That right, everybody! It's time for the annual New York International Fringe Festival! Do you feel that your theatrical experience is severely lacking in self-conscious musicals, one-person confessionals, masturbation, hand puppets, and masturbation by hand puppets? Then by golly, Fringe Festival is the place for you!
Okay, so I'm not going to watch Finger Love *shudder*, but I do have my heart set on The Mayor Who Would Be Sondheim. If you're looking for something at the intersection of the political and the theatrical, you'll find no shortage of material at Fringe. If you're looking for onstage nudity...well, same thing. Heck, sometimes you get them all at the same time! With dance numbers!
At $15 a ticket, even the cheapest viewer can afford to take a few risks here- and since nearly all the shows are new and only on for a few nights, risk-taking is the order of the day. Last year I hit gold with Le Comedie du Bicyclette, got disappointed by The Passion of George W. Bush, and kicked myself for passing on Dog Meets God. This year? Who knows. But with 184 shows playing in just over 2 weeks, there's sure to be something interesting.
Okay, so it isn't exactly a premonition of peace on earth, but the I.R.A.'s decision to disarm and renounce violence has been one of the best international news stories in ages. Am I crazy for letting this give me some hope for the future?
Maybe it's just that anything that has even the faintest whiff of terrorism is distinctly frowned upon in the Western world post 9/11. Maybe they got fed up with the means they were using to attain their ends. Maybe it's just that the fight that lost steam; I don't know. But if sectarian violence as fierce and trenchant as that in Ireland can be truly ended this way, not with jittery cease-fires and ignored treaties but with a real renunciation of violent tactics...well, it makes you wonder if violent tactics in other places will be delegitimized, too.
Oh, Quick Mask tool. How I love thee. You make feathered selections so very easy.
After time spent flirting with Elements, I'm back in full Photoshop mode. That means lots of shiny channels and paths and other advanced tools I'm only half-familiar with. Custom brushes! Vector masks! Anchor points! Joy!
It's funny- London started out as the "easy" choice for a foreign-study program. It was English-speaking, foreign but not too much so, and had the closest thing I could get to New York's theater scene. Now it's getting suicide bombers at a rate that would make anyone sit up and pay attention, even if most of them haven't succeeded.
Of course that's a small and selfish perspective on everything that's been happening in England, and of course I'm still going in the fall. But I wonder if anything has changed? I mean, what can I do that I wouldn't have done anyway? I've had "report unattended packages" pounded into my head for as long as I can remember, and avoiding mass transit is out of the question. So all I have is this anxiety that can't be acted upon. I can only give terrorists the mental middle finger I've been giving them my whole life and never, ever start blaming anyone but them for what they do. Same old, same old.
After weeks of reading Oscar Wilde, Chaim Potok, Agatha Christie, and Philip Roth, I finally said, "Enough with Englishmen and Jews" and deliberately set out to get other kinds of authors in the library today. Naturally, I ended up snatching more than I'll probably be able to read by the due date, but that's okay.
The results of my diversity-oriented haul? A bunch of August Wilson plays, the book of A Little Night Music, and judicious sprinklings of Neal Stephenson, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Roger Angell and Yasunari Kawabata. Some sci-fi and baseball essays should be a good mental pick-me-up. Of course, I have to finish Zuckerman Bound first. It's good stuff, but there's only so much Jewishness even I can take.
Taking advantage of a newly widened rush policy, I saw Glengarry Glen Ross last night. To be completely honest, I may or may not post a review. But I will say it was interesting to see a play after seeing the movie adaptation. For some reason, I usually like to go into theatrical productions with as little back information as possible, but if a movie is based on a book I'll try to do the reading first. Just me being strange, I suppose.
Oh, and I knew the Yankees' division lead wouldn't last. But sometimes it stinks being right.
I realize this isn't likely to last long, and very well might not be true at the end of the season, so I'll just celebrate while I can. With tonight's victory against the Texas Rangers, the Yankees are in first place for the first time since April.
Their rotation is practically nonexistent, there's a gaping hole in center field, and the big bullpen arms are probably going to explode from overwork, but by golly, they've managed to climb to the top of the division again. I love this game.
If you're going to adapt the quirky-creepy world of a Roald Dahl book into a live action film, who better to guide that adaptation than Tim Burton? This new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seemed promising from the time it was announced, and I'm happy to say the actual product didn't disappoint. (The trailer is thankfully deceptive.)
