Sakura of DOOM

I caught this at the Berkeley Rep, after reading starlady's review. (One huge bonus of my move last year has been much more access to theater.) Growing up, I've always liked the story of the White Snake, and most variants I know include Green Snake and the ending with the pagoda.

I really liked how the play dealt with two main characters being snakes: White Snake and Green Snake are stuffed snake puppets manipulated by two sticks (one for the head, one for the tail), rather like a really, really, really short dragon-dance dragon. They're remarkably expressive, and I loved watching the snakes petulantly coil up or facepalm tailpalm or squirm around uncomfortably. In one or two instances, a line of people holding appropriately colored paper umbrellas would act as the snake, which looked even more like a dragon dance. The paper umbrellas also make an appearance as the pagoda and as a representation of the Buddhist temple. I also loved blue ribbons unwinding from the ceiling as the sound of rain begins, then the other end dropping suddenly and the ribbons floating down and puddling on the floor as the brief storm in the story ends.

(I was also very amused to see the rain sound created by slowly pouring handfuls of rain... it reminds me of a modern ballet I saw back in Taiwan that was about Buddhism or something, except all I can remember is a ballet dancer dressed as the Buddha sitting amidst a pile of rice with grains of rice trickling down from the top of the stage. Younger me obviously had no appreciation for art, since I just snickered at the grains of rice bouncing off his bald head. )

I was worried at first to see a multiracial cast, given that the director/playwright is white, but Green Snake/Greenie and White Snake/Lady Bai are played by Asian actresses, and the love interest (Xu Xian) is played by (I think) a (non-Asian?) man of color. The various side characters, who also act as narrators, are played by people of various races. I was extremely amused to find that the evil Buddhist monk is played by an older white man with a very broad USian (southern? Texan? no idea) accent. He made absolutely no attempt to pronounce any of the Chinese correctly, and I'm pretty sure he was lampooning the USian conservative Christian movement.

I actually found myself more invested in the romance between White Snake and Xu Xian. I vaguely remember that Xu Xian rejects Lady Bai after discovering her snake nature and thinking this was very unfair, but I can't seem to find this version in the Wiki article, so possibly I just made it up. As such, I was pleasantly surprised by the trust and faith in the romance, and despite the occasional slapstick, the actors really sold me on the pairing. I've always loved the Greenie-Lady Bai friendship (so femslashy!), so I was less surprised by that, though still extremely pleased.

It's a very warm and human retelling of the story, as opposed to Tsui Hark's very weird movie version, and I'm really glad I got to see it.

(Asian American Theater Company and Crowded Fire Theater, directed by Marissa Wolf)

Saw a production of Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven with Tari, S., C., via_ostiense, starlady, bluerabbit, and CB. I recycled the playbill, so I can't quote, but the introduction to the play said that Lee wrote it as a response to the "minority literature" pieces out there that talk about the minority experience in the US and Racism and Oppression and etc.

The play is staged in a bit of a black box theater, the entire space covered with plywood with a stylized flower in the center of the floor. It opens in the dark, with the sound of a man's voice instructing a woman who is being slapped. After a while, a video screens: a close-up of the playwright's face. She is sniffling, holding back tears, and every so often, an invisible hand loudly slaps her. We hear a pansori singer. (Later id'ed by Tari as doing a piece from Song of Chunhyang.)

Korean American comes out to introduce the play, followed by Koreans 1, 2, and 3, each in color-coded hanbok. Korean American speaks English with no [eta: a USian accent] and is dressed in a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Koreans 1, 2, and 3 spend one segment of the play speaking the respective languages of the actresses (Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese). The play continues with assorted vignettes, some of which are just odd, some of which are hilarious (Korean American with her grandmother omg).

The play itself was interesting, particularly how White People 1 and 2, a young cis het couple, had emo scenes arguing about their relationship, completely unconnected with the rest of the play. In the end, their narrative, boring and narcissistic as it is, takes over the entire play, which had me laughing hysterically.

