What a difference a year can make. Last time I saw Joan Rivers, it was at a casino, a long drive out of town. This year, she’s playing the Seattle Symphony’s main hall, technically within walking distance. I wonder if the show will be any different.
Archive for the ‘theater’ Category
Joan Rivers at Benaroya Hall
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012Rocky Horror at OCT
Monday, April 11th, 2011Went and saw the 4pm Sunday production of Rocky Horror at the Open Circle Theater in Belltown. The show was sold out, with a fair number of people paying for the upgraded ‘VIP’ experience. In the end, we didn’t get any special seating, but we did get a couple of crackers and a handful of cheese, with our bubbly. Our ‘surly’ service was amusingly provided by Magenta (Terri Weagant), who also provided the title song. I found it especially amusing to overhear one guy, before they’d opened up the house for seating, asking his date, “so, I’ve never seen the movie, what’s this all about anyways?” Then again, I didn’t get to see it in a theater with all the trimmings when it would have been age appropriate myself either.
They used a live band, complete with Theramin. At times, they overpowered the on-stage singers, but eventually the sound guy found a zone where things seemed to be working OK.
Andrew Murray was a very sexy Rif Raf, must catch him in more productions where skin will be involved =p He does a very good sneer and leer. Josh Hartivgson’s Frank N Furter was interesting. He made a suitably shocking transvestite, tall and decidedly masculine no matter what he was wearing. Full of enthusiasm for the part, he made a good centerpiece for the production. Tadd Morgan and Monica Wulzen provided good straight-men performances as Brad and Janet, and Peter Farrar was definitely a well-muscled Rocky.
There’s blood on the stage when Eddie (Billy Hollman) makes his brief appearance, and again when the bag of what’s left stops by, and lots more when the end comes to the aliens left on earth, leading to a perfectly placed puddle for the final spotlight to iris into darkness upon.
An excellent production of a classic musical tale, all involved performed admirably. I was suitably entertained for sure.
Viva Oz Vegas at Triple Door (review)
Friday, March 25th, 2011So I think I’ve learned to avoid the early show at the Triple Door, at least for something like burlesque; this review covers the 7pm showing on Thursday 3/24/2011.
Food first – I decided to go against habit and tried the evening’s special, a lamb curry that was supposed to be spicy-hot. The portion size for the ‘full’ order was good, and the sauce was a very tasty curry, but not hot at all. The veggies were minimal which wouldn’t have been a bad thing if the meat had tasted fresher/less-game-y. In the end I ate less than half the meat, but all the rice/sauce/veggies I could. It was a disappointing start to the evening.
I was a little put off by the way they started the show with what seemed like at least a half hour of the band singing cover songs. Well, maybe they were singing. Everyone but the drummer looked to be lip-syncing and faking their instruments, but maybe it was just the aural dissonance of seeing such a Johnny-Cash-esque-bass come out of such a small guy. Either way, I was really surprised at how long they kept the stage dancer free. When they did finally bring in dancers, the guy side of the cast was underwhelming to say the least. Usually a Can-Can show is fun for watching both guys and girls, but not this one. The girls did have very realistic showgirl attire, but it was hard not to compare against the Nutcracker show I saw last Christmas, which was much more elaborate in sets and costumes.
Three ladies performed a nice set on the rings, and came back again to perform on hanging ropes during the second half of the show. Which brings me to another WTF moment, getting back to my seat after intermission, looking at the clock and seeing 8:16, when the show is supposed to be over by 8:30. And it was over by 8:40, so they did a 10 minute intermission before a 20 minute set? I have to assume the balance of musical and dancing numbers is better during a late show. And I also assume that in the late show you see more skin; you got a brief peak at “Marilyn’s” covered nipples at the end of the 1st half of the show. There seemed to be a lot of missed lighting cues during the entire evening.
Frankly I was underwhelmed. I expected more out of a Can-Can show on the Triple Door stage. Don’t get me wrong, I think all the performers put in a good effort with the material they were working from, but it seemed like a half-hearted attempt on the part of the director. It could be just an effect of cutting down the 10pm show for time and age (I notice the 7pm show is listed as just 17+), but still seemed like they could have done better. I was also confused by how comparatively gay/bi unfriendly the show was for something with a Wizard of Oz theme, and seemed very out of character for the Can Can shows I’ve seen before. I don’t me unfriendly in the sense that they did gay-bashing-jokes, but rather in a if-you-are-gay-dont-bother-coming-nothing-to-see sort of way.
