The Diary of Anne Frank

I saw the Diary of Anne Frank this past Sunday at the Cleveland Play House. It was wonderful.   Tragic, because we know what's going to happen, but wonderful.   It really made Anne Frank into a human person, rather than the ideal I had imagined for all these years.

The set is in the middle of the Occault theater and it's a reproduction of the Secret Annex, minus the walls.   You really get a sense of how crowded the space was for those 2 years.   Also, parts of the diary that were omitted from the book (namely Anne's thoughts of her budding sexuality) have been restored! 

There is an intermission, but like the people in the novel, the actors are unable to leave the stage.   They go about with life stuff, and you really feel sorry for them.   I really recommend seeing this show.  Please bring tissues.

Waitress

Yesterday, Steve and I saw Waitress at Playhouse Square.  It was truly a feminist musical and a lot of fun.   We laughed a lot.   Jenna is a waitress married to abusive husband.  She works at Joe's Diner and makes pies.  She finds out early on that she's pregnant and knowingly makes some bad decisions.  And you can't fault her for them!  She rescues herself!

This show was quite clever with their marketing.  They scented the lobby with apple pie and sold tiny pies in jars.   Brilliant!  Quite effective.  We ended up buying pie later at dinner, but it's certainly a good idea.  Go see it!

Waiting for Godot

We just got out of the Beck Center's production of Waiting for Godot.  It's supposed to be deeply philosophical and represent something.   I see it as two fools with foul smelling breath or feet are waiting for a dude named Godot.  They run into others with poor episodic memory or possibly encounteres with those people from other dimensions.   They contemplate suicide and are not good at it. 

I now want to watch Wonder Woman that has an actual Godot in it.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

We saw the Hunchback of Notre Dame at Great Lakes Theater this past Thursday.   I hadn't seen the movie until the week before.  I really enjoyed this production.   They made the ending closer to the book.   It was nicely un-Disney-like to remove the happy ending.   The music was lovely, lots of Latin.   Also, it is implied that the talking gargoyles may be part of Quasimodo's mind rather than the magical dancing characters seen in the animated film.   This is playing until November 4th, and I highly recommend it.