Well, dear readers, we’ve now had our second preview. Better show than the first, but a very unresponsive audience in terms of laughs. The laughs in our little show are fairly surefire and have landed with every audience, no matter how tiny or large, but tonight we had some truly weird older types in attendance and it was almost as if they were willfully not laughing. Funnily, they did enjoy the show and the applause was very healthy throughout. Both Kay and I are beginning to see stuff we need to look at, and the artistic director of the theater has been getting comments and passing them along. Interestingly, a few of those comments, if addressed, will put back things the way I’d originally envisioned them. I’m always willing to try things for people, but in the end, what works works. But all the comments are worth pondering and ponder I do. So, we now have a week off, and when we come back a week from tomorrow we will be doing some restaging on the opening number and putting it back the way it wuz originally in terms of how the show began – I added something at the top at someone’s request, but felt it really didn’t get our show off on the right foot for several reasons. Once that’s done, then we’re going to rethink the staging of the opening – making it simpler so you can really focus on the lyrics and the people singing them. Kay and I will be meeting tomorrow to discuss that and other things. Then I’m going to simplify the movement on Sami Staitman’s first solo – it’s cute, but she’s not entirely comfortable doing it, and movement never looks right if it’s not a good fit with the person doing it – so about fifty-percent of the moves are coming out and that will really help her, I think.
From the first, I’ve always envisioned this show in two halves with an intermission – and that’s the way I built it. But I knew that a one-act version was kind of preferred by the theater and so I reconfigured it for that, especially as it’s really a fairly short show. But several comments have come back that people thought a break would be nice and I agree, even though each half will only be thirty-five minutes. But when you’re doing close to twenty-seven or eight songs that’s a lot to listen to at one sitting. And I built it so we have a really good act closer and a great act opener. We’ll try it at the first of our next two previews and see how it feels. I’m also removing several blackouts, because too many seem to just disconnect things rather than help. So, I’m making lit transitions between songs, where the lights will just subtly shift to the new number, and I think that will help us have better cohesion. When we try the two-act version, one of Jane’s solos will go back into the first half, where it was originally, and that placement was much better for that particular song. So, we continue finding the show, which is fun and challenging. I think if we can just smooth out all of the above we’ll be close to what we want for this incarnation of the show.
After the show, I stopped for some food, as I hadn’t eaten at all prior to the show. I had a chili, cheese and onion omelet and an English muffin, all yummilicious. Then I came home. Prior to all of that, I’d slept really late, until eleven-thirty, which I desperately needed to do – nine-and-a-half hours of blessed sleep. I got up, answered e-mails, did my morning ablutions, and then finished watching Blue Jasmine. As mentioned yesterday, I’d watched the first twenty-five minutes or so and wasn’t liking it all that much, but in the end I did end up liking it more. It takes a while to get going, but Cate Blanchett is very good in it and it moves right along. The dialogue is typical Woody, especially at the beginning – people talking in ways that no people outside of a Woody Allen movie would ever talk. I wouldn’t rank it as highly as most of the critics have, but I would put it in the second tier of Woody films, and it’s much better than the last one and several others of recent vintage. Woody is back to his yellow phase – there is almost no blue to the image, which is not my favorite color palette.
I also checked out a bit of a new Eyetalian Blu and Ray of Orson Welles’s Mr. Arkadin. The version on this particular Blu-ray is, in fact, the ninety-eight minute retitled Confidential Report. The Criterion DVD presented three different versions of the film, but I never had the time or the patience to even choose WHICH of the three versions to watch. I’ve read comments by the usual experts how it doesn’t look that good, but neither did the Criterion, when I checked a couple of the versions. Several said they’d wait for Criterion to do it, but that might be a long wait and it might not result in anything better. As to THIS transfer, it’s much better than the reports led me to believe – it has some really nice contrast, is very sharp occasionally (some shots aren’t – naturally the opticals, but even some other short shots – I’ll check the Criterion of this version to see if that’s the same thing there), and has decent sound. So, I’m not at all unhappy with it, and I’ll watch the remaining seventy minutes tonight.
Today, I shall be up by ten at the very latest, I’ll try to jog, I’ll pay some Kritzerland bills, I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll finish liner notes set three, and we’ll have our second Kritzerland rehearsal, after which I’ll get a bite to eat.
Tomorrow and the rest of the week is more liner notes, as much relaxation as possible, a meeting with Kay Cole, a few other meetings, and, of course, Thanksgiving.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, try to jog, write, have a rehearsal, hopefully pick up packages, eat and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite films of Woody Allen? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I’ll arise and continue finding the show.