Tag: Canadian arts

November was a heavy month

At least in terms of activities. (And the news. But I won’t be getting into that here.)

I’ve already blogged about dining at Gilt and taking in Nightshift; seeing Swing in concert; and listening to Who’s Next live in the tiny seats at Massey Hall. Now a summary of the rest.

Footloose the Musical: Not just a frolic

What I remember of Footloose the movie is that a preacher in a small town has banned dancing. Kevin Bacon moves to that town, takes up with the minister’s daughter, and dances his way into convincing the town to lift the ban.

Footloose the Musical, which we saw at the St. Jacob’s Playhouse, was very well-done, but the sadness running through the whole piece was a surprise to me. If also in the movie, I had forgotten about the abandoning father, the dead son and brother, the silenced women. Those people really needed to dance!

Jean was mostly sad that a piece that we first saw as contemporary is now an item of nostalgia.

A 100-mile feast with 7000 km theme

It’s somewhat confusing that 100-mile dinner of local food has a theme of A Tour of Italy, a country 7169 km away (says Google). But that’s what the Waterloo Inn had an offer, as sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and in benefit of local physician recruitment.

It was the place to be if you wanted to network. We were there for the food, but gathered up various business cards nonetheless. We were encouraged to Tweet during dinner, and so I did, and as a real rarity, also acted as food “photographer.” (I did all five courses, but will stick to three here.)

The Importance of Being Earnest: Reliably entertaining

I’ve seen the play before, I’ve seen the movie, yet I didn’t hesitate when invited to the University of Waterloo production of this Oscar Wilde play—and not only because the tickets were free (for me, because I’m special :-). I never remember the story that well; just that I really enjoyed watching it play out! This production, in the newly renovated Humanities Theatre, was no exception.

More people need to go to Marisol

We dined there before the Swing concert, and it was lovely as always, but alarmingly quiet for a Friday night. More people need to find this place! We can’t keep losing the area’s best restaurants.

Christmas parties

Some companies still have these. If yours doesn’t, I recommend marrying into one that does. It’s worked out for me.

Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

Writers on music: Like dancing about architecture?

That’s the saying, eh, that writing is about music is like dancing about architecture. Well, the KW Symphony begs to differ, and recently had a concert featuring novelists Miriam Toews and Wayne Grady, whose recent books (All My Puny Sorrows and Emancipation Day) have musicians as main characters.

Each novelist got half of the program, in which they read from their work, had the symphony play a piece related to what they read, discussed music and writing with the conductor, then listened to a modern work by the symphony and read a response to that.

it was a fascinating evening. The symphony were “forced” into genres they don’t typically tackle—jazz and piano concertos (featuring a lovely soloist from Wilfrid Laurier), and I’m sure the novelists hadn’t been previously familiar with the work they commented on.

And I have two new novels on my reading list.

Who’s Next at Massey Hall

So, let’s talk about Massey Hall.

It’s a historic, downtown Toronto performing arts theatre, seating about 3000, beloved by many Canadian artists, such as Gordon Lightfoot and Lowest of the Low. I’ve seen some fine performances there, by Ray Davies, Jon Stewart, and Classic Albums Live performing Queen’s A Night at the Opera.

Massey Hall exterior

But I’ve always found it amusing that the cheaper seats—the ones higher and further back from the stage—are literally worse seats: they don’t have any cushions. That is, in the orchestra area, the chairs themselves are actually better, as though improved sightlines were not sufficient motivation for charging more for tickets. One also gains added comfort.

I could find that an amusing quirk, because I’d personally always managed to get seats in the center orchestra area.

Until this weekend.

Though I didn’t dawdle in getting tickets for Classic Albums Live: Who’s Next, I had to wait until after the subscribers and members were done until I could get my own. At that point, only Left and not Centre Orchestra was offered up as Best Available.

Now, left orchestra seats do have cushions. What they lack, however, is width. Seriously. They are super-narrow seats. You might think economy airline seats are bad, but these are worse.

This was a bit of a problem for my broad-shouldered husband, who had to spend the whole show sitting awkwardly askew, yet still spilling over into my seat and feeling he had to apologize to the woman on his other side.

But he was still better off than men in some other rows, where several large guys were seated next to each other. I’m not even sure how they managed.

