Friday, February 22, 2008

The Play's the Thing (and other things)

Steven Sondheim is having a good week. The revival of his Pulitzer Prize winning "Sunday in the Park with George" opened to a glowing New York Times review last evening, and last season's well received minimalist revival of "Company" was broadcast on PBS' "Great Performances" Wednesday.

I had the opportunity to see a community production of "Sunday" last spring, which was very exciting because it is one of my favorite musicals. To a person, all those I knew who saw the production disliked it -- they found it slow, tedious, boring...when they could understand what was going on. I admit that certain production elements limited the show's effectiveness (including some rather awkward and misguided tempi on the songs), but I think they just didn't think it was very interesting. Ben Brantley, the Times reviewer, points out many of the aspects of the show that I enjoy in his review. Brantley's criticism of the second act is accurate, but he also points out the overall resonance of the show.

The "Company" production was strong, though it certainly had an interesting cast. Raul Esparza was an interesting choice for "Bobby, Bobby," but more interesting was the lack of overly strong personalities among the rest of the cast. This resulted, at least, in a rather subdued "The Ladies Who Lunch," compared to Elaine Stritch, but enhanced the dreamlike quality of the entire piece(the edges were very smooth in this flowing production). Director John Doyle won a Tony for his imaginative staging of "Sweeney Todd," in which all of the actors doubled as the instrumentalists; he does similar staging here, but I found it slightly underwhelming. (He says in interviews that the point is to highlight Sondheim's score; this might be necessary in the completely sung-through "Sweeney" but "Company" is quite a different animal.) Still, "Company" may be Sondheim's best musical (most critics would have my head for that comment, almost universally preferring "Sweeney," while Sondheim himself rather perversely prefers "Assassins"), and it is always good to see talented people wrestle with it.

Other notes from the week:
I served at another funeral this week, again for someone I did not know, though this time it was not for a congregation member, but for someone "twice-removed." It is an awkward experience, conducting a funeral for people you do not know, but I'm slowly learning how to approach such things.

The church has hired a new secretary. This is exciting, except for the fact that I was a prominent part of the interview and selection process, so if it doesn't work out, it is almost entirely my fault and I have no one else to blame. (I don't think that will happen, but I really need to develop some "plausable deniability" for such decisions.)

I've exercised at the gym three times this week. I haven't injured myself. I haven't injured anyone else. I haven't been barred from the premises. All good things.

Bible Study was well attended this week, despite some wintery weather. That's a good sign (both for me and for the church as a whole).

So it was a pretty good week for me too (though I'm waiting for someone to write nice things about me in the newspaper)....

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