Do I wake or sleep?

What is the DEAL with Accuradio Broadway? Why do they insist on playing Company so damn much? I deselected every damn recording they have of that show and still it keeps happening. Between that and Avenue Q I'm going nuts.

More Little Women! More Altar Boyz! Anything but the same 5 shows they play over and over.

Tesse and I saw Well on Friday night, which just opened. An interesting play, a very clever and funny play--but I'm not sure it ultimately works. It's about a woman who's putting on a 1-woman play (with additional cast!)--she comes out as herself, addressing the audience directly, with "her mother" (i.e., a woman playing her mother) onstage sleeping, who wakes up and starts to offer her commentary, suggestions, etc. The play is, as Lisa Kron (the 1-woman) says, "a multicharacter theatrical exploration of issues of health and illness both in an individual and in a community." This constant reiteration of the play's theme is played for laughs but it does point up a weakness (as I saw it)--I never understood why so much of the play dealt with the mother's efforts to integrate the neighborhood, unless it's to show what a strong woman she really was, and would've been if she hadn't been sick. Anyway--mostly what it's about is people who are chronically sick--Kron says nowadays they call it "chronic fatigue syndrome" or "multiple chemical sensitivity" (??) but back then they called it "allergies." I read in the Playbill, she says this play (which did very well Off-Broadway) resonates with everyone, people who are chronically sick and people who are irritated by the chronically sick. Well, the play kind of annoyed me, because I'm one of the latter. [Full disclaimer--I'm not a doctor, this is all my mostly uninformed opinion, just from the articles I've read, and the people I've dealt with.] I used to work for a medical consulting firm, and I read a lot of those articles about CFS and when people are super-sensitive to their environments. Some of it just seems highly unlikely to me, like the fact that it's mostly middle-aged women. Of course there may be many reasons for that--it's true women are much more attuned to their own bodies and psychosomatic* symptoms are NOT necessarily "fake" symptons--the connection between the body and the mind is really mysterious but compelling nonetheless. I guess what I'm talking about is not people who really are sick but people whose identity is derived from being sick, who lovingly detail their symptoms and allergies and what-all, and want everyone around them to cater to them. Example--those people who claim to be supersensitive to every chemical ever, so they ask that no-one around them wear any perfume or deodorant, or wash their hair in certain shampoos, or not use hairspray. That's just silly. Frankly, I don't want to live in a world where no one wears deodorant (I had a glimpse into that world when I visited Germany for a month and believe me, it was a smelly time!). If you're really *that* sensitive, it's on you to reorder your world, to take ownership of your situation and not ask everyone to dance attendance on you. As I said to Tesse, if none of used any cosmetics or deodorant or anything, we'd all look like the newscasters in Batman!

So anyway, some of the characters in this play were like that--no one actually insists that anyone not wear deodorant but they all seem very complacent about their "illnesses." That's who they are, they're sick. Lisa Kron says she used to be one of these people but never wanted to be--she asks "why did I get better?" She examines how much ownership a person can take of being sick--how much of it is them, how much of it is being legitimately sick. She ends up being a lot more sympathetic than I am, to her credit--I would've gone nuts in a household like that, where your mother's primary characteristic is being sick, and lumbering around the house every day, and sleeping in the living room. [Note--the actress who plays the mother is fantastic.] So the play, although basically very good (and funny) wasn't quite for me, because I spent a lot of time being annoyed at the mother and the patients in the clinic. I will say, the play was excessively talky--Kron addresses the audience a LOT which always loses me. I'd much prefer to see something happening than hear about it.

I should clarify--again, I'm not talking about people with verified, legitimate illnesses or allergies. I'm talking about people who want you to dance attendance on them because of their vague symptoms, like my friend in college who made a big fuss about always sitting in the front whenever we drove anywhere because she got carsick, and would make a big fuss about being allergic to cats even though no one had a cat on campus, and none of us had seen our cats for months, since they were at home and was generally *always* making a big fuss about symptoms and conspicuously avoiding people who had the flu or whatever. It's the WASP in me--if you're not throwing up or passing out or have a fever, you're not sick. A cold is not sick--a cold is an annoyance, and you shouldn't spread it, but it's not sick. Carsick is not sick--take some ginger or dramamine and suck it up. And the thing is--with some of these CFS or MCS people, you can't tell if they're legitimately sick, or like my friend. The very nature of these syndromes means they're vague and difficult to diagnose clinically--a lot of it has to do with patient-reported symptoms.

*Interesting fact--psychosomatic symptoms used to be referred to as "hysterical" (like an hysterical pregnancy). "Hysterical" comes from the same root word as "hysterectomy"--hystera means uterus, so psychosomatic symptoms, and screaming/overreacting are etymologically linked to womanliness. Just another example of linguistic sexism.

