Unlikely Subjects
Oct. 15th, 2011 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fauxkloreI did a Volksmarch at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton last Sunday. It was lovely (and the weather was perfect) but the directions were confusing. They were also impossible to follow even where they weren't confusing since the fragrance garden was closed (for a wedding), but it wasn't hard to improvise around that. Five more garden walks to go. I'd hoped to do one or two this weekend, but it looks like I am too busy.
After I got back from that, I drove over to the Cinema Arts Theatre and saw Moneyball. Baseball economics is an unlikely subject for a movie, but iit worked, largely because the focus was on the people more than anything else. I enjyoyed the movie and one of these days I should really get around to reading the book.
An even more unlikely subject for entertainment is the Leo Frank case, but that is exactly what the musical, Parade is about. It's currently at Ford's Theatre and I went to see it Wednesday night. There is a personal resonance to the material for me, being Jewish and having a lot of relatives in the Atlanta area. From what (admittedly little) I know of the story, the show seemed accurate. Frank, the superintendent of a pencil factory, was accused of murdering a girl who worked at the factory and convicted out of anti-Semitism rather than evidence. His sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment, but a mob broke into the prison where he was being held and lynched him.
The most important aspect of musicals to me is the music and I was reasonably pleased with Jason Robert Brown's score. Not every song is brilliant, but there are enough powerful moments to make it worth listening to. It helped that Euan Morton (as Leo Frank) and Jenny Fellner (as Lucille Frank) gave fine performances. The really impressive musical performance, however, was by Matthew John Kacergis as Frankie Epps (and as the Young Solider in the opening scene). I also thought James Konicek gave an excellent performance as Hugh Dorsey, the Attorney General who railroaded Frank.
Overall, I found this to be an entertaining and thought provoking evening, despite a book that needed editing. If it were a half hour shorter, it would be an even stronger show.
After I got back from that, I drove over to the Cinema Arts Theatre and saw Moneyball. Baseball economics is an unlikely subject for a movie, but iit worked, largely because the focus was on the people more than anything else. I enjyoyed the movie and one of these days I should really get around to reading the book.
An even more unlikely subject for entertainment is the Leo Frank case, but that is exactly what the musical, Parade is about. It's currently at Ford's Theatre and I went to see it Wednesday night. There is a personal resonance to the material for me, being Jewish and having a lot of relatives in the Atlanta area. From what (admittedly little) I know of the story, the show seemed accurate. Frank, the superintendent of a pencil factory, was accused of murdering a girl who worked at the factory and convicted out of anti-Semitism rather than evidence. His sentence was commuted from death to life imprisonment, but a mob broke into the prison where he was being held and lynched him.
The most important aspect of musicals to me is the music and I was reasonably pleased with Jason Robert Brown's score. Not every song is brilliant, but there are enough powerful moments to make it worth listening to. It helped that Euan Morton (as Leo Frank) and Jenny Fellner (as Lucille Frank) gave fine performances. The really impressive musical performance, however, was by Matthew John Kacergis as Frankie Epps (and as the Young Solider in the opening scene). I also thought James Konicek gave an excellent performance as Hugh Dorsey, the Attorney General who railroaded Frank.
Overall, I found this to be an entertaining and thought provoking evening, despite a book that needed editing. If it were a half hour shorter, it would be an even stronger show.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-10-16 06:24 am (UTC)First problem for me is the opening number, "The Old Red Hills of Home" - lovely song, and it's like giving "Tradition" to the Cossacks. If you make the lynch mob sympathetic at the beginning, you set an impossibly high bar for yourself to make Leo sympathetic as well, and I think Brown doesn't get over it.
I wonder if the show would work better if it were reoriented to be from Lucille's point of view.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-16 12:18 pm (UTC)By the way, I believe the version currently playing here has been edited significantly from what played on Broadway.