Tag Archives: Theatre

HAMLET (1996) is the Kenneth Branagh version that adapts the entire play, so it includes scenes I’ve never seen before, such as Polonius’ instruction to Reynaldo (Gerard Depardieu) about snooping around to find out what Laertes is really doing in Paris. This boasts an impressive cast, including Julie Christie as Gertrude, Derek Jacobi as a half-tormented Claudius (he feels guilty, but not so much he won’t kill Hamlet to keep the throne), Robin Williams as the doomed Osric (I don’t think using him adds much though), Billy Crystal as the First Gravedigger, Timothy Small as Rosencrantz, Charlton Heston as the Player King (Judi Densch and John Gielgud play Hecuba and Priam) and Kate Winslett as Ophelia (this is the first film that makes it explicit she and Hamlet have been getting horizontal). Branagh himself plays what’s almost a stereotype of Hamlet, brooding and angsty and philosophical (I prefer both Kevin Kline and Mel Gibson). I don’t know if it was Branagh’s performance or Christie’s but I really got fed up with him whining — yes, it’s hair-curling that mom remarried so fast, but it’s not all about you, dude. Overall, though, this was not only interesting but enjoyable, though not the best adaptation I’ve seen.  “Would I have met my dearest foe in Heaven before I see that day.”

I never cared for the 1980s He-Man or She-Ra but knowing Noelle Stephenson of Nimona was working on Netflix’s SHE-RA AND THE PRINCESSES OF POWER got me interested. And the interest paid off.

As the story starts, Adora and her BFF Katra are warriors in the Horde, dedicated to freeing the world  of Etheria from the magic of the evil princesses who rule it. When Adora acquires a magic sword, she transforms into She-Ra, a princess in her own right, and soon discovers the Good and Evil in this battle are not where she thought they were. Can she and her new friends Bow and Glimmer unite the various princesses and fight off the Horde?

The characters are the show’s strength although not the only strength. Adora has a lot of trouble adjusting to a life away from the tightly regimented horde and keeps hoping Katra will join her on the light side. Katra is initially furious that Adora abandoned her, but before long all her resentment at being second best boils to the surface; Adora’s defection is Katra’s chance to claw her way to the top of the Horde and she won’t pass it up. And if her duties require killing her former friend well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs, right? I look forward to S2 (starting later this month). “I’m surprised — isn’t punching the one thing you’re supposed to be good at?”

Our last show in Playmaker’s 2018-19 season (there’s one more but we have a schedule conflict) is HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, in which a woman recovering some property from a storage warehouse starts flashing back to how  her uncle taught her to drive … and felt her up … and got her drunk and made out with her … and offered to photograph her for Playboy … Given this came out in 1997 and the subject matter is much more familiar now, I’m impressed how much of a punch it packed. “Ever since then, I have not lived in my body below my neck.”

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The original BEDAZZLED (1967) stars Dudley Moore as a short-order cook desperately in love with waitress Eleanor Bron to the point he sells his soul to Satan (Peter Cook, Moore’s colleague in Beyond the Fringe) in return for seven wishes he can use to make her his. Moore’s Stanley makes a much better schlub than Brendan Fraser in the remake, and Peter Cook’s Satan is just awesome — no Miltonian grandeur here, as he himself admits his role in God’s design forces him to engage in petty, spiteful stunts, and he’s blithely willing to stab Stanley in the back. I also like that Bron is quite average-looking, which it makes it feel more like love than just looks. Then again, Stanley’s comfortable with having his dream girl mindwiped and personality changed with the multiple wishes, which is creepier than I found it first run; there’s also an amazingly gratuitous rape joke mid movie. I still like the film a lot, but YMMV. “What rotten sins I’ve got working for me — I suppose it’s the wages.”

Reading David Cannadine’s Ornamentalism prompted me to watch ISLAND IN THE SUN (1957) in which the island colony’s British administrators and white planter ruling class struggle to adapt to a black majority that wants a seat at the table (it’s interesting that even with the Empire in decline, the issue is representation in the island parliament rather than independence). The politics, however, takes a back seat to the colorful Caribbean settings and the soap opera plots, most of which involve race mingling: Can salesclerk Dorothy Dandridge and a white author forge a lasting love? Will black activist Harry Belafonte succumb to wealthy Joan Fontaine? Can planter’s kids Joan Collins and James Mason deal with learning they’re Tragic Mulattoes? I have an odd fondness for this kind of 1950s soaper, but I wouldn’t say it was any good — and I could have done without Mason’s casual spousal rape (which is promptly forgotten about as it’s no big deal). Michael Rennie plays a womanizing veteran. “Have you ever heard of a book called Crime and Punishment?”

