Dinner and a Song

I knew he was from Milwaukee.  I knew he was Vegas, and I knew he liked sequins.  That was about all I knew about Liberace.  I had no idea he was a piano player.  Ok, I knew he was gay, but only because of previews for that movie not that long ago with Matt Damon.  I did not know he died of AIDS.  I had no idea he was Polish.  And I certainly didn’t knew he was actually a very talented man.

Liberace! at The Rep was not just informative, it was highly entertaining and extremely well done.  Jack Forbes Wilson is amazing and entirely believable to be the ghost incarnate of Liberace himself.   Of course, since I didn’t even know Liberace played the piano, I clearly am not familiar with his work so I can’t offer a comparison.  But, Mr. Wilson can certainly play the piano and keep your attention for several hours.  I think this was my favorite thing I’ve seen at the Rep so far.

I’m usually not a fan of one-man shows.  I get bored.  And The Rep isn’t my favorite theater in the city.  It’s ostentatious.  But this one-man show was perfectly ostentatious and not at all boring.

Liberace! is performed in the cabaret theater.  Munkchinhead and I hadn’t been to this yet and didn’t really know what to expect.  It reminded me a bit of the jazz club in Oakland that Mr. Trizzle took me to once.  Munchkinhead had some whiskey hot chocolate and I had some bourbon pecan pie.  Mmmmm…. And we watched and wowed at the dazzling display on stage.  Oh. my. gosh. Those outfits!  I totally want a cloak again now, though with a few less sequins.

Liberace! is running through January 11th.  There’s some sing-a-long parts! (and they swam and they swam…)  Tickets.

Sophisticated Sunday

This Sunday, Munchknihead and I had a theater day.  It turned out to be more of a “professional imitations of life with the Schultzes” day, but it was still rather fun.

Show One

The first show we say was The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] at Milwaukee Chamber Theater.  The play very much reminded me of the NG antics the neighbor kids and us would get into in Mommy and Daddy’s basement.  Friends goofing around, grabbing this thing and that for props, wearing Christmas tree skirts, writing scripts, goofing around, pretending there was an audience.  In that sense, it felt a little silly to have paid to come watch such a thing.

The show was amusing – although honestly the most amusing part was watching a bunch of 70 year-old white woman laugh at what they probably didn’t know was a “Gin and Juice” parody.  I especially loved the local things worked in, like the cheeshead.  The four-man cast included Rick Pendzich, who played Max in the Lend Me a Tenor show Munchkinhead and I saw in April. He’s excellent, and so pretty to look at I’d probably watch him play a tree.

The show’s good for quite a few laughs, and now I know the plot lines to a lot more Shakespeare plays.  It runs at the Chamber Theater through December 14th, so there’s still time to check it out. Warning, it’s somewhat interactive – How Munchkinhead and I keep accidentally going to interactive theater, I don’t know!  Tickets.

Dinner

After playing dress-up with the Shakespeareans, Munchkinhead and I decided to do dinner somewhere on KK we hadn’t been yet.  So we drove down KK.  We seemed to comment more on the places we had been, as if checking off “nope, can’t go there.”  As we neared the end of the Bay View part of KK, we passed Pastiche.  Neither of us had been there, so we triangled around the block (KK is a crooked street) and parked next to the restaurant.  

Woo eee! Fancy!  There was a couple dining there so finely dressed, the man entered in a top hat, a long black coat with a cape on the shoulders and a tall cane with a metal knob.  Very elegant!  There was a sign on the table in French.  Neither Munchkinhead or I knew enough French to parse it out completely, so we took out our phones to find out what it said.  It said “please don’t use your mobile devices.”  Oops!  Good thing we had explained to the waitress when she came to take our order that we were just looking up the words we didn’t know.  She politely explained douphinoise potatoes to us.

The food was delicious.  Munchkinhead even had the waitress pair a wine with her meal!  Though I still don’t understand ratatouille; it always feels like someone forgot to put pasta under the sauce.

Show Two

After dinner, we headed back downtown to see Harvey at the Rep.  Yup, we went from four guys playing in their basement to a man with a giant invisible rabbit.  You see what I mean about this “life with the Schultzes” thing?  (Lewin would.) 

