Getting out of the house

“I’d almost forgotten what that was like”, Jean commented, as we exited the Registry Theatre after a Larry Larson’s Jazz Guys concert. And by that, he met a live musical performance of any kind.

We’d intended to attend many a live musical performance over these past and coming months, but then the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony suddenly and apparently irrevocably went bankrupt—a mere week before what would have been their first concert of the season. Our season’s tickets for various performances, from Bolero to Magic! to Back to the Future to Shostakovitch, suddenly longer worth nothing more than a tax receipt.

There are efforts underway to try to revive the local arts scene, but who knows. Government funding is tight all around. The Globe and Mail has been covering the problems that theatre companies have been experiencing right across the country (🎁 article link). Mirvish is doing fine, but others are not. I suppose the lack of audience return is due to combination of people having become increasingly accustomed to home entertainment; inflation lowering budgetary for spending on discretionary events; and some remaining concern about the health risks of crowded spaces.

But for us, at least this year, it was just mainly that the Symphony disappeared. And we’ve had trouble finding appealing alternatives. It’s been some time since we’ve been out anywhere.

February has seemed virtually packed with arts activities, comparatively speaking.

Larry Larson used to be part of the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony, along with a sideline (now his “only line”) of playing jazz. Attending his sold-out performance at The Registry was most enjoyable! Even though we had a heck of a time finding parking, and arrived near the start of show time. Fortunately, we were able to find two seats together, in a back row. (The Registry Theatre is fairly small, and doesn’t do reserved seating.)

I’m not really a big jazz person (Jean is more so), and I was only familiar with one of the songs they played that night: “Smile” by Charlie Chaplin. But Larry didn’t seem to expect that we would be aficionados. He set up and explained each piece, and even, at one point, the nature of jazz improvisation. Which made it easier to appreciate. Along with the fact that the whole group is quite good.

Then, while this isn’t “live” arts, we did go to an in-person movie at The Original Princess: American Fiction. This is one of the movies nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, and also won the Audience Award at TIFF. It’s the story of a Black author who has trouble getting his novels published, because they’re not “Black” enough. So then, as a kind of revenge-joke, he writes an “uber-Black” novel and insists his agent send that in. Only, jokes on him, they love it!

That’s the hook of the movie, and it does make for some really funny scenes. But in large part, it’s a story about family dynamics, as three grown siblings have to deal with their mother’s dementia. It has a great cast, is under 2 hours (I might never see Oppenheimer, it’s just too long), and I believe is now available for rental, if you don’t want to actually go out to the movies.

Later that week we were back to live music, attending Classic Albums Live rendition of Queen’s News of the World. Following that link there (in the previous sentence) for my full report, but in a nutshell, it was an excellent show! The CAL musicians are really quite stunning. Sadly, it was rather sparsely attended, which—even though it was on a bad weather night—was a surprise to me, as Queen-related concerts are usually quite popular.

We’ll see how busy the upcoming Symphonic Rock performance by the Jeans’n’Classics Band is later this week.