I didn't want to make the actual review any longer than it is, but I had some other thoughts.
About the play:
1. I think the play would be a little more digestible to a modern English-speaking audience if Steven Sater had updated the character names. I had a hard time following who was who among the minor characters just because the old German names were so strange to me. I couldn't tell my Schnitzels from my Schatzers.
2. Some of the elements of the play seemed to come from out of nowhere. For example, the song between Moritz and Fanny Gabor -- there didn't seem to be any special relationship between them before that number. Even the conclusion seemed weird -- Melchior was about to kill himself because he has nothing left, but then Moritz's and Wendla's ghosts talked him out of it. But he's still an outcast, with not much going on in his life (unless he decides to take up with Ilse, which come to think of it, wouldn't be a bad idea.) And Saber has the character of Thea make it clear that she has a crush on Moritz, but he never does anything with that.
3. Re/Duncan Sheik's score, I want to make it clear that outside of this musical, I'm not really a huge Duncan Sheik fan. I like "Barely Breathing" like most people probably do, but that's about it. (That's what I meant, and not "Wicked Game" like O originally wrote. That was Chris Isaak. Duh!) It's not as though when I first bought the cast album for Spring Awakening, I was hugely biased in his favor. But there are some really good songs here.
About the direction:
1. The thing I was talking about re/the choice to have the supporting actors onstage when their characters weren't even part of the scene -- for example, at some points, they're just standing there as trees in the forest. At other private, intimate moments in the script, they're kind of huddled around the main characters, sometimes right up in their faces, although the actors playing the main characters who are in the scene have to pretend they don't see them. It wasn't bad -- just kind of weird.
2. Some of the sexual choices were a bridge too far for me. It's not like I've never seen an adult film in my life, but somehow seeing fully-clothed simulated sex acts in a theater full of just regular people is way more uncomfortable. I understand that the play is trying to show you how uncomfortable most of us are with sexuality. But it doesn't mean I can't be pissed about it when they shove it in our faces. The scene in act 2 where the director has the reform school boys seemingly masturbate on an unwilling Melchior was just disgusting, and not commensurate with an otherwise enjoyable night at the theater.
About the performances:
1. As I said, I liked David Thomas Cronin's performance as Moritz. But he sort of plays him as an angrier version of Flounder from Animal House. It kind of worked, though.
2. I want to emphasize just how much I liked the scene between Cronin and Emily Nash's Ilse in the second act. The actors made you really wish that these two characters could have brought some comfort to one another, and could have averted the tragedy that followed.
2. I didn't really mention the musical highlights, but there were a lot of them. "Totally Fucked" was perhaps the best song of the night, and got the best reaction from the crowd. I also really liked Ilse's "Blue Wind" and the closing number, "The Song of Purple Summer", which gives all of the characters, even the adults, a happier, more dreamlike ending. The choreography on this one and "Totally Fucked" were particularly good.
About the program:
The proofreader in me couldn't help but notice that you guys listed one of Moritz's numbers as "The Btich of Living". And don't go pointing out any spelling errors I made in this blog post. I write these things pretty stream-of-consciousness, and don't always go back and proofread myself. And if I do, even a year later, I can still fix it -- it's digital media. It's somehow worse when it's in print. (At least that's what I tell myself.)
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Spring Awakening
Warning: This review will contain plot spoilers for the show, and due to the nature of the show and its themes, will contain some sexually explicit language and themes.
Long Island has a (fairly) new theater, The Argyle Theater in Babylon. This is almost the end of their first season. I only found out about them a few months ago. Now, Spring Awakening is a musical I've been wanting to see, and although it's played at one or two other theaters on the Island, somehow I've always missed it. (The sales director from the Argyle was quick to point out tonight that they are the first professional theater to perform it on Long Island, and I guess that's true. To the best of my knowledge, the only other two "professional" theaters out here are The Gateway in Bellport/Patchogue and the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport; all of the Island's other theaters are community theaters who use a combination of Equity and non-Equity actors, etc.)
I was interested in Spring Awakening during its original Broadway run, where it won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for a little more than two years. But I don't get to Broadway all that often, so I missed it. I did buy the cast album, though, and I read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, so I was as familiar with a show as you can be without having actually seen it staged.
I didn't even try to convince my daughter to go with me this time, because she really likes happy musicals, and this show definitely doesn't fit that bill. I did invite my wife, but she chose (possibly for the same reason) to pass. So I bought myself a ticket for last Saturday, February 9.
Now Saturday was supposed to be a pretty busy for me, involving Weight Watchers in the morning, a trip to Nassau in the afternoon to get together with a bunch of our friends, and the show in Babylon on Saturday night. However, it didn't work out that way.
I suffer from occasional bouts of vertigo. I have for probably about fifteen years now. It's not big a deal, because I've learned over the years that a day's worth of meclizine usually knocks it out of my system. But until that medication takes effect, it's pretty debilitating. I hadn't had a bout in roughly two years, but I had a feeling that I was due, enough so that I recently had my doctor give me a fresh prescription, because the pills I had were well past their expiration date. It's a good thing that I did, because when I got up on Saturday, the room was spinning.
I started taking my medication immediately, but by mid-day, it was obvious that I wasn't going to be in any condition to go out that night. So I phoned the Argyle Theater, and they couldn't have been nicer about it. They let me trade my ticket in for a ticket on Friday, February 16.
So tonight, I headed out well before showtime. I found the theater with no problem. It's right on Main Street in Babylon, just a half a block east of Deer Park Ave.
The theater itself is nice and modern. It has a well-lit lobby with an appealing looking snack bar. It seems a little pricey - a bottle of water is $4 - but they're trying to make a go of it, so I'm going to cut them some slack. (The ticket was also a bit on the expensive side, at $80, but then again, that's in the same price range as the other two LI professional theaters.)
The inside of the theater is quite comfortable. There's some leg room, and the chairs (which I read somewhere were originally from the Beacon Theater in Manhattan) are soft and reasonably wide.
As we approached showtime, I could see why the theater had been so accommodating about letting me reschedule (although, to be fair, they might have been nice about it anyway) -- it was a great deal less than a packed house. (I couldn't see how many people were in the balcony). I bought an aisle seat, as always, and I was the only person sitting on my side of the theater. I guess it takes a while to build a following -- I suspect that a lot of Long Islanders still don't know the theater exists.
As it got close to showtime, a group of very elderly people (we're talking mid-80 year olds) showed up with a younger woman who must have been their caretaker from a retirement home. I heard part of her conversation with the usher, and it sounded as though none of them were familiar with the show. Given the somewhat salacious nature of the SA, I laughed to myself and said, "Yeah, this is gonna go over well." And the usher obviously agreed with me, because when he learned that the caretaker was intending to leave them there and pick them up at the end of the night, he advised her to leave her phone on. To their credit, the old-timers lasted until the intermission with not a peep of complaint. Then they ran (hobbled?) for the hills. Luckily, most of the rest of the crowd was pretty young.
First, about the show. It's based on an 1891 German play by Frank Wedekind, with a strong rock-music score by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Overall, I like Sheik's contribution more than I like Sater's. The tunes are excellent. The story is more of a mixed bag. It's basically a tale about the dangers of sexually repressing (and over-controlling) your kids. Sater does one thing that I definitely like, which is he writes most of the dialogue in formal and stilted language, but when the kids break into song (and their inner-selves are allowed to break free without adult restrictions), the lyrics are written in modern-day idioms, with titles like "The Bitch of Living" and "Totally Fucked".