So if ever wondering why the people in side orchestra seats at Massey Hall are so quick and frequent in providing standing ovations: It’s not they are particularly appreciative of the performance. It’s because they need to stretch!

Now hey, on with the show…

Who's Next album cover

I was very excited that the Classic Albums Live group was tacking Who’s Next, my favorite Who album, even if it required a trip to Toronto. Only 10 songs long, Who’s Next contains no filler. It starts with “Baba O’Riley” (Teenage Wasteland) and contains both the song erroneously considered to be their best, “We Won’t Get Fooled Again”, and the one that actually is, “Behind Blue Eyes”.

Live, “Baba” was a stunning opener (just as it is for The Who), with the insane ending rendered amazingly by a cellist and the Moon-like drummer. This cellist was to demonstrate her musical chops all evening, as she moved between trumpet, keyboards, and vocals. That’s range, folks!

On “Bargain”, I was especially struck by the three guys who came out to do a clapping sequence, because:

a) I’d never noticed the clapping sequence in the original

b) I thought it was cool you could get a job in music just clapping

On point b), however, I was soon disavowed of that notion, as the three guys joined the cellist on horns for “My Wife”.

Clearly, the band size varied based on needs, but were always larger in number than the four members of The Who. Apart from the musicians already mentioned, we had another keyboardist (who just stuck to that instrument, covering all the synthesizer bits), an acoustic guitarist, an electric guitarist, a bass player, another background vocalist, and a lead singer. He was the same person who did The Queen show, and while he doesn’t sound like Freddie Mercury or Roger Daltrey, he has the range and power to do both justice, and that’s what matters—even though he does tend to mess up the lyrics at times.

And, we got one more special guest on “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: A second lead vocalist—the guy who sings at their Led Zeppelin shows—was brought out to make The Scream as epic as it needed to be.

A compilation of Roger Daltrey screams for YGFA

(And that is the sort of special extra thing you get in the Toronto performances of Classic Albums Live that you usually don’t in the touring productions.)

So overall, it was a superlative job by the band. The only problem had nothing to do with them, but with the guy beside me (not Jean), who insisted on singing along—really badly—with a number of the songs. This completely ruined for me what should have been the highlight of the whole show, the lovely vocal harmonies at the beginning of “Behind Blue Eyes”.

Honestly. I now kind of understand why The Who themselves played so loud!

The second half featured a variety of other Who songs—including 5:15, The Real Me, The Seeker, Pinball Wizard, You Better You Bet, Love Reign O’er Me (and thank God, with no overdubbed vocals from my tone-deaf seat-mate) and Who Are You.

And for the true Who geeks in the audience, they also did the extended, 10-minute version of “My Generation” from Live at Leeds, (which segues into various bits of Tommy, etc.), performing it very honestly, with only the same number of musicians as the original: Just four. It was really very cool, the faithful reproduction of something originally completely improvised. I have to wonder how many in the audience knew what that was?

Regardless. We in the side aisles were all happy to give it a standing ovation! 🙂

Swing in concert: Tout le monde debout, c’est le temps de danser!

Le Groupe Swing is a franco-Ontarian band that we first discovered at a Canada Day concert in the Ottawa region about seven years ago. As soon as they came on and started playing, the whole crowd was on their feet, and pretty much stayed there. (Whereas they sat for the headliner.) And I became an instant fan of their music, a fusion of traditional folk with elements of hip-hop and techno: Technotrad, they call it.

A taste of Swing: Bouge, bouge

I’d been wanting to see them in concert again ever since, but what the singing mostly in French, Southern Ontario is not a regular destination for them. So I was very excited to see, up on the ad screen at the Princess Cinema, that Swing would be performing at Victoria Pavillon on November 14, courtesy of L’association francophone de Kitchener-Waterloo.

I was wondering how the KW crowd would respond to them compared with the Gatineau one. I’ve found KW audiences to be rather staid and quite reluctant to get up and dance—to a frustrating degree, at times. So I wasn’t too optimistic on that front.

I did predict that part of the crowd might be drawn from Swing’s occasional appearances at local French high schools, and that age group was represented, along with older association members (one assumes). I wasn’t expecting quite so many little kids as there were, however. (Let’s hope those kids aren’t too, too familiar with French Canadian slang, as some of their lyrics are a bit—edgy.)

