Okay, so it’s been a fortnight. Not what I intended, but there are things which’ve gotten in the way1 - the heat, which seems to render the creative/industrious part of my brain completely useless – and a seemingly never-ending succession of colds, which takes what little of my brain is left after the heat has had its way and kicks that in the crotch.
But, apart from being sick, all I’ve been doing is working and seeing shows. So that’s pretty much all I’ve got to talk about.
1I dislike both ‘got’ and ‘gotten’; they sound crude and somewhat wrong to my ear. But I can’t find a reasonable alternative so I have to go with it.
Being Sick
I’m not quite sure what I’ve got – or, possibly, what I had for a couple of days, which was then followed immediately by something else which I’ve got now – but I’m getting annoyed with it, since it’s been over a week now. It’s been particularly poor timing, since it’s coincided with the obnoxious, record-breaking heatwave that South Australia’s been suffering through.
There’s really no poetry to a constantly dripping nose. I reckon I’ve gone through more tissues in the last week than I normally would in three (cold-free) months.
What’s made it slightly more complicated is that I’ve also had quite bad hayfever, and that made it a bit difficult at first to decide what was actually prompting the increased, er, flow – germs or pollen. But when I woke up last Saturday morning feeling like my head had been wrapped in damp cabbage, and my lungs replaced with soggy cotton wool, I realised it was germs.
I had to take two days off work and did pretty much bugger-all but lie around watching tv and quietly applauding the effectiveness of the air-conditioning in my unit. I’d have applauded it loudly if it worked well enough to cool my whole house; as it is it’s cooling capacity is limiting to the part of the house that contains the lounge/dining/kitchen area.
Still, that’s probably better than the reverse – I can sleep in the lounge; I couldn’t fit my tv and speakers in my bedroom. But I’ve only had to do that the once in this spell of heat, since I’ve been okay with sleeping in my bedroom with the windows open to let the (minimal) breeze in.
But I’m still at least a little sick, but I’m a bit concerned that it’s not going away on its own, and that’s unusual for me. If I’m not a lot better by the middle of the week I’m going to the doctor. A friend said he had a sinus infection that wouldn’t go away without antibiotics, and I’m starting to wonder if that’s what I’ve got as well.
We’ll see.
Fame
On Thursday night I went to see the Northern Light production of Fame. I seem to remember seeing the original film when it first came out (though, for the life of me, I can’t understand why since it doesn’t seem like something I would have been all that interested in at the time) but apart from knowing the basics – it’s about high-school kids at a school for the performing arts – I wasn’t sure what to expect. But that pretty much covers it, plotwise.
The performances – the musical numbers at least – were good; they’d cast great singers in the lead roles and great dancers in the chorus. But that wasn’t really enough for me. As much as I’m seeing a lot more musicals than I used to – as well as performing in them – I’m still more inclined towards ‘straight’ plays because of the emphasis these place on aspects like characters and narrative. Fame didn’t have enough of that for me, and what of it there was was less emphasised than I felt was necessary.
Some of that, of course, is the show itself, which isn’t really written to be a deep, compelling think-piece. Yes, it’s a musical, and people come to see song-and-dance numbers, but a musical with good acting as well is a much better show than one without. This is why I loved last year’s G&S Society Les Miserables as much as I did, and probably why – possibly even without knowing it – so many other people did too. It just makes it better.
Obviously, it may come down to practicalities. The reality is there are only a certain number of people who audition for a show, and you don’t always have the luxury of being able to choose what’s referred to in theatre as the ‘triple threat’ – sings, dances and acts2 – for each part you’ve got to fill. You have to go with the best person who auditions and, since it is a musical, singing tends to be worth more. And it’s usually easier to get a singer to act a little than to get an actor to sing a lot.
Time is also an issue. Yes, musicals tend to rehearse for about three months before opening – but, while that seems like a long time, you’ve got a heck of a lot to do: block the action, choreograph the dance numbers and learn the songs; again, these things tend to be given priority in a musical so it may not always be possible to put as much effort into acting as the director would have preferred.
So yeah, I would have liked it more if they’d focused a bit more on the acting – though that’s not to say there weren’t some who got into the character: Rachel Rai (not much of a shock there I know; it’s pretty much expected of her) and Ben Po’ona, for example. Anton Schrama was hilarous aged up and given a German accent and a walking stick; it’s a pity the character wasn’t in it more.
Oh, and I have to mention one other things – he blatant and unsubtle ‘messages’ crammed into it: drugs are bad, having dyslexia doesn’t mean you’re stupid, you shouldn’t judge people on their appearance, it’s okay to be fat, it’s tough having parents with high standards, confident people sometimes use their confidence to hide their insecurities, yada yada yada.
It’s what Americans would refer to as an ‘after-school special’, and what the folks at TV Tropes (or, I should say, ‘us folks’ at TV Tropes, ‘cause I’ve been contributing) refer to as ‘anvilicious’ – i.e. trying to get a message across but doing it such a ham-handed and obvious way that it’s like a scene from a cartoon where a character is hit in the head with an anvil.
2Hugh Jackman is a good example, as is Kristin Chenoweth.
Pippin
The night after seeing Fame I went to see the Hills Musical Society’s production of Pippin up at the Stirling Theatre.
I didn’t really know much about it, but a Facebook friend who’s in it had posted some photos of the cast in costume, so at least I had an idea of what they would look like – very strangely made-up, and dressed mostly in red with some black.
So, I was a little surprised to find out it that it’s the musical story of Pippin3, the son of Charlemagne, who was Emperor of much of Europe at the end of the 8th /beginning of 9th century. Not necessarily what I would have thought was an obvious choice to base a musical on, but that’s me. Keep in mind that it was written in the 70s – and it shows4.
With that in mind there’s not a lot of point trying to describe the story, because I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. But it is a play within a play, which always makes things interesting. The main character – apart from Pippin – is simply called 'Leading Player’ and stays as that character the whole way through while all the other members of the troupe take on the roles of the different people in Pippin’s life – his father, stepmother, stepbrother and grandmother, amongst others.
It does touch on a range of themes, and that – rather than the narrative – is the focus of the production. It comes down to being about the choices you make in life, and that you should always try to remain true to yourself and not be led by what other people want you to do. Not necessarily exciting on paper, but the production itself was brilliant: fast paced, brilliantly choreographed and well sung. Costuming was superb – Leading Player had a great outfit, including leather pants5 and a fantastic long coat.
James Christopher Reed was Pippin, and was excellent – and, once again, very different from the previous role I’d seen him in; the contrast between Pippin and Sergei from Eurobeat was about as much as Sergei was from Angel in Rent. Jamie Jewell – who’s a professional (when he’s not doing amateur, I guess) – was also brilliant, and looked like a kind of fusion of Alan Cumming and Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode as Leading Player.
Great, fun show done very, very well – and I’m now contemplating the purchase of a large, plush toy duck. If that confuses you, well, you should have gone to see it...
Read the ATG review here.
3Okay, that part wasn’t much of a surprise.
4Yes, I do mean it seems like drugs were involved. Lots and lots of drugs.
5I would buy and wear leather pants if I thought I could carry it off.
Vanity Fair
Read my ATG review here if you like.
If not, I’ll go over it a bit here for you: it’s very, very good; despite it being an adaptation of a huge (somewhere between 500 and 800 pages depending on the edition) 19th century novel mostly about the complexities of social structure amongst the English nobility, it’s modern, fast-paced and laugh-out-loud funny6.
6Well, if you’re as enamoured of witty prose as I am. If not, it’s your loss.
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