Entries tagged with theatre

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Hadestown

Last night we saw the Broadway tour of Hadestown, a musical retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice (and Hades and Persephone). I'll assume my readers know (or will Google) the Greek myths, so in that sense there are no spoilers, but this show puts an interesting spin on it. Narrated by Hermes and with active participation by the Fates, we see both Orpheus and Eurydice "up above" and Hades' realm "down below", which is reached by a train. The train motif shows up in the music, the staging, and (I kid you not) the lighting. The company is smaller than many musicals and put to effective use. I enjoyed the music and don't have a good way to describe it.

Eurydice's and Oprheus's world is harsh from climate change, the program notes, though I might have missed that specific angle otherwise. Orpheus is focused on writing a song that will bring the world back into balance, but it's slow going. In this version Eurydice isn't bitten by a poisonous snake; starving and cold in the midst of winter and unable to find work, she is lured to Hadestown by promises of work and shelter. But the workers there toil away in misery in a factory, building fortifications for Hades' domain. ("Why We Build the Wall" resonates well beyond this show, I assume by design.) When Orpheus shows up to rescue Eurydice, the other workers are taking note too. Meanwhile, Persephone, whose marriage with Hades is rather rocky (shall we say), is also taking note of the power of love.

The story is a tragedy; we know it from the myth and we're told so by Hermes in the introductory stanzas of the show. But it has a positive vibe, too. I don't want to say more about that for people who haven't seen it yet.

Orpheus's music calls for falsetto in some key places -- whole passages, not just a note or two -- and the actor in this production pulled it off very smoothly. At the other end of that, uh, scale, I find myself wanting to catch a glimpse of the score, because Hades has some very low bass notes, also performed well in this production. C2 maybe???

I don't see a lot of Broadway-class shows so maybe this is normal, but I was very impressed by the staging and especially the lighting. There's one set, used throughout, that evokes the different settings just through the movements of small items (by cast members, not gophers) and changes of lighting. The lighting in this show is very active; I commented to Dani that the lighting operators deserved cast credit. It's that integral to the show, and it's not a small effort. One warning, though: there are strobe effects, and there were times when lights were pointed at the audience for brief periods.

There were some sound problems in the show we saw -- engineering problems, not cast problems. When things got loud, they spiked the levels and we got some distortion, making it hard to hear the lyrics in a few places. I'm told by somebody who sees a lot of shows there that this is not uncommon in that venue (Benedum Center), alas.

I enjoyed the show, even with those sound issues. I wasn't familiar with the show and hadn't heard the soundtrack before seeing it; this was very much an "I've heard good things about it" outing.

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theatre,
travel

The Magic Flute

We were in DC for a few days and, while there, we went to a performance of The Magic Flute (performed in English, not German) at the Kennedy Center. The performers were excellent, and they obviously had fun "updating" the script here and there. The costumes were very good, as was the sound. The set design was rather unusual; the implementation of their design was excellent, but I'm not sure what I thought of the design.

There was a short (optional) lecture before the show, which I'm very glad we went to. Here we learned some of the historical background for the show; while most operas of the time were written for aristocrats and in Italian, this one was written for a for-profit theatre catering to "just plain folks". It's more accessible and less hoity-toity. I don't know what's original to the script and what was added by this performance, but this had more of the feel of (high-end) street theatre in some ways, including humorous wordplay and some physical comedy. It also has spoken dialogue, so it felt kind of like a modern musical.

The story (very briefly; click the link for more): Tamino is recruited by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the evil sorceror Sarastro. She sends with him Papageno, a nutty bird-catcher who dresses as a bird and really only cares about wine, women, and song. (Tamino has nobler goals.) It turns out that Sarastro isn't so evil, and he kidnapped Pamina to save her from her (in his opinion) evil mother the queen. (At this point I expected it to turn out that Sarastro was the father, but no.) Tamino (who has fallen in love with Pamina) will be allowed to wed her if he passes certain mystical trials, and Papageno has to play too because he's there -- but ok, if Papageno behaves he'll also be allowed to wed Papagena, who seems a perfect fit for him, solving his "can't get women" problem. Trials happen (with bumps along the way) and there's a happy ending. (Oh, the flute? The queen gives it to Tamino as a magical aid and he uses it to get through some of the trials. Really, for something that makes the title of the show, it's kind of minor.)

