3 December 2021 Friday

[KathyB]

Opinion of the Day:

I like the recording of The Frogs that's combined with Evening Primrose more than I like the original Broadway cast. I think The Frogs works primarily as a chorus piece, and the chorus is much stronger on the former recording. (Maybe because on that recording it's a professional chorus, who don't need to split their time between being choral people and acting and doing frog choreography?) I actually really like the score when it's not padded out like the OBC. It's not that I don't appreciate the new songs, but it used to be a nice, compact little score with emphasis on the choral works.

[scenicdesign71]

I do love the Final Instructions to the Audience, though.  Its first quatrain brought a tear to my eye when I saw it at the Beaumont:

No, please -- don't nod,
Agreeing with me just 'cause I'm a god.
Have some respect for Aristophanes,
And please don't nod.

And then the pileup of admonitions culminating in "Speak up! Get sore! / Do something more / Than just deplore" made me laugh for joy at its (deceptively hard-earned) simplicity and bull's-eye precision.  But he's still not done:

Now to conclude, please:
If we've been crude, please,
We can be booed.  Please--
It shows you were awake!

And so on, until the final benediction (perhaps vaguely inspired by Prior Walter's, at the end of Angels In America? I've always wondered), with the last four words of the show also bringing us humorously full-circle back to the opening Invocation and Instructions:

...But, citizens of Athens, if you're smart,
Don't sit around while Athens falls apart.
Good citizens of Athens, let us not lose heart!
And now...
We start!

In terms of non-choral stuff, I do love "Ariadne" -- and, of course, his gorgeous setting of "Fear No More".