...I just had the nicest experience! I took the train back to my apartment and as I was walking through the Times Square station I heard (good) singing. Around the corner there was a pianist at a grand piano and three singers, a man and two women--they were singing "The Trollie Song" and I started humming the song along with them. After that they announced who they were (a group from Equity Cares--Broadway Fights AIDS) and an older man said something to them and one of the women said how he knew every show they'd sung, and if he knew the next one he'd get a prize. They launched into "Lullaby of Broadway" and I was (very quietly) singing along and mentally going through the ship choreography we had for that song. They asked the man if he knew the show--he said yes but he wanted to give someone else a chance. So they asked us, and I pointed to the sign above the piano--"42 St./Times Square." They applauded and called me up to the piano and asked me my name and what was the last Broadway show I'd seen. I said "In My Life" and they said "What about before that?" "Little Women." "Who starred in that?" "Sutton Foster!" "Oh, she's good!" one of the women said. And they gave me my prize--the Hairspray CD, which I didn't have!! How nice is that? Great music, great singers, a free CD of a show I don't have!! One of those wonderful quintessentially New York experiences.

Saw Chitty Chitty Bang Bang last night. For the first act I was in the very last row on the side—not a great seat, obviously, but for $20 it was fine. (One annoying thing--my seat was H29 in the balcony on the aisle—when I got there someone was already sitting there. She had the seat next to mine and was hoping no one had the aisle seat, so I had to stand there while she fussed over to the next seat. I find it rude when people do that before the show’s started—then I have to ask you to leave and it’s all annoying and awkward and grubby-looking. Wait until the show’s started and then move, like at a baseball game.) ANYWAY. If you like the movie, you’ll probably like the show. It’s not boringly literal, a la Beauty and the Beast—they do make some changes to the book and fiddle with some stuff, mostly successfully. (I happen to adore the movie—I LOVE the score, and the cast is fantastic. One of my favorite lines: “Too bad. Had your chance. Muffed it.” That’s so English.) From what I understand, the stage book is based more closely on the original novel by Ian Fleming, which I read a long time ago but don’t really remember, other than it’s sort of a spy novel for kids (and very different from the movie). Anyway, Caracticus sings “Hushaby Mountain” to his kids at home in the first act (instead of to the children in the sewers) which makes more sense, as it advances the theme (family). That horrid ballad that Truly sings about Caracticus (when she’s on the swing) is gone completely—yay! Truly isn't so helpless—her first entrance is on a (vintage) motorcycle with a sidecar, and she has a lot of mechanical ability. There’s an additional subplot with two henchmen of the Baron’s which lost me—I’m sure the kids loved it but it seemed unnecessary to me, with a lot of heavy Continental accents and broad humor. Most of the differences are stylistic: the story seems a lot darker (and it was dark enough to begin with—the Childcatcher is spooky as shit in the movie. I love me the Childcatcher—“Lollipops! And aaaall freeee to-day!”). When Caracticus sings the lullaby to the kids, it segues into this weird sequence where they introduce the Fun Fair (where C. cuts the guy’s hair with the bicycle machine and sings “The Old Bamboo”). As he’s singing HM downstage, this dancer with an oversized clownhead starts tiptoeing behind him—it was so creepy, I thought it might be the Childcatcher making an early appearance. But no, just Fun Fair hijinks with three creepy, oversized-head clowns dancing around. Nice family fare! Anyone who’s got a clown phobia is going to run screaming from the theater at this point. John Wayne Gacy must’ve been the casting director for this show.

Anyway...when the car makes its appearance, it’s pretty spectacular. They build to that marvelously, and when the car finally takes off, it’s amazing. People were cheering, clapping—it really works. Very, very entertaining. The first act ends when Chitty takes flight, and when the lights came up people were grinning at each other, nodding—people around me were smiling at me. I’m not kidding, it was a Chitty lovefest. The humanistic side of insanely expensive special effects—bringing people together. When the second act began, the usher poked her head up to us and urged us to move closer (how nice of her!) and I scooted down to the first row of the balcony where I had a really great view. I’ve read somewhere that Vulgaria is supposed to be a parable of Nazi Germany—the designer and director obviously were going with that, because the Vulgaria set design was all about the double-headed eagles and the red and black. One scene I remember from the movie was when C. asks why everyone in town is staring at them, and Truly says they’re staring at the children. Creepy, and a great way to introduce the weirdness of that country. (That scene is not in the show, though.) But the whole Nazi parable is underscored when the Childcatcher pounds on the door of the Toymaker, and they send the kids down into a hidden passage. I swear, it was like Anne Frank. Not to trivialize anything but it really worked, you felt genuine fear. And they never say what actually happens to the children the CC catches, they just...disappear. He makes them disappear. The CC has a song about "Kiddy-Widdie Winkies" which is fucking creepy as hell. It almost sounds like a lullaby, in a minor key...He is genunely scary which is something I like about CCBB--it's sentimental and whimsical, yes, but there's darkness there as well. Children's stuff needs to have some scary with the sweet.

