The human voice rising to extremes

John Gotti has been acquitted of racketeering and Oliver North's lawsuits have been dismissed. Meanwhile Wayne Gretzky scored his 1,500th point in the National Hockey league and Brian Orser has won the figure skating title in Cincinnati. The best picture Oscar went to Platoon and Paul Newman won for The Color of Money. Finally, Les Misérables has opened on Broadway.

It's been a busy March.

Or it WAS a busy March. All those things happened in March, 1987.

Les Miz opened in March, 1987 -- and again yesterday.

The cynic in me thinks, "come on, do we REALLY need another production of this leviathan of a show?" It had only been gone for three years when it reopened on Broadway back in 2006. That production was pretty much reviled and slunk away in 2008. Now, six years later, it's back again. The producers clearly think every generation needs its Miz; I just wish they realized that a generation typically spans 20 years, give or take.

Don't get me wrong, I do not hate Les Misérables; quite the contrary, I love the show, I really do. I just love creativity more; reruns are a sure sign of UN-creativity and of greed. Neither of them appeal to me.

And what's really wrong with the return of this blockbuster is summed up in one sentence from Christopher Isherwood's review in the Times. Writing of Éponine's song On My Own, Isherwood says, "Though by the time this song arrives, one has becomes somewhat numb to the sound of the human voice rising to extremes in wrenching ballads."

Amen to that brother. Said it myself not so long ago: "I've never watched American Idol, or any of the other TV talent shows, but I've come to blame them for what I've named the “belting of Broadway.” Songs are no longer sung. They're belted." (Blog post of 27 June 2012). Clearly I was on to something almost two years ago, for Ishwerwood also said this near the top of his review:

Much like those televised competitions — “American Idol” and “The Voice” being the national brand leaders — “Les Misérables” presents audiences with a stage full of singers who, one by one, have a chance to step into the spotlight (in this case a very smoke-suffused one) and astonish us with the mighty heft and range of their voices.

(You can read all of Ishwerwood's review of Les Miz the Reboot here.)

Enough with the shouting say I! Just last week I saw a wonderful Broadway musical, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, and no one shouted or screamed. Well, there was screaming, but only by people about to be murdered, not by people about to sing.

A Lump in my Throat for Seven+ Minutes

Attila Joey Csiki (L) and Tobin Del Cuore in Lar Lubovitch’s Concerto Six Twenty-Two

Photo: Phyllis McCabe

Twenty-eight years after I first saw it, Lar Lubovitch's brilliant Concerto Six Twenty-Two still blows me away with its beauty and power, especially in the exquisite slow movement, a tender and powerful pas de deux for two men. It is, imho, the sweetest and most moving duet in all of modern dance.

I was at the New York premiere in 1986 at Carnegie Hall. Ransom conducted Solisti New York in an evening I have written about before (here). I have seen it again and again, perhaps a dozen times, maybe more. Today's performance by Juilliard Dance ranks right up there with the best I have ever seen. The entire cast was fine; in fact all the dancers I saw in all three pieces today were excellent. Robert Moore and Dean Biosca were perfectly matched in the central movement, whether touchingly supporting each other or showing off their solo moves.

In 1986 the idea of two men dancing a slow movement was novel; plenty of folks no doubt raised their eyebrows, but far more shouted "bravo" or, more properly, "bravi". Today the novelty may have worn off, but the emotion still rings true and still brings shouts of approval from the audience.

At today's performance I reacted to the masculinity of the men on stage, and the maleness of their movements. Not just the two wonderful soloists, but all the men moved with a grace and spirit that, while exuding all sorts of emotions, remained thoroughly masculine. 622 may feature a tender dance for two men, but it is not a "gay" dance; it is much, much more than that. It is about friendship and support and love; for me it is also about the brilliance that resides in creative people and it is my great honor to know Lar Lubovitch and to continue to support his work. And of course Concerto Six Twenty-Two is very special to me because of that Carnegie premiere with Ransom.

As it always does this brilliant choreographic achievement brought tears to my eyes, and a lump in my throat for the seven minutes of it's beautiful adagio.

You can see a version of the pas de deux here.

Note: also on today's program: Twyla Tharp's fun Baker's Dozen and Eliot Feld's brilliant The Jig Is Up. Both were exquisitely danced.

The Kindness of Strangers

Ever since my first knee surgery I have had real trouble sitting in a seat for a long period of time. Any seat. My office chair, the couch, a theatre seat. I have to be able to extend my leg every few minutes or the pain becomes intolerable. Sitting with my friend Cathy at a performance of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike last year I had to leave before the end of the first act because the pain was too intense. (I stood for the second act).

Yesterday I was at the Walter Kerr Theatre for the matinee performance of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. The Walter Kerr was built in 1921. It has no elevators and precious little legroom -- people were shorter and more active back then. I knew I was in trouble.

I found the Head Usher and asked him if there was Standing Room available. He told me that, yes, I could stand, but then said, "Wait here." Within a minute he came back to usher me to a new seat: on the aisle and far enough to the right of the seat in front of it that I could stretch out both legs. It was truly a gift.

