Silver Linings Playbook film review

This film is nuts!  And if it demonstrates anything, it is that being nuts has its advantages.  

It starts with a hiss and a roar, setting a frantic pace that it maintains through much of the film.  The fast-paced dialogue and fluid camera-work draw one in completely and the film just flies by.  It provides enough still moments for one to catch ones breath, but continues determinedly towards its conclusion.  

I barely knew it, but I was laughing and crying and guffawing and gasping.  This is totally my kind of film.  I love pieces that knit together comedy and drama and I agree with Amy Sherman-Palladino that so doing delivers a heavier hit.

The entire cast is outstanding.  I was particularly fond of Robert De Niro's emotionally awkward, yet loving neurotic loser of a father.  The characters are all quirky and larger than life, but there is such truth and such heart to their reactions and relationships that it rings true.  Seldom has romance been less romantic, except maybe in real life.

This is the ultimate feel-good movie.  I walked out of the cinema feeling so happy with life, and secure in the knowledge that achieving 50% is sometimes enough.

See this movie if you enjoy The Gilmore Girls, New Girl, The Garden State and happy endings.

The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart theatre review.

The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart is a delightful, original work that weaves Scottish folk songs with a surreal story of love, hell and our tendency to overanalyse art and life.  The all-singing, all-acting, instrument-playing cast of five bring the songs and story to life in a real bar, and use the entire space, even if it means climbing over audience members.  With a fully stocked bar available, and complimentary whisky it is an all-sensory experience.  Furthermore, I am a sucker for things that rhyme.  This play rhymes a lot of the time.

The story revolves around Scottish folk ballads, and Act I takes some fun twists and turns, employing light comedy and ghost story techniques to reach the point when it appears that our heroine has found herself living out her own Scottish folk ballad.  Act II starts out in a drastically different style, which I found somewhat jarring.  This change in tone, though, is somewhat accounted for and eventually justified.  When it comes out this new style, though, rather than restoring the tone set in Act I the play morphs into a heightened version of its former self, and later morphs again into yet another cartoonish style.  I struggled with the theatrical style taking so many different forms, but thankfully the story and our heroine's plight remained absorbing enough to carry the awkward transitions.

The story is a truly fascinating and satisfying one.  Although it has surprising developments and kept me guessing on some points, I felt it was quite clearly moving toward Prudencia's discovery of her own ballad and I looked forward to hearing the song she would sing and how she would tell her tale.  When the story has finally resolved and Prudencia takes the stage with microphone in hand to sing to us I was prepared to be wowed.  I was thus completely bewildered when her song of choice proved to be a chart-topping pop song from the new millennium, one that in no way resembles a Scottish ballad of yore.  This decision was not totally at odds with the story but it further illustrates the muddy inconsistency of the tone the play wished to set.  It was a strange undoing to a long anticipated dramatic moment.

Overall, I enjoyed this show immensely.  On a detail-oriented level, I struggled to reconcile all of the changes in tone that the story-telling goes through.

See this play if you want to immerse yourself in another world and like combining various forms of entertainment in one package.

Rhinoceros in Love theatre review

Ma Lu is in love with his neighbour Ming Ming, in spite of her smelling like a photocopier.  Ming Ming is in an unhealthy relationship but can't tear herself away from it.  Ma Lu frees her from this damaging relationship by tying her up and keeping her in his apartment.

Is that what happens when a rhinoceros is in love?  Is it what happens in The National Theatre of China's most successful play?  Could be.  It's hard to say really.  I found the storytelling to be somewhat vague and ambiguous.  This is consistent with the poetic tone of the language and visual elements, but left me unsatisfied.   When there is a story to be told, I like that story to make itself known.  I can live with some uncertainty, but for my comprehension of the main story to be uncertain feels unintentional at best and a complete botch-up at worst.  In this case I did not comprehend what was happening, much less why.

Although the play is performed in Mandarin, I don't blame that for my struggle to perceive what was going on.  The onstage action alternates between plot-driven scenes by the two love interests and thematic diversions from the ensemble.  These thematic diversions were seldom interesting and often felt like a half-hearted attempt to get a laugh.  I would rather have focused on the story.  So when the central characters did take the stage I grew increasingly frustrated as their actions proved ambiguous.  Why are they speaking to the front, and not to each other?  Why are they running on a treadmill?  Why is he putting on his jacket - I mean taking it off - I mean putting it on?  Why? Why? Why?  

I did not know what I was watching and I was growing bored with the actors standing static on a bare stage.  Then suddenly, as if to appease my craving for visual stimuli, the stage explodes with colour, movement, flying props, overbearing shadows and so much water.  Well it's fun and interesting but by then I felt too distant from the characters and their rhinoceroses to be drawn back in.

