The Boys From Syracuse is a musical based on Shakespeare's play, A Comedy of Errors. The musical was written by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart and first produced on Broadway in 1938. As described in The Washington Post review of this production, this "show was Shakespeare Theatre Company’s inaugural attempt at replicating, with an Elizabethan wink, New York’s highly successful and widely imitated Encores! concert series, which regularly blows the dust off vintage (and sometimes not-so-vintage) musicals." Shakespeare Theatre produced five weekend performances of the show. I loved the show, as I love musical theater. The play and the music leave one feeling happy and remind one of a golden age of musical theater in America, led by Richard Rogers, who teamed with Hart and later with Oscar Hammerstein, to write some of the greatest shows in Broadway history.
Both newspaper reviews and audience reviews are posted on the official site. My own review: I enjoyed the play. This play was first staged in 1708 in Paris, and the original was translated and updated for this production. The play is a farce; it was intended to be slapstick humor. The play was not to be taken seriously; it was intended to amuse, and in my opinion, it succeeded. This play made me smile and even laugh at times. I loved the lighthearted nature of the play, and I left the theater feeling happy.
I did not care for this book. I really enjoyed all four of the Fandorin books by Akunin, as well as the other two Sister Pelagia books that have been translated. I was really looking forward to getting this new translation; however, I soon found that it was not like the previous books. I found this book boring. I kept putting it aside. I had to struggle to finish it. It was not a fun, happy read for me. In addition, I also found the unnecessary and gratuitous violence and murders of innocent children and others to be uninviting. When I finally got to the end of the book and learned the storyline and plot, I found it so hokey that I could hardly believe that a writer like Akunin would write such a storyline. I have less excitement now about the next Akunin book that is translated. I don't recommend this book.
The first book written about Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea, described how Mortenson became involved in building schools in rural Pakistan. The book became a world-wide inspirational best seller. This book follows up by describing how Mortenson and his "Dirty Dozen" employees work. The book describes how some of the schools -- now 131 -- actually came about. Mortenson describes how he and his men work with local community leaders to gain their acceptance and support, which he believes is vital to success. I found this book as inspirational as the first book -- it provides tangible methods to achieve success. Compared with the total number of schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the number of schools built by Mortenson is tiny, but they are vital to the villages and the children they serve.
As an unintended consequence, a much larger purpose has been served by Mortenson -- he has inspired the American military to take a completely different approach -- talking with elders in communities rather than simply bombing and killing innocent civilians. Military leaders have sought the advice of Mortenson, and Three Cups of Tea is now required reading by officers in the military serving in Afghanistan. At last our military is "promoting peace with books, not bombs", as Mortenson teaches, as shown by this quote:
"What Greg understands better than most—and what he practices more than anyone else I know—is the simple truth that all of us are better off when all of us have the opportunity to learn, especially our children. By helping them learn and grow, he’s shaping the very future of a region and giving hope to an entire generation." —Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
What goes on in the mind of a pedophile? How can this obsession be described? Nabokov imagined the thoughts, the feelings, of a man completely consumed by his addiction to a "nymphet" -- a 12 year old girl. To me, all fiction books can be judged by two criteria -- the quality of the story and the quality of the writing. This story was interesting in that it described the mind of a man with a particular insanity. The quality of the writing was outstanding for people who take delight in the use of words almost never used, mixed with the use of French. For me, I found the story to drag, and I found the book very easy to put aside; the story was too boring and the words too strange for me to enjoy. For years, I had postponed reading the book because I was too uneasy about the subject matter of the book. In retrospect, I found that I was simply bored too often by the book. By comparison, Gogol's short story, "The Diary of a Madman" is one of the most moving stories I have ever read. Gogol's writing is so mesmerizing that I sometimes found myself forgetting the story and simply marveling at the way he wrote.
Others, too, have noted the difficulties posed by the word play in the book, and find an annotated version of the book to be helpful. "...the reader of Lolita attempts to arrive at some sense of its overall 'meaning,' while at the same time having to struggle...with the difficulties posed by the recondite materials and rich, elaborate verbal textures. The main purpose of this edition is to solve such local problems and to show how they contribute to the total design of the novel." --From the Preface by Alfred Appel, Jr.
Or, as stated in the Wikipedia article: "The novel's flamboyant style is characterized by word play, double entendres, multilingual puns, anagrams, and coinages such as 'nymphet', a word that has since had a life of its own and can be found in most dictionaries, and the lesser used 'faunlet'."
