Happy New Year! Let's (Friday) flash back!

Happy 2015, everyone!  I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday season - I can't believe it's over already!  Every year, the prep gets more and more frenzied, then everything comes and goes so quickly.  But it was a grand trip home, as usual.  Unfortunately, my sister and nephew had the stomach flu when I got home (my mom said there were 90 kids and teachers at my nephew's high school who were sick - that's crazy!), but they recovered pretty quickly.  My mom and I saw three movies together (quick review of Big Eyes:  we liked it well enough and my mother said when it was over, "It was good, but it was no Into the Woods."  And...scene.)  My mom and I took my nephew Christmas shopping and he was as surly as you might imagine a 14-year-old boy would be, though he did pick out all of his gifts himself.  He decided there were three restaurants he wanted us to visit together, which is adorable as I've been bugging him since practically the day he was born to EAT MORE.  We played board games, he begged me to see Dumb and Dumber To with him (I never refuse him anything, but I had to refuse him that.  Not in this lifetime.) and we had fun.  My dad said he thinks it's time I moved back to Ohio (uh, no) and my aunt said she feels she knows me better since she joined Facebook.  Ah, family.  I love them all so much.  I'll post some photos at the bottom.

For the first Friday flashing back of the New Year, I thought I'd post my first review of 2008.  Why?  No real reason.  I'm seeing my first show of 2015 tomorrow night, so there will be a review maybe over the weekend, thanks to Santa and my new wireless keyboard.  But I really loved the first show I saw in 2008, so let's throw some good theater karma into the world that I'll really enjoy my first show of 2015!  Geez.  2015.  I can hardly type that without rolling my eyes...


January 2008:  I forgot that I know an usher at the Jacobs Theater, where Rock ‘n’ Roll is playing.  I guess I've been nice to him, because he got me a way better seat for the second act of the show.  I bought my TDF ticket last month sometime and I was in the fourth row of the balcony, just off-center, which was a fine seat, but I was surrounded by pinheads who were so bored they kept checking their random handheld devices and cell phones every five minutes—it looked like some sort of light show at Disney.  I got to move down to the orchestra for the second act and was much happier there.  So, thanks, Usher Friend. 

I really enjoyed the show.  I’ve become such a fan of how Stoppard mixes the political with the personal.  Maybe because I was familiar-ish with the ’68 Czech invasion (I worked with some Czechs when I was in grad school), I found the intellectualisms in this show a little easier to grasp.  And the characters Stoppard draws are again engaging, exasperating and totally unique.  These people BELIEVE in things.  They believe in them so strongly!  And they are RIGHT about their beliefs and you are WRONG if you don’t agree.  I find those kind of characters completely fascinating (which is interesting, because those kinds of people in real life do bother me).  One of the differences about the characters in this play, though, is that they have a grudging recognition of what their beliefs have done to the people around them.  There is a slight unbending.  Perhaps Stoppard is softening with age.  Perhaps.

Rufus Sewell, who I have previously admired more for his looks than his acting, is stop-the-presses brilliant in this production.  He plays Jan, a Czech émigré who leaves London and Cambridge, to go back to Czechoslovakia in 1968 to save his mother and save socialism.  In that order.  But the only possessions he takes with him are his beloved vinyl records.  The way Stoppard mixes the anarchy of the ‘60s with the anarchy of rock and roll is really brilliant.  Brian Cox is Sewell’s mentor at Cambridge, who is one of the last Communists in England.  Their intellectual arguments are really invigorating.  Actually, all of the intellectual arguments are really invigorating!  I really loved the dialogue and the ideas thrown back and forth by all of these very smart people who are very stupid in their private lives.  Sewell has a fabulous monologue about how his country must be ok because they’re allowed to play this sort of alternative music.  Knowing what would come after made the monologue even more poignant.  

The acting is mainly excellent, though the American actors are a tad less successful than the Brits.  I guess I will just never warm to certain actors.  But Sinead Cusack is amazingly brilliant in both of her roles, as is Nicole Ansari as another Czech émigré at Cambridge with a totally different approach to life and politics.

The only quibbles I would have is that the first act seems a little overly long (though that could be because I was so unhappy with my seat neighbors) and I got pretty tired of the scene change device of putting the song titles on the scrim.  I completely understood why they did it, but it still got old to me by the end of the show.  I have to admit, though, that I’m listening to a lot of last night’s music today, thanks to Rhapsody!  So it got into my head as much as the play did.

I was incredibly moved at the end of the show, seeing how these passionate people paid for their passions.  Rufus Sewell, in his last two scenes, is heartbreaking.  I’m getting teary-eyed now, thinking of him (and Sinead).  I highly recommend the show, if you’re into Stoppard.  I do recognize, though, that he’s not everyone’s cup of tea.  But even if he's not, Rock 'n' Roll is definitely worth your time and effort.

 

 

photo credit: Ray Carder

 

photo credit: Ray Carder