NYC trip, Rent, etc
Well, this last weekend, I went down to the city with my mate, mostly so we could go see Rent on Broadway, but we spent a good three days down there just to be on vacation, really. The first day was nice, it was pretty warm, somewhere in the 50's, and we walked around Central Park for a while, since I'd never been there and it was a nice day. After being lost in the park for... forever, we finally managed to find both Strawberry Fields (someone had set up a peace sign of yellow, pink and red roses on the "Imagine" mosaic, that was nice) and Balto. We also helped two groups of tourists, seeing as we had my handy-dandy laminated map of the city which had a very general map of the park, and they did not. (Also, we had accidentally found the zoo just before someone asked us about it. We were not looking for the zoo, but at least we could be helpful.) Then we visited FAO Schwartz, cause, well, you just gotta. I didn't end up getting anything there, cause frankly, even though they're this huge toy store, they don't have very good plushies most of the time. At least, not under 100 bucks. Bleh. It really made me want to get some new stuffed animals, but there I was with no good ones to get. :( We also went to Rockefeller Center and watched people ice skate (they actually had some good music going when we were there, some 80's stuff), and hit the Nintendo World store, which was SORELY lacking in Pokemon merchandise! Very disappointing. That night at the hotel, I got to see some Mythbusters, which is a pretty cool show and makes me wish I had the Discovery channel.
The next day we went down to the East Village to wander around the neighborhood where Rent is set. Let me tell you, it made me just a wee bit uncomfortable to be down there, because although it doesn't exactly look like the movie, it's still kinda decrepit and dirty and rough. There's garbage EVERYWHERE, it smells, and there is poo all over the streets (in some areas), and I didn't want to think too hard about what animal it mighta come from. However, we did find this awesome comics shop on St Marks Place where I picked up a Neil Gaiman book that's been impossible to find. (Woot!) They also actually had issues of Omaha the Cat Dancer, which is pretty much all sold out/out of print everywhere. I got all excited, then I looked at it and it turned out to not look that good at all. At least I avoided spending loads online to just see what it was like... We walked down the street where Rent is set (11th street between Ave A and Ave B), and you know, there is actually a smallish empty lot there. If I'd had a camera, I might have gone ahead and been a dorky tourist. But I didn't. It was kinda chilly that day, but not too terribly bad. We headed back uptown and stopped at Forbidden Planet, another comic-y, sci-fi-y store. I've been to the London Forbidden Planet, and it was home to Doctor Who awesomeness, but this one, being American, had a single shelf of Doctor Who books, and a tiny selection of audios. I mean, kudos to them for having any, but still... meh. I did pick up two new novels, and indulged my Ultimate X Men craving with a single book, since I can get them so much cheaper at work. Then I needed to crash for a bit before the show, so we rested, then headed out for Rent.
Rent was AWESOME. (My word for the day, apparently.) It was kinda like a rock concert, and kinda like a musical, and the overall feel was sort of like a student performance, albeit a really awesome student performance. Maybe really genius college kids or something. There's no curtain, they just kinda walk out there and start, and everyone's screaming when they show up, and it's really like a concert.
They must have cast our Mark because he sounded like Anthony Rapp, because he DID. I mean, he REALLY sounded like him. Didn't look anything like him, and he had his hair in a buzz cut, and it was brown. I mean, really didn't look like him. But he SOUNDED like him. He phrased his singing oddly, unnaturally in places, and I can only guess that he might be trying to set himself apart from Rapp just because he KNOWS he'll be compared.
Roger was okay. He pushed his voice a little hard in parts and cracked notes like a teenager (or me, when I'M pushing too hard)... I think he was trying to keep the "rock sound" - all husky and growly, when he should have given it up for a sec to actually HIT the note. I think he coulda done it if he had let himself sing more gently. He really looked like David Tennant from the balcony, let me tell you. His pic in the program doesn't look like him, but he REALLY looked like him from where we were.
Mimi was good - she had a good clear voice, and actually looked fairly young, at least at a distance, so she fit the part well. Her dancing on the railings all the way up where they are on the stage though... man, I was like "DONT FALL! OMG DONT FALL!" ... even though I know she does it all the time.
Angel was fantastic, kind of a ham, which totally fits the part, and a good solid singer. Another one who seems to have been cast for vocal similarity to the original.
Collins was good, but he was no Jesse L Martin. Benny was fine, but he's kinda a meh character to begin with.
There was actually a technical failure during the show. Mark's mic failed during "You'll See" and they even ran him a new one from the wings, real quick, but THAT ONE DIDN"T WORK EITHER. It was funny, actually, because he said the line "this is absurd" just as he was tapping the new mic, realising IT was dead too. He ended up running offstage for the rest of the song to get a new mic, and Angel adlibbed with "... He'll be back... he's got a lot to think about." Benny completely dropped the ball, and couldn't pick it up again. The musicians kept playing the same passage over and over in a loop to try to get him to pick up the cue... but he'd lost it. Eventually, Roger jumped in on ".... quietly wipe out an entire tent city/then watch Its a Wonderful Life on TV", and they managed to finish, although no one picked up Mark's lines. I was THIIIIIIS close to shouting out their next lines when they dropped it in the first place, and I bet a good half of the audience was with me on that, since it seemed like there were an awful lot of devoted fans there. I mean, WE knew it... it just didn't seem like a real 'proper' thing to do, I guess.