Papageno provides a lot of comedic relief and the performer was very good. (It may be harder to do that kind of role well than that of a serious character like Tamino.) Sarastro was also very good as both actor and singer; he struggled a little with the lowest note, but Wikipedia tells me it's an F2, so I can understand that. (Deep bass.) Tamino and Pamina were well-done; I wasn't as impressed with the queen of the night and Papagena (both sopranos).

There were obvious adjustments in both the dialogue and the lyrics; the former is easy to do but the latter would seem to require a little more work. One of Papageno's songs included references to Twitter, and there was a bit of dialogue where somebody tells the three spirits (played by children) that they'll understand something better when they reach adolescence. (There were other changes too, but you get the idea.) I enjoyed these tweaks, though it made me wonder what is actually in the original script to begin with and whether it included hooks for this sort of thing.

The orchestral score was done well and mostly acted as support for what's going on on stage (as opposed to taking center stage itself, which I understand sometimes happens). The score did not strike me as overly complex; it was a good solid score, performed well.

The set design was rather abstract; backgrounds of colored lines and swirls at times, sometimes suggesting a setting (like "night" or "inside a temple") and other times not. There was one point where the background had animated circles/elliptoids moving around to no clear purpose and I found it a little distracting; I don't know what that was meant to be. There was also an opening number (before anybody was on stage) where they had animated lines moving around on a screen for several minutes, which left me wondering why. (It was only once the show proper started that I would realize that this was part of their overall design.) Lighting design (beyond this) was generally pretty good, though the follow-spot operators were sometimes a little off in tracking the leads. (The leads almost always had spots on them, even when the stage was brightly lit. I don't know if that's typical.)

A word about visual aids: This was only my second (live performance of an) opera (excluding Gilbert & Sullivan, if you count that), and the first was a dismal failure because it was in Italian, we were sitting too far back for me to read the supertitles, and having read the plot synopsis in advance hadn't been enough to really follow it. So this time we splurged on the second-best class of tickets (the price point for the best tripped our "you've got to be kidding" alarms). I mean, it's the Kennedy Center; it's likely to be good, and how often are we going to do this? Data point: the second-best class of tickets, which put us four rows back in the first balcony, allowed me to just barely read the supertitles about three-quarters of the time. (So I definitely missed some jokes, including, I later learned, a Twitter hashtag.) And this opera was in English, so I had extra input. (Operatic sopranos and children are a loss; I can't understand what they're singing regardless of language. The male leads were better, and there was a good ~~alto~~ mezzo-soprano.) So, it looks like it's only viable for me to go to an opera if we get seats up close; I doubt I'll bother again.

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theatre

Spamalot (short notes)

That was very silly (as expected, given the source). One thing I didn't expect, and greatly enjoyed, was how "meta" the show is. Several songs comment on the show itself (e.g. "this is the song that goes like this", talking about standard tropes), and the watery tart's solo midway through the second act was hilarious. (No spoiler here, but if it comes up in comments, consider yourself warned.)

Providing the lyrics for the final song (hey, some people might not know all the words already) so the audience could sing along was a nice touch.

There are a few hooks for localization. Some cities scan better than others, but I assume touring companies are up for the challenge. :-)

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theatre

Wicked (short notes)

We saw Wicked tonight. I previously only knew the short (two-sentence or so) description of the show; hadn't heard the soundtrack or much about the show.

