42nd Street – Lyric Theatre at Civic Center
Stomping wonderful, great time. Best musical theatre we’ve seen in Oklahoma. The conductor was clearly enjoying himself, and that made it fun right from the start. I wish we could see the orchestra, but still.
Clearly the actors know it’s a crowd pleaser and are reveling in the applause, which is genuine. I met some of the actors today at Red Cup – they’re fun people.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – Lyric Theatre at Civic Center
The Lyric Theatre is, of course, the premier theatre troupe in Oklahoma City, and we went to their production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Civic Center last night. The flying car thing was pretty cool – no visible ropes, etc. I liked the lights in the face, that tactfully dimmed after a bit. The singing and acting were the best we’ve seen so far in Oklahoma. The 2nd Act was more fun, though it felt short enough that the intermission seemed needless. Maybe time just flew. Get to your seats on time for Act 2, because the evil spies open it in the orchestra, which is funny, though some of their humour was more trite. The obligatory clapalong and the now unavoidable standing ovation for any performance of anything ended the show. Jemima (Lauren Kliewer) was wonderfully enthusiastic – my favorite character for that, though Molly Tynes as the Baroness was wonderful – less flat in the 2nd act where she broke out of the mold.
Summerstock
We went to see Oliver (the musical) on opening night at Summerstock 2010 at the outdoor amphitheatre at Mitch Park in Edmond.
At about the 4th number it starts to get interesting. We thought the female street urchins were talented.
Bring blanket or chair. Concessions are cheap, but it’s junk, and nothing’s open nearby at intermissions but a 7-Eleven, so bring your bananas and granola, box wine or beer, and it’s a show. If you don’t want outbursts to interrupt the play, sit away from families with children. Young couples are usually quieter. If you’re on a blanket, stake out a spot higher than stage level (or you won’t see over the chairs). Avoid the aisles, because people do use them to come and go, not waiting between numbers, unlike a theatre performance. There were no mosquitos – June bugs were plentiful but not a big deal (I liked simulating one at the back of the wife’s neck).
The performance was too familiar to the wife (me too) – that’s not their fault – we just know the story so well that there are no surprises.
One thing I’ve observed at nearly every play so far is that actors should practice more clarity doing their lines. The tendency to rush or breathe through syllables, popular in a texting culture, makes some things incomprehensible, especially for someone with an Oklahoma accent attempting a British one. We saw the same thing with Jekyl and Hyde. Enunciate the syllables, for goodness sake, or you’re throwing out half of what the writer created, and generating a lot of truly broken English.
Nut Milk
I made a pitcher of nut milk today. 1 cup of cashews ($1.25 at CVS), 6 cups water (I used filtered), dash of salt (I used kosher), teaspoon of vanilla (I used real), couple teaspoons of some sweetener (I used turbinado). Hold back 5 cups of the water, blend the rest, add remaining water, blend again, and you’re done. I’m having it over Cheerios. Protein, just like milk, w. no animal products, and it’s delicious. Kind of like brown rice milk, not as thick as organic whole dairy, somewhere between 2% and skim. Cost factor is great, too. I’m sure I can get unsalted cashews for less. Advice: if you use salted cashews, don’t add the dash of additional salt.
I got this recipe from my favorite cookbook: Of These Ye May Freely Eat: A Vegetarian Cookbook by Joann Rachor
Save a Horse
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| From MoongChee |
One of the reasons I changed my dog’s name when getting him from the rescue, is that I just couldn’t see myself yelling in public, “Come here, Cowboy! I’ve got a treat for you!” Somehow, it just doesn’t sound like me.
McTip for McDonalds
The occasional McDonalds bacon/egg biscuit is one of the vices I wish I didn’t have. Usually rushed mornings, with high demands will do it. I won’t eat their other food, and I’m working on dumping them entirely forever (factory farming) but, for now, here’s a tip: If you order the bacon-egg biscuit, asked them to substitute the scrambled or round egg for the folded one. For the folded egg, they use a mix (imagine what kind of msg components are floating around in that plastic bag). But for the scrambled or round egg (fried), they actually break some eggs. They happily do the substitution, if you speak their language. Tell ‘em you want the biscuit dry, not “buttered”, too – you can avoid the chemical “margarine” that way. One thing about McDonalds – you can have it “your way”. It’s still a massively high calorie breakfast, and those eggs and that bacon are factory farmed, and it’s white bread; there are lots of chemicals in just all of that, too – but at least it’s not drenched in them.
