Well, dear readers, the Easter bunny has gone the way of the dodo bird until next year. The Easter Bunny and the Dodo Bird – Together Again – that’s the title of my next novel. In the meantime, I could recount the tantalizing tale of The Randy Vicar and the Easter Bunny but I shan’t because I have notes to write and I will damn well write them because I must. I must because to not write them will turn me into a frog-eating Armenian. I’m almost through watching a Blu and Ray of a Jonathan Dove opera or Pinocchio. It’s fun, much darker than most interpretations, but unlike the other stuff I’ve heard from him, lacks the kind of tunes you wish this might have. The music is fine and interesting and well-orchestrated, but Puccini it’s not. However, the production of Opera North is very inventive and clever, especially the costumes. It’s enjoyable. Act one’s a bit long at seventy-five minutes, and I don’t know yet how long act two is, although I’m currently twenty minutes in. Unlike that terrible director who ruins all the ballet and opera videos and whose name I have wiped from my memory, this director does a pretty good job of always giving us the geography, not overcutting and being in the right place at the right time most of the time.
I ate some of the frozen yogurt leftover from the other night – just a bit but I’m already regretting doing so. I had a nice telephonic conversation with Karim Hazime who plays Sami’s BFF in Sami, whose name in the show happens to be Sammy. We talked about promotion and he’s now on the same page we all have to be on, but I also told him how good he is in the show, which I know he was happy to hear. Aside from the trailer, no one in the cast has seen anything. And that will remain the case until the show premiers.
Yesterday was interesting, although I don’t remember why. Actually, it wasn’t that interesting, now that I think about it. I was up at eleven after just under eight hours of sleep. I was dreaming that I got out of the car and my right leg calf cramped – that horrible, painful cramping where you think you’ll never walk again. And of course, I woke up and my calf was cramping, and the pain was excruciating. That used to happen with some frequency, but this is the first time in about three years. I got up, limped around, answered e-mails, shaved, had a telephonic conversation and then Doug Haverty picked me up in his motor car and he drove us over the hill to see a play entitled It’s Only a Play by Terrence McNally, a wonderful write whose play is nowhere near his best. It’s really a labored, inside joke about theater, the characters are paper thin “types” and while many of the catty inside lines are funny, there are an equal number that aren’t. The play was written in the 1980s and I don’t think it did well back then. In 2014, there was a starry revival on Broadway with update names and references, directed by Jack O’Brien, starring Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Megan Mullally, F. Murray Abraham, and Stockard Channing. There’s about eight minutes of a press reel on YouTube and from it you can glean that Lane is always great, Broderick is always slow and lugubrious with his “weird” voice, Mullally plays everything the same with her “weird” voice, which I don’t find funny at all. The bitchy one liners grow tiresome after a while, and the first act seems overly long. But the biggest problem with the play is that you don’t care a whit about a single character, so you just sit there and watch, laugh occasionally, and then it’s over. This production has a beautiful set and with intermission it was over by four-fifteen, so that was good.
Doug and I then moseyed on over to Genghis Cohen for a meal. None of the folks I know were there and who knows if they even work there anymore? We had the orange chicken, garlic chicken, crackerjack shrimp, string beans, and white rice and it was, as always, a great meal. Their prices have really gone up even since the last time I was there. Anyway, it’s always a treat to have a meal at Genghis Cohen. Doug drove me back home, I had the telephonic call with Karim, and then I waddled to the couch like so much steamed fish and began watching Pinocchio the opera.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven and it will be a stressful day unless some kind of miracle comes along by the end of the day. I’ll do whatever needs doing and then at three-thirty we have our first Kritzerland rehearsal, which will go until six-thirty and which I’m very much looking forward to. Then I’ll eat something, pray for a little miracle, and then either stand in front of a moving truck or watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is more of the same, some meetings and meals, a little work session with Marshall Harvey, then our second rehearsal on Thursday, our stumble-through on Saturday and then we do our sound check and show on Sunday. I’m sure some of us will go have a meal afterwards, and I will, of course, have a full report for you.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, pray for some kind of miracle to come along and save the damn day, have a rehearsal, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite plays and musicals written by Terrence McNally? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that the Easter bunny and the dodo bird will be together again.