Mark DID make it back in time for Tango Maureen, though. With a working mic. (Yaaay!)
Maureen was actually pretty good and managed to keep me relatively entertained during her performance piece. (Which I usually find dead boring.) I mooed. MOOOOOOOO.
La Vie Boheme was good, although I have to say that my question of "can Anthony Rapp's dancing be duplicated/will it be" was answered with a resounding NO. (Darn.)
Light My Candle was very cute, and was overall more sexually charged than the movie version. For one thing at the lines "Oh the wax, it's - Dripping... I like it between my.." Mimi was lifting her leg up to rub her knee in a very personal spot of Roger's, when he jumps back all embarassed at "FINGERS! I figured..." and boy did she wiggle her butt around at the "best ass" part.
Rogers pants, by the way, were a little revealing. They left... well, almost nothing to the imagination, they were so tight on him. And you actually do get to see Maureen ass in the show. She really does moon Benny in La Vie Boheme. Brave girl.
DVD comes out tomorrow! YAY!
Overall, the show was FANTASTIC, I mean, there was just so much ENERGY there... it was kinda overwhelming, actually. I'll probably write more about it in the future.
Anyway, the third day, we had to be out of the hotel by noon, so we checked out, and then left our bags with the bag check people so we could walk around. Well, it turned out to be FREEZING. I mean, it was FUCKING COLD out there and it was so windy it was hard to open doors, and hard to walk. The windchill was probably below zero, and I can't imagine the air temp was more than in the teens. We went down to the Chelsea/West Village area, to visit Christopher street (which is full of "the gay"... but didn't turn out to have that much INTERESTING) and check out a stuffed animal store nearby which turned out to not be there anymore. (I was very disappointed.) We didn't spend THAT much time there, although we did stop in Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop for a while, to warm up and check out the books. I ended up buying a copy of The Phallus Palace, a book about FTMs, even though I probably could have gotten it cheaper elsewhere, mostly because I wanted the book and felt like supporting the nice little shop. Then we had to decide what else to do... so we headed up to the 33rd street area to look for another toy store, which ALSO turned out to not be there! Damn city! So, still freezing, we went back by a convoluted subway route (to avoid the cold... did I mention it was FUCKING COLD?!?) to Forbidden Planet and spent an hour or two there, just reading stuff. I read Blacksad, 1 and 2, and it turned out to be pretty good, even though it didn't look like it from the beginning. I might buy those sometime, but I didn't feel like spending 25 bucks to get them there. Headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags and thaw in the lobby for a while. (Okay, TMI alert... I changed a tampon in the mens room. Ha.) Then off to the train station to eat and head home. Home, where it was WARM (inside, anyway, it was COLD here too outside).
So yeah... those were my weekend adventures. Back to work tomorrow. (AUGH.) The only thing dragging me in is that I'm gonna pick up the Rent DVD when I'm there. And I have Wednesday off so I guess it won't be THAT bad. Still...
The next day we went down to the East Village to wander around the neighborhood where Rent is set. Let me tell you, it made me just a wee bit uncomfortable to be down there, because although it doesn't exactly look like the movie, it's still kinda decrepit and dirty and rough. There's garbage EVERYWHERE, it smells, and there is poo all over the streets (in some areas), and I didn't want to think too hard about what animal it mighta come from. However, we did find this awesome comics shop on St Marks Place where I picked up a Neil Gaiman book that's been impossible to find. (Woot!) They also actually had issues of Omaha the Cat Dancer, which is pretty much all sold out/out of print everywhere. I got all excited, then I looked at it and it turned out to not look that good at all. At least I avoided spending loads online to just see what it was like... We walked down the street where Rent is set (11th street between Ave A and Ave B), and you know, there is actually a smallish empty lot there. If I'd had a camera, I might have gone ahead and been a dorky tourist. But I didn't. It was kinda chilly that day, but not too terribly bad. We headed back uptown and stopped at Forbidden Planet, another comic-y, sci-fi-y store. I've been to the London Forbidden Planet, and it was home to Doctor Who awesomeness, but this one, being American, had a single shelf of Doctor Who books, and a tiny selection of audios. I mean, kudos to them for having any, but still... meh. I did pick up two new novels, and indulged my Ultimate X Men craving with a single book, since I can get them so much cheaper at work. Then I needed to crash for a bit before the show, so we rested, then headed out for Rent.
Rent was AWESOME. (My word for the day, apparently.) It was kinda like a rock concert, and kinda like a musical, and the overall feel was sort of like a student performance, albeit a really awesome student performance. Maybe really genius college kids or something. There's no curtain, they just kinda walk out there and start, and everyone's screaming when they show up, and it's really like a concert.
