Next to Hair Loss
May. 24th, 2009 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prusikI went to down to NYC yesterday to see Next to Normal and Hair. The trip was thankfully uneventful. I did realize that I could go to the bus station later than I have been and still get to NYC in plenty of time. (The bus trip back was eerily on time though. Usually, we arrive early. This would have been a good thing had I managed to stay asleep during the entire trip back. *sigh*)
Anyway, I finished Elizabeth Hand's Generation Loss on the trip down to NYC. I think I would have enjoyed it more had I set my expectations properly. For some reason, I thought this was a genre novel. It's not. I read a big chunk of it with the wrong reading protocols. D'oh. I suspect most people will not spend the first 100 pages or so straining to speculative content. Also, the cover blurb says that it's a thriller. Well, maybe in the final few chapters. Otherwise, it's not paced like a thriller. I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't gone in thinking the novel was a genre thriller. (And, when I disabused myself of the notion, it went more quickly.)
The writing is stunning. I'm in awe of how information dense her prose can be with it ever feeling that way. She conveys a bohemian punk scene and its (inevitable) aftermath without being all cliched about it. It takes a long time for all the threads to come together, but that might be my own impatience than anything else.
(Fortunately, I'd anticipated finishing Generation Loss. I also brought Norse Code with me and read that for the rest of the day. I have about 70 pages left. I'll blog about that when I finish.)
I saw Next to Normal in the afternoon. It's critically praised, nominated for 11 Tony Awards, and next to impossible to talk about without spoiling crucial plot points which really oughtn't be spoiled. I'll see what I can do...
What they've advertised is that it's about a woman who struggles with bipolar disorder. The musical explores the affect her illness has on her family.
Next to Normal has a few strikes against it for me, one of which is really not its fault. I saw it with an audience clearly primed to luv luv luv with all of its uncritical, "I"m so impressed that the musical is so daring" heart. That just makes me grumpy.
Unfortunately, they engage in a couple tropes that also make me grumpy:
The daughter starts off as the highly controlled "good girl." So, clearly she plays Mozart and can't possibly fathom jazz. The obviously soon-to-be boyfriend is the "wild and chaotic" and so he plays jazz and can't understand Mozart at all. Do people like this actually exist? Actually, her entire plot line made me grumpy. It was predictable, didn't follow through in terms of consequences, and practically divorced from the main plot. (Actually, the main plot made me grumpy too, but in ways I can't explain without spoiling.)
We get the big "I'm not going to take my meds because the horrible debilitating symptoms of bipolar disorder is ever so much better than the unnaturally even keel of being on meds" number. I'm not saying that being on an unnaturally even keel is a good thing. It does lend an accidentally "But didn't you ask for this?" vibe when she later sings about the horribly debilitating symptoms she suffers because she's not on her meds.
Needless to say, I was not disposed to liking this musical. It's too bad because much of the music is terrific. (Why save the best stuff for the exit music though?) Half the songs are really wonderful. Whenever they focus on emotions and relationship, the songs are everything anyone could ask for. It is impossible not to feel what the characters are feeling listening to them. Whenever they try to advance the plot... well, it would been easier if it had a plot that made overarching sense in the first place. (It's ok beat by beat. As a whole though, it doesn't cohere for me. It's as if everyone in the story makes decisions be based on their current state with no history or self to draw upon. There was no arc. The problem is that only one character is mentally ill.)
I'm definitely buying the cast album. There are a few songs I want to hear again, and the rest, I suspect, may grow on me with repeated hearings.
On balance though, i suspect I would have liked it more if it weren't this year's "innovative, adventurous" musical. I do think that it's the best new musical I've seen this season and I've seen three of the four Best Musical Tony nominees. (Billy Elliot is the exception.) It really is more ambitious. It really does attempt to (and to a good degree succeed in) telling a complex story of how a family evolves. The "oh, it's so daring" vibe really grated on me. Maybe in forty years, it'll get the production that pulls everything together in a highly satisfying way.
This is an oddly good segue into Hair, which I saw Saturday night. (After all, it was the "innovative, adventurous" musical for 1969.) Unfortunately, this production also did the "hey, aren't we daring?" thing for a while. It grew out of it though and focussed on the emotion arc in ways that Next to Normal should have, but did not.