And did the crowd all jump to their feet at the first note Swing played? No! Absolutely not.

But to be fair, they started with cover—all in English—of “Born to Be Wild”. It was a serviceable version, and I like the song, but I didn’t want watered-down, anglicized Swing.

I needn’t have worried. The rest of the set was almost entirely their music, and when singer Michel Bénac pointed out the big dance space in front of the stage, a stalwart four headed right up there to dance, and stayed pretty much the whole evening.

Furthermore, to my surprise, they were joined by more and more people as the evening went on. I was up there by about song 4, Jean resisted until about song 10, and the other couple we went with finally made their way up there as well, for the final set of songs. The band’s music is just irresistible, the singer determined that we are all going to have a good time!

“C’est un party avec Swing!” And it was.

They definitely included most of my favorite songs of theirs—La tête me tourne encore (“You make my head spin—in a good way”), Au nom du père et du fils et du set carré (“In the name of the father, the son, and the square dance”), Belle débousollée (“Beautiful distraught woman”), La vie comme ca (“Life as it is”), and “One Day” (the song wherein they rib anglophones).

Hey, everything’s OK, because one day soon, we’ll all be just…

The crowd’s favorites (which I also like) were La Goutte (“The Drip”)—“You know this one!” commented Bénac appreciatively (in French)—and the encore, “CB Buddy”.

La Goutte (y’a pas d’high speed, y’a pas d’download, y’a pas d’Livefeed…)

But we were also treated to some of their very latest songs, such as the single released just last week, “C’Okay” (it got to number 6 on iTunes, by the way), and songs from their recent EP, such as “One Thought”, and even a song that won’t be released for a few months yet. So at least at two live premieres of their music.

And, when we all needed a rest from dancing and hopping—including Michel Bénac (who appears to me to be in amazing shape)—we partook of a camp sing-a-long of eighties classics such as “Billy Jean”, “Every Breath You Take“, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun“ (for the girls), and for the guys—“Baby” by Bieber! Psych!

The between-song patter fun and friendly and all in franglais, except for one shout-out to the anglos in the audience, who were thanked for coming and “being the minority for once. Feels weird, eh?”

Apart from Bénac, the band has a DJ who also does some hip-hop dancing, a violinist, a guitarist, a bass player, and a drummer. Unfortunately, the acoustics (or the sound system?) in that room were not very good. Nevertheless, we could tell they had a high degree of musicianship.

Swing is really one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen.

“So good they can even get Kitchener-ites and Waterloo-vians to their feet.”

A midsummer night’s dream

The original idea was to see King Lear. But instead we were drawn to the controversial Stratford production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Would we hate it–like the Toronto Star critic did? Or would we love it–like the Globe and Mail critic did?

Either way, it would certainly be cheerier than King Lear. (Which we may still see, in the fall. Although Stratford plays aren’t exactly cheap, are they?)

This production of Midsummer’s Night begins with a same-sex, mixed-race wedding, then presents the familiar Shakespeare play with the premise that Lysander is a woman, and hence not the suitor Hermia’s father prefers. I thought this was a rather effective retelling in our time, and interestingly, it was one thing that both Star and Globe critics appreciated as well.

It’s everything else that also gets thrown into this version of the play that the critics didn’t agree on. For example, that isn’t the only gender switching that goes on: most notable of the others is that the Fairy Queen is played by a gent, and a hairy one at that. And the play seems to be set (somewhat) in modern times, featuring modern pop music (most effectively, “Bizarre Love Triangle”) and a scene where the characters gather around a cell phone to look up the phases of the moon (though the answer is ultimately found in a paper almanac). And there is a whole lot of slapstick, physical humor: cake fights, slipping into water, almost-sex in a tent.

It’s certainly a memorable version of Midsummer Night’s Dream. And a funny one–especially the second half. I don’t know that I loved it quite as much as the Globe critic, but I most certainly didn’t hate it as much the Star one. Though if I have to pick between love it or hate it, as they say, then I’m going with love.

Continue reading “A midsummer night’s dream” →

Whatever happened to the shows of summer?