Great show! There is a lot of complicated stage-craft (and lighting-craft) in this show and the production we saw was smooth and effective and at times visually stunning. I'm sure I missed a lot of smaller details from row T, but even so I thoroughly enjoyed myself. We also had a good cast and (except for the finale) excellent micing, so everything was clear. I loved some of the humorous bits in the show, too. ("Blonde." :-) )

And let me also say how thrilled I am to see a starring female role written for an alto. I was beginning to doubt that these existed.

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Pennsic: performances

This was a good year for performances. I participated in one and attended several others, including two that exceeded all my expectations.

( music and commedia )

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Cirque du Soleil followup

Sunday I wrote about the current Cirque show and our bad seats. I also sent them polite email expressing my disappointment and suggesting that they downgrade seats with obstructed views. (I figured the show was a sunk cost; I was trying to modify their future behavior.) I received an email reply asking me to call them, which I did today.

The person I spoke with said that the posts were indicated on the seating chart but that they're hard to see. On re-examination I can infer them from some "cut-outs" in the seating area, but I don't see anything that looks like "obstruction here" signals. He also referred to a 3D view, which I couldn't find a path to today. Perhaps it is only available during the seat-selection phase of a purchase; I don't know. He said they were unlikely to reclassify seats but he would look into clarifying the chart.

Nonetheless, he said, he wanted us to be able to see the show and offered free tickets to another show. They're only here for a few more days and the remaining dates don't work, so I declined that. At that point I thought he might offer a discount on their next show, or (on a really good day) a partial refund. What he actually did was to refund the base ticket price (he apologetically explained that he couldn't do anything about the service fee). He said that they want their customers to have a good experience. This is more than I expected and has repaired the negative feelings I had for them (though I'll still be wary about the seating chart in the future).

An aside: when I called their 800 number I was greeted with "blah blah blah... for service in English, press 2". This mono-lingual American is not used to being on the other side of that branch. :-)

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theatre

Cirque du Soleil Totem: eh

Several years ago we saw and enjoyed Cirque du Soleil's show Varakai, so today we saw their current show, Totem. It, like the previous one, is a collection of acrobatics, dancing, and alleged comedy tied together by the loosest of themes. I treat the titles of the shows as random tokens; it's easier that way. Theoretically Totem is about the creation of the world.

Varakai had very rich staging and stunning acrobatics. Totem was weaker in both regards. On staging, it usually had just one thing going on at a time (not much interesting background action) and they did much more of the show on the back portion of the stage. As for the acrobatics, the actual feats seemed a little less visually engaging and challenging to me in this show. There were some good acts, to be sure -- the guys doing stunts off the tops of very tall poles and the ones doing jumps, flips, and spins off of what were effectively very skinny trampolines impressed me. (Even though in the first case the tethers, which were clearly visible, were doing a fair bit of the work; they weren't just safety measures.) I'm sure the trapeze/rings aerials were technically very good, but they didn't grab me.

Most of their attempts at comedy fell flat for me, but one bit was very cute: they had actors in ape (etc) costumes lined up to depict that famous "evolution of hominids" drawing, and at the head of the line they added a guy in a business suit carrying a briefcase and talking on a cell phone. Not all progress is improvement. :-)

The lighting was effective (as last time), and they used the ceiling too (to project stars). The costumes were a little less flamboyant for the most part but worked well in context. Having the creatures that just crawled out of the primordial water in swim trunks was cute.

Our seats, for all that they were in the second of four pricing tiers, were very bad in one respect: you couldn't tell this from the seating chart, but we were behind a large post that supported lights (and possibly the tent itself; couldn't tell). This was a serious impediment to the stuff done on the back of the stage (that "backstage" area behind the round center section, for those familiar with their tent setup), though it didn't block most of the round stage. In addition, this put us directly across from a similar pole, and several times we had a spotlight aimed straight at our eyes. Not downgrading the seats along the "spokes" behind the posts is very bad form, especially in combination with all the other ways they've found to boost revenue (like disingenuous "service fees" on ticket sales). If we go to another Cirque show we'll now know that the seating chart has these kinds of gotchas, but for $100 a ticket we should have had clear sight lines without asking. (The tent was full, so moving at the intermission didn't seem to be an option.)

