tag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:165986Trying to see the Books for the WordsThe Amazing Adventures of an Average Womantechnocracygirl2018-11-26T21:46:43Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:165986:37610Theatre Review: In the Heights2018-11-26T21:46:43Z2018-11-26T21:46:43ZAfternoon Jazzhappypublic0Back in the beginning of the year, (was it really the beginning of this year? 2018 has been a very, very long year.) I got to go see Hamilton with my mother, sister, and a dear friend. As we were leafing through the program (because of course we got there with plenty of time to spare), we noticed that the Seattle Rep was going to be producing Miranda's first musical, <i>In the Heights</i>. Said friend, who is Hispanic, said that she needed to get tickets, because she really wanted to take her mother to it.<br /><br />Fast forward to later in the year, and another friend, who works at the Rep, asked me if I'd like to go, as she had comp tickets. I said, yes, please, oh, and could I get two more? She had two more, and last night, my friend, my friend's mother, and I all got to see In the Heights.<br /><br />It was magnificent.<br /><br />I had tried listening to the soundtrack before, but due to time, how I was listening, and other stuff, it didn't really grab me, and I wound up not listening to more than half the first act. So I came in knowing the basics of the story, but very little else. My friend knew the soundtrack very well, but had never seen it live.<br /><br />If you are a mostly monolingual <i>gringa</i> like me, the best way to describe this is like watching Shakespeare. You know that the language is beautiful, and between the acting and what you can understand of the words, you're going to get most of the story. But there's going to be a good chunk of the play that you're just not going to understand, and you have to be okay with that. It's not necessarily easy, but I actually found it really refreshing.<br /><br />And in part, I found it refreshing because of something written in the program. The program noted that the creators of the play used <i>Fiddler on the Roof</i> as a touchstone, which, upon seeing the play, made absolute sense to me. There are a lot of goyim who see Fiddler, who love Fiddler, whose souls are touched by Fiddler. (It's extremely popular in Japan, for example.) But if you are a Jew, there is something extra, because that's your family up there. That's your story up there. And I knew, just knew, that there is an extra layer to <i>In the Heights</i> that I will never, ever quite get. And it was actually really nice, to see that, and know that, this play means so much to so many people. You certainly see it in what many of the cast members chose to put in their biographies.<br /><br />(Humorous side note: both my friend and her mother felt very "stared at" during the intermission and after the show. This being both in Seattle, and the theatre, it was a very white, older crowd. Both my friend and her mother were wondering if people thought that they were extras in the show. Definitely not, but it was kind of funny and kind of weird.)<br /><br />Having seen this and Hamilton, you can definitely tell that there were a lot of the same brains behind both shows. The music, while not the same, has a very similar feel, as does the frenetic pace and the melding of traditional Broadway styles with different music (rap, Afro-Latin rhythms, hip-hop). There's the incidental tips of the hat ("It's hot in here, like Cole Porter", forex). Also, even though <i>Hamilton</i> has Alexander Hamilton as the main character, both Aaron Burr and Eliza Hamilton have large enough star turns/chunks of plot that you could make a case for either of them being the main character. (And I love that the Hamilton cast doesn't come out one by one. I love that they make all their bows together. Some people may be more prominent than others, but everyone is important.) But while Usnavi is the main character of <i>In the Heights</i>, he is the frame through which we see the play proceed. I would say that Nina is the actual protagonist, and the characters who are the actors of the plot, the people who do things, are the trio of women with arias: Vanessa, Nina, and Abeula Claudia. It is a very different sort of musical, and one that I would love to see more of.<br /><br />The acting was excellent. The men playing Usnavi and Benny were absolutely channeling Lin and Chris Jackson, which was interesting. Poor Nina's mike didn't work at first, but she did her very best to hold her own against a heavily miked counter-chorus. (Another humorous aside: When my friend and I saw <i>Hamilton</i> poor Lafayette's mike cut out at the beginning of "Guns and Ships" and didn't work again for the rest of the first act. We felt so sorry for him, and so relieved when Jefferson was clearly audible in "What'd I Miss". Abuela Claudia looked old, but not all the time, and I thought she should have been a little more shaky than she was. But here voice was glorious, and she carried her part well. Nina's parents were completely fantastic and totally believable.<br /><br />I loved that the Nina/Benny/family subplot isn't fully okay by the end of the show. It actually gives me more faith in the continuation of the Nina/Benny relationship going forward.<br /><br />We saw a preview, so if you can still snag tickets, I would absolutely do so.<br /><br />The only thing really wrong was that the guy sitting next to me was manspreading something fierce, so when I was getting restless in the middle of the second act, there was no good place for me to rearrange my legs. I gave up when I realized that he not only had a quarter of my space, he had a quarter of the space that his date had as well. Phooey on you, theatre manspreader!<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=technocracygirl&ditemid=37610" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-01:165986:25091The Theoretical Child, part the fourth, plus other stuff2010-12-04T15:43:17Z2010-12-04T15:43:17Zpublic0My body is definitely rearranging itself. I am decidedly pudgy in the forward direction. More so than usual, anyway. It is...a little twitchy for me.<br /><br />Also, I can do without the 5:30 am alarm in my head, which seems to be going off this week regardless of what I do. I can ignore the other ones, but 5:30 just won't shut up. <br /><br />We went to Beth Am last night. Mom and Dad joined us, since I was singing with the choir. I suspect I will be able to feel the kavanah more when I'm more used to the music, and especially when I'm not trying to pick the correct notes out of the air on the fly from the sopranos around me. Fortunately, I am surrounded by some good sopranos, so that helps. I am getting better at sight-reading, though. Perhaps when Peanut is older, I'll audition for the Seattle Women's Chorus again. (I also might have a bit more confidence in my abilities at that time.)<br /><br />I'm probably going to go to services this morning. I wonder if it sucks or is awesome to have your b'nai mitzvah during Hannukah.<br /><br />We went to the Taproot Thursday night with <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=wanderingfey'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=wanderingfey'><b>wanderingfey</b></a></span>'s mom and stepfather. They're showing <a href="http://taproottheatre.org/holmes/">Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol</a>. It wasn't as good as I hoped it would be be, but it was still quite good. Watson was excellent, although I would have also liked to have seem more of Mycroft. Moriarty was fabulous; that was easily the best Marley scene I've seen since <i>A Muppet Christmas Carol</i>. I couldn't quite warm up to Holmes, but Holmes isn't necessarily a warm-up-to sort of guy. Holmes was a much harder nut to crack than Scrooge often is; he didn't really start to break down until a decent way into the third spirit. But it was all very believable and as true to the character of Holmes as one can get and still have the format of <i>A Christmas Carol</i>. I also missed the lack of children that they get at ACT; Young Holmes was a bit too tall for my taste. He was, however, very easy on the eyes.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=technocracygirl&ditemid=25091" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments