We Be Cultured

Starting with a poor decision to see a truly awful musical called Bark! (which is in the spirit of cats where all the actors are dogs at a local pound) right after we moved into the city Christy and I have struck out more times than not whenever we have attempted to delve into the realm of Chicago Theatre. All you really need to know about the play Bark! is that it ends with the line (shouted by all the characters) "Come on you pussies, bark!" On the heels of that debachle, we saw Wicked a month later and despised that as well. All you really need to know about that play is that it says "how about we take the Wicked Witch and model her after the ugly duckling, take the Good Witch and model her after Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde, and take the Professor and model him after Hitler." We did finally break the trend when we saw "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" this past summer, but even that wasn't without incident since Kathleen Turner was sick and missed the performance. On Friday, Christy and I once again decided to try our luck with Chicago Theatre by going to see a play called Passion (no relation to the Mel Gibson movie) at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre at Navy Pier. The result was, well, better than Bark! and Wicked but not much else. To summarize, it's a musical drama set in the early 1900s about a love triangle between a married woman, a young soldier, and the sickly cousin of his commanding officer. It was pretty well written and all the performances were solid, but the music just really detracted from the whole thing. I have no bias against musicals, but in this case there were absolutely no memorable songs or even clear melodies most of the time. Basically most scenes boil down to some good dramatic dialog that builds to a crescendo and then the singing begins and rather than elevate the level of emotion and drama it ends up completely deflating it. Had they just spoken the exact same lines instead of singing them, the result would have been a far superior product. It's a shame, too, because every other piece of this play works (acting, writing, direction, pacing) but ultimately it's a case of trying to fit a round peg into a square hole that derails it. So far, the common thread that has run through two of our poor selections is Ana Gastemeyer (the SNL alum who starred in both Wicked and Passion). Sorry Ana, but I think we're done with you for a while.

We did fare better last night when we went to see the premier of Slipstream, a new film starring Anthony Hopkins that was playing as part of the Chicago Film Festival at the Music Box Theatre. In addition to starring in it, he also wrote, directed, and scored it. He was also present to introduce the film as well. About all I can say about him is that he seemed like a nice guy, since he didn't say much other than thank a bunch of people and hoped that we enjoyed it. There's really no good way that I can describe the film to you, since it's one of those "warped reality" type of films. The closest I can come is to say that it's about a writer who is losing his mind and the characters he is writing about start appearing in his life and vice versa. In general, though, I'd say that if you are a fan of David Lynch then you will like this movie (which I am and did). However, Christy is not a fan of Lynch but she still liked it. It's one of those films where although it is weird and certainly not everything ties together, you still do have the notion that it is playing by a real set of rules (rather than just randomness) and that there is some sense amidst the disorder. With movies like this, since you don't have a linear, cohesive storyline it becomes essential that each individual scene is able to work and entertain on its own, and that's something that I think this film does exceptionally well (something I think can also be said for Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which is one of my favorite movies of all time). The movie aside, I'd just like to say that everyone who hasn't yet needs to experience a film at the Music Box Theatre. It really is like going back in time to see a movie. The main theatre is a huge 400-500 person auditorium with extremely intricate designs and gold trim on the walls. A large red velvet curtain hangs over the screen before the show and music from an antique gold organ located just to the left of the screen provides the pre-show entertainment (even if you don't like organ music, you can't deny that it is light years better than the 15 minutes of advertising you're forced to sit through at AMCs now). Sure, there are drawbacks. There's no stadium seating and of course the old style seats lack modern amenities like cup holders and frankly aren't the most comfortable things in the world. But when you see a film there, you feel like you're connecting back with a time when it really was an event to go and see a movie, rather than just a way to kill 2 hours on a Saturday night when nothing else is going on.

I finally finished Fiasco and am still dilligently working on my Iraq War post. I hope to have something suitable for blogging by the end of the week. In the meantime, I am starting on Alan Greenspan's book this week and also am going to begin studying for the first part of the CPA exam. Lucky, lucky me. Finally, I got out and ran for the first time since the marathon yesterday. Only 3 miles, but it felt good to run and my knee held up pretty well.