One Sweet Weekend

Oh, what a great weekend last weekend was. Saturday I went to Candide at Porchlight, which was thoroughly delightful. I've never seen any production of it before, and this one lived up to Porchlight's generally stellar standards (not counting last fall's Phantom). Ryan Lanning was just adorable as Candide and quite an excellent performer, and Jeremy Rill as Maximillian was also quite fantastic, with this and his turn in Jerry Springer, he's quite the performer to watch at the moment. The orchestra was set up in the middle of the theatre with platforms extending on all sides, and the audience set up around all four walls of the room, so it was more of an in-the-round production, but it worked really well to give the story a sense of the characters' travels around the world. The orchestra was great, although I'm not a fan of reduced instrument overture orchestrations. Overtures should either be done full orchestra or just piano, anything in between feels incomplete. However, the orchestra did an excellent job with what they were given, and then once the show started they really complemented the performers well. I was particularly impressed with percussionist Phil Martin (also quite the cutie) who interacted with the actors as part of the story-telling. It only plays this weekend and then it's done, so go catch it.

Then, Sunday night was all about Madonna and the Sticky & Sweet Tour. This was by far her best tour since Drowned World (which I did not get to see in person, although not for lack of trying, and had to settle for watching on HBO). She only started 50 minutes later and kept the AC on. Apparently getting divorced has actually loosened her up. She seemed much more relaxed on stage and focused on having a good time and giving the audience a good time instead of putting on huge, spectacular yet soulless spectacles. The show was much more focused in that it really was a promotion of Hard Candy and made a terrific argument for giving the unjustly overlooked CD (her second worst selling after American Life) a second look. She did just about the entire CD over the course of the 2 hour show, and worked in one song from each previous CD except for Like A Virgin which was oddly unrepresented, but since she did Material Girl on both previous tours and Like A Virgin on the Confessions tour, she may have felt it was time to give it a rest. For those who want to know, the older songs were: Borderline (in a great punk-pop arrangement), La Isla Bonita (the show's one misfire done in a hoe-down meets gypsy band arrangement), Into The Groove with a brief sampling of Jump (one of the best moments of the show), Like A Prayer (the best performance of the show), Vogue, but done to the accompaniment of Heartbeat from Hard candy (and Vogue covered both I'm Breathless and Immaculate Collection, she did not do either of the "new" songs from Immaculate nor did she do any of the "new" songs from Something To Remember), Rain, done as a video interlude during a costume change with a sampling of the Eurythmics Here Comes The Rain Again, Human Nature, You Must Love Me (making the concert showtune queen relevant), Ray of Light, a sampling of Beautiful Stranger, Die Another Die (done as a vocal-over during a costume change while two dancers did a homoerotic boxing routine) and Hung Up. So, it was about half Hard Candy and Half hits, not a bad ratio for a tour for any artist. Furthermore, I was so much closer this time than the other two times. Both previous times we were up in the upper 300 level of the UC, this time we were in the 100 level and had the perfect seats. We were in the uppermost row of the section, so there was no one behind us, and above on of the entrances to the section, so there was no one sitting in front of us. We could stand when we wanted to and sit when we wanted to, which was nice since I was wearing my uncomfortable boots that make me taller so I can see over people if I have to. We were about halfway along the wall between the stage and where the stadium curves around, and she had the same set up as the Confessions tour; the stage with video screens and then a long catwalk extending about halfway down the main floor, so when she was at the end of the catwalk, she was almost right in front of us, I got to actually see her in so much more detail this time instead of seeing a tiny stick figure down on the stage in harsh backlighting, and at 50 years old, she looks damn better than most people do in a lifetime. The costumes and video backdrops were also much more colorful this time, giving the show a much more upbeat lighthearted feel. She only made two lengthy costume changes this time, keeping the momentum going, and interpersed it with a few very brief costume modifications, which kept the show moving and kept it from bogging down. She also cut most of the mystical, save the world, Kabbalah crap that seriously bogged down a good portion of the Confessions tour, limiting it to an appropriate video display during Like A Prayer, and she also limited the political save the world commentary that bogged down Reinvention, again limiting it to one video montage, the one with the infamous shot of John McCain mixed in with shots of dictators past and present. There was no mirrored cross with a crown of thorns, no grenade thrown at Bush, or anything else done for shock value instead of pure entertainment. It was a great night and finally the show that I always imagined a Madonna concert would be. I'll definitely be there the next time she comes through.

