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23 November 2010
21 November 2010
"White Christmas: The Musical": A Review
And so it is with the production of Irving Berlin's White Christmas that just closed at the Bushnell in Hartford: many nice performances of several Irving Berlin songs (some great, some good, and some just okay) that don't coalesce into a full-bodied musical that I'd want to see repeatedly -- the hallmark, I feel, of how a musical should make one feel!
So, I enjoyed it, but I have just a few scattered comments:
The acting was solid across the board, but the book didn't demand nor encourage much texture in the characters. My younger daughter and I were taken most by Ruth Williamson's Martha Watson and Erick Devine's General Waverly. ("Everyone already thinks we are married; we fight all the time and don't have sex!") Denis Lambert's Phil Davis seemed to get to have the most fun, and he looked to be taking full advantage.
The tap dancing in "I Love a Piano" and "Happy Holidays/Let Yourself Go" was terrific. The show could've used even more.
The dancing of "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing" worked, while in "Blue Skies" (perhaps the best Berlin song in the whole musical), the choreography seemed tired. (Indeed bringing in the General, Martha, and Susan for comic relief several times in the midst of it seemed to suggest that even the choreographer realized it couldn't stand on its own.)
Both versions of "Sisters" (first by Amy Bodnar and Shannon M. O'Bryan and then John Scherer and Mr. Lambert) were quite fun, although two short both times.
My favorite performance of the afternoon -- the trio by Bodnar, O'Bryan, and Williamson, of "Falling Out of Love Can be Fun" was great, although I must admit to being disappointed that, when she came in toward the end of the song, the young lady who played Susan Waverly didn't prove that she was "born with it" right then and there!
"Let Me Sing and I'm Happy" is the showstopper of the belter Williamson, and she delivered.
Bodnar's "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me" was less successful, however...sounding forced and not effectively torchy.
The ensemble's "Snow" played very well, as did Mr. Scherer's "Count Your Blessings."
And, ANY show that uses "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" (even if only for the curtain call) is okay by me.
The real downside, in my opinion, is that, having seen Irving Berlin's White Christmas today (11/2110), I guess the holiday season has begun -- even before Thanksgiving. And THAT, no matter what the stores want us to think, is NEVER a good thing.
I want to be more excited than I am, but I take comfort in the hope that a screening of Holiday Inn is in my not-too-distant future!
18 November 2010
There's a free screening of "All The President's Men" (1976) tomorrow at 2 PM at CCSU...
..which brings up three distinct Watergate memories for me:
In April 1973, on a visit to Washington DC with other 6th-Graders from Guardian Angels School from Cincinnati, Ohio, while going past the Watergate Apartments, our tour guide offered, "and here's that place you've been hearing so much about on the evening news!" [Evening news?!! Doesn't THAT sound dated?]
In the late spring and summer of 1974, coming home from school and watching the hearings with my mom, while she ironed, and cooked, and cleaned. Committee members Ervin, Baker (my personal fav), Inouye, and Weicker I knew almost as well as Rose and Bench and Perez and Concepcion.
When the film version of All The President's Men was released in 1976, the entire student body and faculty of The Covington Latin School marched down Madison Avenue in Covington, Ky to the Madison Theater because ATPM was deemed an important film for us all to see.*
I'm pretty sure I've seen the film several times since, but I'm looking forward very much to tomorrow afternoon! (And my affection for the film also explains how a mid-70s film made the cut in a "classic" Fridays film series...not that great films weren't made in the '70s -- and beyond -- but, to my mind, there'll always be something special about a movie from before, say, 1963!)
*The school had done this once before for Godspell (1973) and would do it again in 1982 or '83, when I was a faculty member, when Gandhi was released (which wasn't nearly as good as either of the earlier films. That Richard Attenborough's just overrated).
In April 1973, on a visit to Washington DC with other 6th-Graders from Guardian Angels School from Cincinnati, Ohio, while going past the Watergate Apartments, our tour guide offered, "and here's that place you've been hearing so much about on the evening news!" [Evening news?!! Doesn't THAT sound dated?]
In the late spring and summer of 1974, coming home from school and watching the hearings with my mom, while she ironed, and cooked, and cleaned. Committee members Ervin, Baker (my personal fav), Inouye, and Weicker I knew almost as well as Rose and Bench and Perez and Concepcion.
When the film version of All The President's Men was released in 1976, the entire student body and faculty of The Covington Latin School marched down Madison Avenue in Covington, Ky to the Madison Theater because ATPM was deemed an important film for us all to see.*
I'm pretty sure I've seen the film several times since, but I'm looking forward very much to tomorrow afternoon! (And my affection for the film also explains how a mid-70s film made the cut in a "classic" Fridays film series...not that great films weren't made in the '70s -- and beyond -- but, to my mind, there'll always be something special about a movie from before, say, 1963!)
12 November 2010
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