I was at Lincoln Center yesterday and had the misfortune to look through the window at Avery Fisher Hall during the pre-concert dinner hour. No matter how rich or fancy you think you are I wish you would give a moment’s consideration to how you look when you eat. My eyes were opened years ago when I got a slice of pizza and ate it at a counter in front of a store-length mirror. I was disgusting! Taking huge bites, stuffing it all into one cheek, probing my teeth with my tongue… I can’t go on. These atrocities and more were being perpetrated by the cognoscenti and I don’t know how people can get so old and eat so repulsively. Please fix that.
Also yesterday I went for a haircut and had my first professional shave. I asked the barber – probably in an effort to avoid having to talk about the GOD DAMN SUPER BOWL – if he had seen Sweeney Todd. The barber – a Russian guy – said, “No, but I understand there’s a lot of blood.” He said it as if that was a good thing, which of course it is. I asked about getting shaved and he asked if I had time for the “deluxe treatment,” which is $4 extra and takes about 30 minutes. I told him to bring it on. They (this Russian barber and his Russian barber brother) prefer not to shave when business is brisk because you can give two haircuts in the time it takes to do a shave. But it was 8:30 and snowing (gigantic flakes which didn’t last long) so we did it right.
After the haircut he rubbed some thick stuff into my face. “This is cream for shaving,” he said. “It’s called ‘Shaving Cream.’” Then he put a hot towel on me for a couple of minutes. Wiped off some of the excess cream and got to work with a little straightedge razor, shaving mostly with the grain. Before he got to work on my neck he asked, “Are you married?” “Yes.” “Does your wife know you’re here?” “Uh - ye - yes?” Then he started around the Adam’s apple. Made me gasp, let me tell you. He was obviously aware of the gist of Sweeney Todd. After that, a little more stuff applied to the face and further shaving against the grain. Then an EXTREMELY hot towel wrapped with nothing exposed but the nostrils, then further moisturizer rubbed in and after shave lotion spritzed on. I had never had any kind of a facial and thought the experience was pretty darn cool. I don’t know if the shave was really any closer than what I do myself, though. I don’t have to be onstage for about a month, so I’m not going to shave till then, and when I do I’m going back to this barber.
Maggie the 12-year-old daughter LOVED Sweeney Todd and astonished me, as she did after we saw The Producers on Broadway, by quoting it extensively on the walk home. She’s seen Christopher Lee get enough stakes through the heart so that the ridiculously bright red blood didn’t bother her, and a month later she’s still singing the songs. “We A-L-L DE-SERVE TO DIE…” Lucy (9) also watched it (illegal download GIVEN TO ME BY A FRIEND) and felt compelled to leave the room for a couple of the slashings, and demanded to know up front if the young lovers live, but also enjoyed if very much and her attention never wandered, that’s for sure. I saw the original cast in 1979 and have been waiting since then for the movie version. It is a great movie musical but I found Helena Bonham Carter a little exasperating. Granted we’ve got Angela Lansbury’s dynamic performance preserved and don’t really need more of the same but Mrs. Lovett as a heroin depressed goth girl…? Where’s the fun in that? I guess Tim Burton wanted an
anti-Lansbury. And Johnny Depp looked like a LESS insane version of Beethoven.
Anthony Perkins would have made a fine movie Sweeney too, and like Depp he could also sort of sing.
On Saturday night NYGASP had its final Princess Ida for hopefully as many as eight years. We played the great McCarter Theater in Princeton to a very full and appreciative house. It was fun to do after a couple of weeks off. Ida really is right at the bottom of the barrel as far as Gilbert’s input is concerned. Not quite as bad as The Grand Duke, which is bad Sullivan as well, but certainly on a par with Gilbert’s lame work in The Sorcerer and Utopia, Limited. Here’s yet another Ida review, mostly synopsis, from Theater Scene.net (choice quote: "What passes for imagination are such things as the tap dancing soldiers in the third act, which seem vaguely out of character from the rest of the evening").
And here’s one more, on the brief side, from some New Jersay paper.
I’ve also seen some blog reviews, basically favorable and not interesting enough to bother presenting to you. I snicker that they take the performers to task for frequently not facing the people onstage to whom they’re singing or speaking (it's "distracting"). I am sure that these blog critics watch much fine television and occasionally even drag themselves outside to see a movie but in a theater where no microphones are involved I promise you it’s much better if the performers try to make their voices go out to the customers.
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