This afternoon, I watched Patti LuPone give the performance of a lifetime as Mama Rose in Gypsy. She is absolutely amazing in this role. Mere words cannot describe the sheer power of this performance. Her singing is beautiful, her acting grand, but really what is so unique about her portrayal is how ugly her Mama Rose gets. I consider it an act of extreme courage for a woman of her age to stand on stage and make herself look grotesque. And I'm not just referring to how monstrous her character can be. In her "Rose's Turn," which is the single most jawdropping thing I have ever seen on stage, she rages. She hisses, she spits, she screams, she cries, she becomes a wild thing, a force of nature, completely out of control, practically tearing at her own skin, her face contorted in madness. The song has been called an emotional breakdown set to music. In the hands of LuPone, however, it is nearly a full psychotic break. And it works, brilliantly. It's as if all the anger and hatred bottled up inside her throughout the show literally explodes. And when the song is over, we the audience are incorporated into her fantasy, as she bows over and over, exulting in the adoration from the audience that, in the context of the story, only exist inside her own delusional mind. I left shaken, stunned, awestruck (I cannot imagine how she finds the energy in her to do this night after night).  And all the more so due to the fact that, in this production, the glimmer of hope that Rose and Louise may reconcile is completely shattered. The dialogue doesn't change. How it is presented does. Enormously.

Directed by Arthur Laurents, who wrote the script and is now in his 90s, and recreating the original choreography by Jerome Robbins, this production is the definitive Gypsy, and all the more so because it is darker than it ever was before, and for a show called the first musical psychodrama, that is saying something. So, yes, in this production, the tragedy of the ending is not diluted by the final scene with Rose and Louise but strengthened all the more thanks to some brilliant undercutting, acting and directing-wise. In this production, the set pieces from the vaudeville shows look seedy and cheap, falling apart at the seams (the proscenium itself is crumbling, and missing pieces). In this production, June is a bitch. In this production, the strippers in the second act aren't just mature but actually old. Wrinkly and nearly naked, for all the world to see (another act of courage on the part of female performers in this production). Electra, for example, is so arthritic and tired, she can barely move.

Gypsy, in many ways, is the last great classic Broadway musical, as well as the first of the deconstructionist musicals.  If you heard any of the songs out of context--"Some People," "Everything's Coming Up Roses," "Let Me Entertain You,"  etc.--you might think it's a typical corny show from the late 50s/early 60s. When you hear the score in the context of the show, however, you realize how dark and twisted it is. For example, "Everything's Coming Up Roses," sounds like a cheery, optimistic song. Unless you realize that it's actually the nearly insane call to arms of a completely self-deluded, monstrous mother manipulating her daughter into doing something she doesn't want to do, trapping her.  The entire score of Gypsy has a similarly off-kilter manner. There is a deliberate dissonance between lyrics, words, and music, the optimism of the old musicals acting as a metaphor for Rose's unattainable dreams, contrasted with the dark truth. This sumptuous production, in playing up this darkness, works nearly perfectly.

Besides the truly ingenious performance by Patti LuPone, Laura Benanti as Louise is also stunning. And her transformation from plain jane to Gypsy Rose Lee is striking and remarkable.

This is a theatre experience I will never forget. Ethel Merman who?

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Futurama-Beast-With-A-Billion-Backs/9081

Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs. June 24th!!

And extras:

• Commentary Track
• Extra Episode from an XBox game
• Commentary Track for the XBox game's episode
• Animatic for Beast with a Billion Backs
• Deleted Scenes / Storyboards
• Blooper Reel / Record Sessions
• 3D Models / 3D Turnarounds - With Audio Description
• Celebrity Featurette: David Cross
• Bender or Cast Reads Credits
• Bender sings his version of the Futurama Song (which consists solely of "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass" or "Bender is Great!")
• New Character / Design Sketches

Speaking of which, we've been slowly rewatching Futurama, and I forgot to mention this, but for the first time I noticed while watching the pilot that right before Fry falls into the cryogenic chamber, you can notice a Nibbler-shaped shadow under the desk! How's THAT for continuity?!?

Even with the bad musicals, my job rocks muchly.

