Liars and Saints

  To be married to me is to endure a lengthy, lengthy discussion about the Tony Awards. Mid-meeting, my spouse receives seven text messages from me. "Snubbed: Gyllenhaal, Sutton Foster." "'Gypsy' gets nods for all of its three stars." "No nom for the   Outlaw   coroner." "Denzel overlooked." "No Michael McKean." "No Culkin." "No Idina." There is domestic tension here, because my husband has thrown his weight behind Nicole Scherzinger, while I'm rooting for Jennifer Simard. In this difficult time, it's useful to dwell on frivolous questions. My daughter and I watch a Patti LuPone interview, where she (Patti) makes insightful comments: "Many productions are bad, but a good production has a star who lets you know she is in control. A good production is a celebration of talent. It lifts you up out of your seat; it rearranges your atoms." She goes on to say, "The newest  Sweeney  wasn't ...

Three Conversations From My Home   "I thought Ariana Grande was fine." "There are many arguments I'm prepared to lose, but Ariana Grande was not fine. She was a serious misfire. Do you understand what Kristin Chenoweth did with this character? She made her into a dazzling psychopath. You couldn't turn your eyes away. And it was all Chenoweth; it *wasn't* on the page. I'll need you to watch some clips when we find the laptop." *** "Wait, you're saying Jonathan Bailey is gay--?" [Long silence.] *** "It was wonderful to see Idina and Kristin again." "I guess? I had no idea what they were singing about. And, even without them, the movie was already much too long." "Will you take me to Idina's new Broadway show?" "Probably not; it looks awful." "It's Idina!" [Long silence.]

  I know I'm a crabby old man because I recently tried to use the New York City subway.   Idina Menzel really likes New York City. She likes it so much, she just recorded a version of Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind." But maybe it's easy to enjoy Manhattan if you're Idina Menzel, and you have two trillion dollars.   I have always hated the subway, but a return Sunday visit reminded me just how strong my aversion is. Lengthy waits, bizarre reroutings, unintelligible (still unintelligible!) announcements over the intercom. Dipshits with face masks dangling off their necks, and the one asshole who feels entitled to blast his music all through the train car.   I feel so old, I'm already dreading the "show your iPhone" moment when I return in a few weeks--to a Broadway theater. The iPhone ticket is apparently convenient--but convenient for whom? And why am I paying a "service fee" when I am the one downloading an app, linking an email t...

  Being married to me means watching each and every "Wicked" promotional concert, as these concerts occur on PBS. "Wicked" is the "Les Miz" of 2021: You just can't kill it. The newest PBS "Wicked" concert was especially boring; Idina and Kristin couldn't be bothered to appear in one room together, and neither performed a song. Instead, you saw the two reading bits of a synopsis from cue-cards: The plot of this show is always baffling, and it's particularly baffling when Kristin Chenoweth tries to re-package it for you in long, unpoetic mini-book-reports. My husband tried hard to keep himself interested. "Did Stephen Schwartz *really* write 'Pocahontas'--?" he asked. And: "What does *Sutton Foster* say about 'Wicked'--?" I appreciated this. On the screen, Chenoweth was murmuring about betrayal and character growth, and about friends saying goodbye. I think she also talked about the wonders of PBS, ho...

I never see movies anymore, but I did see "Frozen II," and it's clear that (1) the Academy was right *not* to give a Best Animated Picture nod to this movie and (2) the Academy was right to highlight "Into the Unknown." The fact that a movie is financially successful can mean very little. It can have little to do with the quality of the movie in question. Also, a movie can be politically progressive, in exciting ways, and still sort of bad. "Frozen II" is lumpy and bewildering; the Olaf shtick becomes tiresome; too much exposition happens in a too-clumsy way. All that said, three cheers for "Into the Unknown." Idina Menzel does not have a great track record when performing live--so I worry about that. Could Billy Porter do the song at the Oscars? Or Brendan Urie? "Into the Unknown" has many nice flourishes. I'm fond of the verbs: "Are you out there? Do you know me? Can you feel me? Can you show me?" I also ...

“Frozen” is not a great movie, and it’s not a great musical. It borrows heavily from “Wicked”--the plot, the emancipation anthem, the star--and “Wicked” itself is sort of a lumpy mess. I see two moments of genius. One, obviously, is “Let It Go,” which is a rewrite of “Defying Gravity.” (And who wouldn’t ask for a bit more of “Defying Gravity” on the big screen?) The other is the decision to unmask one of the male stars as a trickster, a villain--a genuinely bold stroke for a Disney movie. In the earlier days of Howard Ashman, villains were more clearly flagged as villains, right away. Let’s give credit where credit is due. Though “Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast” are both better than “Frozen,” by leaps and bounds, neither seems to lend itself to a big-screen sequel. I think that’s because Howard Ashman didn’t really care about his princes. Eric, the post-Beast reincarnated Prince: Who needs to know what happens to these men? As in a Jane Austen novel, the adventure ends...