Actually, in the good/bad old days, there weren’t really “TV shows of summer”, were there? It was mostly rerun city. But more recently-ish (it is a trend over a decade long) networks have programs they play only in the summer season. And the specialty networks debut programs all year long.

These are three I’ve been particularly enjoying.

Amazing Race Canada

Modeled after the American one (which I also like), this is somewhat more “respectable” reality show—Emmy winning, and basically “just a race”, though with the producers definitely manipulating said race to produce drama, and obviously casting it with colourful people.

I appreciate the very multicultural nature of this year’s cast. And what a strong set of contenders! Except for the two sisters who were, indeed, eliminated the first show, everyone seems quite athletic and potentially capable of winning.

Rex Harrington
Rex Harrington also be kind of easy on the eyes…

But I did come in with a bias toward Rex Harrington and his fiance Bob, because…. He’s Rex Harrington! Amazing dancer and great judge on So You Can Think Dance Canada.

They did well the first episode (and were so funny!), but in the second became mired in controversy: They gave up and took penalties on not one but two of the episode’s challenges. They only made it through because another contestant got injured and had to withdraw.

But surviving that round made they got to experience the surprising development of this year’s season: It’s no longer restricted to Canada! The teams were off to Hong Kong, with China up next.

I do hope Rex and Bob stick around for a while longer, but they certainly aren’t the smart bet to take it all. That would have to be the team made up of two members of Canada’s women’s gold medal hockey team, who have so far won every leg!

Fortunately, I also like them, as I basically like all the teams, really. I found that about Season 1 as well. That doesn’t tend to happen on the American one. Is likeability a Canadian trait? Bit early to say: Some of teams may get awful once the “killer fatigue” really sets in. TBD.

So You Think You Can Dance

The international travel budget shows that Amazing Race: Canada is a summer show on the rise. Now in its eleventh season, though, Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance is definitely on the decline, struggling for ratings.

They have fewer shows than ever this year, so the audition footage was seriously compressed, and we didn’t get to “know” too many contestants ahead of time. They get only the single 2-hour performance show per week, during which they try to squish in everything, including guest stars. It’s meant no video recaps, no Dance for Your Life for the dancers in the bottom three. And their pre-emption for some baseball game meant that this coming week, they have to eliminate four instead of two dancers. Brutal!

What remains, though, is the what I’ve always loved about this program: Seeing wonderful dance pieces in a great variety of styles, performed by very talented young people who only get better each week.

For example, this hip-hop number from the last week. Can you tell that Tanisha is actually a ballroom dancer? Didn’t think so!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxhKiLmtTI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxhKiLmtTI

Or how about this amazing group piece ( again kind of highlighting Tanisha) in the jazz / modern style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAPJsbtqy_8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAPJsbtqy_8

I’d really be sad if this show was cancelled.

Silicon Valley

This is a bit of a cheat to include here, as it is being rerun, currently. But it’s new to me, and its premiere was only in April, so…

This is a comedy about a group of five guys running a startup company in Silicon Valley, and it’s the funniest shows I’ve seen a long time. Jean, however, is not warming to it as much, so perhaps you need some understanding of / interest in tech culture to really appreciate the satire. (Wired explained how Mike Judge went about trying to make it as “based in reality” as possible, down to the math on the white board. )

Now, it is on HBO, but if you do have some understanding of / interest in tech culture, you’re going to have no trouble watching this show even if you don’t get that channel. But if you just want a preview, there a lot of clips on YouTube.

This scene, in which they implement the “scrum” method of organizing their development work, is an example of one in which I almost died laughing, while Jean was just confused. [Warning: Colorful language. It’s HBO!]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsJoLvRbri0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsJoLvRbri0

Things we did in Toronto when not at a rock concert

Queen + Adam Lambert capped off our Toronto weekend, but before that, we….

1. Learned about sake

The Distillery District was our first destination (after checking into the hotel), where I happily shopped while Jean felt uncomfortable due to the crowds. (For a people person, he can be surprisingly squeamish about people.)

But we both enjoyed the one-hour sake tasting and tour we signed up for, at Ontario Spring Water Sake.

