(no subject)

Had a lovely long weekend, in great part thanks to all the wonderful folks I know out here. Thanksgiving was quite profoundly delicious, though I discovered that two of my teeth are hypersensitive to sweets the hard way. In short, ow. On the plus side it'll go away in a few weeks, but until then I have avoid anything sweet, eat carefully and wince my way through brushings. Ah well, the pie and cranberry sauce were totally worth it.

Got to see elo_sf and phillipalden in the afternoon on Friday where a certain naughty kitten attempted to make off with my yarn. Don't know what it was about that particular type of yarn but Pye went nuts over it as well. Mind you my cats are generally indifferent to the stuff as mom spends a good deal of time playing with it. At any rate, we had a lovely time and I ended up with a lap full of kittens before I left so I was well pleased. Then headed over to moonlightnrain's place to help with packing and show her lovely girlfriend L- Star Wars (she'd never seen it...yeah, I know, I know). The three of us were joined by aelfsciene and we created a post-Thanksgiving potluck that turned out to be quite yummy indeed and helped us all unload some leftovers. Yay!

Yesterday was up to the city with moonlightnrain for Phantom of the Opera. Now allow me to say that I'm a Phantom snob. I've seen the show an ungodly number of times, met some of the stars (including Colm Wilkinson who once took me and a small group on a tour on and backstage), and heard it performed all over the world. Who me, obsessive?

Anyway, I went in to the show with realistic expectations. I've already seen what I consider to be the pinnacle performance (Toronto, Paul Gatchell and Susan Cuthbert, no question) but there's always something to enjoy when I see it again. This is my second time catching it on tour at the Orpheum and I have to say that overall I was pretty impressed. The cast, especially Carlotta, Piangi, Andre and Firmin, were superb. Possibly one of my all time favorites, and that's definitely saying something. The Raoul was quite serviceable, and did the best with what he had to work with. I mean the character basically requires a decent voice, a handsome face and the ability to jump into a hole in the stage without killing himself. Local boy Kyle Barisich did a great job on all counts.

Of course the show hinges on two roles, Christine and the Phantom, no matter how good the rest are, if you don't have strong performers in those two roles it's all over. John Cudia, playing Erik, had a great singing voice (not the strongest I've ever heard, but better than some) and a fun take on the character. If I had to describe it, I'd say he basically played Erik as if he were the main character in the song "Skullcrusher Mountain". His relationship with Christine could very easily be summed up by the lyric:

"If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet"

He was an utter loon, but a decidedly sympathetic one. And his lair scene kicked serious booty. He just wrung every single bit of sarcasm and bitterness out of his lyrics. I ate it up with a spoon! And he played the character as physically terrified of Christine. Whenever she made a move towards him he'd all but flinch away. He wanted to touch her but was petrified of doing so. The entire performance during "Point of No Return" reminded me of nothing so much as a geeky 15 year old boy astonished that a real, live girl was touching him. It was awfully cute. Oh, and for my sister who should get this, he didn't do a big "be" and his "soar" was perfect.

Sadly the Christine, played by Trista Moldovan, was something of a disappointment. I did like a few of her acting decisions, including the way she shoved Raoul away from her when he sang the lyric, "There is no Phantom of the Opera!" It was a great bit of "Fuck you!" just before she sang "Raoul, I've been there..." And she'd clearly decided that while Erik had the ability to screw with her head, the character was definitely not at all into him. When she came to return the ring at the end she all but ran off, her body language was definitely, "See ya, creepy, gotta' go!" It's a valid interpretation and she was consistent throughout so I was down with that.

The problem was her voice drove me nuts. First and foremost she had almost no breath control, which was annoying in and of itself, but in addition she had this weirdly Disney-esque quality that reminded me horrifyingly of Dale Kristien. We used to refer to her as "The Chipmunk", and with good reason. Ugh.

But aside from that the lighting and effects people were on fire, I've rarely seen such a well lit production and the boat sequences were flawless. In all it was a pretty effective performance and I'd recommend checking it out while it's in town (through the beginning of January I believe).

And now they're playing Empire Strikes Back on Spike, so my path is clear for this evening.