One More Thing

I know I just posted, but motherfuck, I just got an email from Broadway in Chicago with Linda Eder One Night Only as the subject, eagerly opened it up, and it turns out the one night is December 13, the same night we already have tickets for Grey Gardens at Northlight. Linda, if you're reading, please reschedule. Why is it you go to Rosemont the nights I'm free and make me drive all the way out there and deal with their fucked-up parking and then half the time you're in the city when I can easily hop on the el, you chose nights that I already have something? Seriously, you've got to check with me first. I'm sure it will be a fabulous concert, I wouldn't expect anything else from you, and wish I could be there.

Prompt Devotion, Delayed Post

Well, it's been, and will continue to be, a busy week. Pearl Fishers at the Lyric was excellent. For being a fairly slight opera, they really turned it into an all-out event production. It was nice to see Nathan Gunn this time around (he was out sick for Barber of Seville in February, which apparently was just a cursed production, the Lyric's version of Macbeth), and the homo-erotic subtext matched that of Iphigenie en Tauride from two years ago. All in all a fabulous production.

However, the event of the week was Monday night when I saw Duffy at the Vic. I love her CD. Of course Mercy is an awesome song, but Delayed Devotion is probably my favorite. Still, knowing that this was her first tour and she only has one (very short) CD out, my expectations were not that high, but man did she come through. First of all, I have not been to the Vic in over 10 years, and that place is just disgusting, so there was kind of a flowers of the mud type of feeling to show, but that just helped the overall ambience. She is so beautiful, much more than you would expect from the photos in the CD booklet which make her look kind of working-class British (ie, not attractive), but in person she's got kind of a Charro crossed with 60's-era Jane Fonda look going on and it really works. Her voice is a little more chipmunk-y/Kristen Chenoweth-y in person than on the CD, and that kind of threw more for the first song, Syrup & Honey, but once I got used to it, it was great, and I could totally see her playing Glinda if she ever wanted to take a break and try something different. For that matter, I could even see her playing Elphaba, but then the Glinda would need a different tone to provide the vocal contrast. Anyways, she did all the songs on the CD, and I've got two words for Distant Dreamer--Dance Mix. That was her last song and she started it very subdued and really worked it up in intensity, even though it's a ballad it could be a killer dance mix the way Whitney Houston's My Love is Your Love and I Learned From The Best turned out to be. She also did 3 new songs, one of which is a B side (Today) and two other new ones, one of which should be the upcoming single from the next CD, called "Rain on Your Parade," which is kind of a Mercy sound with a little more club/dance-y feel to it, it really got the audience going and I sure liked it. It was a short concert, she was on for about 70 minutes, and even with the opening act (which was not that great, some guy named Eli "Paperboy" something or other from Boston doing kind of a 60's-ish blues/rock kind of sound), it was over before 10. But, it was the kind of show that then makes you want to go out for a couple drinks after and then a few more somewhere else, and make a whole night of it, going home around 4:00 am, as opposed to more established divas who put on such a spectacle that you're exhausted just watching it by the end and just want to get home. Ten years ago I would have hit Spin or Roscoe's afterwards, but now I'm responsible and went home and went to work the next day.

This weekend I've got Candide on Saturday at Porchlight and the big one, Madonna, on Sunday (and yes, she's kind of one of the one's I'm referring to putting on a big spectacle that wears the audience down, but she at least makes the wearing down process enjoyable, it's usually the audience that ends up driving me nuts at her shows, although it is nice not to be the gayest person around, it's not that often that that happens). I'm very excited about her, although a little worried that at any minute she's going to decide the stress of the upcoming divorce is too much and just chuck the rest of the tour the way Britney did with her Onyx hotel tour in 2004. Madonna's a little more with it though, and her Kabbala advisors will definitely encourage her to keep going because the more money she rakes in from the tour the more she'll donate to them. I've almost got my outfit picked out, I just have to decide between two shirts. It's going to be fairly cold on Sunday, but she always has it hotter than the fiery furnace with her air-conditioning phobia, so I want to dress cool enough to be comfortable but warm enough that I don't catch a cold on the way there or back. Of course I'm going to end up going for fashion and wear something skimpier that will be more comfortable at the show and just deal with the cold afterwards. Now, if she can just start something reasonably close to on time this time. . .