Not only am I getting two free tickets to a press performance of the new Broadway musical, Passing Strange this Saturday night, but I just got to meet one of my favorite actresses on the entire planet, Kristen Johnston. You may know her as Sally from Third Rock from the Sun, Ivana Humpalot from Austin Powers, or as the former 80s party girl who fell out of a window in that episode of Sex and the City. She's also a phenomenal stage actress (I saw her do Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth at Shakespeare in the Park years back, and she was absolutely brilliant) and part of Atlantic's regular company. She's doing a reading at the office today, and I got to print out a copy of a script and hand it to her. I am so in awe of her, it was kind of amazing. I've met celebrities before working here, but usually in a stage door kind of situation. Just casually handing something to a celebrity in the office where I work is kind of amazing to me, still. Okay, off to squee to myself some more...

Ok, this is probably old news to everybody, but I never read The Corrections or paid much attention to The Big O's Book Club controversy regarding him...With that said, I just read his introduction to his translation of Frank Wedekind's original German script of Spring Awakening...and is it just me, or is Jonathan Franzen a total dick?

Spring Awakening won the 2008 Grammy for Best Musical Show Album!!! My show and theatre company rock so very, very much.

I don't like Barack Obama, because I believe he is a dangerous person with fantastic speech writers. I believe from the bottom of my heart that as eloquent and poetic as his speeches are, they are empty and meaningless. His slogan, for example, "Yes We Can." Um, yes we can what? My high school's slogan was "Believe You Can Achieve." Which I don't see as having any more meaning.

One of Barack Obama's closest friends is his minister, Jeffrey Wright. Not only has Wright, according to Obama himself, guided him throughout the years, through religion, through marriage (he even named his book after a line of Wright's), he is the one who advised him to run for the White House. Wright also last month held a ceremony honoring the memory of Louis Farrakhan. Yes, Louis "whites are blue-eyed devils and Jews are bloodsuckers" Farrakhan. One of Obama's closest friends, the man he sees as his spiritual leader, granted a posthumous lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan. I'm sorry, but you do not give a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan if you yourself do not share his racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, fill-in-the-blanks beliefs. And this person is Obama's mentor. The man who helped him find religion. Obama is trying to distance himself from him now, of course. I wonder why. Perhaps because it wouldn't play well with all of the young liberal people whose votes he's trying to get.

There are other lovely stories of Obama. Here's a nice one about him refusing to have his picture taken with the mayor of San Francisco because he had legalized gay marriage there. Oh, and of course there was the story a few months back of Obama accepting spiritual help from Kirbyjon Caldwell, a lovely man who runs an ex-gay ministry.

If there were a gun to my head, if I were offered millions of dollars, I would not vote for this man.

And I honestly fear not only for our country, but for my people (both gays and Jews) and Israel in particular, if he's elected.

~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, queer youth for Hillary...


Hillary & LGBT Youth from HillRazer on Vimeo.

I really couldn't care less about Heroes, but I caught this interview with DefinitelyNotGayZach in TVGuide today, and...

TVGuide.com: Sounds like it wasn't a difficult decision to leave Heroes to take the role on Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Dekker: It wasn't at all. I was only supposed to be on Heroes for the first episode, and I never had a contract. Every episode I had after that... was a surprise. So I was auditioning the whole time I was on the show and I auditioned for [Terminator]. When I got it, I wanted it so badly. Of course, they weren't very happy when I got it. I had a three-hour phone call with Tim Kring sort of asking me not to go. But I respect so much the writers and the producers of [Terminator] and I feel a bond with [them]. I never felt a bond with a single person on Heroes and that's very important to me if you're going to be creating something.

So he is still a total douchebag. Good to know.

And in this week's edition of "Matthew Fox Pronounces the Word 'Flashback' Strangely"...
http://www.ew.com/ew/video/exclusives?lineupId=1155151521&videoId=1361335237

Bender's Big Score was absolutely fantastic--crammed to the gills with continuity goodness, dead-on satire, more gags than you can shake a stick at, and in the end, packed an unexpected emotional wallop like all of the best episodes of Futurama. The film also highlights what has always been what, to my mind, makes it superior to The Simpsons. Like The Simpsons, you can't tell, from the first moments of any given episode, where the hell the plot is going to go. Unlike The Simpsons, however, it isn't twisty just for the sake of being twisty. By the end of the film, every thread circles round in completely unexpected ways, and things that seemed like they might have been leading nowhere, just for the sake of a laugh, end up being crucial to the story. The Simpsons has always had moments of sweetness, but Futurama has even greater emotional depth. Bender's Big Score requires an intimate knowledge of the series to fully appreciate. Like any Futurama episode, you probably could just walk in and watch it, for the first time, but you would miss a great deal, because it was really made for the fans. It has a continuity, mythology, and backstory every bit as complicated as a Whedon show. Sure, some of it manifests as fun little jokes. But the rest comprises the story's heart. The revelation near the film's end is jaw-dropping, but also makes perfect sense. Every piece falls into place, and you leave not only heart-warmed and shaking with laughter, but satisfied at the completion of a story well-told. And also impressed that the title doesn't make full sense until the last moment.

