Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Tales of the City - a New Musical

Overall:  There are some great things about this musical adaptation of TALES OF THE CITY, now playing at A.C.T. in San Francisco!  There are a few truly NOT great things, too. The end result is having witnessed a 'work in progress' of a piece that should be a bit further along by now.  The running times during this two week preview period have been rumored between 2:40 and 3 hours.  Our production Sunday night was a solid 3 hours.  (Mind you, it didn't feel that long!)

The show opens with a trademark Scissor Sisters (Jake Spears and John Garden) disco homage (mirror balls included!) before launching into fairly tame musical comedy territory. The cast is given some great music to perform, particularly some of the ballads for the women.  Anna Madrigal's Act One curtain anthem is fabulous.  Mother Mucca's production number at the Blue Moon Lodge, with her 'girls', is a show stopper and could generate its own encore, if staged appropriately. The male chorus has a "Gay Brunch Scene" that is probably the most entertaining moment in the show.  It's a nearly unnecessary moment and if it weren't for it's fun quotient, would risk being cut. Mona has a wonderful ballad in the second act after she runs away and Mouse's coming out letter could be the men's best song, if staged with some sort of interest.  I do wish that, given the size and scope of the cast, there were some sort of ensemble recap, a la "Les Miz/West Side Story", but there isn't a 'grand company moment'.

The choreography and musical staging is terrible.  I do not know of  Larry Keigwin, but what he's done here is a step beyond just marking production numbers.  With only a couple exceptions, the cast basically lines up and step kicks. In unison. It's very amateurish and at times embarrassing.

Jeff Whitty's libretto is nearly slavish to the book, including a bit of an excerpt from the second to help wrap one of the plots up.  This is where it gets a bit bumpy though.  Mary Ann's second 'boyfriend', Norman, is uncomfortably SQUEEZED into the second act. It reaches nearly laughable extremes as his story is condensed, virtually recited and resolved (blackmailing, child pornography and the cliff dive), all within a five minute scene that needs to be responsible for changing Mary Ann's innocent view of human nature.  It is a nearly farcical amount of detail that must be explained away and given the intricacies of the plotlines and the lasting effect it must have on Mary Ann, the character can't really be cut.  Yet, it is hard to justify adding another scene or extending any of the existing ones, without cutting some of the slack from somewhere else. (Perhaps a little less time spent with boyfriend #1 (Beauchamp Day), who is over written to begin with?)

The core ensemble of principals is larger than the chorus, who themselves step into some decent sized supporting roles.  Maupin's characters, particularly the women, are wonderfully portrayed.  Judy Kaye could be a bit more 'butch' as Anna Madrigal, but she delivers the goods from the revelation on.  Mary Birdsong is great as Mona Ramsey as are the showstopping Kathleen Monteleone as DeDe and Diane Findlay as Mother Mucca!  Betsey Wolfe sounds great as Mary Ann.  It is the most difficult role, particularly given the second act.

The Maupin's male characters have never been quite as exciting.  Wesley Taylor is adorable as Mouse and Josh Breckenridge is gorgeous as his boyfriend John Fielding. (He is unable to vocally keep up, though.)  Richard Poe is great as Edward Halcyon, and benefits from only being required a single duet with Madrigal.  The rest of the men just don't seem to be having as much fun. Andrew Samonsky over hammers the misogynist, Beauchamp.  Patrick Lane's Brian is nearly an afterthought.  And then there is the problem of Norman, played Manoel Felciano.  Felciano does his best with THE PROBLEM role of the entire production.

The design of production is workable, though the '70s polyester is almost TOO authentic and cheesy. Madrigal is given some great, flowing star-quality robes, though.  The multi-tiered set is barely used beyond the stage floor.  It's somewhat reminiscent of COMPANY in which each space is brought in by wagon, regardless of which floor of the building it is located on.  However, given the innumerable settings (Barbary Lane's five apartments, Halcyon Communications, Land's End, Ocean Beach, a bath house, various bars, etc.), I'm not sure there is much more of a way around it.  It's as if director Jason Moore was so overwhelmed by the amount of material that he was unable to conceptualize or stylize a way of presenting it.


