Time to Catch Up, or Another Winter in a Winter City

Well, it's been quite a while since I last posted, and a lot has happened. Fortunately, the term ended on Friday so I now have a couple of weeks to relax and not feel so stressed. With nothing else to do I can write away.

So, since I last saw you, I've seen Sarah Brightman, Mame, and Grey Gardens as well as picked up some fab music.

Sarah as expected was fabulous. She looks amazing and still sounds like she did on the Phantom cast recording (and no, I don't think she was lip syncing). We had terrific seats, in the 10o ring about 5 rows up from the main floor, about 2/3 of the way back from the stage (although the stage itself took up about 1/3 of the floor, a full house for this concert was only about 1/2 the audience for most other events, but it was still packed). As promised in her press releases, the technology was truly fantastic. It was a bare stage but she had a massive screen behind her that allowed for 3-D projections so it really looked like she was walking around in the castle featured in the liner art for Symphony. She only did five songs from Symphony, and three of them were the first three songs. She opened with a fierce Fleurs du Mal, which was exactly everything I expected a Sarah Brightman concert to be, and I could have gone home after that song fully satisfied. She followed it up with Let It Rain, another one of my favorites, and then did Symphony. The backdrop for all the songs was the forboding castle. She then took a costume change and came back and started a long synopsis of earlier works, so the concert really was more of a greatest hits show than supporting the CD, but it sure made the audience (and me) quite happy. Later in the show she did Sarai Qui and closed the show with a fierce Running, which was again exactly everything I imagined one of her concerts to be. Along the way she did What A Wonderful World, which was quite a wonderful surprise since she never released it as a single even though it's the best song on Harem and the only version I like, The Phantom of the Opera, La Luna, You Take My Breath Away, and of course, Time To Say Goodbye, which she closed out the second act with before coming back to do her encores. There were lots of fabulous costumes and props, and it was a wonderful night. The only misfire was some wierd song she did mid-way through the second act in which she was dressed like Little Red Riding Hood and her dancers were dressed like Alice in Wonderland Characters and she was riding this wierd exercise bike with the projections making it look like she was riding through a forest being chased by wolves on motorcycles. I'm not sure what the song was, the chorus was something along the lines of her repeating "It's in my mind," but it wasn't Phantom. It may have been from Whistle Down the Wind because I know that one has a biker gang featured in it, but it wasn't a great song and visually just did not fit in with the rest of the concert. Fortunately, once it was done she did another costume change and came back and closed out the set with Christmas songs from Winter Symphony (which by the way I got from my Secret Santa at my practice's holiday party on Friday and listened to yesterday on the way too and from Grey Gardens and is a fabulous CD. I'm not into pop Christmas music other than the Carpenters, Vanessa Williams, and Linda Eder, but hers is a terrific edition to that elite group). The only other drawback to the night was that it felt like my friend and I were trapped in an open casting call for the next Cocoon sequel. There were so many old people there getting in the way, taking FOREVER to get up and down the stairs in the section. It took forever to get out, they were treating the aisle like an airplane and letting each 30-some seat aisle empty out before moving up, and since we were so close to the floor, it took forever and I did not want to get stuck in the parking lot with all of them behind the wheel. Once we got out we ran, which then put us in front of the very first people to have gotten out of the Allstate and we got out of the lot very quickly without incident. Another diva down, I think I just have Annie Lennox and then I can die.

