Play Review: XANADU!

It was an excruciating experience sitting through this play. It was…well, it tried to be a comedy, but it fell flat, much like the actors trying to roller-skate around the place.
The actors seemed tired, and their performances lacked spirit, perhaps because of the catastrophic loss of self respect of having to act in this play. The dancing was poorly choreographed, boring, and unpracticed. The characters were able to sing fairly well, but the dances going with the songs were full of mistakes, mess-ups, and miscues. Frankly, it was a little embarrassing. There was also a character completely missing from one scene, and the actor who played her partner tried to complete the scene through improvisation. It was a valiant effort, but she accidentally turned to the missing partner and asked for her opinion near the end of the scene, and then sheepishly tried to play it off as a joke. The actors who played Sonny Malone, the main character who wishes to construct a roller disco, and Danny Mcguire, the real-estate mogul that Sonny tries to buy the establishment meant to house the disco in, were the stand-out performances of the night, but that isn’t saying much, to be perfectly honest.
The plot of the play is a nonsensical mish-mash of inaccurate, stereotypical caricatures of ancient Grecian mythology and 80’s pop-culture references and phrases that, while made to be silly and over the top, just seems dry and soulless with the tired performances of most of the cast. A synopsis: Sonny Malone, a struggling artist, draws a sidewalk mural of the Greek muses, and then decides to kill himself because he’s unsatisfied with his lack of artistic talent and, presumably, to get out of this farce of a play (I don’t blame him). Klio asks Zeus if she and her 8 sisters (two of which are very burly men in drag) can go down and help him. He agrees, her sisters (a large, soulful black woman and an annoying, mousy white woman) are jealous that Zeus favors her since she’s the youngest and gets the unexplained ‘Xanadu’, so they decide to cause hilarious mischief. She stops Sonny from killing himself, finds him a theater by the name of-wait for it-Xanadu. He goes to work out a deal for the theater with the owner of the property, Danny McGuire. He explains that he wants the theater for free, and Danny very reasonably tells him that he’s insane. Klio, now named ‘Kira’, because it’s ‘modern and normal’, comes in, and Danny freaks out, recognizing her from his past. As it turns out, Kira had done this little mortal thing more than once, and had an affair with Danny decades before. She had left him then because he wanted to make money instead of make more art, and he regrets it deeply. So, he lets them have the theater with the condition that they have to fix it up by the next night. They work through the night, Kira falls for Sonny and draws due to her evil sister’s influences, both of which are taboos for Muses, and they finish by the time Danny gets back. Danny is impressed and opens the theater, Kira decides she has to leave because of her budding romance, and the sisters give Danny money to tear down the theater, and he complies. Kira tells Sonny she’s a muse, he, again very reasonably, calls her crazy, she gets mad, and then goes back to Mount Olympus to face Zeus for her mistakes. Zeus is very angry, but his many wives tell him to…mellow out. Seriously. Meanwhile, Danny and Sonny, having seen Clio flying away back to Greece, realize that she really is a muse. Danny tells Sonny to go after her and not make the same mistakes he made, and promptly leaves to go cancel the destruction of the building, and Sonny heads to Greece. Zeus decides that it’s ok for her to return and become a mortal, but then Sonny comes from backstage and tells Klio that she loves him and challenges Zeus to take her away from him. This impresses Zeus and he lets them go, saying that Xanadu, his gift to Clio, is the ability to love and create art. They head back to L.A., have a final dance number, and then the play ends.
That’s it, really. There is no deeper meanings, themes, examples of the human condition, foreshadowing, rising action, or logical conclusion of this play. It’s a series of 80’s jokes and references tied weakly together with a terrible story about the Greek Gods. It was a terrible play to review for the class as there were so few examples of dramatic structure or themes or the human condition. The play was meant to be a fun, ironic Broadway hit that didn’t take itself seriously and was just made to make you laugh. Well, it didn’t take itself seriously, and neither did the audience. The jokes were awful and their timing so botched and forced, it really incited more jeering guffaws at the play’s expense than lighthearted chuckles at the antics of the characters onstage. I apologize for the lack of substance, and sincerely wish I had gone to A Christmas Carol instead of trying something new.