The oddest bit, though, was going to the fireside chat afterward. I didn't connect to the play completely, but I didn't find it as uncomfortable as reviews said, and afterward, I felt even more alienated, like I was the intruder despite the play being produced by the Asian American Theater Company. All the things I had thought were obvious, such as how the White People scenes had nothing to do with anything and was narrowly, obsessively focused on itself and the occasional desire to improve the world and "I want to go to Africa," had not been that obvious to some of the audience.

Some audience members wanted to know what the point of the White couple was, especially since they seemed so mundane compared to the Asian people. I hadn't even realized that quite a few of the audience didn't even know that Koreans 1, 2, and 3 weren't even speaking Korean, and after me and the director pointed it out, another audience member commented on how Korean sounded like "angry Japanese."

But yes, this is why I mention having gone with so many people above; I think it would have been an entirely different experience if I'd only gone with a handful of friends or such. As it were, I am pretty sure me and CB were incredibly loud and nearly dying with laughter at several points when the people around us were not, and since all of us sat together for the fireside chat, I am fairly certain I was much louder and more obvious in my eye-rolling than I normally would have been. But honestly. Just the fact that the first few questions were all about the white people and what the play meant for them and OMG please explain what it is is saying about Asian culture to us?!

I am glad that later on, more Asian-Am people (some of the group I went with included) commented on their own experiences of the play, and I was particularly interested in the notes of how the multilingualness was done. (Lee wrote the entire play in English and wanted Koreans 1, 2, and 3 to be cast from any combination of East Asian actresses who spoke (an) East Asian language(s); part of Wolf's audition process was to see how each actress translated her own scene.) Tari also started getting into a bit of audience knowledge wrt the inclusion of the pansori snippet in the earliest sequence, which was a comedic contrast to the emotionally fraught scene, as opposed to an audience member wondering "what that music was." via_ostiense also mentioned how the play didn't feel like it was speaking to her own experience in particular. [eta: more accurate comment]

Overall, I felt that the play wasn't radical enough for me—I particularly wanted to see more being done with the multilingualness, particularly so that audience members who understood non-English languages were seeing a different play of sorts. Unfortunately, it also seemed to be too radical for many of the other people there. I realize this sounds snotty, but the points that I thought were extremely obvious to the point of being anvils had been not grasped at all by some audience members. There were some points in there about Korean-ness and general Asian stereotypes in the media, along with Korean Catholic [eta: (Protestant?) Christian] culture that felt spot on (CB nearly fell off his chair in the scene with the grandmother talking about Jesus; I nearly fell off my chair at the miming of various ways to commit suicide), but I didn't feel like I (non-white Asian-American me) was the play's core audience, which made me a bit sad.

I also looked up some reviews for this play later, and I feel that what I saw was not necessarily what the reviewers saw.

Links:
- Official page including a YouTube snippet of one of the first portions of the performance.

- SFGate review: "Besides Lee's forays into Korean American identity, she raises the daring notion that white people may be as human as anybody else."

- SF Examiner review: "One scene within the 70-minute piece, about a daughter in conflict with her tyrannical parents, is performed entirely in an Asian language (maybe more than one, as the actresses themselves come from various Asian backgrounds). Decipher it if you can.

"In another, more accessible scene, the Korean-American is persuaded by her overbearing, dying old-world grandmother to 'be humble' and pray to Jesus."


To all these reviews, I want to say: accessible to whom? Why? Deciphered by WHOM? Who are you presuming is the audience, and why in the world are you presuming that?

I do think Lee's play is directed more toward white people than I would have liked, or held back somewhat because she wanted it to be more "universal," but I also think she is reacting to the Amy Tan version of explaining it all to the white people by not explaining, or by using in jokes and making some people uncomfortable with the realization that they are in jokes. And some of them are jokes I am not in on, but you know what, that's okay. Because it's not about me (Chinese-American me who partially grew up in Taiwan), which some of the reviews and some of the audience members really did not seem to understand.

(People who went, please feel free to chime in more/correct me/whatnot in comments! I waited too long to write this up, and as usual, I have forgotten more than I wrote down.)

Summary: LOVE.