Two nights later was Mame at Drury Lane, which was another terrific experience. My companion and I had planned to go out and do Christmas shopping first, but it was beyond fucking cold that night, so we just went out and had dinner at Mon Ami Gabi, went to Borders, and then went to the theatre. It's so ridiculous that winter didn't end until June this year and now it's like it never left. I am so ready to move when I finish school and get licensed. At least it makes me look forward even more to Annaheim. While at Borders, I picked up the Liza Minnelli complete A & M recordings, which is a wonderful mix. It's her 4 A &M albums that she released between doing Flora and Cabaret and it reflects an interesting period in her professional life. Of course she sounds fabulous, but the music itself is a mixed bag. The first album is the best of the bunch, featuring several songs that have since become her concert standards. The next two are much more 60's pop oriented and sound somewhat dated, although of course they have their standouts, but I'm more inclined to pick and choose and just create a playlist rather than listen to them in their entirety. The fourth one though is also a winner, her first live CD done in a French nightclub in Paris, and this was the famous, career changing show that the producers of Cabaret came to see and convinced them to sign her to the movie. Her energy comes though loud and clear and is a harbinger of Liza with a Z. It closes the CD package out nicely, and really makes me want to hop the next plane to New York to catch her show before it closes, although that may not be the best idea. In top Madeline Kahn form, she got rave reviews from opening night and then promptly cancelled the rest of the week due to exhaustion. I'm a little confused about why she's cribbing from Madeline's playbook since Madeline's shennagins allowed Liza to nab the 1976 Tony, although to be fair, she was practically doing the same thing herself then, just not as egregiously as Madeline. Her producers didn't petition the Tony Committee to invalidate her eligibility and nominate her understudy instead. Still, having benefitted from the consequences of other people pulling these tricks, I'm a little confused as to why she's now doing it (sniff, sniff). Methinks her recently announced extension of the extension is an attempt at damage control, we'll see how well it works. Anyways, back to Mame. The show of course was fabulous. A good chunk of the Boys from Syracuse cast was back, which again makes me wonder how they plan on casting Miss Saigon, but we'll find that out in a few weeks. The set was fantastic and really makes me want to decorate my office in Art Deco style whenever I finally get my own private practice office. Of course the music was fabulous and everyone did a terrific job. I believe next weekend is the last weekend, so go see it.

Then, last night, we had the best of the bunch, Grey Gardens at Northlight Theatre. As expected, Hollis Resnick rocked the dual role of Big Edie/Little Edie, but the big surprise was how well the show held up when done on a much more intimate scale. Because the music is somewhat harsh when fully orchestrated, I was expected it not to sound so good with a reduced orchestra, but orchestrator Doug Peck did a fabulous job keeping it sounding full and musical. The true measure of a show's quality is how well it can stand up when plucked off of a Broadway stage and redone in a more intimate setting, and Grey Gardens hold up nicely, unlike the more spectacle driven shows like Miss Saigon or Phantom (the Maury Yeston one which is just about as opulent as the more famous version), which completely fall apart when deconstructed (note to Drury Lane, you've got to have the helicopter, there is no getting around it). However, Grey Gardens, like the surprisingly well done in a small setting Ragtime and Kiss of the Spider Woman really comes into its own. The focus is even more on the symbiotic yet parasitic relationship between the two Edies and really packs an emotional punch by the end. The set was a great reduction of the Broadway one (although let's not praise that too heavily and focus on its original aspects instead, we don't want another Urinetown debacle on our hands), conveying the immense wealth of the family in the first act and the decript ruin the house fell into in the second act. What I found particularly effective was that the back wall of the stage was completely tiled in the wooden tile of the house's exterior, with the house itself on a turntable center stage similar to August: Osage County with characters able to exit by walking up the stairs to the second floor and off stage through a hallway, or by walking off stage and through the back theatre doors. It really gave the impression of being trapped not only in but also by the house, which of course is what the show is about. The rest of the cast was marvelous as well, and the curtain call emphasized the ensemble nature of the show more than the Broadway production's did, there was no solo star call for Hollis like Christine got. Grey Gardens is playing two more weeks, and is my recommendation for a terrific time at the theatre between now and Christmas.

Today I've been lounging around. Without any school work to do I've been getting caught up on Gossip Girl. This week I need to start getting stuff together for Anaheim, we have to do some projects ahead of time and bring them with us, but it's nothing too extensive. There's no shows ahead until Madama Butterfly at the Lyric on January 18. We need to start planning the next round of theatre, with Circle's production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at the top of my list, which plays through February 1st, so when I get back from Anaheim we'll try to make it to that. Then we need to plan Xanadu and Miss Saigon, but those are longer runs so we can wait until the weather at least gets maginally nicer in March and April and the rest of the opera season is over so we're not rushing around so much like we have been the past couple months. Oh, and lastly, between GG episodes, I got my monthly allotment of emusic downloads and FINALLY finished up Guys and Dolls (although if I was smart I never would have started it in the first place and just waited for next spring's revival cast recording to come out instead), got John Barrowman's 2000 Broadway CD and at long last started the NEO concert recording, getting the first 18 tracks off of that. Next month I'll finish that up, grab the other John Barrowman CD (Aspects of Lloyd Webber) and with whatever I have left start on Lady in the Dark. Now, back to Serena and Blair, and the homoerotic tension between Nate, Dan, and Chuck.