Clear the decks!

[albadger]

I got a bit thrown by the unconscionable, uncivilized lack of free WiFi in our Filled-with-French-hipsters hotel in NYC, so I got off track posting to ze blog extrodinaire. Over a week, and I post only 1 commercial with a hot bearded guy. Slipping.

Two jobs right now: first, the future, which is Germany for a week -- I'll be in Hamburg seeing operas. Also seeing an opera in a town that apparently doesn't exist, which should be interesting. Second, the past, and some deck-clearing, reporting on the exciting things that happened that didn't get blogged when they should have. Here goes!

• New York City with hidefbear was about plays, musical and not, and started with the Landing off-Broadway -- John Kander's first truly post-Ebb effort, and we were fortunate that no winds were blowing, as a small gust would have carried the slight effort away. Three mini-musicals, the first barely musicalized, the second incoherently silly, leaving the third (a Twilight-Zoney thing about two guys adopting a too-perfect son) the only meat. But the cast was fine, David Hyde Pierce a delight (he played a brick in part 2), and an amiable trifle is better than not trying at all.
• Then another complete unknown to me, the Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, impulse-purchased mostly on the name of the director, Darko Tresnjak. The thing is splendid in every way, and I hope it succeeds -- not a given in the current Broadway climate, as it's not drawn from a popular source & doesn't have any "names" attached to it. But go.
• Kinky Boots is already established & doesn't need my pleading. Probably not strong enough plotting or characterization to be in the top tier of classic musicals, but who cares? Infectious joy from start to finish. Star Billy Porter was out, but the understudy did just fine, and Harvey Fierstein appeared during the curtain call for celebratory hugs. The cast did that begging-bucket thing as we were leaving, and I got to give 5 bucks to my favorite stocky bearded chorus boy (there are 3 of them in this show. THREE. What's not to love?)
• No Man's Land, Waiting for Godot -- McKellen & Stewart. Ground Zero for the trip (apologies to the real Ground Zero that I visited on Thursday). The Pinter left me cold -- even with the splendid leads, it felt like reheated leftovers from earlier Pinter plays. But the Beckett -- oh, I've seen good Godots, and awful ones, but I'll never see a better than this. Usually the Lucky/Pozzo stuff comes as a relief, but this time I was hoping they'd miss their cue & let Ian & Pat just keep rolling. Re: that supporting cast: Shuler Hensley handled everything as well as possible in both plays, though the concept of Pozzo was too self-consciously circusy to fit with the directness of the lead guys. Billy Crudup said all the words in the right order. But, yes, Mission Accomplished.
• And the other target - museums! MOMA is always worth a visit, even when there's no special show; they have a Magritte collection on display now, mostly from 1927 to 1930, and I have to confess, that level of concentration doesn't always help the artist. You see the repetition that history tends to filter out. Still fascinating though, but I prefer the pre-1940 permanent collection on the 5th floor. You could spend days getting lost in those paintings. The 4th floor? Post-1940? Screw that.
• Even better, on Friday I had lunch with thornyc and mudcub, after which Thor took me to the Guggenheim, which is featuring a frightfully dull show, but the building is the real star! I defy any human not to fantasize about roller-blading down the whole thing.
• Lastly, I did see some movies -- bad SF turkeys from earlier in the year, on the tiny screen on the plane, of which I will not speak, but also in a theater I saw Lee Daniel's the Butler, which shows that you can raise vital questions (in this case, the proper response to generational oppression) without being a particularly good movie. Good acting from the leads but Worst Presidental Impersonations Ever. On the other hand, Yaya Alafia's outfits are amazing and almost made me wish I did drag. Also I saw the Oogieloves in the Great Balloon Adventure That needs its own post. Its own, long, post.

Done. Decks cleared! Off to Germany! They better have WiFi in Bielefeld. Assuming it actually exists.

Comments

[andybr.livejournal.com]

Fantastic, Hamburg is a great place to see the opera, say hi to Simone! What do you think you are seeing?

[albadger.livejournal.com]

Uh... Simone? I really need to circulate more.

The operas are almost all early Verdi this time: "Giovanna d'Arco" in Bielefeld, then "la Battaglia di Legnano," "i Due Foscari" and "i Lombardi" in Hamburg. Also seeing R. Strauss' "Ariadne in Naxos" in Hamburg because it happens between the others, I'm here, it's my favorite German opera.

Or I could chuck my opera tickets and see "Rocky: das Musical" instead... hm....

[andybr.livejournal.com]

Simone Young. I adore Ariadne. In fact I adore all Strauss opera. You will have a Verdi good time I'm sure!

[albadger.livejournal.com]

Simone will be there tonight, in fact she's conducting all 3 of the Verdis in Hamburg!

Ariadne was transcendant. More in a separate post.