The Baroness is pretty funny--she's very Teutonically weltschmerz-y, a la Marlene Dietrich.

Choreography is serviceable enough, but nothing too inspiring. The endgame is oddly handled--it was confusing figuring out exactly how the kids accomplished their coup d'etat. And one very odd note--the Childcatcher is hauled off (over the audience) in a rope net...and then reappears in the booth above again, only to be blown away by Truly. Holy crap! I was NOT expecting that! They don't show him dying but it's clearly implied (they shower the audience with confetti).

The twins--I believe the correct term would be moppets--were cute. Everyone was pretty good, and I really like the guy who played Caracticus. Oh, and at the end of "Toot Suite" they had a bunch of real dogs run onto stage! Yay for the doggies!

I read this today (although it was posted a couple of days ago):

I interned at a major studio recently and I actually read a script for a film version of RENT. I'm not a huge RENT fan, but even I was offended at this incarnation.

The script began when April was still alive and Mark & Maureen were still together. Roger sang "Rent" with his band at a club and they pulled Mark up on stage, so he was singing, too. None of the songs were written as typical musical songs. Some of the songs were in there, but they were performed differently. "La Vie Boheme" wasn't even sung by the main cast. It was sung by a random band at a bar. And "Light My Candle" was spoken. The lyrics became lines. It was ludicrous.

ANYWAY, after seeing that version I don't think that Chris Columbus can screw it up as much as that version that I read.

Interesting. Chris Columbus? Doesn't seem the type.

A show tonight. I must say, it's been very nice having two days and three nights off. I got to go to the gym Monday night and last night and it felt great.

Krista is coming in a few weeks. Can. Not. Wait. I'm starting a list of cool things to do--it occurred to me last night we could see Peter in 42nd Street and possibly meet Tom Wopat. And we have to go to Serendipity--it's been a few months since I've had a Frrrrozen Hot Chocolate.

I think I want to do As You Like It this summer, or early fall, rather than next year.

Sunday night Tim and I attended the 11th Annual "Broadway Sings," a benefit run by his friend Tim Shew, who's performed as Valjean, the Radio City Christmas Show Santa, and a bunch of other roles. The benefit supports children with AIDS and hosts many different Broadway performers who each sing a song. This year it included Cady Hoffman, Jose Illana (the juvenile in Flower Drum Song), Patricia Neal (who introduced a guest--she didn't sing) and many others. Getting seated was interesting--you get tickets to be seated in a row, but not any particular seat within the row since they're church pews (it was at Central Presbyterian on Park Avenue). We got there early because Tim wanted to sit as close as possible to the center. After waiting for 45 minutes (I was in high heels on a marble floor--not exactly comfortable) we got to the row and found this woman and her daughter claiming 5 of the inside seats, even though only two of her party were there. We let her have a couple of seats but not all she wanted and she retaliated by sending the usher over to try to get us to move down (i.e., farther away from the center). The usher was clearly uncomfortable (she weakly said, "Well, she wants her party to sit together") but we refused to move.

Can I just say I hate that shit? That drives me nuts at the movies when some jerkoff drapes their coat over ten seats and says they're taken. No, they're not. How do I know this? Because nobody's sitting there. Let your friends get here early if they want to sit in better seats. What really pissed me off was that we let her have a couple of seats as it was and she had to be greedygrabbygrubby and demand more.

So the show. Pretty good. Not sublime and a little too masturbatory with some of the performers. Cady was great--she sang "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and was just so...precise. She nailed it. Susan Powell (Miss America 1981) sang "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" with some guy. She has a beautiful voice although not at all the typical pop-y Broadway style in vogue now. Another woman sang "The Life of the Party" from the Andrew Lippa The Wild Party and was also very good. I talked to her afterwards and said how much I appreciated her connection with the audience--she really seemed to be having a dialogue with us. She thanked me and said "that means a lot to me." I notice that more and more with stage performances, whether the singer is too into themselves or is communing with the audience.

I had a delightful conversation with Jose Illana. I told him how I'd seen FDS the night before it closed and told him how I especially enjoyed the last part where one by one the cast members revealed where they were born. I loved this moment in the play--it made the whole show seem so organic. You realized how much this story meant to these performers. He said "Yes! I'm so glad you got it!" Apparently the backers were dubious about that bit. We chatted some more and it turns out he's from my neck of the woods, Springfield, Virginia. We both flipped out when we realized this, and I told him I'd performed (i.e., served time) in many shows at the Lazy Susan. Just a really cool guy. It was great talking to him.

Tim's old partner, this guy named Rodney, cornered me and sang Tim's praises for quite some time. It made me a tad uncomfortable, because I don't exactly know what Tim's said to this guy. Rodney was all, "Tim's the greatest, if you're looking for this, for that, he's a straight-up guy, blah blah blah..." I don't know if I'm looking for anything. I'm pretty happy with the way things are.