The Addams Family at HCT

Last night I got to see the musical The Addams Family on the Jewel Box Stage at Hale Centre Theatre.  I've seen this show several times before and it is a lot of fun so I have been anticipating it for quite a while. A nearly perfect cast and some amusing little additions make this one of the best productions of this particular show that I have seen.  The Addams family is not like other families because they are all obsessed with the macabre and rely on their dead ancestors to help them through life.  Things start to go wrong when Wednesday (MaKenna Tinney) falls in love with Lucas Beineke (Nathaneal Abbott), a normal Midwestern boy. She wants to introduce his uptight parents, Mal (Shawn Lynn) and Alice (Carolyn Hartvigsen), to her family which includes her father Gomez (Josh Richardson), her mother Morticia (Erin Royall Carlson), her brother Pugsley (Blake Walker), her uncle Fester (Jeff Thompson), her Grandma (Jayne Luke), and their manservant Lurch (Michael Von Forrell). She arranges a dinner and begs her family for just one normal night.  Of course, chaos ensues when a mishap involving a poisonous potion occurs and it is up to Uncle Fester, with the help of the ancestors, to convince everyone that love is the answer. The plot is quite silly but the message about the importance of families is very appealing. The songs in this show are not especially memorable but the cast is so outstanding that they made them very enjoyable, particularly "Just Around the Corner," "The Moon and Me" (a highlight), and "Tango de Amor."  The choreography is outstanding and I especially enjoyed all of the big song and dance numbers involving the ancestors (a Conquistador, Caesar, Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette, a Pirate, General Custer, Joan of Arc, and a Titanic passenger). The set is fantastic and features an ornate spiral staircase, a Medieval torture chamber, bedrooms with velvet draped canopy beds (Pugsley's bed is made out of a guillotine), and an imposing iron gate. The costumes are also quite spectacular, especially Morticia's slinky gowns and Gomez's elaborate smoking jackets. The entire cast is strong but Richardson and Carlson are absolutely perfect as Gomez and Morticia.  I laughed and laughed at just about everything they said and did!  Speaking of laughter, if you see this show pay very close attention to the antics of Lurch and Thing (Eden Tinney) because they provide many laugh out loud moments of physical comedy that are often hidden in the background.  The Addams Family is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it but act quickly (go here for tickets) because shows are selling out at a record pace.

Inland

For the past couple of months I have been thinking about joining another book club.  I missed being challenged to read books that I wouldn't necessarily choose for myself and I have recently made a goal to be a little bit more social (I really struggle in this area). I eventually decided to join a book club that is held monthly at a Barnes & Noble bookstore near me. I went for the first time last night and, even though I stressed about it all day yesterday, I had a lot of fun.  The selection for this month was Inland by Tea Obreht and, while I didn't love it, I found the writing to be incredibly beautiful. Set in the Arizona Territory in 1893, the narrative alternates between two complicated characters fighting for survival. Lurie is an outlaw who joins the Camel Corps of the U.S. Army in charge of surveying the Southwest. He is doggedly pursued by Marshall John Berger because he committed a murder as a young man so he eventually takes a camel named Burke and wanders aimlessly on his own. Nora lives on a homestead plagued by a severe drought. She is left to fend for herself after her husband leaves to find water and her two older sons leave after an argument. She also gets into a squabble with a few locals about moving the county seat to another town which will almost certainly mean the end of her homestead. There is an interesting juxtaposition between the two characters because Lurie is unable to stay in one place for long and Nora cannot seem to leave a place no matter how inhospitable. The connection that ties them together is their ability to speak to the dead.  Lurie is followed by the ghosts of people he knew as a child and acquires their negative characteristics (which gets him into trouble).  Nora speaks to the daughter who died as an infant as a way to assuage her guilt over her death. The two are also connected by the common theme of water and how the lack thereof affects them. However, I had a very difficult time getting through the story because it meanders so much and so many characters appear and disappear without resolution.  I kept picking it up and putting it down, impatient for the two narratives to converge which doesn't happen until the final pages.  If you can make it to the end, both characters do find some redemption and are left with hope for the future but I'm not entirely sure I understand the point Obreht is making.  As previously mentioned, the prose is quite stunning, especially in the vivid descriptions of the Southwest, and there were many times when I went back to read a particular passage again because it was so poignant.  While I can appreciate Obreht’s brilliant writing style, I wouldn't recommend this book.  I would, however, recommend the Barnes & Noble book club because the facilitator asked some interesting questions which stimulated a great discussion (I was not the only one to struggle with this selection) and who can resist the delicious cookies from the cafe!  Go here for information and to find a book club near you!

Note:  Next month's selection is The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale).  I can't wait to read and discuss this book!

