TWO MUSICALS

posted by James Reel

    Thursday is the day I rest on my laurels, duck out of original blogging, and simply point you toward material I’ve written for the Tucson Weekly. This time, two items. First, a review of the University of Arizona production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying:

Now, before you start to complain that UA drama students ought to be addressing contemporary material that they might identify with more easily, keep in mind that How to Succeed is a satire. It's full of short, slick hair and dark suits and secretaries who dream of moving up in the world by becoming housewives, but every character and every single societal attitude here is an object of sport. If you try to deconstruct How to Succeed in Business as a reification of women who are subjugated by the semiotic signifying modality of the male gaze and the patriarchal binary of helpmeet/whore, you obviously have no idea what this show is about.

    Lest you take that last bit too seriously, bear in mind this is a review that also includes the sentence “This gives me hope for the play I intend to write based on the inspection tagwords in my pants.” Read the rest here.
    And after that, a review of something far more serious musical presentation:

    When Arizona Onstage Productions presents a William Finn show, you should know by now that you're not in for a feel-good musical. Yet neither is it an evening of cynicism and angst. Finn tends to write about extremely ordinary people, just like you and me, who struggle through very real problems of life and death; those who survive emerge battered but, in many ways, stronger. And so does Finn's audience.
    Last weekend, Arizona Onstage Productions opened Finn's Elegies—Looking Up. You might expect this to be the most emotionally distant of Finn's efforts, because it isn't really a show with a plot and a stable cast of characters. Rather, it's a song cycle performed by five singers and a pianist. Yet this is perhaps the most moving example of Finn's work the company has yet produced (in past seasons, it did smashing versions of Falsettoland and A New Brain); although, more explicitly than ever, these songs are about Finn and his circle. Because there's no overall storyline, it's easier to bring these people into our own lives.

    You can find the rest here.