Hail Storm
The big stuff was near baseball sized. Most of it was golfball. Looks like all of it was bigger than marbles. Our roof looks like artillery hit it. Broken front picture window, siding is toast, gutter covers, vents, lights, shutters, and some screens are all toast. I think the car escaped (was in a different part of town).
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| Storm 05-16-10 |
Green Gables
Went to Anne of Green Gables today at Poteet Theatre in Oklahoma City. A local Protestant church houses this theatre, which puts on numerous productions each season and teaches acting classes. We’re definitely going to Guys and Dolls in November.
I hadn’t read the book (my wife had) or seen the play. It was quite good. The wife prefers musicals, but I like it all. The actors were, understandably for this play, mostly young. Impressive performance by all.
We had coffee at Coffee Slingers – home of individually pressed kick-ass coffee (meaning, it’s strong), and some really bad food (no need to say where). Of course, we came home to find our house had suffered severe storm damage (broken glass, holes everywhere, etc.) that we had just missed. At least the car didn’t get hit.
Black Gold
While I prefer more hard-hitting film (and less pretty than Food Inc), I did especially like the segment that touched (far too briefly) on WTO, World Bank, and IMF involvement in keeping the impoverished people of the world working at just above starvation for the comfort of the West. Perhaps films like this are the Stony Brooks Farms of documentaries – they’ll go places that work by PETA won’t. Dunno. I still prefer my whiskey straight.
I’d have liked to have seen more interviews w. bohemian barristas with dreadlock bags instead of the high-end types who dress like table waiters. They should visit Portland, not Seattle – that’s so yesterday. The part with the two Starbucks girls (at #1 in Seattle) was like watching Miss Teen South Carolina (“because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps”) all over again, but in stereo. Like, toe-duh-lee. “Wow, like, how much bigger can we get? I think it’s about bringing people together…” I was hurling my version of insults at the screen (“You’re Blockbusters! You’re McDonalds! You’re Walmart!”
By the way, a maxim I put into play some years before that beauty pageant: “If you have to say the words ’she’s actually quite intelligent’, then she actually isn’t. Even if she was on the honor roll. Even if she got straight A’s. Even if she took AP English. Intelligence is self evident.”
The statistics in this film didn’t drown you, but were artfully reduced to a helpful and thoughtful stream instead of a barrage. The Black Gold web site (google it) likewise has a coffee calculator. Too bad they weren’t able to draw the connection though, with the Bear Stearns types. The same farks who put so many people out of their homes during this larceny we’re calling a “recession”, ensure that coffee growers in South America actually pay *us* 30cents/kilo, while they starve as we drink their coffee. Suck that down in your “frappuccino”.
OK, so now for the politics: I prefer fair trade coffee to direct trade coffee, where direct trade means the US coffee house runs its own farm. Quite simply, I don’t think the answer to having starved Ethiopians to death for so long is to just buy my coffee elsewhere. I think it’s to give them an honest price. Not a “fair” price, either. Ask 50% of the US what’s fair, and they say it’s whatever the market bears – in other words, whatever slightly more clever people can get it down to on Wall Street, and we’re back to slavery again. Yes, slavery. Just because the chains are invisible, doesn’t mean they aren’t twice as effective. What do you call people who generate luxury items for us while their own children go malnourished, uneducated, and sick? I call it slavery. I don’t like prettying thing up so I can feel good about my hair and my clothes, like Miss South Carolina.
I also am not very fond of this crap being pulled by coffee houses like one near me that says “Ours is 60% fair trade.” What the heck is that? That’s like saying ‘I’m 60% honest. 60% ethical. I don’t rob, starve, and bankrupt people 60% of the time.’ If AIG sold coffee, that’s what they’d say. Imagine, ‘Our securities are 60% secure.’ Thank God they’re not making condoms.