We had much to learn. I wasn’t even sure I remembered that it was made from rice, let alone what the other three ingredients were—one of which is Ontario water, though not from Toronto! And bacteria also plays an important role in the production, and since bacterial mix is always changing, so no two sake batches are ever quite the same.

We learned about the types of sake, notably pasteurized and unpasteurized, and “first press”, and about sake etiquette and its place in Japanese life. We were even treated to a beat boxing session at the end, as our guide does that on the side. He was very good!

We got to taste five samples, all notably different from one another for all being sake by the same company. Jean and I agree on our two favorites and bought a bottle of each.

2. Walked. A lot!

We were car-less in Toronto. We took the bus in, which itself involved a walk from our chosen parking lot to the Kitchener bus station. But except for some rain Sunday morning, it was nice weekend, so we just walked wherever we wanted to go rather than take transit. Jean figures we got in about 30 K in two days.

Roy Thompson Hall
Roy Thompson Hall (I think)

Buildings in Toronto
Things will be great when you’re downtown

Mall interior, Toronto
The malls are quiet at night

3. Visited the AGO

We spent a few hours there. We didn’t see the feature exhibit, on Francis Bacon and Henry Moore, but did see “Fan the Flames: Queer Positions in Photography.” That was installed, I assume, in coordination with the recent World Pride. It was an interesting collection, with combinations of video, collage collections, commercial photography, and work by artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe.

We also saw most of the “Art as Therapy”, where they gathered various pieces of the permanent collection under themes such as love, money, and politics. That made for some interesting juxtapositions as well.

4. Ate out

We had no bad meals in Toronto, but none were particularly spectacular, either. We decided to try Blowfish Sushi and Sake Bar based on a list that rated it the best sushi restaurant in downtown Toronto. While it was good, we didn’t agree that it was better than Ki, the supposed second-best one. But they did have some creativity in combinations and presentations.

Sushi platter
The truffle oil on these was nice. The garlic chip looked cool, but didn’t cohere as a taste. Better on its own…

Foamy sushi dish
Foamy!

Though we went here after the sake tasting, it was actually no help in picking one from the menu. (Not like they had any from Ontario Spring Water Sake company.) Fortunately the waitress was able to guide us toward one we enjoyed.

Breakfast, though very fine, is just breakfast, and was mainly notable for our managing to get a table just before the lineup for a table started, a feat we had also achieved on Saturday at Balzac’s coffee shop in The Distillery District.

Lunch was at Bangkok Garden, which was featuring a $15 three-course Summerlicious menu. It was very tasty, and a good deal, but mainly about the company, as we met up with my sister and brother-in-law there.

Dinner was another Summerlicious event, at Toula’s on Harbourfront, selected largely for being near the Air Canada Centre. It is a very cool room, though, on the 23rd floor, with windows all around.

Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

It’s an Italian place, and we liked the food. Jean had lobster ravioli as his main; I had gnocchi in tomato sauce. The service was also quite friendly and professional. But the room itself was the highlight.

Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

Movie reviews: The Grand Seduction and The Birder

Thought it appropriate, on Canada Day, to comment on two recently seen Canadian movies. While Canada sometimes has a reputation for making po-faced, off-beat dramas, these were both comedies.

Poster for The Grand Seduction*** The Grand Seduction (May 2014) – Theatre

Brendan Gleeson, Gordon Pinsent, Taylor Kitsch. A small Newfoundland town’s bid for a new factory depends on their enticing a doctor to move to the community.

She says: I loved the Québecois version of this movie and was curious to see how the English one would turn out. The setting was switched from Gaspé to Newfoundland here, which seemed a propos, and allowed them to hire almost the entire cast of 22 Minutes: Mark Critch, Cathy Jones, Mary Walsh. They’re all good, though, as is the lead, Irishman Brendan Gleeson and, of course, Mr. Gordon Pinsent, as he always. Liane Balaban’s part is almost too small to comment on, which is too bad.

As for the doctor, it took me a few minutes to recognize him as having played the hunky Tim Riggins in Friday Night Lights. So that’s what happened to him, in case you were wondering! He’s probably not the strongest actor in this comic piece, but he’s just as hunky as ever.