This is a fairly close adaptation of the book- amazingly, the biggest change to the story's actual events was altering the ending so it was less conducive to a sequel. Whodathunkit? The script also gives Willy Wonka an ironic backstory- the great chocolateer was the son of an overly zealous dentist. But though Christopher Lee does a great job as the elder Wonka, the backstory is awkwardly integrated as flashbacks, complete with cheesy swirling scene transitions. The other minor changes are actually quite imaginative and appropriate- Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry) is transformed from mere couch potato to a violent video game addict, and bubble gum enthusiast Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb) becomes an ultra-competitive martial arts as well as gum-chewing champion.
The film shows great visual sense- it's an appropriately candy-colored feast, both beautiful and bizarre in turn, with plenty of memorable images. Sweet Charlie Bucket (the earnest but almost inflectionless Freddie Highmore) lives in a tilted, broken-down shack. Hundreds of women in a factory go through a perfectly choreographed routine to find a Golden Ticket for the spoiled Veruca Salt (Julia Winter). Even the face of Charlie's Grandpa Joe (David Kelly) seems like a visual effect, it's so massively wrinkled and expressive.
But really, that face is nothing compared to the bizarre visage of Johnny Depp's Wonka. Sporting a wig-like haircut, skin so pale it would make Michael Jackson scream in envy, and perfectly straight and porclain-like teeth, the chocolate-maker is, on first sight, more alarming than anything else. Between his appearance and his offbeat line deliveries, it took me a while to warm to this Wonka, but in the end the interpretation mostly won me over. That backstory probably helped- it definitely helped explain the teeth.
Outside of Burton, I think the best thing about this movie isn't Depp but Danny Elfman, who set all of Dahl's Oompa-Loompa songs to music and sang them (with the help of vocal distortion) himself. Deep Roy is exquisitely deadpan as all of Wonka's tiny factory workers, and the dance numbers are a hoot. With a few "I want" numbers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could have been a great movie musical.
I love you, Jon Stewart, complete ignorance of Harry Potter and all.
Oh, and your set is still ugly.
Love,
Me
ETA- Despite their best efforts to the contrary, the Yankees managed to beat the Red Sox today, thanks to a blown save by Curt "bloody sock" Schilling. Oh, how sweet it would be if the most self-aggrandizing member of that endlessly self-aggrandizing team never quite recovered.
So who's the hottest chick on the Minnesota Twins? Vote now!
Oh, and if your eyeballs shrivel up and fall out of their sockets I'm not taking responsibility. Enjoy!
In the past week, Jason Giambi has scored 5 runs on 10 hits, including 2 doubles and 4 home runs. His batting average has been 0.556, his on-base percentage 0.619, and his OPS an outrageous 1.952.
I'd say the man has found his power switch, wouldn't you?
Giambi's latest home run helped the Yankees beat the Indians by a score of 9-5. New York is now only 2.5 games out of first place and 2 games out of the wild card. How incredibly lucky is it that the year the Yankees fall apart is the year the rest of the league pretty much does the same thing? With division leaders like Washington, San Diego, Anaheim, and the White Sox, it feels like anything can happen- even a late-season triumph by the doddering old guard.
That said, the Yanks aren't nearly as doddering as they could have been, and I'm proud of them for that. Maybe they were forced into it by their immense and inflxible payroll, but they've finally overcome their overwhelming phobia of young players from their own system. And the rookies haven't disappointed. Chien-Ming Wang, only 25 years old, has been as close as the team can get to an ace, and this in a rotation that contains Mike Mussina and Randy Johnson. Robinson Cano, an outright baby at 22, has been a welcome relief from the Tony Womack Experience at second base. The latest callup, center fielder Melky Cabrera, has been a mixed bag in his 3-game career, but if he manages to be a bit above average defensively and a bit below average with the bat he'll be a godsend. And he's only 20! Way to make me feel like an underachiever, man.
Am I happy with this Yankee team? No, not really. The awful personnel decisions of this past winter still rankle, the woes of the pitchers who were supposed to be relied on have been extremely frustrating, and watching the worst hitter in baseball (see Womack, Tony) in the lineup night after night was enough to make me scream. But they just won't fall out of contention. They screw up, they miss their chances, they're stuck with some of the most misguided contracts in the league, but they keep on scrapping it out for a playoff spot. And if Giambi really has found his swing again, it'll be like acquiring an MVP midseason for free. So I'll keep on rooting for what passes for my home team. Because I'm a fan, and therefore an idiot, and I can't stop.
