The theater and other diversions

Some Like It Hot; Hadestown; Gordon Parks

While filling out one of those quizzes, I realized I must be missing some other diversions. I’m not watching much television. The movies I see (primarily) get reviewed here. So what else have I been doing?

My wife and I went to the Albany Institute of History and Art and saw “Gordon Park: I, too, am America” in early February, just before the exhibit closed. I loved his work, which I remember from the pages of LIFE magazines in the 1960s. He exposed the disparity of American life with his camera. A reviewer called the installation “incomplete but still rewarding.” The description of the works in one medium-sized room and a tiny annex seems accurate.

I realized that I related to Parks as a singular figure, the only black photographer I knew of, just as Arthur Ashe was the sole black male tennis player in my awareness.

Theater

My wife and I have season tickets to musicals at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady.  The first one scheduled was Aladdin in October 2022. Unfortunately, that was the timeframe when my spouse was experiencing her leg injury.

I could have gotten the money credited to our theater account, but at that late date, Proctors wouldn’t fill those seats. Instead, I posted my issue on Facebook; I got a taker – a guy and his very enthusiastic mom – and our digital tickets could be used, which made me happy.

Thus, the first show we saw was Hairspray in January. I’d seen the original  1988 movie, written and directed by John Waters. The iteration we saw was more moving than a previous production I had seen, especially when Motormouth sings I Know Where I’ve Been.

The best part of going to a Thursday matinee at Proctors is that a few actors will come to a smaller theater and talk to the audience. They told their stories of putting on a production in the midst of COVID. One performer was cast two years earlier, while another auditioned online on a Thursday in Mississippi and was in NYC the following Monday. That first rehearsal involved practicing the exhausting finale. You Can’t Stop The Beat.

Hell, you say

In March, we saw Hadestown. The Tony winner still plays on Broadway but also has a touring show. The musical by Anaïs Mitchell tells a variation of an ancient Greek myth about Eurydice, a young woman desperate for something to eat. She ends up in “a hellish industrial version of the underworld. Her poor singer-songwriter lover Orpheus comes to attempt to rescue her.” The tour will continue through May of 2024. Well worth your time.

My wife and I saw Rent at UAlbany in March; some great performances. Ditto Sister Act at the newly refurbished Albany High School, where our daughter, home from college, joined us. Some difficulties with the sound marred both shows.

Norma Jeane

My wife and I also saw the movie Some Like It Hot (1959) at the Spectrum in Albany. While I had seen a movie ABOUT Marilyn Monroe, this was the first film I saw that she starred in.

The movie was very good. Indeed, it has been “voted one of the best films ever made in polls by the BBC, the American Film Institute, and Sight & Sound.”

Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play two musicians on the run from the Chicago mob in 1929 who dress up as women and join an all-female band heading to Miami.  Marilyn as Sugar Kane is more than another “dumb blonde,” even though the band’s singer describes herself that way.

I had heard about her clashes with director/producer/co-writer Billy Wilder, with her demanding many retakes. Ultimately, Wilder acknowledged: “Anyone can remember lines, but it takes a real artist to come on the set and not know her lines and yet give the performance she did!”  She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress.

My wife and I thought that the lighting made Marilyn seem to be topless in a couple of nightclub scenes, though she was wearing clothing.

There is a bit of mob violence in Some Like It Hot. But fortunately, it wasn’t like seeing a Scorcese or Coppola film.

Also, I imagine that they should ban the movie in Kentucky. Lemmon and Curtis are in drag. And Joe E. Brown’s famous last line just nails that down.

The theater: Fly; Dear Evan Hansen; 10X10

three cities, three months

flyMy wife and I went to the Theater! recently, signs of normal-ish.

In February, we went to the new Capital Rep Theatre in Albany, just a few blocks from the previous venue. The production was called Fly. It was a story, written by Trey Ellis and Ricardo Khan, about four black men from different backgrounds trying to become Tuskegee Airmen, despite pushback from the system.

The Wikipedia page describes the potential pilots. ” Chet, from Harlem; W.W., from Chicago; Oscar, from Iowa; and J. Allen, originally from the West Indies—who represent the varied backgrounds of the men who went through Tuskegee’s training, not all graduating and not all surviving the war.” Three “other actors portray white men—instructors and pilots—who questioned the idea that black men could fly in America’s military.”

As the Cap Rep description noted, “You will see and hear the men’s inner conflicts and triumphs through ‘Tap Griot’… in a way that cannot be felt through words alone.” This device worked exceptionally well. Wikipedia: “A dancer who uses tap dance steps to set a mood that is ‘part sublimated anger, part empowerment.’ This character appears numerous times throughout the play, ‘commenting choreographically on events and emotions.'” This device worked quite well, and the dancer, Omar Edwards, was exceptional.

I don’t know where or when Fly will be produced again. The Albany run doesn’t even appear on the Wikipedia page.

Electric City

About three years ago, I bought season tickets for Proctors Theatre in Schenectady for the 2019-2020 season. When the calendar was postponed because of COVID, three of the shows remained. One, Summer, I saw in December. as I noted, the book was weak.

Com From Away, which I was supposed to see in September 2020, came to Schenectady in late January 2021, just as the Omicron variant was surging locally. My wife asked me NOT to go – she didn’t have a ticket – because she feared if I got COVID and gave it to her, she might spread it to her students.

I stayed home, but I’d be lying if I said wasn’t quite disappointed. The story of a Newfoundland town finding a way to take care of people whose planes were grounded after 9/11 was the show I most wanted to see. There is a production of it online on Apple TV, but of course, that’s not the same thing.

Tony winner

My wife and I DID see Dear Evan Hansen in March. I purchased the Broadway cast album a few years ago in anticipation of seeing the musical. And it’s odd that I feel the same about the music and script. Act 1 ends so joyously.

The story is that the title character failed to correct a false impression. He became popular online and in person, makes another family happy, and gets to date his crush. Of course, morally, the story can’t end there, but a very small piece of me wishes it could have. It reminded me a bit of Into The Woods, where the fairytales all end happily ever after. But then the story continues.

I liked the digital motif of the set design. The cast in this show, and also Summer, were excellent, as they almost always are. This show continues to tour into 2023, which you can check out here.

The Shire City

We also saw a production online. Actually, 10 Ten-Minute Plays by 10 Playwrights at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, MA, which we ‘attended” for the second year in a row in April.
Stealing a Kiss By Laurie Allen – “Two elderly citizens meet at a bus stop where raindrops, turn to rain”…- sweet.
Love Me, Love My Work By Glenn Alterman. Misunderstanding about a new play.
Honestly By Steven Korbar. A young man and woman end their short romantic relationship and find they can speak to each other with complete honesty for the first time.” Oddly true.

Gown By Robert Weibezahl. A mother and daughter are shopping for the perfect wedding gown. My favorite; very touching.
An Awkward Conversation in the Shadow of Mount Moriah By John Bavoso. “Things are a little tense between Abraham and Isaac after the almost-sacrifice.” I found it quite funny.
Escape from Faux Pas By Cynthia Faith Arsenault. “Newcomers to a prestigious condo community find themselves in a precarious social situation, having inadvertently opened their neighbor’s Amazon delivery of…” Meh.

Liars Anonymous By Ellen Abrams. “Max and Charlotte clean up after a Liars Anonymous meeting and regale each other with creative renditions of their lives that sound suspiciously familiar.” Too much of a similar schtick.
Misfortune By Mark Harvey Levine. “A couple gets some disturbing news from a fortune cookie.” For what was essentially one joke, enjoyable enough.o
Climax By Chelsea Marcantel “For Sam and Teddy, the long-awaited kiss proves to be the easy part.” It rang very true.
The Voice of the People By Cary Pepper. “Who’ll be HomeHaven’s new mayor — the candidate with impeccable qualifications, or the one with no experience, no platform, and no agenda?” Too many caricatured citizens.

Normal-ish: Proctors, ASO, choir

No buffoon bassoon

ProctorsIn the past month, I had several days that I considered normal-ish. Familiar, though with a twist.

Th, 12/9: I went to the Proctors Theatre in nearby Schenectady. I’ve been going there to see for years to see touring musicals. Often I’ve had season tickets for the Thursday matinee because it’s the least expensive option. Indeed, I made that choice way back in the spring of 2019 for the 2019-2020 run. I saw three shows. and then…

I don’t even remember when Summer: The Donna Summer Story was supposed to take place initially, but I think it was rescheduled at least twice because of COVID. FINALLY, I got to take the bus to the old vaudeville venue. First, I was asked for my vaccine card, which I had on my phone. Then I could pick up my ticket at the will call.

As for the show itself, there were actually three women playing the disco queen at various stages of her life. One also played Donna’s mother and another Donna’s daughter. Oddly enough, this was not confusing. And all of them were very good.

I wasn’t a huge disco fan. But as I wrote about her three years ago, I had a lot of respect for Donna Summer: her look and especially her voice.

On The Radio

But as this review in the Chicago Tribune noted of the tour: “It is a very rough book.” Yeah, that was it. The show “carelessly abandon[s] most of its scenes in mid-flow for self-serving monologues. The story veers “back and forth between the personal and the professional” in an uneasy manner. The reviewer thinks those “behind-the-music-with-the-guys-in-suits stuff… so rarely works in these kinds of shows.” I’ve seen some that do work – Beautiful, for one – but this was not one of them.

This I didn’t remember: “Summer, of course, upset a lot of her gay fans with a homophobic remark at a Cleveland concert, at the height of the AIDS crisis to boot.” The story monologue disowning her previous statement was astonishingly clunky.

Ragnarok

Sa 12/11: Likewise, it was the first visit to the Albany Symphony Orchestra at the Palace Theatre, under the direction of David Alan Miller, since COVID. A church friend had tickets he could not use. Yes, proof of COVID vaccinations was needed.

The first piece was Don Juan by Richard Strauss. as the show notes suggest: Strauss “makes us see from the get-go the bravado of this libertine.”