Harvey is a very cute play, so of course the show was cute.  But it wasn’t nearly as good as the production I saw with Daddy Bunny (his post here) at the Contra Costa Civic Theater.  The Rep has a much bigger budget and quite frankly, it just feels like they’re trying too hard.  A lot of the characters felt too high-strung.  Not quite over-acting but ridiculously intense in a way that made intermission feel like coming up for air.  The one exception to that was Mr. Wilson, played by Justin Brill, who felt properly toned.  The person in a bunny suit behind the windows was also over the top.  Imagination is far more powerful than a man in a bunny suit.

Still, as I said, Harvey is a very cute play.  It’s running at the Rep through December 21.  Tickets.

I Tried to Hear America Sing

If America singing sounds like me in the shower, then this play was incredibly accurate.  This weekend, Munchkinhead and I headed to the Skylight Music Theater for I Hear America Singing.  It’s a musical theater production about a musical theater production, and was written specifically for the Skylight.

Munchkinhead and I usually love our trips to the Skylight, but this one fell for flat.  For starters, I’m tired of theater shows about theater shows.  This show had a neat concept but didn’t really follow through on it well.  And all the music sounded the same – except the song about whiskey, we liked that one.  The music to the rest was piano-player-in-a-hotel-lobby style with lyrics very similar to the types of things I make up while singing in the shower, or eating, or getting dressed, or being.

One of the gentleman in the show, Rick Pendzich, was Max in Lend Me a Tenor, which Munchkinhead and I loved.  Interestingly, he played a baritone in this show, even though he was a tenor in the other.  His voice was excellent in both shows.

Part of the reason this show didn’t really jive was that, while Rick  looked to be about mid-30s, his supposed-to-be ex-wife looked to be in her 60s.  Stage makeup may do wonders in a traditional theater, but in a small and up-close space like the Broadway Theater Center’s Studio Theater, you can really see every line and wrinkle in the actors’ faces.  Stage makeup is not enough to make everyone look the same age.  It also might have helped if they didn’t dress her like Florence Henderson in every scene.

Munchkinhead and I have decided we’ll stick to stuff in the big theater, because the studio theater presentations have been less than thrilling.

Theater Review: Lend Me a Tenor

This weekend, Munchkinhead and I went downtown to the Milwaukee Chamber Theater to check out Lend Me a Tenor by Ken Ludwig.  It was fantastic.

Lend Me a Tenor is a fantastic comedy set in an Ohio hotel room in 1934.  A visiting Italian opera star is going to perform with the Ohio opera.  Then everything goes crazy and the opera’s lackey winds up stepping into the role instead.  Confusion and hilarity ensue.

The cast was excellent.  Both tenors, the Italian opera star, Tito Merelli played by Steven M. Koehler, and the Ohio opera lackey, Max played by Rick Pendzich, have beautiful voices.  The Italian opera star and his wife, Maria played by Rána Roman, were superb.  They’re accents were very believable and Ms. Roman had the attitude and veracity down to a T, allowing her small statured character to fill the stage.  The cast played well of each other, there were no forgotten lines or stumbles.  Mr. Koehler handled it very well when one of the props had blown away from where he was supposed to find it.

Of course, I did have one issue – I always have at least one.  The actress playing Maggie – huge fan of the Italian opera singer and desired girl of the opera lackey – was played by Hannah Klapperich-Mueller.  Ms. Klapperich-Mueller is a student at Marquette.  She played the part really well and I find no fault with her general acting abilities.  However, her Wisconsin accent is so strong, I couldn’t get past it.  She sounded too low class for the surroundings on stage and made me feel like I was talking to your average sales girl at a mall clothing store.  It drove me nuts the whole show – just ask Munchkinhead.  Despite this, I still loved the show.

I adored the set.  The colors and styles made me feel like I was back in the 1930s.  The entire play takes place in two rooms, both of which are visible the entire time.  There is a door and an imaginary wall separating them.  At the end of the show, the cast re-enacts the entire play in super fast-forward and the actors hesitate at the invisible wall and then step through it.  That was quite cute.

The costumes made me jealous.  I want Maggie’s dresses and shoes, especially the grey shoes from the opening scene.