I don't know if I'm totally sold on the play itself, though. I can (mostly) deal with its singing and dancing little teen horn dogs, although the various characters display a kind of hackneyed laundry list of possible sexual proclivities and/or histories. There are straight kids and gay kids, an s&m kid and a girl who's being physically and sexually abused by her father (with her mother's consent.) They're all hot-to-trot all of the time (except for the abused girl). Unfortunately, it's 19th century Germany, so they mostly don't know anything about sex, not even that it can get you el-preggo.
Sater mostly manages to make them real characters, and not just stereotypes, which is good. But the hostility the play shows towards all of the adults, who keep the kids uninformed, crush their spirits, physically smack them around a lot, and just generally make their little lives miserable, is more than a little off-putting. And of course, this leads to a tragic ending, where two of our three likable main characters are dead (one by suicide, the other by a back-alley abortion), and the third is just barely talked out of slitting his own throat by their ghosts. You can see why the octogenarians got the hell out of dodge. (I'm pretty sure the simulated male masturbation didn't help any.) My Fair Lady this ain't.
So let's talk about the production itself. I'll get my gripes out of the way first, which mostly have to do with the directing. The director here is a fellow named Matthew Earnest. You know how sometimes directors get a little bored with the source material, so they try to spice it up by moving the play to a different time period, or filling it with anachronisms, or making all of the actors perform wearing shark masks, stuff like that? Sometimes it can work, especially with a play that's been around the block a few times, and could use a fresh approach. For example, if you did a production of West Side Story, and you wanted to change the Puerto Rican gang members to Muslim gang members, I'd see the logic behind it. I'm not sure that Tony singing "Fatima" instead of "Maria" would flow off the tongue quite as smoothly, but it's a matter of taste. However, I don't see the logic here of having one mom run around the stage with a vacuum cleaner, or another dad watching something on TV when his son is trying to talk with him. In fact, it makes me very cross, very cross indeed! Like to the point where I want to smack him sharply on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, and say, "Bad director! Bad! What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?!!" (I resisted the urge because thankfully, he passed on using the shark masks.) This is especially so because this particular musical is still fairly young in its lifecycle, and lots of us (Me!) have never even seen it performed the way its creators intended before.
There were a few other choices for the placements and uses of actors who weren't actually part of a given scene that I didn't understand, but they didn't really detract from the performance for me. (And having not seen the Broadway version, for all I know, they did the same thing there.) And there were one or two cases of blocking where an actor who wasn't really part of the action was placed upstage in such a way as to block my view of the actors who were part of the action, which I could have lived without. Other than these things, though, the direction was actually pretty good. (I'm not being facetious here. These might sound like major gripes, but the show was well cast and well paced, so that the night was still mostly enjoyable.)
The real strength of the show, though (other than Duncan Sheik's music) is its cast. The three main leads, Alex Joseph Grayson as Melchior, Corrie Farbstein as Wendla, and David Thomas Cronin as Moritz, were all quite good. (I thought that Cronin's performance maybe went a little over the top at the end. But then again, the character at that point has become pretty unhinged, so I think I have to let him have the benefit of the doubt.) Farbstein is particularly effective as the good-natured and amiable girl next door who is completely ignorant about sex (but who soon discovers that a nice thrashing with a birch branch makes her go all tingly inside.) The rest of the mostly-young cast is also first-rate, particularly Emily Nash as Ilsa, the bohemian girl who almost saves Moritz.
The production also features live musicians, who were fine. (I didn't hear any clunkers or anything that distracted me from the plot, so as far as I'm concerned, that's a win.) And I should mention that the choreography for the musical numbers, by Sara Brians, was quite good.
Overall, it was a solid night of entertainment. I will definitely return to the Argyle Theater again.
Spring Awakening runs through February 24th. Then, from March 14th through April 20th, the Argyle will be presenting their last show of their inaugural season, the musical version of The Producers.
Long Island has a (fairly) new theater, The Argyle Theater in Babylon. This is almost the end of their first season. I only found out about them a few months ago. Now, Spring Awakening is a musical I've been wanting to see, and although it's played at one or two other theaters on the Island, somehow I've always missed it. (The sales director from the Argyle was quick to point out tonight that they are the first professional theater to perform it on Long Island, and I guess that's true. To the best of my knowledge, the only other two "professional" theaters out here are The Gateway in Bellport/Patchogue and the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport; all of the Island's other theaters are community theaters who use a combination of Equity and non-Equity actors, etc.)
I was interested in Spring Awakening during its original Broadway run, where it won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for a little more than two years. But I don't get to Broadway all that often, so I missed it. I did buy the cast album, though, and I read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia, so I was as familiar with a show as you can be without having actually seen it staged.
I didn't even try to convince my daughter to go with me this time, because she really likes happy musicals, and this show definitely doesn't fit that bill. I did invite my wife, but she chose (possibly for the same reason) to pass. So I bought myself a ticket for last Saturday, February 9.
Now Saturday was supposed to be a pretty busy for me, involving Weight Watchers in the morning, a trip to Nassau in the afternoon to get together with a bunch of our friends, and the show in Babylon on Saturday night. However, it didn't work out that way.
I suffer from occasional bouts of vertigo. I have for probably about fifteen years now. It's not big a deal, because I've learned over the years that a day's worth of meclizine usually knocks it out of my system. But until that medication takes effect, it's pretty debilitating. I hadn't had a bout in roughly two years, but I had a feeling that I was due, enough so that I recently had my doctor give me a fresh prescription, because the pills I had were well past their expiration date. It's a good thing that I did, because when I got up on Saturday, the room was spinning.
I started taking my medication immediately, but by mid-day, it was obvious that I wasn't going to be in any condition to go out that night. So I phoned the Argyle Theater, and they couldn't have been nicer about it. They let me trade my ticket in for a ticket on Friday, February 16.
So tonight, I headed out well before showtime. I found the theater with no problem. It's right on Main Street in Babylon, just a half a block east of Deer Park Ave.
The theater itself is nice and modern. It has a well-lit lobby with an appealing looking snack bar. It seems a little pricey - a bottle of water is $4 - but they're trying to make a go of it, so I'm going to cut them some slack. (The ticket was also a bit on the expensive side, at $80, but then again, that's in the same price range as the other two LI professional theaters.)
The inside of the theater is quite comfortable. There's some leg room, and the chairs (which I read somewhere were originally from the Beacon Theater in Manhattan) are soft and reasonably wide.
As we approached showtime, I could see why the theater had been so accommodating about letting me reschedule (although, to be fair, they might have been nice about it anyway) -- it was a great deal less than a packed house. (I couldn't see how many people were in the balcony). I bought an aisle seat, as always, and I was the only person sitting on my side of the theater. I guess it takes a while to build a following -- I suspect that a lot of Long Islanders still don't know the theater exists.
As it got close to showtime, a group of very elderly people (we're talking mid-80 year olds) showed up with a younger woman who must have been their caretaker from a retirement home. I heard part of her conversation with the usher, and it sounded as though none of them were familiar with the show. Given the somewhat salacious nature of the SA, I laughed to myself and said, "Yeah, this is gonna go over well." And the usher obviously agreed with me, because when he learned that the caretaker was intending to leave them there and pick them up at the end of the night, he advised her to leave her phone on. To their credit, the old-timers lasted until the intermission with not a peep of complaint. Then they ran (hobbled?) for the hills. Luckily, most of the rest of the crowd was pretty young.
First, about the show. It's based on an 1891 German play by Frank Wedekind, with a strong rock-music score by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Overall, I like Sheik's contribution more than I like Sater's. The tunes are excellent. The story is more of a mixed bag. It's basically a tale about the dangers of sexually repressing (and over-controlling) your kids. Sater does one thing that I definitely like, which is he writes most of the dialogue in formal and stilted language, but when the kids break into song (and their inner-selves are allowed to break free without adult restrictions), the lyrics are written in modern-day idioms, with titles like "The Bitch of Living" and "Totally Fucked".
