Well, dear readers, there will not be any time this week for me to stop and smell the roses or the coffee or the refried beans. Yes, Virginia, there will not be any time this week to smell anything but the aroma of work, work, work (that is three works). Therefore, I’ve decided that today’s notes will be in a new haineshisway.com process – SMELL-O-NOTES. I have often thought that the notes smelled and now, today, through the wonder of SMELL-O-NOTES, they do. You will be able to smell the odor of the notes whilst sitting in front of your very own computer. We’re very excited about SMELL-O-NOTES and we hope you are, too. Where was I? Oh, yes, The Week and How Busy It Is. How busy IS it? Busy, baby, busy. Speaking of busy, yesterday was a very nice day. I got up, then went to a rehearsal with Miss Joan Ryan. We ran the entire show and I’m happy to say that it’s running exactly the amount of time I wanted it to run, so that part is good. Watching it all together was fun – when she’s on and doing it with commitment, it’s great, and when she’s fumfering or overselling it’s not. So, this week we work to abolish that latter and accentuate the former. She just tends to fall back on old habits that she thinks have worked for her, and this is not that act and I’ve told her she cannot attack numbers ever in this act. But, as I’ve said, the structure is really sound, the laughs are really funny, and there’s a lot of endearing and even touching stuff. After the rehearsal, I got a few slices of pizza for lunch. SMELL-O-NOTES: THE SMELL OF YUMMILICIOUS PIZZA. Doesn’t that work great? I can smell it as I’m typing. After lunch, I wrote an important letter and e-mailed it and then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish. SMELL-O-NOTES: THE SMELL OF FISH. Amazing, isn’t it?
Yesterday, I watched two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled Seven Thieves, a film of Henry Hathaway, starring Mr. Edward G. Robinson, Miss Joan Collins, Mr. Michael Dante, Mr. Rod Steiger, and a lot of other folks. It’s a caper/heist film, and for most of its running time it’s a taut little picture with good performances (except Miss Collins, who just rubs me the wrong way – of course, if she rubbed me the right way we’d probably be dating). But the film’s final twenty minutes are just terrible and really kill everything that’s gone before. The transfer is impeccable, beautiful black-and-white scope. I then watched the second motion picture on DVD, which was entitled Three Men And A Baby. No, not the American film, but the original French film. It’s quite a funny and charming film and I actually think it would be better thought of had the director not been one of these dopey people who think their films don’t need a proper score. A great score by someone like Philippe Sarde, would have taken the film to a whole other place, and it wouldn’t seem quite as long as it does. But instead we get a film with two short pieces of classical music (for no reason), and nothing else. It’s really harmful and a shame. Otherwise, it has delightfully delightful scenes and the cast is terrific as are the various babies used. Transfer is okay (it’s a region 2 DVD).
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I’ve got a long day ahead of me and I must brush my teeth and get my beauty sleep. SMELL-O-NOTES: The smell of toothpaste. I gotta tell you, it will only be moments until another website rips off our exciting new process.
Today, I must ship out some packages, then do a bunch of work on Ye Olde Laptop, then rehearse with Joan Ryan, then have a meeting with an actor friend from The First Nudie Musical. I have to make telephonic calls aplenty, too.
Tomorrow and Wednesday, I’ll be supervising the Lynda Carter recording sessions. Interestingly, we’re recording at the very studio where we recorded the music for The First Nudie Musical thirty-two years ago. I’m hoping the sessions will be fun and fancy-free, but I’ve never met Miss Carter, so I don’t know if she’ll be comfortable with me or not. I hope so.
Not only do I have those sessions, but I also have evening rehearsals with Joan, too, so it’s going to be really insane for those two days. Then things calm down just a little, and I’ll have to book the first of the upcoming New York trips, this one to cast the show. I still need a place to stay for the big six-week trip, so please keep your eyes and ears open.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, now have a morning meeting (just booked), ship items, rehearse, then have a dinner meeting with an actor friend – SMELL-O-NOTES: THE SMELL OF DINNER. Today’s topic of discussion: For the last few months I’ve been following an alarming trend in the musical theater – that of fan-atics, show groupies, and performer groupies, leaping to their feet to give mid-show standing ovations. It’s happened recently in the Company revival, and it is currently happening in the Encores! Gypsy. And I think that it’s going to be happening more and more, just as standing ovations at the end of a show are now the rule and not the exception. I find mid-show standing ovations off-putting, disruptive to the piece being performed, and just part of this ever-growing mentality that theater is some sort of hooting and hollering concert rather than a show. What are your thoughts on this growing phenomenon? And on standing ovations in general? I’ve seen so many brilliant shows with great stars for the last forty-one years and up until the late 70s very few of them got standing ovations. It wasn’t automatic and, back then, it really was the exception rather than the rule. For example, I saw the original production of Hello, Dolly many times, both on Broadway and on tour and it never, not once, got a standing ovation, not with Channing, not with Ginger Rogers, not with Pearl Bailey. In the revival, of course, the title song got a standing ovation every night because Charles Lowe, then husband of Miss Channing, led it every night. Now, the worst pieces of crap get standing ovations. So, let us discuss the mid-show and end of show standing O. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and let’s have one final SMELL-O-NOTES: THE SMELL OF MY HEAD HITTING THE PILLOW.