It looks like New York is going to get delayed just a couple of weeks, but after all this busy-ness lately, I certainly don't mind. It looks like we'll be flying out Friday morning November 14 and the coming back in the evening on Monday the 17th, so even though it's short, I'll still get one more show than we had last time if I can find something to see on Sunday night. If there's nothing I may see what the Met is doing and do an opera, which would work out well if we see South Pacific Sunday afternoon. We could do that, go to dinner nearby, and then come back across the Lincoln Center plaza for the opera and then we're only about 4 blocks from the hotel. Plus, even if Sunday night doesn't work out, it's still one more show than we would have gotten had we gone next weekend because we would have flown out Saturday, so I can get Equus, August OC, South Pacific and hopefully Mindgame, which will have officially opened instead of still being in previews. My companion is actually much more excited about Mindgame than I would have expected, but Keith Carradine in a Ken Russell directed play is exactly why you go to New York for theatre. Speaking of New York theatre, what's up with the sudden rash of Best Musical winners announcing closing dates? In less than a week, Spamalot, Hairspray, and Spring Awakening all announced that they will be closing in January. Granted, I'm not broken up at all about Spamalot and hope that Clay will follow it up with a super gay gay gay project that will finally live up to the potential he showed on Idol, and Hairspray has had a good run and is getting Harvey back to send it off, but it seems kind of soon for Spring Awakening, and it's disappointing that Hunter's run is getting cut short. Maybe he'll need some consolation while I'm there? Still, the tour is going strong and plans to continue on with it's original schedule. It can't bring Kyle to Chicago soon enough. Phantom, Jersey Boys, Lion King, Avenue Q and In The Heights need to watch out, they're the last winners remaining. I'm sure Phantom and Jersey Boys are fairly recession-proof (Phantom's going on it's third and still going strong), but Lion King, Avenue Q and especially In The Heights could be vulnerable, their numbers are trending down, and if that accelearates, Ave. Q may not need to worry about coming up with a new lyric for it's second to last line once Bush is out of office. For that matter, Chicago and South Pacific may want to watch out, this trend may spread to the Best Revival winners.

Patti countdown: A week and a half until the CD comes out, and as a bonus, Jackie Hoffman is releasing her live CD on the same day, which will make for a very diva-licious afternoon as I enjoy the CD's after picking them up at Borders on my lunch. Anyways, that's all for now, just wanted to get a quick posting out on a rare break. See you after Madonna!

A Tale of Three Shows

Well, I feel like I should call this the reunion posting or something. It's been way too long since I've had the chance to sit down and get my thoughts out in a public forum. Oh, the fun of being back in class. Speaking of class, I've got my reservations for my Anaheim colloquium made for the end of December, and I've heard that Max went back to LA after finishing in Grease so maybe there's hope yet for a personal encounter. If not Max, I've also got my sights set on Jensen Ackles from Supernatural, nothing would make me happier than a personal hotel room visit from the leading man on the best show on TV. Seriously, where's his Emmy?

