The New York Times has released its list of the top Books of the Year for 2010
Five fiction, five non-fiction. I haven't read any of them. But they make for an intriguing list. In case someome needs ideas on a Christmas gift for me, these are the most tempting three books on that list:
1. Among the fiction entries: A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan. The Times calls it a “virtuosic rock ‘n’ roll novel,” apparently on the grand scale, following 13 characters over four decades, combining their fictional lives into "an artful whole, irradiated by a Proustian feel for loss, regret and the ravages of love.”
2. Non-fiction, APOLLO's ANGELS, by Jennifer Homans. This is a history of ballet. I've never actually sat through a ballet in person. I think I watched all of "The Nutcracker" on television once, but that is the extent of my appreciative history. Still, the history of any art form is bound to prove a microcosm of cultural history in general, and should provide insights from its own particular angle of vision.
3. Memoir, FINISHING THE HAT, the first half of a projected two-volume autobiography by Stephen Sondheim. The strange titular phrase is the name of a song in "Sunday in the Park with George."
Showing posts with label Broadway Showtunes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Broadway Showtunes. Show all posts
05 December 2010
09 December 2007
Jersey Boys and Reality
I saw the "Jersey Boys" at a matinee performance yesterday.
Let's get it straightened out exactly who I saw performing as whom. When I walked into the theatre, the usher handed me a program, including five separate loose slips of paper announcing cast changes. This is not unusual for a matinee, I take it.
The four lead characters are: Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, Frankie Valli, and Bob Gaudio.
As an anonymous informant reminded me in a comment on this blog last week, Travis Cloer plays the Valli role on Saturday matinees these days. One of those cast-change slips they handed me says the same thing: "The role of Frankie Valli will be played by Travis Cloer."
Before the recent changes, I understand, Cloer had played the role of Joe Pesci, the future actor, a 'jersey boy' himself. The script gives Pesci credit for introducing Gaudio to the rest of the group.
So Cloer moved up, if you will, from playing 'Joey' to playing Frankie Valli. Another slip tells me that Eric Schneider stepped into the roles usually played by Cloer. So it was Schneider I saw doing Pesci.
The other three main roles were played as long advertised: by David Reichard (Gaudio), Christian Hoff (DeVito), and J. Robert Spencer (Nick Massi).
Donnie Kehr usually plays Norm Waxman. I'm afraid I can't tell you right now who "Waxman" is exactly. Isn't he the loan shark to whom DeVito owes $150,000?
That's my bet. Anyway, I didn't see Kehr playing Waxman. The slip tells me I saw John Leone doing so. And if he's who I think he is, he did a fine job with it.
I'm not a fan of so-called "jukebox musicals" as a form. I'd rather have the producers of a new musical have the guts to put some new songs into play, rather than relying on the fact that their audience already knows the tunes we're going to hear. Surprise us! Also, I'd like a plot that isn't just a strung-together quasi-documentary that glues the songs together. I enjoyed both Spelling Bee and Chicago far more than I did this. So sue me. Or, as they say in Jersey, Fuhgeddaboddit.
Notwithstanding: I had a fine time. There was some play with the philosophical issue of reality and appearance. We saw the figures on stage talking about the British invasion, and the need to resist it by going on the Ed Sullivan show (as the Liverpudlians famously had) themselves. Then a projection screen appears, and we see two things at once. On the stage we see the actors performing as the Four Seasons did on their Sullivan show gig. On the screen, we see black-and-white footage from that show.
So ... which is the reality and which is the appearance? On the screen we're seeing the "real" Four Seasons, whereas beneath it we're seeing "only" actors. On the other hand, on the stage we're seeing flesh-and-blood three dimensional humans performing. On the screen we're seeing grainy black-and-white images.
So the reality/appearance divide is relative? Like ... wow.
Let's get it straightened out exactly who I saw performing as whom. When I walked into the theatre, the usher handed me a program, including five separate loose slips of paper announcing cast changes. This is not unusual for a matinee, I take it.
The four lead characters are: Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, Frankie Valli, and Bob Gaudio.
As an anonymous informant reminded me in a comment on this blog last week, Travis Cloer plays the Valli role on Saturday matinees these days. One of those cast-change slips they handed me says the same thing: "The role of Frankie Valli will be played by Travis Cloer."
Before the recent changes, I understand, Cloer had played the role of Joe Pesci, the future actor, a 'jersey boy' himself. The script gives Pesci credit for introducing Gaudio to the rest of the group.
So Cloer moved up, if you will, from playing 'Joey' to playing Frankie Valli. Another slip tells me that Eric Schneider stepped into the roles usually played by Cloer. So it was Schneider I saw doing Pesci.
The other three main roles were played as long advertised: by David Reichard (Gaudio), Christian Hoff (DeVito), and J. Robert Spencer (Nick Massi).
