This week and part of next I am running spotlight for MTG's production of Evil Dead: the Musical. Yes, this is a musical based on the Evil Dead series of films by Sam Rami, which starred that hero of modern camp, Bruce Campbell. Yes, this is a musical based on one of the most insane, gorefest horror movies of all time. This is probably the campiest, most profanity-filled splatterfest ever performed to a musical score.
First, the movies. Evil Dead is often considered one of the classic horror zombie movie franchises (though I maintain that deadites are not technically zombies, being dead bodies possessed by demons, not the living dead). The first was a straight horror film about five dumb college students vacationing in a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere. The kids find a tape recorder with tapes of some history professor reading passages from some spooky ancient Mesopotamian book he was translating (an obvious reference to Lovecraft's Necronomicon--in Evil Dead the book was called something else but in the later movies the name was changed to that of its inspiration). Said tape recording of ancient text summons evil demons which proceed to posses everything in sight. The movie is graphically violent with extreme to the point of absurdity splatter and gore, including scenes of dismemberment, tree-rape (seriously) and a spooky steady cam that likes to chase people. It ends with everyone but Ash (Campbell) first possessed then killed, sometimes several times, and apparently closes with Ash being possessed by the demonic force as well.
Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn, is a sort of sequel, sort of remake. The first 10 minutes recaps Evil Dead, except now with only Ash and his girlfriend Linda, striking the other three students. But then it merges with the original at the point Ash is hit by the evil steady cam, and goes from there. Ash isn't killed, but fails to escape before nightfall, which brings a new pack of dopey victims to be possessed and/or gruesomely killed. Evil Dead II is a comedy/horror hybrid, where the gore of the first is played to the extreme for grim humor, and Ash begins to evolve into more of an action hero trope. This movie is in many ways exactly the same as the first with a new cast, but features ridiculousness like Ash's disembodied hand becoming a major antagonist, slapstick action, and an ending that gets Ash and his chainsaw arm sucked into the past.
Army of Darkness, aka Evil Dead 3, is the best known film in the franchise and is a high comedy-action hybrid, where Ash spouts his most quotable ass-kicking lines. "This is my BOOMSTICK!" "Give me some sugar, baby," "Well, I maybe didn't say every little syllable, but basically, yeah I said the words," and other oft-hipster/nerd quoted lines originate, and is a lot more about kicking demon ass than either gore or horror.
And so, naturally, this horror then horror-comedy then comedy-action movie franchise was converted into an off-Broadway musical that workshopped in 2004 and opened in NYC in 2006. It's...definitely a thing that happened. Evil Dead: the Musical is most famous for being the only musical ever to feature a splatter-zone. Of interest, MTG has reproduced that key feature, and quite successfully, which I'll get back to later. The musical weaves together Evil Dead and its pseudo-remake-sequel Evil Dead 2, inserting the best lines and some of Ash's characterization from Army of Darkness and the comedy elements of the second film back into the story of the first. There is also a sly nod to the remake/reboot features of Evil Dead 2, as Act II begins with a do-over of the last scene of Act I, except all the bodies except for Linda's have vanished without explanation. The story both mocks and plays along with the dumb-college-student horror movie tropes, and when things start to go crazy, the musical really goes off the deep end. Once the axes and chainsaws come out, the stage (and audience) is drenched with gallons of fake blood. The show features numbers such as "What the Fuck was That," "Ode to an Accidental Stabbing," and "Necronomicon," this show's sort-of homage to "Time Warp."
The problem is, well...the sci-fi/horror rock musical has been done before, and much better. The comedy elements work better in Bat Boy, and the music of both Bat Boy and the old classic Rocky Horror blow away the frankly mediocre songs in Evil Dead. The show's a lot of fun, but doesn't have a lot of staying power or memorable songs. Aside from the novelty factor of seeing a cult classic converted to stage show and a musical accompanied by splashes of gore, there's not really a whole lot to this show.
That said, MTG's production is very well done and a ton of fun, such that I am going to go see it tonight in my night off from spot op. The technical design of the show is superb--the set (Karen Hart) looks great (though I hear the floor painting was a lucky inheritance from Dramashop), the lighting design (Alex French) is really effective, with fantastic effects during the creepy/crazy and especially gorefest moments in the show. I was also very impressed with the choreography (Christopher Brathwaite) which was energetic, precise and well supported the music, and was executed with enthusiasm by the cast.
The cast is excellent as well, taking the camp elements for everything they're worth and then some, which is the only way this show can work. The singing is all high quality and spot on. The most impressive musical performance comes from Jake (Brad Smith) who belts out his numbers like a hillbilly meatloaf, and yes, his numbers are every bit as high as they sound. Linda (Karen Hart) puts on a beautiful musical performance, or as much as is possible with the absurd numbers she has. My favorite acting performance came from Cheryl (Priscilla Army) who went above and beyond the call of duty in her portrayal of the (spoiler alert) cellar-bound head demon who torments Ash throughout the show.