I'm going to Shakespeare in the Park. Weather gods, please don't ruin this for me.
I've lost 6 pounds since the school year ended, but had a dream last night that I'd lost 13. The dream also involved several zebras and a game of cricket, the fact that I know nothing about cricket notwithstanding.
So, anyone want to inerpret what that means?
So I was worrying about my future, and decided to really look at what I can do once I graduate college. It turns out that a remarkable number of "entry-level" jobs actually require a year of experience. Also, there's programs for getting your J.D. and M.A. at the same time. My inner academic masochist was really happy to see that.
Yes, I'm insane. Shut up.
I watched Young Adam in hopes that I might discern just what it is that makes women my age go ga-ga about Ewan McGregor.
I still don't get it.
That said, I'm not really blaming Mr. McGregor, because the movie was pretty awful. Young Adam can pretty much be summed up as: People look glum. Eqan McGregor has sex. Rinse and repeat. Almost the entire movie was flat and affectless, a total waste of the talents of Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer. My favorite of the four leads was actually Peter Mullan, the only one I'd never seen before. He was the one who managed to summon up the most moments of warmth in the glum fog of this film.
So unless Ewan McGregor (or Tilda Swinton, or Emily Mortimer) naked is reason enough to get you to watch, just skip Young Adam. It's a waste of time.
When the name of a great book also happens to be the name of a musical genre, it seems to cry out for musicalization. Of course, E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime is no ordinary story, but Terrence McNally's book somehow manages to transform the sprawling tale into a slightly less sprawling show that's well-served by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's score. The show, in turn, is being exceedingly well-served by the current production at the Paper Mill Playhouse.
The scenery is spare and minimalistic, putting all the focus on the performers and music. Thankfully, they more than stand up under that scrutiny. The glorious Rachel York is a radiant, graceful Mother, and with her clear soprano she captures every nuance of the character's journey from smiling housewife to independent, assertive, free-thinking woman. Her delivery of "Back to Before" was truly fierce, and the audience could hardly wait to applaud her when it was over.
I last saw Ms. York in Dessa Rose, another Ahrens and Flaherty show that I couldn't help but compare unfavorably to Ragtime as I watched it. Kenita R. Miller, who understudied the title character that day, also appeared in Ragtime as Sarah. Sounding uncannily like Audra McDonald, she had a sweet chemistry with her Coalhouse Walker, Quentin Earl Darrington. I felt that Darrington was the weakest of the leads, but only by a fraction of a degree. His vocals just couldn't live up to those of Brian Stokes Mitchell, who originated the role, but I could have lived with that if he hadn't gone flat a few times.
Neal Benari was a charming Tateh, Shonn Wiley sang wonderfully as Younger Brother, Matthew Scott was an appropriately impish Houdini, and Justin Lee Miller exuded dignity as Booker T. Washington. There are too many cast members to name individually, but suffice to say that all the performances ranged from good to great.
Stafford Arima's direction was fluid and lively, which served to counteract the sprawling nature of the material. And I don't know how much of Liza Genarro's choreography was inspired by Graciela Daniele's work in the original production, but it was very good, and sometimes outright wonderful. The staging of the opening number was about as close to perfection as you can get in theater, with lyrics, music, and dance all speaking to the themes and characters of the show. I don't know much about dance, but I do know that all the choreography I've seen on Broadway lately doesn't seem much more than adequate. So watching this production made me want to shout, "Look! Dance that actually says something!"
Hearing Aherns and Flaherty's score well-played by a live orchestra under the direction of David Loud was a joy, and if I sometimes wished there were a few more ensemble members to make the sound truly epic, it wasn't enough to really diminish that enjoyment. Paper Mill has really done well with this production, and I couldn't be happier I braved the confusion of the New Jersey Transit train system to see it.
Only a couple of people will even get the point of this entry, but what the heck.
I heard this news a while ago, but didn't make the connection. Guess who's taking over the role of Lancelot in Spamalot while Hank Azaria is out?
Alan Tudyk. Yes, that Alan Tudyk.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to laugh until my sides split.
ETA- Okay, only one person will get this, but: Eeeeeee!!