I don't know if I'm totally sold on the play itself, though. I can (mostly) deal with its singing and dancing little teen horn dogs, although the various characters display a kind of hackneyed laundry list of possible sexual proclivities and/or histories. There are straight kids and gay kids, an s&m kid and a girl who's being physically and sexually abused by her father (with her mother's consent.) They're all hot-to-trot all of the time (except for the abused girl). Unfortunately, it's 19th century Germany, so they mostly don't know anything about sex, not even that it can get you el-preggo.
Sater mostly manages to make them real characters, and not just stereotypes, which is good. But the hostility the play shows towards all of the adults, who keep the kids uninformed, crush their spirits, physically smack them around a lot, and just generally make their little lives miserable, is more than a little off-putting. And of course, this leads to a tragic ending, where two of our three likable main characters are dead (one by suicide, the other by a back-alley abortion), and the third is just barely talked out of slitting his own throat by their ghosts. You can see why the octogenarians got the hell out of dodge. (I'm pretty sure the simulated male masturbation didn't help any.) My Fair Lady this ain't.
So let's talk about the production itself. I'll get my gripes out of the way first, which mostly have to do with the directing. The director here is a fellow named Matthew Earnest. You know how sometimes directors get a little bored with the source material, so they try to spice it up by moving the play to a different time period, or filling it with anachronisms, or making all of the actors perform wearing shark masks, stuff like that? Sometimes it can work, especially with a play that's been around the block a few times, and could use a fresh approach. For example, if you did a production of West Side Story, and you wanted to change the Puerto Rican gang members to Muslim gang members, I'd see the logic behind it. I'm not sure that Tony singing "Fatima" instead of "Maria" would flow off the tongue quite as smoothly, but it's a matter of taste. However, I don't see the logic here of having one mom run around the stage with a vacuum cleaner, or another dad watching something on TV when his son is trying to talk with him. In fact, it makes me very cross, very cross indeed! Like to the point where I want to smack him sharply on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, and say, "Bad director! Bad! What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?!!" (I resisted the urge because thankfully, he passed on using the shark masks.) This is especially so because this particular musical is still fairly young in its lifecycle, and lots of us (Me!) have never even seen it performed the way its creators intended before.
There were a few other choices for the placements and uses of actors who weren't actually part of a given scene that I didn't understand, but they didn't really detract from the performance for me. (And having not seen the Broadway version, for all I know, they did the same thing there.) And there were one or two cases of blocking where an actor who wasn't really part of the action was placed upstage in such a way as to block my view of the actors who were part of the action, which I could have lived without. Other than these things, though, the direction was actually pretty good. (I'm not being facetious here. These might sound like major gripes, but the show was well cast and well paced, so that the night was still mostly enjoyable.)
The real strength of the show, though (other than Duncan Sheik's music) is its cast. The three main leads, Alex Joseph Grayson as Melchior, Corrie Farbstein as Wendla, and David Thomas Cronin as Moritz, were all quite good. (I thought that Cronin's performance maybe went a little over the top at the end. But then again, the character at that point has become pretty unhinged, so I think I have to let him have the benefit of the doubt.) Farbstein is particularly effective as the good-natured and amiable girl next door who is completely ignorant about sex (but who soon discovers that a nice thrashing with a birch branch makes her go all tingly inside.) The rest of the mostly-young cast is also first-rate, particularly Emily Nash as Ilsa, the bohemian girl who almost saves Moritz.
The production also features live musicians, who were fine. (I didn't hear any clunkers or anything that distracted me from the plot, so as far as I'm concerned, that's a win.) And I should mention that the choreography for the musical numbers, by Sara Brians, was quite good.
Overall, it was a solid night of entertainment. I will definitely return to the Argyle Theater again.
Spring Awakening runs through February 24th. Then, from March 14th through April 20th, the Argyle will be presenting their last show of their inaugural season, the musical version of The Producers.
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Review of This Island Earth's "Welcome to the Merry-Go-Round"
I posted this review on the Sputnik Music website a few minutes ago.
Musically, the period from 1995 to 2005 became something of a lost decade for me, at least as far as the American national scene was concerned. The nineties had started out promisingly enough, with the grunge movement, and bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam providing a new twist on basic rock. Then Kurt Cobain killed himself, and radio lost interest in grunge. For a year or so, it seemed that Alternative Rock would be the next big thing, and this was fine with me. Unfortunately, it wasn't making enough money for the record companies, so they ditched it after about a year. What followed was a horror show, as record labels decided to go back to an updated version prefabricated pop. It was as if the sixties through the nineties, and the movement toward artists who wrote their own music, never happened. Atrocity after atrocity was foisted upon the public, from The Spice Girls to Britney Spears to the cookie-cutter dorks and divas of the American Idol movement. I retreated in horror, first to college radio and indie music, and ultimately to my own local Long Island music scene, where I discovered that actual good music, music that I liked, was still being created.
Right in my own backyard, I learned that there were artists from a variety of genres who were out there every night, working the clubs and coffee houses, ignoring the national trends and trying to make a name for themselves. A wave of Long Island emo bands, such as The Movielife, started to break through to the national scene on a small level. The next generation of bands of this genre then broke through in a much larger way, including Taking Back Sunday, Brand New and Bayside. This was great to see. But even more exciting for me was that my preferred genre of the period, alternative pop rock, looked as if it might follow the same path. Nine Days scored big in 2000 with their The Madding Crowd album, and it seemed as if there was a talented cadre of Long Island bands mining the alternapop style who were poised to make it right behind them.
One of the best of these bands was This Island Earth. A five-piece group that featured a lead vocalist with a Freddy Mercury-type range, a lead guitarist who occasionally played a Chapman Stick, and a talent for writing, tight, energetic and intelligent pop rock songs, these guys seemed poised to make it big as music moved into the 21st century. Their style was described by some as Beatlesque, but the quirky construction of some of their songs made them sound more like an American version of Squeeze. They released a fine self-titled debut album in 1996, and their 2000 EP Home Sweet Home drew them some music industry attention. One of those who became interested was the producer Armand John Petri, who had previously worked with bands such as Goo Goo Dolls, Sixpence None the Richer and 10,000 Maniacs. Petri then helped TIE to reach their musical zenith with the release of 2002's Welcome to the Merry-Go-Round.
Welcome to the Merry-Go-Round is a bit of alternapop heaven. It begins with "All for Love", which is one of those songs that you feel like you've heard before, but in a good way. (It kind of reminds me of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" or The Cars' "Good Times Roll" in that way.) It's a more-than-solid opener.
The LP then goes on to deliver a variety of hook-laden rock tracks in a number of speeds and styles. Two of its best numbers share a similar theme, that of non-heroism. The first, "Superman", finds its protagonist disclosing to his love that "I know just what I am/I'm an ordinary man", before going on the explain that the role of Clark Kent fits him way better than does that of you-know-who. ("Hey that's OK/I don't like tights anyway for me/Don't wanna be your Superman"). The second, "Hero (I Don't Wanna Be)", is a raucous and funny track that describes in great detail why its main character would be a poor fit for a career in the military: "Ring, ring, it's 4am/I think I'll punch the alarm and go back to sleep again/I could never get accustomed to all of that reveille/I need some revelry." This one features some rousing slide guitar, and is the kind of an anthem that you just have to clap along to.
