Last Wednesday I scored an invite [...]]]> Mmmm Broadway.  I’ve been making out like a bandit with the free tickets again lately.  God it’s good to be a theater slut.  I’m going to tell you about them in the hopes that maybe you’re planning a trip to NYC where you’ll work me (and some shows) into your itinerary.

Last Wednesday I scored an invite to the dress rehearsal for Anything Goes.  I love dress rehearsals.  Everyone there is somehow tied to the show or the industry, so it’s the kindest, most supportive, most energetic audience a cast could possibly have.  Each time a new dancer comes on stage, you can hear a chorus of shouts from a different cluster of people in the audience.  And when they finish one of those full-cast tap-dancing show-stopping numbers?  The whole house is on their feet whooping and hollering and screaming out the name of whoever they are there to support.  It’s almost more magical than the show itself.  God I love theater and the community around it.

Also?  I love Sutton Foster.  In ways that I’m not quite comfortable admitting to myself or discussing in public forum quite yet.  But watch this and tell me you don’t feel the same way.  She tap dances her brains out for six and a half minutes and THEN belts.  *swoon*

Then I had the chance to see Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore with Olympia Dukakis.  As I’ve mentioned before, I try not to say bad things about theater.  So I guess I better keep my commentary short.  But for the record?   Nothing makes me battier than inconsistent Southern accents.  *takes a moment to remember Driving Miss Daisy, shudders*  Olympia, I saw Steel Magnolias.  I know you can do one.  Now giddyup, damnit.

And last night I saw a preview of Catch Me if You Can.  Our seats were in the second row, so honestly I’m having a hard time remembering anything other than the white lace thongs the dancers wore under their nurse costumes in the hospital number.  I haven’t spent that much time with ladies gyrating crotches since I worked in Heavy Metal.  (I really wish there was a video I could include here for your viewing pleasure, but I can’t seem to find one.)

And he ain't hard on the eyes, either.

The cast is stupendous.  I mean, I’ll always love Luke Duke and not just because he paused in his flirting with twenty-something dancers to give my mom a big soggy smooch and pose for a photo a few years back.  But it certainly doesn’t hurt.  The adorable Aaron Tevit could sing the Rod Stewart catalog and I’d probably still swoon.  And Norbert?  Well, I have to admit I was nervous to see his name on the marquis.  I still haven’t fully forgiven him for that Enron monstrosity.  But last night he was fantastic.  And now I remember why I used to like him.

The set?  Awesome.  The choreography?  Solid!  The acting?  Hells yes.  The songs?  Meh.

Actually the songs weren’t SO bad.  But the lyrics?  Woof.

I know, bad Elly.  What happened to being nice?  But you can’t put the words “I’ll be your alibi, baby” into a song and except me to be ok with it.  That is unless your Ke$ha or Rhianna.  But, call me crazy, I expect the Broadway bar to be set a smidge higher.

Regardless of the somewhat inconsistent material, the cast saved it.  Each time I cringed at a horrible line like “Mount Rushmore, someone climb up there and tell them boys a joke,” a parade of rhinestone crusted leotard crotches immediately stormed the stage and flashed before my eyes.  Somebody on that creative team is a master with smoke and mirrors and managed to keep the production eye-popping and toe-tapping…two of my favorite things in a musical.

As I told my date at the completion of the show, that cast sung and danced the SHIT out of that musical…there was just some serious shit to be sung and danced out of it.

So should you see it?  Yeah, I think so.  Who doesn’t like jazz hands and glittery crotches?  Terrorists, that’s who.  Also there was one male dancer with thighs only slightly larger than my entire body.  Frankly you should go see the show just to watch his pants try and hold it together because yum.  Now should you expect to see a revival of this show in thirty or forty years?  Not so much.  But that’s all the more reason to come see it now.  I’ll meet you for a slice of cheesecake afterward.

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The subject matter is much heavier than your typical Broadway musical.  The play begins in the Spring of 1931 when nine African American boys – ages 13 – 19 [...]]]> I’ve been seeing an awful lot of shows lately that I can’t quite decide how I feel about.  The Scottsboro Boys is another one of those tricky creations.

The subject matter is much heavier than your typical Broadway musical.  The play begins in the Spring of 1931 when nine African American boys – ages 13 – 19 – were falsely accused and arrested for raping two white women and follows the course of their multiple trials and eventually their deaths…all sandwiched between big, beautiful musical numbers.

I spent the first ten minutes trying to wrap my brain around what was happening on the stage below me.  Maybe it’s just my southern upbringing, but I always have these huge gut crushing reactions to anything that might seem even slightly dismissive of the civil rights movement or glorifying of slavery.  I imagine it’s much like a German citizen being afraid to voice their love of their country for fear it would be taken as an endorsement of Hitler.  How do you marry your fierce love of your home with it’s horrible past?

Because those reactions were so visceral and immediate, I found I had to coach myself through the beginning of the show, reminding myself that the creators were intentionally playing on those types of reactions to drive home their message, furthering the racial stereotypes and blind bigotry of the tale by utilizing the minstrel fashion to tell the story.  Despite all my rationalizing, I still found myself holding my breath when the cast took the stage for the finale in blackface.