Speaking of which, I'm ready for the next installment now, please!

1) Hairspray--Not only the most purely joyful, fun film of the year but also the most emotionally satisfying. Yes, it's a sunny and campy retro-musical, but unlike some other sunny, campy retro-musicals like Grease, it deals with some deep issues, none of which feel either shortchanged or minimized by the film's overall tone. The most surprisingly successful element is John Travolta's performance as Edna Turnblad. He humanizes the character in a way that the original, Divine, and the Broadway incarnations (Harvey Fierstein and Bruce Vilanch, both of whom I've seen do the role) did not even come close to accomplishing.

2) Across the Universe--A daring, visionary, flawed masterpiece, Julie Taymor's Beatles rock opera is something of a mess, narrative-wise, but is filled with more mad brilliance than you usually get in five or six "perfect" films. The staging of most of these songs are indescribably beautiful, and original to the point that she has forever altered my perceptions of the music, in the best way possible.

3) Zodiac--A supremely unsettling and supremely well-crafted three hour epic true-crime murder mystery, made all the more disturbing due to its lack of resolution. Director David Fincher restrains his more shockingly violent tendencies (ironic for a film about the Zodiac killer but crucial in keeping it from being exploitative or seeming to glorify the killer or his brutal killings), and in so doing molds a fascinating study of obsession that still manages to be full of moments that could not have been the work of any other director.

4) Enchanted--This one came as a complete surprise to me. Disney's satire of its own animated fairy tale formula is not only utterly charming--it's the third best musical of the year. If this didn't happen to be a very good year for musicals, overall, (besides Sweeney Todd...Pfft! A filthy film! We will speak of it no more!) it would have been #1. It has immense wit but beyond that, an enormous heart. Amy Adams is an utter delight, Susan Sarandon is a scream, and the film's depiction of New York City today is actually remarkably accurate. It was a particular thrill to see fairy tale scenes play out in places I visit every day.

5) Spider-Man 3--Too many plotlines? Bah! Shakespeare mined thematic depth through a vast, intertwining multiplicity of plots, and while I wouldn't go so far as to actually rank this film on the same level as Shakespeare, Peter Parker has been called the Hamlet of comic book superheroes, and the Spider-Man film series is, in my humble opinion, the best superhero film trilogy ever made. While there are a few more holes here than in the first two films, all of the character arcs from the first two are beautifully handled here and given a great emotional pay-off. Rather than complain about a bit of sloppiness, I'd like to commend the film for juggling so many different elements while never losing sight of its characters or purpose.

6) The Bourne Ultimatum--Another third chapter that seals its series as one of the great film trilogies, the third Bourne film is even more impressive, structurally, in that it occurs concurrently with the second chapter. The film greatly rewards rewatching the entire series, in how each thread from earlier on resolves itself. The way the entire series comes full circle by the end is stunning, as are the answers Jason Bourne finally gets. I'm being deliberately vague here, because I don't want to give anything away. I'll just sum up...Direction: Stunning. Plotting: Stunning. Matt Damon: Stunning.

7) Knocked Up--A truly great film comedy, something that seems relatively rare lately. Lots of so-called comedies are pumped out by Hollywood every year, but few are good enough to rank as instant classics. Knocked Up does, due to a mixture of its incredibly real characters ("real" real, not Hollywood real) and a seemingly endless treasure trove of dead-on pop culture-infused one-liners. "Do you know what's interesting about Matthew Fox? [pause] NOTHING!" Amen. The leads, Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen, are wonderful, but as Heigl's sister and brother-in-law, Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd steal the show.

8) Grindhouse--A flashy and trashy epic homage to flashy and trashy films, it's a shame that after its short US release, they broke up the two films in theatres in the UK and released them separately on DVD. Watching the whole 3 hour + experience, along with fake horror movie trailers linking the two, was quite an experience. Robert Rodriguez's film was campier and gorier. Tarrantino's was smarter and more genuinely suspenseful. But both were enormously entertaining. They were both meticulously crafted recreations/satires of trashy 70s cinema, commentaries on trashy 70s cinema, and the best trashy 70s cinema ever.

9) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--Stylistically, this film was perfect. It captured the ominous tone of Rowling's book beautifully, and I was truly struck by how dark the filmmakers were willing to go, both tonally and visually, with most of the film shot in a gray, washed-out palette. There was an air of verisimilitude throughout, of the real and magical worlds encroaching upon one another. The Dementor attack at the start, for example, was all the scarier due to the fact that it occurred in a grungy tunnel. And Imelda Staunton was brilliant as Delores Umbridge. The main problem here, and the reason it's lower on my list, is that the book was chopped to bits here, to the point that crucial things were left out or reapportioned, creating plot holes and a choppy flow.

10) The Simpsons Movie--If I had more money and time this year to have seen more films, this might not have made my list. But nevertheless, the film reinvigorated The Simpsons in a manner unseen in years on television. It had everything one would want in a Simpsons film, which doesn't excuse the series itself from continuing to rapidly decline. But, as I said when I saw it, the series should be canceled now and the writers should just focus on putting out some film sequels every few years. Because this film contains all the original heart of the series and has some brilliant gags, including some wonderful meta-we're-on-a-movie-screen now ones. Of course, those don't play as well now on DVD, since the family is once again confined to the TV screen. Oh, well.

Scanning rottentomatoes.com, I am very pleased with the critical response to Enchanted. 93% freshness rating! Huzzah!

Excellent, insightful review from PopMatters:

"...[I]magine if, for once, Disney had a sense of humor about it[self]...Instead of lording over its legacy like a deranged demagogue, it could use the effort as a knowing nod and wink to all the critics and complainers who’ve labeled the studio out of touch, both in its aging artistry and its lack of contemporary commercial appeal. Handled properly, you’d be looking at a monster hit – and a celebrated return to form. Well, get ready audiences, because Uncle Walt’s wise men have indeed devised such a stunner – and it’s called Enchanted...

"Enchanted is a sugar spun delight. It’s as fluffy as a bunch of newborn bunnies and as cute as an entire collection of buttons...As an entertainment, it’s beyond chipper. As acknowledgement of the standard fairytale formulas, it’s wonderfully wise. Not really a parody in the traditional sense, Enchanted earns a lot of its wit from shamelessly embracing the archetypes that many feel have deadened hand drawn animation in the last three decades. Toss in a classic score by long time Disney hit maker Alan Menken (working again with lyrical collaborator Stephen Schwartz) and a flawless meshing of animation with actuality, and you’ve got something that stands as a post-modern Mickey-made classic...

"In a legacy that once saw the studio dominate both the live action and hand drawn cinematic realm, Enchanted is a real renaissance..."

Journeyman is still fantastically brilliant. There has been more character depth and growth in the first two episodes than some series have in full seasons. Or in the span of their entire runs. Meanwhile, the time traveling mysery is extremely intriguing, as are all of the as-of-yet unanswered questions as to how the characters got from where they were eight years ago to where they are today.

Chuck is maintaining its extremely fun, funny and zippy premise charmingly with some unexpected turns. So far, not just a one-episode wonder. I have more hope for it maintaining in the long term.

Tangentially, Heroes, I've finally given up on all together. I just don't care. Sorry, fans. Don't hate me. But I have little enough time for TV as it is, without spending time watching a show which, again, I just don't care about. And find poorly written, acted, and directed, to boot.

If you haven't watched Journeyman, PLEASE START!

I am so in love with this show.

This is it. The best pilot (so far) of the new fall season.

crossoverman told me to watch it, and since I completely agree with him on every point in his review, I'll just point you to it...here.

In short: If you loved The Time Traveler's Wife, this is the perfect show for you. I think the last time I've instantly cared so much about the main characters of a TV show, while watching the pilot, was Six Feet Under. I get the same sense of watching fully formed, complex characters, who have lives and histories long before this particular story began. This is a beautiful, beautiful show. I'm already kind of in love, which means it's probably getting canceled.

The only upcoming show that might challenge Journeyman's spot on my list is Bryan Fuller's Pushing Daisies. Guess we'll see next Wednesday...

Mark your calendars, theatre dorks.

Saturday, September 29th, 1 PM (eastern time).

MTV is airing a filming of Legally Blonde: The Musical IN ITS ENTIRETY. This will be the first time that a full-length Broadway production has been broadcast on television during the show's run. It will be interesting to see what kind of impact it will have on the box office. Fingers crossed that it's very successful and inspires other shows to follow suit.

You may recall that when I saw the show a few months back, I was quite pleasantly surprised by how good it was, so yeah, it's definitely worth your time. And even if you don't like it, you basically have a front-row seat to a Broadway show, in your own home, for free(ish).

So... Today.

WHOA.