My favorite part of the whole show was near the end when the various characters begin to figure out – or think they’re figuring out – what has happened.  You can see the wheels turning and their faces lighting up as they solve the riddle.  That is magical.

Lend Me a Tenor at the Milwaukee Chamber Theater is an excellent production of a funny and well-written play.  It runs through April 27th.  Tickets are available here.

A Different Kind of Cudahy Pride

The Southside of Milwaukee accent has been cracking me up since I moved back here, and I know by now I sound as funny as everyone else around here and I love it.  I wish I could type it for you, but I cannot.  I just don’t know how to add that drag on the o’s or that slightly nasal pinch to the rest of the vowels with a keyboard.

As delightful as that accent is, it was only the tip of the funniness iceberg at A Cudahy Caroler Christmas at In Tandem theater this holiday season.  We went the last weekend of the show – Mommy, Alfred, Munchkinhead, me and Mr. Trizzle, who was visiting from Cali.  Daddy wussed out and stayed home.

Apparently this is a long-running show that’s been quite popular for several years.  Having been gone quite awhile, I’d never heard of it and was ecstatic when I first heard of it.  A parody of the Southside set to familiar Christmas tunes, it is exceedingly cute ,though also a little more vulgar than one might expect.  The overt sexual humor in this play makes it not for young children (or my mommy).

The characters are a collection of former-singers from a defunct caroling group in Cudahy.  The main character, Stasch, is attempting to get the group back together for a special cable access tv program.  In the midst of this there’s a pending divorce, a unrequited love/obsession, a mother-daughter squabble and some old pain to be dealt with.  All of the characters, their hair included, are very typical southsiders.  Though for some reason Stasch sounded rather Scottish.  I hadn’t been this proud to claim Cudahy since our glory days of marching band championships.

Many of the jokes are cute and local – Edna wins the lottery and plans a future living the good life in Whitefish Bay; her daughter’s big dream is to be the water skiing queen at Tommy Bartlett’s; there’s mentions of Jack DeSalvo’s which was one of my grandpa’s favorite restaurants when I was growing up; and other such goodies.  By the end of the show, I really wanted to go bowling.

My favorite part was that there were just as many Polish last names in the cast list as there were in the character’s names.  My second-favorite part was the surprise added bonus  that it helped Mr. Trizzle understand Cudahy and the Southside of Milwaukee.

I don’t know that I’ll see this production again next year, but if you’re a Southsider and haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth at least one viewing.

Les Mis is anything but Miserable

Last night, Munchkinhead and I went to see Les Misérables at the Skylight Theater in the Third Ward.  We’ve both seen Les Mis live before – I saw it in London and the touring Broadway production in Milwaukee – and we saw the film together when it was in theaters.  This production blew all of that out of the water.  I was thoroughly impressed with everything from the theater to the performances to the sets and costuming. 

We had mid-level price tickets as all the cheap seats were sold out; high in the balcony in actual chairs perched behind a padded balcony.  We could see everything as long as we were willing to lean forwards every once in awhile.  I loved how embellished the stage floor was, such that you almost couldn’t see all the little tape L’s marking prop placements.  The theater provided the usual Footlights program as well as an Audience Guide with an extensive history of Victor Hugo, his works and the Les Mis musical.

The costuming of the production not only helped place the show in the property historical period, it also helped tell the story.  The ensemble in any given seen was dressed in dirty beige while the main characters wore colored garments.  The wigs were occasionally a little distracting – Munchkinhead and I were both surprised to see Fantine pictured as blonde in her headshot because she looked so awkward in that blonde wig – but it’s theater, everything’s supposed to be a bit over-the-top.

The set design was elaborately simple.  Props felt minimal and many, many pieces were reused in many, many ways.  The wagon cart that falls on the man Val Jean rescues was also Fantine’s death bed, part of the courtroom, part of the barricade and a table at the Thénardiers’ inn.  Trap doors in the stage were well utilized, as were rotating set pieces.  This is only one area where Skylight’s production far outshone the traveling Broadway show I’d seen back in ‘02.  The Broadway production tried too hard with it’s sets.  This production was well-balanced.  The sewer scene was very neat, though the running water sounds near the end of a 3-hour production are a little cruel.  And Javert’s suicide scene was exquisitely done.

