The Marvelous Wonderettes at the Terrace Plaza Playhouse

My first live theatre production of 2023 was The Marvelous Wonderettes at the Terrace Plaza Playhouse last night. It is a really fun jukebox musical featuring songs from the 1950s and 60s and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The Springfield High School Class of 1958 is having their senior prom but the leader of the boys glee club originally scheduled to perform was suspended for smoking so the songleaders, known as the Marvelous Wonderettes, are asked to provide the entertainment at the last minute. In between the musical numbers, Betty Jean (Emily Richards), Cindy Lou (Jessica Andrus), Missy (Jenni Cooper), and Suzy (Katie Swainston) engage in witty banter about the rivalries within the group and their boy troubles as well as vie with each other to become prom queen (the audience gets to vote using a ballot distributed before the show). After the intermission, the Class of 1958 has their ten year reunion at Springfield High School and the Marvelous Wonderettes are, once again, asked to perform. They each have a chance to catch their classmates (the audience) up on what has been happening in their lives during the past ten years. The best part of this show is the amazing music (I grew up listening to all of these songs) and my favorites were "Mr. Sandman," "Lollipop," "All I Have To Do Is Dream," "Dream Lover," "Stupid Cupid," "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me," "You Don't Own Me," "It's In His Kiss," "I Only Want to Be With You," "It's My Party," "Son of a Preacher Man," "Leader of the Pack," "Rescue Me," and "Respect."  Richards, Andrus, Cooper, and Swainston have great four-part harmony and sound fantastic but they also do a good job with the choreography and the physical comedy. My favorite was Cooper (I voted for Missy to be prom queen) because her facial expressions are hilarious, especially when she confesses her crush on one of their teachers (Mr. Lee is played by someone picked out of the audience each night and our Mr. Lee got really into the choreography). The costumes are a lot of fun (each character has her own color) with elaborate tea length prom dresses made of tulle in the first act and sheath dresses and go-go boots in the second. The stage has been transformed into a high school gym decorated for the prom, complete with crepe paper streamers, posters advertising the candidates for prom queen (the posters correspond with each character's color), tables full of punch and cookies, and a bandstand with shimmering door curtains and standing microphones. The Terrace Plaza Playhouse is sometimes hit or miss with me but I feel like they really shine with smaller productions and this one is outstanding.  It is a delightful way to spend an evening and I highly recommend it (go here for tickets).

M3GAN

Last night I took my nephew to see M3GAN.  We were both really looking forward to this and we had a ball with it!  After her sister and brother-in-law are killed in a car crash, Gemma (Allison Williams), a roboticist with a major toy company, becomes the guardian of her niece Cady (Violet McGraw).  She is ill-equipped to care for her niece, who is suffering from the loss of her parents, so she resumes working on a lifelike doll with artificial intelligence capable of learning and adapting (Model 3 Generative Android or M3GAN) with the hope that it will become a companion for Cady as well as help her cope with parenting duties.  When M3GAN (acted by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis) bonds with Cady in a demonstration, Gemma's boss (Ronny Chieng) believes it will be incredibly profitable for the company but Gemma becomes concerned when M3GAN takes her directive to protect Cady too far.  This is not particularly scary or gruesome and the premise is one we have seen many times before but it almost doesn't matter because M3GAN is such an amusingly diabolical character.  We saw this with a really large crowd and there were many times when everyone laughed out loud (the biggest laugh came when M3GAN sings "Titanium" as a lullaby to Cady).  In addition to the camp, there are also some incredibly poignant scenes about the nature of grief (Williams and McGraw are outstanding in several of these moments) and it is definitely a cautionary tale about our over-reliance on technology, especially when technology is used by parents as a substitute for spending time with children.  This will probably not feature on any top-ten list for the year but it is wildly entertaining and both Sean and I had so much fun watching it!

Note:  The marketing for this movie has been brilliant with life-size M3GAN dolls showing up everywhere performing that viral dance sequence!

