BEACH BLANKET ADO

posted by James Reel

    Last Friday, before I skipped town for the weekend, I forgot to post a notice about this year's Tucson Parks and Recreation Shakespeare Under the Stars production, Much Ado About Nothing. So here's a reminder that this is the final weekend for the show. Last year, I attended Parks & Rec's Taming of the Shew, expecting it to be a very uneven amateur effort, but I was surprised, impressed and delighted by how fine the acting was, top to bottom. I haven't attended Much Ado, and probably won't make it this weekend, but one of my spies, a deep Shakespeare admirer who doesn't put up with badly-done Bard, reports that this is a very entertaining and well-done effort, despite or maybe because of its setting in a Southern California beach town. The final performances are tonight, tomorrow and Sunday (June 29-30 and July 1) at the DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center in Reid Park. In public radio, we have to go through several linguistic convolutions to avoid announcing that something is free, so I won't even bother to try.

VIBRATO AGAIN

posted by James Reel

    Back in February I drew your attention to an essay by David Hurwitz, of Classics Today, demolishing the HIP argument that vibrato was largely absent from orchestral playing before World War II. I approved of most of Hurwitz’s contentions, but wondered why he drew most of his conclusions from markings in scores—which are open to a high degree of interpretation—instead of bolstering his points with reference to pre-War recordings. Well, Hurwitz now has issued Part 2 of what is looking like a nascent book on vibrato, and he does now examine several recordings.
    If you were intimidated by the large number of examples of printed music in the first installment, give this new chapter a try. There are far fewer score excepts, and Hurwitz repeats and extends his arguments, so you won’t be missing much if you skipped Part 1. The thing does stretch over 75 or so pages, though. I had copied several excerpts to post here, hoping that might inspire you to read the full essay, but the juicy bits I chose look, out of context, more like sheer provocation than elements of a reasoned argument. So set aside an hour or so and dive into a smart and thoroughly researched examination of an issue that’s a lot more interesting than you might expect.

THEY'VE GOT A SECRET

posted by James Reel

    In the latest Tucson Weekly, I condescend to approve of the latest romp at Gaslight Theatre:

    Before Austin Powers, before Johnny English, before Top Secret!, and just before Our Man Flint, there was Bond, James Bond, the spy who launched a thousand spoofs. And why not? The early Bond movies (as opposed to the original novels) weren't outright takeoffs, but they had an insouciance, a nudge and a wink that let us know we needn't take the girls, the gadgets and the supervillains too terribly seriously. So why shouldn't others join the spy game and push the silliness a bit further?
    Well, the silliness has been pushed right over the edge in the Gaslight Theatre's latest show, Secret Agent Man, or Gangsters Away! Let's just say that writer-director Peter Van Slyke's priority is not to, as they say in the espionage biz, gather intelligence. Applying much brain power to this show, or even trying to connect the plot points, would spoil the fun.