My Anonymous Blog

Palau de la Música Catalana

Touring the Palau de la Música Catalana was such a treat.  It was built by architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, who also designed the sensational Hospital de Sant Pau, also in Barcelona. Both the hospital and the theatre are regarded, and rightfully so, as landmarks of such architectural importance that UNESCO has designated them both as a collective World Heritage Site.  The mosaic work alone takes me aback, and I wondered how long it took to place all of the little glass pieces covering nearly every surface. 

It was such a thrill being in the main room of the theatre during the daytime, as its defining feature is the unique fact that the house is lit by gorgeous rows of stained glass windows, the most impressive of which being a giant sun that gleams from the center of the ceiling high overhead.  The light pouring into the theatre creates a music box-like effect that warms the entire space.  There is a huge organ that our tour guide played via a remote control that was connected to computer driven programs that operated the organ.  The sound in the space is near perfect. 

One thing I wasn't happy about was the fact that photos were not allowed anywhere in the theatre.  I understand that they want to sell the photos in the gift shop, and I usually buy postcards anyway, but the lengths they took to keep tourists from snapping an interior photo - we had a pale, creepy security guard staring us down during the entire tour - were ridiculous and prompted me to forgo my usual postcard-buying stop at the gift shop.

Weekend in Review: August: Osage County, Gym Bar, Sex and the City Movie & Other Stuff

I'm on a health kick.  They come and go and rarely last much past getting even semi-in-shape, but I'm trying to get there once again.  Summer usually brings it on, with the rising temps and skimpier clothes that reveal chunky legs and a Buddha belly and the proliferation of incredibly attractive guys walking the streets that somehow clicks my willingness to spend more time in the gym, eat right and do my sit-ups into overdrive.  This year, I've never been so inspired.  Plus, gray beard hairs have started poking through at an alarming rate recently.  And not that exercising can cure that, mind you, but if the rest of me feels good, I won't feel entirely like a grandpa.  Not that I'll ever be a grandpa or even a dad in the real sense of the word, obviously, but I'm not yet ready to feel like one.

My uber healthy friend Will arrived with bags of organic produce and meat in tow last night to make dinner, and admittedly I was nervous at first, anticipating bland piles of veggies and tough lamb burgers, but it turned out wonderfully and made me realize that I should be eating more vegetables, particularly steamed carrots with olive oil and sea salt. 

After dinner, I was talked into buying a ticket and joining Will, my friend Brian and a friend of theirs for a performance of the middle-class southern family dramedy, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY on Broadway.  I initially said no -- it's a 3-1/2 hour play and I'm usually more receptive to musicals, but went along in the end anyway.  And I'm so glad that I did, because it was fabulous!!  The entire cast was spot-on, funny and believable, particularly the two female leads, Amy Morton and Deanna Dunagan.  The latter, who played the feisty patriarch of the family and was dying of mouth cancer, reminded me so much of my Great Grandma Pauline, who was equally as outspoken and ornery as the character in the play was, particularly in her final days as she herself was dying of lung cancer that eventually spread to her brain.  She was a heavy chain smoker, had a quick temper and I have many early memories of her chasing me angrily around her house with a cigarette in one hand and a fly swatter in the other while cursing, "God dammit, Nathan, you leave your fucking brother and sister alone!  Come here!  Come here, you little brat!"  She rarely caught up to me and her anger dissipated as fast as it was brought on, but she always reported my high jinks to my mother when she returned, and my mother could catch up to me, unfortunately.

For the first act, I had a decent seat in the orchestra level with no obstruction in front of me -- this is almost unheard of and I'm constantly having to battle tall men, big hair and the occasional Sunday hat by swaying back and forth and contorting myself in such a way that I can see the action onstage, often leaving the show with a sore back and neck and in need of a chiropractor.  For the second and third acts, I moved to an empty space behind my friends in the first mezzanine, which turned out to be a much better overhead view of the set and actors anyway.

The play is going to make a fabulous movie if the producers and screenplay writer(s) play their cards right.  It needs to be chopped down to size, but I hope they leave all of the juicy lines in somehow.  I kept comparing the work to STEEL MAGNOLIAS, both because of its southern locale and the fact that the many main roles are primarily female-driven and filled out with riotous dialog, depth and emotion.  But it's a lot deeper than Magnolias ever even dared to be, and therefore will have to retain much of its length if it has any chance of keeping the feeling and connection of the characters intact.  We spent the second intermission (there were three acts, two breaks) casting Meryl Streep in Morton's character and Shirley MacLaine as the dying mother, filled out with several hip leading ladies of today in the younger roles ... Ellen Page, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway ... it could be extremely exciting and I'm already rooting for it to start filming!

I give AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY an A- and am positive it will take home the Tony Award for Best Play next Sunday night.

After the show, I was scheduled to pop into a party in the East Village, but instead walked down to Chelsea and had a drink at Gym Bar.  I hadn't been out in FOREVER.  It was an odd experience... the rows of guys just standing about, groups of guys that must have barely been legal or (more likely) were flashing fake ids to the bouncer upon entry ... the usual scene, really, that I left behind at the end of my twenties.  And although I was initially uncomfortable, now that the one drink experience has sunk in a bit there's a part of me that misses it.  Not Gym Bar -- I had never been there and it's not quite my crowd -- but the more laid back gay bars in the East Village where I spent many nights hanging out with friends ... like Phoenix.  Maybe I'll give it another shot.

