… and a magical history tour!
It’s that time of year when the fall shows of various organizations actually start happening. Of course, we are plugging away at 1776, had our first stumble-through off book this past week. My role is clarifying nicely just by the addition of various props – I spend half the show just bringing people rum or ripping calendar pages. Anyway, we’re in good shape. Glad the week had been fairly clear otherwise, because I had four fun events this weekend.
The first event was the one that came up late in the game – my former upstairs neighbor Josh scored free tickets to a funny Halloween cabaret show called Broadway Bloodbath and invited me along. Just us, Mariah was out of town doing book tour stuff, and yes, you should totally buy her new book, Murder on 34th Street. Josh and I decided to meet for an early dinner at Chez Josephine, perfect choice for off-Broadway Theater Row. (We’d been there before, I had in fact been there a few weeks earlier with Renee for my birthday, and C and I went regularly as well. It’s pretty great.) Had a great chat. He just retired, is doing the sort of retirement where he slides into smaller versions of what he’d already been doing – unlike my upcoming retirement, where business analysis will be a forgotten memory. He had salmon and a negroni, I had the prix fixe of tomato soup, striped bass with risotto, and a profiterole (and a cosmo). Yum.
Off to the Laurie Beechman theater, just across the street and down in the basement of a restaurant, where we got good cabaret-table seats and got new drinks. The show was a hoot. Six actors. The men were almost Broadway stereotypes: the twink, the baritone hunk and the “Titus Burgess”. The ladies were not so classifiable but all lovely and talented. They did Broadway-themed horror skits, such as:
- Annie crossed with The Exorcist.
- Aunt Gladys from Weapons had a solo number.
- Rocky Horror: High School Edition where all the naughtiness had been taken out. (Brad and Jarnet – as in “Darnit, Jarnet” – are now brother and sister.) The Time Warp was “let’s do our homework again!”
- Christine Pedi on screen as a chatbot Liza.
- A parody of Little Shop where Audrey II was an AI engine helping Seymour write a musical.
- Two kids doing Bloody Mary summoning and getting all the Broadway Marys in turn: Mary Poppins, Mary Magdalene and Mary Todd Lincoln.
- And there was one actually serious song sung by the “ghost light”, which was lovely.
Anyway, it was really fun and I think they hope to do it annually. I have been trying to get to see more cabaret, so this was a nice surprise and treat. The only actual ‘horror’ was the second cosmo I got a the theater (third of the evening, if you’re counting) was funky. It looked OK, but tasted bizarre. I’m wondering if they made it in an unwashed cocktail shaker that had just had a martini in it or something. I didn’t finish it.
Saturday was quite booked. I had evening tickets to Opera Picciona’s Ages Ago, and the 1776 historical walking tour that VLOG had put together and was supposed to happen when I was in North Carolina had been rescheduled for that afternoon. Plus, I’d been meaning to make it down to Ground Zero for the 9/11 anniversary and just hadn’t had a good time to do so. Since the walking tour was starting at City Hall Park, I figured I could just go in early and do that.
So after a morning of getting my laundry together, etc., I headed into town. Lovely sunny day for outdoor activities. Took the E train down to the World Trade Center. Just exiting the E train had resonance, as I could see exactly where Charles had done the same thing on 9/11 and aimed to get on the Path Train, only to be shooed up on the street. I ended up in the Oculus. Boy, is it pretty, and boy, is it confusing. Quite a lot of work to figure out how to get the hell out of it and onto the street.
I’m assuming that most of you have actually been to Ground Zero since it became the museum. The footprint of each of the towers have been turned into these stunning reflecting pools, surrounded by trees, and the entrance to the museum (which is largely underground). I just wanted to commune with the space and stare at the pools and look at the engraved names. It is, of course, touristy, and not all tourists were on best behavior, but it wasn’t too bad. I’d given myself time and space to maybe sit and really do some reflecting or whatever, but I ended just walking around each pool and stopping various places to look at the pretty falling water.
Back to the Oculus to find a bathroom (another adventure – so damned confusing, I swear) and then walking up to the park to meet the VLOG people. (I’ve been to Lower Manhattan many times, but not really enough to learn it, and it would be very much worth my time next year to spend time exploring it more.) Met up with everyone at the fountain. One of our new VLOG members, Ariel, is a certified New York City guide and had been strongarmed into putting together a tour of 1776-era lower Manhattan. We saw all sorts of things and heard all sorts of stories (they’re secret! No, they’re not, but I don’t remember enough to relay them accurately.) Wandered all around and wrapped it up at Fraunces Tavern, where a bunch of us stayed and drank. It was crazy busy, but a lot of fun. (I’d only been there once before, with Charles, the day we went to the 9/11 musuem.)
Our 1776 director, Laura, was also going to “Ages Ago”, so we decided to get dinner together before the show. Took the green line up to 28th street, and ended up at Nonono Japanese, right across the street from the Houghton Arts Center where we were headed. We each got a different type of ramen soup, yummy, and had a great chat, first time we’d gotten to connect as people, really.