And to the Triple Door itself, this marks the second time I’ve been recently where I felt like the service level has declined noticeably. They did at least take my drink order this time, but it took 20 minutes to arrive, on a night where they weren’t anywhere near capacity. And I found it really skeazy that when they found out I hadn’t come up with a date for my second ticket, they tried to sell my second seat to someone, without planning on giving me my money back. I can live with a no-refunds policy, but if I paid for two seats, but come alone, as far as I’m concerned I paid for a $20 coat check that I can keep an eye on. Certainly not without at least asking me if I mind some stranger sharing my table, ON MY DIME, while you take their money as well.
I think the biggest lesson learned is that there’s a difference between “can can presents” and “the can can castaways present”. I will be paying closer attention next time.
Cash The Check
Friday, February 25th, 2011Dear Charities,
When I send you a check for my donation, to save you the transaction fee costs of using a credit card style payment, it would be really nice if you could deposit that check within a month of my sending it. I’m sure the reason you aren’t getting to the bank on a timely manner is that you are overworked, but the impression it gives me is that you just didn’t need the money as badly as you claimed up front, and it discourages me from donating to you next time, in a small and subtle way. Its hard to deny that there aren’t people with a more immediate need than you.
X
Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM – Dark Matters
Monday, February 21st, 2011The show was sold out, with people standing out front hoping for tickets like it was a Grateful Dead show, and yet I lucked into a sweet seat in the 2nd row. I could have been in the first, but didn’t realize the normally-reserved-for-disabled-seats were open due to the crowd. In the end, I was kind of glad I didn’t sit in the very front row. When parts of the set start crashing down at the end of the 1st act, front-rowers were noticeably nervous for their feet. And what a show it was. If I have any complaints, it is how quickly and completely they abandoned the marionette. The 2nd act has none of the actuality of the doll, but they do go to great length to present the idea of a dancer controlled by an outside force. An interesting soundtrack, sort of late 90′s industrial techno-y for most of it. It was a worthy show to pay for.
Bugsy Malone at Youth Theater Northwest (PR)
Monday, February 7th, 2011Went out to Mercer Island on Saturday to check out a performance of Bugsy Malone
The space is pretty nice for a youth theater, not really surprising, since it is mercer island. They had a bunch of items out for whatever-is-the-name-of-the-auction-style-where-it’s-a-list-of-prices-you-sign-up-and-highest-priced-signer-wins, at least marginally themed to go along with the show. I put my name down for the pasta and bowl combo.
I attended a 2pm Saturday show, so the crowd was mostly parents with children, many of whom I suspected would be a bit young for a two hour production, and indeed, the family sitting next to me never came back from intermission. Given the crowd makeup, there were amazingly few outbursts or distractions from the action on stage.
The casting was well done. Sasha Conley seemed ideal for the vampish Tallulah character, portraying her world-weary cynicism well for someone who by all rights shouldn’t have the emotionally damaging experiences necessary to inspire it, yet. And she does a great job when it’s her turn to sing. Jay Rosenstein did a good job with Bugsy as well, with the proper mix of bravado and insecurity. Noah Davenport played Fat Sam a little less over the top than the movie version, and wasn’t even remotely fat, like not even TV-fat; side-wonder if it’s difficult to find a young kid willing to play a character named ‘fat’ if said kid is actually hefty, kids not being known for acceptance of their differences. Nathaniel Zang seemed a very studied professional, playing Dandy Dan. It’s hard to know how much the perception of his greater maturity versus the rest of the cast is associated with his size (were 14 year olds really that big when I was his age?) and how much was his spot-on delivery. It’s funny, I still can’t recall Dan having a major song in the movie, but Nathaniel did a memorable-good job with the one he had.
They had a girl play the character who sings “Tomorrow”, but I can’t tell from the program who it was because they didn’t use the same character name (Razamataz) as the movie. She did a good job whomever she was.
I enjoyed the production, the scenery is reasonably done, not too sparse, not too overbearing. They use silly string for their splurge guns, and only splat one pie during the production, presumably trying to keep the mess down. The costume and hair were done really well. According to Sasha, one of the benefits of the 21st century is the availability of how-to videos for flapper stylings on youtube.