Francesca Faridany as Rosalind and John Behlmann as Orlando in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of William Shakespeare’s "As You Like It". Directed by Maria Aitken. Photo by Scott Suchman.
The Alchemist is a happy farce about con artists, who were rife in London at the time that the play was first performed in 1610. The play left the audience feeling happy.
Of course, here in Washington, we see political con artists every day, so we are accustomed to their misdeeds, although the con artists of today are more malevolent than the ones depicted in the play.
About the Author (From Amazon) Helen Constantine was Head of Languages for many years at a comprehensive school in Oxfordshire and now works as a full-time translator. She is married to the poet, David Constantine. In January 2004 they took over the editorship of Modern Poetry in Translation.
When I purchased this book, I was hoping to learn a bit about the writing styles of some very famous writers and also to find interesting descriptions of various parts of the city. The book met my expectations in both regards. I'm sure the stories were not the best of the authors, and I'm sure that I could find better descriptions of various parts of the city. I found some of the stories uninspired and even dull, while others were much more interesting. It is not a great book, but it was interesting.
Botticelli to Warhol, The 20 Most Influential Artists of the Past 500 Years.
Aboard the Queen Mary 2, I attended this art history lecture in which the lecturers discussed their choices of the 20 most influential artists of the past 500 years.
12. Marcel Duchamp – 1887–1968. Avante Garde. First to show motion in paintings. Nude Descending a Staircase. (I have a copy of this painting, which I have always thought is the greatest painting I have ever seen. To me, this painting should be titled, "Madonna Descending a Staircase".)
Bruce Springsteen at the Verizon Center in Washington DC, September 9, 2009. An incredible performance.
Prior to the “Face2Face” concert with Elton John and Billy Joel in July, I had never attended a rock concert. After seeing “Jersey Boys” recently, when I noticed that a Bruce Springsteen concert was scheduled at the Washington, DC, Verizon Center on November 2, I went to Stubhub and purchased excellent tickets.
Pre-Performance
The show was scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m., and when I arrived at 7:00, almost no one was there. At 7:30, the crew was still checking lights and sound, and still almost no one was there; not more than 10 percent of the seats were filled. I wondered whether Bruce would be performing to a half empty arena. I also overheard several other people wondering about all the empty seats. At 8:00, 12-15 crew, arrived on stage and climbed “rope” ladders to a large overhead frame housing the lights for the performance. They were dressed in black and once they arrived at the completely black light structure, they became invisible. I felt sure that the lights were operated electronically, so I wondered why these crew were needed. Still the arena was half empty.
While waiting for the concert to begin, two young men sat behind me chatting about dating. Their principal topic of discussion was that women expect men to pay for everything, so dating is expensive, many times even for dates that do not lead to second dates. On that topic, I found this woman's perspective interesting.
Also while waiting for the concert to begin, two young women sat in the row in front of me, a slender brunette and a massively obese redhead, so obese that she had to wedge herself into the seat, even though I sat with room left over. After the two of them talked for a few minutes, the redhead stood up and turned around to talk with me. She asked if I had attended a Bruce Springsteen concert before, and then told me that fans often had tears in their eyes at the end of the concert, although she said DC is a more restrained crowd.
Later, a married couple sat in front of me, with a tall, thin, pretty woman along with them. She was very striking, with brown hair. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties. The seats were bleacher seats, so the row in front of me was substantially lower than the row in which I was seated. After a time, I noticed something about the pretty woman – the hair in the part in her hair was silver gray. She didn't look old enough for gray hair; I was glad she colored her hair, as I am always glad when women color their hair.
A large man and his wife sat next to me, and he drank one beer after another from the time he got there until the end of the concert. He was constantly getting up to go get more beer.
Overall, it seemed to me that most of the crowd was age 40-60, although some younger people were there, too. Bruce was dressed in jeans, as he always seems to be, and most of the crowd also seemed to be dressed in jeans. I felt a bit out of place dressed in a suit and tie; I had gone directly to the concert from my office, and did not change clothes.
Concert
At 8:15, Bruce and the E Street Band appeared and the performance began, and suddenly every seat was filled, about 15,000, along with several thousand additional fans on the floor of the arena. The sudden appearance of the crowd was amazing. By comparison, about 55,000 fans attended the Elton John/Billy Joel “Face2Face” concert at Nationals’ Park, and close to 100,000 fans attended the Paul McCartney concert at FedEx Field this summer.
