Fiction Collision

[firstfrost]

harrock and I saw A Civil War Christmas at the Huntington last night. Lovely singing; good acting; a bit too much "tell not show", though much better than How Shakespeare Won the West. More cross-casting than I'm used to in professional theater. Adorable horse, played by the same actor as played Abraham Lincoln. But, okay, that's not the funny part.

Here is a clip from a rehearsal, of Lincoln and his Cabinet, and Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln's chief of security. And, apparently, the only guy who seems to think Lincoln needs keeping safe. You can see him enter at about 1:00, and start ranting about security at 1:30. He's a tallish (okay, not as tall as Lincoln), greying, bearded gentleman with no sense of humor, and the only person in the play worrying (obsessively, and rightfully, so) about Lincoln's safety. My God, it's Wei Han.

The other surprising part is that he's played by Stephen Russell, who was the voice actor for Garrett in Thief. (I have apparently also seen him in Talley's Folly at the Lyric, but not made the connection that it was the same person.)

Comments

[mathhobbit.livejournal.com]

Cai Wen is Abraham Lincoln? Oops! I thought he was Han Solo.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

Cai Wen is closer to being James Bond than he is to being either Lincoln or Solo, and he's not very close to being Bond.

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

Goodness, we were there the same night and missed you? So sad!

Agreed on too much tell rather than show. Thinking back this was one of the bits The Baltimore Waltz got wrong too, but at least there we got enough continuous action without narration to keep things moving and the narration was mostly between scenes.

I think she wanted to write a screenplay, in which case a lot of the narration could just go away. Because what was really going on was a lot of cutting back and forth.