The show is a gift as well. Christopher Ishwerwood, writing in the New York Times on November 17, 2013, said, "Bloodlust hasn't sung so sweetly, or provided so much theatrical fun, since Sweeney Todd first wielded his razor with gusto many a long year ago." I couldn't agree more. You can read all of Ishwerwood's review here). The show has elements of Gilbert and Sullivan as well as Hollywood screwball comedy and is packed with memorable characters and Sondheim-clever lyrics by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak. It is also brilliantly staged; of many inventive moments my favorite might have been a fall from a bell tower that was straight out of Hitchcock's Vertigo, brilliantly achieved with little more than a back wall, a well-posed victim and a rear projection.

You may have heard that Jefferson Mays plays eight (8!) different roles, both male and female, all members of the aristocratic D'Ysquith (pronounced DIE-squith) family. He is brilliant, as is his co-star, Bryce Pinkham, whose character, Monty Navarro, has just learned that he is ninth in line to be the Earl of Highhurst. If only those eight people standing in his way could be somehow made to disappear . . .

The rest of the cast is wonderful too, especially the two women vying for Monty's heart, Lisa O'Hare as Sibella Hallward and Lauren Worsham as Phoebe D’Ysquith. But for me, neither the brilliant Jefferson Mays nor the silver-tongued and wickedly gifted Bryce Pinkham was the star of the afternoon. No, that honor belongs to T. J. D'Angelo, the Head Usher of the Walter Kerr Theatre.

Thank you, sir!

Fair is Fair

Many people seem more likely to bitch than to compliment. I learned that lesson years ago in the restaurant business. As both a waiter and a manager I received many more complaints than I did praise. As a result I have since then tried really hard to say nice things about people or organizations when I can. They don't hear it enough.

(And how much is enough? No such thing. We never tire of hearing kind words).

So it is that I write to say that amazon has redeemed itself -- mostly -- in my eyes. After writing here about the lack of service provided by my Prime status, I sent amazon the same message via email. And they did the right thing: they credited the entire cost of the recent disc that took a week to get to me.

That was fair, perhaps more than fair. I feel much better about amazon, and I owe it to them to post that message here.

Whether I will renew my Prime membership is yet to be decided because clearly they are not so good at keeping their two-day delivery promise. (Just Google the issue and you'll find lots of other complaints.)

But they tried to make me happy, and that matters. They admitted they failed and they apologized. These days that is so rare as to be precious. Word!

Good on them.

Metro-North on time? Ha!

2013  was a bad year for Metro-North. We who ride it didn't need the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to tell us that. We've lived it, we've watched it, we've read about it. A May derailment sent more than sixty people to hospital; within a fortnight a train worker was struck and killed; a freight train derailed on Metro-North's tracks in July; and finally, most spectacularly, a train said to be going 82 MPH around a curve into a station derailed, killing four and injuring more than seventy (picture).

This spate of accidents caused the FRA to launch "Operation Deep Dive," an examination of the railroad's policies and procedures. According to the New York Times,

The Metro-North Railroad has a “deficient safety culture” and emphasizes its on-time performance over safe operations and a properly-maintained infrastructure, according to a scathing report released Friday by the Federal Railroad Administration.

2014 hasn't started much better. A worker was just killed on Monday and in January service was shut down for hours due to human error -- apparently somebody unplugged a computer.

My own experience has been much more mundane. Other than the time the train I was on ran over someone, cutting him in half and stopping the train for hours -- you can read more about it here -- my usual complaint has been about late trains. My oft-asked question has been "Has ANY Metro-North train arrived on time EVER?"

Which is why I think it's ludicrous and unbelievable that the FRA should blame Metro-North's problems on its push to be on time. I can only imagine how bad the situation really is, if that hare-brained conclusion is the best the oversight commission could come up with.

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

I have decided to bow to enormous pressure from my fans – ok, two people casually asked if I were ever going to blog again – and restart these musings. As was so often the case the first go-round, I write today of the absurdity (read lies and deceit) of our corporate culture.

I am grateful that I never heard Bill Clinton speak those words above. I respected the man too much to pay a moment’s notice to his sexual escapades, and I fervently wished the rest of the country had done the same.

But I thought of that remark today when I visited amazon’s website, wondering where my latest order was and saw the word “Delivered” attached to it. I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word “delivered” is.

To me, it’s pretty simple: I order something from amazon, they send it to me, and when I receive it then it has been “delivered.”

amazon has a different take: they consider my order “delivered” once it has left their warehouse and been handed over to a third party. In this case that would be the United States Postal Service, via a scheme amazon calls “Smartpost.” So yes, they're right; my package was “delivered” – only not to me. It was delivered to some unidentified employee working at an unnamed facility, presumably in the New Haven area. When it will actually be delivered to me is anybody’s guess.

I have long been a member of amazon Prime. This is the $79 per year service – soon to be $99 – that promise two-day delivery for most items. The item I ordered (Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert DVD) was covered by Prime. As you can see below, I ordered it on March 10 and it was “delivered” on March 14. So even if it had been delivered to me, the person who actually ordered it, it would not have been delivered on time.

It really does depend on what you mean by “delivered”.

My next composition will be an email to amazon canceling my (not-really) Prime membership.

And tomorrow I'll write about Metro-North and the absurdity of today’s news from them: Report Finds Punctuality Trumps Safety at Metro-North.