And then, there's the blood. MIT, unsurprisingly, has more than a few people heavily involved in theater tech, and the implementation of the gore is pretty well done. Blood gushes out of every wound, the floor, the walls...there's even an exceptionally well choreographed number where Ash dances with/wastes the deadites, and blood blasts everywhere. The actors have to get special props for acting and dancing on a floor covered with as much water as a boat deck during a thunderstorm. There is a splatter zone of three rows where the audience can expect to be struck-to-drenched with fake blood. Depending on your opinion of how fun that would be, you will be relieved or disappointed to know that the seats are available by request only and are mostly reserved out. If you are going to sit in a splatter seat, I recommend wearing a raincoat. Seriously. If you're not, you should be safe...but note, this is live theater, and unexpected accidents may happen. The gore is all washable, but I'd advise not wearing anything that can't be machine washed, just to be safe.
In summary, I'm not sure that Evil Dead: the Musical was a thing that should have happened, and I can't recommend the original cast album much at all. But as a theatrical experience, MTG's production is fairly to moderately awesome, and if you have the chance (and don't mind a little flying gore), it should be seen. This is a show that only really works in live performance, and MTG quite successfully takes it all the way.
Correction: I originally mis-identified Priscilla's character as Shelly; she's Cheryl.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
A Week of High Class Carousing (Part II)
All pictures in this post are credit: Sarah Lohman.
Barsmarts Party Continued: the Drinks. Here are a few of the more interesting drinks I made at the party, and some of the reviews I got from the guests.
- Blood and Sand. Equal parts OJ, Chivas Regal Scotch, sweet vermouth, and Cherry Heering, shaken over ice and strained into a martini glass. Cherry Heering is a heavily sweetened cherry flavored brandy, that I certainly would never drink on its own, but might be usable as a dessert drink/digestiff paired with the right meal. While the ingredients sound somewhat intimidating, the drink was actually quite pleasant, and most people enjoyed it. I found it has something of a heavy syrupy aftertaste that wasn't so great, but mileage varied.
- Caipirinha. A traditional Brazilian drink that's fun to make and strong as hell. Half a lime muddled into an ounce of simple syrup, topped with two ounces of cachaca. Cachaca is similar to rum, but apparently you can't say that to a Brazilian. It is fermented sugar cane juice, generally unaged, and has a much funkier aroma than the sort of Puerto Rican rums we're used to. The Caipirinha is the traditional way to drink cachaca, the drink is assembled and then either shaken or stirred over ice.
- The Cosmopolitan. The drink that made Dale Degroff and the Rainbow Room famous (though he modestly claims not to be the inventor of the drink, only its standardizer). Citrus vodka, cranberry juice, lime juice, cointreau, shaken and strained into a cocktail glass. The drink itself is pretty well known these days, and is most remarkable for the traditional flourish: a flamed orange peel. Fresh citrus peel, cut from the fruit right before you use it, has a ton of oil in it. Many drinks are finished with a spray of this oil from the cut "twist." The cosmo has you flame this oil by squeezing it through a lit match, causing a flash of light and all the girls around the bar to go "ooh, what was that?" Which, as far as I can tell, is the purpose of the flamed twist, because I don't think incinerated citrus oil can be adding that much to the drink itself.
- Manhattan. The drink as described in my book isn't that interesting, but is a delicious classic: 2:1 bourbon or rye:sweet vermouth plus a dash of bitters, shaken and strained into a cocktail glass with a cherry. The variant I make based on information from Dave Wondrich's book Imbibe is a huge hit--here a barspoonful of Maraschino liqueur and a few dashes of absinthe are added, and the cherry is omitted. Makes a wonderfully spicy and complex drink.
- Pisco Sour. Pisco is a distilled liquor from Peru, made from grapes but unaged. The traditional drink for it is the sour, which is 2:1:1 pisco to simple syrup to lime juice, a few dashes of bitters, and one egg white. You have to shake the bejeesus out of these. The first one I made wasn't completely homogenized, but the creaminess of the second was highly regarded.
19th Century Pub Crawl. This was the third in the series organized by my sister and the 19th century historical society. The first was in NYC, the second in Cleveland, and now Boston. Victorian dress was encouraged but not required, and a number of people did dress up, myself included. I am in fact now clean shaven for the first time in two years, as I decided that the mutton chops I was sporting on Saturday were not ideal for the job interview I have on Wednesday. Pictures from the event can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/
- Eastern Standard. Our first stop was Eastern Standard who worked with my sister to give us a great start to the night. We had our own reserved area, a lovely menu, and complimentary appetizers. The drinks were 19th century classics, and included their version of the classic Cocktail (rye, sugar, bitters, stirred and served over ice); the Martinez (Old Tom Gin and dry vermouth in a 1:1 proportion, plus maraschino liqueur and orange bitters); the Ward Eight, a drink invented here in Boston; the Japanese cocktail, a concoction of brandy and lime juice invented by "the Professor" Jerry Thomas to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese ambassador to America, and the Frisco, Rye and benedictine with lemon. I had a Japanese cocktail and a Martinez and enjoyed both, but actually found the Martinez a bit sweet for my tastes.
- Red Hat. The Red Had has been open for more than 100 years, and is right next to government Center. The drinks list is a lot more...we'll say, "pitchers of mudslides" than the Eastern Standard, but the charm is in the location. The bar is restored original, the walls have these really cool murals of Boston circa 1900, and it all and all was a nice place to drink. Below is me pictured with the other sporters of 19th century facial hair indicating the "Gentlemen's" room at Red Hat.
- Union Oyster House. The oldest continually operating bar and restaurant in America. When we showed up, the bartender looked terrified and ran to get the bar manager. He at first told us he didn't know about any bar crawl event and interrogated me on our sobriety level. Once he realized we were just a bunch of tipsy nerds, he welcomed us in and let us proceed. Again, the drinks were not the highlight and no one felt like eating oysters, but its another great bar right downtown, and was actually pretty uncrowded. When I asked the bartender if he had Jim Beam Rye for a Manhattan, he said "I got Jim Beam whatever, I dunno, whatever kind we have." So, when Jim Beam Rye is an exotic drink component, you know their are no mixologists on duty. Still, a nice stop on the crawl.
- Drink. We skipped the fourth official stop on the list, the Bell in Hand Tavern, as there was a line full of preppy clubgoers around the block, so we headed right over to Drink, which is flat out one of the best bars in Boston. Drink only vaguely knew to expect us, and is a very busy club. The doorman was super nice, though warning us it might take 45 minutes to get in, he and the barmaster actually got all 12 of us remaining into the bar in 15 minutes, got drinks in all our hands, and even finished the night by making us the most elaborate set of shots I have ever seen produced, requiring three bartenders and a multi page document, raw eggs, whipped cream, and four part instructions for consuming them ending in bursting the egg yolk in your mouth. I also had another Martinez, here made with Boll's genever, a much maltier style of gin than the old tom, and it tasted like a fabulous boozy cookie.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
A Week of High Class Carousing
MIT Alumni Association Scotch Tasting. I started things out last Tuesday by taking Laura’s ticket to this scotch tasting event sponsored by the MIT alumni association. It was a pretty nice little talk, with a tasting flight of six scotches associated. There was a second class on Friday, which was a problem because I had my cocktail party that day. I had been tricked into buying the tickets because somehow we all thought the classes were Tuesday Thursday…but oh well. The informational content of the lecture was interesting, but mostly stuff I knew already. The talk on the night I went was bout the different regions scotch is distilled and a lot on how to do the tasting itself. The lecture I missed was to focus on the actual process of producing scotch whisky. The night I went, the tasting flight included Johnny Walker Swing, which is terrible and overpriced bad blended scotch in a stupid bottle, Glenkinchie, a lowlands malt, Two Dalmores (highlands) and two Laphroaigs (Islay).
Barsmarts Practical Exam Cocktail Party. Last month I took an online bartending class, and it was pretty fantastic. Barsmarts is a program put together by Dale Degroff, the original bartender of the Rainbow Room in New York who is one of the main drivers of the modern cocktail renaissance, Dave Wondrich, a historian who makes his career studying the history of drinking, plus a number of other storied mixologists. The live program costs a freaking fortune and is designed for training bartenders working the classiest of joints. The online version was only forty-five dollars and I got a set of bartending tools in the mail too. The course book was extremely well done, covered everything from the history of distilling to a primer on all the major liquors to practical bartending. It also included the recipes for 25 classic cocktails “every bartender should know.”
The goal of the party was for me to mix any dink in my coursework from memory in a live bartending type situation. It went pretty darn well—I didn’t make any mistakes (until 2am and I forgot to add bitters to a Manhattan, but I was fairly well in the bag by that point so I move it doesn’t count). I got a little overwhelmed about 10, and was very kindly relieved by my sister’s boyfriend Kyle around 11 so I could actually talk to people.
More to come, including my favorite drinks from the party and the rundown on the 19th century pub crawl event from Saturday.
Barsmarts Practical Exam Cocktail Party. Last month I took an online bartending class, and it was pretty fantastic. Barsmarts is a program put together by Dale Degroff, the original bartender of the Rainbow Room in New York who is one of the main drivers of the modern cocktail renaissance, Dave Wondrich, a historian who makes his career studying the history of drinking, plus a number of other storied mixologists. The live program costs a freaking fortune and is designed for training bartenders working the classiest of joints. The online version was only forty-five dollars and I got a set of bartending tools in the mail too. The course book was extremely well done, covered everything from the history of distilling to a primer on all the major liquors to practical bartending. It also included the recipes for 25 classic cocktails “every bartender should know.”
