nyc.dancr
Go see “To Kill A Mockingbird”!!!
The story feels even more relevant today than when I first read the book in high school.
The laws and the general societal attitude may have changed since the 1930s. However, the hatred, the contempt for the laws, and the increasing violence perpetrated by the alt-right have thrusted us right back into history.
Sadly, this is happening not just in the United States but, as last week’s news shows, in Germany as well.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Part II. ❤️❤️❤️
Still cried, still laughed my head off, and still wow’ed by this incredible show even though I have already seen it in London.
I like how the Lyric Theatre has been transformed. It’s bigger than the Palace Theatre (for the London production), so the main stage is grander and the seats *much* roomier. I also like small design details like the staircases and the patronus artwork.
The Lifespan of a Fact
First of all, great acting by Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones, and Bobby Cannavale that kept the audience engaged for the entire play.
I understand, at a high level, what the writers may have wanted to achieve with the script: Portray the conflicts between a fact checker, a writer who prefers the “stretch the truth”, and a magazine editor who decides what to publish.
It’s a rich topic with so many potential sub-themes to explore, all highly relevant to the present day: High-quality journalism vs monetization for a news room. The pressure on a journalist in today’s fast-paced publication cycles. The loss of fact-based civic conversations.
However, I’m bothered by some of the details in the script.
First, the play trivializes and paints “fact checking” as some narrow-minded and almost maniac exercise to reproduce a “correct” number or a piece of data… 31 vs 34… 8 vs 9… red vs brown… and misses the essence and complexities of misinformation.
Intent matters. Framing matters. “Facts” can still be used to deceive when presented in a misleading or false context, even if the numbers themselves are correct.
Second, some of the “facts” in the play are not even facts at all.
Language is NOT a fact. The script kept returning to a dispute where the fact checker called a brick wall brown but the writer insisted on it being red. Even when two people see an identical patch of color, they still may and often label the color using different words. Language reflects a speaker’s own social experience.
Verifying that a person made a specific claim in a public statement is fact checking.
Insisting that someone else uses the same language to describe your own experience is not fact checking. It’s called imposing your opinion on someone else.
It’s regrettable that a play about fact checking presents a fact checker as imposing his opinion on others… rather examining the truthfulness, relevance, and impact of claims in meaningful ways.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is amazing!!! It’s going right up there as my favorite play/musical. Possibly even edging out Hamilton.
Incredible story telling. Stunning choreography and stage design. The two parts are almost six hours in length, but time flew by so fast because the story is so engaging.
The main characters all have their own distinct personalities. Kudos to the talented cast for bringing each one of them to life.
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. June 24th and July 1st at the Neil Simon Theatre.
Bravos to the cast for putting on this powerful and emotionally-charged play over two weekends… telling the complex and often shrouded stories about AIDS in the 1980s… and the public and private ways people tried to make sense of the unknown, the unforgiving, the “shame”, one’s impending suffering and death, or that of their loves ones.
“The Parisian Woman” was strange, funny, yet thrilling. Some of the plot twists were so surreal that they felt inconceivable. Then again, many current events that took place had once been considered unimaginable, too.
The play was set in contemporary Washington DC (after the 2016 US election) and centered around five characters with political connections.
On the surface, the political dance and Trump-bashing were sharp and funny, coming from both the Democrat and Republican characters in the story.
But, the plot quickly dived deep into the human psychic and relations: lies, adulteries, distortions, revenge, loyalty, trust, political favors, open relationships, and the role of women in the “older generation.”
The narrative was super clear, and dialogues well written. We knew exactly who/where/what each character stood. What we couldn’t see, however, was the hidden psychological warfare. Who’s crossing, double-crossing, triple-crossing whom? Who loves whom… pretends to love whom… loves but pretends not to love whom?
The main plot twist was thrilling. So thrilling that I actually liked it. The revelation was so surreal that it felt inconceivable. Then again, many events taking in DC today had once been considered unimaginable. In the current political climate, perhaps the turn of events could happen after all.
I thought several subplots were quite clever…
Chloe and Tom’s marriage and their “trust” in each other. Trust in quotation because I think it actually exceeds that of a normal marriage.
The portray of complex, conning, and malicious actions that people would take to achieve their ambitions.
Yet, one question remained, and I personally felt it significantly weakened the play… What is Chloe’s motive in all this?
She offered two answers: “Women in my (older) generation didn’t have a (professional) career.” and “I am a lost soul.” The former sadly reminded me of my mother’s generation. The latter felt like an excuse coming out of a teenager but not someone of her experience. In any case, neither felt satisfying or justifying.
1984… the story of our times?
The play is shocking and violent. Several reviews describe audience members fainting, vomiting, and even begging the cast to stop. With scenes of execution, torture, blood everywhere, this show is definitely not for the faint of heart.
The set design was creative, peeling away to reveal how our private space is not what we think it is, in a society under surveillance.
But the actual content was… not super shocking??? Or, not as shocking as the book? Or, not as shocking as the current news? I read the book a long time ago, but remembered it as being more about the danger of thoughts (than the physical violence). Of course, the latter is used to suppress the former. However, for all the extreme violence on stage, I just felt the play could have done more with less.
Puffs: the Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic.
A Harry Potter parody, so funny and hilarious, that I couldn’t stop laughing from the beginning to the end. If you’ve read and re-read the Harry Potter books and seen the movies at least 5 times each, you need to see this play!!
Do you know the three wizarding students who went to Hogwarts, became best friends, learnt magic, and tried to save the world?
Yup! Wayne, Megan, and Oliver! Wait. You haven’t heard of them? Well, me neither until tonight. They’re the three Hufflepuffs who “just happened to be at Hogwarts” in the same seven years as Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Puffs is a parody about the other students, a story of what it feels like to be secondary characters in someone else’s story. Most of all though, it’s about the most powerful magic in the world… love! ❤️
Other memorable moments include Susie playing all the signature Harry Potter moments (refreshing to see an actress play the part and she did a fabulous job). Ron as the red broom. Hermione as the messy wig. Students watching the Tri-Wizard Tournament (“We’re just watching a lake”). All the 90s pop music since Harry Potter did go to school in the 90s. The sorting hat. References to both the books and the movies (“The headmaster looks different this year”, the ginormous fifth book, Wayne’s light saber in the “Weird Mirror”).