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Weekend In D.C. I'm writing this entry from the apartment of the lovely Elizabeth. She's in Kansas City standing up for a friend at a wedding, but kindly allowed Gabriel and I to use her apartment in her absence. We're here, you see, for a second go-round of the Sondheim Celebration. In June, Greg and I came down for the first weekend. Elizabeth and I went together to see Sunday In the Park With George, which has been one of my favorite musicals for years. I'd never seen it staged, except in the video of the original Broadway production (starring Mandy and Bernadette, natch). I expected to love it, and the production did not disappoint. In fact, I liked Melissa Errico better than I liked Bernadette Peters (I know, strike me down) and Raul Esparza, who is quickly joining my list of people I'd see in anything, was so very wonderful as Georges. It was everything Sunday should be - luminous and lovely and sad - and I never wanted it to be over. Hearing Finishing the Hat(the song from which the title of this journal is taken) live for the first time was amazing. Finishing the hat There was also a very cool moment when Georges is talking about connecting to people through art, and Raul said those lines from far left just before exiting. While he said those lines, he made about ten seconds of eye contact with an audience member. Who happened to be me, sitting far house right in the front row. Oh frabjous day! Later that weekend, Greg and I saw Sweeney Todd. It was my first viewing of the show and Greg's first Sondheim, and neither of us liked it very much. The audio balance, for one thing, was terrible. Every time Brian Stokes Mitchell (annoyingly the only actor in the show with no British accent) got loud, the orchestra drowned him out. If you've ever heard Mr. Mitchell, you know this is quite an accomplishment. Christine Baranski as Mrs. Lovett was very good, and Hugh Panaro was fine and the chick playing Johanna was fine and the Judge was fine but the show just didn't grab me. The chorus was incomprehensible, and I know that many many people just obsess to death over this show but I didn't get why at all. Yes, yes, a barber kills people, the judge is in love with his ward, how scandalous, yawn. The production was good, so I'm pretty sure it's just the show I don't like. Greg, not a musical fan to begin with, definitely knew it was the show he didn't like. (I'm now finishing this later the same day) So Gabriel and I saw Merrily We Roll Along on Friday night. The show is problematic and this production did little to resolve the problems. Merrily is about three friends (Frank, Charley, and Mary) and traces the history of their friendship - backwards. The show features some of Sondheim's loveliest songs - Not A Day Goes By, Good Thing Going, Our Time. But I've seen this show twice now and the problems seem to be inherent in the script. The show starts out when the friendship has essentially crumbled to ruin and the characters' lives are screwed up and returns, scene by scene, to their innocent, idealistic first meeting on a rooftop in NYC at the beginning of their college careers. If it worked, it would be brilliant. Because it's Sondheim, in some ways it is - but there are things that never resolve themselves, like Mary being in love with Frank for years and years and him never knowing and her never speaking up and the problems it supposedly causes. The main crux of the show, I suppose, could be that Mary and Charley both love Frank and he is never capable of loving them fully in return - but things get so muddled it's hard to tell. The cast was partially disappointing as well. Michael Hayden as Frank was not sympathetic, not likeable, and I had no idea why Mary and Charley even cared about him. Miriam Shor was disappointing as Mary; I expected much better. Raul Esparza was Charley, and he was one of two really shining spots in the cast. His Franklin Shepard, Inc. was the high point of the show, and the applause proved it. Emily Skinner was marvelous as Gussie. Stole the show. Walked away with it in her pocket. In the end, I still love Merrily - but it's for the music, not the script. (Friday night Kennedy Center celebrity sighting: Sarah Jessica Parker, looking fabulously pregnant in an empire-waist white-with-red-flowers flare-y just-below-knee sundress and adorable heeled sandals, and her very scruffy looking hubby, Matthew Broderick. Gabriel saw A Little Night Music on Saturday afternoon and saw Lara Flynn Boyle there.) Today we saw Passion, which apparently is selling the worst of the six - and it's a shame, because it's magnificent. It didn't do well on Broadway, and you can see why it doesn't do well - you really have to think to love this show, and it's an hour and fifty with no act break, and there's no foot tapping music (no hum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mumable melody) and it's depressing and dark with, really, one happy moment and that comes in the first fifteen minutes of the show. But it's beautiful and deep and rich and I loved loved loved it. There was no applause until the end of the show. None. It was perfect. When people coughed, Gabriel and I wanted to tell them to shut up because they were disturbing the perfection of the experience. It starred Michael Cerveris, Rebecca Luker, and the incomparable Judy Kuhn, who performed today with Donna Murphy (who won a Tony for the same role) in the audience. It was exquisite. (Today's celebrity sighting was my new Celebrity Boyfriend, Raul Esparza, and the above-mentioned Ms. Murphy.) Gabriel and I had a great time this weekend, tooling all over DC and Alexandria with the help of Elizabeth's fab directions, staying in her apartment (she put chocolates on the pillows, people!) and flopping on her comfy couch in front of her digital cable at the end of the day. The only low point? My car was broken into Friday night outside of the apartment (in a lovely, quiet, secluded, suburban neighborhood) and my indash CD player was stolen. The thieves didn't cut up anything, break anything, tear out my wires or steal anything else in the car (including over 30 CDs - guess they don't like musicals and ZOEgirl and the Dixie Chicks and Greg's 80s mixes) and helpfully locked my door when they were finished. I wanted to upgrade eventually, but this was hardly the way. But I refused to let it ruin the weekend, and it didn't! I got to be part of theatrical history, and it's an experience I'll never forget. |