There are a number of other treats on the LP. The title track contains a really tasty guitar pattern that foreshadows the song's chorus, and "All the King's Horses" is a fun stop-and-start kind of song that gives vocalist Peter McCulloch a chance to show just how many words can be stuffed into a line of a pop song chorus. "The Girl Upstairs", on the the other hand, is a darker mid-tempo number that brings to mind The Smithereens' "Blood and Roses". And the band even gets the chance to show its sweeter side, with "How Like a God", wherein our hero compares being in love with the worship of a deity, and "Innocent", which declares that "We're all born beautiful/Innocent/After all".
As you can probably guess by the fact that you've never heard of these guys (unless you happen to be a Long Islander of a certain age), this album failed to land the band national fame or a record deal. I don't know why. Maybe the record companies thought they couldn't find a single here. Or maybe the country was just too far gone down the American Idol rabbit hole to ever come back. Either way, it's a shame. Because if someone claimed that they stopped making good pop rock music before the start of the 2000's, I'd be proud to hand them this album any day to prove otherwise.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Review Summary: A little bit of alternative pop heaven.
Musically, the period from 1995 to 2005 became something of a lost decade for me, at least as far as the American national scene was concerned. The nineties had started out promisingly enough, with the grunge movement, and bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam providing a new twist on basic rock. Then Kurt Cobain killed himself, and radio lost interest in grunge. For a year or so, it seemed that Alternative Rock would be the next big thing, and this was fine with me. Unfortunately, it wasn't making enough money for the record companies, so they ditched it after about a year. What followed was a horror show, as record labels decided to go back to an updated version prefabricated pop. It was as if the sixties through the nineties, and the movement toward artists who wrote their own music, never happened. Atrocity after atrocity was foisted upon the public, from The Spice Girls to Britney Spears to the cookie-cutter dorks and divas of the American Idol movement. I retreated in horror, first to college radio and indie music, and ultimately to my own local Long Island music scene, where I discovered that actual good music, music that I liked, was still being created.
Right in my own backyard, I learned that there were artists from a variety of genres who were out there every night, working the clubs and coffee houses, ignoring the national trends and trying to make a name for themselves. A wave of Long Island emo bands, such as The Movielife, started to break through to the national scene on a small level. The next generation of bands of this genre then broke through in a much larger way, including Taking Back Sunday, Brand New and Bayside. This was great to see. But even more exciting for me was that my preferred genre of the period, alternative pop rock, looked as if it might follow the same path. Nine Days scored big in 2000 with their The Madding Crowd album, and it seemed as if there was a talented cadre of Long Island bands mining the alternapop style who were poised to make it right behind them.
One of the best of these bands was This Island Earth. A five-piece group that featured a lead vocalist with a Freddy Mercury-type range, a lead guitarist who occasionally played a Chapman Stick, and a talent for writing, tight, energetic and intelligent pop rock songs, these guys seemed poised to make it big as music moved into the 21st century. Their style was described by some as Beatlesque, but the quirky construction of some of their songs made them sound more like an American version of Squeeze. They released a fine self-titled debut album in 1996, and their 2000 EP Home Sweet Home drew them some music industry attention. One of those who became interested was the producer Armand John Petri, who had previously worked with bands such as Goo Goo Dolls, Sixpence None the Richer and 10,000 Maniacs. Petri then helped TIE to reach their musical zenith with the release of 2002's Welcome to the Merry-Go-Round.
Welcome to the Merry-Go-Round is a bit of alternapop heaven. It begins with "All for Love", which is one of those songs that you feel like you've heard before, but in a good way. (It kind of reminds me of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" or The Cars' "Good Times Roll" in that way.) It's a more-than-solid opener.
The LP then goes on to deliver a variety of hook-laden rock tracks in a number of speeds and styles. Two of its best numbers share a similar theme, that of non-heroism. The first, "Superman", finds its protagonist disclosing to his love that "I know just what I am/I'm an ordinary man", before going on the explain that the role of Clark Kent fits him way better than does that of you-know-who. ("Hey that's OK/I don't like tights anyway for me/Don't wanna be your Superman"). The second, "Hero (I Don't Wanna Be)", is a raucous and funny track that describes in great detail why its main character would be a poor fit for a career in the military: "Ring, ring, it's 4am/I think I'll punch the alarm and go back to sleep again/I could never get accustomed to all of that reveille/I need some revelry." This one features some rousing slide guitar, and is the kind of an anthem that you just have to clap along to.
There are a number of other treats on the LP. The title track contains a really tasty guitar pattern that foreshadows the song's chorus, and "All the King's Horses" is a fun stop-and-start kind of song that gives vocalist Peter McCulloch a chance to show just how many words can be stuffed into a line of a pop song chorus. "The Girl Upstairs", on the the other hand, is a darker mid-tempo number that brings to mind The Smithereens' "Blood and Roses". And the band even gets the chance to show its sweeter side, with "How Like a God", wherein our hero compares being in love with the worship of a deity, and "Innocent", which declares that "We're all born beautiful/Innocent/After all".
As you can probably guess by the fact that you've never heard of these guys (unless you happen to be a Long Islander of a certain age), this album failed to land the band national fame or a record deal. I don't know why. Maybe the record companies thought they couldn't find a single here. Or maybe the country was just too far gone down the American Idol rabbit hole to ever come back. Either way, it's a shame. Because if someone claimed that they stopped making good pop rock music before the start of the 2000's, I'd be proud to hand them this album any day to prove otherwise.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Monday, February 11, 2019
Review of Steve Hackett's "At the Edge of Light"
I posted this review on Sunday afternoon on the Sputnik Music website:
Steve Hackett's career has been a long and storied one. He became the guitarist for Genesis in 1971, and played on most of their best-loved albums through the Peter Gabriel years. He formed the supergroup GTR with Yes's Steve Howe in 1986. And he has released twenty-five solo albums over the years, beginning with 1975's Voyage of the Acolyte. More recently, his 2017 LP The Night Siren was hailed by many as one of his best, mixing progressive rock with various elements of world music. So the announcement of a new Steve Hackett LP for 2019, At the Edge of Light, was the cause of some hopeful anticipation from prog-rock fans the world over.
Unfortunately, this one is a bit of a disappointment. It seems to be an attempt at a concept album, following the world from our current unsettled political climate through an upcoming battle that leads to hope and triumph. However, while Hackett's guitar work is excellent, as always, the songs themselves mostly misfire, and the album as a whole comes across as unfocused and generic.
It starts promisingly enough, with a decent instrumental intro entitled "Fallen Walls and Pedestals", which leads directly into a slow, creepy number named "Beasts in Our Time". This one sets a horror-film like tone early on, but then goes meandering off into something rockier but much less effective.
What follows is a sprawling song that is meant to be a kind of triumphant anthem called "Under the Light of the Sun". This track encapsulates much of what is wrong with the album as a whole. It gets off to a good start, with an upbeat driving melody, which then peters out into a didgeridoo segment that sounds as if it was recorded in a cave, before moving back into the familiar theme from the first part of the song. It then wanders off again at the close. The track is supposed to represent the forces of nature, and the "twin extremities of Light and Dark" (according to the booklet that accompanies the CD version of the album). Unfortunately, it just comes across as musically indistinct and unclear in its direction. Incredibly, this 7-minute-long track was released as the LP's first single.
It gets worse. The next number, called "Underground Railroad", is intended as a mix between prog rock and an old spiritual, as it celebrates the freeing of slaves in pre-Civil War America, with railroad noises that make it seem as though the underground railroad was an actual, physical train. This one was also released as a single. I'm sure that Hackett meant well here. But the track is just a little cringe worthy, and reminded me uncomfortably of the Aldous Snow single "African Child" from the Russell Brand film Get Him to the Greek -- a parody of an overblown, excessive and ultimately tone-deaf rock song.