Recommended.
Bugsy Malone on Mercer Island
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011My second favorite musical movie, Bugsy Malone, is currently on stage at the Youth Theater Northwest, on Mercer Island. It’s a heart-warming tale of love and redemption in gangland. Only it’s all about soda and egg cream instead of booze and guns. Well, that’s how the movie goes, we’ll see what they’ve done with it.
Oh, it’s IN Polish?
Friday, January 14th, 2011In retrospect, it’s one of those things that should have been obvious. When every member of the cast has a bio of films with names you can’t pronounce, it’s a good bet that the production won’t be in English. And I was right, there was someone who got naked on stage before the eve was done. He was even cute. But of course I’d sat on the side of the stage with the yelly guy. Oh well, next time =p
In the Solitude of Cotton Fields is self-described as “Styled like an Eastern European punk concert”. The music, the band Natural Born Chillers (99% sure not the same NBC that has an single of Rock The Funky Beat) plays live behind the actors for 90% of the show, was good. Moving somewhere between rock n’ roll and industrial techno, it was loud and effective in setting the moods as it changed paces through the night.
As I mentioned, there were two actors with ‘speaking’ parts. Lucky for me they had one of those overhead libertto display screens, with an english translation. I put quotes around speaking because one of the guys did a lot of yelling and crying, alongside some amazing expressions. The other guy did more dancing, and got naked. When that time came, it was a slow, piece by piece removal, with careful folding and stacking of each garment as it was removed, dimly lit from above, so strong on the shadows. He doesn’t stay naked long, just enough to underscore the sense of vulnerability and surrender (I’m guessing). When it comes time for him to re-dress, it’s done more in the dark, with our attention drawn back to the other actor by the spotlight.
I enjoyed the show, overall. The yelly guy…had I realized, I would have sat on the other side of the stage, or brought ear plugs? I would have hated to miss his facial expressions; he puts a lot of effort into them all, they both did. So much of the show had a sort of stereotypical artsy-ness to it. Edgy in a predictable way. They have a portion of the show that’s more video presentation. The actors face away from the audience and a large screen on the back wall takes over for 10-15 minutes. It occurs to me now, all the words that appeared on that screen were already in English, was that done for this show, or would they have been in english during a performance in Poland?
Judy Garland Christmas at Open Circle Theater
Monday, December 6th, 2010A hopefully yearly tradition at Open Circle Theater, an ensemble cast recreates the infamous 1969 Judy Garland Christmas special. This year they offered a special pre-show-show with drinks and snacks, with “Judy” wandering through in full-on-drunken-stupor-character. There were quite a few people at the Breakfast with Judy pre-event, enough so that by the time “Judy” came in, everyone had broken up into little clique-circles and mostly ignored her, which kind of annoyed me, all the more so since I wasn’t in any of those cliques and was feeling somewhat bored waiting for things to start happening. The food was tasty =)
When the full show started, it was to an over-full house. Having never seen the TV show itself, I was often befuddled by some of the happenings on stage. After the played version, the second half of the show was watching the original video, with commentary by our “Judy”. Suddenly lots of jokes from the first half were layers of funny more so than they’d been on their own. “You thought we made that part up?”
Gloria’s Cause at On The Boards
Friday, December 3rd, 2010Went and checked out the show tonight. Got in the door early enough to be front and center, and a good thing too since it ended up a pretty packed show.
Overall, I have to say I was most impressed with the casting. Everyone in the group had to dance, speak in character, and play at least one instrument, and they seemed to be good at all three. Some people danced more than others, some people talked more than others. It was very abstract in it’s presentation of ‘history’. Full of amusing moments of word and movement that l found fascinating. It happens all in one go, no intermission break in the action. The music ranged from jam band drone to metal to folksy guitar strumming and tribal drums. Occasionally they had some video going on the screen above the dancers. It was well synchronized with the music and helped provide a bit of insight into the subject of a particular piece.
The space is interesting. The stage is not raised, but is carpeted and probably padded for dancing and tumbling. There is no curtain, so when two of the players have to start out on stage, they are sitting and standing there for ten minutes or so while people are getting seated. I am curious to see another show there, where a chunk of the stage isn’t taken up by a bandstand.
It’s only on for another two nights, so hurry and see it if you can.