Hair

I finally got to see Hair!  I had missed it at Playhouse Square in 2012, but the Beck Center has a collaboration going on with the Baldwin Wallace school.   I really enjoyed it.   The students are amazing and the choreography and singing are strong.    It was nice have some context put to the music.  I wrongly assumed that it was from the 70s, but it's from the late 60s.   It was a neat use of modern protest signs and clips with the show.  The video editing game is strong with this show.  Go see it!

Dogfight

It's a two musical weekend for us.   We just got back from Dogfight at the Beck Center.  It's a regional premier for this one.   I was very moved.   I didn't even know it was originally a movie from 1991 starring River Phoenix.

A squad of Marines is spending their last night in San Francisco before shipping out to Okinawa, en route to what will eventually become the Vietnam War.  They have this contest where they have to bring the ugliest girl to a party to be judged.  Our male lead, Birdlace picks up Rose, a shy and socially awkward waitress.   He eventually has doubts about enrolling her in the cruel game, but it's too late.  Rose discovers the contest and things get ugly.  

The girl who plays Rose as an amazing voice.  It's so emotive.  I can see her playing Elphaba in Wicked someday.  

I got angry, I cried, I shuddered, and just ran through all of my emotions.  It's definitely a show to see.

War Horse

Today we saw War Horse, the first touring Broadway series play I have seen.  It's amazing!   A drama about the special relationship an young man, Albert, has with his horse.  Originally, the horse, named Joey, was purchased by his father trying to outdo his uncle at an auction.  The family really can't afford it, so the plan is to sell Joey later.  Eventually, the horse is able to do plow work in the fields and his family says they will let Albert keep Joey, but his dad ends up selling the animal to the English army to go fight in France at the beginning of World War 1. The boy enlists in an effort to go find his beloved pet.

Okay, I bet you're thinking, why would a war drama about a boy and a horse be in the Broadway rotation?   Simple.  Puppetry magic.  All the animals on stage are puppets from the Handspring Puppet Workshop from South Africa.  The horses are huge constructs that take 3 puppeteers to operate.  One person runs the head from a stick to the side of the horse.  The middle person controls the horse's breathing and front limbs.  The hind puppeteer controls the tail and back legs.  It is amazing how realistic the horses are.  Even though you can see the puppeteers, the motions are so true to life that it's easy to forget the people are inside.

At the pre-show talk, we were told that Joey was introduced to the Cleveland Mounted Police Force.  The real horses were completely fooled and greeted Joey as one of their own.

War stories aren't exactly my favorite subject.  I even had difficulty watching all the intense battles in Lord of the Rings.  I liked this show though.   It is truly theater magic.