On Net-Neutrality

As some of you may have seen on Digg, John McCain has introduced the Internet "Freedom" Act 209 in congress. Why did I put freedom in sarcastic quotations? Because censorship is generally the antithesis of freedom. John McCain wants to stop the FCC form being able to protect net neutrality. As pointed out by a Digg user, John McCain received over 800,000$ of donations from Verizon and Comcast, who are both anti-net neutrality. John McCain doesn't even know how to use E-mail, so this is clearly another instance of corporations abusing the United States governmental system.
I find it ironic that the people (the right) keep accusing people on the left when they keep trying to take away our freedoms. I'm against big government just as much as the republican USED to be, before it lost all of its values and turned into a bible-thumping cage of shit-flinging apes who moonlight as whores for the highest bidder. I'm not going to make a long, overblown note about how turrible the right is, or how shit the internet would be if it turned into TV where you had to buy access to certain sites in bundles because the corporations have control over it, because really, if you are in any way intelligent, you should know how fucking bad this is for EVERYONE who uses the internet with some frequency.
I am for internet neutrality and any respect I've ever had for that old man has been diminished severely. If you're with me, call or write to your senators or representatives and tell them your stance (however unlikely it is that you're actually going to do it).

I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

I clutched my notebook furtively, its pages filled with emboldened, aggravated scribblings, a piece of Gogol's resting upon the soft grass next to me. I was perched upon a small rock nested at the lake's edge on an isle where the supports of the pristine, freshly painted bridge permitted enough land for a small stone bench and some tended fauna. I sighed listlessly, and tossed the notebook lightly towards the red ball point that I had used to butcher an earlier work. The troubling chords and sirens of El Manana faded slowly as I rested my head upon my hand and looked across the playful, glimmering waters to the neon and fluorescent lights of the buildings that made up a small shopping center. The sun had disappeared from view, but its effect was still felt upon the skin and in the sky. The atmosphere was alive with a rich blend of oranges and yellows, the sparse clouds beautiful shades of violet and pink. I slowly put a cigarette to my lips and lit it, but decided against blackening my lungs further for the moment, letting it hang there, burning slowly. Instead, I studied the various people around the pond as the inspired sound of the Main Drag rung in my ears. An elderly couple feeding the group of ducks and geese that had accumulated around them, laughing as their fair-haired grandson backed away from the growing group cautiously. A jogger struggling to keep up with his tiny mop-haired puppy. A young couple, the man with a baby strapped across his chest, the woman pushing a stroller with a gurgling infant. Time passed. The sunlight began to dim. The ash from my forgotten cigarette fell off in small, light clumps suddenly with a light, cool breeze that blew from the east. With a flicker, then a light hum, the lights that bordered the path around the lake came to life. The white gazebo that struck out impudently from the opposite shore was silhouetted by the luminosity of the signs that drew in and welcomed the wary passerby into the small strip of restaurants and entertainment. Realizing that the cigarette had long ago gone out, I stored the butt in my pocket. Beautiful Canadian geese followed by a few mallards floated listlessly by my rock, peering at me with disinterest. The breeze, its bite somewhat more chilly, again whisked across the lake, disturbing the small, purple flowers that bordered the lake. They waved at me serenely. For a short while longer, I watched as the vivid colors of sunlight gave way to the pale, lucid glow of moonlight and automobiles driving lazily past the gazebo, further illuminating its skeletal figure before the wind's chill forced me to move on from my place of quiet tranquility. I looked once more at the sky, at the quiet half-moon casting a fair light across a vagrant cloud, at the single star that managed to work its light past the burning luminescence of the sun's. I gathered my accursed writer's tools and worked my way up the stairs of the white bridge. I had come to this place looking for inspiration. I left with a reminder of how beautiful this city can be when you know where to look.
In any case, I suppose the trip was a successful one.

of a man who takes himself far too seriously

Its funny that today you can't really take yourself seriously without a bit of that hip irony and self-deprecating humor today's kids seem to be so fond of. I think its most apparent in music. In the seventies, rock bands took themselves EVER so seriously. They were like, 'Hey, we fuckin' ROCK and our parents SUCK because they did not ROCK as we are doing this particular moment in time!' Now bands seem to joke around with people at their own expense. I know I've gone to shows and they're constantly belittling themselves in the witty diatribe that fills the space between one song and another on their set. It's as if they're saying 'hey we know some people don't like us and this shit has probably been done one way or another, but man its fun.' They do it for fun. They love playing music, and I guess that's why they're doing it. Not like how Bob Dylan or Hendrix sounded. They were far too busy sending messages with their songs to just relax and have a bit of fun.
In a way, I think it's kind of a reaction against what those rockers turned out to be (unless they died, haha.): washed up junkies who can't accomplish anything they used to be able to. Who the hell can take them seriously now? Now it's just a big joke, just like all of those musicians had turned out to be.
So our being unable to take ourselves seriously may just be part of coping with becoming old and dying, feeble and alone, a shell of our former selves. After all, who'll be able to take us seriously then?
A note: this observation does not apply to mexicans. They take themselves VERY seriously.