The show was exceedingly well cast.  When Fantine, played by Susan Spencer, walked onto the stage, she looked like a tiny little thing compared to the other cast members.  I expected a squeaky little voice like Bernadette in Big Bang Theory.  Then she opened her mouth to sing and had the most wonderful, thick voice that filled the auditorium and wrapped the audience in a wool cloak.  I melted into my chair.

My favorite character, Enjrolas – because he his is the only part I can actually sing-a-long with somewhat decently – was played by Tommy Hahn and did not disappoint.  His swagger and bombastic manners were perfect.  Little Cossette, played by Harper Navin for the night we saw, warbled a bit during “Castle on a Cloud,” but it seemed fitting for a scared, cold young girl.  I wondered why Gavroche, Luke Brotherhood, pointed out to the audience so much, but his singing was very good.

Val Jean, Luke Grooms, and Javert, Andrew Varela, played well off each other, almost as good as Chris Barrie and Craig Charles in the 8th season of Red Dwarf.   The costuming and hair did a good job of making it easy for the audience to tell the two similarly built men apart.  Their duet was fantastic, especially since they did my favorite verse combo, unlike the film version.  And of course, the Thénardiers, Eric Mahlum and Rhonda Rae Busch, kept everyone laughing with their silly antics, expressions and physical clowning around.

Munchkinhead and I both absolutely loved the show and were very glad we came.  As splendid as it was, I could only think while watching, “the book is so much better.”

 

Les Misérables plays at the Skylight Music Theater on Broadway Ave until December 29th. Tickets here. 
If you’re in Milwaukee, I suggest checking it out. 
If you like the Les Mis musical, I suggest reading the novel.

A Christmas Carol – or something

This past week’s second theater outing was a non-traditional Christmas Carol with Munchkinhead put on by Milwaukee Entertainment Group at the Brumder mansion.

We took our seats in the small basement theater, nice high chairs in the back, and quickly learned that it was going to be an interactive evening.  Oh dear.

The small cast, well two of the three members, were bustling around the room handing out props and parts.  We each received a small square plastic wrapper of some sort.  Open, empty and with a suspicious expiration date on it.  This was our “fire” noise.  It did sound remarkably like a crackling fire. 

I was handed a small handbell, A6, and just as I was about to offer it to Munchkinhead, who acutally plays handbells at church, Lori Minnetti – lottery girl, and everybody-but-Scrooge in this production, approached with a script part.  “I have a bell!” I declared.  “Well then, it will have to be you,” she said turning to Munchkinhead.  “You’ll be the plump sister.”  Lori warned Munchkinhead that she’d be chased, put a fun red bonnet on her head, left her the script and went off to find a dog.

The production began with an introduction by the third actor, James P. Iaquinta – who I’ve apparently seen as Santa aside The Great Ecclestone’s Rudolph.  He explained the history of A Christmas Carol, announced the story’s 170th birthday and then went into a spectacularly inaccurate account of 19th century copyright law that bothered me for the rest of the evening.  Mr. Iaquinta narrated the story by reading Dickens’ own abbreviated-for-public-performance version and interspersed it with a wonderful rendition of Scrooge and occasionally a bit of another character.

Overall, the production came off well.  Many of the impromptu audience-cum-cast members  had some difficulties coming in on cue, saying the right lines, or remembering which part they had, but several were good.  There was an amazingly good dog and the prop lady could really dance.  Munchkinhead managed to blush on cue, did her lines well and gave the third actor, Ted Tyson, a good run for it when he chased the plump sister all over the room.  She was in and out of the rows of chairs so quick.  Scrooge had an off-cuff remark about her being to spry for the old man.  I wondered if he was supposed to have caught her.  Out running him in heels, that’s my little sister!

It’s definitely a different way to do A Christmas Carol, but it’s the right play to do differently.  If your up for a little adventure, some silly hats and spending your evening blowing to make wind sounds, this is your show.

A Christmas Carol at Milwaukee Entertainment Group runs one more show this weekend.  Tickets are available here: http://www.milwaukeeentertainmentgroup.com/.