They must have cast our Mark because he sounded like Anthony Rapp, because he DID. I mean, he REALLY sounded like him. Didn't look anything like him, and he had his hair in a buzz cut, and it was brown. I mean, really didn't look like him. But he SOUNDED like him. He phrased his singing oddly, unnaturally in places, and I can only guess that he might be trying to set himself apart from Rapp just because he KNOWS he'll be compared.
Roger was okay. He pushed his voice a little hard in parts and cracked notes like a teenager (or me, when I'M pushing too hard)... I think he was trying to keep the "rock sound" - all husky and growly, when he should have given it up for a sec to actually HIT the note. I think he coulda done it if he had let himself sing more gently. He really looked like David Tennant from the balcony, let me tell you. His pic in the program doesn't look like him, but he REALLY looked like him from where we were.
Mimi was good - she had a good clear voice, and actually looked fairly young, at least at a distance, so she fit the part well. Her dancing on the railings all the way up where they are on the stage though... man, I was like "DONT FALL! OMG DONT FALL!" ... even though I know she does it all the time.
Angel was fantastic, kind of a ham, which totally fits the part, and a good solid singer. Another one who seems to have been cast for vocal similarity to the original.
Collins was good, but he was no Jesse L Martin. Benny was fine, but he's kinda a meh character to begin with.
There was actually a technical failure during the show. Mark's mic failed during "You'll See" and they even ran him a new one from the wings, real quick, but THAT ONE DIDN"T WORK EITHER. It was funny, actually, because he said the line "this is absurd" just as he was tapping the new mic, realising IT was dead too. He ended up running offstage for the rest of the song to get a new mic, and Angel adlibbed with "... He'll be back... he's got a lot to think about." Benny completely dropped the ball, and couldn't pick it up again. The musicians kept playing the same passage over and over in a loop to try to get him to pick up the cue... but he'd lost it. Eventually, Roger jumped in on ".... quietly wipe out an entire tent city/then watch Its a Wonderful Life on TV", and they managed to finish, although no one picked up Mark's lines. I was THIIIIIIS close to shouting out their next lines when they dropped it in the first place, and I bet a good half of the audience was with me on that, since it seemed like there were an awful lot of devoted fans there. I mean, WE knew it... it just didn't seem like a real 'proper' thing to do, I guess.
Mark DID make it back in time for Tango Maureen, though. With a working mic. (Yaaay!)
Maureen was actually pretty good and managed to keep me relatively entertained during her performance piece. (Which I usually find dead boring.) I mooed. MOOOOOOOO.
La Vie Boheme was good, although I have to say that my question of "can Anthony Rapp's dancing be duplicated/will it be" was answered with a resounding NO. (Darn.)
Light My Candle was very cute, and was overall more sexually charged than the movie version. For one thing at the lines "Oh the wax, it's - Dripping... I like it between my.." Mimi was lifting her leg up to rub her knee in a very personal spot of Roger's, when he jumps back all embarassed at "FINGERS! I figured..." and boy did she wiggle her butt around at the "best ass" part.
Rogers pants, by the way, were a little revealing. They left... well, almost nothing to the imagination, they were so tight on him. And you actually do get to see Maureen ass in the show. She really does moon Benny in La Vie Boheme. Brave girl.
DVD comes out tomorrow! YAY!
Overall, the show was FANTASTIC, I mean, there was just so much ENERGY there... it was kinda overwhelming, actually. I'll probably write more about it in the future.
Anyway, the third day, we had to be out of the hotel by noon, so we checked out, and then left our bags with the bag check people so we could walk around. Well, it turned out to be FREEZING. I mean, it was FUCKING COLD out there and it was so windy it was hard to open doors, and hard to walk. The windchill was probably below zero, and I can't imagine the air temp was more than in the teens. We went down to the Chelsea/West Village area, to visit Christopher street (which is full of "the gay"... but didn't turn out to have that much INTERESTING) and check out a stuffed animal store nearby which turned out to not be there anymore. (I was very disappointed.) We didn't spend THAT much time there, although we did stop in Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop for a while, to warm up and check out the books. I ended up buying a copy of The Phallus Palace, a book about FTMs, even though I probably could have gotten it cheaper elsewhere, mostly because I wanted the book and felt like supporting the nice little shop. Then we had to decide what else to do... so we headed up to the 33rd street area to look for another toy store, which ALSO turned out to not be there! Damn city! So, still freezing, we went back by a convoluted subway route (to avoid the cold... did I mention it was FUCKING COLD?!?) to Forbidden Planet and spent an hour or two there, just reading stuff. I read Blacksad, 1 and 2, and it turned out to be pretty good, even though it didn't look like it from the beginning. I might buy those sometime, but I didn't feel like spending 25 bucks to get them there. Headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags and thaw in the lobby for a while. (Okay, TMI alert... I changed a tampon in the mens room. Ha.) Then off to the train station to eat and head home. Home, where it was WARM (inside, anyway, it was COLD here too outside).
So yeah... those were my weekend adventures. Back to work tomorrow. (AUGH.) The only thing dragging me in is that I'm gonna pick up the Rent DVD when I'm there. And I have Wednesday off so I guess it won't be THAT bad. Still...