Staycation

I’m really tired. Honestly, just plain tired. Since taking on a full-time gig at the Morg (i.e. Morgan Stanley), I’ve not had more than a long weekend off in almost three years. Yes, the corporate world has afforded me a lifestyle where a delicious Spam and Ramen noodle dinner is a choice rather than a necessity, but the schedule has left me a bit run down. Instead of using my three-week vacation time to jet set around the world, I’ve spent the time with the Pineda Conservatory kids at the summer sweat lodge known as CDC Theatre.

Yes, I know I shouldn’t be complaining but this is my blog. Where else can I go for a self-pitying rant?

Anyway, This past weekend Trish and I had a staycation in historic Philadelphia. It’s just over 2 hours from NYC, but it’s in another state and they have a different accent, so it's nearly a foreign country.  Anyway, this weekend "abroad" turned out to be my summer vacation (I know, sad).

Like most Pineda trips it was all about the food. I mean, yeah, we (Trish and I) went to the Liberty Bell (above left - looking very serious.  This is history, dammit!), took a tour of Independence Hall (above rightt - don't I look excited!?) and all that good shit, but the real historic moment was our cheesesteak taste-off between legendary South Philly rivals, Pat’s and Geno’s. Of course, arriving smack dab in the middle of lunch hour on a beautiful Sunday afternoon may not have been the smartest plan. Lines at both literally wrapped around the block and we waited a good half hour at each spot. For the sake of judging, we shared one sandwich at each location and picked the same toppings - onions and cheese wiz, the traditional Philly cheese of choice. Mmm-mmm (insert obscene oral sound here). The verdict? - Geno’s - their sandwich was just, well, "beefier" (is that even a word?).  But maybe that's just the special phlegm sauce (read on, it'll make sense).  Unfortunately, since getting back from our trip we discovered through the magic of Yelp that Geno is actually a racist asshole who sometimes spits in your food if you appear to be "not American" - City of Brotherly Love, my ass.  Blinded by my food-gasm I missed the "I am mad as hell!  I want my country back!" poster prominently displayed at the front counter and on the homepage of their website.  Moral?  Even assholes can be good cooks.  Thankfully, we enjoyed our sandwiches in blissful ignorance. 

For most people a beef, onion and cheese orgy would more than satisfy the need for vacation gluttony but this carnivore ain't most people.  Instead, we took Adam Richman's (the Man vs Food guy) advice and also stopped by Reading Terminal Market to share a Tommy DiNic's roast beef, spinach and sharp provolone sandwich and an assortment of Flying Monkey specialty cupcakes (including Lavender, Guinness and Mint Chocolate Chip flavors, yum!).  Full yet?  I think not!  After taking the afternoon to digest the days intake, we headed out to wine bar and tapas joint, Tria, where I got wasted on wine and extravagant food.  Just a sampling of our small plate feast included poached figs with gorganzola and prosciutto, truffled egg toast with fontana cheese and pistachio herbed ricotta with lavender honey.  I've got a food buzz just thinking about it.

Between bites of cheesesteak we were also able to check out the Cleopatra exhibit at the Franklin Institute.  It's from the same people who are presenting the current King Tut exhibit at the Discovery center in Times Square here in NYC.  It's actually a much more interactive exhibit than Tut with tons more articfacts.  But we were suffering from a bit of a food hangover so by the the time we had finished, we weren't in much of a mood to browse the rest of the museum.  We might have also been a wee bit annoyed that half the regular museum exhibits didn't work.  Oh, and frehen up that human heart exhibit already.  That thing needs a new coat of paint and a good Febreze-ing. 

Happy sphinx (below) and sexy headless Cleo (left).

Brief Encounter - a Cirque d'Bunraku melodramatic quasi-vaudevillesque play with music

Tuesday, September 21
8pm Performance

In a nutshell, this show offers some great individual moments, some cool stage effects and a kicking onstage band, but the great moments don’t add up to an emotionally satisfying whole.

Sure, there was lots of ooh-ing and ah-ing after the first big visual effect - actors climbing through a movie screen to instantaneously appear in the movie and interact with the “real” people on stage. But the excitement generated by creative staging and the multi-media applications quickly got bogged down in the melodrama of the closing book scenes.

My favorite moment? - the band playing a Klezmer-like rendition of Estelle’s “American Boy” as we filed out of the theatre.

Is it me, or does every show seem to have some kind of flying or aerial work? I mean, Billy Elliott, American Idiot, Spiderman and now this? It didn’t quite work here. The leads looked really awkward trying to hook and un-hook their arms from the ropes suspended from chandeliers.

Oh, and I almost forgot about the puppet children. Another developing Broadway trend (Lion King, Avenue Q)? Let’s hope not. For me the “everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” approach didn’t quite lend a cohesive style to the piece. A nice attempt, but ultimately left me cold. Not exactly the feeling you want to leave with from a play about a supposed passionate affair between two married people.

My random thoughts on Promises x2

Thursday, September 9
8:00pm performance

• I was frankly a bit bored during act one. The music is kitschy and fun, but that book - Oy vey! Those punch lines might have worked on Laugh-In circa-1968, but seem quaint and even groan-inducing now.
• A show glorifying marital infidelity just doesn’t play quite so hilariously post Tiger Woods, Jon Gosselin, David Letterman, et al. The audience was weirdly silent and seemingly quite uncomfortable during “Where Can You Take A Girl?” - a comic number complaining about the lack of convenient places you can go to screw your mistress.
• “She Likes Basketball” was just a big WTF moment. It was just plain weird and completely unflattering - which took some work given the hotness level of the male ensemble - not to mention it making absolutely no sense in the context of the song. I had the same reaction to the added dancers in “Wanting Things.” Seems like Ashford didn’t know what else to do with the songs so he threw in some dancers so we wouldn’t notice.
• “Turkey Lurkey Time” was a big let down. It’s my favorite number in the show and it just couldn’t live up the freakishly exciting original Bennett staging. 
• Sean Hayes has the weirdest vibrato, but strangely, I ended up liking his singing voice a lot. He also stayed (almost) clear of “Jack-ism’s” in his performance and was totally believable as a straight dude.
• Cheno looked beautiful if a bit gaunt, and although perhaps not the perfect match for the role, sounded fantastic. I’ll give her credit for showing an honest vulnerability in her act two downward spiral that frankly, I didn’t think she could pull off. Her and Hayes definitely have some great stage chemistry and she does a mean fake guitar strum.
• Katie Finneran was hilarious as the drunken slut, but now I want to go back to see her replacement, Molly Shannon do Marge MacDougall a la prepubescent Catholic-school reject Mary Katherine Gallagher.
• The added Bacharach songs, “Say A Little Prayer” and “House is Not a Home,” are fun to hear, but frankly seem shoe-horned in (which they basically are). It’s a total bummer to end the first act with a ballad rather than with Turkey Lurkey.

Traviata auditions

Quite a mixed bag today at La Traviata auditions. Val and Audrey (one of our Board members) trudged into the city in our search for a Flora, Dr. Grenvil and Alfredo. Fingers and toes were firmly crossed in hopes of finding that elusive creature - an attractive, svelte and talented tenor. Well, several candidates filled at least two of the three criteria, but one firmly rose above the competition. Unfortunately, until I receive the confirmation from Val I can’t disclose names, so stay tuned. We were also happily surprised to hear two wonderful mezzos today. Hopefully, one will take our offer. Still no Dr. Grenvil, so basses and bass-baritones email us pronto.

It’s nice to see that opera is starting to catch up with the rest of the performing arts world in that singers are starting to pay more attention to their physiques. Not that I’m opposed to casting a full-figured singer - Lord knows my center of gravity has widened over the years - but it’s just plain silly to believe that an audience doesn’t notice when the tragic young lovers are clearly menopausal and unable to reach around one another during that last tearful embrace.

This year’s crop of headshots didn’t suck too badly either, no crazy glamour shots or picture taken before 1980. Trust me, people, no matter how good or bad your shot is, we’re eventually going to see you in person. You ain’t fooling anybody with that unnatural head angle or by photo shopping your nose down to a respectable size.

My shameful secret

Thursday, September 2
8:00pm performance

I enjoyed The Addams Family.

There, I’ve said it. Amongst the New York theatre cognoscenti, that’s equivalent to admitting to a $1,000 a day cocaine habit. And like a secret drug habit, I’m not proud of it, but I just couldn’t help myself. I’m not saying the show is the next West Side Story or Sweeney Todd, but it’s an entertaining, funny, sometimes clever and often visually stunning production.

Whatever they’re paying Nathan Lane (and I’m sure it’s a lot), he’s worth every penny. I’m not sure the show would play even half as well without him. Like Stritchie in Night Music, Lane can make just about any line funny. Bebe Neuwirth looks amazing as Morticia and has the body of a 25 year old porn star. Unfortunately, her role is severely under-written. Her few dance breaks seem shoe-horned in and don’t really illuminate her character or add anything particularly interesting to the production except that you get to see Bebe dance. Which I guess for some, is enough.

The rest of the cast is uniformly strong and everyone seems to be having a great time on stage. The vaudeville-like approach to the musical staging is a perfect fit for this particular group of Broadway vets. Of course, my straight crush, Carolee Carmello, sounds eff-ing amazing. Someone needs to write her a starring role right now.

The book is entertaining enough, an enjoyable homage to La Cage with monsters in place of gay parents (an apt substitution if you are to believe our red state “friends”). Unfortunately, the score is just a mess. Other than the familiar TV theme and opening number, the rest of the score is bland and forgettable.

The set and lighting design are gorgeous and inventive. Uncle Fester’s song to the moon is the kind of original and imaginative staging and design that is sorely missing from the current glut of spectacle-driven clap trap.

It’s a valiant attempt with uneven results.

The original:

TV:

Broadway:

"...opera is just like musical theatre except with no consonants."

       -Varla Jean Merman, drag queen

The new season is almost here!!!

I just spent hundreds of dollars on theatre tickets. You know what that means, kiddies. Fall, my favorite season in NYC, is just around the corner. The theatre and opera are gearing up, Chuck and Fringe are back, the weather is awesome and the underground subway stations no longer smell of pee.

My first must-see of the season isn’t until December, but it’s already the hottest ticket in town. It’s Tony Kushner’s first New York revival of his epic two-part play, Angels in America. Both parts are playing in rep at the tiny Signature theatre (less than 200 seats) and Zachary Quinto (Heroes’ evil Sylar and new Star Trek’s sexy Spock) will be spitting distance from me - so exciting. I literally spent half an hour online trying to get on their website on the first day of ticket sales. I guess the rest of New York had the same idea since the site kept crashing from the web traffic. Thankfully, an extension had been added, because the first three months of the run had already sold out by the time I was able to get through.

I also booked my tickets for the marathon performance of The Gatz at the Public, yet another two-part, seven hour play. What an odd trend. Anyway, the idea intrigued me - a group of people at an office start to read the text of "The Great Gatsby" out loud in real time. I know, it sounds like S&M for English teachers, but it got incredible out of town reviews so I’m going to take my chances.

I also jumped on a recent discount code for The Addams Family. I know, I know - but I love a good train wreck, especially when two bona fide Broadway stars headline. Since I didn’t pay full price, I thought, what the hell.

A few blocks uptown at the Met, I’m set to see Il Trovatore (which I’ve never seen live) with the dreamy cast of Racette, Radvanovsky, Zajick, Alvarez and Hvorostovsky. And for you non-opera fans, that would be akin to seeing Benanti, Baldwin, LuPone, Crawford and Hearn in…well…I guess that would never happen. But you get the idea. I’ll then be back two days later for the Met’s ridiculously huge production of La Boheme for a glimpse of new tenor hottie, Vittoria Grigolo. Between him and James Valenti (above) - yowzah - so much for the fat opera singer stereotype! And I almost forgot about Das Rheingold next Spring. It’s the first of the four Wagner Ring operas in a new production that makes even the most complicated Broadway set look like legos (check out the preview below). The stage had to be reinforced with three 65-foot girders to support the weight of the 45-ton set. It’s opening the Met’s season, but all the fall performances are sold out, so I have to settle for Mach of next year. Sigh.

