cahn

Hey, I'm kind of catching up -- this is only two months late :)

So after falling in love with Book of Mormon of course my next step was to go look at what else Andrew Rannells has ever done (I also found that he's an excellent and witty interviewee, and writing this up reminded me to put his book on hold at the library), and when I found out he was in a musical with Christian Borle, whom I have been following ever since I found out about Legally Blonde lo these many years ago, I was going to be watching it despite its name (I'm sorry, but the name did not exactly evoke confidence in me), and I probably would have enjoyed it no matter how bad it was.

It was brilliant. (I watched an upload of a professionally filmed version -- I think they filmed it for PBS -- here, with the usual caveats about how they go down and back up again frequently, and if this link breaks let me know and I'll try to replace it if possible.)

I mean. It is set in the 80's, and originally produced in the 90's, and there's this sort of era where it feels like every story produced in the 90's and set in the 80's and involving gay men has to involve at least one of them dying tragically of AIDS. (And there's a distinct implication that his partner is going to die tragically of AIDS after the end of the musical.) But while that's the ending of the plot, it's not what the musical is about.

It's about family, and what that means, and how you make a family when you've intentionally fractured your own family, and how you recover from that, and it's about having a kid (Anthony Rosenthal is freaking brilliant in this, the whole cast is amazing but he's especially amazing) and how that kid relates to life and you and everything, and it's about being Jewish.

Borle and Rannells, as Marvin and his lover Whizzer, are both their usual great acting selves. I honestly think Borle's voice isn't that amazing, but his voice acting/acting can't be beat. He also is very convincing as a Marvin who is... very not-perfect, who is very flawed. I had never heard of Brandon Uranowitz before, but he's absolutely wonderful as the psychologist who marries Marvin's ex-wife Trina (and is often the voice of sanity when Marvin and Trina have conflicts). Stephanie J. Block I'd heard of before, but never really seen in action, and she is just amazing as the neurotic ex-wife. And just when I was starting to question why the only woman we saw was kind of neurotic, in Act 2, Tracie Thoms and Betsy Wolfe are just so great as the lesbian neighbors. (Can we have more lesbian doctor characters please? Thoms/Dr. Charlotte was so great!)

I was looking at a copy of the libretto for The Usual Reasons, and it struck me how much (and how well) it is written for stage; the dialogue doesn't seem like anything special written down on the page, but the actors make it come alive.

(I don't really have much to say about it, not because it was bad, but because it was so well done that I don't have much to say except "yup, that was brilliant.")

So, I will probably have to write a loooooong post about this later, but in the meantime:

1. While watching the opera Norma, I really felt like the librettist meant to write Norma and Adalgisa running off together and got told by the censors or someone that they couldn't do that and hastily pasted on an ending with the requisite dead soprano. (but only one!) I realize this is probably not the case, but it sure seemed like it.

2. Why didn't anyone, before my recip this year, tell me that Book of Mormon, in addition to being wildly and hilariously offensive and also tapping into a deep psychological truth in giving me the mental image of singing and dancing happy shiny missionaries (all of which I did already know), was also about a thoughtful and coherent character arc dealing with faith and crises of faith and faith vs. religion and the problematic nature of God answering prayers? Why didn't I know it was so directly relevant to my interests, particularly this year? IT IS SO GOOD. I HAVE BEEN CONVERTED.

I have not forgotten I was going to post about Wicked, which I FINALLY saw in person (touring company) last time we went to see my sister C. (The year before we saw West Side Story, which was also fabulous, although the women were way better than the men and we didn't bother to spring for orchestra section.) We almost ended up not seeing it, because all of us had gotten deathly ill a couple of days before, but fortunately we had recovered enough by then that we were up to spending three hours out of the house without collapsing.

It was amazing. I'd "watched" it a while back, but it didn't compare at all to seeing it live. I think a lot of the spectacle needs the full canvas of a live theater, as well as the contrast between the extravagance of the stage and the darkness of the theater. The big group numbers were totally amazing visually in a way I hadn't appreciated before.

