June 27th, 2013

Rose-coloured reviews *Cats* (the musical)

I read Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot when I was kid, and enjoyed it immensely. I would love to claim to have been the sort of tween who randomly read books of poetry from the 30s (and to a certain extent, I was) but I read this one because my friend Kim had gone to see *Cats* and couldn’t stop talking about it. I was clearly not going to be taken to *Cats*, because my parents, lovers of musicals though they are, are more Stephen Sondheim than Andrew Lloyd Webber. So I was very sad, and Kim suggested I might like the book as a substitute. I did! It’s just a book of nonsense rhymes introducing a variety of chubby, mischievous, happy, and sad cats. I guess nonsense rhymes is not quite right–they make sense by their own internal logic. It’s not like “And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat” is immediately obvious in meaning if you’ve not read the rest of the poem, either.

And that reading has helped mold me into the adult I am now, who knows all the words to every song in *Rent* and regularly makes videos of cats I meet. I’ve never combined these two passions of mine, I think because I have never been in a city where *Cats* was playing…but I’m unobservant, so I could’ve missed it. Nevertheless, the point is that there I was, 35 years old, encountering the wonder that is *Cats* the musical for the first time.

IT WAS AMAZING!!!

So much dancing, so much singing, wild costumes, incredible choreography, enthused, tightly polished performers, and a *very* positive audience. Plot–eh, not so much. Old Possum’s book was a collection of poems, almost of them descriptions of individual cats. These work surprisingly well as individual songs, and give each member of the cast (well, almost each–there’s about 3 cats on-stage that have no song of their own. Weird.) Anyway, the “plot” such as it is, is that every year on the night of the Jellicle moon (which I thought meant full moon, but there are twelve of those per year, so who knows) all the Jellicle cats gather and their leader, Old Deuteronomy, chooses one cat who gets to live another life…in space.

Well, I know don’t know–they go up on a high platform at the end of the play, Old Deuteronomy and the chosen cat, and then they go behind this scrim that is suddenly lit up with zaps and flashes of green electricity and then the chosen one disappears–seemed a lot like a Trekkie teleport to me. I’ve brought this with others, who variously insist that the special cat goes to heaven or is reincarnated in a new life. Either way, basically the cats have gathered to murder one of their own. “This sounds like Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery,'” said my musical hating husband.

My husband stayed home. All musical-haters should stay home from *Cats*. I’m not saying no musical-haters will ever be brought round–you might get behind the plot of *Les Miz* or the humour of *Into the Woods* or a thousand other multifaceted musicals. But *Cats* is really really really a musical-lover’s musical. Plotless (except for the space/heaven thing), almost completely without dialogue, narrative, even setting (they’re in some kind of junkyard, never determined where or why), *Cats* is about dancing and singing, full stop. The songs are about nothing and though some of the movement onstage is very convincingly catlike, the actual dance-numbers are nothing of the kind. They are DANCE NUMBERS. Tightly choreographed, impeccably rehearsed and lovely to watch, the dance routines have very little to do with cats. They are what musical watchers love, though–big showy dances.

I ate it up with a spoon. *American Idiot* aka the Green Day musical, was the last show I saw with lots of dancing in unison. The choreography made no sense in that show–would punks dance in unison? Of course not. Well, neither would cats, but at least their routines didn’t look like high-impact aerobics. This paragraph has wandered off–what I was getting at was that *Cats* is great because it embraces what it is, a showcase for song and dance.

And singers and dancers! There are SO MANY talented people in this show–I didn’t see a misstep out of all the many routines with their oh-so-similar setup and cues. And they were always beaming, whereas you’d think a normal person would’ve sweated through his or her spandex unitard and collapsed two numbers ago. I was really impressed with the cast, and pissed that their program notes featured photos taken NOT in their cat costumes, so if you couldn’t recall a cat’s name, you couldn’t figure out who played him or her.

I’ve noticed a Toronto musical theatre phenomenon where everyone’s an outstanding dancer and there are many outstanding singers, along with some servicable ones. I didn’t didn’t see a misstep in the show, but I heard a few wobbly notes, if not outright false ones.

Quibbles, quibbles. I will be singing Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats for the rest of my days, content in the knowledge that the words mean nothing and I couldn’t do that dance routine without a dozen lines of coke and plastic surgery. Cats was well-performed, well-staged, and a joy to watch. I don’t quite know if it was well-written–the TS Eliot poems are good as far as they go, which is not far, and the one original song by Andrew Lloyd Webber, “Memories” has certainly gained cultural weight (though I thought it was a bit dreary compared to the Jellicle stuff, myself). Oh, hell, who even cares what wordy explanation I can come up with about a 30-year-old musical–I loved it, but I also totally understood the man who stood and marched up the aisle ten minutes into the show, never to return. He was muttering “I can’t take this.”

July 15th, 2012

Rose-coloured reviews *Hamlet* by William Shakespeare, illustrated by Harold Copping

I won this book in a raffle two years, and was pleased, then put it on a shelf. Somewhere in the time the book spent on the shelf, I apparently decided it was a graphic novel of Hamlet, without ever bothering to check. I was excited to include it in the *Off the Shelf* challenge this year–wouldn’t a graphic novel of *Hamlet* be great?