Elgar's Enigma Variations

Last night I went to my first Utah Symphony concert of 2023 and it was certainly a good one!  The concert began with a contemporary number called Near Midnight by Helen Grime and, according to the composer, it is a moody and atmospheric piece about the reflection and introspection that occurs when when one day moves into the next.  I really liked the chimes used throughout to represent the tolling of the hour.  The orchestra continued with Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch with Concertmaster Madeline Adkins as soloist.  This piece was inspired by several different Scottish folk songs and, as someone with Scottish heritage, I loved it!  I was especially moved by the first movement, which is based on the song "Auld Robb Morris," because it is quite mournful and features a duet between the solo violin and the harp (performed brilliantly by Louise Vickerman who is Scottish).  I also liked the second movement, which is based on the song "Dusty Miller," because it is very lively and I could picture people dancing.  I am always impressed by Adkins (I met her very briefly at a Utah Symphony after party and she was really cool) and it was fun to watch her because her performance was so passionate (I also enjoyed watching Vickerman).  After the intermission, the orchestra concluded with the Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar which is such an amazing piece.  It came about, as the story goes, when Elgar sat at the piano after a long day and began to play a theme that he made up on the spot.  His wife really liked it and asked him to play it again.  He then began playing it again and again as different sketches representing some of their friends and he had her guess who each one was.  It was really fun to listen for the central theme in each variation and, like most people, my favorite one is "Nimrod," which is based on Elgar's friend August Jaeger, because it is incredibly somber and evocative, but very beautiful (it was played at Princess Diana's funeral), and the timpani rolls get me every time!  I love hearing Christmas music but it felt really good to be back at Abravanel Hall for a Masterworks concert!  I highly recommend getting a ticket (go here) for the same program tonight!

A Man Called Otto

I really enjoyed the Swedish film A Man Called Ove so I have been looking forward to the remake, A Man Called Otto, starring Tom Hanks ever since I heard about it.  I had the chance to see it last night and, much like the original, I found it to be very touching.  Otto Anderson (Hanks) is a curmudgeonly old man who, as the former chairman of the neighborhood association, takes great pains to see that the rules are followed to the letter which sometimes puts him at odds with his neighbors.  He is also despondent over the death of his wife Sonya six months earlier (the younger version of Otto shown in flashbacks is played by Hanks' son Truman) and wants to join her but his half-hearted attempts at suicide always go awry.  A stray cat, a young pregnant woman (Mariana Trevino) who moves in across the street with her family, a transgender teenager (Mack Baydan) who takes refuge with him after he is kicked out by his father, and the former friend (Peter Lawson Jones) who staged a coup to remove him as head of the association all help him find the joy in living once again.  This is incredibly predictable and a bit manipulative (and probably didn't need to be made since it follows the original beat for beat) but I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it because it is just so heart-warming.  I think Hanks is incredibly appealing (even when he is grouchy) and he does a great job with Otto's transformation.  I also really enjoyed Trevino's charismatic performance and I loved it whenever Marisol goes toe-to-toe with Otto because she has great chemistry with Hanks.  There are some really dark themes but there is also quite a bit of humor and my audience laughed out loud many times.  This is an old-fashioned crowd-pleaser that almost everyone is sure to enjoy and I highly recommend it!

Note:  My favorite scene in A Man Called Ove is when Ove and his friend Rune have a falling out over Volvos vs. Saabs.  I'm glad that this was kept and that Otto and Reuben clash over Fords vs. Chevrolets (I laughed out loud during this moment).

The Pale Blue Eye

My first movie of 2023 was The Pale Blue Eye which I saw at the Broadway last night.  This moody and atmospheric murder mystery was actually the perfect movie to see on a gloomy and snowy winter evening.  World-weary detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) is summoned to West Point, the U.S. Military Academy, in secret to solve the grisly murder of a cadet before bad publicity can shut the fledgling institution down in 1830.  He is approached by another cadet named Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling), who has some ideas about the case, and the two eventually work together.   They begin to suspect that the occult is involved until Poe discovers the truth in a shocking twist.  Bale is as compelling as always and the rest of the cast, which includes Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney, Timothy Spall, and Robert Duvall, is outstanding but Melling gives an absolutely brilliant performance as the young (and somewhat fictionalized) Poe. The bleak setting, the middle of winter in the Hudson valley, and the ominous tone really emphasize the brutality of the crime and I loved the cinematography, especially the overhead shots of snow-covered trees during the search for another missing cadet, the period costumes, and the haunting score.  I also enjoyed the Gothic horror elements (I literally jumped out of my seat when a character walks down a foggy path in the middle of the night with just a lantern for illumination) but I think the story falls apart in the third act when this genre is abandoned in favor of a more mundane ending.  Despite my disappointment with the resolution, I definitely think it is worth a watch when it starts streaming on Netflix this weekend.