This show contains much beautiful imagery, and the story is probably quite good (I am waiting for someone to tell me what it was).  But amidst these gems was far too much dross for me to bare.  Editing is required.

See this show if you understand Mandarin.  Judging by the enthusiastic standing ovation from several of the Chinese members of the audience I am led to believe this productions resonates more with those familiar with Chinese language and culture.

The Finger Family Tent Revival theatre (?) review

On a summer's evening, in the welcoming bosom of Golden Dawn, a band starts up and a dance troupe dressed in white physically interpret the vocal praises sung by Mrs Fanny Finger.  On the conclusion of the opening number, we are introduced to the rambling manner of preacher/word baron Mr Buddy Finger.  So continues the evening with Fanny's pure singing alternating with Buddy's vague yet impassioned speeches.  The dancers offer support from the sidelines or the dance floor.

I was at the bar with the intention of watching this performance, but not all of the Friday night crowd were.  I wonder what they made of the events.  To the unfocused observer, this may have appeared to be a genuine church service.  The songs were recognisable gospel numbers and they were delivered straight.  An unsuspecting Christian could easily have joined in the praise and felt quite at home.  Buddy's preaching usually sounded fairly legitimate, and only on paying close attention was the listener rewarded with the entertainment of ridiculous puns and nonsensical parables.

While I enjoyed listening to Buddy ramble, he lacked a message of any kind.  I feel the show needed some sort of message to tie it together.  Without presenting a strong point of view, it is difficult to know what to make of the various showpieces.  It was surprising for such an inflammatory style of show to present no strong message - after all, revival meetings are designed with exactly that in mind...aren't they?

A strong concept with enjoyable performances from all involved...but what was the point?  

See this show if you enjoy church music and immersive theatrical experiences.

Oh! is for Opera theatre review

Is it a cabaret?  Is it a revue?  No, it's a...bunch of opera songs performed with overt sexuality.  This show purports to tell the story of opera over the course of several centuries.  It does not really do that.

In actual fact, it is a presentation of operatic numbers given fresh interpretations by young, passionate female singers.  Providing the continuity is a sexually deviant MC.  He succeeds in being charming and funny.  The singers, too, succeed in entertaining with their arias.  However, while each song manages to communicate a clear story through actions and expressions, the viewer has no way of knowing how well each story connects with the lyrics of the song as translations of the lyrics are not provided.  I would like to trust that the stories and the lyrics correlated closely, but I saw some evidence to suggest otherwise.

Strangely, the songs performed in English were so badly acted that I found it hard to bear.  In such cases, no clear story was communicated.  On the one occasion that subtitles were provided, I felt they were then doing all of the work and that the singer was doing little to tell the story.

So, while the singers in this wee show are mostly rather excellent singers, most lacked the subtlety to tell their tales in an interesting natural way.  My attention was only intermittently engaged.

See this show if you are familiar with the more popular operatic solos and wish to hear them performed by fresh young voices.

Promise and Promiscuity theatre review

I first saw this show publicised weeks ago, and it hooked me in with its clever title and its claim to be a new musical.  I love puns and musicals!  And having just finished reading Pride and Prejudice, I marvelled to think that the universe had created this show especially for my enjoyment.  Well, the universe did no such thing.  Penny Ashton created the show, and my associated enjoyment was fleeting.

At the top of the show, I was shocked to discover it to be of the one-woman kind.  Ashton then proceeded to take on more characters than I cared to care about. To her credit, she gives each character distinct mannerisms and I was truly impressed with her physical, if not vocal, versatility.  In doing so, though, I could not help but think her attention was diverted from giving said characters depth, and from keeping the jokes fresh.

The show is moderately funny, but the comedy becomes repetitive and I was ready for it to end half an hour before it did.

Considering that the new musical music was the main lure for me, I was extremely disappointed that the songs proved to be dramatically and lyrically awkward.  The melodies were never especially interesting and often sounded like familiar songs with lyrics changed, but worst of all is that the songs were inessential to the story.  I would rather have done without them.

I also felt cheated that I found myself watching a one-person show with no warning.  I like one-person shows enough that it would not have deterred me, but in this case the device does not work.  It is written as a regular play would be, so to witness one person taking on all the characters is somewhat unsettling.  One-person shows require less dialogue.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and felt it would work with a cast of four or five.  The songs were unnecessary, as the focus should be comedy.  It would also be funnier with more actors to bounce off each other, and bring different comic flavours to the fore.  Interestingly, Ashton was at her funniest when improvising and addressing audience members directly, implying she would be funnier with a fellow performer to play against.

Sadly, Ashton's promiscuity, in taking on innumerable characters, does not live up to its promise.

See this show if you are able to deconstruct the whole thing in your head and rebuild it in a way that actually works.