The "It's the Content That Got Small" Edition

Nov 06, 2022

Dear Subscribers,

Quick round-up of Stage and Screen:

Stage: (if you’re in NYC, which you should be because it’s Marathon Sunday and 75 degrees and sunny!)

Leopoldstadt: Yes, you have to see it! Yes, the story and trauma of the Holocaust is always worthwhile to tell and re-tell. This production is especially, uncomfortably, relevant. The story is personal to playwright Tom Stoppard, but also a truly universal sprawling family drama with relevant themes and tropes. The ending, for me, was a gut punch and I recall that scene every day.

Funny Girl with Lea Michele: You have to see it!… Maybe? Is it actually worth the price of admission (literally) to see and hear the iconic ‘Rain On My Parade’ at the end of Act I and, in reprise with a different twist, at the end of the show? 100%. As I alluded to last week, what I’m not sure of is the wisdom of my year-to-date investment in Funny Girl on Broadway. First, three tickets to star Beanie Feldstein with Jane Lynch as her mother. It was enjoyable, except for the dreadful, dark, towering set pieces which cut the action down to 25% of the stage space; oh and the leaden directing and the mismatched mother-daughter pair. But fun! Who knew she would be summarily shit-canned and replaced with an icon?

Then, another four tickets to Lea Michele’s reboot. Worth it! Except two days before the theater sent a note really really apologizing— REALLY SORRY— that Lea had Covid…and that the performance was not canceled and there were no refunds and that we would greatly enjoy her understudy. We had already enjoyed her unwitting understudy Beanie, so those four tickets went to a very dear family friend and her three gal pals, all of whom are trying to break into musical theater and were super grateful and had a super time.

Okay, take 3: Long story TLDR: 2 tickets were offered all of a sudden, at face value. Okay sure. I went again with none of the original invitees but with my fabulous theater-loving niece-in-law. The same dark and weird tenement-meets-Rapunzel’s-Tower set piece plus only slightly less leaden staging did not drag down the firebrand performance of Ms. Michele. How could Tovah Feldshuh possibly be even teenier than Lea Michele? I don’t know, but the two of them together and of course each of them in their star numbers just blow the socks off the stage with their performances.

Fun-squashing note to re-booters of iconic scenes everywhere: you will have to find some sort of solution to numbers like “You Are Woman, I Am Man,” performed unironically in the style of Pépé Le Pew with the lyrics:

“Isn't this the height of nonchalance, furnishing a bed in restaurants?

Well, a bit of dinner never hurt, but guess who is gonna be dessert?

If I stop him now, can he sue me?

In any case, after emptying my 401K to see (and not see) Funny Girl three times, you can understand how I’m mixed on recommending whether or not to go see it, as my own personal ROI is debatable. Okay, I think you should go see it. Once.

Screen:

‘Triangle Of Sadness’: Run, don’t walk to this excellent film, unless you feel seasick easily or have emetophobia. It’s “Below Deck” meets “White Lotus” meets…”Parasite.” Woody Harrelson is so good in his scenes he could be the only reason you go. On the other hand, the performances of the lesser known rest of the cast in the messy (literally) layers of plot, character, and commentary are so wonderfully uncomfortable I would tell you to go even if Harrelson wasn’t in it. You should go for all of it.

‘Whatever the George Clooney/Julia Roberts Rom-Com Is Called’: Definitely — or maybe definitely — go see it! The point being it doesn’t really matter what it’s called or what it’s about. They Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn it up so perfectly that you literally don’t care what else is happening. So I guess I’m saying I really like them so if you don’t go, don’t. But if you like them a little bit and want to see stunning people over 50 (and a roster of stunning people under 30 but I didn’t focus on them) having fun, Fandango is ready for you.

Is this free newsletter good enough ROI for you? If it isn’t, that would be sad. Because it’s free. Like the time I had to fire an unpaid intern. I am confident that there is a ton of value in the news that I (and my coterie of awesome co-purveyors) find for you. It’s always all about us women in the news. From politics to pop culture, with everything in between, this is what you need to know each week..

Speaking of politics, please make your plan to vote on Tuesday, before our world goes even further on its downward spiral in its chosen vehicle, the handbasket.

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Sorry about the early sunsets from here on out.

See you from the West Coast next Sunday.