The rest of the album mixes good and bad elements. I've seen some criticize the sitar-based track "Shadow and Flame", but I actually liked that one. Ditto with the poppier "Hungry Years" (which sounds a bit in parts like a slower version of Elvis Costello's "Oliver's Army".) However, the latter song actually highlights a couple of other problems with the album. The first of those is Hackett's vocals -- they're not terrible, but they're not great either. And the way that Amanda Lehmann's co-vocals brighten this track up really underscores the nondescript nature of Hackett's own voice. The second is that the album contains quite a few riffs that are "borrowed" or recycled from other, better songs. A quick listen brought to mind echoes of John Entwistle's "Doctor, Doctor" ("These Golden Wings"), Neil Young's "Southern Man" ("Peace"), Queen's "The Prophet's Song" ("Peace again), and even King Crimson's "Epitaph" ("Peace" yet again!). Also, Hackett's use of grand choruses throughout was very reminiscent of the way Rick Wakeman used the same element on albums such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth and The Myths and Legends of King Arthur...LPs. I'm not saying that Hackett consciously stole music. At 68 years of age, I'm sure that he has a lot of song bits rattling around in that noggin of his. What I am saying is that the whole album sounds like something we've all heard before, and done better to boot.
Anyone can have an off album, and given that Hackett's last effort before this was fairly well acclaimed, I think we can all let him slide on this one. Sadly, though, I can't recommend At the Edge of Light, except perhaps to Hackett's biggest fans, and to Steve Hackett completists.
Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Review Summary: A disappointing prog-rock album that recycles various elements we've all heard used to better effect in the past.
Steve Hackett's career has been a long and storied one. He became the guitarist for Genesis in 1971, and played on most of their best-loved albums through the Peter Gabriel years. He formed the supergroup GTR with Yes's Steve Howe in 1986. And he has released twenty-five solo albums over the years, beginning with 1975's Voyage of the Acolyte. More recently, his 2017 LP The Night Siren was hailed by many as one of his best, mixing progressive rock with various elements of world music. So the announcement of a new Steve Hackett LP for 2019, At the Edge of Light, was the cause of some hopeful anticipation from prog-rock fans the world over.
Unfortunately, this one is a bit of a disappointment. It seems to be an attempt at a concept album, following the world from our current unsettled political climate through an upcoming battle that leads to hope and triumph. However, while Hackett's guitar work is excellent, as always, the songs themselves mostly misfire, and the album as a whole comes across as unfocused and generic.
It starts promisingly enough, with a decent instrumental intro entitled "Fallen Walls and Pedestals", which leads directly into a slow, creepy number named "Beasts in Our Time". This one sets a horror-film like tone early on, but then goes meandering off into something rockier but much less effective.
What follows is a sprawling song that is meant to be a kind of triumphant anthem called "Under the Light of the Sun". This track encapsulates much of what is wrong with the album as a whole. It gets off to a good start, with an upbeat driving melody, which then peters out into a didgeridoo segment that sounds as if it was recorded in a cave, before moving back into the familiar theme from the first part of the song. It then wanders off again at the close. The track is supposed to represent the forces of nature, and the "twin extremities of Light and Dark" (according to the booklet that accompanies the CD version of the album). Unfortunately, it just comes across as musically indistinct and unclear in its direction. Incredibly, this 7-minute-long track was released as the LP's first single.
It gets worse. The next number, called "Underground Railroad", is intended as a mix between prog rock and an old spiritual, as it celebrates the freeing of slaves in pre-Civil War America, with railroad noises that make it seem as though the underground railroad was an actual, physical train. This one was also released as a single. I'm sure that Hackett meant well here. But the track is just a little cringe worthy, and reminded me uncomfortably of the Aldous Snow single "African Child" from the Russell Brand film Get Him to the Greek -- a parody of an overblown, excessive and ultimately tone-deaf rock song.
The rest of the album mixes good and bad elements. I've seen some criticize the sitar-based track "Shadow and Flame", but I actually liked that one. Ditto with the poppier "Hungry Years" (which sounds a bit in parts like a slower version of Elvis Costello's "Oliver's Army".) However, the latter song actually highlights a couple of other problems with the album. The first of those is Hackett's vocals -- they're not terrible, but they're not great either. And the way that Amanda Lehmann's co-vocals brighten this track up really underscores the nondescript nature of Hackett's own voice. The second is that the album contains quite a few riffs that are "borrowed" or recycled from other, better songs. A quick listen brought to mind echoes of John Entwistle's "Doctor, Doctor" ("These Golden Wings"), Neil Young's "Southern Man" ("Peace"), Queen's "The Prophet's Song" ("Peace again), and even King Crimson's "Epitaph" ("Peace" yet again!). Also, Hackett's use of grand choruses throughout was very reminiscent of the way Rick Wakeman used the same element on albums such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth and The Myths and Legends of King Arthur...LPs. I'm not saying that Hackett consciously stole music. At 68 years of age, I'm sure that he has a lot of song bits rattling around in that noggin of his. What I am saying is that the whole album sounds like something we've all heard before, and done better to boot.
Anyone can have an off album, and given that Hackett's last effort before this was fairly well acclaimed, I think we can all let him slide on this one. Sadly, though, I can't recommend At the Edge of Light, except perhaps to Hackett's biggest fans, and to Steve Hackett completists.
Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Review of Yes's "Heaven & Earth"
I posted this review about twenty minutes ago on the Sputnik Music website:
Heaven & Earth is Yes's most recent studio album, and it's probably their last one (unless the Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman version of the band decides to put one out). It's certainly the late Chris Squire's last studio LP. As such, it's a shame that H&E has been so heavily maligned by many Yes fans. All the more so because, really, it's not a bad album.
Here are some statistics. Released in 2014, Heaven & Earth reached #20 on the UK chart, and #26 on the American Billboard chart. Not too shabby, especially since this was the best performance by any Yes album since 1991's Union LP. Yet its average rating here on Sputnik Music is only 1.7 out of 5 stars, which is .2 lower than the band's immensely disappointing 1997 album, Open Your Eyes. Its sole review on this site, written by a staff member whose opinion I respect immensely, rated it at 0.5, and suggested its existence as evidence that Yes needed to be euthanized. So how do we reconcile this respectable chart performance with the enmity that some have expressed towards this album?
"Lo," you might say to me, were you the sort of person who regularly utilizes expressions such as "lo". "Surely you're not claiming that chart performance equals quality?" And you make a fair point. After all, each of Justin Bieber's studio LPs has reached #1 in the American charts, and a quick glance at the Billboard 200 every week makes me want to blow my brains out in despair.
But here's the thing: The first time I ever listened to Heaven & Earth, it put a huge smile on my face, and over these last five years, that smile has remained. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming it's the second coming of Close to the Edge, or even of Drama. But there's a lot of beauty on H&E, from the opening notes of "Believe Again" through the last throes of "Subway Walls". So why do many Yes fans hate this album so? I believe I can answer that question in two words: Jon Davison.
Jon Davison has been a rock performer/vocalist for more than twenty-five years. Prior to joining Yes, he played bass in the American psych rock group Sky Cries Mary, and he later became the lead vocalist of the prog rock band Glass Hammer. He seems an unassuming gent, who to the best of my knowledge has never serial killed, R. Kelly'd, or even paid his taxes late. So what's the problem here? Simply put, he's a Jon Anderson-sounding dude who stepped into Jon Anderson's old role without actually being Jon Anderson. Yeah, there are other criticisms that have been leveled at Heaven & Earth. It features a gentler, poppier brand of music than had been featured on most prior Yes albums. Most of the tracks on the album are slow- to mid-tempo. Alan White seemed to have lost a step by the time the LP was recorded, and Geoff Downes was never Rick Wakeman, or even Patrick Moraz. But really, these things seem to be minor issues to most. The real burning hatred seems to be reserved for Davison, who many see as a tribute-band Jon Anderson copycat who has usurped the role of the real thing.