Maxxxxx says re TALES OF THE CITY: Doobie doobie dooo-oooo
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Thursday, January 27, 2011

Silent Film Festival Winter Event, 2011


Winter Event Banner
PRESS RELEASE
January 26, 2011
For Immediate Release
Silent Film Festival Winter Event
Features the West Coast Premiere of the Dazzling Restoration of
 L'ARGENT
Accompanied by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
February 12 at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco

Brigitte Helm in L'ARGENT
The New York Times
hails the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra's recent performance at the Museum of the Moving Image's 'Recovered Treasures' series: "The undoubted highlight is Marcel L'Herbier's spectacular Art Moderne adaptation of Zola's L'Argent, restored to its full three-hour length by the French Film Archives and presented with a live accompaniment by that most sensitive and accomplished of silent film ensembles, the Mont Alto Orchestra."

Greed and sex drive L'Herbier's 1928 masterpiece that chronicles the contemporary Paris of high finance, speculation, and corruption. In spite of a butchered last-minute re-edit (rumored to be the result of a feud between the director and a studio head) the film was popular upon its release. But with this beautiful restoration struck from the original negative, featuring L'Herbier's original cut, L'Argent takes its place among other indisputable masterpieces of the silent era such as Von Stroheim's Greed, Murnau's Sunrise, Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. The excess of the story is mirrored in the filmmaking-opulent sets, breathtaking camerawork, and a rhythm that conveys glamour and modernity, with superb performances by Brigitte Helm, Pierre Alcover, and Alfred Abel. Our 35mm print comes from Archives Françaises du Film, with special permission by Marie-Ange L'Herbier, the director's granddaughter.

Mont Alto's main theme for L'Argent is the "Herod Overture" is by the American composer Henry Hadley. Hadley was the first conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, arriving exactly 100 years ago in 1911. He composed a variety of music for concert orchestras, several operas, and music for the Bohemian Grove's annual festivities, and is remembered today as the composer of the Movietone score for John Barrymore's "When a Man Loves," one of the finest period scores written for a late silent. There's a story that after Hadley left the SF Symphony in 1915, the musicians all got more reliable jobs playing in movie theater orchestras and the symphony had to cancel it's season. 

Complete Winter Event Program:
Our early program It's Mutual (1:00 pm, $15) is a collection of sparkling shorts by Charlie Chaplin, made during his stint at the Mutual Film Corporation where he honed his craft and became the genius director we think of today. The shorts - The Pawnshop, The Rink, and The Adventurer - contain some of the funniest moments ever put to screen, and are a glimpse into the development of this master of cinema. And supplying the perfect accompaniment to Chaplin's brilliance will be Donald Sosin at the baby grand piano. 35mm film prints from the David Shepard Collection.

Continuing our tradition of presenting world-class blockbusters at the Winter Event afternoon show, we present Marcel L'Herbier's L'Argent (3:30 pm, $15) accompanied by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

The evening show, La Bohème (8:00 pm, $17) is devoted to the one of the themes movies have excelled at from the beginning - the love story! This eternal romance set in bohemian Paris of the 1830s has been filmed many times, but King Vidor's classic starring Lillian Gish as Mimi and John Gilbert as Rodolphe is the definitive version. New 35mm print courtesy of Stanford Theatre Foundation and UCLA Film and Television Archive. The Master of the Mighty Wurlitzer, Dennis James, will accompany this perfect Valentine's weekend fare.

At 6:30 there will be a Winter Event Celebration Party ($20) on the Castro's mezzanine. Delicious hors d'oeuvres, hearty drinks, and pleasing conversation to be had by all! The extraordinary Michel Saga will serenade on the barrel organ, singing songs of old Paris.

For tickets and more information, please visit the Silent Film Festival.

Screeners and images are available for all films. Please contact Anita Monga, 510-843-4245 anita@silentfilm.org

High-res images can be downloaded from our pressroom

The Silent Film Festival is a nonprofit organization promoting the artistic, cultural, and historic value of silent film with live musical accompaniment.



Maxxxxx says re Silent Film Festivals:    (quiet....)





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