From the moment that Bruce stepped onto the stage, he exhorted the crowd to make noise, and the crowd happily complied. Throughout the entire performance, he continued to exhort the crowd to make noise. Throughout the performance, the crowd sang along on all of the songs, seemingly knowing all the words to all the songs, and Bruce held out the microphone to exhort the crowd to sing along. Indeed, throughout the performance, the crowd was a sea of people jumping and waving their hands to the beat of the music. It was an incredible sight. The crowd was MUCH more involved with the music than at the Elton John/Billy Joel concert, where they almost ignored the music.
The music was incredibly loud, with the bass actually throbbing the building. I was not familiar with the songs, and they all sounded very much alike to me, with the same beat. I could not understand any of the words to the songs, and I couldn't understand his words when he talked (or yelled) into the microphone.
Bruce was exceedingly active throughout the concert. He was everywhere on the stage, and he constantly stepped down from the stage to a platform that extended out into the crowd on the floor of the arena. He encouraged fans to touch him and to touch his guitar as he played. By comparison, the piano players, Elton John and Billy Joel, were at their pianos, and did not interact physically with the crowd.
The E Street Band was truly incredible. They have been playing together for more than 35 years, and they were incredible. The most noticeable band member was the drummer, Max Weinberg. He was truly amazing. He never stopped, playing the drums on all the songs, and in between songs as well. In addition, Clarence Clemons, the sax player, was great, as well. He is a large man, and as he played, the camera showed close-up videos of his hands on the sax. His large fingernails were painted gold, the color of the saxophone. In this band, the piano player played a dominant role, as did the lead guitar player. The other most notable band member was the only woman, Patti Scialfa, Bruce’s wife. She played the violin and guitar, and with her blonde hair, she was very striking on stage. The band expanded for some songs, adding a trumpet player, and several accordions. In one song, a young woman played the accordion, and she played very close to Bruce and he interacted with her a lot in a very playful way. Later he said she was the daughter of the drummer, Ali Weinberg.
(Photo from Washington Post)
Clearly the band members were great friends, who have been together for a long time. Bruce seemed very close to all of them, and particularly close to the guitar players, Nils Lofgren and Steve Van Zandt, who sang with him on many of the songs. The band members looked older, as in fact they are.
The video above, taken from Fox News, shows Bruce’s interaction with the crowd. Note how Bruce held the microphone out for the crowd, and exhorted them to make noise. Note also the gold painted fingernails of Clarence Clemons. Finally, note Patti Scialfa in the background playing the guitar.
As he was playing one of the songs, Bruce stood on the platform extension into the crowd, and he noticed a boy about 11 years old singing. He helped the boy onto the stage and gave him the microphone, and the boy sang the song as the band played. Many people in the audience wore shirts and carried songs saying “We Love Bruce”. A group of women held a very large sign, “Lesbians heart Bruce”. He said I love you, too.
On the website nj.com, Stan Goldstein listed the songs played in the concert. As advertised, Bruce sang the entire set of songs from the album “Born to Run”, as well as some other songs. At one point, he took requests from the crowd, who gave him requests on large cardboard signs. He collected many of the signs, and then picked out four songs.
1. Outlaw Pete 2. Prove It All Night 3. Hungry Heart (crowd surf) 4. Working On a Dream 5. Thunder Road 6. Tenth Ave Freeze-Out 7. Night 8. Backstreets 9. Born To Run 10. She's The One 11. Meeting Across The River 12. Jungleland 13. Waitin' On A Sunny Day 14. Stand On It (tour premiere, request) 15. Seven Nights To Rock (request) 16. Growin' Up (request) 17. Pink Cadillac (request) 18. Lonesome Day 19. The Rising 20. Badlands
Encores: 21. Hard Times 22. No Surrender 23. American Land 24. Dancing In The Dark 25. Rosalita 26. Higher & Higher
The Washington Post review of the concert, along with great photos of the concert. I was also interested in many of the reader comments on the Washington Post review page.
The show ended at 11:00 p.m.; it lasted almost three hours, nonstop. By comparison, the Face2Face concert lasted three hours, with Billy Joel singing one hour, Elton John singing one hour, and the two singing together for an hour.
The Wikipedia article notes that Bruce was noted for great performances, and this performance was no exception. It was incredible. In his long career, he has sold approximately 125 million albums. By comparison, Elton John has sold about 200 million albums and Billy Joel about 100 million. Bruce’s “Born in the USA” sold 15 million albums, one of the greatest selling albums of all time.
As stated in Wikipedia, Jersey Boys is a documentary-style musical based on the lives of one of the most successful 1960s rock 'n roll groups, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The group sold more than 175 million albums. The musical opened on Broadway on November 6, 2005 at the August Wilson Theatre.
