Happy Birthday, Nick Lowe!

Talk about aging gracefully!!!!!

Given that my two very intelligent daughters in the past month have played...

...shall we say, rather dim-witted characters in retro-musicals (Frenchy, the "Beauty-School-Dropout," in Grease and Tracy's best friend Penny in Hairspray, respectively), I'm hoping that at least one of them has Born Yesterday somewhere in her future!

How sweet would that be!

After thoroughly enjoying the New Britain High School production of "Hairspray"...

(photo by Gail Koerner)

...with any number of references to things that one may think a tad inappropriate for a high school cast, I had to chuckle heartily as I watched the 1956 film version of Anything Goes (Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, and a French performer I'd never even heard of, Jeanmaire). 

The familiar title song, of course, written in 1934, is Cole Porter's take on the recurring fear that culture and society, at large, are going to hell in a hand basket.  As he writes:

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
was looked on as something shocking. 
Now heaven knows,anything goes!

Good authors too who once used better words
Now only use four-letter words writing prose.
Anything goes!

Well, take a listen to the opening part of Mitzi's version in the film.

And, yes, you heard right!

I don't even know what a "three-letter word" is supposed to suggest.

Ah, the good old days, when proper reserve meant not even using euphemisms!

 

Ava vs. Kate?

So, Ava Gardner playing ping-pong?

or Kate Windsor playing hockey (photo 12):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/prince-william-and-catherine-duchess-of-cambridge-after-the-royal-wedding/2011/06/10/AGC5gxOH_gallery.html?hpid=z9#photo=12

Kate may be the more athletic, but I'd rather take Mickey's place!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, all!

Van Morrison with the Band on the great Irish lullaby!

So, is the world's new #1 professional golfer Rory McIlroy...

...more Axl Heck, from The Middle,

or Peter Brady, from The Brady Bunch?

(Thanks, Celeste!)

I now know why they abbreviate the title so frequently; I wouldn't want to be using the word "miserable" too often either!

First, let me make it clear that I KNOW Les Miz has been an international blockbuster for a quarter of a century.  I just never understood why.  From a distance, it (like Phantom, et alia) simply seemed to value BIG and LOTS over all else.   After last night's performance at the Bushnell in Hartford, I'm only further baffled.

My wife and I had never seen it, and, a few weeks ago, seeing that it was returning to the Bushnell, she off-handily commented that perhaps we should finally.  An opportunity to get a couple tickets appeared, so I seized the day.

Here, however, are the reasons my lovely bride and I left at intermission:

The plot development goes something like this: a good person (man/woman/child) is treated badly by a group of bad people until another good person rescues aforesaid good person.  Alternate this scene with another in which various groups of base people act basely and make phallic references (preferably with props) to the great amusement of the audience.  Throw in some revolutionaries and a love story that happens so quickly it'll make your head spin, and you've got the Les Miz "Cliff's Notes."

The music is repetitive. By the time we got to the final song of Act I, the refrain "One More Day," just seemed like a taunt to the audience.

The lyrics are prosaic.  When our hero Jean Valjean struggles with the decision to either reveal his identity or let an innocent man go to prison, he just as well could have been deciding between the McDonald's filet-o-fish and the roast beef au jus at Arby's.  Yes, he's damned either way; we get it.

The singing was, on the whole, loud but not very good.  The approach seemed to be that, at some point in every "song," the performer needed to yelp or growl or shout.  Indeed, Cosette's mother did nothing but scream.  (Thank God, she died early on.)  No wonder people think those American Idols are such good singers. 

"Javert" had a fine voice, but he pretty much kept singing the same thing, "I'll catch that guy some someday, yes, that guy -- prisoner number 90210 (thanks, Martha!) -- whom I've been chasing for decades and who was standing right next to me only a minute ago, but now seems to have disappeared again!  I hate it when that happens." 

It is a handsome production smartly executed, but simply too dark. (The sun NEVER shone in early-19th-century France?)

To add to the joy, a young lady in the row behind us -- but luckily several seats down -- threw up in the middle of Act I, which added to the urgency of the show...will we get to intermission before the smell becomes overwhelming? 

As my wife commented, "She must be a critic." 

To which I responded, "If only I had thought of it!"

Ah, c'est la guerre.