Noises Off, Actors On

This weekend turned out to be quite the theater weekend for little old me.  On Friday, my good friend, The Great Ecclestone, invited me to join him at The Milwaukee Rep’s opening night of Noises Off.

If you’re looking for a fun and easy-going show that will fill your evening with enjoyment, take your mind away from your problems and leave you giggling, Noises Off  isn’t a bad way to spend your time.  If you know an actor, take one with you.

Noises Off is a British farce written in the early 1980s.  It’s about a touring theater crew and their adventures.  Or a bit more accurately, a small, low-budget touring crew and their mishaps.  Scene one sees them doing their final rehearsal midnight before opening night.  Scene two gives us a backstage view to happenings mid-way through the tour, and scene three gives us an audience’s perspective of the end of their tour and their sanity.

It was cute.  I’ll start there.  It was very cute.  One character, Brooke, played by Kellley Faulkner, has the most adorable bustier set and purple shoes. 

It was also quite funny though I got the impression that is much, much funnier if you’re actually in the theater.  Sitting between two actors, I found myself glancing back and forth between them wondering why they were laughing at many instances.  And some of the intended humor – like when a character is seeing walking across a back platform across many doors that are supposed to go to different rooms – just wasn’t funny to me.  Also, the cast of the production, backstage, warming up to go on by flinging their limbs all over the place, also not funny to non-theater folks.  It reminded me of that Big Bang episode where Penny tries to teach Sheldon to act.  But I suppose it’s good that actors can laugh at themselves, even if no one else is laughing with them.

The cast is phenomenal.  My favorite was Lloyd, played by Joe Dempsey.  He had two very distinct UK accents, one for when he was in his character-character and for his actor-character.  That was delightful.  I was especially impressed with the actors’ ability to make carefully scripted and rehearsed bits look like improv.

Costuming – I already mentioned those fabulous shoes, and set were well done.  I actually found myself forgetting that the same set had simply rotated around.  And I wasn’t distracted by the costuming – aside from wanting those shoes – like I have been in other productions.

Noises Off is running at the Rep until December 22nd in the Quadracci Powerhouse theater.  Tickets and more information here.

La Cerrito aux Folles

I’m sure there was a time and are some places where 20 Methodist going to see a production of La Cage Aux Folles as a church outing would be quite scandalous.  But, the San Francisco Bay Area in 2013 is not that time or place.  And what a fabulous outing it was!

The churches music director is the music director for Contra Costa Civic Theater’s production of La Cage Aux Folles, which runs through July 21.  Of course we had to go.  We were very excited to find that the band, including the music director on keyboards, is visible through the entire performance on a nice ledge perched over the center back of the stage.

CCCT has outdone itself with two fantastic musicals in a row.  After how amazing Next to Normal was, I was holding my breath a bit, half-expecting La Cage to fall back to the theater’s usual level of so-so musicals.  Instead, I was blown away.  The singing was grand, and the dancing – my goodness, the dancing was absolutely amazing.  All we could talk about after the show (other than the music director, of course) was “where did they find so many amazing male dancers for community theater?!” 

The 5 or 6 gentlemen that played Les Cagettes spent most of the three-hour show leaping, kicking, twirling and tapping in high-heeled mary janes.  The splits, the cheer-leading jumps, the pirouettes, were all jaw-droppingly impressive. 

The show was excellent, and the cast, crew and musicians should all be very proud of themselves.  If I had to give one piece of criticism on the performance it would only be that the woodwind player could use some more practice time with his clarinet.

The story part of the musical was ok.  The plot felt a bit hidden, sort of stuffed into the end as a reason to have all that spectacular dancing.  But I suppose it’s such a classic now, that hardly matters.  If you’re in the East Bay area and can make room in your weekend schedules this month, I’d recommend checking it out.

Side note: My favorite part was Sunday morning when everyone was settling in at church and the music director began playing tunes from the show for the “get ready for church to start” music.

Next to Normal, Far from Ordinary

This past Friday, I attended the opening night of Next to Normal at Contra Costa Civic Theater, or CCCT as it is affectionately and tongue-twisterly known as.   Next to Normal was absolutely phenomenal!

