Last night we saw play number two for this weekend. It was Jersey Boys at the BJCC. Other than the fact that it was mostly music and a live theatre production it could not be any more different from The Last Five Years production we saw the night before. It is a huge, and last night at least, fairly full venue where the night before was a small intimate space. It was a huge cast with an orchestra, the night before was a lone keyboard. However, both nights were enjoyable, which is what I love about theatre. So many different styles and yet so much to be gained from all of it. In fact, my husband Tim started talking about how much he had enjoyed and what a great night we had on Thursday during the intermission on Friday. So in the midst of all of the large production he was still thinking about the smaller one! He even said that since I had introduced him to black box theatres and other small spaces (something he disliked at first) they had grown on him!
Jersey Boys was what you would expect from an Actor’s Equity touring company of a Broadway show. It was slick and very well done. The four leads who played the Four Seasons were amazingly talented and did their best to sound and look like the actual people they were portraying. The only flaw in the show that I saw was when the female group came out to portray The Angels, their sound was off from the original music recorded back in the day. Now I have no problem with people making a part their own, however, the rest of the show worked so hard to imitate the sound of the original recordings that it threw me a bit to hear this done so differently. And the hard rock growling voice of The Angels lead singer did not suit “My Boyfriend’s Back” or that era at all!! Otherwise the music was spot on and I enjoyed all of the old hits, many that I had forgotten the Four Seasons recorded.
Now for my other critique for the night- and it involves the audience. I know I am a stickler for certain manners and customs and that I am in the minority, but I am going to say it anyway. Judge me if you will, after all I am being judgmental myself here. My first complaint is with the new availability of snacks in the theatre. I am all for a pastry and lovely beverage before the show or at intermission in the lobby. But can we no longer go the hour to hour and a half an act usually takes without stuffing our faces? Must we bring food into the theatre? And not just a lovely glass of wine or sliver of cake but buckets of popcorn as if we are a football game! I am sorry but that is disturbing to me.
Secondly, I watched the latest installment of Project Runway yesterday and was insulted by the way the contestants and the judges handled the challenge for this week. It was to design a dress for the modern, southern woman. Immediately a full third, 3 of the 9 designers went to pick out plaid fabrics as if we southern women make all of our own clothes out of our husbands plaid shirts.The dresses for the most part were boring and some were flat out dowdy, as if southern women had no style and took no fashion risks. Most of the clothes looked at least three decades old. I was highly upset! And then I went to the theatre last night. A Friday night out at a beautiful venue downtown for a professional play. And what do I see? Women my age there in old mom jeans and awful, old shirts untucked over them. No fashion, no forethought, and playing right into the stereotype of the southern woman being devoid of fashion and style! Women were wearing the kind of thing I wouldn’t even wear to do housework and would never wear in public at all, much less out for a night of theatre. I can not understand people who can not at least take the time to give some respect to an occasion and at the minimum comb their hair and put on some lipstick! I am all for casual (actually, I am not really) but quit being so lazy and get dressed before you go out in society!
OK, I have had my rant. I know I should be glad that people are at the theatre at all, in any kind of clothes, but when I hear people on TV talk about us like we are a bunch of yokels when it comes to fashion and then I go out and see they might be right, I am upset! I am also self aware enough to admit I love fashion more than most. I just wish that everyone took the time to present themselves to their best advantage, not expensive, just groomed. So now I am off to watch football and drink beer- see I can be casual! More theatre tomorrow!