I enjoyed the new movie. Perhaps not as much as I enjoyed the original, but then, I knew certain jokes were coming this time. While I would have missed those jokes if they weren’t in this movie also, it’s hard to be quite as delighted the second time out. Fortunately, as is common with me, I did forget some details of the original plot, so wasn’t entirely certain how this one would play out. (Or if it played out differently than in the original, for that matter.) Always better to be caught up in the story.

He says: I enjoyed that, too. It was funny, they did a good job adapting it.

**½ The Birder (May 2014) – Theatre

Tom Cavanagh, Mark Rendall, Jamie Spilchuk. In the midst of his marriage ending, teacher and bird enthusiast Ron Spencer loses out on a much-desired job as head of ornithology to Floyd Hawkins. He embarks on a revenge campaign with Ben, the young school janitor, who has his own reasons for disliking Hawkins.

She says: Largely set at Point Pelee Park, featuring a main character who swears by saying “F” (literally, F), and a “villain” who is anything but, this movie flirts with the hokey. It is, undeniably, very funny at times, though, as Ron and Ben’s revenge schemes go terribly awry. And the acting, particularly by lead Tom Cavanagh, elevates the characters to more than cartoons. It’s light, it’s not terribly original, but you won’t hate yourself for watching it and laughing along.

He says: It was pretty predictable, but it did keep my interest.

And, just for the record, some other Canadian movies that I think are terrific. (Even though a number are po-faced, off-beat dramas.)

  • Les Invasions Barbares (Barbarian Invasions) – One of the best movies ever, period
  • Last Night – It’s the last night on earth… by Don McKellar (who directed The Grand Seduction)
  • The New Waterford Girl – To really see what Liane Balaban can do
  • A History of Violence – Cronenberg!
  • Bon Cop, Bad Cop – This is a funny one!
  • Café de Flore – A love story (C.R.A.Z.Y, by the same directory, is also very good)
  • Take This Waltz – directed by Sarah Polley; Away from Her is also recommended
  • Monsieur Lazhar – Yep, another Quéecois one…
  • Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) – Very long, though
  • Saint Ralph – Quite enjoyable

Legally Blonde: Feminism made fun

Legally Blonde posterWe somehow ended up with quite a few cultural activities booked in May, the most recent of which was an outing to see the Drayton Festival production of Legally Blonde: The Musical.

And it was heck-a enjoyable. Sure, as in the movie, the perky cheeriness of Elle and her sorority sisters can be a little too much at times, but overall it was really funny, the story moved along well, it still had that satisfying arc of female strength and friendship, all with catchy songs and great choreography mixed in. Not too mention two very cute dogs (one of whom nearly stole the show). What’s not to love?

(Jean quote: “I enjoyed that way more than I thought I would. I’m shocked how much I enjoyed that.”)

But it reminded me just how bad I am at remembering plots of movies (books, too). All I could remember about the movie (apart from the fact that I’d liked it, and that it wasn’t a musical) was that it was about a blonde sorority girl who gets into Harvard Law to try to win her boyfriend back, but who then discovers she’s way more intellectually capable than anyone had given her credit for.

All  of which happens in the musical as well, only with more songs. But the hairdresser character? The internship program? The exercise video queen on trial for murder? I had no recollection whatsoever of any of those plot details.

So yesterday I watched the movie again, courtesy iTunes. (By the way, it’s not on Netflix, not available on redbox rental, nor at zip.ca. And iTunes / Google Play / Rogers on Demand all charge the same $5 to stream it, which seems a bit expensive, given you can buy the DVD for the same price. Anyway…) I quite liked it, again. And it turns out that an awful lot of the movie did make it into the musical. But the differences were interesting.

The hairdresser, Paulette, is a more major character

In the movie, her part is pretty small and a bit sad. In the musical she’s one of the best characters, the center point of a couple very fun numbers. And it’s clearer that Elle helping her get custody of her dog back is motivation for Elle to become sincerely interested in the law.

The new love interest, Emmett, is a more major character

This one is a bit more of a hmm. In the movie Emmett’s part is really quite small, and their entire relationship takes place in the dying seconds of the movie, via “Where are they now?” captions. So I can see why they wanted more of a budding romance within the musical. Emmett is definitely fleshed out into an appealing and interesting character. Their subtextual shopping expedition is another highlight of the musical, one that wasn’t in the film at all.

