Hey hey hey, it’s Independence Day! Our country’s 249th birthday. The day after our cowardly congress passed an awful law that will devastate the country. So, not much to celebrate, but it’s still our country, dammit, and we have to fix it.
I started the day with a cemetery visit. As I told himself three years ago, in the same venue, “this isn’t the independence I was looking for”. But we work with what we have. As always, the cemetery visit is very peaceful and I wasn’t interrupted by others, so could monologue away. I still need to order a photo to put on the plaque – it’s in the works, I just have to pick the photo.
Gonna spend the rest of the day on desk projects, then watch some Americana this evening. I was thinking Superman 2, which I have on blu-ray and haven’t seen in forever, might be fun.
And I’m going to make Kielbasa Cowboy Beans for dinner. Never tried it, but it looks easy and fun. Maybe I should watchin Blazing Saddles instead, I’m sure I’m going to be jet-propelled for the rest of the weekend.
So, last weekend, I got to see The Picture of Dorian Gray right before it closed. Sarah Snook, so wonderful in Succession (and in that oddly good film adaptation of Heinlein’s “… all you zombies…”, Predestination), had won the Olivier and the Tony for this performance. It was fascinating, not only for her two-hours-with-no-break tour de force performance, but especially for the tech that made it possible. She was always surrounded by a TV camera crew and other crew members, so you not only watched her onstage, but the resulting ‘performance’ on a large screen. (half the time, she wasn’t actually interacting with the audience, she was upstage – stage was mostly bare, with some set pieces that came in and out). So for the first scene, when you have a conversation between the effete lord and the artist, she had a cigarette in one hand, a paintbrush in the other and simply turned to camera left or right to deliver the dialogue as each character.
As the show went on, they did more and more video tricks, very clever – some prerecorded bits in costume that the live actor interacted with on screen, and some clever bits with filters. Much of it was very funny, which I wasn’t expecting.
I actually wasn’t familiar with the book, or the movie, although I knew the premise. Had totally forgotten it was written by Oscar Wilde, and had no clue how queer it is (very!).
Anyway, I thought it was awesome from start to finish, although I do also agree with the NY Times review that opines that the tech setup distances the actor from the audience in an undesirable way. But what a great and interesting concept for a production, and Snook was all in and was amazing. As I said on FB, I’m the first person to decry the devaluation of the standing ovation (everything gets a SO nowadays, and I grumpily will stand up too, just so I can see the curtain call). But I was out of my seat like a shot for this one, totally well-deserved. I hope they did a pro-shot that will get shared with the public someday.
My former neighbors, who’d come back to watch the Tonys with me a few weeks ago, and I were plotting to go see Operation Mincemeat on Tuesday, but even though it was on the TKTS board at 3:00, by the time I got there at 4:30, it was gone – and off to the box office, it was sold out! So they stayed home, I went back to TKTS and got a ticket for Boop!, which is also closing soon. The ticket turned out to be terrific, row G, right in the middle.
The show was delightful. Light and fluffy, of course, and I do kind of agree with (again) the NY Times review which asks, “why does this exist”? But with a book by Bob Martin and music by David Foster and direction by Jerry Mitchell (with, apparently, his husband, as the cartoon film director’s assistant), there’s a lot of productive talent here. And the cast was great. Much has been made of Jasmine Amy Rogers in her star turn. Part of it is the ridiculous, “she’s black, Betty Boop isn’t black”. Gurls, Betty Boop is a cartoon. There’s no realism here to match up with. And Rogers is fantastic, a total delight. Let amazing actors play great roles and get out of their effing way.
I also really enjoyed Erich Bergen’s hilariously smarmy mayoral candidate, the actual teenage girl playing the teenage girl and, well, everyone really. I think my favorite bit was Boop seeing color for the first time.
Some shows you see and while they’re not heavy on depth, you can totally see how they’re going to work on the high school and community theater stage, and this is very much one of those.
If I see a show this week (and I hope to), it might be Sunset Boulevard. I’ve been avoiding it, despite everyone’s rave reviews, but having been so impressed by Dorian‘s video tech, now I’m intrigued to see what Sunset does.
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