The Fantasticks and Rotten Musicals

A couple weekends ago I dragged my friends to a local production of The Fantasticks.

I'd never seen it, which is most of why I wanted to go. I wouldn't claim to have seen every musical that's worked its way into community theatre level repertoire, but I've seen most of them. The Fantasticks is probably the most famous one that comes immediately to mind (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is now the frontrunner).

At this point, I want to say "It was fantastic," but that would be punny, and I wouldn't do that.

It was joyous. The first act was deft: a musical about the tropes of musicals in the way that How I Met Your Mother is a tv show about sitcoms. Maybe that wasn't the way it was written back in 1960, but that's the way it plays to me in 2013. The impossible happens; really it's expected and accepted, and we're going to sing about it. The actors mostly covered their fault with enthusiasm and clear diction, but the show really drew me in.

The Stray Birds at World Cafe Live

Last night, I made the first of my three trips to Philadelphia (#26), to hear the Stray Birds at World Cafe Live.

I could wax rhapsodic about the quality of the sound, primarily of Maya de Vitry and Oliver Craven's vocals (bassist Charles Muench held back due to a cold). de Vitry and Craven switched instruments freely, fiddle to banjo and fiddle to guitar, respectively. They played a wide range of music, performing with a texture of volume and urgency that doesn't come across as nuanced in their recordings.

To me, one of the real treats was the focus on music. Several shows I've been to, especially folk singers in intimate settings like the World Cafe, are as much story-time as concert. Sometimes that's fine, and sometimes not. The Stray Bird's focus on sound was refreshing.

30 Before 30 Update

The full list
2. 70 pages into The Sound and the Fury
16. Went to the gym today with my new workout buddy! Seriously, of all the things I learned in the Boy Scouts, the buddy system seems to be the most important.
17. Board game drafted and board started! I need to buy some beads (to use as tokens) to keep score with.
18. Contacted my local Habitat for Humanity, but haven't heard back yet. It's probably too cold to have a project going.
24. So far, I have listened to 1 hour (and only 1 hour) of commercial radio. In that hour I heard only 9 songs, and this song twice.
27. Notice the widget via LibraryThing.com for books I've reviewed in the right hand column? Why didn't anyone tell me they made a widget sooner?
30. We've got 2 things left to do on our to-do list for January: get a pair of pants hemmed, and sort out our wedding photos.

30 Before 30 Bucket List

1. Read In Search of Lost Time (A Remembrance of Things Past)

In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel writes "It's said, after all, that people reach middle age the day they realize they're never going to read Remembrance of Things Past." That quote struck a nerve with me, and once I decided that 2013 would be my year for Remembrance... the rest of this list started to take shape.

When We Talk About Mental Disorders in Fiction

When I listen to music, I've found, I alternate between two kinds of favorite musicians. I love bands with multiple voices, who alternate the lead, who create music with tight harmonies- Barenaked Ladies, the Weepies, Slow Club. Or I love male singers who who are better writers than singers: Bruce Springsteen, James McMurtry, to a lesser extent Jackson Browne.

It's my preference, and it leaves me blind to the value of plenty of other performers. Most female soloists, especially pop singers who hit the high notes, do nothing for me. I'm sure it's often pretty, but if I can't sing along, I'm just not that interested in sitting through more than a song or two.

So when I read, I'm usually on the lookout for a few things. In one of the books I'm reading now, Adam Haslett's You Are Not a Stranger Here, I get many of the things I most enjoy- short stories, deftly drawn people, a variety of settings.

What I'm missing- what has me stalled about 30 pages from the end- is a variety of characters pressing against the boundaries of themselves. Haslett's characters are all pressed against the same boundary; they are a slew of people in the midst of mental health crises, and we either learn that nothing can be done to help this person, or we learn that the one in crisis is really the sane one.

Here's the thing about mental disorders- I don't understand them. Sure, I joke about my quirks- ADD with workaholic OCD, but I know (or I think I know) that I am painfully normal. The challenge of great art is to take us to a place that we can hardly imagine and make it understandable- Lolita, Lord of the Flies, As I Lay Dying. And as much as Haslett captures the tone of mania and the tone of depression (I recognize those people, those voices), he does not bring me to a point of understanding, beyond the certainty that something is wrong. Maybe that's the point and I'm missing it, but I remain uncompelled by all be the best stories of unstoppable forces and immovable objects.

It's interesting how much how I read influences my enjoyment. I started Stranger months ago, reading a few pages in bed each night. Then, because I was finally hooked enough to not be able to put it down, the lack of variety sapped my enthusiasm. I kept waiting for another change of pace, like the story "Divination," a blend of magical realism and parental shame that felt like an homage to the JD Salinger story "Teddy."

Book 37 of my book-a-week challenge.

Room to Imagine: The Hobbit, Movie Musicals, and Translation

One of my "in real life" passions is for theater, especially for musicals. They're often silly: most people don't break into song when we find ourselves overwhelmed by emotion (whether stressful or positive).

So when I heard the recent announcement that Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit would be a trilogy, I started thinking about recent musical adaptions I've seen (The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Sweeney Todd) and ones I've skipped (Mama Mia, Rock of Ages).

A stretch? Not for me.

The thing that a stage does, with curtains and cardboard houses and lighting instruments suspended from the walls and ceiling, is demand a suspension of disbelief. The cinema doesn't (or rarely) ask for the same level of disbelief- a production on stage will include errors, alterations, and imperfections that movie won't. The version of a film that makes it past the cutting room is (almost always) the director's vision.

Reading is much more like a trip to the theater than a trip to the cinema, which is, in part, why even film critics agree that most every film adaptation pales in comparison to the book. In reading, we snap to attention at words, paragraphs, pages almost without understanding how; we can skim for pages when suddenly we're drawn a level deeper into the book. In film, the director guides us, makes it harder for us to miss the nuance- often, the director gets so heavy handed that we wish we could miss a little (I'm looking at you, Dark Knight Rises).

Which brings me to The Hobbit, which I can't imagine warranting a narrative arc equivalent of the entire Lord of the Rings.

Happy Friday!

A little work today, then up to Binghamton for Lamb Fest 2011 and a Chuck themed Halloween party!