Slightly longer summary, with the caveat that I have only listened to the score a few times and watched the DVD of the George Hearn/Angela Lansbury version. I love the show, but from more of a distance than people who are longtime Sondheim and/or Sweeney fans:

Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman singing do not make me want to shoot myself and are actually good at times, though you definitely notice the difference between them and the people who play Anthony, Johanna and Toby. All three of the former have some trouble with the high notes, though they deal mostly by fading away instead of wavering or squeaking.

I am amazed that the movie is only a little over two hours. It moves very quickly and I never felt like I was being shuffled from plot point to plot point via horrific exposition, like I do for many book-to-movie adaptations (*cough*GoldenCompass*cough*). I was very satisfied with what they cut and what they kept, though I do miss the factory whistle.

Tim Burton also remembers that this is a movie; I think it is one of the better or the best adaptations from Broadway to film that I've seen, but again, I'm speaking very much as an amateur watching. For purposes of comparison, I love the Chicago adaptation but not as much as this because it takes away Velma's voice, and while I like Rent, I like it because it is basically the show on film (it's hard for me to compare others like West Side Story, My Fair Lady and etc., since I've only seen the film versions).

( Cut for length and spoilers )

So, has anyone else posted on this? I am dying to read more commentary, particularly from people who know Sondheim better than me!

Argh! My computer ate my first post!

I'm still behind on comments and behind on LJ; I suspect I will be for a good few months, as real life has started to get very busy.

( Avenue Q )

( Max Brenner, take two )

After lunch, my sister persuaded me that buying (yet more) peas at the Union Square market and lugging them around while shopping would be a very bad idea. Given that we got home around 7, I think she was right. Though I still miss the peas...

We wandered around Soho because I wanted to visit Purl Soho (a yarn store) and stopped by around 18 different clothing stores along the way. I didn't manage to find any clothes that I liked, but I did find a pair of ten-dollar flats that I got. I think I can wear them dancing. Also, they are pink!

We also managed to trudge over to BookOff at the very end of a long afternoon. Yay Bookoff! Sadly, I couldn't find more cheap $1 manga that I wanted, but I did manage to get some other stuff. I also persuaded my sister to get Emma vols. 3 and 4, so I feel the trip was rather successful.

( Stanton Social )

YAY! I finally got to see my musical! The sad thing was, it hasn't even been out a full month or so, and it's already only in one theater in the area =(.

I have complete, unabashed, totally uncritical adoration of this movie! It is my musical! On large screen! Soon to be preserved in a format that I can rewatch it over and over and over without booking seats and paying $60!

I do realize that Rent has a rather romantic view of the starving artist and bohemian poverty and rebellious behavior and an uncomplicated view of business and corporate America. And that it doesn't particularly tackle social issues surrounding AIDS. But... I still love it! I don't care! I love that it has its giant, bohemian heart on a sleeve, I love that it's earnest and optimistic and idealistic, that it's about connecting and risking emotional involvement.

I also like that there's a gay couple, a lesbian couple, and a straight couple, and that they all have emotional weight, as opposed to the non-straight couples being played for comedy. And I like that all the couples are interracial and that it's not a big deal! And that the rich, upper-middle-class characters are both black, and that that's also not seen as strange. And that everyone is ok with Angel being a crossdresser.

Well, Roger and April aren't interracial. But I'm pretty sure Benny and his wife are, given that his investor/father-in-law is white. But yes, I like that I have to sit back and think to see if I can find a non-interracial couple.

And I am so, so very glad that the movie kept the original cast, basically, and that they didn't try to make Mimi white or whatnot when they recast her. Yeah, it's not race-blind casting, but it is so good to see a cast on screen that doesn't just have token minority characters.

And hey, all this is secondary because the story totally gets me every time. And music!

I realized while I was watching that I've gotten used to musicals being told in the Brechtian manner instead of the integrated style of Rodgers and Hammerstein, where the musical sections feel very deliberately staged and meta and set apart from the story. Rent doesn't do that; while there is a bit of staging/dream sequence involved, mostly it just seems to posit that, well, people are just naturally breaking out into song. It took a while to get used to, but by the end, it felt completely natural to have people singing. Although, hrm, I'd love seeing a Brechtian version of Rent on film, just because I love bits and pieces in the musical like people singing to the answering machine.