Other upcoming shows on my radar: Evita (w/ Ricky Martin’s Che), Anything Goes (w/ Sutton Foster’s Reno), A Life in the Theatre (w/ Patrick Stewart and T.R. Knight), Driving Miss Daisy (w/ James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (w/ LuPone, Stokes Mitchell & Laura Benanti), Elf, How to Succeed ... (w/ Daniel Radcliff) & War Horse (from London’s National Theatre). So many stars - so little time and money!

This week the chat rooms are buzzing with South Pacific talk. Who knew a PBS airing would create so much net discussion. I caught Paulo and Kelli early in the run, so it was a pleasure seeing them again with the aid of the camera close-up. Beside the obvious larger girth around Paulo’s middle (they couldn’t get him a new white dinner jacket that closed comfortably for National TV?!), both were as wonderful as I had remembered. My random thoughts on the broadcast:

• Ables Sayre certainly acts the role of Bloody Mary marvelously, but I still miss the more robust, creamy sound of a legit singer.
• The Seabees dancing still strikes me - for lack of a better word - as sort of gay. And some of them are pushing the butch act a bit too hard.
• Happy to see they didn’t edit out the naked ass scene.
• Andrew Samonsky’s Lt. Cable was painful to watch. His strange audible breathing, odd line readings and forced John Whayne-ish physicality was just plain weird. And all the hard “r” sounds in his singing negated his obviously pretty singing voice. I missed Morrison, even though his singing wasn’t so hot either.

more Night Music

Tuesday, August 17
8:00pm performance

This is the season of the replacement. After checking out the new dysfunctional family over at Next to Normal, I headed back to the Walter Kerr to catch the new Amrfeldts.

Roma Torre practically jizzed on my TV screen over the replacement cast of the current Broadway revival of A Little Night Music, so how could I not pay the show a second visit? Granted, the replacements happen to be Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch, considered by New Yorkers and theatre queens alike to be Broadway royalty. I had my misgivings going in. I mean, I loves me some Bernie, but she was practically unwatchable when I saw her last in the Broadway revival of Annie Get your Gun, mugging and winking at the audience as an annoying caricature of herself. And Stritch? Well, she’s a comedic genius, but she’s salt of the earth and all brass and growl, the exact opposite of the aristocratic Madame Armfeldt. Happily, my worry was all for naught.

Since Chris hadn’t seen the show yet, Trish and I invited him to join us (and be our bitch to stand on the TKTS line). Luckily, he woke up just in time from his first act nap to catch Bernadette’s first entrance. (Note to self: do not allow Chris wine before a show). Anyway, playing against (my) expectation, BP gave a subtle, nuanced performance. Her Desiree is a still gorgeous actress past her professional prime. Weary of her fast and frivolous lifestyle, she seeks emotional stability with a good man (who doesn’t?). Her “Send in the Clowns” is heartbreaking. When Fredrik walks out on Desiree, we see this proud woman desperately try to hold it together. Her laughter through tears reminded me why the song is a classic, despite its millions (I love hyperbole) of cheesy remakes.

Stritch, on the other hand, is well, Stritch. Not that that’s a bad thing exactly. She manages to milk laughs from even the most mundane of lines through sheer force of personality. Sure, her Madame Armfeldt lacks the grace and carriage you’d expect from an aristocrat who’s seduced Kings and Emperors, but Stritch knows how to enthrall an audience. Who else could go up on their lines so frequently, yet manage to elicit even greater respect and love from an audience?

The rest of the cast seems to have mellowed and adjusted their performances (for the better) to jibe with BP’s more subtle approach. Chris had some musical gripes with all the back-phrasing going on in the duets “Every Day a Little Death” and “It Would Have Been Wonderful”. I’d have to agree, given that some lines were back-phrased so much that lines composed to be sung in the clear now overlap to render lyrics unintelligible. I also think cutting the last key change in “A Weekend in the Country” is a mistake. You miss the excitement that last “lift” adds to the finale.

I also have to give a shout out to Bradley Dean (Frid) who, though not really a friend, grew up near me in Pennsylvania and we sung together through high school in District, Regional and All-State Choirs. And to Kevin Vortmann, a fellow caroler for the past several seasons with DB Productions.