GAY OLD TIME

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

In the latest Tucson Weekly, I preview an arts sampler at an unusual performance location, and review two plays that happen to feature gay characters. This is how the preview begins:

It's a safety officer's worst nightmare: a warehouse full of Japanese and Afro-Brazilian drummers, fire artists, aerial dancers and--those most insidious threats to public order--mimes. Rhythm Industry Performance Factory hasn't yet run afoul of the law, and so far, there's been no need to station ambulances at the ready in the parking lot. But we'll see what happens when all the Rhythm Industry resident ensembles converge on the "factory" at once for a public sampling of their works in progress. This weekend brings Rhythm Industry's first quarterly review. Note that the word employed is "review," as in a literary quarterly, rather than "revue," as in a variety show. It's an evening of performance, not magazine-reading, but all the participants are very serious about their work. Besides, the facility isn't intended to serve as a performance venue; it's an arts-incubation space, where groups can rehearse, and build and store sets and instruments and costumes. The only reason the resident ensembles have decided to present a performance sampler there four times a year is to raise money to help pay the mortgage.

You’ll find the complete story here. Once you’ve digested that, you can move on to my two-in-one theater review:

It's been a long time since "gay" meant "happy." Certainly the homosexual characters in two plays that opened last week have more than their share of trouble; even though the plays they inhabit start out as comedies, the trouble quickly takes over at Live Theatre Workshop in its late-night production of Dog Sees God, and at Alternative Theatre Company's mounting of Dirty Secrets. In Bert V. Royal's Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead at LTW, the Peanuts gang has gotten 10 years older and gone to high school. If you think Charlie Brown was depressed when he was in elementary school, you should see him now. To skirt copyright law, Royal has billed his play as a parody and changed the characters' names a bit, but you know who they really are: Charlie Brown is now called CB; his sister, Sally, is now referred to merely as "CB's sister," and she has gone goth; Linus Van Pelt, now called Van, is a stoner who smoked the ashes of his security blanket when it was burned by his sister (formerly known as Lucy), who is a promiscuous pyromaniac who's been institutionalized and doped with lithium. Tricia, the former Peppermint Patty, and her sidekick, Marcy, are mean girls who make catty remarks about everyone while sneaking booze into the high school cafeteria. The piano-playing Schroeder is now called Beethoven, but he's going through some changes: He's developed an interest in Chopin, and he may be gay. This disgusts Matt, the former Pig Pen, who has internalized his filth; on the outside, he's a compulsive clean freak, but on the inside, he's a vicious homophobe. This is not a pleasant crowd. Instead of calling CB a blockhead, they now yell, "You faggoty asshole." Good grief! At least when they go to a party, they still dance to Vince Guaraldi.

The full review of both plays awaits you here.

ADDING A DELETION

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

Well, I finally messed up my first blog. I blogged last week about an upcoming debate, but I left out one important detail...the date and time. (Thanks Otto)!

If you want to see the Giffords-Bee debate in person, it will be held this coming Saturday at 7 p.m. at the University of Arizona Student Union Memorial Ballroom. If you need to know anything else, drop me a line at the link below.

LAST WORDS

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Here are reviews I wrote for Fanfare of recordings of the last, incomplete works of two prominent Austrian composers ...

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 9 * Marek Janowski, cond; Suisse Romande O * PENTATONE PTC 5186 303 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 62:01)

In order to appreciate this release, it’s necessary to put some prejudices aside. First, the Suisse Romande playing Bruckner? Well, this is not the sour, scrappy band it was 50 years ago under Ansermet, and today it is fully capable of producing a sufficiently dense, rich Bruckner sound. Second, there’s Marek Janowski, a conductor with a great many ho-hum recorded performances on disc, mostly operas (including some rarities, by the likes of Krenek and Hindemith). Janowski’s Ring cycle many years ago was hopelessly dull from the orchestral standpoint, so the prospect of Janowski taking on Bruckner, Wagner’s ultimate acolyte, wouldn’t seem promising.

Forget all that, though, and what can be heard in this new surround-sound disc is a mostly effective Bruckner Ninth, even if it doesn’t rise to the level of the finest Bruckner Ninth performances (Furtwängler, Giulini, Jochum, and Wand, among others). The best work comes right at the beginning. The opening minutes don’t sound as disjointed as usual, the sudden contrasts now cohering into a unified statement before dying away to be replaced by the drawn-out, lyrical second theme. Other moments later in the symphony stand out: the ominous urgency of the second movement’s Trio, not as incongruously light-hearted as it sometimes comes across; the carefully shaped crisis-climax in the third movement. In between, conductor and orchestra coast along, never at a less than professional level, but without maintaining the focus they display in the most effective passages.

