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aradia22

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    Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

    in Everything Else

    https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/theater/here-lies-love-review-messiness-discord-dance-floor/

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    Everyone around us seems to have a moment of pleasant confusion, unsure of the rules but ready to play, not minding severance from their companions. But I reach for my friend’s hand and hold it tight, thinking of our respective Filipino families. Displacement, corruption, graft, exile, torture, censorship, curfew, incarceration, state violence, imperialism, American occupation, greed: my family’s oral history of Martial Law courses through my mind and clashes with neon lights, accelerating disco, bemused faces following the stage. With this hypnotic, purple-blazed moment of an authority declaring our inevitable division, a discordant spectacle plays out on the dance floor. 

    The discord lies in the fabulousness of the spectacle, a world dripping with sequins and rainbows as it pays homage to Philippine obsessions with pageantry. Clint Ramos’ costumes are immense and multi-hued, a dazzling array of proud ternos and suits that make Annie-B Parson’s choreography even more glittery and dizzying. Multiple-screen projections (designed by Peter Nigrini) flash a disturbing fusion of historical fact, artistic license, and live camera feeds as campaigners thread their way through the audience, blending truth and myth into one mega-dance party. Alex Timbers’ direction is innovative for Broadway, causing those of us on the floor to swivel around to witness the action while politicians and bomba starlets skitter through the upper echelons of the audience. 

    Yet this aesthetic serves to prop up an otherwise superficial pop song cycle, using Imelda Marcos as a muse for love and romance while the deeper politics of the Philippines burn in the background, occasionally thrusting out as shock value for the audience.

     

    Spoiler

    Historical events such as the Plaza Miranda bombings (fog floods the stage, police bring batons down on protestors) and the loud gunshot signifying Ninoy’s murder live as mere unmetabolized moments, the songs in a hurry to move on and keep the dance floor throbbing. 

    The conjugal dictatorship and Philippine history are distilled into a love triangle between Imelda, Ferdinand, and Ninoy, though it’s less a triangle and more of a set of dyads, as the relationship between the two men remains flat and unexplored, despite their law school frat days at the University of the Philippines.

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    Under Timbers’ direction, fresh-faced Imelda (Arielle Jacobs) is all rose and no thorns, a belting voice in love with love who is rebuffed by the youthful and ambitious Ninoy Aquino (Conrad Ricamora). Apparently, it’s for being too tall, but when a magnetizing Miss Philippines (Kristina Doucette) walks onstage and Ninoy escorts her off, the image simultaneously equates Imelda with the nation and feminizes the Philippines as a sexually desirable woman ready to give Ninoy what he needs that Imelda cannot.

    When Imelda later visits the jailed senator, she sings, “you were my first love / but you said I was too tall,” gaining a laugh from the audience that highlights deeply unaware pettiness while also trivializing the oppression faced by Marcos’s opposition. If only one man’s beauty standards were different, or one woman’s genetics rendered her more petite, then we would not be in this chaos! This moment obscures deeper political conflicts within the regime and throughout the Philippines beyond Manila, but of course, this is just a pop song on a concept album. 

    Marcos (Jose Llana) mixes charisma and threat, most evident when walking through the crowd and shaking their hands, drawing the audience on the floor into the gaze of the cameras, projecting them onto the walls for the audiences above. He morphs into a tired, weakened philanderer, with the events gaining momentum when Ninoy’s mother, Aurora Aquino (Lea Salonga), takes the stage, singing “Just Ask the Flowers.” The draw is less about the historical figure of Doña Aquino or outrage over Ninoy’s death, but rather the presence of Salonga herself, who first graced the Broadway Theatre as the Vietnamese bartender Kim in Miss Saigon. For folks following Salonga’s journey as a pop culture icon, there’s a sense of completion in seeing her play a more noble role, and a Filipino one at that. 