The second and third pieces, one before the intermission and one after, were written by Christopher Rouse (1949-2019). The ASO, which Rouse visited frequently, was to record the compositions the following day.

From the composer’s notes about Heimdall’s Trumpet: his “blasts on his trumpet announce the onset of Ragnarok, the Norse equivalent of Armageddon.” He rightly notes “the title… refers properly to the finale… in a very short orchestral fortissimo outburst…” And it was so!  Eric Berlin was the fine soloist.

Rouse’s bassoon concerto, with the virtuoso Peter Kolkay was a lot more fun, with Kolkay sometimes fading out, yet the orchestra’s other bassoons filling in. It was not buffoonish, though. Comedy is difficult to explain.

Finally, excerpts from The Nutcracker, not just the suite but about a third of the whole ballet.

Church

Su 12/12: Our choir has been rehearsing since October, with everyone with at least two shots. But the group, other than the section leaders, haven’t sung. That is until 11/27 when half the choir got to sing, masked. And no forte, because we’ve read that it is the volume of singing, or speaking, that has the greater chance to spread infection.

My half got to sing on 12/12. It was a little difficult because, being spread out, it was hard to hear the others in the bass section, let alone the other parts.

That said, it was GLORIOUS to be in the choir loft again. I’m not saying I got a little verklempt, but…

So normal-ish. Which is good enough for now.

Blows against the empire

Will I see Summer before summer?

Aside from the day-to-day activities, there have been a few events I have missed. The Blows Against the Empire tour was canceled before it got to Clifton Park, near Albany. It wasn’t that I was desperate to see that show. But I was going to go with my oldest friend from my college days. And he was going to pay!

I was planning a trip to my hometown of Binghamton, NY in March 2020 for two reasons. I’m looking for the transcript of the October 1926 trial involving my biological grandfather Raymond Cone, at which my grandmother, then Agatha Walker, testified against him. I also wanted to track her location in the city directories during the 1930s. However, both City Hall and the local library are closed until they aren’t.

Also, my friend since kindergarten Carol, not to be confused with my wife Carol, was going to fly up from Texas to visit her mom. So I’d have a chance for a visit with her and perhaps my Binghamton-area friends. Not yet.

Postponed, so far

At the Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, I have a subscription. The musical Summer, about the disco queen Donna, has moved from March to June. Will that actually come to pass? Or Dear Evan Hansen, still scheduled for June? Or Come From Away in September? What does theater look like in the era of physical distancing? Does the economic model even work?

Then there are the ersatz gatherings. The weekly church services, which get better as the folks have figured out the technology. The Bible studies. The Google Hangouts, Zoom meetings, and whatnot.

Something that I have discovered about sharing screens on these platforms. Sometimes they can be quite useful. On one Zoom call, a guy with the same surname as some of my ancestors wanted to see my family tree. I’m going to be helping my friend with some librarian skills, and her seeing what I’m working on will be great. On the other hand, one ought not to feel obliged to share JUST because one can, technologically.

We’re muddling through.

New Colossus; Fiddler on the Roof

my second-favorite musical

the new colossusI’ve seen two shows at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady in February, New Colossus and Fiddler on the Roof. I am having difficulty reviewing either, for different reasons.

The New Colossus is a play written by actor Tim Robbins and the cast from the Actors’ Gang Ensemble out of Los Angeles. As Robbins told Democracy Now, “I had 12 actors from various parts of the world, some of whom English was a second language. And I asked them to write their story, write the story of either their immigration or their parents’ or grandparents’ immigration. And we came up with this story of 12 different people, from 12 different time periods, speaking 12 different languages, telling the story of the arduous journey towards freedom — something that unites us, by the way, as a country.”

The tale as told, some with superscript as one experience at some operas, some cacophonous. A lot of literally walking in circles, which I took to represent the tedium of the process. But then the “refugees” communicate with each other, largely without words.

By the end, when each performer describes their ancestor, it is quite affecting. Then Robbins polls the audience about their immigrant journeys. Folks had their picture taken with Robbins. I told him my affection for the movie The Player. On the way home, my wife and I talked about the pacing of the production. But it was a valuable experience.

Tradition

Fiddler on the Roof is my second-favorite musical, behind only West Side Story. And that’s probably only because I’d seen WSS earlier. My first exposure to Fiddler was a version of Sunrise, Sunset sung by Robert Goulet on some Columbia Records compilation from the mid-1960s. I thought it was a bit schlocky. But when I heard it in the musical this year, it may have been the most affecting song.

In this production, I felt more of the oppression of the Jewish people by the government bullies before the ultimate expulsion from Anatefka. There’s a particular physical technique in which Tevye is separated from his third daughter that was fabulous. The relatively barren stage for Tradition, using essentially two large doors, was quite effective.

The Tevye, who I believe was the understudy, was fine. Tzeitel, the eldest daughter, really sold the fear of the Matchmaker’s decision in a way I don’t always feel. I loved the physicality of the young tailor Motel in fear of his future father-in-law.

So if the bottle dance wasn’t as effective as the one I saw at Mac-Hadyn in 2014, whatever. My wife, my daughter and I enjoyed the performance.

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