The troublesome part, to me, is that in the musical Emmett is the one who coaches and encourages Elle to buckle down once at Harvard. In the movie, she’s completely self-motivated to do so at the same point: already suspecting it will never be enough to win back Warner, her ex, but wanting to prove herself capable anyway.

So it’s a bit of a dilution of her empowerment, I think.

Though I did like that, in the musical, she’s the one who proposes to him, at the end.

The musical is more gay-positive

Maybe that’s just the difference 13 years makes? Certainly the lesbian law student is much more likable in the musical, no longer seeming as militant and angry as she does in the movie. And the stereotypical gay pool boy earns an entire, completely hilarious, song about those stereotypes: Gay, or European?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQr4nl2y8M

Gay or European? Musical number from Legally Blonde on YouTube

Professor Stromwell is gone

The musical has only the one law professor character, Callahan—the one whose sexual harassment makes Elle doubt anyone will ever see her as more than a “piece of ass”. But the movie has another professor character, a woman, who meets Elle after this incident and motivates her to fight back with: “If you’re going to let one stupid prick ruin your life, you’re not the girl I thought you were.”

In the musical, Vivian, Warner’s fiancee is the one who talks her into fighting back. In both movie and musical, it’s great that the two rivals for Warner’s affection become friends, though this is given more time in the movie. And, it’s not that it doesn’t work for Vivian to be the motivator here; it’s just that Professor Stromwell was a great character also (albeit in another very small part).

In conclusion

Basically, Legally Blonde, musical and movie, is just meant to be fun, and it is. But behind that is a decent message about female power and independence. It’s not perfect feminism, but it’s feminism nonetheless. (Notably, original novel, film script, and musical book were all written by women.)

A guilty pleasure, only without the guilt. Oh, my God, oh my God, you guys!

See also: Legally Blonde: A little slice of feminist heaven

Going to see an American idiot

No, I’m not insulting anybody. I simply went out with two friends to see a production of Green Day’s American Idiot: The Musical.

Poster for Green Day's American Idiot

Of the three of us, I was the biggest fan, in that I actually own the entire original album, not just the hit songs from it. But I don’t know it that well. Like, I only know the lyrics to the hit songs from it, and I’ve never taken the time to try to figure out what the plot or concept behind it actually is—though it appeared to have something to do with a young man’s angst.

So we were all going in blind, not knowing what the story or characters would be.

It turned out to be centered around the character of Johnny, who plans to escape suburban dreariness and do something wonderful and revolutionary in the city. His friend Will has to stay behind because of his pregnant girlfriend, Heather. His other friend Tunny does go with him, but they have a falling out and choose different paths. Then Johnny meets and falls in love with Whatshername. [No, I didn’t forget her name; that is that character’s name.]

Green Day’s music is absolutely front, center, essential, everything to this production. Spoken dialogue between songs is limited, mainly consisting of Johnny’s dated monologues or letters letting us know how much time has passed and the character’s reaction to what happened in the last song. And though I had to look this up to confirm, it does include every song from the original American Idiot album, in order—but it uses some additional Green Day songs from that period of their career to round out the story

There’s no orchestra with this; it’s truly a rock musical, to the point where the guitarists, bassist, keyboardist, and drummer are actually up on stage, in the open, with the actors, through the whole production. The cast also sometimes joins in on guitar (on a couple tunes Johnny sings with himself as accompaniment on acoustic), and their voices—oh my God! What amazing singers. (Somewhat better than Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, I would say.) But they have voices suited to rock, not Broadway, if you know what I mean.

(And on a shallow note, they were quite a nice-looking and fit bunch as well, which made for some pleasant viewing from our excellent sixth-row seats.)

It was a super energetic production, 110 minutes, no intermission. The dancing features a lot of head thrashing, fist pumping, and running and jumping. The staging was industrial-looking, featuring a lot of TVs that helped propel the mood of the story, with occasional strobe lighting and glitter.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you aren’t a fan of guitar-heavy, potty-mouthed, angry /angsty rock music, this is not the musical for you.

But we quite enjoyed it. Though it has to be said [do I have to give spoiler alerts on a musical?], the ending is not of the triumphant, feel-good sort. Love does not conquer all. Dreams are not realized. The world is not a better place at the end than it was at the start.