Typically of PentaTone, the DSD recorded sound is vibrant and precise. The sonic image reflects exactly what’s shown in a booklet photo, with brass and timpani positioned far in the back. I also imagine that I can hear them coming from the higher elevation shown in the photo, but that’s probably just the power of suggestion.

If you must have a surround-sound Bruckner Ninth, this is an honorable choice, but it’s not the last word on the symphony. James Reel

MOZART Requiem * Colin Davis, cond; Marie Arnet (sop); Anna Stéphany (ms); Andrew Kennedy (ten); Darren Jeffery (bs); London SO; London S Cho *LSO 0627 (hybrid multichannel SACD: 50:35) TEXT (live performance: 9-10/2007)

Colin Davis has already recorded the Süssmayr edition of Mozart’s Requiem for Philips and RCA, and done so well. This new production doesn’t amplify the conductor’s conception of the work, so the only real selling point is its DSD surround sound. Sonically, this is one of LSO Live’s better efforts, less acoustically claustrophobic than many of its Barbican recordings, yet not swallowed up in reverberation.

Generally, this is a satisfying performance. With a chorus of 89 and an orchestra of 62, it has heft, but Davis keeps things from turning sluggish. The Dies Irae, for example, is notably fast and turbulent, with an incisiveness frankly missing from his treatment of the score’s opening pages. On the other hand, the final, fugal Cum sanctus tuis is comparatively short of drama and fervor. As will happen in concert, some of the (choral) ensemble work is slightly imprecise, and there are a few very brief and minor intonation lapses from a soloist or two. And the heavily trilled R at the beginning of every “Rex” just sounds silly.

I seem to have been concentrating on flaws, but obviously most of them are quite minor, and all in all this is an intelligent, well-balanced mainstream performance. Still, if you’re shopping for a modern-instrument Mozart Requiem, a better choice would be Runnicles on Telarc (it’s the Levin edition). That performance is more consistently ominous and theatrical, partly because of the fuller bass in the chorus and the recording itself, and also because of the conductor’s more detailed dynamic shaping. James Reel

WHY PHOENIX SUCKS, CHAPTER 134

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

An Arizona Republic columnist rightly complains about low architectural standards in the Valley of the Sun. Very true, but I wonder how smug we can be here in Tucson? The public buildings aren’t uniformly horrible, but the real travesty is the expanse of indistinguishable, cheaply built, overpriced stucco hutches metastasizing through the suburbs. It wasn’t always thus; Tucson once boasted at least one distinctive domestic and commercial architect.

ARIZONA ILLUSTRATED IS BACK

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

After a two-week hiatus for political convention coverage and an overall makeover, "Arizona Illustrated" is back on the air tonight, with a very special guest and more.

The featured guest is U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer. He'll be appearing as part of a show focused on the field of law.

Each night of the revamped show will focus on one topic.

The show also will be broadcast in HD and will now air at 3:30 p.m. on KUAT HD. It also airs at 6:30 p.m on KUAT 6 and 8:30 p.m. on the UA Channel.

Learn more about the show here

LET THE DEBATES BEGIN

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

Now that the primary election is out of the way, AZPM will be bringing you debates with the candidates for the general election.

One of the high-profile debates will air live. It pits Congressional District Eight Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, the incumbent, against Republican challenger Tim Bee. Here's part of the news release we just sent to our media cohorts.

TUCSON – Cox Communications, Arizona Public Media, the League of Women Voters and the Associated Students of the University of Arizona (ASUA) will host a debate between U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and State Sen. Tim Bee, at the University of Arizona Student Union Memorial Ballroom, 1303 E. University Blvd. The debate is free and open to the public. Moderating the debate will be KUAT Channel 6 Arizona Illustrated Political Correspondent Christopher Conover. Joining him in a media panel to lead the questions will be Ann Brown, Editorial Editor for the Arizona Daily Star; and Blake Morelock, Political Correspondent for the Tucson Citizen. A University of Arizona School of Journalism student also will be selected to participate in the panel. The debate will be broadcast live on the UA Channel and KUAZ 89.1 FM-1550 AM Radio. Cox 7 and KUAT Channel 6 will rebroadcast the debate at later dates.