     

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    Here’s where more of the messiness and discord of Here Lies Love breaks through: in its mix of real-world stories of Filipino and Filipino-American pride and despair, its controversial production history and present (most recently, the move to use tracks instead of live musicians), and questions surrounding why this show emerges now, one year into the presidency of Bongbong Marcos and after decades of documented historical distortion to clean up the Marcos family image. It’s precisely the mash-up of art, culture, history, hyperbole, denial, and facts that have created an authoritarian nostalgia in the Philippines. And to evoke this seductive nostalgia in an American audience, real quotes and transcripts are used in the songs that fill the mouths of Filipino actors.

    Concurrently, Byrne relates that he did not know how to deal with the massacres, death, and US involvement. Instead, the majority Filipino and Filipino-American creative team does the heavy lifting to fill the gaps in this song cycle with new add-ons from its debut at The Public in 2013, such as projected images of the impoverished countryside juxtaposed against Imelda’s extravagant and expensive projects. From its inception, Here Lies Love takes a romanticized view of the Marcos regime. Despite its additions, glossy carnival aesthetic, and self-branding as “an innovative template on how to stand up to tyrants,” at its core it is immersive but does not incite action, leaves no explicit strategies for dealing with democracies under threat, and tacks on the fact that Bongbong is currently president yet does not take a stance on how that administration and political family affects the homeland and diaspora. 

    I did not dance during the show. I could not. I thought of loved ones forced to separate under the whims of tyrants as I watched the audience jump and clap their hands, how I as an American had a privileged choice whether to stand still or sway. I thought of past and present Filipino artists and students red-tagged in the Philippines, journalists who had been killed or forced to flee. I thought of the Filipino and Filipino-American artists on this show, the pride and hope wrapped up in this unruly text and the earnest desire to make our culture more visible and loud. I thought of the immense gap of history among the diaspora, how desperately we need conversations to understand the beautiful, complicated psyche of the individuals and communities from our archipelago. So I did not dance. I squeezed my friend’s hand. Amidst the barrage of sound and light, the proclamations of passion and 1081, I listened to their soft, outraged weeping. There, I felt love.

     

     

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    Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

    in Everything Else

    · Edited by aradia22

    Very interesting review of Here Lies Love with more historical context. Also, SPOILERS

    https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/theater/inventing-imelda-review-here-lies-love-broadway

    Quote

    The storyline draws from a number of sources, including Carmen Navarro Pedrosa’s controversial biography, in which we find the musical’s counterpoint narrator, Estrella Cumpas (played here by Melody Butiu).

    In a series of interviews in 1984, Pedrosa recounts that Cumpas had asked her for financial help at the time Pedrosa was writing the book, and that Imelda had Cumpas abducted, then offered her a P300 pension and jobs for her children. Cumpas lived in relative comfort for a while, then later contacted Pedrosa again to ask her help to migrate to London, where Pedrosa had been living in exile, but which the author had to decline. That is the sad, humdrum subplot of Cumpas, who in this musical nonetheless serves as a foil to Imelda’s decidedly more thrilling narrative. 

    [...] It is to the Broadway production’s credit, then, that much has changed since the 2013 version. Press statements have made it abundantly clear that the musical is anti-Marcos. An insert in the playbill includes a Historical Overview, starting from the Philippine-American War to the People Power Revolution, along with a QR code for more nuanced timelines and sources. 

    There are clips from Iginuhit ng Tadhana — the 1965 movie that was allegedly instrumental in propelling Marcos to a second term as president. This propaganda piece bolstered the myth of war hero and political redeemer that Marcos created for himself, a reference that may have been lost to the general American public, but for those in the know, underlines the theme of reinvention and myth-making that is part of the dictator’s playbook. 

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    The problem remains the subject matter herself, one that poses an artistic dilemma for a musical that is premised on the celebratory nature of disco.

    Imelda Marcos projected her lifestyle and conspicuous consumption as aspirational, the embodiment of the dreams of the masses, who, incongruously, her family’s corruption kept downtrodden. Moreover, over the last several years, Imelda and her family have harnessed conventional and social media to recast the dictatorship in better light. Today, history books in the Philippines describe the Marcos era as one of prosperity and progress.