I didn’t realize MANIFEST wrapped up its season with sixteen episodes or I’d have reviewed it sooner. The premise is that Flight 828 disappeared five years ago, then miraculously showed up, with no awareness of the time gap. What happened? What are the mysterious “callings” guiding them to help others? Can they pick up their lives when everyone they knew has moved on? And what is the government’s interest in 828?

This works best dealing with the personal drama (the cast is good) and the mystery, less well on the government conspiracy and not at all on the crazy “Xers” who want to kill them all as muties or witches or something. While the payoff may not be worth it, I do hope the show returns. “Right, why wouldn’t I look for them using a crayon drawing?”

Playmakers Theatre did a spectacular job staging Bertold Brecht’s LIFE OF GALILEO and the cast was certainly solid. Unfortunately the play has nothing to say about freedom of thought or Religion vs. Reason that I haven’t heard a hundred times before, and I know how Galileo’s struggle with the church turns out so this really did nothing for us. “To hell with the pearl — I want a healthy oyster!”

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This month’s production from Playmakers Repertory Company was the premiere of JUMP, a drama in which two sisters and their father gather to dispose of mom’s things after her death from cancer, and knit together their frayed relationship. Only one of the sisters keeps going up to the nearby bridge and thinking what it would feel like to jump … This didn’t quite work for me, mostly because the big twist was quite obvious (though I didn’t get the details exactly right). Well executed, though, and a good looking set. “This is a strange place to vape.

JINDABYNE (2006) is an Aussie film based on one of the Raymnond Carver short stories adapted into Short Cuts, wherein Gabriel Byrne goes on a fishing trip with his buddies, only to discover an Aboriginal woman floating dead in the water. They do not, however, think that’s a reason to cut short the trip, which completely freaks out Byrne’s wife Laura Linney when she learns about it. This was better than Short Cuts but multiple distractions during the morning worked against me really getting into it (one break from the screen turned into several short breaks). It would double-bill well with River’s Edge in which a group of callous teens similarly discover a corpse. “So who appointed you the chief of political correctness?”

I was never a fan of the 1980s series HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN, in which Michael Landon played Jonathan, an angel earning his wings alongside mortal sidekick Mark (Victor French). Its particular style of heartwarming wasn’t to my taste, though I can see why some people found it satisfying comfort food; comforting enough it ran five seasons, second only to Touched by an Angel as far as angelic TV series go. I watched the sixth season episode Reunion though because a local friend, Hope Alexander Willis, has a supporting role as the wife of a PR guy. I’m not sure I’d have recognized Hope’s face, but I definitely tell it’s the same voice. The story itself involves Jonathan working to bring off Mark’s high school reunion, thereby helping leading man Lloyd Bochner accept he’s aged into character acting and recapture a lost love. However because that’s one of several happy endings at the reunion, I found this less focused than the few episodes I’ve watched before. “It just shows how things we think are unimportant at the time can matter the world to someone.”

THE YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968) was one of LeAnn’s Christmas gifts to me, wherein the malevolent Blue Meanies invade the utopian musical undersea realm of Pepperland with an army of apple bonkers, snapping-turtle Turks, killer clowns and the deadly flying glove. One man escapes in the eponymous vessel that brought the founders to Pepperland. Flying it to Liverpool, he finds a brooding Ringo (“Next to me, Eleanor Rigby lived a gay, mad life.”) and enlists the Beatles to liberate Pepperland. But can they survive their travels through the Sea of Time, the Sea of Holes and the foothills of the Headlands?

This film reminds me a lot of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away in that the designers just don’t seem to quit, constantly throwing in little visual details and touches to scenes that are already stunning. Delightful to look at, whimsical in story, it’s a thorough charmer. I’ve always been surprised the Beatles’ didn’t speak their parts (they sing, of course), as bringing them together in the studio proved impossible (on the commentary track, one of the production team says they stumbled across the voice for George one night in a bar). Definitely worth seeing, if you haven’t already. “Would you believe me if I told you I was being followed by a yellow submarine?”

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