(no subject)
This week has officially gone from "hectic" to "OMG what???".
Earlier this week mizz_history tweeted that she had an extra ticket to "The Tempest" at the Globe this Sunday. And I pretty much thought, "Well, that would be cool," and moved on with life. Only the thought kind of implanted itself, and I made the mistake of checking aa.com and discovered that I could use miles to fly to London, and... well, I'm going to London this weekend. For two days. No, really.
(Actually, when I mentioned it to Matt, he thought it would be fun for both of us to go see it, only we couldn't find any flights between May and August for under $1300. Completely ridiculous. So my going this weekend turned out to be the cheaper option.)
I fly out Saturday evening Chicago time, land Sunday morning London time. The play starts at 13.00, and I'd love to get into the hotel room before then, but I'm not holding my breath. Still working on Monday options--my flight leaves at 17.15, so I need to be at Heathrow a couple hours before then. Matt has decided he'll forgive me for deserting him as long as I pick up some whisky at the duty-free shop in Heathrow. Flight lands at O'Hare around 20.00.
If I get out of bed on Tuesday it'll be a miracle.
And speaking of theater, lately we've seen....
Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party" at Steppenwolf. It was good, but I always have trouble with plays where nothing really happens. And this one was very ambiguous on top of everything. So, terrific acting, but not crazy about the thing as a whole. The funniest thing was, John Mahoney, who grew up in England, had the worst English accent of the whole cast. I think he's so used to speaking with an American accent that he's forgotten how to do the one he was born with.
Moira Harris (Gary Sinise's wife) and Sophia Sinise (their daughter) were in the cast as well. It was good to see Harris again--it's been 15 years since she last worked there, and she's a terrific actress. When I saw Sophia's name I was thinking nepotism, but she did an excellent job.
"Julius Caesar" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Terrific production. Very bloody. This was one of the first plays we saw there, back in 2002, and I think I liked this one better. The actor who played Marc Antony totally nailed the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" soliloquy.
And a couple weeks ago, hikaru and I went to see "Big Fish", which is opening in Chicago before moving to Broadway. I liked it a lot, but I do think they have some work to do. It started out kind of awkwardly, I thought--it took me maybe five minutes to get into it. The scene with the witches was really cool in a lot of ways, but it went on pretty much forever. And they didn't do a good job of explaining why the son, Will, had so many issues with his father; his anger seemed to come out of nowhere.
Norbert Butz played old Ed and young Ed, and that worked surprisingly well--they changed his costume just enough, and he did a great job making us see the difference between the current Ed and the flashback Ed. His stories made good musical bits. I loved the part with the daffodils--except Will kind of burst in to announce that he'd found the deed to Jenny's house, which seemed unnecessary.
And in the play, he saved the town he grew up in, but in a really boring way. Everything else was larger than life, but then... he gets the circus to donate land. And arranges for low-cost loans. Whee.
Mostly, though, I really did enjoy it, and I'll be very interested to see how it evolves. I'd love to see it on Broadway if it sticks around long enough.
In non-theater news, master_chatnoir and karitawyr stopped by today. They're in town for C2E2, and I was supposed to meet them in the city, but I ended up with a work call this morning, so they came out here instead. They put up with my purse shopping, and we went to lunch, and we hung out at home (well, they hung out while I worked a bit), and they caught the train back to Chicago. It was nice having a little fannish break.
Earlier this week mizz_history tweeted that she had an extra ticket to "The Tempest" at the Globe this Sunday. And I pretty much thought, "Well, that would be cool," and moved on with life. Only the thought kind of implanted itself, and I made the mistake of checking aa.com and discovered that I could use miles to fly to London, and... well, I'm going to London this weekend. For two days. No, really.
(Actually, when I mentioned it to Matt, he thought it would be fun for both of us to go see it, only we couldn't find any flights between May and August for under $1300. Completely ridiculous. So my going this weekend turned out to be the cheaper option.)
I fly out Saturday evening Chicago time, land Sunday morning London time. The play starts at 13.00, and I'd love to get into the hotel room before then, but I'm not holding my breath. Still working on Monday options--my flight leaves at 17.15, so I need to be at Heathrow a couple hours before then. Matt has decided he'll forgive me for deserting him as long as I pick up some whisky at the duty-free shop in Heathrow. Flight lands at O'Hare around 20.00.
If I get out of bed on Tuesday it'll be a miracle.
And speaking of theater, lately we've seen....
Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party" at Steppenwolf. It was good, but I always have trouble with plays where nothing really happens. And this one was very ambiguous on top of everything. So, terrific acting, but not crazy about the thing as a whole. The funniest thing was, John Mahoney, who grew up in England, had the worst English accent of the whole cast. I think he's so used to speaking with an American accent that he's forgotten how to do the one he was born with.
Moira Harris (Gary Sinise's wife) and Sophia Sinise (their daughter) were in the cast as well. It was good to see Harris again--it's been 15 years since she last worked there, and she's a terrific actress. When I saw Sophia's name I was thinking nepotism, but she did an excellent job.
"Julius Caesar" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Terrific production. Very bloody. This was one of the first plays we saw there, back in 2002, and I think I liked this one better. The actor who played Marc Antony totally nailed the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" soliloquy.
And a couple weeks ago, hikaru and I went to see "Big Fish", which is opening in Chicago before moving to Broadway. I liked it a lot, but I do think they have some work to do. It started out kind of awkwardly, I thought--it took me maybe five minutes to get into it. The scene with the witches was really cool in a lot of ways, but it went on pretty much forever. And they didn't do a good job of explaining why the son, Will, had so many issues with his father; his anger seemed to come out of nowhere.
Norbert Butz played old Ed and young Ed, and that worked surprisingly well--they changed his costume just enough, and he did a great job making us see the difference between the current Ed and the flashback Ed. His stories made good musical bits. I loved the part with the daffodils--except Will kind of burst in to announce that he'd found the deed to Jenny's house, which seemed unnecessary.
And in the play, he saved the town he grew up in, but in a really boring way. Everything else was larger than life, but then... he gets the circus to donate land. And arranges for low-cost loans. Whee.
Mostly, though, I really did enjoy it, and I'll be very interested to see how it evolves. I'd love to see it on Broadway if it sticks around long enough.
In non-theater news, master_chatnoir and karitawyr stopped by today. They're in town for C2E2, and I was supposed to meet them in the city, but I ended up with a work call this morning, so they came out here instead. They put up with my purse shopping, and we went to lunch, and we hung out at home (well, they hung out while I worked a bit), and they caught the train back to Chicago. It was nice having a little fannish break.