I thought that was brave, but also couldn’t help wishing it could end on a bit of a happier note.

Which is why the cast encore was so brilliant, and perfect, and not really cheating at all: Green Day’s “Good Riddance (The Time of Your Life)”.

It’s something unpredictable
But in the end is right
I hope you had the time of your life!

 

Flirting with the arts

Last weekend we attended a KW Symphony concert called Sound in Motion: Music and the Body. This was part of the Intersections series, where the orchestra combines with something; this time, with a yoga instructor or “mindfulness educator”. The evening began with only her, actually, leading us through some breathing and stretching exercises. Of course, we were in street clothes and sitting in concert seats, so we weren’t exactly doing downward facing dog, but she adapted to the space we had and the fact that we could stand up.

During the first few pieces the symphony played, she continued to interact with us in various ways, leading us through movements and breathing in conjunction with the music. We weren’t to clap between pieces, but to just keep focusing inward.

For the last two pieces all was quiet, though, as we were to try to stay mindful as we just listened to the music (which were a couple of more modern classical music pieces). It was amazing how well that worked at quelling the problem one usually has at classical concerts, that the mind has a tendency to start wandering off at certain points. Maybe, if you can manage to go right from yoga class to a classical concert, you’ll get more out of it.

int2-600x400

That was Friday. On Sunday I was registered into this program called Flirting with the Arts. It offered 12 half-hour arts-related sessions, of which you selected 6, to give you just a taste of what they’re like. It was held at a volunteer-run coffee shop in downtown Kitchener (itself an interesting place).

Although I thought I’d allowed myself sufficient time to get there for the 10:00 start, I was wrong. Between snow making the drive slower and the nearest parking lot being full, I arrived at about 9:59. Thanks to some jogging to get there.

My first session was by an art therapist, so focused on creating really personal art, not intended for display to others. It was interesting, but not ideal as my first one, as I was still stressed from the lateness and had trouble getting my heart rate back down to normal enough to really focus, as was the point here.

The second was on slide guitar playing. I quite like the idea of playing guitar, as it’s so much more portable than piano, and some songs I like simply sound better on guitar than piano. But I don’t know that I like the idea enough to spend the time it would take to learn.

Slide guitar playing means, basically, putting a tube on your finger and sliding that down the strings to play, rather than pressing the strings down at certain positions to strum chords. In a half hour, we just got the basics of what you can do with that sliding technique. I didn’t seem to be a natural, so I think the instructor was just being polite when he said my first efforts sounded great. But I did get better by the end.

Bonnie Raitt playing slide guitar
Not destined to be the next Bonnie Raitt—note the tube on her finger, here?

Next up was acting. The lesson here was that you don’t inject emotion into words when acting; you feel emotion and project that outward, regardless of the actual words. This was explored in exercises where you had to convey a message using gibberish, and another where you had to convey an emotional backstory into truly prosaic dialogue. It was a cool session with a very enthusiastic instructor (a playwright).

We had lunch break then, which Jean came to join me for. (We went to another little restaurant rather than eat this cafe.) Then he ran away and I continued with afternoon sessions.

The first was landscape painting, and the idea was to try to paint the outline of a landscape you were imagining. My main problem was I’m not any kind of good at just imagining a landscape, so was never really sure where I was trying to go in that half hour. The results were therefore less than impressive.

Next up was portrait painting. We were instructed to bring a photo of ourselves to work from. It was the fifth time of day this artist had been teaching amateurs, and she was getting good at helping us avoid the pitfalls. It was all step by step: the head shape, eye position, and nose position in pencil outline; colour in the shadows of the face using various shades of some kind of pencil; don’t spend too long on the eyes, and don’t draw them too big (though I still did); and then take wet brush to the color and bring it life.

It was surprising how well that turned in just a half hour. Mine actually looked like me.

Finally, I had a writing session. That one was right in my comfort zone, so wasn’t as enlightening. But it was fun, especially the session in which we had to create stories by adding a sentence to what other people. One turned out quite hilarious.

So not sure if any of these flirtations will turn into longer-term relationships, but it was certainly an interesting Sunday.