[Theater] West Side Story (Lunchbox Theatrical Productions) Review

For most of my life, West Side Story was one of those musicals that existed in my mind as a movie. Yes, I know it was a Broadway musical first before it was adapted into a movie, but given the time of its release, the movie remains the easier way to get to experience this story. So when the news that a touring production was coming to Manila, I figured it would be worth the investment.

Now I'll admit that West Side Story may have a few great and memorable songs but it also has a lot of weird ones that felt almost extraneous to the larger plot. And thus it was never really a musical that I looked out for because of the songs and the singing. But I have always loved it for the dancing and the sheer rigor demanded of anyone choosing to perform in this production.

The talent gathered for the movie was pretty top notch and that will always set the bar pretty high for any theater production of the show. But this staging was pretty stellar in that regard and certainly helped make the most of the experience.

[Movies] Into the Woods (2014)

I often remark that the works of Stephen Sondheim are pretty much sacred to me. And as we trace that road back and back, we'll always end up with Into the Woods, which remains to be my favorite Sondheim musical. And when news of a movie adaptation came out, I wasn't all that excited. Hollywood's track record when it comes to such adaptations is less than stellar plus the fact that this is a rather complex story with some rather adult themes. Throw in the fact that it was confirmed that Disney was handling the production, and I was really worried.

But I tried to keep the faith given this Into the Woods movie still had Stephen Sondheim involved in the production. So that had to be good news, right? And to be fair, Disney made sure to include a lot of top acting talent in this movie, including the one and only Meryl Streep.

And while the movie seems to have done well at the box office and had generally favorable reviews, I can't help but feel like it was missing something. And yes, I'm probably speaking more as a fan of the original theater production and thus I'm breaking my usual "rule" of trying to separate the adapted work from its source material, but it's really hard not to given how important the production is to me. Still, at least it wasn't terrible.

[Theater] Company (2011)

Amazon's product recommendation technology can be pretty insidious in its accuracy, like the day that this version of Stephen Sondheim's Company came up on my page. And while I knew that Neil Patrick Harris had performed in a run of the musical, I wasn't expecting there to be a recorded version of it. Such recordings aren't quite the fashion these days for one reason or another.

Of course I wasn't quite expecting to find a full version of the production up on YouTube when I went online to verify if this recording was indeed a true thing. And so I'll admit that I've watched it, but I will get around to securing my own copy of this thing in time. Honest.

This is really more of a concert performance than just a full stage musical. But it was still a lot more involved than some of the other concert shows we've seen over the years like that anniversary concert for Les Misérables. But hey, theater is theater and we'll take things in any form that we can get, right? And thus such live recordings remain to be real gems.

[Movies] A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966)

It's interesting how many movie versions of stage musicals exist. When you think about it, it's sort of like how Hollywood is currently obsessed on adapting comic books into movies - well that and young adult science fiction and fantasy books. It was a safe enough formula - the musical already worked on stage, so naturally it had a decent chance of being a success on film.

And while A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum isn't exactly the most amazing stage musical out there, but for one reason or another this movie even paled in comparison to that original story. I suppose this just acts as a good example of how theater sensibilities don't automatically adapt well to the big screen. And some of the decisions made in such translations end up taking away from what made the original play so great.

The movie is really more on the okay side - nothing amazing but not quite unwatchable. There's still a pretty solid story that defines this whole experience and it manages to hold up well enough. But the movie just didn't have that home run in terms of the total entertainment factor that we expect from such creative ventures.

[Holidays] Happy Mother's Day!

Today is the second Sunday of May and you know what that means....

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!



Oh yes, today is the we celebrate our mothers - those amazing ladies who brought us into this world. Whatever your personal issues may be, this is the day to move past all that and remind your mom that you love them and that you appreciate everything that they've done for you.

After all, not matter what they've done over the years, the reason is the same. To quote the Witch from Sondheim's Into the Woods, "I was just trying to be a good mother."

Yeah, I'm campy that way.

[Movies] Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Sweeney Todd is a classic villain of English literature that has managed to come up in various incarnations and in his diverse history has inspired many books, poems, songs, movies and even a musical by Stephen Sondheim, one of my favorite composers especially after I got to see Into the Woods on, um, Laserdisc (yikes!).

When it was reported that Tim Burton was working on his own interpretation of the musical given his usual visual style and recurring actors Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in tow, I was pretty excited. The movie only opened in theaters locally this month - a natural consequence of the year film festival in December - so by this time the news was already out that it had won the Golden Globe for Best comedy or Musical, albeit with very little fanfare to accompany it.

Still, even if it hadn't won I'm sure my partner and I would have gone out to see it.

This version of the Sweeney Todd tale starts with Benjamin Barker, an honest barber who is falsely accused by a judge only after his beautiful wife. He returns after 15 years using the name Sweeney Todd and discovers that his wife is dead, his daughter is now the ward of the same judge who sent him away and all he has left in his heart are thoughts of revenge.

First, people need to remember that this is a musical and not go in just expecting some violent Tim Burton movie (although there is a more than healthy amount of blood involved, mind you). I hate it when people go into a theater not knowing major details like that and then complain about it afterwards like how a lot of people were disappointed that Beowulf was actually an animated feature. Stupid, really.

At the same time, don't expect this to be a happy feel-good experience like Hairspray or anything like that - this is, after all, about a serial killer who uses shaving razors as weapons. Burton still kept the movie as a musical but dropped a lot of the over-the-top sequences and large production numbers in favor of solos and duets still in the Sondheim tone.

The movie looks like most other Tim Burton movies and if you like his worlds of stark black and white scenes, lots of dark eye make-up only broken by shocking bits of surprisingly vivid colors, then this is for you. Then again, you may have already grown tired of this manner of filming and his love for Johnny Depp given this is their 6th collaboration together, so I suppose his "consistency" in this regard can be taken either way depending on your tastes.

The singing is actually pretty good and it doesn't sound overly forced and still manages to fit into the rather macabre world they're in. Depp seems unable to shake his tendency to twitch his mouth like Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, though. Helena Bonham Carter was simply amazing and I loved her portrayal of Mrs. Lovett, a role once portrayed by Angela Lansbury. I think I liked her the best in this film and it was somewhat sad to note that she didn't win the Golden Globe for her acting, but at least she was nominated.

Despite the loss of many key songs including the title piece given their overly-theatric nature, in Burton's opinion, the movie was unmistakably still true to its Sondheim roots given his favored use of layering different lyrics by two different characters and his use of violins to demonstrate tension and various other emotions. It also maintained Sondheim's flair for wit in terms of lyrics, which was really one of my main concerns.

So as long as you can take a lot of movie-style blood that is classically ruby red in shade, then you're bound to enjoy this dark interpretation of the Broadway musical in a manner that remains uniquely Burton-esque.