I’m not saying everything has to be “certified”. We’ve seen how well that works with the fake organics out there, like Horizon products. Enjoying your high priced lie, you Nordstroms-wearing yuppies? Buy Stremicks Heritage dairy. But I also think “fairly traded” can be a similar cover for inside deals. So you get these ethical nihilists who say we can’t know anything and nothing is pure, so do what you will. They’re like ethical mules (think about it). I think a smarter answer is that you can’t rely on labels and catch phrases by themselves. There’s absolutely no substitute for paying attention, knowing exactly where your food comes from, and caring about what it means. That’s the whole thing – yuppies are about labels and tags. Why do you think they buy shirts with other people’s names on them, and call that quality? If you’re no smarter than a billboard, or not willing to be, you’ve got nothing to say that isn’t a tautology. This is Old Navy. That’s Banana Republic. There’s nothing that replaces actually paying attention, thinking, and being mentally involved in the logical process that generates what you touch, take, and tell.
Oh, and one more designation “single origin”. Sure that’s important but, by itself, it’s like Starbucks’ “Fair Trade Blend” (as if a sprinkle of goodness turns a mountain of shite into pretty, lovely, fairy dust with smile sprinkles and rainbows). It’s like saying something was produced with ‘voluntary labor’. That’s very sweet, but it doesn’t mean they weren’t starving to death while they were laboring. We’ve all seen this nonsense with 3/4 of the “green energy” advertising. Think “happy cows”.
Anyway, the Black Gold forums have some interesting discussions (in terms of topics). A lot of the actual talk is bluster, obfuscation, and disinformation, but you get that in most forums.
We were talking last night about this, and I reaffirmed that we can’t fight everything, solve everything, but we’re not absolutists who then insist on that or nothing, and so crash and burn into a nihilistic, valueless, no fight at all attitude. The absolutists and nihilists are essentially the same in their initial assumption of all or nothing. I care about my coffee being organic, shade-grown, fairly traded, sustainable, high-quality (why buy swill just because it’s technically certified in one of these areas?). But the fact that we will never achieve all we want, does not excuse us from seeking it, or from doing anything. I look around my house and guess its contents and materials contain several thousand devastating and harmful substances that have wreaked untold suffering on the poor. And havoc upon the world, which is havoc upon the poor, because the poor are more symbiotically affected by the world than the rich who spend their wealth on insulating themselves from it. You and I don’t drink directly from a river, or bathe in it. We can afford to ship water, filter it, treat it, or drink something else. I will do something. It won’t be enough. But I will do something, and seek to do more, and constantly work on growing my response. I was born rich, among a people that consume most of the world’s resources, luxuriating in excess provided by the slavery of others. As our diplomats say, “We *will* open markets, by whatever means necessary.” We’ve observed those means, regardless of the party in power, and still observe them, whether its napalm on someone’s village or trade sanctions against their farm. I can’t go back and undo the context into which I was born. But I will refuse to let up pressure to change that context and, at a minimum, reduce my contribution to harming others and the world. As Our Lord said, “Whatever and whenever you have done to the poor, it was me as much as them.” Lord have mercy.
[Best article] I’ve read on this is from the owner of Intelligentsia coffee in Chicago.
Jekyll & Hyde (The Musical)
We took in a matinee of the production of Jekyll and Hyde (the musical) by the Regional Actors Community Theatre at the Wilkins Theater of Northern Oklahoma College [details]. A great way to spend an afternoon.
The play was good – I liked the running theme, not just of the “essential twoness” (to use WEB Dubois’ term) of man’s character, but of the social elements of hypocrisy and “the fascade!” (as the continual refrain went). I thought the play had one or two quirks: The alternate love interest for Jekyll’s fiance never developed. I don’t think it was necessary to include his interest in her if it’s just to show that ‘no, she makes her own choices’ – I found that part preachy and trite, but I enjoyed the comedy of Jekyll’s response, which made up for it. Likewise, Lucy’s pimp (Spider) was trotted out a couple of times, once for a brief monologue, but without any further development there, either. Again, unnecessary, and probably better to leave him nebulous and enigmatic than offer a persona that doesn’t get to really live before we cease caring whether he’s going to become another victim or not. I was willing to take an interest in both characters and their desires, but then the writer must give us more. Don’t tease.
