Young Woman and the Sea

I was able to see a Thursday preview of Young Woman and the Sea last night and, as a big fan of inspirational sports movies, I absolutely loved it!  After surviving a bout with the measles, Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle (Olive Abercrombie) wants to learn to swim just like her older sister Meg (Lilly Aspell) but her parents, German immigrants Henry (Kim Bodnia) and Gertrude (Jeanette Hain), fear that it will worsen her hearing loss.  Undaunted, Trudy (Daisy Ridley) eventually trains with Charlotte Epstein (Sian Clifford) in a basement pool and defies expectations by winning races.  After a disappointing showing at the 1924 Olympics, where she was expected to earn four gold medals, interest in women's swimming wanes and her father expects her to submit to an arranged marriage.  Trudy has other ideas and decides to swim the English Channel, something only five men (and no women) have ever done before.  She is reluctantly sponsored by the Women's Swimming Association (WSA) who insist that she train with Jabez Wolffe (Christopher Eccleston), who had previously attempted to swim the channel 22 times without success.  When Wolffe sabotages her first attempt, she finds a way to stay in France and try again with the help of her sister Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) and another eccentric swimmer named Bill Burgess (Stephen Graham).  What I found so compelling about this true story is that Trudy is not a natural athlete with perfect technique.  She has to fight to be allowed to swim and, even then, there are others who are much better than her but it is her determination and hard work that allows her to succeed!  I also loved the portrayal of Trudy's family, especially the support of her mother despite the opposition of her more traditional father and the heartwarming relationship with her sister even though they are on different paths.  Ridley gives a quietly powerful performance (one of her best) in a physically demanding role and I found it to be very moving without being manipulative.  The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent but the standouts for me were Hain and Clifford.  Finally, the cinematography, particularly the shots in the water, is stunning and the vibrant score really enhances the uplifting message.  I thoroughly enjoyed this crowd-pleaser and I highly recommend it!

Babes

The trailer for Babes made me laugh so I decided to see it at the Broadway last night.  It wasn't as funny as I thought it would be but I did enjoy the poignant look at female friendship.  Dawn (Michelle Buteau) is a married dentist with a young son and a baby on the way and Eden (Ilana Glazer) is a single and free-spirited yoga instructor.  They have been best friends since they were eleven years old and support each other in everything, including when Dawn goes into labor early while the two of them are watching a movie together.  When Eden unexpectedly becomes pregnant after a one night stand, she expects Dawn to help her through every aspect of pregnancy.  Dawn is struggling to adjust to the addition of a second child to her family and is feeling guilty about returning to work so soon after the birth so she feels like Eden is demanding more than she can give.  Their friendship is tested but they eventually realize how much they mean to each other.  I am not a big fan of crude humor so all of the jokes about bodily fluids (so many bodily fluids!) started to get really old for me but there are lots of genuinely funny moments that made me and the rest of the audience laugh out loud.  Much of the humor involves the secondary characters, my favorites of which are Eden's OB-GYN (John Carroll Lynch) and his ever evolving hair styles and her back-up doula Dragana (Elena Ouspenskaia).  However, both Buteau and Glazer have tremendous chemistry together and they really sell the idea that they have been inseparable since childhood in their performances.  I loved the realistic portrayal of what happens to friends who find themselves at different stages in life but still try to prioritize the friendship (I was single with a very close friend who was married with a baby when I was in my early twenties and this had me feeling the feels).  Your enjoyment of this movie will definitely depend on your tolerance for crude humor but there is enough heart for me to recommend it! 

Stevie Nicks at the Delta Center

Last night I was able to see the legendary Stevie Nicks in concert at the Delta Center!  I was so excited I could hardly contain myself and, even at 76 years old, she put on quite the show!  She took the stage in a flowing black dress (many people in the audience were similarly attired) and she had her microphone stand adorned with her signature sparkly beads and scarves.  There was a curved screen behind her that took up the whole length of the stage and featured lots of nostalgic photos and videos spanning her lengthy career, both with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist.  She sang for over two hours and her instantly recognizable voice sounded great!  I was so happy because she sang "Dreams," my favorite Fleetwood Mac song, very early in the evening and also included the Fleetwood Mac songs "Gypsy," during which she twirled and whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and "Gold Dust Woman," while wearing a gold shawl and casting spells on the audience.  Another highlight for me was when she sang "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" after telling the crowd what it was like to record it with Tom Petty (with lots of photos of Petty on the giant screen).  During "Bella Donna" she wore the original blue cape from the album photo for Bella Donna (she mentioned that her mother was angry because it cost $3000 but she thinks it was worth it) and then for "Stand Back" she changed into the original black and gold cape from the music video.  She sang powerful versions of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" and her own "Soldier's Angel" while reminding the crowd to vote and work towards peace around the world.  She originally recorded the song "Leather and Lace" with Don Henley but last night she brought her vocal coach Steve Real to the stage to sing it with her and it was amazing.  She ended her main set with "Edge of Seventeen" which is the song I most wanted to hear (the rest of the audience obviously did too because they went crazy as soon as they heard the opening notes) and I loved her performance so much (she brought out her signature beribboned tambourine for this song).  For the encore, she sang "Rhiannon" and an emotional version of "Landslide" which she dedicated to Christine McVie (featuring lots of photos of the two of them together on the screen).  Nicks was so funny and charismatic with lots of stories and anecdotes between every song.  I especially enjoyed it when she talked about how she and Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac.  This was my first concert of the year and it was an amazing one!