(Washington Post photo by Joan Marcus. From left, Steve Gouveia, Joseph Leo Bwarie, Josh Franklin and Matt Bailey in the touring production.)
As mentioned in the Washington Post review, this show is great entertainment. It was a great show. The audience loved it, and so did I. Most of all, the audience (and I) loved the singing of the old songs; the singers were truly excellent, singing the songs as they were sung by the original singers. The story of the group was also interesting, but the songs were what the audience wanted to hear.
A complete list of the songs in the performance is given in the Wikipedia article. The audience was particularly excited to hear the top hits of the group, beginning with their first huge hit, "Sherry", then "Walk Like a Man" and later, "My Eyes Adored You" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You". Many in the audience were moved to tears on hearing the songs sung so well.
The theater was filled to capacity, and when I entered the theater, I noticed that the audience was different from a "normal" Washington, DC, audience. Washington is a white-collar town, and when Washingtonians go out to the theater, men wear white shirts and ties, almost exclusively, and women wear dressy clothes. In this audience, very few men wore ties; I guessed not more than a dozen ties in the entire audience, and a similar number of white shirts. Instead, men wore open-neck colored shirts and sport jackets. I had the very strong feeling that most of the people in the audience were from out of town. Then during the performance, I began to understand the audience.
At one point in the show, one of the cast members said, "We weren't a social movement like the Beatles." He explained that their fans were blue-collar workers: "They were the factory workers, the truck drivers, the pretty girls with circles under their eyes behind the counters at the diner." The audience reflected that fan base -- blue-collar workers, now retired. It was wonderful, just as the show was wonderful. I left the theater feeling uplifted and happy, the way I love to feel, and the way all audience members want to feel after seeing a show. It was entertaining; it was joyful; it was wonderful.
This book is a time-travel fantasy. Many fantasies of time travel have been written, and this is another one. In this book, the author travels back in time to Vienna in the year 1897, and describes the famous people, such as Freud and Mahler, who are beginning their famous work, as well as the political climate of that time, in which the mayor of Vienna, Karl Lueger, is using anti-semitism to gain political popularity. The book seems to follow Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and indeed the author includes Mark Twain in his tale as a visitor to Vienna in 1897.
All books require a good story and good writing. In my view, this book has a bit of both, but only at the "C" level. Parts of the fantasy are interesting, amusing and completely unexpected, while I found other parts of the fantasy too corny, too contrived, too fake for my tastes. I found it interesting to read about Vienna in 1897, and I enjoyed reading the author's description of Freud and Mahler's work, but I thought the author's description of the origins of anti-semitism to be mistaken.
While I was amused by much of the tale, I found the author's need for the protagonist to lead and teach EVERYTHING to be too much. The tale would have been more fun for me if the protagonist had been more human. The story also did not hold together in some ways. For example, it was interesting to me that both the protagonist and his father were illegitimate. The father was the illegitimate child of a Jewish teacher and friend of the mother, and the protagonist was the illegitimate child of his mother and an unknown military man in England just before D-Day in World War II. Yet, the author constantly referred to the protagonist as having inherited traits of his "father".
The story has several twists that I found interesting or amusing. The illegitimacy of the two principal male characters was interesting. Why did the author include that in the book; it was unnecessary to the story, although it was interesting. In addition, the love affair between the protagonist and his grandmother in 1897 Vienna was also interesting. The author required 33 years to write this book, so he had plenty of time to get all the details straight, and yet he did not do that.
All in all, the book was good subway reading, but certainly not great literature.
Phedre with Helen Mirren. Phedre is a Greek tragedy, dating back to the fifth century, BC, of a woman who falls in love with her stepson and then struggles to manage her feelings, which consume her. Phedre is about a certain type of relationship, a forbidden one, and a woman's struggles to control her emotions, in the end, losing her struggle. This version of the play was written by the French writer, Racine, in 1677. The story is so tragic and so filled with negative emotion from start to finish that I had not felt good about going. However, I wanted to see Helen Mirren in her signature role. I was surprised that the play was not as difficult as I had expected it to be, although it is indeed filled with heart wrenching emotion from start to finish. Helen Mirren was really special. It is easy to see how great she is, and how this role has so come to define her career. The play was long -- with no intermission -- and I didn't get home until midnight.
The Washington Post ran a review of the opening night of Phedre.
The Examiner noted that for an extra payment, patrons could join Helen Mirren at a reception at the British Embassy. I didn't attend, but I did notice that a limousine was waiting for her outside the theater.