Anyways, personal fantasies aside, this has been a busy few weeks outside of having started clas again. Two weeks ago I saw Jersey Boys and I can now officially say that The Drowsy Chaperone should have won the Tony for Best Musical two years ago. Jersey Boys is definitely entertaining but that's about it. There's no deeper meaning to the story, it's just their biography played out on stage to their music. We had "limited view" seats in the dress circle area, which meant that we could see all of the floor of the stage, but we couldn't see any of the LCD signs that came down from the ceiling every so often to provide mood scenery, and we could only see from about waist down on the actors who went up to the second level of the stage and walked around. Fortuntately, not much took place up there that fully needed to be seen. It was worth it for $60, I'd rather miss a few facial expressions and signs than pay $150 for main floor seats. The music is pretty much what you get on the cast recording and everyone did a good job. However, what really turned me off to this show was when I was looking through the playbill at intermission, I saw a name that looked familiar. I kind of chuckled at the coincidence but then read the bio and it actually was someone I had gone to High School with and absolutely HATED. This guy was so needy for attention, obnoxious, show-offy, arrogant, and just a general ass, I felt a huge surge of disgust with the world that someone so undeserving has my fabulous showbiz life. However, I then remembered that he always had a penchant for self-aggrandizement and reading between the lines in his bio, I realize that his life must pretty much suck. While he is an Equity member, his bio listed three other shows in addition to Jersey Boys in the almost 15 years since we graduated High School, and they were: the touring production of Mamma Mia (and who hasn't been in that ), the touring production of Joseph. . .(and who hasn't done that) and the touring production of My Fair Lady (and who hasn't done that). Obviously he's the local cast component that Equity touring contracts require producers to use, and he still hasn't been able to get into anything good, no Wicked, no Chicago, no Cabaret, no Avenue Q, not even The Color Purple, nothing of any artistic or national significance, and no local productions, not Porchlight, not BoHo, not Lookingglass, much less Steppenwolf or Goodman. Plus, he was the very last cast member mentioned and the first one to come out and take a bow, so he's obviously very low on the Jersey Boys totem pole. I didn't even recognize him in the first act and it was only because I had seen his name and picture in the playbill during intermission that I recognized him in the first place. Time has not been good to him at all (and that's not just my sour grapes gloating, his headshot looked awful), and that may be due in large part to his pot habit that he developed senior year and ended up getting him kicked out of all of his activities (to my great delight) 6 weeks before graduation. That might also explain his lack of professional advancement, after all a pothead's motto is tomorrow I will (in this case, audition, practice, etc.), today I'm going to eat chips, and he's obviously had a lot of chips. So, while Jersey Boys was entertaining, I didn't feel that it was anything more special than Buddy or Ella or any of the other regional musical bio-shows around. Plus, the it really wasn't even a musical. The vast majority of music was all actually part of the show, they were performing the songs to audiences, and while the songs that were picked added emotional resonance to the scenes, particularly in the better second act, no one just burst into song while walking down the street. The only time the music came from outside the story was at the very end of the first act when Tommy gets busted for gambling and the other guys surround him and just sing out the one line "Walk like a man," and that was as jarring as Jennifer Hudson (speaking of, I am so ecstatic that her CD is getting panned and after a decent debut on the record charts is dropping like a stone), suddenly singing to Beyonce and the other girl halfway through Dreamgirls when all the music up to that point has also been performances as part of the story. Just because there's music in the story does not automatically make it a musical, and for that reason alone, I would say that The Drowsy Chaperone is a much better musical, not to mention that Drowsy had much more entertaining and relevant story that actually means something.

So, moving from Jersey Boys, as we all know, the creators of that show are now premiering their second musical, which is also a jukebox musical, at the Goodman, called Turn of the Century, and directed by Tommy Tune. After weeks of badgering my companion, we went to see that last weekend, which gave me a good opportunity to compare and contrast the two efforts. Century is definitely the better show, although still not what I would consider Broadway-calliber. It's a great regional show and could have a good life off-Broadway, but it's still too insignificant and small-scale to really work on a Broadway stage. However, once the show got started, up until about 5 minutes before the end, I really enjoyed it. It's only 100 minutes long, no intermission. The stage is gorgeous, it's got a circle-shaped procscenium made up to look like a clock, which cuts down on the visible stage space which may be part of what keeps it feeling small, both for better and worse, and the stage is completely white. The sets are minimal, but it works well, allowing our imaginations to fill in the blanks and working well with the Goodman's limited space so that the stage never seemed overcrowded, which very easily could have happened. Jeff Daniels is a passable singer and excellent actor, and Rachel York, as I expected, was FABULOUS. There was much more of a story, which as we all know by this point concerns two never-been lounge performers who at midnight on December 31, 1999, get transported back 100 years to 1900 rather than forward into 2000. They become huge stars by "writing" the great songs of Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Helen Reddy (in the best segment of the show), and most importantly to the plot, Irving Berlin. Most of the show consists of them performing these songs, but they do sing some of them to each other and to other outside of the performances, making it a true, if slight, musical, unlike Jersey Boys. However, I was not fond at all of the Moulin Rouge-esque opening number in which the entire cast sang Prince's 1999, it was completely cringe-inducing and needs to seriously be rethought (and I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Moulin Rouge; not a good movie, REALLY not a good movie), and I wanted more of a resolution than the How I Met Your Mother styled ending (kids, did I ever tell you about the time your mother and I got sent back in time and created musical history?). The first half of the story seemed as if it was going to set up an Alan Ayckborn Communicating Doors-style story as the duo's rivals become more and more desparate to figure out how they write such great songs so quickly, but then that story got dropped once the real Irving Berlin, at that point 12 years old, showed up and then it became more of a melodrama between Jeff Daniels and Rachel York, although it did give us the second best moment of the show as they belted out Anyplace I Hang My Hat is Home, and then as Rachel became overwhelemed with guilt and ran off, it descended into a Bette Davis Dangerous style story line before resolving in a How I Met Your Mother storyline ending. The story definitely needs to be tightened a bit a given more of a focus, trimming about 10 minutes off to take it down to a flat 90 would help a lot, but there's a lot of potential. I'd definitely recommend Turn over Jersey Boys. Hopefully we'll get a cast recording out of it someday, although we're still waiting for The Visit recording going on 7 years later. At least we got Bounce, although I have a feeling we're going to get gouged for a new recording once it opens as Road Show in New York in a few weeks. Still, for Michael Cerveris and Alexander Gemignani, I think I'd shell out the bucks.