Judge to the LP on its own merits, though -- forget it's even a Yes album, and just listen to the music -- and you might find plenty to like here. Downes actually does some of his best work on this project. I love the playful synth pattern he uses on "Step Beyond", and the mild-but-affable pulsing keyboards he uses for much of the LP's opening track "Believe Again". As for Howe, he's still Howe -- you'll hear his instantly recognizable guitar stylings popping up throughout. And he had at least a hand in writing three of the four best tracks here, including the two I just mentioned, plus "It Was All We Knew". As for the vocals, as even many of the album's biggest critics have grudgingly admitted, they're actually one of the best things on the LP. Davison might not have Anderson's power, or all of his range, but his voice is still quite graceful. And his contributions are more than capably bolstered by Squire's and Howe's backing vocals.
Heaven & Earth is not one of Yes's best albums for sure. But then again, you're talking about one of the greatest progressive rock bands that ever existed, so the bar is pretty high there. Listen to it on its own terms, though, and it's actually better (or at least more enjoyable) than most of the LPs I listened to in 2018. Forget it's Yes. Pretend the name of the band is "No", or "Perhaps". Then close your eyes and just listen to the music. If you give it a fair shot, and focus on what's actually there instead of what (or who) isn't, you just might find yourself pleasantly surprised.
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review Summary: Chris Squire's Yes swan song is better than you might have thought.
Heaven & Earth is Yes's most recent studio album, and it's probably their last one (unless the Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman version of the band decides to put one out). It's certainly the late Chris Squire's last studio LP. As such, it's a shame that H&E has been so heavily maligned by many Yes fans. All the more so because, really, it's not a bad album.
Here are some statistics. Released in 2014, Heaven & Earth reached #20 on the UK chart, and #26 on the American Billboard chart. Not too shabby, especially since this was the best performance by any Yes album since 1991's Union LP. Yet its average rating here on Sputnik Music is only 1.7 out of 5 stars, which is .2 lower than the band's immensely disappointing 1997 album, Open Your Eyes. Its sole review on this site, written by a staff member whose opinion I respect immensely, rated it at 0.5, and suggested its existence as evidence that Yes needed to be euthanized. So how do we reconcile this respectable chart performance with the enmity that some have expressed towards this album?
"Lo," you might say to me, were you the sort of person who regularly utilizes expressions such as "lo". "Surely you're not claiming that chart performance equals quality?" And you make a fair point. After all, each of Justin Bieber's studio LPs has reached #1 in the American charts, and a quick glance at the Billboard 200 every week makes me want to blow my brains out in despair.
But here's the thing: The first time I ever listened to Heaven & Earth, it put a huge smile on my face, and over these last five years, that smile has remained. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming it's the second coming of Close to the Edge, or even of Drama. But there's a lot of beauty on H&E, from the opening notes of "Believe Again" through the last throes of "Subway Walls". So why do many Yes fans hate this album so? I believe I can answer that question in two words: Jon Davison.
Jon Davison has been a rock performer/vocalist for more than twenty-five years. Prior to joining Yes, he played bass in the American psych rock group Sky Cries Mary, and he later became the lead vocalist of the prog rock band Glass Hammer. He seems an unassuming gent, who to the best of my knowledge has never serial killed, R. Kelly'd, or even paid his taxes late. So what's the problem here? Simply put, he's a Jon Anderson-sounding dude who stepped into Jon Anderson's old role without actually being Jon Anderson. Yeah, there are other criticisms that have been leveled at Heaven & Earth. It features a gentler, poppier brand of music than had been featured on most prior Yes albums. Most of the tracks on the album are slow- to mid-tempo. Alan White seemed to have lost a step by the time the LP was recorded, and Geoff Downes was never Rick Wakeman, or even Patrick Moraz. But really, these things seem to be minor issues to most. The real burning hatred seems to be reserved for Davison, who many see as a tribute-band Jon Anderson copycat who has usurped the role of the real thing.
Judge to the LP on its own merits, though -- forget it's even a Yes album, and just listen to the music -- and you might find plenty to like here. Downes actually does some of his best work on this project. I love the playful synth pattern he uses on "Step Beyond", and the mild-but-affable pulsing keyboards he uses for much of the LP's opening track "Believe Again". As for Howe, he's still Howe -- you'll hear his instantly recognizable guitar stylings popping up throughout. And he had at least a hand in writing three of the four best tracks here, including the two I just mentioned, plus "It Was All We Knew". As for the vocals, as even many of the album's biggest critics have grudgingly admitted, they're actually one of the best things on the LP. Davison might not have Anderson's power, or all of his range, but his voice is still quite graceful. And his contributions are more than capably bolstered by Squire's and Howe's backing vocals.
Heaven & Earth is not one of Yes's best albums for sure. But then again, you're talking about one of the greatest progressive rock bands that ever existed, so the bar is pretty high there. Listen to it on its own terms, though, and it's actually better (or at least more enjoyable) than most of the LPs I listened to in 2018. Forget it's Yes. Pretend the name of the band is "No", or "Perhaps". Then close your eyes and just listen to the music. If you give it a fair shot, and focus on what's actually there instead of what (or who) isn't, you just might find yourself pleasantly surprised.
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Review of Joni Mitchell's "Miles of Aisles"
I posted this review a short while ago on the Sputnik Music website:
Miles of Aisles, released in 1974, was Canadian folk singer's first live album. It was recorded during the tour for her Court and Spark album, at a time when Mitchell was arguably at the height of her powers. The album did well, being certified as a Gold album, and reaching as high as #2 on the American Billboard charts, and # 13 on the Canadian charts.
The double-length LP (which was condensed to a single disc for the CD version), contains 18 tracks, and includes live versions of many of Mitchell's best-known songs, including "Big Yellow Taxi", "Woodstock", "Both Sides Now" and "Blue". However, as nice as it is to have live versions of some of these tunes, it's some of Mitchell's lesser-known tracks that really shine here. Among them are "Cactus Tree", the tale of a woman who is courted by many interesting men, but can't find it in herself to commit to any one of them; "People's Parties", which is something of a portrait of social anxiety and loneliness; "A Case of You", which might or might not be about Mitchell's breakup with Graham Nash; and "All I Want", a fast-paced, exhilarating number about that breathless feeling that comes at the beginning of a possible love relationship. The album also features a pair of live tracks that had never (up until that time) received studio recordings: "Jericho", a song about the difficulty of opening up your soul to another person, which was later recorded on the Don Juan's Reckless Daughter album; and "Love or Money", a clever look at the futility of pursuing someone who doesn't appreciate you, which never received a studio recording.
By the time Miles of Aisles was released, Mitchell's voice was already noticeably deeper than it had been early in her career, to the point where it might even be described at sultry. This lent a certain gravitas to some of the tracks. She was backed on the tour (and on the LP) by the American jazz-fusion group, the L.A. Express.
The biggest weakness here would probably be that a few of the songs are presented perhaps a little too playfully. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" seems to stop and start too frequently, and "Both Sides Now" is maybe a little draggy, and too filled with little musical side comments. Nevertheless, this is a superb live album that catches one of the best-loved folk-pop artists of all time at a high point in her career.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Review Summary: A superior live album that catches Joni Mitchell near the apex of her career.