The musical numbers were good, although I could do with just a slight few less of them, but then I’m a barbarian. I think when the same character has just finished one song, sits down, and starts another, it’s a bit thick. I thought the lyrics were inventive, though. I want to say almost ‘Matt Groenig like’ in their satirical appropriateness to the ‘fascade’ theme of Hyde’s genuineness (being truly what he was) over against society’s pretense (and that of his victims).
The performance was in a small theatre, but the vocals often didn’t achieve sufficient volume. I’d have liked the actors mic’ed wirelessly for amplification, but of course it’s a small college budget, so I don’t expect Madonna’s equipment. And I’d have liked to hear more of the actors’ actual voices in some cases, instead of trying so hard to sing in their ‘character voices’ (adding age, accent, and melodrama). The level of practice was evident though – these guys must have drilled all season, and often into the night.
Mary Beth Garrison (Lucy) was the standout female performer, in my mind. Her vocals were unstudied (as in natural, not unpracticed), and she put herself unselfconsciously into the burlesque scene (among others), with the other young female roles clearly having a blast joining her. They were ’smokin’. She succeeded in being a tragic figure, just as easily.
Eric Bradford (as John Utterson – Jekyll’s attorney) was, in my view, the most interesting male performer. I often forgot that he’s much younger than his role, or even that he was acting. Impressive young man. He displayed great comfort in his part, seemingly relaxed at all times, and ever reliable to inject the atmosphere of support required of Jekyll’s staunch friend. He succeeded so well, I wanted him for my own friend by show’s end.
The lead’s (Edward Dixon’s) best part was the song in which he switches back and forth repeatedly from Jekyl to Hyde. He clearly practiced the speed demanded by the score, which was managed with quite a bit of class by two musicians on their own. Again, though, I would have liked to have heard more of his true voice - I thought it cracked to a bit of a whine throughout the musical. But occasionally he let go, where the volume he wanted to project forced him back to how he really sounds – those were his best moments – somwhere between unselfconscious and confident, or at least surrendered to the vocal demands.
Many of the vocalists could focus more on clarity. I’d rather understand what they’re singing, without straining to comprehend, than for the ladies to sustain such high, operatic notes, or the men try to retain an accent and artificially deep tone. The goal is not to imitate someone else’s performance, but to make it your own. To do that, you have to trust your voice, even if it’s safer not to. One trademark of great performances is that the lyrics are just as important as what the voice can do as musical instrument – it must be a challenge to achieve balance, though, and one certainly can’t speak as though it were easy. It’s doubtful this group has had the length of time to polish one production that you’d expect on Broadway, so you can’t fault them for being merely good.
As I say, though, you could tell these are the double football practice tough guys (and gals) of theatre. The dedication was evident.
One final note on Chelsea Mayer (Emma – Jekyll’s fiance). I noticed that when she was focused on a lengthy or detailed number, she really forgot herself (exactly as needed) and lived out the emotional presence of her character. That (again) delightful unselfconsciousness, was purchased with some of what I already mentioned I’d prefer from the female vocals, but I gathered she’s capable of both.
There are too many players, hands, operators, and others to comment in detail upon them all. I saw something to be impressed about in each, however. The play dragged a bit in a couple of areas (that’s the writer, not the troupe’s issue), and I wished they’d have felt free to actually cut or just abbreviate a couple of (more?) numbers, but I’ll go back to see them again with another production.
The campus of NOC looked to share a common ancestry with the layout of OU. The circle drive led us exactly where we expected to go. We’re excited to learn that there are also large scale musical productions going on there, and look forward to visiting again.
Afterward, we ate at Gottigos in Tonkawa (it’s our custom to eat local mom & pop food when we visit another town – and whenever possible in our own). The pizza was a great value. The texture was just right. The crust was a little too artifical-buttery, but it made up for it in overall cheesy deliciousness.
Tonkawa was a quiet, little town, with one police car in front of the station, people who still dress out in cowboy hats and pointy boots on Sunday, a large family picnic happening in the park (in a lot of places, you wonder if the parks ever get used at all), and a lot of trucks in front of the pub. We were glad to enjoy a pleasant drive around downtown before going back.