However, despite the dualing Brickman and Elice shows, the best entertainment value for the dollar right now is north of the city at Northlight Theatre in Skokie where they are doing a sharp, fantastic, chilling production of a new play version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (and note I said new play, it's not the Frank Wildhorn Jekyll and Hyde musical). We saw that last night and I am still in awe 12 hours later. It's the best dramatized version of the story I've seen, with the possible exception of BBC America's Jekyll mini-series last summer, although that one went off on a lot of sci-fi-ish tangents making it a terrific overall story, while this one stuck to the original. It's short, only 1 hour and 50 minutes including a 15 minute intermission, but it covers a lot of ground and is truly engaging. The whole cast does a great job (and I don't want to give any of the originality away, so I can't go into too much detail), and I had a much more enjoyable time at that than either of the previous musicals. You've got another week or so, go catch it.

Coming up this afternoon I've got the Pearl Fishers at the Lyric, which I'm not that excited about, but half naked men may help keep my interest, tomorrow I've got Duffy at the Vic (which I'm a little pissed about, she was originally supposed to be at the Riviera which is only about 3 blocks away from where I live, but then a couple weeks ago they decided to move it to the Vic for unknown reasons, which necessitates a ride on the el and more time to get there and back), and then one week from tonight is Madonna, which I'm very excited about, buzz on the show is excellent. I'm hoping that we can go to Candide at Porchlight on Saturday night, stay tuned.

Speaking of future plans, there is a slim chance I may get to New York Halloween weekend (in 2 weeks). Hopefully we can finally catch South Pacific as well as work in August: Osage County (although I think Estelle Parsons just left, but it should still be good), and Equus, although I think getting tickets for that is going to be about as difficult as it was for South Pacific back in June. We'll see. Regardless of what happens, I am determined to go back in February. It was just announced that Noel Coward's play Blythe Spirit is going to be revived, and while I would prefer a revival of the musicalized version, High Spirits, the cast is going to consist of Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersole (as Elvira, the dead wife), and Angela Lansbury (as Madame Arcati, the role I actually think she could nail in a revival of the musical). Nothing is going to keep me from that dream cast.

Lastly, I know this has also been a couple weeks, but the world lost one of it's finest actors and best people a couple weeks ago with Paul Newman's passing. He was a legend, and rightly so. He will be missed.

The Other Side Of Linda

I'm going to try to keep this quick, but as expected, Linda's new CD is FABULOUS. It's a very different path for her, although her liner notes explain that a lot of it has to do with being dumped (dumped!) by Atlantic after making several successful discs for them and ending up with a new studio and using the opportunity to try something different. It's much more of a country-pop type sound, heavier on country than on pop, so it sounds more Dixie Chicks-ish than Carrie Underwood-ish. Normally it's not the kind of music I would like, but her voice is so fabulous she totally pulls it off. There are a few Broadway-sounding songs, such as If I Could, which is so wonderful to finally have on disc after hearing her do it in concert for years, and If You Believe (The Way I Do), and in the vein of her first two albums, a fabulous rendition of Both Sides Now. In addition, Linda also finally tried her hand at writing, with Waiting For The Fall, and it's not at all the type of song that I would have expected her to write, and that's actually a good thing. It's a very different album and one that has the potential to finally break her through to mainstream success. This is the type of album that could end up finally with some Grammy nominations and maybe even a long overdue Best New Artist Grammy. If Shelby Lynne could do it after 14 albums, then it should be no problem for Linda, it's the same kind of music. Get the CD, you won't be disappointed, her string of fabulous CD's is still unbroken.