Note:  It was her birthday on Sunday so the crowd sang a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" to her!

The Importance of Being Earnest at Parker Theatre

Even though I retired from teaching English four years ago, I still think about the year in terms of the literature I would be teaching. Since I always ended the school year with The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde in my British literature classes, it was so fun to see a delightful production of this witty play at Parker Theatre last night. Jack Worthing (Chris Last) and Algernon Moncrieff (Jonathan McBride) are foppish young men in 19th century England who adopt fictional identities to escape social obligations. Jack invents a brother named Ernest in order to behave badly in London without ruining his reputation in the country and Algernon creates an invalid friend named Bunbury to have an excuse to avoid his aunt Lady Bracknell (Linda Jean Stephenson). Chaos ensues when Jack and Algernon attempt to woo Gwendolen Fairfax (Kristi Curtis) and Cecily Cardew (Kristin Hafen) and are both mistaken for the nonexistent Ernest. The dialogue in this play is razor sharp and the actors deliver it at a breakneck pace as the characters banter back and forth about the trivial concerns that Wilde found so hypocritical among the upper classes of his day. Between the hilarious line delivery and all of the physical comedy, I don't think the audience stopped laughing once during the entire show. I sure didn't! I especially loved how a scene between Gwendolen and Cecily is staged because, as they are fighting over who is really engaged to Ernest, they play a game of chess in which they take out all of their feelings on the pieces. I also really enjoyed all of the subtle bits of business performed by the servants in London and in the country (both played by John-Tyrus Williams and Mary Parker Williams) because, if you pay close attention, it highlights how superficial the main characters are, particularly when they replace all of Algernon's alcohol with flower arrangements when Lady Bracknell visits him. The four lead actors do a great job with the rapid-fire dialogue (their accents are especially good) and with the physicality. Their chemistry with each other is palpable as they move around the stage as if in the middle of a highly choreographed dance and the way they interact with the props, especially when Jack and Algernon fight over muffins and when Gwendolen repeatedly hits Jack with her parasol, is so much fun to watch. Stephenson (most productions I've seen have cast a man in the role of Lady Bracknell) is incredibly imperious and I loved her reaction to hearing about Cecily's wealth. Jayne Luke is suitably flustered as Miss Prism and her scream when she sees Lady Bracknell brought the house down. The sets are some of the most elaborate I've seen at this theatre and the period costumes are very opulent and detailed (I lost count of how many patterns are used in Algernon's suit). This production put a huge smile on my face and listening to the audience laugh was a fun reminder of how much my students always enjoyed reading this play. It runs on Fridays and Saturdays through June 22 and I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here).

Anne Akiko Meyers Plays "Fandango"

Last night I attended the final Utah Symphony concert of the season and it was certainly a spectacular one to end with!  The orchestra began with a fun piece called Fanfare Ritmico by Jennifer Higdon.  According to the composer, it was written on the eve of the new Millennium to celebrate the rhythm and speed of daily life.  I thought it was incredibly dynamic and I especially loved all of the percussion (the chimes were my favorite) and the brass.  Next came Fandango by Arturo Marquez.  This piece was inspired by a fandango, or Mexican party where people come together to dance and sing in a communal setting, and was written specifically for the soloist Anne Akiko Meyers.  She performed it so brilliantly that the audience gave her a standing ovation after the first movement (to be fair the ending of the movement is very dramatic).  The piece contained several different and exciting Latin rhythms that had people dancing in their seats and I especially loved the back and forth between the solo violin and the solo clarinet during an interlude in the first movement, the sensual themes in the second movement, and the sheer virtuosity of Meyers' performance in the third movement (it was really fast and so much fun to watch).  I had never heard this piece before but I think it might be a new favorite because I really enjoyed it!  After the intermission the concert concluded with an incredibly stirring rendition of Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3.  I am always very moved by this piece whenever I hear it performed live because it is so triumphant.  I love the themes played by the woodwinds and, of course, the instantly recognizable Fanfare for the Common Man played by the brass, punctuated dramatically by the timpani, is brilliant.  I had goosebumps by the time the orchestra reached the exhilarating conclusion!  This same program will be performed again tonight and I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here).