Cirque has many shows and most of them seem to be well-regarded. I've only seen two and I found Totem by far the weaker one. If you're considering your first Cirque show, you might want to hold out for something better. If you've seen them before and would enjoy them even "dialed down" a bit, then this is a reasonable show to go see.

Or, to sum up, "eh".

Edit: followup on the bad seats.

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triskaidekaphilia

Via

tangerinpenguin: List thirteen things that are going well for you this Friday the 13th:

1. The customer who sounded like he wanted Big Complicated Things (In A Hurry) thought my first draft was about 80% while I was assuming 25%.

2. Two significant projects (and some lesser ones) at work want me and my manager will support whatever I want to do. Cool!

3. I read a letter on the eye chart this week that I don't usually get.

4. Some more e-books that I want to read are available as free downloads.

5. Good conversation with my rabbi last night.

6. Bought gas for $3.09/gallon (loyalty card) and it should hold me for a month.

7. Cirque du Soleil is coming to Pittsburgh and this time their web site allowed us to buy tickets. (Totem -- not interested in the Michael Jackson thingy.)

8. Waking up to a cat on my feet every morning still, even though the weather has gotten warm.

9. Baldur is eating better.

10. Mesura et Arte del Danzare -- lovely recording!

11. Neighbors taking care of things along the property line that they might have been able to get away with not doing.

12. The rain seems to have ended before I have to leave for Shabbat.

13. Dani makes me happy. (Why yes, that is redacted. :-) )

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Cirque du Fail

We saw Cirque du Soleil a few years ago and enjoyed the show, so we were planning to go again when we saw that they'd be in Pittsburgh next month. However, we've been overcome by a truly obnoxious ticketing process.

We were chugging along with the not-very-well-designed web site -- chose our show, accepted the offered tickets (which we could only kind-of sort-of locate on the seating chart), filled out all the info including the credit-card security code, were irritated at the $10/ticket service fee (for using the web site) but went ahead anyway, decided the $7/ticket insurance against "lost in the mail" was sleazy and we'd invoke Visa if necessary, and thought we were done -- but no, it then routed us to a page where we had to sign up for some security service "for our protection". That was one annoyance too many, so we fell back to ordering via phone.

The first attempt to do so ended after half an hour on hold with no sign of progress. A later attempt reached a human, who informed us that there'd be a $10/ticket fee (for using the phone), which prompted us to ask where we could just go buy tickets in person, and that turned out to be "nowhere in town". And, of course, they couldn't guarantee delivery without another $7/ticket. And only at this point did we realize that the venue is a stadium, not a smaller place like the last show, and I was pretty dubious about actually being able to see from the seats that were available. I really expected better from a base price of nearly $100/ticket.

So the heck with that. Maybe we'll buy a $20 DVD instead.

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Pennsic

Pennsic was quite good for me this year -- not for any big reasons, but for a lot of small things that went right.

( Read more... )

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theatre

Les Mis

This afternoon Dani and I went to see the CLO's production of Les Miserables. We had seen a prior production in Pittsburgh (I don't know whose), maybe 10 years ago, and Dani saw it on Broadway once. It's one of his favorite shows, and I liked the soundtrack and previous performance. ( Read more... )

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theatre

review: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (CLO, Pittsburgh)

This afternoon Dani and I went to see the CLO production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I am fond of the soundtrack and had seen one other production; Dani was unfamiliar with the show and I think didn't quite realize the tone it would take. We both enjoyed this production quite a bit. (If you don't know the story, see Genesis chapters 37-46, approximately. If you don't know the flavor of the show, you can find clips at the CLO site.)

