Evita

I was apprehensive about seeing Evita this past Friday. I had heard a lot of gripes about the production, and about the lead actress's, Elena Roger's, voice. Roger definitely had an Edith Piaf quality, so much that I was yearning for "La Vie en Rose" by the time "Don't Cry for Me" rolled around. I have an even bigger gripe than her voice quality, though, and that is the very strange accent in which she sang. For most of the show, she sounded French to me, and, at some points, her husband sounded Scottish! My friend and I were humming "Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?" to each other during interludes; those actors did NOT sound like they were in Argentina. My friend, Greg, made a good point about this singing-in-accent ordeal when he noted that Shakesperian productions, though often set in Italy, are written and performed in English not Italian. Isn't that the beauty of them? Thank God Shakespeare wasn't trying to throw in Italian catchphrases or, worse, having Romeo flip his R's. I'm not sure why this director thought otherwise, especially since Roger is Argentinian, and her debut role was as Evita Peron (!!!) in earlier production.

Image c/o googleimages.com

As far as other gripes go, there was a major lack of narrative. They were highlighting moments of Evita's life rather than giving a fluid story, which was confusing (to the point where I thought she was a promiscuous person, not a paid prostitute, for a good portion of the show). Also, I was not at all impressed with Ricky Martin, although Greg was raving about his performance. And, about singing everything, I'm not a huge fan of that, either. Apparently, Evita is marketed as a "rock-musical" (bad bad bad bad idea), which puts the show in the tradition of Rent, Spring Awakening, and Next to Normal. Audiences who are not comprised entirely of angsty, fifteen-year-old girls will probably find the style of all of these shows to be really terrible, as they should. 

Image c/o googleimages.com

Now that I've complained extensively about the show, I guess I should admit that I didn't hate it. In the end, I walked away with an absolute fascination with Eva Peron, who I knew nothing about prior. I've already read her entire Wikipedia page and will probably take out a few books on her life because I'm confused, and intrigued, and amazed. And I think that's exactly what the show was trying to do.

Crazy Coincidence?

The Mimes and Mummers, a theater group at Rose Hill, rocked Next to Normal tonight. It's a heavy show, but rather than focusing on plot, or characters, or the theme of mental illness, one interval had me trippin' for the entire show. That is, the F to D on "I was" from Who's Crazy/My Psychopharmacologist and I, which PARALLELS the F# to D# interval on "I'll be" from Edwin McCain's I'll Be.

I know, I know, it just seems like a little coincidence. And it IS coincidental that the song in which the husband swears to stay with his wife even if she makes him crazy mimics a chord from McCain's popular love ballad. The coincidence makes the parallel between the nostalgia of the distraught husband's "I was" and the refrain-vow of "I'll be" ring a little too true.

Hear it for yourself!
Edwin McCain- I'll Be
Next to Normal Original Cast- Who's Crazy/My Psychopharmacologist and I

Do you think it was written with the parallel in mind?

Love, Loss, and What I Wore

Love, Loss, and What I Wore puts love and loss at center stage. The show features four women who go through multiple marriages, come out, lose their mothers at young ages, get raped, and more: all of life's worst bestowed on this small sample population. Veanne Cox and Lillias White deliver convincing performance, but the show's handicap is in the script, not the acting. While the actresses harp on their crises, the audience craves meaning in stability.

Perhaps the "what I wore" aspect of the show is meant to deliver the consistency so lacking in the leads' lives. However, the joyful, creative element of style is reduced to superficiality as the women put so much emphasis on that wrap dress or those suede boots. After sitting through one too many monologues about a purse, it behooves the audience to ask why the people in their lives then aren't given as much value as the material things these women adore. We yearn to see their fashion-centered romance and devotion play out in their human relationships, we hope that the play will conclude on this happy high, but such affection never leaves Filene's Basement.

Surely, the goal of Love, Loss, and What I Wore is not to expose a bunch of superficial ladies who have their priorities screwed up. It probably hopes to empower women. However, LLWW forgets that empowerment is a human phenomenon, one that requires a lot more than the occasional mention of fashion.

The Vagina Monologues

Image c/o http://www.mansibhatia.com/

It's better known at Fordham as the Dialogue About the Monologues. The Vagina Monologues, a play written by Eve Ensler that deals with women's sexuality, was performed at Fordham this past weekend under the support of our Women's Studies Department and but not Student Affairs. On the upside, the play is associated with V-DAY, a charity that raises awareness about and funds to prevent violence against women. On the raunchy side, it deals explicitly with sex, masturbation and, in one particularly startling moment, child molestation. And it makes no apologies for its content, which is exactly why this Catholic school is reluctant to promote it.

The controversy over the play has taken campus by storm, culminating in lots of conversation, multiple articles in the Ram, and even an on-campus debate. And it seems that people are talking well beyond Fordham with recent headlines like "Students succeed in getting “Vagina Monologues” on campus," "More than a Show," and "193 Campuses Reject Monologues."

No doubt, the controversy is valid for a school that feels it has a strict moral mandate to protect. However, the performances in the Monologues --all by current Fordham students-- are outstanding; for the sake of performance art alone, the show is, in my opinion, worth keeping.

“The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church”

"Daniel Kitson’s sentences are like fast-growing mutant super-vines, sending out sticky tendrils that dig into your attention and snake themselves all over it" writes Ben Brantley in the New York Times. It's not a bad description, but I would say that Kitson's sentences are more like those of an excited Brit with a speech impediment, spitting into the air every so often and gesticulating maniacally as he proclaims his discovery of the life of Gregory Church.

 Actually, we (that is, the audience) are entirely unclear as to whether or not Kitson has anything to do with Gregory Church at all. He begins his one-man show by disclosing that "only the beginning is true," but then never distinguishes the beginning from the rest of the production. As he spews on, telling a story that might be entirely false, it's impossible not to be engaged. Because Kitson is hysterically funny, because he's incredibly creative (we must take for granted that at least some portion of the show is fiction) and because he's a wonderfully talented story-teller, by the time he announces at the end of the play that he was once a stand-up comic, the audience has long known that he is a comedian at heart. It's a must-see if you love fiction, nonfiction, or enjoy laughing even at the unknown.