This is a rambling post.  My apologies ... I'm feeling a bit anxious and thinking of everything that needs to be done in the next couple of days...

So, tonight I finally saw SEX AND THE CITY: THE MOVIE!!  I loved it overall.  Having spent years stalking the filming locations in Manhattan, sometimes in the pouring rain watching SJP and company do their scenes and lines over and over and over again, I couldn't wait for the movie, which brought all of those good memories rushing back.  I cried a few times, honestly.  No, really!  Not at the movie in general, but at the times gone by and my trampled youth that is now rushing full throttle toward the grave. 

While I was happy to see the foursome hamming it up in several juicy scenes, I was less than thrilled to see that they morphed Samantha's gleefully slutty and sexy persona into a crazy, bloated New York Cat Lady (only Samantha buys a dog in the movie).  What a tragedy.  She was given some decent lines, but nothing as thrilling or graphic as we saw in the series.  And that's too bad.  Boo! 

Another thumbs down goes to Miranda, formerly one of my favorite and the most believable of the four, but in the movie comes off as an angry lesbian.  I hope she's not an angry lesbian in real life, because in interviews she comes off as quite sweet and pleasant, but her nasty scenes in the movie made me dislike her, a real shame because I was quite fond of her character in the regular series.  The little girl of Charlotte also annoyed me when she didn't answer the cell phone when Big called.  And that just fueled my longtime theory that little girls and lesbians ruin everything!

We finished the weekend with dinner at Duke's, a grungy, East Villagy-looking restaurant near Union Square that serves mainly standard burger / fries / diner type fare and has never truly satisfied me (Matthew loves it, so we keep comin' back), but tonight I ordered the mac and cheese and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was.  I've had better in the city, but would actually go back specifically for theirs.  Order the "small" version, which isn't small in the least, and start with a house salad. 

While I can't say much for the rest of the food at Duke's, the mac and cheese gets a B+ from me.

Duke's
99 East 19th Street
New York, NY 10016

Phone: 212-949-5400
Hours: Sunday - Wednesday 12NOON - 11PM; Thursday NOON - MIDNIGHT; Friday & Saturday NOON - 1AM

Adding Machine - A Musical

Joel Hatch and Cyrilla Baer star as Mr. and Mrs. Zero in Minetta Lane Theatre's production of Adding Machine
Photo credit: Carol Rosegg

It's St. Patrick's Day and everyone in my neighborhood is drunk. Not my neighbors, but the people passing through and hanging out in the many bars that line my block, particularly the frat bar across the street, where large groups of green-clad college guys are stumbling about and screaming at the top of their lungs, and to make matters worse the bar hired a bagpipe player to stand on the roof and play all day and night, and unfortunately that means every time I look out the window I see this inebriated green man playing bagpipes as loudly as he possibly can. I haven't been able to discern a single thing he's played all evening. It's nearly midnight and he's still going strong, stopping between songs to gulp down another beer before starting up again.

Anyway, it's been a few days since I saw ADDING MACHINE - A MUSICAL at the Minetta Lane Theatre around the corner from my house. I thought if I let things sit for a while that the show would grow on me, but unfortunately it didn't and I'm finding myself baffled as to why reviewers have praised it as highly as they have.

To sum up the plot briefly, basically it's about an unhappily married guy that gets let go from his job after he's been replaced by an adding machine. The guy then freaks out and kills his boss and ends up wandering the Elysian Fields with his secretary (who he was in love with) after being executed in prison. Yeah, it's that cheery.

I guess that, when I go to a musical, I want to be left with at least two or three songs stuck in my head that I'll sing nonstop around the house for a week or two after seeing it. I want creative sets and snappy choreography and bright performers with big voices. And Adding Machine had some of that. I loved the dark lighting and the sets were fun in parts. On the big voices front, I loved Amy Warren as Daisy, Mr. Zero's secretary, and suspect greater things will come her way after this. I also enjoyed Mr. Zero, played by Joel Hatch with an unrelenting devotion to his character's misery. Cyrilla Baer (Mrs. Zero), on the other hand, while I found her to be a skilled actress, was given such grating numbers to sing that I literally left the theatre with a headache from her persistent yelling. Watching her nag her husband in prolonged periods of alternating shrieking and shouting was sort of like what I imagine seeing Edith Bunker on speed would be like. And it wasn't her fault, really. The score, composed by Joshua Schmidt, just had no real direction, mimicking various styles and yet never really nailing any of them with success. There were bits reminiscent of Sondheim and Philip Glass, musical styles that evoked cabaret, snippets of mainstream musical theatre, gospel, etc. It was just too much for me. For a 90 minute show with no intermission, I wanted the music to be as driven and focused as the dark tale it supports.

And for this being the show's second time around in New York City, and this latest time after a run in Chicago, everything just felt a little too workshoppy to me. I guess I'm still confused as to why so many critics praised this show. I see individual moments that shine and the cast is strong, but the score did little for me to draw me into the show and I was left with nothing to hum on the way home.

Adding Machine gets a C- from me overall. The actors, however, get an A-.

Adding Machine runs at Minetta Lane Theatre through May 25, 2008. Check out the Playbill Theatre Listing HERE for details.