I was very excited about this show and I was not disappointed.  I first saw Next to Normal on Broadway in 2009 while visiting my friend in NYC over Christmas break, and I absolutely loved it.  It won 3 Tony’s that year.  CCCT’s version is just as good as the Broadway production; perhaps even better because of the far more intimate theater. 

The show tells the story of a manic-depressive woman and the effects her illness has on her life and her family.  The entire cast is only six people: mother, father, son, daughter, daughter’s boyfriend and mother’s psychiatrist.  It’s a very moving story with fabulous music and poignant lyrics.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house by the end.  I was full-on sobbing.

The cast and live band were excellent.  Everyone carried their part well and the voices worked beautifully together.  In fact, listening to the original cast recording, I’d prefer a soundtrack by the CCCT cast.   I was very pleased to see Nikita Burshteyn back at CCCT in the role of the daughter’s boyfriend.  He was the best singer in the theater’s last production, Children of Eden, and he has a very unique, attractive look.  The costuming and scenery were also well done.

The only thing that could be criticized was the sound.  There were a few glitches during some of the songs and some early balancing issues.  However, as it was opening night, these are things that will likely be fixed for the remainder of the production.

Next to Normal runs at CCCT in El Cerrito through May 5th.  I highly recommend it.  (I’ll probably be going back myself.)  Tickets are $28.50 and available here.

Snakes, Floods and Flat Notes

Review: Children of Eden at Contra Costa Civic Theater

It seems silly to be posting a theater review after the production’s stopped running.  But don’t worry; if you didn’t see it, you didn’t miss anything. 

I love my little community theater, but their musicals are usually pretty mediocre.  In an area with a lot of theaters and a lot of paying theaters I guess it must be hard to find good singers.  That being said, there were three performers who did a great job.

Eve, Cain and a Graceful Horse – Outstanding
Everyone Else, eh

The actress playing Eve I had last seen as a prostitute in No Sex Please, We’re British.  It took me a little while to get past that, but she did job as both Eve and Noah’s wife.  The actress, Jade Shojaee, has a beautiful voice and did some amazing riffs in the gospel-styled “Ain’t It Good.”  She proved her acting skills to me back when she played the daughter in Steel Magnolias and was just as on point here.  Too bad the gentleman with whom she had most of her duets struggled to carry a tune.

The gentleman who played Cain and Noah’s son, Japheth, was incredible.  What an amazing voice!  I sort of wished he’d been cast as Noah and Adam, but the parts he had and the angrier songs were better suited to his voice.  I hope to see more of Mr. Nikita Burshteyn at this theater.

I don’t know the name of the other actress that really impressed me.  She was one of the extras, about 14, clearly a dancer, just passing the awkward pre-teen years.  You could tell she’s going to be a beautiful young woman.  She was so graceful in everything she did, she made some of the other extras look quite clumsy.  She had a short but very nice dance solo as a horse before getting on the Ark and some short single dancing parts while controlling the dove.  I hope to see more of her in the local theater as well.

Other than those three, the show was pretty so-so, or worse.  Some of the extras were trying too hard to be sopranos and most of them were trying to be soloists.  It hurt, as did Adam’s long notes.  And several of the extras were distractingly unattractive.  But, even if the show were done by a top cast, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Odd Show on It's Own

The music is disjointed, feeling as if it’s been pulled from other shows.  The serpent sings jazz reminiscent of Chicago – and really, “the devil’s music” for the devilish snake? – There’s a solo by Japheth’s wife that sounds like it might as well be Eponine from Les Mis,  Some song in the middle was very reminiscent of The Brady Bunch, complete with quick outstretched arm flashes.  I don’t know what they were singing, but I was hearing “gonna keep on, keep on, keep on movin’…”  And the last song, which was some uplifting, everything-is-going-be-awesome message that didn’t seem to fit with the storyline, got Sesame Street’s “We are All Earthlings” stuck in my head.

Despite this show being rather unremarkable, I did have a nice time with the group from church that went, and I do enjoy my season tickets.  I’d much rather risk $20 at a theater I can walk to than $50 to $100 at something in San Francisco that I may not like.