As the lights of the house came up, the woman next to me leaned in and asked, “Did you enjoy the show?” beaming from ear to ear.  I’m pretty sure I nodded in the affirmative, but I don’t think “enjoy” is the word I would use.  I “enjoy” spending cold, rainy days hiding underneath a down comforter.  I “enjoy” swimming in a lake the temperature of bath water.  I “enjoy” the Twilight series.  I don’t “enjoy” watching the lives of nine innocent men destroyed and being reminded of the injustices we are capable of inflicting on our fellow men.

And yet, the production was beautifully done.  The cast was exquisitely talented and in the case of Joshua Henry (the actor that played Haywood Patterson) handsome enough to cause spontaneous licking.  The music was strong and memorable.  Then again, I’m always a sucker for intricate harmonies.

There’s ample comic relief, if you can let yourself embrace the racially charged jokes.  So while I’m not going to bill it as the feel good musical of the year, it’s a powerful piece of theater that still has me thinking.  Here in the liberal NYC area, it’s easy to become complacent and forget how many people still struggle for their basic civil rights.  I’ll be thinking of those Scottsboro Boys when I hit the poles polls today.

If you’d like to see a video from opening night for the show, click here.

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The play [...]]]> So I saw this show last night called The Language Archive at one of the Roundabout Theatres.  It’s billed as a comedy, but for some reason I didn’t find it funny at all.  That bothered me.  In fact, I think it’s still bothering me.  Or maybe it’s just that freakish Craftastrophe I found this morning.

The play itself was a wonderfully written piece by Julia Cho.  In fact there were several lines of dialogue so beautiful I found it impossible to breathe.  The set was lovely and intriguingly creative with its use of space.  The cast, while not mind blowing, was more than competent.  Yet for some reason, I walked out of that theater slightly annoyed, like the show had turned into a sharp-cornered tag on the inside of my favorite undershirt, scratching relentlessly against my skin but never quite painful enough to justify finding a pair of scissors to cut it out.

Melancholy.  That’s how I felt when I walked out of that theater.  And I’m not even sure why.  I just know I don’t much care for melancholy.

As a lover of words myself, I found the basic premise captivating enough – a linguist intent on preserving disappearing languages i unable to find the words to tell his wife he loves her.  Even Sylvia Plath could have seen the potential for comedic hijinks in such a setup.  Yet with each passing scene I felt myself sinking further into my seat, wrapping my coat a little tighter around myself tighter.

After the wife leaves the husband, she finds herself at a train station, unsure of her next steps and destination.  She meets an old man, equally bereft and confused.  They begin talking and he confides that his plan is to throw himself in front of the next train.  She convinces him to instead go deeper into his sadness, to metaphorically walk into an even darker place of sadness because, “Sometimes you can feel so sad, it begins to feel like happiness.  And you can be so happy that it starts to feel like grief.”

Am I right?  You’re doubled-over with laughter right now, aren’t you?

In this tender and beautifully written moment, the train blows by and the wife asks the old man, “Why didn’t you jump?”

He answers, “I don’t know.  I still might tomorrow.”

Cue the laugh track.

There’s a sub story about an old couple, the last surviving speakers of a language said to be the most beautiful ever spoken.  The linguist has flown them in from their homeland so that he can record a spoken conversation before they die and their language is lost forever.  At one point, the linguist’s assistant asks the older woman how to say, “I love you,” in her language.  She replies that there is no literal translation, instead they say, “Don’t leave me,” because that is what love means to them.  “I do not want to be left by you.”

*slaps knee*  Whew!  I tell you these jokes would KILL at an open mic night.

Comedy or not, the play still has me thinking – which, I suppose, is the mark of a true piece of art, right?  And so I sit here on this cloudy day wallowing in my big pile of melancholy.  And as my brain churns, I can’t get this song out of my head.  It reminds me of the play – so beautiful and earnest it becomes both sadness and joy at the same time.

Here’s the highfalutin NYTimes review if you’d like to know what a real critic thought of the show.

I’m sure I’ll have a bangin’ vagina joke by tomorrow.  Then again, I hear they’re considering adding a vagina column at the Times, too.  I made that last part up, FYI.

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You see, I’m pretty sure I live in Rome.  Fine, to be perfectly fair, I [...]]]> I’ve been thinking a lot about the Roman Empire lately.  Which of course leads me to think about the fall of the Roman Empire.  And how much I hate those ugly gladiator sandals everyone is wearing, but that’s not really the point.

You see, I’m pretty sure I live in Rome.  Fine, to be perfectly fair, I live in a suburb of Rome.  (The Roman Suburbs.  Does that sound like a kick ass band name or what?  Their debut album should be entitled “Lead Poisoning Sucks.”)

Anyway, I suspect that when the end of the world comes, it’s going to hit here first.  That, or we’ll all slowly go mad from breathing those toxic fumes that surround the nine hundred and seventeen nail salons peppered around Manhattan and suddenly one day snap, suffocating one another with Subway sandwich wrappers and discarded pages of the Village Voice while the rest of the world shakes their heads, sipping wine civilly from crystal glasses.

