First time at Carnegie Hall and we’ve got the best seats in the house. Thank you, rich Skidmore donors who couldn’t use the tickets. Patti sang a night of torch songs. Songs about lost love, pain, mysery, regret, etc. Her powerful belt, fierce vibrato and hightened dramatic presence were an excellent match with this style of music. Mostly I was just excited to hear her sing live. Oh my goodness, does this woman live up to her reputation. One of the most unique, powerful voices of our time, with the ability to “sell” a song like I’ve never seen. She kept us captivated. She certainly deserves her reputation as one of Broadway’s leading Divas. I hope she sticks around for a good long while (hey, Barbara Cook is 88!).

I cannot say enough good things about this show. Especially the fact that every Thursday night they do a late show (10pm) in which all seats are only 25 bucks. This show is worth far more than that. I saw it in London in 1999 and it blew my mind. Same thing again last night.
Its not something you can really describe. You just have to go see it. It is an open ended run and I hope the public appreciates it as much as the critics have.

The English Punk-Cabaret group, The Tiger Lillies, have collaborated with a theatre company to create this fantastic work. It incorporates elements of puppetry, mask, mime, wigs and makeup, Victorian Melodrama, costume, slapstick, prop humor, etc. Pretty much anything you can think of that could be both creepy and beautiful at the same time. There is no real plot or development, just a series of stories about children who have been naughty and the horrible fates that befall them. These stories are mostly sung by the Tiger Lillies while the cast acts them out with puppets or by themselves. The leading actor/host of the show is a morbid comic genius. I can’t figure out from the program what his name is but he is unlike anything you’ve ever seen on the stage.

The show gets chalked down a lot to “Edward Gorey tales told in the Tim Burton style.” But it is so much more than that. It is creative, creepy, funny, poignant, and simply a must see for anyone who respects the genre of theatre. This show is the reason I do what I do. This show shows me that it is possible to do something weird and wacky and off the wall, and that there is an audience for theatre even this strange!!!

This play was originally in French by playwright Jean Claude Carriere. He wrote this play about Spain in the 1500s, in 1999. The subject matter of the play is hugely relevant because of today’s political situation. The play focuses on Spain’s imperialism and colonization of the Americas. Their first encounters with the natives has raised important questions. Are these “heathens” human? Do they have a soul? Can they and should they be converted to Christianity, or would it be better to slaughter and cleanse the earth of their barbaric ways?

The play obviously is being done today as a protest of President Bush’s desire to spread democracy and freedom / Christianity to the Middle East. Or you could read it as a comment on the Holocaust. Or both.

The play is well written and well acted. However, it is mostly just a bunch of white guys in robes talking for two hours. They talk with passion and vigor and intelligence, but really, not much happens in the play. It is an exploration of the ideas that were bouncing around at the time. Not really my cup of tea, and I was kind of bored. The first half hour was quite slow, but the show picked up when some natives came into the court room and a series of experiments to test their humanity were put upon them.

At the end of the show, they decide that these people are indeed God’s children, and must be treated accordingly. Unfortunately, they decide that slavery is necessary to the new economy of the Americas. So they decide that the heathens of Africa are far less civilized and therefore far less human than these other heathens, and therefore, the fate of slavery must befall the Africans. I’m not sure if that’s how it actually went down, but it makes sense.