But! They have bits I love and I love the music and they were singing on screen! Yay! I love musicals ^_^.

So I went to Las Vegas this weekend. I've been there once before, four years ago. It's still as large and overwhelming as it was then.

Vegas actually sort of frightens me. I love cities, and I love the energies of cities and places where things are still going on past midnight, but Vegas doesn't feel like an actual city to me. It feels like a giant playground of neon lights, mega-hotels, mega-casinos, mega-malls. Everything is too large and too bright.

We stayed at the Wynn, which was large and grandiose. I think many of the hotels try to be upscale and tasteful, but once you leave the quiet lobbies and hit the casinos, it's already a lost cause.

I ogled at Cartier and Graff, Fred Leighton and Dior, marvelled that a single candle could cose $65 at Jo Malone. I ended up getting myself a teeny box of expensive chocolates, because they looked too good to pass up. I shall have to ration them out; there are only nine of them and they are small. I had a cinnamon chocolate yesterday, and it was lovely and mildly spicy and melted away on my tongue to leave just a shadow of chocolate and a small glimmering of cinnamon.

I also went around and looked at all the fancy jewelry I could, partly because I have a trainwreck kind of fascination with how large things can get, but mostly because my mind is like a magpie's and I am attracted to anything shiny.

There was much of the shiny. I probably looked very odd standing around with my nose pressed against the glass of super expensive jewelry stores, then stepping back and moving my head from side to side to watch things sparkle. But! It was so sparkly! I couldn't resist!

I actually ended up spending most of my time in the hotel room, as I was too tired to walk around. The room was cavernous. Also, I partially blame my sort-of incarceration on rachelmanija, because I got sucked into her book and never quite emerged.

Also, it had a really neat bathtub with "chromatherapy" (aka little lights to make your bathwater change color -- I'm as baffled as the next person) and a nifty keen spout that came out of the long side of the bathtub wall in a lovely arc, instead of flowing out of a spout. Plus, the hotel had little free bathsalts that I took advantage of. And a little pillow for your head in the bathtub. And lots of nice lemongrass-sage scented products (I forgot to steal them, sigh).

I did, however, nick the sewing kit, so the apartment finally has sewing utensils!

( La Reve )

( Fooding )

The strangest thing was that people smoked everywhere. I was sniffing around and wondering what the strange and nasty smell was, only to realize... cigarettes! Clearly I was no longer in California.

Vegas is large and mostly overwhelming. It was fun, I had good food, but I'm awfully glad I'm back home.

Haven't written much in the past few days because I've been busy reorganizing all my music. Wah. So much effort going into cataloguing it all, thanks to my laptop finally dying.

Yesterday I got to see Viennta Teng in concert for the first time! It was quite nifty! A band called the Animators actually opened the act, and then they played a song or two with her. I actually rather liked a few of their songs and may hunt them down online, especially "Simple," which goes into the category of sweet and, well, simple love songs that I enjoy. I don't much go for love songs that promise you the world, or the moon, or some other random stuff, since it seems very impractical, and really, what are you going to do with all that anyway? Plus, what happens when all the excessive romanticism wears away? I'm quite fond of love songs that are more about the everyday, that are about growing old together and having an actual relationship instead of infatuation. Anyhow, I've still got "Simple" stuck in my head. The other songs were pretty catchy, including one on Wal-Mart that amused me. Also, the lead singer played the accordion, which was very cool. I've never seen one in a rock band!

Then Vienna Teng came on and started with some interesting fusion/reggae something mixes of her songs. The fusion/reggae bits were a bit odd (I think it was "The Tower," but I'm not sure). And she played "Harbor"! It was very interesting, because at first she started out very slowly and very softly, which isn't at all how I think of the song, but suddenly, the Animators and the rock bit kicked in at the chorus, and it just had such energy! And it was so awesome being able to see her at the keyboards, especially for "Harbor," because I absolutely love the piano solo/chord-y bits during it. The keyboard was unfortunately electric, but ah well. It was really neat because she was standing and playing, and she'd be sort of dancing around as well. I guess I never thought about dancing or swaying at a keyboard, but it makes sense now that I've seen it! Also, they had a line that went something like "I'm in the carpool lane on the highway to hell," which amused me. (oops, I meant to put that sentence in the previous paragraph!)