It helped that the Elphaba (Emily Koch) was quite excellent. I'm not sure she had the belting volume of some, but more importantly, she managed to emotionally sell us on all the twists and turns of Elphaba's character (some of which really honestly don't make a whole lot of sense). She played Elphaba as a bit of an awkward idealistic nerd, which a) really resonated with C. and me, ha; b) works really well as a way of differentiating her (not just by skin color) from the rest of the [school] cast, both in terms of showing her as divorced from them and in terms of emotionally explaining the continuing rift between her and them (and emotionally showing the consequences of the skin-color rift; it goes both ways); and c) is a good foundation for the emotional twists the character has to take. E.g., it makes sense that sometimes Elphaba's awkwardness and frustration with being awkward manifests as anger occasionally in the first act and more generally in the second act. And the idealism makes a lot more sense to me coupled with the awkward nerdiness; that sense of self-righteousness (sometimes justified, sometimes over-the-top) seems to be underscored by not ever fitting in socially-emotionally as well.

A lot of this, of course, is in the musical itself (I mean, Elphaba is supposed to be idealistic and angry, and the awkwardness is definitely strongly implied), but my previous Elphaba experiences, Katie Rose Clarke (the Elphaba I "watched") and Idina Menzel (clips of whom I've watched) both played Elphaba much more straight in terms of emotional character. Their versions of the character seemed to be much more normal and well-adjusted and hardly awkward at all early on, which made her forays into angry idealism later on make much less sense to me.

The Galinda was fine; she sang well (probably better than the Elphaba, actually), but she was not exceptional the way both C. and I thought the Elphaba was exceptional. Afterwards we went and watched a bunch of Menzel/Chenoweth Wicked Youtube videos, and we agreed that Chenoweth was exceptional (and Menzel was not).

Fiyero was also fine. I've seen some clips of rather wooden Fiyeros, and this one was pretty good. I hadn't realized how important dancing is for his character, and he was an excellent dancer.

The Wizard (Stuart Zagnit) was the surprising one; I'd always found his songs super boring (and they are), but the comic acting really sells those songs. I was impressed.

I had warned my sister beforehand that the plot is sort of… nonsensical. She turned to me after Act I and said, "It really seems to all be hanging together pretty well right now!" After Act II she said, "Well… you were right about the plot."

You guys, I've been listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton cast recording basically nonstop today and it is AMAZING. I don't even understand how a hip-hop rap musical about Alexander Hamilton even got MADE, but it DID and I don't even known anything about either hip-hop or Hamilton and it is completely awesome and I have been tearing up a little over it (though maybe that is breastfeeding hormones), and I just went and reserved the Chernow biography from the library. (Miranda apparently read the Chernow biography on vacation and thought, wow, that would make a great hip-hop musical! AND THEN HE WROTE IT. How cool is that?!)

Link here, I suspect it's only good until Sept 25, when the recording becomes available. ETA: Link is still good. Also, Amazon Prime is streaming it free for Prime members.

I want to see this so badly!

ETA: CABINET DEBATES AS RAP BATTLES. GREATEST THING EVER.

So as one does, I was listening to the recent Force Over Distance chapters, and got to the discussion here about the use of pitch arcs in speaking to designate a certain kind of seductive fascination, particularly in male characters. Think Robert Carlyle as Mr. Gold in OUAT... or Claudia Black in anything ...or Michael Crawford, in basically anything but in particular POTO. (Though the fact that he kind of tries to do it in everything -- I seriously think he doesn't know how to turn it off-- means that I can't listen to him try to do non-threatening characters. Like Jean Valjean *shudder*)

And then there's the Canadian recording of Phantom.

So on zopyrus's recommendation, I listened to the Canadian recording of POTO on Spotify, and despite my saying up and down that I wouldn't like any other recording because I imprinted on the London recording at a young age, I liked it a lot. I wasn't particularly taken by Canadian!Raoul (sorry, Steve Barton really did imprint me), but Rebecca Caine as Christine was lovely, and then the Phantom -- well, so, I listened not knowing who the Phantom was at first (thanks Spotify!), which was great, because now that I know it's a little creepy -- but anyway, it is a very, very different interpretation than Crawford's. Canadian!Phantom has a sort of disjointed, flat way of speaking/singing that brings forth a character who isn't used to socializing, isn't used to normal human discourse, writes self-insert Don Juan operas, is desperately in love with a girl way out of his league: is really a bit pathetic.

