Limited Perspective

This is maybe the first review I ever wrote (with the intention of writing a review.) This is what got me eventually to get published in the Edmonds Beacon and to keep on writing after that. I can hardly believe I hadn't transferred this to here yet. Here it is, form 3/24/2013, on a production of Jesus Christ Superstar.  So this is my first foray into theater criticism, in public anyway. Look out Frank Rich, whoever at the New Yorker and all y’all. I saw Jesus Christ Superstar at Burien Little Theater tonight. First, let me say tomorrow (Sunday, March 24 at 2:00 pm) is the last chance to see it. You should. Here’s why.  I grew up listening to the original recording on vinyl, the one with Murray Head, Ian Gillan and all the rest, over and over. I loved it. BLT did it justice and opened new layers of meaning.  The show as presented at BLT is about failure of leadership: the failure to lead; the failure to be led; and the inevitable failure to live up to expectations. Direct...

I don't want to change the world I'm not looking for a new England I'm just looking for another girl - Billy Bragg You say you want a revolution … If you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow - John Lennon This, really, is the theme of Anyone Can Whistle, the vintage Sondheim show now playing at TOJ and produced by Reboot. Reboot has been knocking out bangers for several seasons now. And this one takes it up yet another notch. The publicity for the show, the director’s notes, and the reviews I’ve seen mention the show did poorly when it opened on Broadway in 1964. On the one hand, it’s hard to see why. On the other, it makes sense. Briefly, it’s a satiric farce of small town USA, with a stranger coming to town a la The Music Man, and stirring up trouble for the mayor and her plans to market a phony miracle (water from a stone!) to save the town’s fortunes. There is a parallel plot involving the nurse at the local mental insti...

I found this post on my Facebook from exactly nine years ago. I couldn't believe I had never transferred it to here before. So, here it is. If I run through a city, I feel like I own it. On a twenty-four hour stay in London in 2010, I made time for a three-mile run from my modest hotel, the Brunel, a few blocks south to an entrance to Hyde Park, down and around the lake counter-clockwise, then past Speaker's Corner and back again to the Brunel. Walking, sweating the last two blocks. Tonight, I ran five miles or so through Seattle. I began near Volunteer Park, east down Aloha past Saint Joe's and Holy Names and around the corner onto 23rd. Three songs on the iPod from the start, there was Uncle Ike's pot shop, gleaming on my left. Then past where Ms Helen's used to be, and on to the Garfield complex and Ezell's. Already so much city history, -- such as it is here Out West -- and culture. On down 23rd and rounding the corner at The Promenade, heading west on ...