There were also quite a bit of the slower and more mellow songs, including "Momentum" and "My Medea." There wasn't that much talk about the songs themselves, though she did mention "My Medea" was a song about child abuse. I don't know why I never thought about it that way; I always sort of thought of it as a companion to "Shasta," as they're both about motherhood, in their own ways. I suppose I must have always associated "My Medea" with abortion because of that. Huh.

I felt really bad because I was very sleepy and my feet hurt from standing the entire time, but the set of very slow and melancholy songs started to get to me after a while. In other words, I had to fight off the urge to nod off a bit. Not that she wasn't interesting! The music was just very slow and sway-ey. I got to hear some songs that I haven't heard before, which was also cool! One was about a mid-life crisis, the other was "Blue Moon Caravan," which was very depressing. There were others as well, but I'm not remembering the names very well at all. And there was one at the very end called "Whatever You Say" (or something to that effect), which is a nose thumbing song to the corporate world. And while I very much like my very corporate, cubicle-bound job right now, I cheered just for the principle of the matter. Plus, it was a happy, bouncy song, if you can call taking revenge against your company happy. My other favorite thumbing nose at corporate world song is Grey Eye Glance's "Halfway Back," which was my job hunting anthem last year, and still makes me feel good, even though I like my job and don't really wish to thumb my nose at it. Anyway, I hope it comes out on CD soon, or something. Or that there even is a new CD.

I wish now that I took more chances to see groups and musicians playing live. I've very much been missing going to live performances of dancing and more classical music, because I used to go to those back at home and at college, but I never really went to pop or rock (etc.) concerts. Previously, I've never really known a group or a musician so well that I had the desire to see them live. I went to a few in college, just to say I went, but it was sort of boring because I only knew a song or two. I did, however, get to see Flogging Molly live, which was absolutely awesome (fiddle!!! They had a fiddle!!!!).

There really is a completely different energy with live music, with having the audience there. I'm sure I'm just stating the obvious, but it was so cool actually being able to see Vienna Teng's expressions when she was singing, as well as all the energy she put into the piano playing. And it was just quite fun seeing what songs would get played and how they would shift ever so slightly. I need to do this more often! I did enjoy the plugged version, with the electronic keyboard and the drums and everything, but I also want to see her with the piano and cello sometime, just to see how that is. Also, I want to see her at the piano.

First opera I ever saw. Er. Well, I watched the Zeffirelli film on VHS way back when and decided that maybe opera was actually interesting instead of being old and fussy like I had previously thought. Silly me.

Anyhow, I got it again from Netflix, and I still like it. This time, the singing doesn't bore me like it did before; instead, for some reason, all the melodies and arias and the like are strangely familiar. Well, I knew the beginning toast song would be because after I watched it the first time, I had been humming it for weeks. But I was surprised to realize that I remembered the arias as well.

Also, it's very Victorian. Hee.

And why in the world didn't I realize before that Moulin Rouge must have been based on this? Well, on this or on Camille, except I only found out a few minutes ago that the opera was based on the book. I feel rather dumb now. I guess I just haven't thought about La Traviata for quite some time. Besides, stories about beautiful courtesans falling in love aren't all that uncommon, nor are stories in which the lovely heroine dies of consumption. But -- well, I don't know how it is in the libretto, given that I've only seen one version of the opera -- the scene where Alfredo throws money at Violetta to pay her back, after he's heartbroken because she told him she loves the Baron to save his life and to protect his family? Baz Luhrmann totally took that!

Now I have to go read Camille, just to make my repertoire of beautiful-courtesans-who-fall-in-love-and-pretend-they-don't-love-their-lovers-then-die-of-consumption narrative complete ;).

Question (because obviously, my FL knows everything): I managed to get my hands on Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter, Unnatural Death, Clouds of Witness and Gaudy Night, since I am planning on reading them sometime. Is there any sort of handy reference out there that tells me what order I should read them in?