    There lies the problem of inventing Imelda. Bryne’s trademark irony punctuates the early scenes of the young “Rose of Tacloban,” who comes off as a social-climbing, gold-digging ingenue. Less than halfway through the show, the narrative pivots to grant Imelda some empathy — after all, how long can an audience, especially a non-Filipino one, endure a story about a totally unsympathetic character?

     

    Spoiler

    While we delight in the spectacle of a decidedly pernicious Marcos (Jose Llana), Imelda (Arielle Jacobs) is seen as victim and even savior. Drug-addled and betrayed by her philandering husband, she has an epiphany in Studio 54, where she accepts her fate and decides to love-bomb her blighted nation.

    As the people’s Mater Dolorosa, she elicits compassion with her self-pity. But her role as the crucial half of the conjugal dictatorship is never completely extrapolated. Only Ninoy Aquino (Conrad Ricamora) sees through the veneer and points out her excesses, but they seem venial compared to the human rights abuses committed by Marcos, hard data of which are flashed on multiple screens. And of course, when Marcos imprisons Ninoy, it is she who comes seven years later to free and save him. 

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    One can only offer so much detail on the long and convoluted saga of the rise and fall of the Marcoses. But in a narrative of breakneck speed (90 minutes), Imelda becomes the true heroine: complex, flawed, and brought down by hubris — almost Grecian in her tragedy. During one number, when she sang, “It takes a woman to do a man’s job,” the audience actually exploded in applause.

    In the end, as Imelda shrinks from the glare of helicopter lights overhead, you still see her as a victim of circumstance. Her final song, “Why Don’t You Love Me,” is the anguished bellow of a lost soul, unable to comprehend the fate handed to her, when all she wanted was to “spread love.”

    During the postscript, when it was announced that Marcos’s son has become the new president, there was a chorus of boos from the audience, followed quickly by an angry Filipina shouting, “He’s my president!” It shows the divisiveness of the Marcoses to this day: for there are still millions of Filipinos who believe in the myth, the lies, and the hype. 

    I doubt if that disruptive audience member even bothered to read the background materials. But that little incident sums up the Marcoses’ — Ferdinand and Imelda together — lasting and dangerous legacy, and one that Imelda and her children continue to perpetuate: that generations after them have lost the ability to think for themselves, and have swallowed, wholesale, their fabricated mistruths.

     

     

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    Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

    in Everything Else

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    Paper Mill Playhouse [...] has announced initial casting for its world-premiere production of The Great Gatsby [...] Jeremy Jordan will star as enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby, and [...] Eva Noblezada will star as socialite Daisy Buchanan. Additional casting will be announced in coming weeks.
     
    The highly anticipated production will play October 12-November 12, 2023 at Paper Mill Playhouse (22 Brookside Drive). Opening night is Sunday, October 22. Tickets may be purchased now as part of a Paper Mill Playhouse subscription package and single tickets will go on sale on August 14, 2023.

    The Great Gatsby features a book by Kait Kerrigan (The Mad Ones), a jazz- and pop-influenced original score by Tony Award nominees Jason Howland and Nathan Tysen (Paradise Square), and direction by Marc Bruni (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical). The production will be choreographed by Dominique Kelley. Music supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations are by Mr. Howland. Daniel Edmonds (Shucked, Paradise Square) is Music Director.

    https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Jeremy-Jordan-Eva-Noblezada-Will-Lead-Paper-Mill-Playhouses-World-Premiere-of-THE-GREAT-GATSBY-20230724

    This is NOT the Florence Welch Great Gatsby scheduled for ART in 2024.

    • Like 1

    Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

    in Everything Else

    Maybe I should have tried that on one of the nights with more availability (Tuesday/Wednesday). I don't think it would be worth the schlep to Lincoln Center tonight (since they're closing tomorrow and what seats are available now could go by the evening performance). 

    As I'm typing this, there are still 15 seats for the 2pm matinee and 14 seats for the 8pm show. I feel like they might be nicer at the box office (you can only call Telecharge) but I don't know what they're playing at since I know LCT regularly papers their productions and Camelot has been a divisive so the seats could very well go unused. 

