A bunch of things seen and done...

Lot's been happening since that last post on The Wiz. But I haven't been writing much about it. Perhaps the biggest news might be that I haven't set foot in a concert hall since then - I think I burned myself out on that classical music, and Esa-Pekka Salonen hasn't been at the podium for the LA Phil in awhile. Strange, but the orchestra doesn't sound as lively without him... but that's still pretty lively compared to, say, the New York Philharmonic. (link) I do want to go back for the Bach Christmas concert though. We'll see. Meanwhile, I've been exploring more of what everyone else in the world has been doing when they aren't going to the LA Phil every week.

Here's some catch up on what I've seen:

DIXIE CHICKS IN CONCERT
Staples Center, November 24, 2006

Random for me to go to see the Dixie Chicks in concert, huh? What can I say - give me free tickets and I'm likely to try anything (thanks Marcus!). Not that I had to be dragged to this. I actually like the Dixie Chicks' music from the radio. This marks my first arena concert. Though it shocks to hear, I've never been to a rock concert and Marcus took every chance to mark out my arena concert virginity. "How long is intermission?" I asked. "Hahaha it's not called intermission!" he gloated. Well what the hell was I supposed to think? The lights came up and people bounded for bathrooms and beer... Sorry! And people think a symphony concert is intimidating...

I had a great time though. The Chicks are AMAZING live. Natalie Maines has a stunning, real live voice (as opposed to a manufactured, overamplified one like many artists on the radio today). Even thought it was way amplified in the Staples Center, there was a visceral thrill from hearing her sing it loud and sing it well. The songs were lively and fun, and I love "Not Ready to Make Nice," which is all about the fallout from Maines' comments about George Bush a few years ago. Not only am I like 'woo hoo' for them having said it and weathered the storm, its just feels so empowering (yes, corny) to hear that song. There were a lot of other songs I liked, too. And plenty that I recognized from the radio without associating them with the Dixie Chicks previously. That's my relationship to pop music: I hear plenty of songs I like but have no idea who sings them...

Bottom line, I had fun. Then on the way out I saw that Christina Aguilera will be coming in March. I want to go! Gay? I think so.

DREAMGIRLS

After seeing an early screening of the Dreamgirls movie a few weeks ago, I've been converted. The movie is so much fun, and it's a great movie musical too. I'll have to see it again (and I want to see it again) to step back and see how I feel about its merits as a dramatic film - blah blah - but I sure enjoyed myself at the screening. The performances were excellent, the songs a hell of a lot of fun, and the movie well made.

The thing with Hollywood movie musicals that has tended to tick me off in the past has been their artifice: the lips on the actors don't match the music, or the performers are faking their way through the dancing and the singing (yes, I'm talking about Catherine and Rene in Chicago here). Dreamgirls has none of that. These girls - and guys - can sing it and dance it, and boy do they. Miraculously, the lip synching rarely feels pre-recorded, and all the emotion and thrill of live performance manages to pierce straight through the celluloid.

Oh my god and Jennifer Hudson. Amazing. She completely pulls focus from everyone in the film with her very emotional and intelligent performance. And that's a tough task, too, considering that everyone else in the film, Beyonce, Anika Noni Rose, Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy, are all really great in their own rights. Beyonce, particularly, is impressive for subsuming her extravagant public persona into the role. It's not a stretch for her to play lead diva, of course, but there were no Beyonceisms to be seen and she sings all the songs sweetly and acts it all very well too.

I'm gonna go see this again when it's released. So fun.

UNIVERSAL BALLET: THE NUTCRACKER

It wouldn't be Christmas in the ballet world without the Nutcracker. And as much as I love this ballet for the music and the sweetness, every year I manage to disappoint myself with bland productions. This year, the blandness was imported across the Pacific Ocean - from Korea. The Universal Ballet is from Seoul but is essentially run by Russian expats, escapees from the Kirov Ballet. Oleg Vinogradov was the Kirov's artistic director in the late 80s/early 90s and was famous for his temper tantrums backstage. After getting booted from the Kirov under shady circumstances he ended up in Korea, running this company with funding from the Church of the Moon. A cult. Sounds weird, huh? Well whatever, the dancers are all fabulously trained in the Russian school, so they dance immaculately, albeit like Russians. That means gorgeous hands, feet and legs with perfect placement - but for my taste, cold in the faces and personalities.