( Read more... )

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theatre

[Pittsburgh] Metamorphoses

Last week a coworker of Dani's was enthusing about Pittsburgh Public Theatre's Metamorphoses, so he asked if I wanted to see it. After Googling the show to confirm that we were talking about Ovid (-es) and not Kafka (-is), I said sure. We went Sunday afternoon.

( Read more... )

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random bits

Dani and I saw a performance by Second City last night. It was a mixed bag -- some very funny bits, some that fell flat for me, and more scripted than improv (which surprised me). I hadn't realized that Second City is sort of a franchise; there are several troupes out there using the name. I assume they share base material. (This show was, in part, customized for Pittsburgh, some in ways that could be easily reused and some not.) The Second City we saw in Toronto years ago was doing something akin to modern commedia dell'arte; the local show was (mostly) more-conventional comedy sketches. Still fun, as I said -- just different. (I think my favorite was the sketch where the teenager's mom starts answering the instant messages on his computer. Serves the kid right for not using a password, I say. :-) )

Someone local took a few thousand dollars and ran in the NH presidential primary, and he actually came in ahead of some of the "real" candidates. The local newspaper reports his reaction to receiving this news thus: "Son of a (gun), no (kidding)? That's (really) amazing." Or something like that, anyway. :-)

Commenting on the FBI getting its wiretaps shut off for non-payment of bills, xiphias posted this story that made me laugh. I'm not saying I believe it -- just that it made me laugh.

If you've read a little talmud, or haven't but still laughed at the halacha of Xmas, you will probably enjoy Tractate Laundry, linked by velveteenrabbi.

Pleo, a robotic dinosaur reminiscent of Aibo, looks like it would be a fun geek-toy. I wonder what the cats would do. (No, I am not going to spend that kind of money to find out. :-) )

I realized tonight that we have more phones (plugged in, on the landline, I mean) than we get (legitimate) calls in a month. Um... I'm not sure what that says about us. (Why do we have a landline? Aside from the general-precautions factor, because there is one use case not covered well by cell phones: the caller just needs to reach, or leave a message for, the household, and not a specific member.)

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interviewed by filkerdave

( Read more... )

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snippets from the weekend

( On the Mark, travel, ballet )

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trip to Toronto

We went to Toronto this weekend to visit family. It was a fun trip. ( Read more... )

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politics,
theatre

ballet: Carmen

My parents have season tickets to the ballet and the promoters gave them an extra pair of tickets to today's show, so they invited us to join them. I'd only seen live ballet once before, so I figured it was worth checking out at that price.

( review: Carmen )

While I'm glad I went, I fear I might be insufficiently sophisticated to appreciate ballet. I found parts of the show -- mainly the ensemble dances -- tedious; I felt they were doing the same moves over and over and none of it was advancing the plot. In general I am fairly plot-driven; I can appreciate performance art that isn't supposed to have a plot, like some forms of dance and acrobatics, but if there is a plot, I expect it to be relevant. In this regard ballet is even harder than opera; at least with opera there's dialogue, albeit dialogue that I have to read for myself. You don't get that with ballet, though; the story is told mainly through movement and secondarily through music, and this might not be enough to hold my attention in a visual medium. (I can, of course, appreciate the music on its own merits, but it seems a waste of the stage and dancers.) If I set plot concerns aside and try to appreciate it as just dance in the abstract, I find that the dance doesn't hold my attention the way, say, the movement from Cirque de Soleyl did.

The reason my parents had extra tickets is that the ballet company made a controversial decision this year, and they lost subscribers over it. (So I see this as a "bring your friends who might then subscribe" ploy.) ( Read more... )

All that said, the protesters at the theatre were polite, and the absence of live music did make a difference to the show. So I hope PBT can get their financial house in order and return to having live music. It would be a win for everyone. But the protesters need to focus less on perceived (but not actual) "rights" and focus instead on the financial and artistic issues, in my opinion.

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theatre

Cirque du Soleil: Varakei

Dani and I went to see Cirque du Soleil tonight. I wasn't sure what to expect; I enjoyed the show quite a bit. I'm not sure I would go to another performance, but I'm glad to have gone to this one.

