At this crazy busy time of year, don't you feel like jumping off the long pier into summer?
My daughter's second play opens tonight. She is playing one of the 3 Alice's in Alice in Wonderland at her school. This morning her straightener died so half of her hair is naturally curly and the other half is straight. The 2 other Alice's have naturally straight hair. I'm suggesting braids. They say break a leg, not a hair straightener! Her first play, Comedy of Errors, was free of unintended comic errors. For that she played a man. The girl has range. The below YouTube clip was recommended by her Shakespeare acting class buddies.
The Book of Mormon is actually worth the hype. From the creators of South Park, this new Broadway musical guarantees to offend everyone. Mormonism joins the long list of religions ridiculed on South Park, but the Mormons themselves are portrayed sympathetically as big-hearted characters of faith. They are totally unprepared for the grizzly realities of a warlord-dominated village in Uganda. The troubles of Africa, from AIDS to dysentery and female circumcision, are the subject of catchy musical numbers.
Somehow The Book of Mormon manages to be both hilarious and culturally sensitive. The irreverent humor reminded me of Monty Python but American. My parents enjoyed it as much as my teenaged children. The whole audience was roaring with laughter throughout the entire production. Thank you, Marika, for telling me to get tickets before it opened as they are now very hard to get.
Our best pre-theater meal was at Sushi of Gari on 46th St. We strongly recommend the Omakase, chef's choice sushi tasting menu. What the small, narrow restaurant lacks in atmosphere it makes up for in extraordinary food served quickly. There are also cooked non-fish dishes for the less adventurous, but even my 16-year-old son loved this sushi. It was some of the best sushi we've had, even including Japan.
Another Broadway comedy well worth seeing is The Importance of Being Earnest. Set in late Victorian England, this is a timeless satire of the upper classes and social conventions. Brian Bedford both directs and plays the role of Lady Bracknell. Bedford did such an excellent job that my parents didn’t realize that he was a man. The acting overall was superb, especially David Furr as Jack/Earnest. The real star, however, was the playwright, Oscar Wilde. There were so many witty and memorable lines such as:
“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.”
“It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.”
It was especially good for my daughter to observe a man playing a woman because she is playing the romantic male lead in a Shakespeare play. It’s quite a challenge for a 13-year-old girl to become an Italian man. In NYC we scanned the sidewalks for men to imitate.
Back in Maine, one of her classmates tutored my daughter and her stage twin on how to walk like a guy. Another trick was getting boy boots for my graceful dancer. She now clunks around in her Doc Martens. There were also lessons in stage fighting, slapstick and fencing. I was prepared for my daughter to grow into a woman but not to see her become a macho man. Parenting has so many surprises!
For you fans of satire, David Furr (Earnest/Jack) and Santino Fontana (Algeron) perform in character "Jersey Shore Gone Wilde" in the YouTube clip below. Warning: adult language, this is the actual transcript of "Jersey Shore" from Oscar Wilde's perspective.
Richard Russo is one of my favorite authors. His characters are fallibly true to life but still endearing. The small town going nowhere settings are well drawn. The reader gets the view from the covered porch, creaking on a rocking chair under the leaky eaves.
Like Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor, Richard Russo's That Old Cape Magic is a literary beach book. It reads more like commercial fiction (along the lines of Tom Wolfe) than like literary fiction (his usual genre.) It is quite similar to his Straight Man in mocking academia and men in midlife crises. Both are laugh out loud funny.
That Old Cape Magic adds a new twist: the protagonist, Griffin, is coming to terms with his dying parents. They were bitter, judgmental and intellectually aloof snobs. Griffin has spent his life trying not to be like them, but the more he tries to dig himself out of their rut, the further in he goes. The beach settings work well: Griffin is like a car stuck in the sand. His mother haunts him first by cell phone and then like a ghost. Or is the voice his own?
Russo apparently wrote this novel in the wake of his mother’s death. He balances the gravity of aging, death and marital problems with almost slapstick humor. Weddings and family get-togethers go spectacularly wrong.
Sometimes humor came at the expense of character development. The in-laws were amusing but a bit cartoonish. Griffin’s wife and especially his daughter were too good to be true. I never really understood why Griffin felt so estranged from his wife. Her marital transgression was rather abstract. Griffin’s English professor parents, however, were great characters, full of depth and tragic comedy.
Griffin is a screen writer who narrates in the style of his genre. This was fun and fresh except when reverting to Hollywood clichés. There were even screen directions. At one point a character casts herself as Susan Sarandon. It’s a novel begging to be a movie and yet not a lot happens. The narrative structure of two weddings was cinematically familiar and predictable.
Janet Maslin of the NYT was scathing in her review: “That Old Cape Magic is the only Richard Russo novel that has its own theme song. It’s also the only Russo book that needs one. And Mr. Russo supplies enough props, picture postcards and pratfalls to underscore the fragility of his latest venture.” Maslin went on to call the novel “entertaining but facile.” Ouch.
I still highly recommend That Old Cape Magic, especially if you’re looking for something light and entertaining but still substantial and well-written. Perfect for Labor Day Weekend. Can you believe that it's already September?
I felt like a character in a Russo novel myself. I was looking forward to finishing That Old Cape Magic after having brunch with some English professor friends. I settled into the hammock only to have it collapse underneath me. Once my teenaged son managed to stop laughing, he asked, “How much did you eat at the brunch?” I did say to a friend that I needed a lit firecracker to get me out of the hammock and back to work!
Click icon for more book review blogs @Barrie Summy
Blog Watch:
Congratulations to Keri Mikulski (from the Book Review Club) for her 4 book dealwith Razorbill Penguin!!!!
I haven't been online much lately, but don't blame lilac season . . .
. . . or the beautiful wildflowers in our woods.
Our fridge died at the start of a heat wave. The new fridge won’t be delivered for 2 weeks. Yes, Maine is really that remote and does occasionally hit 90. We have been living out of two coolers, reloading them with ice daily.
In our short spring in May you can’t leave out any food. Our house gets over run by carpenter ants, foraging from the woods. The woods also produce the lovely wildflowers you see in this post so it’s not all bad. Or so I thought.
Then my itchy dog was diagnosed with scabies, which I’d thought was a medieval affliction. Wild animals pass it to dogs. It can pass to humans too. I had to vacuum and spray every room Stella inhabited and wash all the bedding (hers and ours) in hot, soapy water. I wore a medical mask, rubber gloves and Wellington boots. At least the insecticide finished off the ants too.
I’m still trying to use the few remaining school days to keep writing. My household misadventures might be amusing if they were happening to someone else. So I’m sharing.
It’s better to laugh than to cry. I watched a video clip of one of my husband’s former students who visited us recently. Hari Kondabolu (above) lives in New York City but does not work on Wall Street. He’s a comedian, with a masters in human rights from the LSE. No kidding. The degree works well for him when accused of being politically incorrect or insensitive. If you need a laugh too, watch him here on Jimmy Kimmel:
