. But it's there. And it's so strong. For Billy Crudup: Katurian is not an overly nice guy, but he's ultimately the victim of various circumstances throughout the play, and he goes through so many emotional ups and downs, as well as a sizeable amount of actual physical torture, that I get shaky just thinking about it. But in his portrayal of Katurian, you can see it all, right there, live and in person. For Michael Stuhlbarg: It's always kind of dangerous playing mentally retarded characters, and while Michal is described in the play as "special" and "brain-damaged beyond repair," I didn't really read the character as such. This is probably because I saw a lot of a fairly common McDonagh stock character in him, most notably Mairtin from A Skull in Connemara: the fast-talking juvenile delinquent, mostly good-natured, but not without his fair share of inner demons, etc. I also saw Michal as a tall, lanky, gangly, awkward-looking guy, again probably because in the production of Skull that I saw several years ago, that's how Mairtin looked. Stuhlbarg's Michal, however, was chubby and awkward, not stick-thin and awkward, and he was brain-damaged, and it worked wonderfully. Then you put the two together, and bam: something really worth seeing.

I had an interesting conversation with my parents during dinner before the show that night about why I'm drawn to all these dark plays, books, and films. It's already widely known that I'm a total escapist; but I realized that what I really like about them is picking apart the worlds they take place in. Each world has its own rules, its own chemistry, its own physics, and I'm fascinated by this. I like to dig deep into each world and find out those rules. I like to find out what makes it run, what makes it tick, what makes it stop, what makes it go. I like looking at how different it is from the world I live in and seeing what could be placed up against what is. I like being, as Katurian says in one of his stories, just a little bit peculiar.

Then we saw Pierce Brosnan as we were leaving the theatre. No, really. Looks like he'd been in the audience that night. Cool.

"Hip Hip Jorge" And Other Chants: Or, Why Americans Love Baseball So Damn Much

2007-02-07T23:52:00.000-05:00

(Originally posted Tuesday, 07 September, 2004)

There are many rites of passage one must go through before considering oneself to be a true New Yorker. One is accidentally ending up in Harlem in the wee hours of the morning; another is walking around Times Square muttering "Ugh! Tourists!"; yet another is learning the fine art of jaywalking. However, the most intriguing, and arguably the most important, is attending a Yankees game.

There is no doubt about it: New Yorkers love their baseball. But not just any team will do; the Mets are almost always looked down upon when compared with the Almighty Yankees. With a team of all-stars like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Bernie Williams, and Jorge Pasada, and a history that includes such legends as Joe DiMaggio, the Yankees have a solid fan base that seldom wavers, even in the direst of times. Indeed, the Yankees seem to unite all New Yorkers in a baseball-crazed frenzy of root root rooting for the home team as they collectively celebrate each victory and mourn together each loss. So the question remains: what is it about a group of men hitting a ball with a stick that holds so much magic for the general public?

The answer is simple: baseball truly is The Great American Pastime. Like most things in America, we didn't invent it, but rather stole the basic idea and made it our own. The British game of "rounders" is the one of the earliest recognizable ancestors of baseball. While the shape of the field is a pentagon of posts rather than a diamond of bases, and there are nine outs in an inning with two innings making up a match, the basic idea is the same: throw the ball, hit the ball, run the posts/bases, and score points. After three bad pitches, the batsman is allowed to move to the second post; this is known as a half-rounder. After circling around all the posts, a "rounder" is scored, earning the team one point and giving the game its name.

So, when the sport crossed the Atlantic, we changed things around a little, made it official, and voila: baseball as we know it. It is something we identify as uniquely American, and no matter what ballpark you're at, there is always something comfortingly familiar in the air. Perhaps it's the smell of hotdogs, peanuts, and cotton candy; perhaps it's the yells and battle cries of rabid fans. Whatever the reason, every time you go through that tunnel and onto the field, you just can't help feeling excited.

For a native Bostonian, I carry the odd label of never really having supported my home teams. Frankly, the Celtics suck, the Bruins usually suck, and the Sox always manage to get so far, but then never win, which ultimately makes them suck as well. In spite of all that, though I think the bottom line is that I don't usually find sports interesting to watch. However, upon relocating to New York last year, I discovered a Boston Pride I didn't know I had (when your favorite radio station starts having "Boston free weekends" where they won't play any music that originated in Boston-- *gasp* no Aerosmith!-- the Boston Pride kicks into high gear). You can imagine my surprise, then, when I get to my first-ever Yankees game and find myself cheering for my home team's arch enemy. While I somehow couldn't bring myself to chant "LET'S GO YANKEES!" at the top of my lungs, I found such moments as "Hip Hip Jorge!" and "Bern, Baby, Bern!" quite entertaining, I joined in with the clapping patterns meant to boost team morale, and I discovered the irresistible enjoyment of bellowing "CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!" with a stadium full of people. Also, you can't go to a ballgame and not get a hot dog. It's just not possible.

I guess that with baseball, for a short while, you have something in common with a large group of people: love of one thing. Followers of any given team will band together against the opposition and become a giant, unstoppable Force of Fandom, regardless as to how different they may be in the "real world." (did you catch both links in that phrase?). Baseball is American; that's all people need.

In conclusion, I would like to take a moment to say that Boston fans are not the only people prone to randomly screaming "[INSERT OPPOSING TEAM HERE] SUCK!"

Also, Mickey Rooney was in the crowd at the game today. How crazy is that?

The Origin Story: Because Everyone's Gotta Have One

2007-02-07T19:16:00.000-05:00

Where's Higgs? saw its beginnings several years ago on another blog intended to keep faraway friends and family informed of the goings-on in my life. As time went on, I found myself writing more about theatre, film, music, literature, and other artistic and pop cultural leanings; furthermore, my ramblings sometimes began to evolve into full-on essays or reviews. Thus began Where's Higgs?, a site dedicated to the thinking and considering of the aforementioned forms of art and pop culture. The essays and reviews tend towards things I've seen and liked, rather than things I've seen and disliked; some of them are more formal than others; and some of them delve more into the subject matter's relevance in my own life in a given moment; but they are also intended as a forum to spark discussion about anything and everything.

While I'm working on getting the site up and running, I'll be posting archived reviews going back to 2004.

Cheers, and welcome!