2 out of 5

Yesterday was Day 1 of a 5 Show week.  I'm a big fan of lots of theater, but this week is sort of out of hand. However, there are worse things to have an overabundance of than theater, so I'm definitely not complaining.

Last night, was Falsettos on the big screen.  Now I know I've talked a lot about it, but it was and still is amazing.  The show totally held up on the screen.  I'll always think that Live is best when it comes to great performances, but seeing a filmed version of this particular show did provide some insight.  I was able to see things I wasn't able to see in the theater, like tiny facial expressions, or line readings that made more sense when accompanied by a gesture or a smirk.  It really was quite beautiful!

I only had 2 complaints.  One was the change to a lot of the words.  Since it was being filmed ultimately for PBS, they had to change many of the harsher words.  Sometimes the changes were seamless, other times they were super clunky.  That had to be a bear for the actors to memorize!  My second complaint was the lack of an intermission.  Every other time that I've seen a taped performance, they actually build the 15 minute break in.  This time they went straight from act 1 to act 2.  Anticipating the intermission, I had smuggled in a hot tea from Starbucks and drank it all in the first act.  I was quite upset by the lack of a built in potty break.  Other than those 2 minor issues, the show was flawless!

Tonight, on the other hand was less than flawless.  Tonight was a production of Godspell - one of my all time favorites - performed by the Maryland based Infinity Theater company.  They made a bold choice to stage the entire show in the style of SNL  This meant that the actors were all disciples doubling as well-known characters from SNL over the years.  At one point, John the Baptist was the Church Lady, 2 disciples were the Blues Brothers while another was the musical guest, which I think was supposed to be Amy Winehouse.  Jesus, obviously, was the host this week.

It was incredibly bizarre.  It was so strange, that even after seeing this show dozens of times, I had a hard time following what the heck was happening.  This may have had something to do with the extra hour of content they somehow added to make the usually 90 minute show, jump to 2 hours and 30 minutes.  The funniest part was that my friend who had never seen the show before, loved it.  She thought it was fabulous, and she's usually much more skeptical about the weird than I am.  Go figure.  It was definitely not my cup of tea.  Thank goodness that the 3rd show of my 5 show week is yet another production of Godspell, hopefully done by a company that stays a bit more true to its roots.

If not I see a viewing of the Victor Garber version in my future, if only to get tonight's production out of my head.