Miles of Aisles, released in 1974, was Canadian folk singer's first live album. It was recorded during the tour for her Court and Spark album, at a time when Mitchell was arguably at the height of her powers. The album did well, being certified as a Gold album, and reaching as high as #2 on the American Billboard charts, and # 13 on the Canadian charts.
The double-length LP (which was condensed to a single disc for the CD version), contains 18 tracks, and includes live versions of many of Mitchell's best-known songs, including "Big Yellow Taxi", "Woodstock", "Both Sides Now" and "Blue". However, as nice as it is to have live versions of some of these tunes, it's some of Mitchell's lesser-known tracks that really shine here. Among them are "Cactus Tree", the tale of a woman who is courted by many interesting men, but can't find it in herself to commit to any one of them; "People's Parties", which is something of a portrait of social anxiety and loneliness; "A Case of You", which might or might not be about Mitchell's breakup with Graham Nash; and "All I Want", a fast-paced, exhilarating number about that breathless feeling that comes at the beginning of a possible love relationship. The album also features a pair of live tracks that had never (up until that time) received studio recordings: "Jericho", a song about the difficulty of opening up your soul to another person, which was later recorded on the Don Juan's Reckless Daughter album; and "Love or Money", a clever look at the futility of pursuing someone who doesn't appreciate you, which never received a studio recording.
By the time Miles of Aisles was released, Mitchell's voice was already noticeably deeper than it had been early in her career, to the point where it might even be described at sultry. This lent a certain gravitas to some of the tracks. She was backed on the tour (and on the LP) by the American jazz-fusion group, the L.A. Express.
The biggest weakness here would probably be that a few of the songs are presented perhaps a little too playfully. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" seems to stop and start too frequently, and "Both Sides Now" is maybe a little draggy, and too filled with little musical side comments. Nevertheless, this is a superb live album that catches one of the best-loved folk-pop artists of all time at a high point in her career.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Pippin
I first became familiar with Pippin when an aunt (I think) gave me the cast album as a Christmas present. I had never heard of it before, and I had no reason to be particularly interested in it. But I listened to it, and discovered I really liked the music. Ben Vereen in particular, and John Rubinstein were very good, and how cool was it that Irene Ryan (Granny from TV's The Beverly Hillbillies), played Berthe? (And what a set of pipes Granny had!)
Then, interestingly enough, when Denise and I met, I discovered that she had the cast album too, and she also loved it.
When Denise and I decided to get married, it took us awhile to pick out a wedding song. We talked about "Love Song" by The Cure, but decided it was a little too stalker-ish. We also considered "Wild Is the Wind" by David Bowie, but then our friend Bruce and I made a few too many fart jokes about it, and that kind of spoiled it for Denise. We came really close to picking "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You", the UB40 reggae version (because neither of us are really Elvis fans). But then, one night a few months before the wedding, the 1981 TV version of Pippin, featuring Ben Vereen amd William Katt, came on television. It reminded us both how much we liked this play in general, and the song "With You" in particular. And although the way they use the song in the play is ironic - it's sung during the period when Pippin tries to find meaning in his life through a series of sexual romps with different women - we both knew right away that this beautiful tune was going to be our wedding song. (We were both familiar with the cast album for years before we saw the play, so I think by the time we saw how cynically the song was used in the show, we were both already in love with it.)
The first time we ever saw Pippin live was a production by the Cultural Arts Playhouse back when it was still in Bethpage on the Saturday night before the famous 2000 hanging chad Presidential election. And in 2013, when the show was revived on Broadway with the role of the Leading Player played by a woman (Patina Miller, who won a Tony Award for her performance), Denise bought me tickets for my birthday.
So, as you can see, I've loved this show for a long time. Say what you will about Sondheim, but after Andrew Lloyd Webber, my favorite composer for musical theater is Stephen Schwartz, who in addition to Pippin, also composed the music to Godspell and Wicked. (Although Sweeney Todd is still pretty cool.)
As regular readers of this blog probably know, one of the ways my daughter and I have bonded over the years is through a mutual love of musical theater. We saw Wicked together on Broadway (her Mom had the fun of taking her to see The Phantom of the Opera) and a number of great musicals at theaters here on Long Island. And one of the things I've learned about her taste is that she has a strong preference for musicals that have a happy ending. (As much as she loves The Rocky Horror Picture Show, she still usually turns it off before the last segment where they kill Frank N. Furter and Rocky). This is funny to me, because she also loves the goriest of horror films. But horror films often don't make you care much about the characters, whereas musical theater shows usually do. Because of her love for musicals that turn out happily, I've always felt that she'd enjoy Pippin. So when I saw that the CM Performing Arts Center was putting on a production, I asked if she and her boyfriend would like to go, and they both said yes. (Denise decided to pass this time.)
Now her boyfriend doesn't have a lot of experience with musical theater. But nevertheless, he was psyched to go, and I was glad to take him, because it gave us a little bonding time together.
So today, we left the house a little later than planned, but still reached the theater in time for the opening curtain of a matinee performance. And there, we were treated to a really powerful production of one of my favorite musicals.
The CM Production of Pippin stars Mikey Marmann as the title character and Nicole Fragala as the Leading Player, with Jennifer Demopoulos as Berthe, Emily Edwards as Catherine, Sari Feldman as Fastrada and Douglas Vandewinckel as Charles. Ashley Nicastro is the director and choreographer.
Marmann is especially strong as Pippin. He has a strong and very appealing voice, and is pitch perfect as the character. I had some doubts about Fragala, which I'll explain in a moment. However, she's super talented, and her characterization grew on me as the show went on.
Here's the deal -- I was never fully sold on changing the gender of The Leading Player from male to female to begin with, primarily because Ben Vereen was so damned good. And really cool, right up until the very end, when he starts to lose it. However, Patina Miller's performance was also engaging -- she was interesting enough to sell me at least partially on the whole Leading Player as a woman thing. She played the role sort of like a singing version of Danai Gurira's Okoye character in the Black Panther film -- there was something fierce about her. However, Fragala's characterization is somewhat different. I almost felt as though she was playing the character of Maureen Johnson from Rent playing The Leading Player.
I'll admit, it might even be at least partially a race thing. I was never the most flexible person with change to begin with, and at 61 years old, I'm certainly not getting any better at that. The other day at Weight Watcher's, some woman sat in my regular seat, and it drove me crazy throughout the meeting. (And no, I will not start referring to Weight Watcher's as "WW", or the meetings as "workshops", the way the company wants to. Why can't you people just leave s*** alone!?) ... See what I mean about how well I do with change? So maybe I was able to handle changing the Leading Player from a black man to a black woman OK, but changing from a black man to a white woman was just a bridge too far for me.
In any event, I noticed that by the second act, especially in The Leading Player's interactions with the character of Catherine, Fragala's interpretation of the character started to work for me. All of which is just a long-winded and roundabout way of saying that Fragala is probably really good, and I'm just a mental patient.
Speaking of Catherine, this was another interpretation I had an interesting reaction to. In the beginning, I found Emily Edwards' version of the character a little annoying. Not that the actress was making bad choices, just that the character herself, as presented by Edwards, was annoying. I could see why it took Pippin a little while to warm up to her. Ultimately, though, I found that I liked and attached to the character more powerfully than to any of the other versions of Catherine I've yet seen. There was something immensely sympathetic about her, and quietly brave, that I reacted to very emotionally. So kudos for Ms. Edwards for creating such an effective characterization.
The rest of the cast was all quite good. There were a few minor mic problems throughout the afternoon, but nothing catastrophic.
