Well, dear readers, if I mske typos you’ll havt o excuse them, because my eayes are so blurry right now I can’t see straight. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, cannot see straight or even crooked. That is because I finished the new James Lapine book about the making of Sunday in the Park with George and they type is simply too small for eyeballs such as mine. That was also a problem in both Sondheim lyric books – too hard to read that teeny tiny type. I enjoyed the book – anything about the creative process is always interesting even if one disagrees with how results are achieved. Funnily, all the things Lapine says he learned from directing Sunday and dealing with actors, things he now knows how to do, I’ve done from the very start at least in terms of dealing with actors. Unlike him, I WAS an actor. But I was never a difficult actor, I never got in my own way, I never had to make a lot of rehearsal room drama to make a performance, I never had to torture myself and have angst. Reading about Mr. Patinkin’s “process,” for me, was annoying. And while he says he’s gotten better about it with age, I heard all the stories about what he did when he was in The Wild Party, so maybe after THAT he’s gotten better with age. Sondheim comes off well in talking about the way in which he works – I’m not sure his methods would work for others or have worked for others, but it certainly works for him. The rest of the cast (the book is basically Lapine interviewing people) comes off well, too, and they’re very frank about the ups and downs of doing a show being completed while on its feet and being performed in front of audiences. And boy were they fortunate that there was no Internet back then. There are quite a few images of Sondheim’s lyric sheets, but you can’t actually read them, which is a shame. I suppose I could have whipped at the old magnifying glass, but I didn’t. The book is 258 pages about the show, and the rest of the page count is the script of the show. I was given my copy by Robert Yacko, which was very sweet of him. He got me one of the signed copies (signed by Lapine, that is) – as some of you may know, Robert did the first West Coast production of Sunday at the Long Beach Civic Light Opera, playing George. I believe that may have been the first regional production anywhere, and what a thrill it must have been to do it – Pam Myers played opposite him. That production basically recreated Lapine’s in just about every way. And whilst I’m blurry-eyed and typinc these here ntotes, I’m listening to Symphonic Sondheim by Don Sebesky. I really like this album, which, sadly, is undone by inept mastering at way too low a level. Actually, there’s no consistency to the audio levels – some tracks are okay, many aren’t. I’d love to get my hands on it, but that won’t be happening. I also watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Night Train to Munich, directed by Carol Reed and starring Rex Harrison and Margaret Lockwood, on Criterion. I couldn’t remember watching it, but as it went along I realized I had watched it, so I went back and looked at what I wrote about it – I didn’t really like it much, and that was how I felt watching it again. Criterion touts it as being some lost Hitchcockian gem, only it isn’t a gem. It’s a standard issue war thriller, written by the team that wrote Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, and it features the two characters who almost singlehandedly hurt that film – the two veddy English comic relief characters, who I find completely irritating. Nice transfer of a truly uninteresting and fairly mediocre movie. Carol Reed would go on to make many classics – this isn’t one of them. And now I’m listening to Here Comes the Showboat, a recording on Columbia dating back to 1932, with Victor Young conducting, and featuring Helen Morgan and Paul Robeson. I like it. It’s not the show and it only has eight tracks.
Yesterday was an okay day. I got seven hours of sleep, awoke, took a really quick shower, got dressed, answered e-mails, and then she of the Evil Eye arrived. I then moseyed on over to the Pearls for a breakfast. They’ve done a lot of work on their house, and it looks very nice. They had another friend there, too, a very nice chap. Breakfast consisted of a little cup of peaches and whipped cream, scrambled eggs, bacon, and a big ol’ pancake with blueberries – it was like a pie and we each had a slice. It was all very good, as was the conversation. I was there for about two hours. They have a cat, but I’d taken my Claritin-D and was fine.
After that, I came home. I ascertained there was nothing to pick up at the mail place, so I went back to reading the book, which I did for about two-and-a-half hours, which is all I could do at one time. Then I relaxed and listened to some music. Then much later, I got In-N-Out for my early evening food – just the usual cheeseburger and fries – very good. I still had some red licorice, so that was my sweet treat. Then I watched the movie, after which I went back to the book, and I read until I finished it.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven and then I have a one o’clock rehearsal with the singer and it’s a bit of a drive. We’re scheduled for three hours but I suspect we won’t need that much time. So, I won’t be able to eat until around four-thirty or five IF we use all three hours. Then I can just watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I’m sleeping in and then having a ME holiday day and I don’t care who knows it. Tuesday is our first Kritzerland rehearsal, Thursday is our second rehearsal, Saturday is our stumble-through, and Sunday we do our show. On the other days, I have to figure out our next two releases and get those in production.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, have a rehearsal, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topic and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall finally rest my weary and blurry eyes.