I sort of adore this interpretation. "Past the Point of No Return", for instance, is quite frankly incredibly fascinating to me for how different it is from Crawford's interpretation. Crawford, to me, is all about sweeping Christine off her feet, in an incredibly creepy and emotionally controlling way. Canadian!Phantom is -- well, yeah, he's still incredibly creepy and emotionally controlling, but in a much sadder and pathetic way, and in "No Return" I feel like it comes across much more as a "Hey, I finally get to star as Don Juan... and it's actually a little nervewracking."

But now it's very clear to me why a whole generation of fangirls has woobified the Phantom. Because Crawford's interpretation is very sexy, very darkly fascinating... And it's also wildly interesting to me that Crawford essentially does this by very controlled use of the way he varies both his pitch and his nasality in speech and singing; and Canadian!Phantom is able to achieve a very different effect by flattening that out quite a lot.

I know, I know! This may be my last Les Mis post for a while, though. I think. Maybe? Aaaaanyway, listened to it on Spotify and now have Opinions!

(Also, before I forget: for those of you who like such things, rarewomen is starting up and you should all do it! My wibbling thoughts on nominations are here.)

-Iiiiiinterestingly, I thought I would laugh at Crowe's songs (and I did, when I listened before watching the movie), but listening to the recording after watching the movie, I didn't laugh, and it has actually reconciled me somewhat to Crowe's Javert. It's not the book Javert I imprinted hard on as a child, nor is it Terrence Mann's Javert (which closely follows book!Javert), but I'm coming to terms with the fact that it's just different and it's okay that way. Fine.

-"I dreamed a dream" I skipped right past because I could not take the raw pain in Hathaway's rendition. The other song I skipped halfway through was "Bring Him Home," which was okay in the theater because Jackman can act like whoa, but in the recording it's painfully obvious that he was stretching his voice to do it.

-"Suddenly" made me cry. I think listening to Hugh Jackman's performance of this song will always make me cry. I still think it's kind of a weird song, musically, but the words are so book!canon, and Hugh Jackman -- he -- I JUST -- maybe it's because I have a kid now myself, maybe it's because this part of the book where Valjean's heart is changed (again) by Cosette has always spoken to me so strongly, maybe it's because I spent the last year so angry at Once Upon a Time at its kid!storyline, maybe it's that Jackman has children himself (and adopted, for that matter) and all that just came through in the acting, I just do not know, but to me this has become the heart and soul of the movie and is very possibly the one part of the recording I think is worth owning for sure -- not for the music, but for all the emotion in Jackman's voice. (Well, that and "Empty Chairs." And Hathaway. And... oh, crap, what's happened to me?)

-I forgot to mention this in my movie notes, but the choice to start "Empty Chairs" a capella totally made my heart stop. Both watching the movie and listening to the recording. (Although Eddie Redmayne's voice, which I loved in the theater, distracted me a little in the recording -- though not in this song -- because it sounds a bit like his mouth is full of marbles.)

-The orchestration is very interesting to me. I especially loved their use of the -- is it cannons? Instead of timpani? Anyway, I love it. I love the orchestration. I love that they used the fact that it's not a musical to bring in a huge orchestra that wasn't limited to a pit, and occasionally random sound effects, and re-orchestrated the whole darn thing. LOVED.

The Secret Garden (musical) - Original London Cast: 4/5. Very different from the Broadway version; much more true to the book. And here is where I get all out-of-character for me, because I usually a) hate adaptations that don't stay true to the book, and b) I usually get imprinted by the first thing I see/hear and hate the second one... so I would have expected to either hate the Broadway version or the London one, or possibly both. But nope. I suppose the two factors cancel one another out? I adore the Broadway version (I feel it does something new and exciting with the story while still staying true to the book -- and I am a sucker for works that transform what they build on), but I really like this one too.

Philip Quast is freaking amazing in this one and basically sells the whole thing to me. I love Mandy Patinkin like mad, don't get me wrong, but... PHILIP QUAST. I didn't even like Quast in the Les Mis symphonic recording (having been imprinted by Terrence Mann, of course, which in retrospect I'm pretty sure made me not agree with some of Quast's acting/musical choices even though they're perfectly valid ones), but Quast is really, really good as Archie Craven, just spot on and richly emotional and... wow.