Directing Hair forty years later is problematic in that what was audacious and daring isn't so any more, due to repetition if nothing else. This turns out to be a terrific production because it recognizes that modern day audiences simply aren't going to react the same way audiences did 40 years ago and plays scenes accordingly. This production has done the most effective staging of the final scene I've seen so far. Also, this is the first production I've seen where the object of Berger's love is not Sheila, but obviously Claude. (It really works much better that way. It's one of those shifts in interpretation where after you've seen it, you wonder why no one has done it before.)
The show's book is at best incoherent. Everyone gets serious bonus points for creating understandable characters and showing how the events of the musical have changed them. Plus, they invite the audience on stage at the end.
My biggest gripe is with the audience. (So not the production's fault, I know.)
One, to the lovely couple sitting to my right, even if you happen to know one of the swings in the show and she happens to be performing tonight, this does not give you permission to discuss this and point her out to each other during the show. I'm sure you're wonderful human beings who wouldn't think twice before donating your entire life savings to the starving in Africa while throwing yourselves in front the train so that a gentle flower maiden's life might be saved. It's still annoying when you talk through the musical.
Two, to the lovely woman sitting to my left, I did not pay an exorbitant sum to hear you sing the score. (Amusingly, you only sang along in the obscure bits. If this was some way of showing off your musical theater geek creds, consider me miffed.) Yes, you're merely expressing your exuberant joy and I'm a nasty, horrible person for wishing that you wouldn't in that way. Your expression of exuberant joy though is screwing with mine though. Seeing as mine did not screw with anyone's, I find this highly unfair.
Three, to the entire audience, do you guys not listen to the lyrics or pay attention to the subtext? For example, too often, "Let the Sunshine In" is done as this big exuberant joyful crowd pleaser. It's the finale after all. The problem is that it makes more sense as an exhortation, a desperate plea for peace, joy, love, freedom and harmony. This production gets serious Artistic Integrity Points for doing the latter. They messed with the song routine a bit, but it's powerful and effective. The audience behaved as if they were doing the big, exuberant joyful crowd pleaser. If you wanted an evening of merely highly entertaining feel good fluff set to rock music, go see Rock of Ages. *sigh*
Anyway, I finished Elizabeth Hand's Generation Loss on the trip down to NYC. I think I would have enjoyed it more had I set my expectations properly. For some reason, I thought this was a genre novel. It's not. I read a big chunk of it with the wrong reading protocols. D'oh. I suspect most people will not spend the first 100 pages or so straining to speculative content. Also, the cover blurb says that it's a thriller. Well, maybe in the final few chapters. Otherwise, it's not paced like a thriller. I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't gone in thinking the novel was a genre thriller. (And, when I disabused myself of the notion, it went more quickly.)
The writing is stunning. I'm in awe of how information dense her prose can be with it ever feeling that way. She conveys a bohemian punk scene and its (inevitable) aftermath without being all cliched about it. It takes a long time for all the threads to come together, but that might be my own impatience than anything else.
(Fortunately, I'd anticipated finishing Generation Loss. I also brought Norse Code with me and read that for the rest of the day. I have about 70 pages left. I'll blog about that when I finish.)
I saw Next to Normal in the afternoon. It's critically praised, nominated for 11 Tony Awards, and next to impossible to talk about without spoiling crucial plot points which really oughtn't be spoiled. I'll see what I can do...
What they've advertised is that it's about a woman who struggles with bipolar disorder. The musical explores the affect her illness has on her family.
Next to Normal has a few strikes against it for me, one of which is really not its fault. I saw it with an audience clearly primed to luv luv luv with all of its uncritical, "I"m so impressed that the musical is so daring" heart. That just makes me grumpy.
Unfortunately, they engage in a couple tropes that also make me grumpy:
The daughter starts off as the highly controlled "good girl." So, clearly she plays Mozart and can't possibly fathom jazz. The obviously soon-to-be boyfriend is the "wild and chaotic" and so he plays jazz and can't understand Mozart at all. Do people like this actually exist? Actually, her entire plot line made me grumpy. It was predictable, didn't follow through in terms of consequences, and practically divorced from the main plot. (Actually, the main plot made me grumpy too, but in ways I can't explain without spoiling.)