Next up is Next to Normal, a show I saw in New York and loved.  I’m a bit nervous since it’s another musical, but at least I know I’ll like the underlying story.

A Story about Friendship

Friday evening, a friend and I went to the opening night of Contra Costa Civic Theater’s new show, The Story of My Life.  It was incredible.  An exploration into the depth of relationships.

The Story of My Life is a two-man show, and it’s a musical.  There isn’t a moment of the play when both men aren’t on stage engaged in the story.  There’s some serious acting ability involved here.  The two men have been friends since they were children, and the play goes back and forth between the present and their childhood memories, the stories of their lives.  It begins as one friend, the successful best-selling author, attempts to prepare the eulogy for the other friend’s funeral.

At this point, the two aren’t really friends anymore.  I mean, they sort of are.  To the one who has past away, the friend who is a bit eccentric and loving and humble, they were always best friends.  To the author, the friendship was one of those things you just grow out of.

It’s a very moving story, heartbreaking at times.  These two friends are up there reminiscing as the author attempts to express his feelings in the eulogy.  Stories about all the happy times in their lives and about their struggles, pieced together by both of them.

But the author isn’t really trying to figure out how to express his feelings.  He’s trying to figure out what his feelings are.  As he struggles to figure out what happened to his friend, why he’s here battling to write a eulogy,  he realizes that he has pushed everyone out of his life, including his best friend.  He has these excuses for what he’s done: he needs to focus on his career, he has to sort out his thoughts, he must establish stability in his life, and he is going to do it all on his own without anyone else’s help because he doesn’t need anyone!

The best friend sees it coming, the audience sees it coming, but the ‘successful’ man doesn’t see it coming. *Poof* before he knows it, he’s completely alone.  Alone and lost.  Having pushed all the inspiration out of his life, he’s unable to write.  Unable to succeed.  Alone.

 

As an audience member, it was heartbreaking to sit there and watch this happen.  Though it is fiction, I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to old friends, to relationships I’ve brushed away, to struggling souls I know who seem determined to push everyone out of their lives.  That’s the point of the play, to make you realize the value of your friends.  The director even said during the post-production talk, ‘after you all call that friend you haven’t talked to in awhile, come join us for punch.’  Luckily, I had a good friend sitting next to me.

For those in the Bay Area, the show runs weekends until November 28.  Tickets.

 

Post Script: one of the really neat things about this show was that I could see The Great Ecclestone playing either role very well.  Maybe someday, I will get to see that.

American Idiot

A guest post by Daddy Bunny and Mr. Fuzzy

Hello all, it’s your favorite anthropomorphic rabbit, Daddy Bunny. My cousin, Mr. Fuzzy, is visiting us while his mom is in Scotland. He wants to tell you about the fun he had last night. I’m helping him because he does not use a computer as often as I do. Take it away Mr. Fuzzy!

Hi. I’m Mr. Fuzzy. I’m Daddy Bunny’s cousin and I’m staying with him and my auntie until my mom gets home from Scotland. My sister, April, is staying with our other auntie. Mom could only afford a few extra tickets, so we had to stay in the US. Luckily, we have nice aunties to take care of us and fun cousins to play with.

Last week was my mom’s birthday. My aunt and I really wanted to celebrate with her, but we couldn’t because she is far away. My aunt had a great idea though. She decided we would celebrate my mom’s birthday by going to see a rock opera using some of my mom’s favorite music. The show has the same title as the album with the music it uses, American Idiot. The music is by the band Green Day. We went to the show last night. It was in a nearby town called Berkeley at the Berkeley Reparatory Theater. (Boy that is a big word for a little monkey!)

The show was really, really good. My auntie liked it so much, she wanted to take me back for a second time, but she couldn’t get any more tickets. That was too bad, cuz I really liked the show and would have liked to see it again from further back. We were in the front row, and since I’m little and was sitting on my auntie’s lap, I really had to lean my head back to see. My neck still hurts a little bit. But it was worth it.

The people on stage were really good. They sang well, and they danced well, and they had fun tennis shoes on. I could see the shoes really well from where we were sitting. I bet my auntie liked that. She likes shoes a lot. It was also really neat to see how the album made up these three different stories. Well, I guess it was sort of one story about 3 different people. Or something like that…?