The acrobatics in the show were stunning, and the dancing was very good. The price for all that is sitting through some lame attempts at humor so the acrobats and dancers can catch their breaths between acts. (Ok, the price of the acrobatics and dancing is the cost of the ticket, but you know what I meant.)

Visually the show was very well-done -- lights, costumes, choreography, and background action all contributed. While, in the second half, there were some bits where there was one solo act on stage alone, during most of the show there were people doing stuff in the background while the "main" act was happening. It contributed without distracting -- a hard balance to achieve, I suspect.

The dancing reminded me a little of Bhangra, an athletic Indian dance that I learned a bit of about 20 years ago. (I was in a couple performances in the SCA, back when squat-kicks and hoisting people on my shoulders seemed like perfectly reasonable things to do.)

The music worked well, and the synchronization between music and choreography was very good. It sounded like the music was pre-recorded, but we saw some individual musicians (a violinist and a bagpiper). So I may be wrong there. If the music was live I would expect there to have been a click track or the like; some of those stunts would probably fail if the musicians were 5% slow or fast.

Oh, the show has a nominal plot. It's quite nominal, and you may as well just ignore it. It's not that kind of show. :-) They had one actor on stage who seemed to be a plot device (the light-bulb guy), and I didn't get what he was supposed to be or why he was there. I wouldn't have minded them just leaving that out.

The show is in Pittsburgh for a couple more weeks. The best seats are sold out for all remaining performances; we had the second tier and those seats were good enough. We were three rows in from the back wall, center section, and had no trouble seeing. I would recommend against the third-tier seats; they're way out on the wings. You can probably still see everything, but you get a side view and some of the choreography will just be lost to those seats.

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theatre

Mary Stuart

On Sunday

lorimelton and I went to see the play Mary Stuart, by Friedrich Schiller, at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. I probably wouldn't have gone to this show on my own (as evidenced by the fact that I didn't), but Lori had free tickets and an outing with her sounded like fun.

I'm glad I went. This was very well done in many ways, and even though I knew how it would end, I found myself being pulled into the tension and uncerainty. I imagine that anyone who doesn't know the history would be even more drawn in.

The set was generally sparse -- four benches at the corners of a square on a stone floor. The same set was Mary's prison or, with the addition of a throne (on rollers for easy moving), Elizabeth's throne room. (Also, for one scene, a garden.) There were three doors along the back wall.

The back wall was mirrored, and I wondered about the purpose of that at the beginning. The first time Elizabeth made an appearance they were put to good use, as she glided on in a heavily-jeweled gown that precisely lighted. In a later scene, the blocking was carefully done so that we saw Elizabeth reflected several times (in a scene in which she was, basically, arguing with herself). Nice effect. (The mirrors and doors were also used powerfully at the end of the show, but I don't want to spoil it.)

The O'Reilly theatre, where this was held, is three-quarter round, so they had to block so as to not exclude any part of the audience for too long. We were in the center section, but it looked to me like this worked; there was enough motion, and the accoustics were good enough, that I don't think there were any bad seats.

Someone reading this is almost certainly wondering how authentic the costumes were. Sorry; I couldn't see details from our seats (didn't bring opera glasses) and I don't really know a lot about Elizabethan costume anyway. In broad strokes it all looked right to me.

All of the actors seemed to be competent, and those playing Mary, Elizabeth, and Mary's nurse were very convincing. Mortimer and Leicester were pretty good, too.

The background music was mostly used appropriately; there were times when I thought it got in the way a little. Music was used to cover scene changes on a dark stage, and that worked well. The scene changes were very fast, because there were few moving parts.

The show runs through June 27. I don't know what tickets cost; you'd have to call PPT and ask. If you don't already know the history, and maybe even if you do, plan to read the one-page "the story thus far" description in the program and look at the family tree. It'll help.