Tribes

Tribes is about an intellectual family, mother is a writer and father is a professor.  They have 3 grown children who live with them.  Billy was born deaf, but can read lips.  He feels a bit left out when the rest of his family debates issues and he struggles to understand what is being said. His brother Daniel, has a mental difficulty because he hears voices.  He tries to drown them out by turning on the radio to have some background noise instead of the voices. Interesting, as I write this, I see one brother who can’t hear real voices and another who hears imaginary voices.  Their sister Beth is an opera singer who is struggling to get jobs. 

Billy, meets a girl on campus who had a cochlear transplant who can now hear and teaches Billy sign language.  Apparently in the deaf community there is a hierarchy of those who are truly deaf and sign at the highest and if one can hear or doesn’t know sign language, the lower you are in the hierarchy.

I found it interesting that sign language is a language in its own that can translate feelings through the motion of the hands, face and body.

Billy then becomes a “militant” deaf person.  He insists that his family learn sign language or he will no longer talk to them.  His brother Daniel is slowly spiraling out of control as the voices take over his life.  The only salvation was that Billy was always there for him and at the end, he pityingly stutters as he pleads for Billy to come back because of the need he has for him. 

I didn’t really care for the play for a couple of reasons.  First, it was hard to understand.  Not just because of the deaf actor saying words that were a bit difficult to hear. It was because the rest of the family talked with British accents.  What was the purpose for that?  Hello, why not have the play take place in Wisconsin instead of England?  The other problem I had with the play was that the kids who for whatever reason move back in with their parents.  They are grown and yes, okay, maybe life circumstances compelled them to move back.  The part I had a problem with is the extreme disrespect they had for their parents as they call them names such as “prick” or yell at them.  I would have thrown them out on the street with that kind of behavior.  I rant. 

So maybe there is a lesson to be learned here, but the annoyances were more compelling.                           

Opera-The Flying Dutchman

Also known as “Der fliegende Hollander”, this opera is by Wagner.  Okay, another Wagner opera, but I found this one fascinating because of the staging and story. 

The Flying Dutchman is about a cursed sailor who is looking for a faithful woman who can break that curse.  Every seven years he is able to go on land to search for this “hard to find” woman.  Puhleeze, Wagner must have had some bitter relationships to come up with this one.

He meets a captain who has a daughter Senta, who is

mesmerized by this legend.  She wants to be the faithful woman who can break the curse, but is thwarted by a suitor who makes the Dutchman think Senta is unfaithful.  In the end, she follows the Dutchman into the mist, not caring what her fate would be.

The set is austere and stark, supposedly below the decks of a ship, yet gives the illusion of being in a fortress. 

As Max says, it wasn’t Rigoletto.  There are huge fans of Wagner, but we find his operas too heavy, strident and demanding.  Does that make sense?

Backbeat

Backbeat is a musical about the Beatles before they became the Fab Four.  It takes place in Hamburg, Germany where they play in dive bars frequented by drug addicts and hookers.  They are dressed in jeans and black biker jackets with greased back hair, looking more like Elvis.  The first song is like a blast and I said, “Whoa!”  It even hurt my ears and I can imagine how much it hurt Max’s hearing.  Since they spoke in a cockney, British or Scottish accents, I had a hard time understanding.  But I did catch a word hear and there so that I got the gist of what was going on.

Originally, Stuart Sutcliffe was brought into the band because he was a very good friend of John.  They also add Pete Best to the group.  Most of the story dealt with Stu who is really an artist, but he plays with the band because of John.  He then meets Astrid Kirchherr who tries to convince him to follow his heart.  So he is torn. He finally leaves the band and is accepted at an art school.  But it turns out that he is suffering from headaches and seizures.  He eventually passes away.  Astrid is key to their look.  She gives them the haircuts and clothes that make them famous. 

It was good to understand the background of one of the greatest bands in history.  I also enjoyed the music, especially afterwards, they got the audience on their feet and played 4-5 songs that we all sang and danced to.  At least I did…Max stood there and of course, he doesn’t shimmy.  I asked afterwards and he said he enjoyed himself.  But, “It isn’t Rigolletto”. 

Because of the intensity of the sound, I don’t know if I would see it again.

Other Desert Cities

 This play is about a family and takes place Christmas 2004 in the Wyeth home, Palm Springs, California.  The parents, Polly and Lyman are well known in the GOP circles in the desert community.  Robert was an actor and later both became active in politics.  Polly’s best girlfriends were Sylvia Bloomingdale and Nancy Reagan to give you a sense of their social standing.  

Their daughter Brooke is a writer back East and their youngest son, Trip, is a TV director in LA.  What is missing is their son, Henry who had gotten involved with the wrong people.  He set off a bomb, I think at a Veteran’s Center and the janitor was killed.  Henry disappears and is a wanted man.  As a result of the tragedy and involvement of their son, Polly and Lyman seemingly escape to a home in Palm Springs.

