Pageant of the Masters 2010

For several years we have attended this festival that is held every summer in Laguna Beach.  We’ve invited several different family members to introduce them to this art form.  It started back in the early 1900’s and has increased in attraction world-wide and the sophistication on how it is presented.  We normally attend on the weekends and it is a sold-out event.

Each year is a different theme and this year it was Eat, Drink and be Merry.  Different art forms relating to the theme range from figurines to sculptures to paintings.  Artwork is recreated using human volunteers who would hold a brief pose for the audience to study.  Introducing the artwork, there is an entertaining narrator explaining the artist and the motivation for the art piece.  Then while the human volunteers pose, the live orchestra plays a short musical piece.

We think the more interesting part of the presentation is when they show how a painting is created.  First there is a frame and the people with makeup and costumes are moving about and put into place.  Then the stage goes pitch black and when the appropriate stage lighting comes back on, there is a stunning re-creation of the painting. 

We have been entertained by this annual event for many years, but it is getting to the point that we are getting bored.  So we are not renewing our membership for next year.  Instead we will take a hiatus for a year or so and attend in the future when the interest arises.        

The Lieutenant of Inishmore

Based on the title, I thought this was a play about some branch of the service and it was appropriate for Independence Day.  Then a week before the play, we received a huge brochure in the mail describing the play.  What raised a red flag with me was a section about violence portrayed on stage.  They provided examples in the past such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth or Greek tragedies such as Agamemnon or Oedipus.  So after the episode of sitting through Sophie, a love story about a goat, I told Max that if the play gets out of hand, I’m walking out and will wait for him in the lobby. 

The play is a dark comedy about Northern Ireland’s IRA and their splinter groups.  The opening scene shows two main characters, Donny and Davey standing over a cat lying on the kitchen table. After Davey asks if it is actually dead, Donny picks up the cat and little bloody brains fall on the table.  Strike one.  Both are petrified because the cat, Wee Thomas, is the love of Paddy an IRA rebel who is so crazy, the IRA doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.  So the only other “bloody” scene was when Paddy was torturing a guy who was selling drugs to Catholic kids.  The guy was hanging upside down with a couple of his toe nails torn out, delivering insults to Paddy as if they were drinking in a Pub.  It was a funny scene and Paddy let the guy go. Then it was intermission and I thought it wasn’t that bad. 

Towards the end of the second half, Paddy’s enemies (who admitted they killed Wee Thomas) were killed in a bloody shootout.  Strike two.  The part that tipped the whole thing over the edge was the next scene when Donny and Davey were sawing body parts and blood was dripping off the stage.  I couldn’t look and Max noticed a 3-4 people who got up and walked out. The final irony after so many killings was when the real Wee Thomas came through the hole in the wall and started eating his cat food.  Everyone just cracked up.

I must admit it was funny.  Max said he has not seen anything like it. It is as if Woody Allen and Quentin Tarentino got together to make this. It is a toss up.  I would not see it again.  Max would.