Summer Theater

[Guest TexHunk69]

Catch Catch Me If You Can!!!

 

By far the best show I have seen all year is the marvelous, fizzy, retro-60's fabulous Catch Me If You Can at Seattle's wonderful 5th Avenue Theatre. The place itself is like a Japanese wooden fan exploded, but the show is a wonderful trip back to when Dean Martin variety shows ruled the sometimes "In Living Color" airwaves. It's the Leonardo DiCaprio/Tom Hanks film brought to musical life by the gang who brought you Hairspray, with a book by Terrence McNally. The first act outshines the second (doesn't it always?) but it is an amazing cast: Young IT stud Aaron Tveit, Norbert Leo Butz, Tom Wopat and lovely Kerry Butler. You only have another week to catch it while you can, and it is Soooooo worth it!! If you miss it, you can pay $150+ on Broadway I'm sure, where it will be a huge hit.

[+ Lucky]

Norbert Lee Butz is an absolutely funny man. I will have to wait to see this in New York.

[+ Lucky]

Nothing more was ever written about "Slipping." Did anyone here go to see it? Ed?

 

This weekend I went to the LaJolla Playhouse to see Herringbone, a one-man show by B.D. Wong. It was the last day of a month long show, and he was clearly tired and his voice raspy, yet he soldiered on. But I don't know why. This was one of the worst shows I have ever seen. Jefferson Mays played some 40 roles in I Am My Own Wife, and his stellar performance is even more impressive in comparison to seeing Wong play 11 roles. There was barely enough nuance to let the audience know when he was changing roles, and the roles themselves were just odd. Given that I have liked Wong in many other shows, this was a true disappointment.

 

As I did before, I also went to the small Compass Theater to see their current show, Shopping and Fucking, which played off-Broadway with another cast. It started out interestingly enough, but by the end I think the audience was just relieved to get out of there. One performer, Kevin Morrison, was just brilliant, making the night worthwhile.

[Lankypeters]

I saw Jude Law years ago in The Sisters Rosenweig, where he rose naked out of a tub, and slowly dried off, not hiding a thing as he did. I'll bet hamlet doesn't do that.

 

You can see virtually the same scene on DVD in "The Talented Mr. Ripley": Law rises buck neekid from a tub, cock dangling. Matt Damon bared only his ass, cute enough. I always thought it was significant, perhaps, that as characters Law played the one who was probably the top and Damon the bottom. So you see Law's cock and Damon's butt. The director, the late, great Anthony Minghelli, had a keen literary sense and probably knew well how significant these images were.

[edjames]

Ah yes, "Slipping." An interesting piece of theater that was well-acted but I must agree with one of the critics when he said it was difficult to imagine these actors as teenagers since they all must be in their mid-twenties. Still, Seth Numrich turned in a great performance as the angst ridden Eli. Eli has an abusive relationship with Jake while in high school in SF, his father dies in a car crash (perhaps a suicide), and moves to Iowa with his Mother where he enters into a relationship with Chris, a high school baseball athlete. To compensate for all the turmoil and emotional crisis in his life, Eli develops a habit of cutting himself.

 

Yes, quite a gay soap opera, but well done and very compelling.

 

And I thought my teenage years were angst ridden! Jeez!

 

However, on another note, the fall Broadway season is ramping up and I already have a ticket for the hunk-fest called "A Steady Rain" with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. Initial box office sales have been great and the producers have said that there will be no discounted seats available.

 

Also on my list of shows this season will be "Fela!"(a huge off-off-Broadway sold-out smash hit musical based on the life of groundbreaking African composer, performer, and activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Book by Jim Lewis),Tracey Letts "Superior Donuts" ( his valentine to Chicago), Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" (Carrie's life story ...), the two revivals of Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound" and "Brighton Beach Memoirs" starring the fabulous Laurie Metcalf, and "After Miss Julie" starring the Millers, Johnny Lee (Eli Stone) and Sienna.

 

As previously mentioned Jude Law bring his version of "Hamlet" to Broadway, and James Spader (Boston Legal) opens in David Mamet's new play "Race".

 

And also coming in the musicals "Bye, Bye Birdie", "Memphis," "Ragtime," and "Finian's Rainbow."

[edjames]

I saw "Shopping and Fucking" about 10 years ago in London. A horrid mess! For all the praise and hype it was truly a terrible piece of theater. It opened off-off-Broadway about a year later and died a dismal death when the NY critics ripped it apart! Why anyone would want to mount a revivial of this is beyond me!

 

ED

[+ Lucky]

Ed, thanks for the tip on A Steady Rain. I bought my tickets, but really had to work to get decent seats.