November Entertainments

[scarlettina]

I've attended many an entertainment this month and haven't mentioned a number of them (though I did cover Ender's Game and Music's Darkest Harvest). I'm falling behind on my LJ duties as cultural (and personal) chronicler. What have I seen lately?

Sugar Daddies at ACT: Sasha, a rather socially innocent college-age woman attending culinary school, helps a 70ish man out of the street when he's nearly run down by a truck and finds herself befriended by him. Suddenly "Uncle Val" is buying her clothes, taking her to the opera, and coaching her in demeanor and decorating. When her neighbor Ashley--another older man who finds himself charmed by her--recognizes Uncle Val and implies he's not the benevolent friend that he presents himself to be, our heroine protests. And then she begins to realize the insidious nature of Uncle Val's friendship and presence. The play, by Alan Ayckbourn, was another one of ACT's sturdy, excellent productions. I felt as though I could have predicted that Uncle Val wasn't the wholesome character he presented himself to be. I was glad when Sasha began to recognize what was happening to her as a result of their relationship. In some respects, the story followed a familiar formula, but the production found ways to make it, if not fresh, at least entertaining enough for an pleasant evening's pastime.

Peter and the Starcatcher at the Moore Theater: I attended this show by the good offices of shellyinseattle in the company of her, her mom and her daughter, and enjoyed myself enormously. The show is basically a sort of prequel to Peter Pan. Lord Leonard Aster has been tasked by the Queen to transport a mysterious chest across the sea. He enlists his daughter Molly to help him. They are Starcatchers--people who retrieve and care for star stuff that has fallen from the sky. They split forces, each taking a different ship to get to their destination, as a way to fool pirates after their mysterious star stuff. Along the way, Molly befriends three boys being shipped off as slaves, and also realizes that though she thought her ship was the decoy, it actually contains the chest with the star stuff in it. When their ship is captured by pirates, mayhem and adventure ensue. The show has been marketed locally as an entertainment for kids (though its subtitle is "An Adult's Prequel to Peter Pan"), and the child with us enjoyed it well enough, but there's a lot of meat on the bones for adults to enjoy and, in some respects, I think there's more for the adult crowd than for children. Impressionistic in production, broadly performed (for the kids, I think), it sets that stage for Peter and Wendy down the road. The evening's showstopping performance was by John Sanders who played Black Stache, the captain of the pirates. He was funny, smooth and charismatic as the man destined to become Captain Hook, and his performance made the show for me. Megan Stein as Molly was appealing in a feisty, well-scrubbed, tom-boyish-becoming-a-woman way. It wasn't a show I might have seen by myself, but I had fun with it, am glad to have seen it, and am grateful for the gift of the ticket.

The Atomic Bomshells . . . LOST IN SPACE! at the Triple Door: The Atomic Bombshells are a local burlesque troop who regularly perform at the Triple Door, among other venues. This show was a science fiction-themed romp across the galaxy with music, dance, strip-tease, and some aerial arts. The comedy was broad, the striptease mostly good though occasionally not as nuanced as I prefer. One guest star was Waxie Moon, who blew me away the first time I attended a show during the Moisture Festival. I wasn't quite as choked up by this performance as by the last one, but the reception he received demonstrated that he's clearly a local star. varina8 and I had fun, the meal was delicious (the Triple Door shares a kitchen with Wild Ginger, one of the finest Asian restaurants in town), and we had a good night overall.

On a related note, I have been thinking that I want to catch Land of the Sweets, this year's burlesque Nutcracker, also at the Triple Door, but I must find company with whom to attend, and we must acquire tickets sooner rather than later, methinks.

