4 January 2020 Laundry Saturday

[KathyB]

The laundry has been piling up since last year! It's out of control! Actually, it was a good thing that I did the laundry now because I found a sock that had been missing for a couple of weeks. At this rate, I'll find the rest of the missing socks by 2021.

[scenicdesign71]

I'm in the same boat, re: out-of-control laundry piling up since last year.  I'll have to run at least one load tomorrow because I'm out of clean socks.

Lately theatregoing, often by myself, has become my new (and rather expensive -- I need to go back to looking on TDF and such places more regularly) mode of dealing with my recent heartache.  And I'm happy to report that the latter does seem to be subsiding a bit, though I'm not sure whether that's actually due to the distraction, or just time healing everything (or beginning to), per the late Jerry Herman.

So on Thursday night I finally went back to the Barrymore to see Part Two of The Inheritance, after having caught Part One in previews a few months ago.  I had been curious how it would be received by the NY critics after having taken London by storm, but after reading the entire script and then seeing the first half in October, I wasn't ultimately too surprised by its lukewarm reception here.  The highlight of last night was supposed to have been Lois Smith's almost stunt-ishly lengthy 11-o'clock monologue, but I actually found it rather clunky, and I'm not so sure that it isn't a bit cruel to ask a nearly 90-year-old actress to memorize five solid single-spaced pages of text, roughly 2000 words; Smith wasn't visibly struggling to remember them all, but I got a distinct sense that that particular challenge was closer to the surface of her mind than we, or she, might wish.  (As, to be fair, it might easily be for any other actor, regardless of age, bushwhacking their way through a soliloquy seemingly written not just to hold our attention for ten straight minutes but to keep us rapt, spellbound, and preferably teary-eyed by the time it finally ends -- no pressure or anything).  In any case, for me the speech's content, and its effect as delivered by Smith, didn't altogether justify the tightrope-act of its length -- rather, it became one more monologue in play already somewhat swollen with them: as much as I enjoyed the unabashedly literary tone, the entire seven-plus-hour work could stand a bit of trimming and a slight increase in the ratio of showing to telling.  Still, I'm not sorry I saw both parts (though my bank account isn't thrilled).  The Inheritance may not be the generation-defining insta-classic it dearly wants to be, but it is ambitious, intelligent and engaging.

This afternoon, at the urging of friends who had seen it, I managed to get a ticket to Fiddler in Yiddish in its penultimate performance.  And I'm very glad I did: it's a gorgeous production that easily outranks both of the Broadway revivals (2004, 2015) I've seen, with a brilliant cast, full orchestra, and simple staging that nevertheless shows off the original Robbins choreography to wonderful effect.  I may well buy the cast album; this production is really beautifully sung, not least by the remarkable Steven Skybell, who, despite cutting an uncharacteristically dashing figure for the role both physically and vocally, nevertheless inhabits Tevye more persuasively and movingly than either Alfred Molina or Danny Burstein (imho).