Fairhaven, The River

Wicked - Chicago

I saw the Chicago version of Wicked last week. I enjoyed the show. Very good seats (center orchestra, 8 rows back). It would be better to be a few rows further back to avoid the vision obscuration by tall people in front of me. But a good show. There isn't much point in adding yet another review to the show beyond that.

I keep forgetting how loud some of these shows are. The amplification is a bit excessive, but it ensures that the audience noises are not distracting. This show had more tourists and novices than my usual Broadway shows. There were the teenage girls, talkers, and other distractions. But they do quiet down once they get involved in the show.

It's interesting how the theater district in Chicago has picked up and become a night spot. In the summer it's still light when the show starts, and there were a lot of women dressed up for their dates and the show. I got there early because there were no traffic problems and no problems finding parking. (You never know with Chicago.) So I had a nice tea next door before the show opened. The neighborhood is nicer than Broadway, although the area is much smaller. It's nice to see theater picking up a city neighborhood. Having a few core theaters and a theater cluster seems to be necessary. The theaters in DC don't seem to make as big a local difference.

Cabaret - Arena Theater, Washington, DC

I was in DC, and per usual I checked whether there was anything running on the evenings that I had free. This past week I got good seats for Cabaret at the Arena. I called Tuesday and got seats for Thursday. It was nearly full on the night.

I've seen a few of the Broadway incarnations, and my first reaction was one of comparison. This show has good singing, minor league dancing, and tried to focus on the pathos of the play much more. The emcee is much weaker than any of the Broadway MCs. The dancing is more gentle posturing and motion. (There are few musical dancers to match Bob Fosse for edge and energy, and the more recent Broadway staging preserved that edge.)

The characterization and pathos is stronger and more affecting than Broadway. I found myself with much more understanding and feeling for these characters. They are more human, and their situations are more affecting. They lack the nihilistic energy of the Broadway "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die." The first exposure of the Nazi armband was a gut shot emotionally, in part because it was not facing the powerful song and dance competition found in the Broadway version.

I did find the variation of having the drag boys sing "Tommorrow belongs to me" in an early scene very effective. The contrast of song and future was compelling. This play has a mix of boys in drag and girls for the ensemble and band. The rest was OK. The weakest characterization was the emcee, who is portayed as a person, and not the heartless commentator on life. This does not fit the role well. The other leads are OK. The best performance, but for a minor role, is for the Nazi smuggler. He does a good job with the characterization.

Staging was simple but effective. Some of the techniques, like the toy train, could have been laughable but in context they were OK. Costumes were good.

With the lower cost of DC, I think it was worth the money.

There are only a few weeks left in the run, so I'm making sure to write this while it might be useful.

Thank you for smoking

A very funny movie.  I don't usually end up laughing in the theater, but this movie has a lot of laughs in it.  It is especially funny for anyone who follows politics or public affairs.  I left the movie with a smile.  Some of the gags were predictable (but still funny) and some caught me by surprise. The utterly humorless fanatics may get absorbed by the politics, but the rest of us will be laughing.

Inside Man

Saw this movie a few days ago.  It's a nicely done heist movie.  It skips act 1, instead making the "who is the team" part of the mystery.  A few of the parts are rather thinly motivated, like that of Jodie Foster, but this is just entertaining fluff.  With plot fluff character development can be left very thin.  The filming is skillful.  The plot is suitably concealing of the plot tricks, while revealing enough to be interesting.  It's a good entertaining time.  If you enjoy movies, it's worth the cost of a ticket.  If not, it is definitely worth renting.

It doesn't compare well with classic heist movies like "Asphalt Jungle".  It has more technical filming expertise and a much more complex plot, but the characters are paper cutouts by comparison.

V for Vendetta

I am lucky to live in a small town with an old-style movie theater.  It is somewhat renovated and tonight I saw "V for Vendetta".  I recommend this movie.  It is good, unfortunately not great.   A Sunday night in a small town theater meant that I had a quiet mostly empty theater without obnoxious people  in the audience.  It also means that the theater starts on schedule with just a couple trailers and then the movie.   This is the way a movie should be, without all the noise and obnoxiousness of the modern cineplex.  A small town also means I can walk there from home, despite the cold night. 

I think it is a reasonable re-interpretation of Alan Moore's original novel, but I suspect that he would not agree.  Many of the details are changed, characters revised, and most of the psychological content is different.  But enough remains to say that the movie held true to the original, at least as true as a movie can be to a novel.  There is enough the same that I found nothing surprising.  The novel is a complete spoiler but the movie survives.  In much of it I found myself thinking, "Yes, they had to make that change because of the movie context."  The plot and characters are true enough that I found nothing especially jarring in the changes.

This is similar to the changes made to "LA Confidential" between movie and book.  But in that case, the author was pleased with the result despite an amazingly drastic revision to plot and characters.  It was amazing in that although almost nothing remained of the original book, everything felt true to the world of the book.

I will not attempt a detailed  review of the movie.  Ignore all the reviews that are obviously politicized.  There are and will be many who are biased for or against the movie for political reasons.  The rest are probably going to be accurate.  This is a good movie.  The acting is acceptable, if not great.  The characters, their character development, the plot, the actions, are all well integrated into a coherent movie.   That alone is enough enough to rank a movie as at least average.  This one has a few ideas (not too many) which moves it up to good, but it lacks the excellence to achieve greatness.

Get the graphic novel and read it.  I read it many years ago when it was first published.  It made more of an impression then than it will now.  After the movie there will be less surprise.  But the depth of psychological understanding of the characters is in the novel, not the movie.

Defiance and Doubt

I just confirmed today that I will not be able to see this run of "Defiance".  I checked each day that I could be in New York, and they are sold out on every one.  I expect it will open again in another venue, like "Doubt" did, since they are getting great reviews, are selling out, and have already extended the showing as much as they could without interfering with their next play.

I strongly encourage people who like serious plays to go see "Doubt".  It is marvelously well acted, short, intense, and well staged.  I saw it shortly before Christmas and as part of a charity drive got a cast autographed playbill from it. 

For an indication of what I like, I also liked "Chicago" and "Cabaret".  I thought "Hairspray" was rather boring.  I like some edge to my theater.