Thor: The Dark World: The second Thor film has our goldie-locked, muscle-bound hero fighting off the Dark Elves, lead by Christopher Eccleston in make-up that renders him nearly unrecognizable as Malekith, a dark elf bent on universal domination. Malekith's secret weapon, gossamer stuff called aether, possesses Jane Foster, Thor's human love, and thus doth the battle begin. Everyone in this film is good, taking it exactly as seriously as needed to completely sell the story. Eccleston and Tom Hiddleston, who is delicious as Loki, are marvelous fun to watch, and the remarkably pretty Chris Hemsworth sells Thor so effectively that I bought him hook, line and sinker. But then, I really enjoyed the first Thor film as well, mainly on the strength of Hemsworth's performance. As one friend pointed out, the movie features a lot of kick-ass women, which really pleased me. I was delighted to see how much screen time the women got and how bad-ass they all are. Though I have to say, if Thor's going to fall for someone, I want her to have a little more substance than we've seen from Jane Foster. I dig that he likes her because she's "clever," as he says; it's rare for men on screen to want a woman because she's got brains. But because they get so little on-screen time together, I feel like their attraction is driven more by chemistry than character and that bothers me. I understand that this film isn't about Jane and Thor primarily, that it is about Thor, Loki, their screwed-up family dynamics, and the battle against Malekith, but well, I want my stories well-rounded. And then I stop and think--wait, it's a comic book . . . and reveal my prejudices despite having just spent an evening reading Captain America: Man Out of Time. :: sigh :: This being a geek thing: very complex!

Comments

[bedii.livejournal.com]

You should hear my mother-in-law on the subject of The Hard Nut. DOES NOT WANT!

Don't feel too bad about the "Wait, it's a comic book" thing: Hank basically got the same reaction from Le Guin when he was talking about Nausicaa with her and she realized it was a manga. (We'll leave out the film at this point, since they were trying to cram an extremely long manga series into a feature film. That's why I am fond of the BBC Dracula--they had enough time to include much of the book.)

[djonn]

As regards Thor: The Dark World: what struck me afterward is that the first movie -- as directed by Kenneth Branagh, and with rather more screen time for Odin-and-Thor character building -- was decidedly viewable as a distinctly Shakespearean treatment of the mythology, as well as being a modern comic-book film. The new movie? Not so much; this is pretty purely an action/adventure yarn in which only Loki really has a strong character arc. (Well, and Frigga, but she and Odin are both way shorted on screen time. Especially when you consider "Odin"'s last scene...which raises interesting questions about just how early in the movie that particular twist was actually executed.)

Mind, I very much enjoyed the movie. But now I'm left to speculate about the film they could have made if they'd given this one a Shakespearean overlay as well. (The Henry IV/V history plays would have been the primary structural model, but one could've pulled in elements of Lear to help shape Odin, and the Loki arc could have drawn on Falstaff, Richard III, and Iago all at once, plus various of the great Fools in the canon....)

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

Thank you: This expresses a lot of my previously unformulated disappointment with the film. I had identified that lack of Brannagh was a part of the problem with this film, but no further.

That said, I certainly enjoyed this film. Its failings are more in the first one having set my expectations too high than in this one being itself bad.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Its failings are more in the first one having set my expectations too high than in this one being itself bad.

That's a pretty good way to put it, although I wouldn't say too high. Why shouldn't we have high expectations of our entertainment, especially when a bar was set that created a precedent?

Interesting; I watched Captain America and Thor 1 back-to-back over two days in preparation for this film, for The Winter Soldier, and for the next Avengers film, and was chagrined about liking Thor better, but I do think you're right about Brannagh making a difference. He understands story very well. For me, watching Captain America, I felt like the movie didn't end; it just sort of stopped. Thor had a real arc, and his sense of loss and sacrifice at the end really worked for me.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

We liked Sugar Daddies, but oh dear gods Sasha's accent almost caused my ears to bleed.

Norfolk as a regional accent is one that most Brit's wouldn't pick up on normally, it's a strange country accent and frankly, given the challenge she had in keeping any accent straight, Aycborn should have made some script tweeks and moved her to a place where the accent is easier to research and maintain for a play.

It was a shame, she played the role excellently, but got over shadowed by 3 other actors (Val, her sister and Ashley) pretty much nailed their accents but it's easier to research and keep in a generic London/middle class one.

Based on over heard conversations in the intermission, we were not the only Brits who had that problem.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I thought I overheard something of the same sort of conversation at intermission as well.