The original production opened in 1998 and ran for about two years. It was a massive physical production, that cost somewhere around $750,000 (yes, 3/4 of a million) to run each week. It was nominated for 12 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Another show opened that year, The Lion King, maybe you've heard of it. Anyways, there was always debate about which was better (Ragtime won book, score and orchestrations (the musical award) and Lion King won all the technical awards) and that Ragtime was robbed of Best Musical, blahblahblah. I didn't see the original production, but read the book in high school and listened to the cd quite a bit. This production played the Kennedy Center last spring and significantly paired down the production design. A unit 3 level Gothic-looking set replaced the opulent (and no doubt expensive) original set pieces, and the focus was shifted to the music and characters. Overall, it worked really well for me, but I kept having this nagging in the back of my mind "wow, that must have looked incredible in the original production". The cast was uniformly excellent, but (and this is a major but) the two weakest characters were two of the most important ones, Coalhouse Walker and Sarah. While the both had decent voices, their overall performance was just kinda meh, and they're pretty essential to the story. The major highlights? the opening number, "New Music", the guy who played Mother's Younger Brother, and "Back to Before". I would definitely recommend this, the music is excellent, as are most of the performances. Try and get tickets on discount though, and sit in the first few rows of the center mezzanine. sidenote: I HATE the logo for the show. Gross.
Saturday afternoon we saw Hamlet with Jude Law, and it was exhilarating. I feel like it's the one Shakespeare play that everyone reads in high school, has the most quoted lines ("something is rotten in the state of Denmark", "Get thee to a nunnery"), and everyone is familiar with. The Lion King is even loosely based on it! I'll be honest though, after the first 15 minutes, I didn't think that I was going to like it. Shakespeare can be difficult to follow, and it takes some time to get into his rhythm. However, once I became accustom to it, the production was thrilling. Law was nothing short of sensational, and when ever he wasn't on stage, you wanted him to come back. Two things (besides Law's performance) stuck out to me; the incredible design elements (phenomenal lighting, the massive unit set, and the interesting costume choices) and two actors who played Rosencranz and Guildenstern, Hamlet's bffs. Another thing I enjoyed? Tickets were $25. This particular production came over from the Donmar Warehouse in London, and they're big on accessibility. For every performance of the 12 week run, every seat in the last 3 rows of the mezzanine is $25. I got our tickets the day they went on sale in July, and a week or so later, every $25 seat was sold out. And they were actually pretty good seats, right in the center, and had a really good view of the stage. Two things I didn't care for, Ophelia (she was beyond awful) and the guy who played the ghost of Hamlet's father and doubled as another character later on. He made no difference between the two. I hope that this is remembered come Tony award time, I could easily see this scoring Best Revival of Play, Best Actor and design nominations. Hamlet was some of the quickest 3.5 hours of my life.
I was able to score seats on TDF (Theater Development Fund) for $33 to on Saturday night. TDF is a non-profit that you pay a yearly membership fee ($30) to, and you're able to buy EXTREMELY discounted tickets to shows. The catch? You pay $33-$37 per ticket, but you don't know where they are. They could be great, or they could be awful. Our tickets to Finian's Rainbow turned out to be excellent. They were in the 3rd or 4th row of the mezzanine, right on the aisle. Unfortunately, that was pretty much the only good thing about the show. I can't really give you a rundown of what it was about, because there were about 6 different storylines, only 2 of which actually got resolved. The book was beyond hokey, but the score was pretty good, so that made up for it. The cast also did the best that they could with the weak material that they were given, so that's also a plus. We were definitely the youngest in our section, and it was probably only half-full. I can't really see this show surviving much beyond the New Year, is there really an audience for it? I don't really think so, and especially not at $120 a pop for tickets. The geriatric crew that was around us seemed to love it, so maybe they knew something about it we didn't...Also caught two movies this past week, Precious and The Men Who Stare at Goats. I had heard a lot about both, and was anxious to see them both, Precious more so than Goats as it's being touted as a major awards contender and has tremendous buzz.
Precious, based on the novel Push by the poet Sapphire, is is a vibrant, honest and resoundingly hopeful film about the human capacity to grow and overcome. Set in 1987 Harlem, Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is a 16-year-old African-American girl born into a life no one would want. She's pregnant for the second time by her absent father; at home, she must wait hand and foot on her mother (Mo'Nique), a poisonously angry woman who abuses her emotionally and physically. School is a place of chaos, and Precious has reached the ninth grade with good marks and an awful secret: she can neither read nor write. Precious may sometimes be down, but she is never out. Beneath her impassive expression is a watchful, curious young woman with an inchoate but unshakeable sense that other possibilities exist for her. Threatened with expulsion, Precious is offered the chance to transfer to an alternative school, Each One/Teach One. In the literacy workshop taught by the patient yet firm Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), Precious begins a journey that will lead her from darkness, pain and powerlessness to light, love and self-determination. Yeah, tough stuff. There were more than a few times during the film that I felt like I had been punched in the gut, but, as difficult as it was to sit through at times, it was an extremely powerful and satisfying film. Sibide is sensational as Precious - you cannot take your eyes off her whenever she's on screen. And that's really difficult to do, considering the absolutely jaw dropping performance Mo'Nique turns in as her horrible mother. The buzz around her performance was insane, and I'll admit I wasn't 100% ready to believe it. Believe it. She really is that good. She comes in from the streets and brings the grit and grime with her. Her scenes with Sibide are incredible and heartbreaking, both of them deserve acting nominations. The supporting players are excellent too, notably a severely de-glammed Mariah Carey as a social worker - who'd of thought that the girl had it in her after the beating she took for her performance in Glitter. I will be anxious to see how this film plays outside of major cities, even though it ultimately is an uplifting story, it's a long, graphic road to get there. Even more heartbreaking? Knowing that this really isn't that much of a work of fiction...GRADE: A
The Men Who Stare at Goats on the on the other hand, completely different type of, um, animal. ha. A somewhat hard-to-believe-this-is-really-based-on-actual-events story, Reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is in search of his next big story when he encounters Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a shadowy figure who claims to be part of an experimental U.S. military unit. According to Cassady, the New Earth Army is changing the way wars are fought. A legion of "Warrior Monks" with unparalleled psychic powers can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls, and even kill a goat simply by staring at it. Now, the program's founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), has gone missing and Cassady's mission is to find him. Intrigued by his new acquaintance's far-fetched stories, Bob impulsively decides to accompany him on the search. When the pair tracks Django to a clandestine training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), the reporter is trapped in the middle of a grudge match between the forces of Django's New Earth Army and Hooper's personal militia of super soldiers. Confusing and convoluted? Yes. Entertaining? You bet. I was a little surprised at how terrible some of the reviews were (Entertainment Weekly gave it an F), I think it was meant nothing more than to be a fun, nice piece of fluff film. Clooney and McGregor were excellent, they had a really great on-screen chemistry, and I thought most of the dialog was pretty sharp. It came and left from theaters pretty quickly, but definitely worth a spot in your NextFlix queue.Grade: B
The other recent exciting news, which I posted briefly about last week, is that I'm going to Las Vegas for New Years! It was a little weird the way it happened, I had already made plans to go to Philly/NYC to visit one Rachel Weiner, and before I knew it, I was on the phone with Southwest changing my flight from Philly to Manchester to Philly to Vegas. I'm really excited to go, and it should be a really good time. Making a list of things that I want to do; debating about taking one of those bus day trips to the Grand Canyon (readers who have been, care to comment?), a Cirque du Soleil show, maybe see the Vegas production of Phantom (yes, it's no longer The Phantom of the Opera, it's been shortened for Vegas in both time (95 minutes) and title) and see some topless show because, I mean, what trip to Sin City would be complete without boobies? Also might stay a night in a hotel, either Bellagio or Palazzo. I got a guidebook (I know, I'm a loser) from lonely planet that I started reading last night, and I'm super excited.
Finally, after seeing Precious, the two movies left in 2009 I'm really looking forward to released some really cool stuff this week. First, the French theatrical poster for Avatar (yeah, I know, it's in French, but I'll bet the US poster will look identical)
and, the new trailer for Nine. I'm pretty sure that I might explode when I see this...