The Empire Strikes Back in Concert

I am such a fan of the Utah Symphony Films in Concert so I try to attend every concert in the series each season.  Last night Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was shown on the big screen while the orchestra played the amazing score by John Williams live.  This movie begins after the Rebels destroy the Death Star.  Darth Vader searches the galaxy for Luke Skywalker, who begins his Jedi training with Yoda, leading to an epic confrontation between the two of them.  I love this movie so much and the experience of watching it with a really rowdy crowd, many dressed in costume, was so much fun!  The score is iconic and the orchestra played it brilliantly.  I was positively giddy when the instantly recognizable "Star Wars (Main Theme)" played during the opening crawl and so was the crowd because the cheering was very enthusiastic!  I particularly loved all of the brass during "The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)."  This gave me chills every time it was repeated because I was so terrified of Darth Vader when I saw this movie for the first time.  I also really enjoyed "Han Solo and the Princess," especially when Han and Leia kissed each other!  The crowd was amazing and there were massive cheers when Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Lando Calrissian appeared on the screen for the first time but the character that got the loudest applause was Yoda!  My favorite scenes were during the Battle of Hoth when Luke brings down the AT-AT walkers, when Yoda lifts Luke's X-wing fighter out of the swamp using the Force, when Leia tells Han that she loves him before he is frozen in carbonite, and when Darth Vader tells Luke that he is his father after their lightsaber duel.  It has been a long time since I've seen this movie on the big screen and I certainly enjoyed it last night.  This concert will be repeated again tonight and I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here).

Note:  Abravanel Hall was visited by Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) who were attending Fan-X next door!  It was quite exciting!

It: Chapter Two

I am a huge fan of Stephen King's best-selling novel It!  I thought it was a brilliant idea to divide the story into two movies, with the first one focusing on the events in 1989 and the second one focusing on the present, but I have to admit that as soon as I walked out of It I started looking forward to the conclusion (and immediately started casting all of the adult roles in my head).  After anticipating It: Chapter Two for so long I finally got to see it last night at a Thursday preview.  In 1989, Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Martell), Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs), Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer), and Stanley Uris (Wyatt Oleff) are able to defeat the evil presence that appears in Derry every 27 years but they do not kill it.  They make a blood pact to return to Derry if it reappears again.  In the present, Mike (Isaiah Mustafa), the only member of the Loser's Club who remained in Derry, calls Bill (James McAvoy), Beverly (Jessica Chastain), Ben (Jay Ryan), Richie (Bill Hader), Eddie (James Ransone), and Stan (Andy Bean) when there are some unexplained deaths.  All but Stan return even though they have forgotten much of what happened.  They all must eventually confront their pasts in order to retrieve artifacts to use in an ancient ritual which they conduct in the sewers of Derry.  Will this ritual be enough to kill the evil presence that appears in the guise of Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard)?  I loved the performances of the young actors in the first movie and I thought the filmmakers did a brilliant job of casting the adult roles (I thought Teach Grant, the adult version of Henry Bowers, was also spot-on).  The actors do a great job of recreating all of the idiosyncrasies of the younger characters, particularly Ransone as Eddie.  The adults have just as much camaraderie as the kids and infuse a lot of comedic elements to balance out the horror (it was fun seeing this with a rowdy crowd who laughed out loud multiple times).  There are some really scary moments but I think the first movie is a bit more unsettling because Pennywise is fighting younger and more vulnerable characters.  I didn't feel as much dread in the final confrontation.  I also think this movie is a lot longer than it needs to be because it kept returning unnecessarily to the events of the past and my mind sometimes wandered.  Still, I think the outstanding performances by the ensemble cast make this a satisfying conclusion to the saga and I recommend it to fans of the first movie.

Note:  Many of my students are reading the novel and they made me promise not to reveal any spoiler alerts in class today!

The Nightingale

I was very intrigued by the trailer for The Nightingale but I wasn't sure that I wanted to see it because I had heard that it was incredibly violent (many people walked out when it was screened at the Venice Film Festival).  However, one of my friends recommended it so highly that I changed my mind and saw it last night.  To be sure, it is absolutely brutal but it is also beautiful and one of the best films I've seen all year.  In Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) in the early 1800s, Clare (Aisling Franciosi) is an Irish convict serving as a laborer for a British Army outpost under the command of Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin).  An officer is visiting to determine if Hawkins should be promoted to Captain.  Clare's sentence has expired but Hawkins refuses to release her because he likes to hear her sing and calls her his Nightingale.  When Clare's husband Aidan (Michael Sheasby) drunkenly demands that Hawkins release her, it ends in an altercation that ultimately loses Hawkins his promotion.  In retaliation, Hawkins and his second-in-command brutally rape Clare and then he kills Aidan and their baby daughter.  Hawkins decides to travel through the treacherous bush to the town of Launceston to advocate for the promotion himself.  After persuading an Aboriginal tracker named Billy (Baykali Ganambarr) to help her, Clare decides to follow him through the bush to get revenge.  This is a very Gothic revenge film but, more than that, it is a beautiful story of friendship that is incredibly affecting.  Clare and Billy form an uneasy alliance and are hostile to each other until she learns of the atrocities perpetrated against the Aborigines and they bond over their mutual hatred of the British.  Billy (whose Aboriginal name means Blackbird) saves her life several times and they come to rely on each other and then care for each other.  I really loved watching their relationship unfold and there were many times when I was moved to tears.  The symbolism in this film is so powerful and I especially loved a scene where they get separated and a blackbird guides Clare back to the road.  The message about the evils of colonialism is also very powerful and I think it is one that everyone should hear.  Franciosi gives one of the most riveting performances that I have seen all year, Ganambarr is incredibly sympathetic as Billy (I was a sobbing mess during a scene where he breaks down and says that Australia is his country), and Claflin is so loathsome as Hawkins that it was hard for me not to hate him.  The cinematography is absolutely stunning, particularly the gorgeous final shot, and the score is so evocative.  There is no doubt that this movie is difficult to watch.  I do think the violence is very organic and not at all gratuitous but it is definitely not for the faint of heart.  Nevertheless, I highly recommend it.