Probably, but this isn’t one–it’s just the play with a few illustrations by Harold Copping, who according to the introduction was one of the most popular English illustrators of the late 19th and early 20th century. Probably, but I already have a pretty vivid mental image of how these characters looked, and as Copping’s image did not agree with mine, I really didn’t enjoy the illustrations.

I still read the play–it was part of my reading challenge for the year, and even on 5th or 6th read, there’s still plenty to be learned from the play (probably only 20th, too). I’m not going to bother to review it, though–if you don’t know that *Hamlet*’s pretty good, nothing I say is going to convince you.

I actually really hated the edition, not only because of the illustrations, which are probably appealing to those who haven’t already decided what they look like (Ethan Hawke ftw). But the book is 8.5 x 11 inches and hardback, which makes it very challenging to read on the bus or even put in my bag. I image this would be great for a school edition or some such. If anyone desires it more than I do, please message me at the “contact” button above, and if we can arrange a handoff it’s yours. Otherwise I’ll donate it to a charity bookdrive at the end of the year and return to my small, manageable, unillustrated paperback copy.

This is my 7th/July book for the To Be Read reading challenge. More to come!!

March 8th, 2010

That’s what I like

The song with my favourite lyrics ever turns out to be cowritten by Sam Shepard, which of course does not make it any better, but does sort of up the interest factor in Shepard for me. I’ve only read the occasional New Yorker story by him–does anyone want to recommend what play to start with?

Sunshine on tulips! The ones on my dining-room table look like this and are absolutely splendid.

The weather this week! Yesterday was perfect wandering around weather and I hope that’s what you did. And now, we don’t have to panic, because the rest of the week will be nice, too. But then next weekend, it’s supposed to be 5 or 6 degrees and snowy, which makes no sense. But we have five glorious days until then.

Taco King at Danforth and Donlands. I’m linking to a largely negative post because it’s all I can find–but most of those people didn’t eat there, just looked at the pictures through the window. I think it’s great–cheap fast Mexican food that does not come out of a box, bag, or tube (ie., no cheese of the whiz variety). After a lovely delivery experience (embarrassingly, me and my dining companion ordered so much they gave us three forks–we thought at those prices the portions would be small but they weren’t) I went on Saturday to see the establishment. They grill the chicken in front of you and apparently the tortillas are homemade, and everything’s a wicked good deal. Let’s not let prejudice taint a good thing–just because the owners and some of the staff are Asian, doesn’t mean they haven’t learned to do Mexican food extremely well! I’m scared it will close because so many restaurants in that area do, and I’ll be back to Moe’s Southwestern, which is actually good too, but I’d rather have local indy than big American chain if I can.

RR

February 26th, 2009

Let Us Compare Mythologies

Like all book-lovers, and I think a fair amount of those who aren’t even *that* bookish, I am certain my lens on the world is distinctly tinted by what I read when I was young. What I read now, too, but in those impressionable years I do think I internalized stories more thoroughly than perhaps I do now in my older jaded years. I feel those books formed my internal mythology.

Naively, perhaps, I assumed that school-inflicted part of this lens was semi-universal; that many if not most of the books I read in school were on syllabi all over the country. But then I asked around my friends of like age and station…and *no one* had read what I read in school. Did I go to a mutant school? I find it so odd to think that I read the world in the light of *Antigone* and most don’t.

So here is a list of all that I can remember reading in high school. I think some of the years are off, as there is more in some than others, but it’s a good approximation. The starred items are book-report books, chosen off a list of 3-4 (I don’t think we ever had free choice). I would love to see other people’s lists, if you feel like posting’em somewhere or in the comments or sending them to me. I’m once again really curious about something minor and irrelevant.

English Course Requirements, Wentworth County, Middle Nineties

Grade 9 English, Enriched

–Selection of Greek and Roman mythology (plus excerpts of The Iliad
—Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
—Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
—Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut*

Grade 10 English, Enriched
–A short story collection about multiculturalism–the only story I remember being A Class of New Canadians by Clark Blaise
—Obasan by Joy Kogowa
—Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
–A selection of ballads–the only ballad I remember being The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson
—The Diviners by Margeret Laurence*

Grade 11 English, Enriched
—Everyman, a medieval morality play and my pick for most-hated high-school text
—The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
–a selection of sonnets, the only sonnets I remember being Shakespeare’s love sonnets
—Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw (I remember nothing about this play)
—Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Grade 12 English, Advanced
—The Oedipus Plays by Sophocles–we read all three, but only studied Antigone in-depth
—The Tempest by William Shakespeare
—Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
–something else that I am forgetting

OAC English
—Hamlet by William Shakespeare
—Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (my pick for most-loved high-school text)
—The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood*
—The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence

Never, sadly, anything by Leonard Cohen, whose work I didn’t read until university (and never the title work of this post, actually). But I sure did like the songs when I was a teenager!

There’s music on Clinton Street all the through the evening
RR