The goal of the party was for me to mix any dink in my coursework from memory in a live bartending type situation. It went pretty darn well—I didn’t make any mistakes (until 2am and I forgot to add bitters to a Manhattan, but I was fairly well in the bag by that point so I move it doesn’t count). I got a little overwhelmed about 10, and was very kindly relieved by my sister’s boyfriend Kyle around 11 so I could actually talk to people.
More to come, including my favorite drinks from the party and the rundown on the 19th century pub crawl event from Saturday.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
American Idiot on Broadway [Review]
Last Friday, I went to see the (third) Broadway Preview of American Idiot. The musical is a staged performance of the Green Day album of the same name, padded out with a bunch of songs from 21st Century Breakdown and a couple other sources. The cast was largely the same as the original off-Broadway show, with only one substitution amongst the leads (Tunny was played by Stark Sands, vs Matt Caplan in the original run, which is actually pretty irrelevant because I have no idea who either of them is).
Greenday was, I think, the second band I ever really listened too. The first was R.E.M., because I heard "Stand" when it was the theme song to the short lived and extra terrible Fox comedy Get a Life staring Chris Eliott. I don't really remember how I got introduced to Green Day, but probably it involved me getting friends who were not also huge nerds who introduced me to the "radio." This was right when Dookie came out, and I had just turned 17. Its universal message of impotent-teen-aged-to-early-twenty-something-rage (and frequent masturbation) connected with my high schooler brain, and I listened to that album constantly. I have a vivid memory of listening to the album on headphones while working as an office temp over that summer at my dad's company. At the end of the summer, I was mortified to learn that the secretaries all had heard me singing "When I come around" under my breath for the last three months.
I of course was late to the whole Green Day thing, as they'd been doing the pop-punk/impotent-male-rage thing for years. I never retroactively got into their older albums, but I did once hear the following amazing story about one of their early club shows in the East Bay area. The concert attendee in question, being a dumb 18 year old going to a pop punk show in California, had brought with him a homemade prop. This prop consisted of a huge pile of old bread he had found discarded behind a bakery, which he had pressed into the smallest ball he could manage and placed inside of a fishnet bag. At the concert, he swung said bag in a circle around his head, spraying smooshed bread across the floor and the other Green Day fans. Naturally, he lost his grip on the bag, which sailed across the room and hit Billy Joe in the head. I cannot for the life of me remember who told me that story.
My own Green Day concert memory comes from 1996, during the height of their first round of popularity. I went with my friend Brian to a giant arena show, where I was lamely in the seats, watching the cool people be cool on the floor. But it was still awesome. Green Day's music is often simple--I used to joke that they'd bust out that third cord for the really emotionally intense portions of the song--but I've always found it really powerful and visceral. When amped up to concert levels, the wall of heavy guitar chords completely surrounds you, and the drums pound into your brain in a way that's both punk and primal. I remember turning to my friend and asking him what it is that makes a band fade away or last for decades, and if he thought Green Day would still be around in 20 years. He told me he expected them to break up in a year or two.
After the mid 90's, Green Day first got mediocre (Insomniac) then "experimental," which is to say, super lame. I barely remember Nimrod except that it spawned the lame song that was in every freaking movie in 1997. I don't think I'd ever heard of Warning before writing this review, though upon investigation sorta did like that title song. And I guess my friend was right, cause I'm pretty sure they did break up in there somewhere. Then I graduate and go off the grad school and mostly forget about my impotent early twenty-something male rage.
Jump ahead to 2004 and the release of American Idiot. I had pretty much stopped listening to Green Day by the time "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" became the new radio single. It took me a while to realize I really liked that song, that it had gotten inside of me in the same way the old stuff did when I was in high school. It was a couple years before I bought American Idiot, which has since become one of my most-played albums. It has the same power and sheer volume (in the breadth sense, not the magnitude sense) that I loved from the old Green Day. It also had a maturity to it, and more variety in song construction than Dookie ever did, without the lameness of Nimrod. The concept-album angle was sort of interesting, but the music was what sold me. I mean, the story is basically the same impotent-early-twenty-something-male-rage shtick of the old Green Day, but now being sung by a pack of thirty somethings. I wasn't particularly interested in the story of Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy, and Whatshername, but I did like their songs.
And so, now here we are in 2010 and Green Day has a rock musical opening on Broadway, twenty years after their first album (suck it, Brian). The plot of American Idiot the Musical is the same as the 2004 album, and everything they wrote in the 90's: impotent male rage. In some sense, it seemed absurd to watch a show written by guys pushing 40 about 20 year olds raging against the world but powerless to change it, or even really do anything interesting. On one level, I feel like they should move on already. On another, they're really good at telling that story.
The show stars John Howard Gallagher, Jr. as Johnny, aka Jesus of Suburbia, in the tale already told by the concept album. Gallagher is best known for originating the role of Moritz Stiefel in Spring Awakening, so he has good young-male-impotent-rage credentials. A lot of the show reminded me of Spring Awakening in fact. Some of the choreography was similar, the set was a mostly bare stage with occasional furniture, and the story, while simpler, is another one of those male coming of age in a world that sucks stories. The music, being Green Day, was a lot more intense, and the pace overall more frenetic.
The show was a lot like a staged Green Day concert, or maybe what a Green Day show would be if it were choreographed by the person who does Lady Gaga's videos. For me, the show evoked a lot of my late high school, early college concert experiences, with that wall of alt rock sound, familiar songs, and dancing that was like a completely cracked up and yet perfectly coordinated version of the kind of flail-dancing I associate with outdoor alternative shows in the mid 90's. The show follows Johnny as he rages against his crappy town, leaves his crappy town, moves to New York, meets a drug dealer named St. Jimmy and the super hot punk girl Whatshername, who doesn't get pants until the last 30 minuted of the production. One of his hometown friends comes with him, hates the city, enlists in the army and gets seriously wounded, while his other best friend never leaves town due to knocking up his high school girlfriend. Then the show ends after everyone has screwed up their lives and crawled back to their crappy hometown. Hooray!
The set was pretty amazing. The show made excellent use of vertical space. Action happened almost to the top of the stage, with the actors running up fire escapes, flipping out of hidden windows, and flying around with some pretty impressive wire work. The set incorporated dozens of flat screen tvs that blast a stream of images during most of the show, holding still only during Johnny's brief moments of dialog when they display a static message that starts as "Please Stand By" and evolves over the show. I remember "Please Come" and "Please Help Me" but am blanking on most of the others. The set is rendered steadily more chaotic as the show goes on, with paper and spray paint and glitter everywhere. I would hate to be on run crew for this show.
The highlights for me include St. Jimmy, who had a ridiculous emo-dbag haircut combined with an old-school punk attitude and singing style, and who stole the show whenever he was on stage. I also loved Whatshername, who was completely intense when dancing and beautiful when singing (and also didn't wear pants, as previously mentioned). overall the music was great, and I thought the numbers where they orchestrated out the songs into multi-part harmony were fantastic, as it led that same wall of sound feeling the guitar has to the vocals, and I wish they had done more of that. The show had an on stage punk band (not Green Day themselves) and i totally fell in love with the riot grrl conductor keyboardist with her thigh high chucks.
The show made me ask a few questions, such as who the hell says "You know what? I think i might like to try heroin tonight." And also, seriously, why still tell the same story over and over, Green Day? On the other hand, the story wasn't really the point and I have to give credit to any rock musical with a plot that's coherent; brilliant and meaningful may be asking a bit much. I also wonder if American Idiot is pitying the millennials, in a way. After all, Green Day got to rage for its own sake in a world that was pretty good. The current kids have to rage against Bush's America, Iraq war and American Idol and all. Is that the timeless message, that 90's rage was for fun and the 00's were really depressing? Well, deep philosophy it was not, but it was still an insanely fun show.
One final story. About ten minutes before the show started, the people in the orchestra seats when completely nuts. I was in the back row of the balcony, and like all the other dopes who stood up like that would make the floor transparent I couldn't see anything. After the show ended, me and my sister got funneled to some sketchy back stairwell, where we were suddenly stopped with like fifty other people because some bodyguard had closed the door at the bottom telling us we couldn't exit yet. So there I was trapped in a back stairwell filled with people of all ages who were completely cranked up from sitting through the craziest staged concert we had ever seen, when my sister quips, "...and, this is where we burn to death." While that would have been a punk rock way to go, we eventually escaped with our lives. Probably this was all the fault of Green Day themselves, who we suspect were at this show, being the first preview on a weekend. But I didn't see them, so for all I know, it was Barak Obama, Jimmy Paige, and the Pope holding up our exit.
Greenday was, I think, the second band I ever really listened too. The first was R.E.M., because I heard "Stand" when it was the theme song to the short lived and extra terrible Fox comedy Get a Life staring Chris Eliott. I don't really remember how I got introduced to Green Day, but probably it involved me getting friends who were not also huge nerds who introduced me to the "radio." This was right when Dookie came out, and I had just turned 17. Its universal message of impotent-teen-aged-to-early-twenty-something-rage (and frequent masturbation) connected with my high schooler brain, and I listened to that album constantly. I have a vivid memory of listening to the album on headphones while working as an office temp over that summer at my dad's company. At the end of the summer, I was mortified to learn that the secretaries all had heard me singing "When I come around" under my breath for the last three months.
I of course was late to the whole Green Day thing, as they'd been doing the pop-punk/impotent-male-rage thing for years. I never retroactively got into their older albums, but I did once hear the following amazing story about one of their early club shows in the East Bay area. The concert attendee in question, being a dumb 18 year old going to a pop punk show in California, had brought with him a homemade prop. This prop consisted of a huge pile of old bread he had found discarded behind a bakery, which he had pressed into the smallest ball he could manage and placed inside of a fishnet bag. At the concert, he swung said bag in a circle around his head, spraying smooshed bread across the floor and the other Green Day fans. Naturally, he lost his grip on the bag, which sailed across the room and hit Billy Joe in the head. I cannot for the life of me remember who told me that story.
My own Green Day concert memory comes from 1996, during the height of their first round of popularity. I went with my friend Brian to a giant arena show, where I was lamely in the seats, watching the cool people be cool on the floor. But it was still awesome. Green Day's music is often simple--I used to joke that they'd bust out that third cord for the really emotionally intense portions of the song--but I've always found it really powerful and visceral. When amped up to concert levels, the wall of heavy guitar chords completely surrounds you, and the drums pound into your brain in a way that's both punk and primal. I remember turning to my friend and asking him what it is that makes a band fade away or last for decades, and if he thought Green Day would still be around in 20 years. He told me he expected them to break up in a year or two.
After the mid 90's, Green Day first got mediocre (Insomniac) then "experimental," which is to say, super lame. I barely remember Nimrod except that it spawned the lame song that was in every freaking movie in 1997. I don't think I'd ever heard of Warning before writing this review, though upon investigation sorta did like that title song. And I guess my friend was right, cause I'm pretty sure they did break up in there somewhere. Then I graduate and go off the grad school and mostly forget about my impotent early twenty-something male rage.
Jump ahead to 2004 and the release of American Idiot. I had pretty much stopped listening to Green Day by the time "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" became the new radio single. It took me a while to realize I really liked that song, that it had gotten inside of me in the same way the old stuff did when I was in high school. It was a couple years before I bought American Idiot, which has since become one of my most-played albums. It has the same power and sheer volume (in the breadth sense, not the magnitude sense) that I loved from the old Green Day. It also had a maturity to it, and more variety in song construction than Dookie ever did, without the lameness of Nimrod. The concept-album angle was sort of interesting, but the music was what sold me. I mean, the story is basically the same impotent-early-twenty-something-male-rage shtick of the old Green Day, but now being sung by a pack of thirty somethings. I wasn't particularly interested in the story of Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy, and Whatshername, but I did like their songs.
And so, now here we are in 2010 and Green Day has a rock musical opening on Broadway, twenty years after their first album (suck it, Brian). The plot of American Idiot the Musical is the same as the 2004 album, and everything they wrote in the 90's: impotent male rage. In some sense, it seemed absurd to watch a show written by guys pushing 40 about 20 year olds raging against the world but powerless to change it, or even really do anything interesting. On one level, I feel like they should move on already. On another, they're really good at telling that story.
The show stars John Howard Gallagher, Jr. as Johnny, aka Jesus of Suburbia, in the tale already told by the concept album. Gallagher is best known for originating the role of Moritz Stiefel in Spring Awakening, so he has good young-male-impotent-rage credentials. A lot of the show reminded me of Spring Awakening in fact. Some of the choreography was similar, the set was a mostly bare stage with occasional furniture, and the story, while simpler, is another one of those male coming of age in a world that sucks stories. The music, being Green Day, was a lot more intense, and the pace overall more frenetic.
The show was a lot like a staged Green Day concert, or maybe what a Green Day show would be if it were choreographed by the person who does Lady Gaga's videos. For me, the show evoked a lot of my late high school, early college concert experiences, with that wall of alt rock sound, familiar songs, and dancing that was like a completely cracked up and yet perfectly coordinated version of the kind of flail-dancing I associate with outdoor alternative shows in the mid 90's. The show follows Johnny as he rages against his crappy town, leaves his crappy town, moves to New York, meets a drug dealer named St. Jimmy and the super hot punk girl Whatshername, who doesn't get pants until the last 30 minuted of the production. One of his hometown friends comes with him, hates the city, enlists in the army and gets seriously wounded, while his other best friend never leaves town due to knocking up his high school girlfriend. Then the show ends after everyone has screwed up their lives and crawled back to their crappy hometown. Hooray!
The set was pretty amazing. The show made excellent use of vertical space. Action happened almost to the top of the stage, with the actors running up fire escapes, flipping out of hidden windows, and flying around with some pretty impressive wire work. The set incorporated dozens of flat screen tvs that blast a stream of images during most of the show, holding still only during Johnny's brief moments of dialog when they display a static message that starts as "Please Stand By" and evolves over the show. I remember "Please Come" and "Please Help Me" but am blanking on most of the others. The set is rendered steadily more chaotic as the show goes on, with paper and spray paint and glitter everywhere. I would hate to be on run crew for this show.
The highlights for me include St. Jimmy, who had a ridiculous emo-dbag haircut combined with an old-school punk attitude and singing style, and who stole the show whenever he was on stage. I also loved Whatshername, who was completely intense when dancing and beautiful when singing (and also didn't wear pants, as previously mentioned). overall the music was great, and I thought the numbers where they orchestrated out the songs into multi-part harmony were fantastic, as it led that same wall of sound feeling the guitar has to the vocals, and I wish they had done more of that. The show had an on stage punk band (not Green Day themselves) and i totally fell in love with the riot grrl conductor keyboardist with her thigh high chucks.
The show made me ask a few questions, such as who the hell says "You know what? I think i might like to try heroin tonight." And also, seriously, why still tell the same story over and over, Green Day? On the other hand, the story wasn't really the point and I have to give credit to any rock musical with a plot that's coherent; brilliant and meaningful may be asking a bit much. I also wonder if American Idiot is pitying the millennials, in a way. After all, Green Day got to rage for its own sake in a world that was pretty good. The current kids have to rage against Bush's America, Iraq war and American Idol and all. Is that the timeless message, that 90's rage was for fun and the 00's were really depressing? Well, deep philosophy it was not, but it was still an insanely fun show.
One final story. About ten minutes before the show started, the people in the orchestra seats when completely nuts. I was in the back row of the balcony, and like all the other dopes who stood up like that would make the floor transparent I couldn't see anything. After the show ended, me and my sister got funneled to some sketchy back stairwell, where we were suddenly stopped with like fifty other people because some bodyguard had closed the door at the bottom telling us we couldn't exit yet. So there I was trapped in a back stairwell filled with people of all ages who were completely cranked up from sitting through the craziest staged concert we had ever seen, when my sister quips, "...and, this is where we burn to death." While that would have been a punk rock way to go, we eventually escaped with our lives. Probably this was all the fault of Green Day themselves, who we suspect were at this show, being the first preview on a weekend. But I didn't see them, so for all I know, it was Barak Obama, Jimmy Paige, and the Pope holding up our exit.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
NYC People Watching
This weekend I was in NYC. Besides seeing a couple Broadway shows and visiting perhaps the classiest bar and the towniest bar in the city, I spent some quality time people watching New York Style. These were some of my favorites.
Multigenerational groups of women all dressed the same. There were a lot of these, actually. I assume they were tourists; at least the group I saw at the tenement museum were speaking in extreme Southern-belle accents as well as all wearing matching black and white plaid coats. Especially common in Times Square, these women most commonly hail from the Midwest. Two or three generations of women wearing the exact same outfits chattering to each other whist looking only up, never forward, become a terrifying challenge to those simply trying to walk here.
Good-natured but clearly crazy rabbi. While sitting on a bench outside the Tenement Museum waiting for my sister's tour to start, a man dressed in full Orthodox Jewish rabbi regalia came wandering up the street. And by "up the street," I don't mean on the sidewalk or on the side of the street, but weaving his way back and forth across the actual street. Said street happened to be a one way street that saw a fair amount of traffic--and of course he had his back to the direction from which traffic was actually coming. He wandered over nearish me with a huge grin on his face and merrily shouted "Shabbat shalom! Are you Jewish?" I replied "No," and was going to follow that up with something like "but I'd love to listen," as I wasn't doing anything in particular and had never spoken to a non-Christian street-preacher before. But the instant "no" was out of my mouth he had already zipped away, greeting his next target in the same way.
Confused club girl. She seemed like a lovely person, but my only interaction with her was pretty odd. I encountered this girl at the super-townie bar I was at on Saturday night, where some on my sister's friends were playing a show (they have a modern bluesy-folksy-rockish band featuring an ammped washtub base and a girl with an accordion). She spent most of the evening flitting between the band, draping herself across her official gay friend, and sitting on the pool table for some reason. At one point I was introduced to her as "Doctor Lohman," which caused her to stare at me with a baffled look on her face. "What kind of doctor?" she asked. She was informed by someone else that I had a Ph.D. in chemistry, which she considered for a minute then responded "no you don't," and flitted away again. I'm pretty sure she though I was pretending to have a doctorate in order to impress the ladies, as typically the ladies all swoon for unemployed academics.
New York 20-something couples yelling at each other. Also a very common sight were young couples walking down the street yelling at each other in heavy New York accents. One in particular were having a spirited discussion on how fast they needed to move, and if the woman wanted to walk so fast, what was she doing looking in all those windows and to what degree that affected her speed.
Enraged old guy at the nice restaurant. We were having dinner at this nice Italian place near Times Square, fantastic food and wonderful people working there. We'd been there about 20-30 min, just finishing our appetizers, when this older guy at the table next to us completely loses it. The host, a wonderfully pleasant guy who bounced around the place spreading sparkly happiness, had just gone over to their table to tell them their food would be right out. The guy, who was seated about the same time we were and who also had just finished their appetizers, starts yelling--literally shouting in this tiny little place filled with other people trying to enjoy their meals--about how long they've been waiting, and to stop assuming he was a "simpleton" because he know how long it takes to cook risotto, and how he'd go back in the kitchen to show them. I just kind of helplessly stared, while the poor server kind of stood there going "...um...okay?"
Extremely flamboyant gay man in a kimono and tattooed guy with 25 face piercings. I don't believe these actually happened. My sister says we walked right by the both of them (these were separate incidents) and that she was too stunned to say anything until they were gone. I never saw either of them, and don't know how that would be possible, given the descriptions she gave me. So, either she made them up, they are part of some NYC delusion brought on by breathing the air in Queens for five years, or they were so bizarre they radiated some sort of S.E.P. invisibility field that made them imperceptible to anyone who isn't already inured to New York weirdness.
Everyone in a car. I'm used to road rage, living in Boston-Cambridge. But every native New Yorker completely freaks out the second they get behind the wheel. The instant a light turns green, they start honking. If you stop because you're trying not to run over pedestrians or are about to park, they start honking. Multiple times, I saw people driving down a street completely empty of other cars, pedestrians, or animals, just honking away, as if to say "Hello world! I'm alive! And annoyed to be driving in New York!"
Multigenerational groups of women all dressed the same. There were a lot of these, actually. I assume they were tourists; at least the group I saw at the tenement museum were speaking in extreme Southern-belle accents as well as all wearing matching black and white plaid coats. Especially common in Times Square, these women most commonly hail from the Midwest. Two or three generations of women wearing the exact same outfits chattering to each other whist looking only up, never forward, become a terrifying challenge to those simply trying to walk here.
Good-natured but clearly crazy rabbi. While sitting on a bench outside the Tenement Museum waiting for my sister's tour to start, a man dressed in full Orthodox Jewish rabbi regalia came wandering up the street. And by "up the street," I don't mean on the sidewalk or on the side of the street, but weaving his way back and forth across the actual street. Said street happened to be a one way street that saw a fair amount of traffic--and of course he had his back to the direction from which traffic was actually coming. He wandered over nearish me with a huge grin on his face and merrily shouted "Shabbat shalom! Are you Jewish?" I replied "No," and was going to follow that up with something like "but I'd love to listen," as I wasn't doing anything in particular and had never spoken to a non-Christian street-preacher before. But the instant "no" was out of my mouth he had already zipped away, greeting his next target in the same way.
Confused club girl. She seemed like a lovely person, but my only interaction with her was pretty odd. I encountered this girl at the super-townie bar I was at on Saturday night, where some on my sister's friends were playing a show (they have a modern bluesy-folksy-rockish band featuring an ammped washtub base and a girl with an accordion). She spent most of the evening flitting between the band, draping herself across her official gay friend, and sitting on the pool table for some reason. At one point I was introduced to her as "Doctor Lohman," which caused her to stare at me with a baffled look on her face. "What kind of doctor?" she asked. She was informed by someone else that I had a Ph.D. in chemistry, which she considered for a minute then responded "no you don't," and flitted away again. I'm pretty sure she though I was pretending to have a doctorate in order to impress the ladies, as typically the ladies all swoon for unemployed academics.
New York 20-something couples yelling at each other. Also a very common sight were young couples walking down the street yelling at each other in heavy New York accents. One in particular were having a spirited discussion on how fast they needed to move, and if the woman wanted to walk so fast, what was she doing looking in all those windows and to what degree that affected her speed.
Enraged old guy at the nice restaurant. We were having dinner at this nice Italian place near Times Square, fantastic food and wonderful people working there. We'd been there about 20-30 min, just finishing our appetizers, when this older guy at the table next to us completely loses it. The host, a wonderfully pleasant guy who bounced around the place spreading sparkly happiness, had just gone over to their table to tell them their food would be right out. The guy, who was seated about the same time we were and who also had just finished their appetizers, starts yelling--literally shouting in this tiny little place filled with other people trying to enjoy their meals--about how long they've been waiting, and to stop assuming he was a "simpleton" because he know how long it takes to cook risotto, and how he'd go back in the kitchen to show them. I just kind of helplessly stared, while the poor server kind of stood there going "...um...okay?"
Extremely flamboyant gay man in a kimono and tattooed guy with 25 face piercings. I don't believe these actually happened. My sister says we walked right by the both of them (these were separate incidents) and that she was too stunned to say anything until they were gone. I never saw either of them, and don't know how that would be possible, given the descriptions she gave me. So, either she made them up, they are part of some NYC delusion brought on by breathing the air in Queens for five years, or they were so bizarre they radiated some sort of S.E.P. invisibility field that made them imperceptible to anyone who isn't already inured to New York weirdness.
Everyone in a car. I'm used to road rage, living in Boston-Cambridge. But every native New Yorker completely freaks out the second they get behind the wheel. The instant a light turns green, they start honking. If you stop because you're trying not to run over pedestrians or are about to park, they start honking. Multiple times, I saw people driving down a street completely empty of other cars, pedestrians, or animals, just honking away, as if to say "Hello world! I'm alive! And annoyed to be driving in New York!"
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