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On the Gripping Hand...
Jun. 26th, 2004 11:10 pmHappily, after much adventuring on a bus, and then much more adventuring getting lost on the way home from Medford (it was a cruel trick to put the sign saying "To Watertown" right before Beacon Street ("Welcome to Somerville") - I was sure I had gone wrong again), the Purple Van returned home yesterday.
Unhappily, it doesn't start. It started fine at the car shop, and was willing enough to take me home, though the clock was wrong and the alarm seemed to have been disabled. However, this afternoon, it decided that instead of starting, it would rather make mysterious clicking noises. The lights are dim and the clock flickers oddly when provoked. And![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tirinian, justom and I were supposed to be in Gloucester shortly.
Happily, justom's car was on campus and reachable with less rushing than had it been still at his house. (Unhappily, it was on the other side of a downpour.)
The rest of the evening was generally pleasant, so I can't continue the conceit. Tasty dinner. The show ("Marry Me a Little") was okay. Sondheim is, as always, clever to listen to, and the two singers were quite good. I ended up being a little put off by the frame staging - I think I would have liked less of a story (like "Elegies", which is a series of songs with very little character mapping at all), or more of a story. Either way. As it was, the setup of "these two characters are neighbors who do not know each other, but we see their separate evenings in the same space" was a little muddly. Why did they get dressed up for an evening out when they weren't going out? Well, okay, the songs seemed to call for it, but the plot didn't really. And since the songs were taken from other places, neither character really seemed to have a stable concept. Was the woman going out with the grocery boy who could foxtrot? Or with nobody at all? Is she still looking to forward to love, or burnt out on it entirely? That depends on the song, and with no dialogue, there's no justification for one or the other.
Now, I don't require plot from a concert. But I do from a musical. I just couldn't quite figure out which it was. :)
Unhappily, it doesn't start. It started fine at the car shop, and was willing enough to take me home, though the clock was wrong and the alarm seemed to have been disabled. However, this afternoon, it decided that instead of starting, it would rather make mysterious clicking noises. The lights are dim and the clock flickers oddly when provoked. And
tirinian, justom and I were supposed to be in Gloucester shortly.Happily, justom's car was on campus and reachable with less rushing than had it been still at his house. (Unhappily, it was on the other side of a downpour.)
The rest of the evening was generally pleasant, so I can't continue the conceit. Tasty dinner. The show ("Marry Me a Little") was okay. Sondheim is, as always, clever to listen to, and the two singers were quite good. I ended up being a little put off by the frame staging - I think I would have liked less of a story (like "Elegies", which is a series of songs with very little character mapping at all), or more of a story. Either way. As it was, the setup of "these two characters are neighbors who do not know each other, but we see their separate evenings in the same space" was a little muddly. Why did they get dressed up for an evening out when they weren't going out? Well, okay, the songs seemed to call for it, but the plot didn't really. And since the songs were taken from other places, neither character really seemed to have a stable concept. Was the woman going out with the grocery boy who could foxtrot? Or with nobody at all? Is she still looking to forward to love, or burnt out on it entirely? That depends on the song, and with no dialogue, there's no justification for one or the other.
Now, I don't require plot from a concert. But I do from a musical. I just couldn't quite figure out which it was. :)