I have a personal preference for Rebecca Luker (Lily) in the Broadway recording to Meredith Braun in the London recording; Braun has a much younger, less ethereal sound -- which is in keeping with the London interpretation, and blends better with Colin, but I just like Luker better. The Broadway Dickon is much better than the London Dickon (who has some weird voice tics); the London Colin is much better than the Broadway Colin (it was a treat not to have to cringe through a super-breathy "Round-Shouldered Man" like I always have to do whenever I listen to the Broadway recording); I like the Broadway Martha better than the London one (who is a bit melodramatic). Natalie Morgan as the London Mary, although she's not bad, unfortunately cannot hold a candle to Daisy Eagan on Broadway, which is too bad because Mary is such an integral part of the recording.

Just got back from epic almost-two-week trip to Boston, Washington D.C. (this part was unintentional -- thanks United for the surprise overnight stay, sigh), St. Louis, and Omaha, involving six airplanes, four hotels, one brand-new just-built humongous 4000-sq-ft house, both D's and my full complement of family at differing times (including two dogs and five children), one wedding, and approximately two billion times E. was asked to say "cheese" (mostly by her grandparents), scattered among those places.

Various random things:( including small-child meanderings, the musical Chicago, crazy family reunion )

Mary Poppins (Musical soundtrack: 2/5): Way to stomp on an icon of my childhood, there. OW. Okay, so, I adore the original movie. I am aware that much of this love has to do with having watched it over and over again when I was, oh, four, but also the movie is another of those high-energy absurdity-filled things that succeeds through not ever taking itself seriously. (Though again, the characters are often taken seriously.) And the musical does Take Itself Seriously, which I hate. (One of the low points for me is when Mrs. Banks has to sing a Moving Song about How Being Mrs. Banks Is So Hard Because She Is, Like, An Oppressed Woman, where she is apparently trying to channel Ragtime and it Does Not Work. Now, I adore Ragtime, too, but Ragtime turns high over-the-top angst into an art form by Always Taking Everything Seriously, and never hinting, even for a moment, that the super-angst could possibly be ridiculous -- you can't have it both ways.) AND it took out all the actually good songs from the movie ("Sister Suffragette," "The Life I Lead," "Stay Awake," "Fidelity Fiduciary Bank") (K and I had this hilarious conversation recently where it turned out neither of us had the faintest idea what a suffragette was when we watched this movie as children) and replaces them with stultifyingly obvious super-sugary-Disneyfied songs. (Occasionally it keeps a song in, and does its best to ruin it by disneyfying the accompanying instrumental, but you can still hear how much better the original songs were, even so.)

The Little Mermaid (Musical soundtrack: 3+/5): In contrast, Little Mermaid started its movie life as a super-sugary-Disneyfied confection, so there wasn't much more they could do to it. Some of the new songs are simply filler, but some aren't bad. I'm always a fan of songs that have more than two singers, so of course I enjoyed the quartet "If Only" even if it is a trifle indulgent. On the other hand, Ursula's voice character is far more compelling in the movie version.

Beauty and the Beast (Musical soundtrack: 3+/5): The musical soundtrack, happily, has Terrence Mann, whom I have been in love with since, uh, sixth grade (that being when I first heard the cast recording of Les Miz). (Except, um, a little creepy because the fact I remember him from my childhood means he must have been in his 40's when doing this, and then Belle is supposed to be high school-age... erk. Although, actually, I guess the way the fairy tale goes, the Beast is probably supposed to be really old, huh? Hm. I may just have ruined a perfectly nice fairy tale for myself. And to be sure, Mann is a good enough actor that he comes across in this character as having a mental age of 15, so there's that.) Sadly, it does not have Angela Lansbury. That's about all I have to say about that.

It's getting near the end of February, so I thought I'd do another overheard-in-our-household quiz thingie -- some version of all of these quotes were spoken in our household during the month of February. Books and movies both are fair game, with one from a musical. Frighteningly enough, more of the quotations are not from books than are, which is really Just Wrong, but oh well. I'll do an update to this post on Monday with the answers.

1. 'You're altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits. You've got to learn that life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie.'

2. "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life."

3. "He lay there like a slug. It was his only defense."

4. "Well, I'm back."

5. Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!”

6. Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

7. Don't squeeze your bosoms against the chair, dear! It'll stunt their growth, and then where would you be?

ETA: ( Answers here. )