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    Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

    in Everything Else

    https://playbill.com/article/broadway-camelot-gets-early-closing-notice

    Camelot is closing early. Technically it extended and this is backtracking on that extension, but an LCT revival like this was never intended as a short run.

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    Lincoln Center Theater's Broadway revival of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot has set an early closing date for July 23 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. The production had originally been announced to run through June 25. It extended shortly after its April 13 opening night to run through September 3. This closing notice shortens that extension.

    As of its final performance, the production will have run for 38 previews and 115 regular performances. Production representatives say a U.S. national tour and West End bow are planned for the Bartlett Sher-directed revival.

     

    Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

    in Everything Else

    @ebk57 I wish I'd seen Camelot on my original date so I could tell you about it. Kimberly is fun if you haven't seen it yet but imo not a revelation. It feels like an off-Broadway show mixed with a sitcom but it's enjoyable as a competently executed smaller show. 

    Personally, I'm curious about New York, New York for the set pieces/choreography though the book is apparently terrible. Good notices for Parade but I didn't want to see it at NYCC so I still don't at Broadway prices. (The leads seem miscast/distracting to me.) Nothing about Shucked makes me want to see it besides liking some actors in the cast. I haven't read the reviews for Once Upon a One More Time yet but I've skimmed enough to know they weren't great. 

    People rave about &Juliet and I'm planning to see Here Lies Love. Did you see Funny Girl with Lea? My friend loved her.

    • Like 3

    The Annual Tony Awards - General Discussion

    in The Tony Awards

    Quote

    Why did we even hear a scene from Funny Girl when it wasn’t nominated?

    They paid to perform. It still has months to go and I'm sure they'd like to pick up the advance before the panicked "show closing" buyers sell out the last few months. They're going on tour. Weird that she performed the same song again though. 

    Alex and Bonnie are fun wins. Scene-stealing performances are a good use of the supporting awards. I still don't want to see Shucked though. I was less impressed by Victoria Clark than other audience members have been when I saw the show off-Broadway. Maybe it's just because I'm just over 30 and I also taught actual teenagers not that long ago who even made me feel old. I didn't buy her as a teen for a moment, but it was a fine performance and I'm certainly not mad about her win. I do hope Sara Bareilles keeps coming back to Broadway.

    Looking over the wins, there aren't any big surprises. I feel like all the jukebox shows and star casting and shows I'm generally "meh" about have me lukewarm about the wins. Like, what would I even be mad about? Solid performers like Bonnie Milligan took home trophies. Nothing I adored was snubbed. I don't follow plays as much but I didn't feel Topdog/Underdog or Sean Hayes in Good Night, Oscar were dominating the conversation so that's a mild surprise, but not super upsetting. I do remember people mentioning Miriam Silverman and of course there was a lot of love for Leopoldstadt. I didn't see any of the revivals besides Into the Woods so I didn't have much of an opinion of the field. Parade winning is fine. Arden is a good director. Overall, good job, Tony voters. 

    I'll eventually go back to doing the Funny Girl lottery. But & Juliet and Once Upon a One More Time and Shucked and New York, New York (and whatever else I might be forgetting) all make me think "Oh, that could be fun." But not enough to pay those ticket prices and get all dolled up and deal with public transportation. I'm waiting for some more MUST SEE shows. I'm hopeful but not necessarily optimistic about Here Lies Love. But maybe I'll break and see something from this season over the summer. And I do still have to past-date Camelot.

    • Like 2

    Lucy Worsley's Royal Myths & Secrets - General Discussion

    in Lucy Worsley's Royal Myths & Secrets

    I watched the ones on The Reformation (Henry VIII) and Regency (George IV). I can't remember if I watched the Marie Antoinette one or if it was another series. I like them for the most part but I agree there's some forced "fake news" kind of stuff that is trying too hard to make it feel relevant. Like, I'm watching a PBS historical overview for an hour because I'm boring; I don't need you to make it cool for me. Also, I'm not sure I always believe her arguments but I don't mind a competing narratives version of history instead of the definitive truth. 