The boy showed me an organizational chart of Time Warner and all the companies it owns and said, "Look, it's the world!" Truly it is the evil empire ;).

I continue to enjoy the Assassins soundtrack, albeit in a slightly strange way. I can't help it. Some of the songs are just so peppy. I love the Sousa-esque "How I Saved Roosevelt" and the banjo-y "Ballad of Booth" and the folk song-y "Ballad of Czolgosz." The Czolgosz song particularly reminds me of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." I just realized while listening to this how much Americana music (is that even a term? Probably not) I listened to while growing up, mostly thanks to the wonderful "Wee Sing America" and "Wee Sing Around the Campfire." Also, the insanely optimistic "Ballad of Guiteau." But while I'm sitting in my car and enjoying listening to them, there will inevitably be a point in which my brain realizes that the songs are still about the assassination of American presidents, and as such, are pretty violent and unhappy. I don't think I'll ever quite get over that disconnect.

I think Sondheim does a particularly good job in reconciling the funny and the horrific in "How I Saved Roosevelt," which could have very easily been a straight comic piece. But every single time I'm giggling like mad because of Sondheim's rhymes (they remind me of "A Weekend in the Country" in A Little Night Music) and the fact that assassinating the president is somehow a solution to one's aching belly, Zangara bursts into the song screaming, "No laugh! No funny!" with a terrifying fury, and suddenly it's not funny anymore. Also, it's a frightfully cheery song for something that ends with the buzzing of the electric chair.

"Something Just Broke" will forever make me think of 9/11. I wasn't even alive for the assassination of JFK, I don't remember the Challenger, or most other national tragedies. I would like to say that 9/11 changed my entire outlook on life, but I'm not sure if it did. It's not as though there was much violence of that nature in Taiwan, though we would sometimes joke about China bombing us. I think it was just that even though most people were pretty sure China wouldn't be so stupid as to blow up our island, the threat was always sort of there. And even if not, it was dangerous territory politically, and just the fact that no one could really say what would happen to Taiwan come ten years makes for some uncertainty.

American never used to feel that way to me, though. American always seemed so safe and so stable, like it was something that would always be there, despite a relatively short national history. That was what 9/11 changed for me. Unlike the rest of my roommates that day, I was awake because (ironically) I was getting a new cell phone. I still find it strange that my old cell phone bill has the start date of 9/11/01. And my friend and her dad and my mom and the guy selling us the cell phones just stood there listening to the radio, because there was no TV in the store, and we heard the news when the second plane crashed, when another one hit the Pentagon, when another one crashed in Pennsylvania. And then the towers fell down. And it felt like the end of the world. Things like this weren't supposed to happen in America. They happened in the Middle East and in Ireland and other places, and it's so horrible to think of tragedies like that, like something that always happens in other places, to other people, but that's how it felt. Prior to 9/11, it felt as though the world was on track... there was the boom of the nineties, we weathered the Asian financial crisis (pretty glum in Taiwan during that time), etc. After, people were screaming for retaliation, which frightened me. My mom was convinced World War III was going to start. The economy, which was already not doing so well, really started going down. And I interned at Merrill Lynch and got seriously depressed, then I graduated from college two years later and had to look for a job and got even more depressed. Because of that, 9/11 always feels to me like the dividing line between adolescence and (fledgling) adulthood, the stepping stone between optimism and cynicism.

But that's what that song reminds me of now.

Despite the sobering associations, I can still listen to Assassins over and over just because the tunes are so peppy. And somehow, it doesn't depress me as much as Sweeney Todd. Also, Sweeney Todd is just incredibly difficult to listen to because of the almost painful whistles in the theme. Sweeney Todd feels like there is no hope at all in man, that everything beautiful only ends up destroyed and broken, but Assassins feels like even though horrible things happen, there is a reason behind it (albeit occasionally insane), and that there are people who still care. It's tragic, but not nihilistic.

Yay!! Read or Die has arrived!!

I also got Avenue Q yesterday, and I listened to it three times at work. My new favorite song is "If You Were Gay."

( Rambling on Avenue Q (and Rent, later) )