Donnie Kehr usually plays Norm Waxman. I'm afraid I can't tell you right now who "Waxman" is exactly. Isn't he the loan shark to whom DeVito owes $150,000?
That's my bet. Anyway, I didn't see Kehr playing Waxman. The slip tells me I saw John Leone doing so. And if he's who I think he is, he did a fine job with it.
I'm not a fan of so-called "jukebox musicals" as a form. I'd rather have the producers of a new musical have the guts to put some new songs into play, rather than relying on the fact that their audience already knows the tunes we're going to hear. Surprise us! Also, I'd like a plot that isn't just a strung-together quasi-documentary that glues the songs together. I enjoyed both Spelling Bee and Chicago far more than I did this. So sue me. Or, as they say in Jersey, Fuhgeddaboddit.
Notwithstanding: I had a fine time. There was some play with the philosophical issue of reality and appearance. We saw the figures on stage talking about the British invasion, and the need to resist it by going on the Ed Sullivan show (as the Liverpudlians famously had) themselves. Then a projection screen appears, and we see two things at once. On the stage we see the actors performing as the Four Seasons did on their Sullivan show gig. On the screen, we see black-and-white footage from that show.
So ... which is the reality and which is the appearance? On the screen we're seeing the "real" Four Seasons, whereas beneath it we're seeing "only" actors. On the other hand, on the stage we're seeing flesh-and-blood three dimensional humans performing. On the screen we're seeing grainy black-and-white images.
So the reality/appearance divide is relative? Like ... wow.
12 April 2007
Lyrics From Spelling Bee
In the musical "Spelling Bee," each major character gets one big character-establishing song. For Olive Ostrowsky, that song is "The 'I Love You' Song". This title is a neat little irony in itself, because Broadway's audiences know that the legends, Rodgers and Hammerstein, made a point of never writing a song for any show that contained the phrase "I love you." They obsessed over how to avoid it.
The title is ironic in another sense, internal to this show, because Olive has just been asked to spell the word "chimerical," a word meaning fastastic or unrealistic. At this point in the play, it's becoming clear to the audience that Olive has in effect been deserted by both her parents -- geographically by Mom, and psychologically by Dad. But she longs to hear "I love you" from them, and so she does. In the course of preparing to spell the word "chimerical."
Olive's Mom is living in India now. In her fantasy, Mom appears, and sings, "We always knew you were a winner/ we saw it when you smiled."
Later, Olive expresses her own frustrations about her mother to the fantasy stand-in.
"When are you returning?
I know we agreed
Tell me what you’re learning
Ma, I had forgot, this neeeed."
To what did Olive and her Mom 'agree'? That Olive wouldn't ask when she was returning? Or that Mom would explain what she has learned, when she did? Does the line "I know we agreed" look forward or backward within that stanza?
We can, of course, hear it either way or both ways. It's a wonderful song.
The title is ironic in another sense, internal to this show, because Olive has just been asked to spell the word "chimerical," a word meaning fastastic or unrealistic. At this point in the play, it's becoming clear to the audience that Olive has in effect been deserted by both her parents -- geographically by Mom, and psychologically by Dad. But she longs to hear "I love you" from them, and so she does. In the course of preparing to spell the word "chimerical."
Olive's Mom is living in India now. In her fantasy, Mom appears, and sings, "We always knew you were a winner/ we saw it when you smiled."
Later, Olive expresses her own frustrations about her mother to the fantasy stand-in.
"When are you returning?
I know we agreed
Tell me what you’re learning
Ma, I had forgot, this neeeed."
To what did Olive and her Mom 'agree'? That Olive wouldn't ask when she was returning? Or that Mom would explain what she has learned, when she did? Does the line "I know we agreed" look forward or backward within that stanza?
We can, of course, hear it either way or both ways. It's a wonderful song.
15 March 2007
Man of La Mancha
I saw a production of Man of La Mancha at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn. this weekend.
It was an unusual production, and one that mnight disappoint you if your expectations for this musical were created by the old Broadway play or the 1973 movie (with Sophia Loren and Peter O'Toole) based thereon.
As always, the frame story is that Cervantes is awaiting trial by the Spanish Inquisition arising from his activities as a tax collector. In this grim surrounding, Cervantes encourages the other prisoners in a "pantomime," in which they act out the story of Alonso Quijana, the man who in his madness persuades himself that he is Don Quixote, the knight of the woeful countenance.
Usually, the staging escapes the frame story pretty quickly. Cervantes has a miraculous trunk with him in the dungeon which he employs to dress every prisoner appropriately, and we are off -- out of the dungeon -- battling windmills that are giants, hosted by innkeepers who are noble lords.
In this case, the staging never escaped the frame. We're always kept very aware of the fact that Quijanes/Quixote is "really" Cervantes, and everybody is really still in the confined dungeon awaiting word on their respective fates.
Personally, I enjoyed this production on its own terms. Herbert Perry was in wonderful voice as the idealistically delusional knight, and Hollis Resnick brings the right vulnerability, wistfulness, and wariness to the roles of Escalante (in the dungeon), Aldona (in Cervantes' story) and Dulcinea (in the Don's fantasy).
It was an unusual production, and one that mnight disappoint you if your expectations for this musical were created by the old Broadway play or the 1973 movie (with Sophia Loren and Peter O'Toole) based thereon.
As always, the frame story is that Cervantes is awaiting trial by the Spanish Inquisition arising from his activities as a tax collector. In this grim surrounding, Cervantes encourages the other prisoners in a "pantomime," in which they act out the story of Alonso Quijana, the man who in his madness persuades himself that he is Don Quixote, the knight of the woeful countenance.
Usually, the staging escapes the frame story pretty quickly. Cervantes has a miraculous trunk with him in the dungeon which he employs to dress every prisoner appropriately, and we are off -- out of the dungeon -- battling windmills that are giants, hosted by innkeepers who are noble lords.
In this case, the staging never escaped the frame. We're always kept very aware of the fact that Quijanes/Quixote is "really" Cervantes, and everybody is really still in the confined dungeon awaiting word on their respective fates.
Personally, I enjoyed this production on its own terms. Herbert Perry was in wonderful voice as the idealistically delusional knight, and Hollis Resnick brings the right vulnerability, wistfulness, and wariness to the roles of Escalante (in the dungeon), Aldona (in Cervantes' story) and Dulcinea (in the Don's fantasy).
14 March 2007
Social psychology and music
Rentfrow, P.J., & Gosling, S.D. (2003). The do re mi's of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1236-1256. Also ...
Rentfrow, P.J., & Gosling, S.D. (2006). Message in a Ballad: The role of music preferences in interpersonal perception. Psychological Science, 17, 236-242.
Rentfrow and Gosling divide music thus:
1. Reflective and Complex (blues, jazz, classical, and folk)
2. Intense and Rebellious (rock, alternative, heavy metal)
3. Upbeat and Conventional (country music, Broadway Showtunes, Top 40 formats)
4. Energetic and Rhythmic (rap, soul, electronica....).
According to Rentfrow et ux, people who prefer (1) are likely to be open to experience, intelligent and aware of that, verbally agile, emotionally stable, and politically liberal. Those who prefer (2) are also open to experience intelligent etc., but are more extraverted than the first group, more likely to be athletic and have a "social dominance orientation" -- i.e. they'll want to become the president of whatever outfit they join. Those who prefer (3) are friendly extraverted folks, conscientious, probably not as intelligent as members of the first two groups, and are politically conservative. Finally, the folks who like (4) are extraverted, agreeable, physically attractive and aware of it, and also politically conservative.
You can now have some fun deciding whether any of this describes you and your preferences. Personally, my iPod is split between songs that these professors would probably put in (1) and those they'd put in (3). But utterly lacking in songs they'd put in (2) or (4).
You are free to draw your own conclusions.
Please don't conclude that I refrain from giving credit where it's due, though. I didn't run across this research, I lifted it from a science-oriented blog.
http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/03/what_does_your_music_say_about_1.php
Rentfrow, P.J., & Gosling, S.D. (2006). Message in a Ballad: The role of music preferences in interpersonal perception. Psychological Science, 17, 236-242.
Rentfrow and Gosling divide music thus:
1. Reflective and Complex (blues, jazz, classical, and folk)
2. Intense and Rebellious (rock, alternative, heavy metal)
3. Upbeat and Conventional (country music, Broadway Showtunes, Top 40 formats)
4. Energetic and Rhythmic (rap, soul, electronica....).
According to Rentfrow et ux, people who prefer (1) are likely to be open to experience, intelligent and aware of that, verbally agile, emotionally stable, and politically liberal. Those who prefer (2) are also open to experience intelligent etc., but are more extraverted than the first group, more likely to be athletic and have a "social dominance orientation" -- i.e. they'll want to become the president of whatever outfit they join. Those who prefer (3) are friendly extraverted folks, conscientious, probably not as intelligent as members of the first two groups, and are politically conservative. Finally, the folks who like (4) are extraverted, agreeable, physically attractive and aware of it, and also politically conservative.
You can now have some fun deciding whether any of this describes you and your preferences. Personally, my iPod is split between songs that these professors would probably put in (1) and those they'd put in (3). But utterly lacking in songs they'd put in (2) or (4).
You are free to draw your own conclusions.
Please don't conclude that I refrain from giving credit where it's due, though. I didn't run across this research, I lifted it from a science-oriented blog.
http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/03/what_does_your_music_say_about_1.php
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