I also need to say a word about the choreography here. I'll admit I'm far from an expert on dance. Like, pretend that I'm here on Earth, and being an expert on dance is on Pluto. (Which is a frickin' planet, by the way! That's another change I don't accept!) That's how far I am from choreographical expertise. But Pippin was originally a Bob Fosse-directed show, so the choreography is really important here. And for a relatively small regional theater, I found the choreography here super impressive. Also, the 2013 revival really upped the stakes on the players performing circus-quality acts of derring-do. And while the acrobatics and magic tricks here weren't quite as superb as they were on Broadway, they were still way more extensive than I had expected.
So overall, I have to say that this was an enjoyable and extremely satisfying version of Pippin. As for my daughter and her boyfriend, they both loved it. My daughter's boyfriend particularly mentioned enjoying the song "Extraordinary", and singled out the performances of Fragala and Vandewinckel as especially noteworthy. My daughter liked the sex cage segment. (Don't ask.) I just found several of Marmann's songs to be exquisite, including "Morning Glow", "Corner of the Sky" and, of course, "With You".
Pippin has three more scheduled performances at the Noel S. Ruiz Theatre in the CM Performing Arts Center in Oakdale: Wednesday, January 30 at 7:30 PM, and Friday and Saturday, Feb. 1 and 2. at 8 PM. I recommend the show highly.
Then, interestingly enough, when Denise and I met, I discovered that she had the cast album too, and she also loved it.
When Denise and I decided to get married, it took us awhile to pick out a wedding song. We talked about "Love Song" by The Cure, but decided it was a little too stalker-ish. We also considered "Wild Is the Wind" by David Bowie, but then our friend Bruce and I made a few too many fart jokes about it, and that kind of spoiled it for Denise. We came really close to picking "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You", the UB40 reggae version (because neither of us are really Elvis fans). But then, one night a few months before the wedding, the 1981 TV version of Pippin, featuring Ben Vereen amd William Katt, came on television. It reminded us both how much we liked this play in general, and the song "With You" in particular. And although the way they use the song in the play is ironic - it's sung during the period when Pippin tries to find meaning in his life through a series of sexual romps with different women - we both knew right away that this beautiful tune was going to be our wedding song. (We were both familiar with the cast album for years before we saw the play, so I think by the time we saw how cynically the song was used in the show, we were both already in love with it.)
The first time we ever saw Pippin live was a production by the Cultural Arts Playhouse back when it was still in Bethpage on the Saturday night before the famous 2000 hanging chad Presidential election. And in 2013, when the show was revived on Broadway with the role of the Leading Player played by a woman (Patina Miller, who won a Tony Award for her performance), Denise bought me tickets for my birthday.
So, as you can see, I've loved this show for a long time. Say what you will about Sondheim, but after Andrew Lloyd Webber, my favorite composer for musical theater is Stephen Schwartz, who in addition to Pippin, also composed the music to Godspell and Wicked. (Although Sweeney Todd is still pretty cool.)
As regular readers of this blog probably know, one of the ways my daughter and I have bonded over the years is through a mutual love of musical theater. We saw Wicked together on Broadway (her Mom had the fun of taking her to see The Phantom of the Opera) and a number of great musicals at theaters here on Long Island. And one of the things I've learned about her taste is that she has a strong preference for musicals that have a happy ending. (As much as she loves The Rocky Horror Picture Show, she still usually turns it off before the last segment where they kill Frank N. Furter and Rocky). This is funny to me, because she also loves the goriest of horror films. But horror films often don't make you care much about the characters, whereas musical theater shows usually do. Because of her love for musicals that turn out happily, I've always felt that she'd enjoy Pippin. So when I saw that the CM Performing Arts Center was putting on a production, I asked if she and her boyfriend would like to go, and they both said yes. (Denise decided to pass this time.)
Now her boyfriend doesn't have a lot of experience with musical theater. But nevertheless, he was psyched to go, and I was glad to take him, because it gave us a little bonding time together.
So today, we left the house a little later than planned, but still reached the theater in time for the opening curtain of a matinee performance. And there, we were treated to a really powerful production of one of my favorite musicals.
The CM Production of Pippin stars Mikey Marmann as the title character and Nicole Fragala as the Leading Player, with Jennifer Demopoulos as Berthe, Emily Edwards as Catherine, Sari Feldman as Fastrada and Douglas Vandewinckel as Charles. Ashley Nicastro is the director and choreographer.
Marmann is especially strong as Pippin. He has a strong and very appealing voice, and is pitch perfect as the character. I had some doubts about Fragala, which I'll explain in a moment. However, she's super talented, and her characterization grew on me as the show went on.
Here's the deal -- I was never fully sold on changing the gender of The Leading Player from male to female to begin with, primarily because Ben Vereen was so damned good. And really cool, right up until the very end, when he starts to lose it. However, Patina Miller's performance was also engaging -- she was interesting enough to sell me at least partially on the whole Leading Player as a woman thing. She played the role sort of like a singing version of Danai Gurira's Okoye character in the Black Panther film -- there was something fierce about her. However, Fragala's characterization is somewhat different. I almost felt as though she was playing the character of Maureen Johnson from Rent playing The Leading Player.
I'll admit, it might even be at least partially a race thing. I was never the most flexible person with change to begin with, and at 61 years old, I'm certainly not getting any better at that. The other day at Weight Watcher's, some woman sat in my regular seat, and it drove me crazy throughout the meeting. (And no, I will not start referring to Weight Watcher's as "WW", or the meetings as "workshops", the way the company wants to. Why can't you people just leave s*** alone!?) ... See what I mean about how well I do with change? So maybe I was able to handle changing the Leading Player from a black man to a black woman OK, but changing from a black man to a white woman was just a bridge too far for me.
In any event, I noticed that by the second act, especially in The Leading Player's interactions with the character of Catherine, Fragala's interpretation of the character started to work for me. All of which is just a long-winded and roundabout way of saying that Fragala is probably really good, and I'm just a mental patient.
Speaking of Catherine, this was another interpretation I had an interesting reaction to. In the beginning, I found Emily Edwards' version of the character a little annoying. Not that the actress was making bad choices, just that the character herself, as presented by Edwards, was annoying. I could see why it took Pippin a little while to warm up to her. Ultimately, though, I found that I liked and attached to the character more powerfully than to any of the other versions of Catherine I've yet seen. There was something immensely sympathetic about her, and quietly brave, that I reacted to very emotionally. So kudos for Ms. Edwards for creating such an effective characterization.
The rest of the cast was all quite good. There were a few minor mic problems throughout the afternoon, but nothing catastrophic.
I also need to say a word about the choreography here. I'll admit I'm far from an expert on dance. Like, pretend that I'm here on Earth, and being an expert on dance is on Pluto. (Which is a frickin' planet, by the way! That's another change I don't accept!) That's how far I am from choreographical expertise. But Pippin was originally a Bob Fosse-directed show, so the choreography is really important here. And for a relatively small regional theater, I found the choreography here super impressive. Also, the 2013 revival really upped the stakes on the players performing circus-quality acts of derring-do. And while the acrobatics and magic tricks here weren't quite as superb as they were on Broadway, they were still way more extensive than I had expected.
So overall, I have to say that this was an enjoyable and extremely satisfying version of Pippin. As for my daughter and her boyfriend, they both loved it. My daughter's boyfriend particularly mentioned enjoying the song "Extraordinary", and singled out the performances of Fragala and Vandewinckel as especially noteworthy. My daughter liked the sex cage segment. (Don't ask.) I just found several of Marmann's songs to be exquisite, including "Morning Glow", "Corner of the Sky" and, of course, "With You".
Pippin has three more scheduled performances at the Noel S. Ruiz Theatre in the CM Performing Arts Center in Oakdale: Wednesday, January 30 at 7:30 PM, and Friday and Saturday, Feb. 1 and 2. at 8 PM. I recommend the show highly.
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