Mmm, wine.

Sometimes, I overhear conversations that make me think that day is here already, that the oxygen levels have already dropped below safe levels.  Like this one:

Girl:  I’m pregnant.

Other Girl:  See what happens when you use the front hole?

Ok, so that one might not have been random strangers, but I’ll deny everything in a court of law.  Speaking of the legal system, I was down by the courthouse a while back and heard this little jewel:

Girl:  So!  How’s the baby?

Second Girl:  I sold it.

*sigh*  Of course you did.

Guy:  Sometimes I worry I have a drinking problem.

Other Guy:  Why?

Guy:  I keep waking up in my own piss.

Other Guy:  You have a drinking problem.

You know what?  I’m a glass half full kind of girl, especially when that glass is half full of straight liquor.  (I need a little room for my mixer, damnit.)  So I’ll just celebrate the fact that his buddy recognized that waking up in a puddle of piddle isn’t exactly a healthy lifestyle.  So maybe I don’t have to start stockpiling non-perishable foods and water filtration devices…yet.

Still, I’m starting to see the upside of living in Ohio.

Note: I blame KeepingYouAwake for this post.  He spent the whole morning distracting me with videos like this one.  Which may replace “Big Booty Bitches” as my favorite song to sing while browsing the frozen foods section of my grocery store.  Oh, for the record, I suppose you could consider it vaguely NSFW.  You suit wearing types do get a little worked up about that, don’t you?  You post one little Willie Nelson Vag…

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We took a private pole dancing class.  And it was HARD.  (That’s what she said.)

Not only are my arms and legs screaming in agony, but I [...]]]> Last night?  Bachelorette party, baby.  And yes, of course, we ended up at a bar with a mechanical bull.  But I really need to talk about what happened BEFORE the bull.

We took a private pole dancing class.  And it was HARD.  (That’s what she said.)

Not only are my arms and legs screaming in agony, but I seem to have a raging case of pole burn down the middle of my back.  In hindsight, the fact that I was able to fling myself around a pole for an hour without sustaining a major injury was nothing short of a miracle.

It turns out our dear bridezilla Gwen is quite a natural on the pole.  Actually, it turns out that almost everyone in our group took to the pole right away.  ALMOST everyone.

Who has two thumbs, a rather strange obsession with kazoos, and should never ever be allowed back on a stripper pole?  *sigh*

My fellow pole-mates had already seductively scaled their poles, licked the ceiling and were gracefully sliding back down to Earth before I could even figure out how to grip the damn thing between my overly moisturized legs.

Side note: I think I know why strippers rock the body glitter now.  It’s not an aesthetic choice, rather a practical one.  A girl needs a little traction (pronounced the way Mrs. Alicia Bridges says “action” in “I Love the Nightlife“).

Interwebz?  I can’t even writhe on the floor properly.  I thought of all the areas covered during our educational session, that would be the one where I might excel.  I mean, between my constantly falling down and occasionally passing out, I spend half my life on the floor.  But no.  Uh uh.  Not even kinda.

I watched our tiny and ridiculously toned instructor roll onto her stomach, stick her right leg up into the air, then pull her knees up and under her body so her pert little spandex-clad ass reached for the ceiling before she somehow gracefully undulated her body until she sat kneeling with her knees thrust wide.  Yeah, I can’t do that.  What I can do is grunt, one leg flailing wildly while somehow getting my shoe caught on the pole, then make disgusting squeaking noises with my sweaty palms, and flop about the floor until I find myself sweating and whimpering in something resembling indian style.  (Crap, I forget what we’re calling that again.  Cross-legged?  Oh just go with the visual people.  I’m 1/16 Cherokee so I’m pretty sure I can call it indian style.)

Come to think of it, that’s how I ended damn near every one of the segments we learned.  My personal favorite?  Somehow our instructor was able to fling out her left leg, then hook it around the pole as she skillfully whirled her five foot frame around the pole, slowly descending into a provocative, wide-legged squat.  From that position, she thrust her purple metallic bubble of an ass towards our faces, then diligently humped the pole until she resumed the standing position.  She flipped her giant mane of tousled, dark hair over her shoulder and said, “Easy right?”

It’s like we were twins separated at birth.

I managed to somehow knock my front teeth into my pole while launching into my interpretation of a spin.  Lord only knows how, but I was able to hook my ankle around the pole mid spin.  Then my fight-or-flight instincts took over and I clung to that bad boy like it was Sting in a crowd of Insane Clown Posse fans.  My spin instantly stopped with a horrific, skin-burning screech.  Slowly, as my death grip loosened, I descended in uneven, squeaky bursts until my ass hit the wooden floor.  I suppose if you’d consumed a fifth of gin and the light was really dim, it’s feasible my soon to be patented “Red Thighed, Pole Filled, Indian Style Slide” could be considered a sexy move.

Really.  I’m like grace personified over here.

So in addition to the raging case of pole burn I have searing down the middle of my back, I also have a little crotch inflammation happening as well.  I thought it was the bride that was supposed to get broken at these things.

*limps off in search of Tiger Balm*

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