We get the big "I'm not going to take my meds because the horrible debilitating symptoms of bipolar disorder is ever so much better than the unnaturally even keel of being on meds" number. I'm not saying that being on an unnaturally even keel is a good thing. It does lend an accidentally "But didn't you ask for this?" vibe when she later sings about the horribly debilitating symptoms she suffers because she's not on her meds.
Needless to say, I was not disposed to liking this musical. It's too bad because much of the music is terrific. (Why save the best stuff for the exit music though?) Half the songs are really wonderful. Whenever they focus on emotions and relationship, the songs are everything anyone could ask for. It is impossible not to feel what the characters are feeling listening to them. Whenever they try to advance the plot... well, it would been easier if it had a plot that made overarching sense in the first place. (It's ok beat by beat. As a whole though, it doesn't cohere for me. It's as if everyone in the story makes decisions be based on their current state with no history or self to draw upon. There was no arc. The problem is that only one character is mentally ill.)
I'm definitely buying the cast album. There are a few songs I want to hear again, and the rest, I suspect, may grow on me with repeated hearings.
On balance though, i suspect I would have liked it more if it weren't this year's "innovative, adventurous" musical. I do think that it's the best new musical I've seen this season and I've seen three of the four Best Musical Tony nominees. (Billy Elliot is the exception.) It really is more ambitious. It really does attempt to (and to a good degree succeed in) telling a complex story of how a family evolves. The "oh, it's so daring" vibe really grated on me. Maybe in forty years, it'll get the production that pulls everything together in a highly satisfying way.
This is an oddly good segue into Hair, which I saw Saturday night. (After all, it was the "innovative, adventurous" musical for 1969.) Unfortunately, this production also did the "hey, aren't we daring?" thing for a while. It grew out of it though and focussed on the emotion arc in ways that Next to Normal should have, but did not.
Directing Hair forty years later is problematic in that what was audacious and daring isn't so any more, due to repetition if nothing else. This turns out to be a terrific production because it recognizes that modern day audiences simply aren't going to react the same way audiences did 40 years ago and plays scenes accordingly. This production has done the most effective staging of the final scene I've seen so far. Also, this is the first production I've seen where the object of Berger's love is not Sheila, but obviously Claude. (It really works much better that way. It's one of those shifts in interpretation where after you've seen it, you wonder why no one has done it before.)
The show's book is at best incoherent. Everyone gets serious bonus points for creating understandable characters and showing how the events of the musical have changed them. Plus, they invite the audience on stage at the end.
My biggest gripe is with the audience. (So not the production's fault, I know.)
One, to the lovely couple sitting to my right, even if you happen to know one of the swings in the show and she happens to be performing tonight, this does not give you permission to discuss this and point her out to each other during the show. I'm sure you're wonderful human beings who wouldn't think twice before donating your entire life savings to the starving in Africa while throwing yourselves in front the train so that a gentle flower maiden's life might be saved. It's still annoying when you talk through the musical.
Two, to the lovely woman sitting to my left, I did not pay an exorbitant sum to hear you sing the score. (Amusingly, you only sang along in the obscure bits. If this was some way of showing off your musical theater geek creds, consider me miffed.) Yes, you're merely expressing your exuberant joy and I'm a nasty, horrible person for wishing that you wouldn't in that way. Your expression of exuberant joy though is screwing with mine though. Seeing as mine did not screw with anyone's, I find this highly unfair.
Three, to the entire audience, do you guys not listen to the lyrics or pay attention to the subtext? For example, too often, "Let the Sunshine In" is done as this big exuberant joyful crowd pleaser. It's the finale after all. The problem is that it makes more sense as an exhortation, a desperate plea for peace, joy, love, freedom and harmony. This production gets serious Artistic Integrity Points for doing the latter. They messed with the song routine a bit, but it's powerful and effective. The audience behaved as if they were doing the big, exuberant joyful crowd pleaser. If you wanted an evening of merely highly entertaining feel good fluff set to rock music, go see Rock of Ages. *sigh*