I’m a lot more familiar with the music than my auntie was because I’ve heard my mom play it a lot. I tried to explain some of the songs to my aunt, but her Monkey isn’t very good and I didn’t have Daddy Bunny there to translate.

Since my mom couldn’t be at the show, we got her a present. It’s special poster made for this show. This show was the world premier. Not specifically the one we saw, but all the playings together at this theater. Here are pictures of me with the front and back of the poster we got for my mom.

I am very glad my aunt took me to the show. It was much better than the last one she took me to. (Daddy Bunny: my mom took Mr. Fuzzy to a show at the little theater where I saw Harvey. Mr. Fuzzy said it was very strange, a little scary and had funny talking people in it.) I can’t wait to tell my mom all about American Idiot when I see her at Christmas!

The Theater, the Theater

Guest post by Daddy Bunny

My mom’s been kinda unhappy lately. I’m not really sure why. We have this nice big, squishy bed. She and I get to hang out every night, and I’m safe from being dropped kicked all the time. Plus, Mr. Fuzzy’s visiting! I think everything’s fabulous. But my mom doesn’t seem to think so. Like I said, she’s been unhappy.

She decided that one thing that would make her happy would be to go out and do more things. I don’t really get this. I mean, what could be better than staying home and playing with me and Mr. Fuzzy? But no, she wants to do stuff. So she got tickets to the theater and she said I could go with her!

At first, I thought we were going to go on a long trip and visit her friend, The Great Ecclestone. Usually, when we go to a show, he’s in it, and we travel very far to see it. But she said nope, no Great Ecclestone this time. This show was right here in our own town. Something called a community theater. I didn’t understand why we’d go see a show without the great Ecclestone, until she explained that this show has something to do with bunny rabbits!

Well, you can imagine how excited a show about bunny rabbits would make me! I was hopping up and down with joy that I was going to get to go see this show with my mom. The Great Ecclestone is great and all, and we’ve seen plenty of things in his shows - horses, reindeer, Mayans - but never any bunny rabbits.

I got all dressed up, carefully smoothing out the wrinkles in my patches and tucking my ears nicely behind my head. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, there’d be a pretty little girl bunny in the show. Boy was I wrong. Bunny rabbits indeed!

The show was called Harvey. And there was only one rabbit in the whole thing. He wasn’t a cute little bunny rabbit either. No indeed. He was a very big rabbit. And he was invisible.

At least, he was invisible during the play. He must be visible sometimes because there was a painting of him and his best friend. Maybe he can choose when to be invisible and has stage fright and doesn’t like being visible when all those people are watching.

There may have only been one non-girl rabbit, but he was really important. So important, the play was named after him: Harvey. Harvey’s a very big rabbit. Much, much bigger than me. About the size of four of me, each standing on top of me, or about the size of my mom in her boots.

In the painting of him and his friend, Harvey is wearing a necktie, just like the ones I wear for holidays. Harvey also had a shirt collar under his necktie, but no shirt. I’m not really sure how that works, but the play was set in the 1950s so maybe clothes were different back then. Harvey had a hat too, but his was different than my hats. My hats have one whole in the middle for both my ears. His hat had two holes, one for each ear.

Harvey doesn’t seem to like to make himself visible to his friend’s family. And this causes all sorts of problems for his friend. His friend’s family thinks he’s crazy because he’s friends with a big, white rabbit that they can’t see. Then they try to get his friend put into a mental hospital because of it! Can you imagine that? Getting locked up just for being friends with a rabbit?!

Anyway, the play was pretty good. I sat on my mom’s lap. When Harvey goes places on trains or to the theater, his friend gets him his own ticket. But, he is much bigger than me, so I guess that makes sense. If I had my own seat, I wouldn’t be able to see.

After the show, the cast came out, and I got my picture taken with Harvey! We went outside by the theater sign. I sat on top of the sign and Harvey stood next to it. My mom had to turn the camera the long ways cuz Harvey’s so big. Then, my mom and I skipped and danced and did The Bunny Hop all the way home. (This one, not this one.) - They were playing it as the exit music after the show.

I’m really glad I’m not invisible, so no one will think my mom is crazy.