Brooke feels Henry is not only her brother, but her best friend.  As a result of the event and losing her brother, she suffers a breakdown and was hospitalized for almost a year.  For 6 years afterwards, she works on a book about her brother and at Christmas, tells her family about the book.  The rest of the play is about the debate of whether or not she should publish it.  The book portrays Henry as misunderstood and their parents as rigid and uncaring.  She blames them for the loss of Henry.  Polly and Lyman are hurt about the perspective she is taking in the book and that she doesn’t know everything.  The emotions are high and the words hurt.  Polly and Lyman feel she could publish the book after they are gone but Brooke feels she would be betraying herself and Henry if she waited.

I was on the side of the parents and I didn’t feel the actress portraying Brooke was very good.  The start of the play seemed stilted and could be performed in a community theatre.  But as the play progressed, it got better.

Later, we discover that Polly and Lyman had taken Henry across the border to Canada, knowing they could not see their son again.  Brooke fell apart, relief that her brother is alive, sorry that he is probably lost to them and anger that her book is incomplete of all the facts.  From our seats we could see the tears and slobbering of solid, heartfelt crying.

The final scene is 6 years later as Brooke reads her book at a Bookstore in Seattle.  She talks about the death of her father, thankful that she was at his bedside.  She moves in with her Aunt in the house next door of the Palm Desert home.  She reminisces of sitting at the pool with her mother for the remainder of her days. So she did hold off on the book and rewrites portions of it to include the love she has for her parents and the last words she utters in the play is the wonderment of “How can I find Henry…?”

I would probably see it again.  Max would, definitely.  He gave them a standing ovation, and then I joined him.  He said the play was powerful.

Anything Goes

Anything Goes takes place in the 30's on an ocean liner traveling from New York to London. It is about romance, mobsters, sexy evangelical sermons accompanied by singing and dancing. The songs were composed by Cole Porter and many of his most popular songs such as "I Get a Kick Out of You", "It's De-Lovely" and "Anything Goes". The best part of it was the big production tap dancing to "Anything Goes".



Max always says he wishes he could tap dance. He just doesn't want to take lessons and practice. Rachel York starred in this production and she is most known for her portrayal of Lucille Ball in the CBS movie, Lucy. She has presence, charisma and can dance. But her singing wasn't that strong. She was good, but not great. We would see it again just for the dancing numbers.

Seminar

I’ve always been a fan of Jeff Goldblum with his works ranging from The Fly to the Jurassic Park movies.  He has not only a sense of drama, but he also has great comedic timing.

In this play, I didn’t know if the Ahmanson is such a good venue compared to Mark Taper.  Max said it is because of the size of the audience they are anticipating. He was right.  It was a packed house.

Jeff plays the character of Leonard, a brilliant author who had a best seller years before, and now holds expensive workshops/seminars for small groups of aspiring authors.  I hear the figure of $5k each, but I’m not sure.  It takes place in New York in one of the student’s apartment. There are about 4 students, each with their issues and quirks struggling to find the voice within. 

Leonard comes across as quirky who has traveled to exotic places, meets people and gets into strange circumstances to expand his horizons.  He pontificates about his own crazy experiences and has a tendency to forget the question in the midst of his rambling.  Those scenes are the best because they are so funny.  He can also be unbelievably cruel as he critiques the student’s work if they are not up to his standards.  After Kate was crushed by his ranting about her work, the other students are fearful of showing their own works. 

At the end we discover he is able to pull the best out of the students.  Great play and great performance by Jeff and the rest of the cast.

Opera - Madam Butterfly

We were not especially looking forward to this Opera. It was not one of our favorites based on two previous performances we had attended.  It may have been the futuristic costumes and stark stage setting, I’m not sure.  Both times, I closed my eyes and almost dozed off.

This time, it was as if I saw the Opera for the first time.  Madam Butterfly is one of Puccini’s most famous operas and was the inspiration for Miss Saigon.  In the movie, My Geisha, Shirley Maclaine disguises herself as a Japanese woman to play the role of Madam Butterfly as she tries to prove she can do more than “common musicals”. 

Before the performance, I read the program and I was surprised to read that the audience booed and heckled Puccini during the premier performance.  Undeterred, he believed in the Opera, made some adjustments until he was satisfied and presented it again to be proclaimed a triumph. 

I also read that the Opera was inspired by a short story based on true characters.  There was actually a geisha named Cho-San, Miss Butterfly and her lover is Ensign William B. Franklin.  Records show that there was an Ensign Franklin in Nagasaki from 1892 – 1893.

Before, I always thought that the Ensign and Madam Butterfly were deeply in love, married and had a child.  But based on the culture of the time, the Ensign regretfully had to marry an American woman and forced to leave Cho-San. 

But in this performance, I understood more fully that he just “married” her for companionship during his tour of duty and that the marriage caused Cho-San’s family to disown her.  Soprano Oksana Dyka was brilliant in her portrayal of Cho-San who had unwavering faith that her Ensign would return to her and their son. 

There was one scene when she kneels in front of her son, crying for the time they would see her husband again.  At the end of the aria she breaks down and her son reaches up to comfort her.  The whole audience breathed a sigh of “awww”. 

As the Opera progressed and Cho-San realizes that her “husband” wants their child and will leave her, I got teary eyed and cursed his cruelty of leaving her penniless and alone.  I could hear others around me sniffling. 

This was a wow performance and I hope I get to see another one as compelling as this one.