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    The Annual Tony Awards - General Discussion

    in The Tony Awards

    I think the start time for "Act One" is too early but if I wasn't distracted, I wouldn't mind this speed-run approach. I don't know whose favorite part of award shows is pointless banter or usually lame host monologues. The Tonys was already superior to the other awards shows but, even though this is due to the writers' strike, they could really take a lesson in trimming things down... especially the Oscars. I only watch the clips now. 

    I need to get around to reading Joel Grey's autobiography

    • Love 1

    The Annual Tony Awards - General Discussion

    in The Tony Awards

    I jumped back in for the end of John Kander's speech. I hope it gets clipped.

    Again, I would have loved a KPOP win in choreography because it was such a big part of that show, but it's hard to compete with Most Choreography and SLIH and NY, NY were always going to have an edge. Apparently there's a quick change/doors thing people are obsessed with. Idk... I like tap but I get over it quickly if it's not used judiciously.

    • Like 1

    Season 7 Discussion

    in Queer Eye

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    It occurs to me that by setting an entire season in one city they may have trouble finding seven really "great" candidates for makeovers. Hence the inclusion of one or two like Dan from the deli, or that cowboy last season that didn't really seem into it.

    Quote

    Sometimes I wonder if "pieces of the puzzle"  fall through for some episodes. Perhaps some of the people they wanted to interview for Dan changed their mind or it just didn't work out. Or, for the principal, if the standard places for professional clothing for women who are not 25 and skinny, just didn't want to volunteer their stores or provide clothing. I think of Express as a store for women in their teens and 20s. I would never shop there for work clothes

    That makes sense. As annoying as the wait can be between seasons, with all of the Fab Five's other projects, I imagine they stick to a pretty quick shooting schedule for this show. I doubt they'd circle back to do pickups to round out the edit if they're already on to the next candidate. 

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    I have a smaller compost container in the fridge that I add to during the day, then in the evening I dump it into a bigger one I keep in my basement freezer, where I have more space for it.

    This is fine since you're changing it out daily, but it seemed like they were just keeping their moldy fruit and veg in there. I compost stuff that would otherwise be food waste, not stuff I forgot to use until it got gross. The only exception is when, for example, I pick out a few blueberries that seem suspicious right out of the container, but they go straight to the freezer. 

    @angora I feel like we'd have mostly the same thoughts watching this show together.

    • Like 1

    Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

    in Everything Else

    · Edited by aradia22

    https://playbill.com/article/2023-tony-awards-to-feature-performances-from-joaquina-kalukango-broadways-funny-girl-and-a-beautiful-noise-more

    Why do they insist on making it so confusing? This is how you get MORE people to just watch the clips.

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    The Tony Awards will be given out in a starry ceremony at Washington Heights' United Palace Theatre June 11. The Tony Awards: Act One, a 90-minute pre-show of live and exclusive content hosted by Julianne Hough and Skylar Astin, will stream on Pluto TV's Celebrity channel beginning at 6:30 PM ET. The main awards ceremony will follow at 8 PM ET, hosted by West Side Story Oscar winner Ariana DeBose. The awards portion will broadcast live on CBS, and stream live (for premium-level subscribers) via Paramount+. 

    Quote

    The Tonys confirmed June 8 that this year's broadcast will include performances from all the Best Musical and Best Revival of a Musical nominees—including Camelot; Into the Woods; & Juliet; Kimberly Akimbo; New York, New York; Parade; Shucked; Some Like It Hot; and Sweeney Todd. Also on the performance roster are numbers from 2022 Best Leading Actress in a Musical winner Joaquina Kalukango (Paradise Square) and a special performance honoring 2023 Lifetime Achievement Tony Award honorees Joel Grey and John Kander.

     

    Online Dating: Swiping Right Or Left?

    in Everything Else

    I've discovered that there are guys who are attracted to at least aspects of me. They are either 

    1) In my age range but they live in another state

    2) Significantly older than me

    3) Guys I am not physically attracted to, or at least wouldn't be from a profile photo (like, if we worked together, I'd probably talk myself into it over time with some of them)

    4) Carrying some baggage (divorced, complicated parents/family...doesn't want kids, weird kinks, etc.) 

