Talk about random, here's the strange collections of shows I saw in the last week or so.
Tonight was "Jerry Springer: The Opera" - the first of a two night only concert staging of the opera, starring Harvey Keitel in the title role, David Bedella recreating his Olivier Award winning performance as Warm Up Guy/Satan, and with Emily Skinner, Max von Essen and Linda Balgord (among others) in featured parts. Considering the rather large cast required, and the controversial subject matter (more on that in a moment) I guess there's no real chance of this ever going to Broadway. But if it does, run don't walk to the box office with the inevitable discount in hand. Because it is absolutely brilliant... in the first act anyway. The second act takes on a slightly more serious tone (or maybe it just seemed that way because more of the jokes fell flat), which is actually fine, but no where near the awesome wonder that we witnessed before the intermission. The first act is basically just "The Jerry Springer" show set to music... well, to be more specific, "The Jerry Springer" show turned into an opera. And no, they don't mean "opera" like "Rent" is an opera - this isn't just a sung through musical - it's a real opera - the music would easily be at home in an opera house, though I can't imagine any opera house having the chutzpah to present it, what with them relying on donors for funding, and all. In the first act we get a man who has a fiancee... and who is also dating her best friend (played by Linda Balgord... in a green wig and bright pink tights) AND a "chick with a dick" (played by the extremely talented Max von Essen, whose voice I never knew had such a range) then we get a man who wants to be his girlfriend's baby (really a baby - he eventually takes off his clothes to reveal he's wearing a diaper); and then finally there's the misunderstood pole dancer (who gets probably the best song in the show, the extremely touching "I Just Wanna Dance") whose husband is a member of the Ku Klux Klan, which eventually leads to the act one finale - a tap dancing line of Klansman (all of which is absolutely hilarious). Then in act two, Jerry goes to hell and Satan makes him do a show down there, with the guests being Jesus (played by Diaper Man, and who says he is "slightly gay"), Adam and Eve, Mary (who was "raped by G-d"), and finally the big man himself. And people wonder why this show gets protests (supposedly there were protests outside of Carnegie Hall tonight, though with the crowd outside of the theatre, and my rush to get in, I didn't actually notice them). As I said before, the first act is an absolute laugh riot. But I suppose once the opera-ized actual show was finished, they couldn't do just another show for the second act because that would have made it too much of a one-joke evening. So, while the second act solution they came up with isn't really the greatest, it was at least never actually boring.
I've had a dvd of the original London production sitting on my desk for a few years, so I'm going to have to see how it compares. My boss, who was also there tonight, and who saw it in London actually said that he thought this version was better than what he saw in London. So anyway, fingers crossed for a full production on Broadway (hey, "The Color Purple" is closing, and I bet "Jerry Springer" might be able to squeeze in there before "Shrek" officially grabs it), though my breath will not be held.
Sunday I went to the movies to see "Persepolis" which left me decidedly underwhelmed. The animation was definitely beautiful, but I found the screenplay to be extremely weak - the movie was just so slow (it felt about as long as "There Will Be Blood," which was really twice the length of this), and there was just too much voice over/narration for my taste, so that I never really cared about what happened to any of the characters - even the one whose story this was. As a visual work of art, the movie deserves acclaim, but as an overall film, I just don't get the hype.
Saturday night was "Happy Days" (the Beckett play, not the musical based on the TV show) starring the always brilliant Fiona Shaw. I can't say I've ever been a really big fan of the play, but if you have to listen to someone babble on for 100 minutes or so, you can't do much better than Fiona Shaw. I had seen the play a few years ago with Lea Delaria at "Classic Stage Co," and while I don't remember all that much about it, I'm pretty confident that Shaw makes a more compelling Winnie than Delaria. And I have to say her transformation in the second act (as a result of her now being buried up to her neck in sand instead of her waist, and all that takes away from her) was especially devastating to watch. It was almost sort of worth wading through act one, to see that second act transformation. If you get a chance to go (I think it only runs through Saturday), try to sit as close as possible for the best effect. I was in the first row, and well, that certainly helped.
Saturday afternoon, for added randomness was The Little Orchestra's performance of "The Composer is Dead," written and narrated by Lemony Snicket - well, actually as usual Mr. Snicket didn't show up , so his representative, Daniel Handler - who looks remarkably like Snicket showed up instead ;O) Anyway, the piece is really very very funny - and educational. It's apparently going to be released as a book with cd in early 2009, and I'm sure it will be worth buying. What happens is, a composer is found dead (to paraphrase Snicket, "I guess you could say he was decomposing" hyuck, hyuck, hyuck), and so a police officer goes to the orchestra to find out who killed him. And so he goes through each section of the orchestra (violins, violas, concertmaster, percussion, woodwinds, etc) and asks them about their alibis were for the previous evening. And so they say what they were doing (the violins were playing a waltz, for example) and then they demonstrate by playing. I can certainly see this as being useful for elementary school music classes. Though it is fun for children and adults alike... unless you listen to the whiny people who talked through almost the entire performance, and whined that since they mentioned composers like Mozart, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bach (etc) that the kids hadn't heard of, it wasn't appropriate for them. Them, I wanted to turn around and smack.
Friday night was the extremely enjoyable "Two Thousand Years," by Mike Leigh. It's basically a slice of life about a Jewish family in England, that talks about family life, and politics in Israel, and just being Jewish. I think this is one of those shows that you really have to be Jewish to understand. The first act is fine, but in the second act, around a third of the way in, a new character comes in who just turns the whole play up-side-down, and who is absolutely hilarious. For almost the entire time she was onstage, the audience (or, me and the people around me) were in stiches. The rest of the play, is still generally interesting, but that one character alone makes the entire play worthwhile. Oh, and I will say that the entire ensemble does an excellent job. Not a weak link in the cast.
Tuesday and Wednesday were two off-Broadway shows that I don't really care to say much about, because I didn't really care for them. Wednesday was Will Eno's "Oh, The Humanity," a collection of five bewildering short plays that I can't say I really understood. I really liked Eno's "Thom Pain (based on nothing)," but none of these short plays (well, except maybe the fourth one), really excited me.
Tuesday was the first preview (with all that implies) of "Hunting and Gathering" at Primary Stages. It starts off quite amusingly, with the characters talking about life in New York City - about the quirks of the different boroughs, and about the various states of apartment life (buying, rental, couch surfing, apartment sitting, etc). And the characters start off as sort of quirky and charming. Unfortunately, after a half hour or so, their charm wore of and their quirks became extremely irritating, and really I just wanted them to shut up already. This could have made for a fun short play, but it just rambled on for so long with nary a point (or much plot) in sight, that I left very unsatisfied. It was a first preview, so in theory there's hope for it. There are also theories that the universe was created by a flying cow princess named Petunia. I don't really think it's likely that the universe was created by Petunia the cow, and I don't think it's likely "Hunting and Gathering" will improve over the course of previews. But hey, you never know.