Then across the street, to meet many mutual friends and see Ages Ago. This was the same company where I did the two mini-operas in June, and I knew pretty much everyone involved. Marisa, the music director (and dear friend and colleague) is also the MD for 1776. “Ages Ago” is a one-act opera written by W.S. Gilbert, but the music’s not by Sullivan, it’s by the otherwise-unknown Frederic Clay. (Actually, Gilbert and Sullivan met during the original production of Ages Ago.) It’s a fun ghost story about a cursed castle, and there are five portraits of deceased owners that come to life (all played by the same actors playing the ‘modern day’ characters). It’s not only fun, but it’s riddled with ‘easter eggs’ of ideas (like portraits coming to life) that Gilbert revisited later in the G&S operas.
As expected, the production was as minimal as it could possibly be, but there were suitable costumes, and the actors were terrific. There was also a ‘pre-show’ of a concert of Sullivan songs, including The Lost Chord – and every time I hear that song, I’m reminded how lovely and rich it is and that I should actually take the time to study it. My buddy David and I were comparing it to (equally wonderful) Vaughan Williams art songs, a fair comparison, I think.
The company had had a hell of a time getting to opening night – they’d lost their venue two weeks ago and had to scramble to get a new one – and one of their five actors became unavailable (luckily, he had an understudy). So extra bravos to them for pulling it off so nicely in the face of such adversity!
Sunday wasn’t nearly so packed, but I really did have just enough time to pick up my laundry and put it away, and get brunch before heading into town for Die Yam Gazlonim (The Pirates of Penzance in Yiddish!). This was being done by the same organization that had put up the lovely off-Broadway Yiddish Fiddler on the Roof a few years ago, with a lot of the same people involved – including the hilarious Jackie Hoffman. I had tickets to the matinee, and as this was the tail end of this whole string of stuff this weekend, didn’t actually do a double-check before I headed to midtown and to City Center, which is where I thought it was.
Readers, it was not. It was at Symphony Space, far up Broadway, nowhere near 55th between 6th and 7th avenues. “Gosh, why aren’t there people pouring into the theater?”, this dumb bunny wondered as he showed up 20 minutes before curtain. *checks ticket* Oh, f*ck. OK, so options. I might be able to make it uptown in time, particularly if I get a cab. I might even be able to pull it off if I scurry to the 1 train. But cab I did, and it was very easy, and even though I was just barely in time, they were still processing a very long line of people though the ticket takers. I ran into my buddy Casey waiting in line and joined up with her and all was well.
Even though I’ve been to that space (and performed there) quite a few times, I’d never sat in the balcony before. Turns out this is really nicely set up, with the chairs angled towards the stage, and even though I was way off to house right, it was a great view.
This was a staged concert, trimmed down to 90 minutes with no intermission, and a small cast. Most dialogue was cut and replaced with (English) narration. The new Yiddish lyrics (and dialogue) were titled on a screen above the stage, and this was great. They weren’t displaying Gilbert’s original lyrics, they were displaying English translations of the Yiddish adaptation, which was not at all word for word. The same sense was always there, but much of it was rephrased, and much of it was made very Jewish, which was very very funny. (The “Paradox” trio became the “Mishegoss” trio, for instance.) “Hail Poetry” became a hymn to Yiddishkeit itself.
It was very well-performed. They used a small orchestra with piano, and they sounded lovely. There were about four sisters and five pirates (which then turned into Sergeant-plus-two policeman, and Pirate King-plus-three pirates). All the leads sounded great and seemed to be nailing the Yiddish. (as you can imagine, the Major-General’s song was quite a tour de force) The Mabel was particularly excellent, and I’ve heard a lot of Mabels. A couple of exceptions – the Pirate King was not up to the others, vocally – and although Jackie Hoffman was wonderful as Ruth (and vocally accurate), she’s no G&S contralto. But the staging (in front of the band) was clever, quite a lot of choreography.
But mostly it would have been a success even if they’d just pulled off the Yiddish in a middling “Pirates” and it was so much better than that. Probably one of the most delightful Pirateses I’ve seen. And, of course, it reminded me once again what a terrific show the original is. They did do an interesting interpolation, they swapped out “Sighing Softly” for an abridged “Nightmare Song”, which … huh… actually kind of makes more sense than as written. Last year’s “Pirates! the Penzance Musical” had also interpreted the Nightmare Song, but not with such surgical precision.
So! Great stuff, great run of fun events with fun people! Time to recharge those social batteries though. And I have more shows coming up next week and the week after that, and that’s all before we go up.
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Quiet week – not called for rehearsal at all. Tuesday is C’s birthday, which will remembered with a quiet dinner with Tessa. And Thursday, I have another of those ‘curated dinners for single gay guys to meet each other’ things. Cross your fingers!
And Halloween next weekend. Fall is chugging along just as it’s supposed to.