    Have I learned anything? Maybe to have more confidence and that some of the things I feel badly about (e.g. my mental health) are not dealbreakers for everyone. That when I was online dating, I probably missed some guys because I didn't want to set my age range lower (I was recently talking to a guy 4 years younger than me). That maybe I should live in a different state with less of a gender imbalance and fewer women who could be Instagram models. And that there are guys who like the body I'm so self-critical about. Someday I will date again. And I still think of myself as very monogamous. But my chatting experience has made me think maybe I need to be more polyamorous simply because it's so difficult to find a guy who will commit to you fully and be there for you all the times you actually need him. I'm encouraged that there are some sweet, smart guys out there who like talking to me and find me attractive, but it hasn't renewed any of my hope as I'm getting older and less "desirable" that I'll be able to find someone who checks even all the basic boxes (again, unless I move to another place).

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    Online Dating: Swiping Right Or Left?

    in Everything Else

    Quote

    So I quit dating apps for good.

    So that's two of us down then. Who's going to keep this thread alive?

    Quote

    Trying to avoid someone prettier than you or what you consider out of your league is another mistake imo. Dating someone considered not the most attractive or not a catch is no guarantee they won’t cheat or they’ll treat you like you’re anything special.

    That's something I learned. Trying to talk myself into a guy I wasn't into it physically was no guarantee of finding someone who would treat me any better. 

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    The Taylor Swift Topic: Teen Country Sensation to World-Dominating Pop Star

    in Music

    Quote

    I absolutely respect Taylor's talent as a songwriter and producer (I refuse to believe she's an amazing vocalist - she's serviceable at best). 

    As far as producing goes, basically since Reputation, I think she's been getting increasingly diminishing returns from Jack Antonoff. Either he's making bad choices or he isn't standing up to her bad choices, or both. As a songwriter, I think she definitely has skill but she's been rushing the albums resulting in a lot of filler and some clunky lyrics (even on the songs I like). 

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    It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
    At tea time, everybody agrees

    At tea time??? Is she regularly having afternoon tea?

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    Privacy sign on the door
    And on my page and on the whole world
    Romance is not dead
    If you keep it just yours
    Levitate above all the messes made
    Sit quiet by my side in the shade
    And not the kind that's thrown
    I mean the kind under where a tree has grown

    That's a first draft and you can't convince me otherwise.

    Quote

    If I was some paint, did it splatter
    On a promising grown man?

    What?

    On vocals... 100% yes. She has definitely improved over the years but there were lots of songs on Lover and Midnights that would be improved by covers. And again, from a producing standpoint, someone needs to tell her to ditch the breathy whisper and actually push herself to sing. I can't believe some of those vocals were the final tracks and everyone was just fine with it. Mastermind, The Great War, Labyrinth, Bigger Than the Whole Sky, Would've, Could've, Should've... I KNOW she can sing better than that. She wrote some pop songs for Mastermind but they needed to be punched up by someone who can sing. 

    As I said in April, I'd happily listen to good covers of Anti-Hero, Karma, Bejeweled, Mastermind, The Great War, Paris, High Infidelity, Would've Could've Should've, and Dear Reader. Recommendations welcome.

    The Taylor Swift Topic: Teen Country Sensation to World-Dominating Pop Star

    in Music

    @truthaboutluv Thanks for saying this. I don't have the energy to talk about it anymore.

    Quote

    The last two weeks have seen a slew of POC Swifties calling her out and many white Swifties, in solidarity with the POC fans, calling her out. Many are realizing what frankly I could have told them a long time ago, that much of her activisim is performative, and that she only truly cares about issues when it one, personally affects her or two, impacts her bottom line. 

    I mean, I knew. Part of the reason I like "The Man" is because it's a perfect explanation of white feminism. But he's more than a "bad boy." Choosing to date someone this extreme makes me think she's actively (not casually, obliviously, or otherwise passively) racist and that's been harder to come to terms with. I have a cynical view of most people in entertainment and their performative statements but excusing shallowness is different from excusing actual malice and harm.

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