This production of Nutcracker is the very traditional Soviet version, by Vasily Vainonen. It's basically the version that was approved by the Soviet cultural censors, so it's all pretty with heroic men, beautiful women, and a triumphant ending. And terribly bland choreography. The act 1 Christmas party scene is mannered to a fault: the production has the Asian dancers costumed as Edwardian houseguests, wearing powdered blond wigs and made up with bright red blush. They look like they're desperately trying to be European, but really it's just the company's artistic directors' unwillingness to adapt anything from the hallowed Russian traditions. It reads weird, suffice to say. Act 2's candy divertissements taste more like recycled paper. And even moments that should save the show - Waltz of the Flowers and the Grad Pas De Deux - are rendered rather odd. The Waltz doesn't build with the music but rather harrumphs along with pretty, courtly gestures until the music ends 7 minutes later. In the Grand Pas, when one normally expects a formal classical dance for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her male cavalier, a tutued, grown Clara is instead passed between her prince and four other men - a veritable orgy of a pas de deux.

Still, the dancers were very very good. The Waltz of the Snowflakes was a real delight, with rows of beautifully placed girls in white waltzing in the paper confetti snowstorm. (Some of the confetti was falling in clumps that looked like feathers. Friend Amy couldn't resist, leaned over to Justin and conspiratorially whispered "Pigeons!" Justin was in a fit of giggles for the rest of the Snowflakes scene).

Oh, Nutcracker! Someday I'll have to finally get my ass to New York (or Philadelphia, or Miami) to see George Balanchine's Nutcracker. Where the Christmas party scene is charming, and the choreography is actually good ballet choreography...

IN THE CONTINUUM

In the Continuum has been the hardest play of the last few weeks to write about because I loved it so much. I didn't want to do it a disservice by tossing something off that just basically said "omigosh it was soooo good." But what else to say? It was really wonderful.

Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter write and star in this two person, crossing monologue of a play. Both play various characters but essentially embody the world of two individual women: Gurira a middle class, professional African woman in Zimbabwe and Salter a high school senior in South Central Los Angeles. Both discover that they have contracted HIV, the African woman from her husband, the high schooler from her basketball star boyfriend. The play deals with the issues and struggles that both women will face: that they will receive the principal societal punishments for having contracted the disease, and their struggles to find their own and external support to deal with the revelations.

Principally, the play is about the HIV/AIDS epidemic for black women: how alarming it is that it has spread so quickly (there are throwaway lines like "oh, everyone deals with it" that show how it is so widespread that everyone just goes ahead and deals with it like normal life), and the societal issues - sexism, class struggle - that prevent them from getting the help they need.

Gurira and Salter perform the play in various monologues completely separate from each other - the characters and worlds never meet - but the worlds also spookily parallel each other. What one woman faces in supposedly wealthier and more advanced America closely resembles what the other deals with in Zimbabwe. And the play is so powerful in the end: each character comes with her own set of flaws and personality quirks, but we as an audience come to completely understand and symphatize with them at the heartbreaking end.

To me, this is an evening that displayed something that you can only get away with in theatre. Two monologues, with actresses taking on whole bunches of different characters - and us going along for the ride and being moved by the end. No multimillion dollar movie budgets, no massive sets and camera angles. Just us and them in a room, listening to a story.

SO THAT WAS ALL SERIOUS AND STUFF...

Somewhere between all this stuff I saw Borat, that movie that has been causing all sorts of controversy over how it was made (duping unsuspecting people into behaving embarassingly while Borat acts like even more of an ass). Watching this movie, I laughed so hard that I nearly peed in my pants. I was laughing so hard that I lost control of my laughter, falling into that embarassing, heaving laughter. But that was OK, everyone else in the theatre was doing it too. Was I embarassed that those unsuspecting souls were making fools on themselves on screen? Not so much. If anything, Borat was more of a fool in the long run. Boy it was silly. I laughed so hard.

And its Holiday Time at Disneyland! The decorations are up and they're playing Christmas music all over the loudspeakers. I'm such a sap for falling for their Christmas stuff every year, but I have such a ball there. The fireworks show is great, the parade is totally cheesy but charming in its own way, and I like the lights on Its A Small World. I've been sneaking down there frequently to check out the fireworks; I'm a sucker for fire in the sky.

There's a bunch of stuff coming up that I'm looking forward to: Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands parking itself at the Ahmanson Theatre starting next week, Slava's Snowshow is at UCLA Live, I'm gonna try and catch Sister Act at the Pasadena Playhouse, and maybe I'll go see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in Orange County. Ooh yeah, and don't forget all the Oscar movies that are out now. Fun times in December.