Italics are mine

Diane Paulus's "Finding Neverland" is pure genius

I just saw Finding Neverland at A.R.T. (I haven't been to A.R.T. for a while and I wanted to see something there and since I ended up catching The Glass Menagerie and All the Way on Broadway, I figured it wouldn't hurt to be part of the "in" crowd for once and watch Finding Neverland before it transfers. Because the show has had some viciously negative reviews, I also wanted to judge for myself.)

Let me say this as a Shakespeare fan who does not care about Peter Pan one bit: "Finding Neverland" is pure genius. It is not syrupy, contrary to what some have written. It is not a children-oriented show that adults will get bored at. The show I was at - an evening performance - was attended primarily by adults and many loved it, once they got used to the zany flavor of the show. Because, ladies and gentlemen, this show is zany to the extreme. The program notes explain that: "Peter Pan was incredibly radical when first staged at the Duke of York's in 1904... Our director Diane Paulus was keen from the start to reflect that spirit of creative freedom and radicalism here in 2014. Despite its period setting, we juxtapose within it the deliberately modern British pop music of Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy, and the liberatingly contemporary choreography of Mia Michaels. This is what the world looks and sounds like to Barrie."

Now, the beginning (the first two songs, but especially the first one, which is also the opening sequence) is extraordinarily bad. Why that song was not canned before the show opened is beyond me. At the very least, there should be a sequence before it where we can connect with J.M. Barrie feeling like a failure, and the dance accompanying the song itself should be a little more than people with clocks on their head doing tiny movements like robots staying on the same spot. You want to warn people the show is not the cutesy Disney show some might expect. Once I watched this, I was ready to agree with the critics who have written niceties about the show such as "dead in the water" and "if you're going to review the baby in the cradle, strangle it." But if you make it past the first half of the first half (or the first quarter of the show, if you know your math), the musical becomes really good. 

I've got to say I COULD NOT STAND THE FAKE DOG who is played by an actor who spends his time frolicking on stage with his tongue out. I found it hugely distracting and that actor made me cringe every time he stepped foot on stage. It'd be MUCH, MUCH BETTER if he could have some sort of choreography for his role so that he wouldn't have to bound around all the time in his dog costume. For the love of God, if anyone involved with the musical reads this, have some mercy and change the part of the dog. Make some modern dance for the dog. Please please pretty please don't let the "role" the way it is now. The awfulness of it can't be put in words. 

Small comments: (1) it is weird that the first song is about time going by but later the large clock on the back of the set always shows midnight. (2) At times the sound was WAY too loud for the auditorium, especially in the scene with Captain Hook with all the smoke, and later when the members of the acting troupe bang their mugs against the tables of the tavern. My ears felt weird for about one hour after the show, and I'm not someone with any hearing problems. 

My favorite songs were "All that matters" and "Play". I particularly liked that Peter Pan and Wendy fly into the air the old-fashioned way: with dancers lifting them up, instead of having some fancy cables carrying them in the air. I also appreciated that the four Davies boys got a whole song of their own to sing, and the Peter boy also got a song with J.M. Barrie, played by a very talented (acting-wise and vocal-wise) Jeremy Jordan. The boys are rather young and I feel not every director would have dared letting them sing all alone on stage. But they rise to the challenge with impressive brio. The scene with the pirate ship that ends the first half was stunning. The re-creation of the play on the night of the premiere in the Davies house was perfect too. The second half felt basically flawless (except that it carried over some of the flaws of the first half, read: THAT AWFUL DOG). Some one-liners were really funny. The scenes with Peter Pan were magical, especially the last scene with Sylvia.

Diane Paulus managed to create a very engaging show sure to appeal not only to children but also to many teenagers and adults. It has just the right dose of subversive in it to make it a delight to watch when you are a grown-up, and the right amount of magic to make it a delight to watch when you are not. I'd tell you to go and see it while you can, but I heard the seats with normal (not limited) visibility are now sold out for the whole run. Catch it when it transfers to Broadway in the spring, then. 

Go and see "Newsies"

I saw "Newsies" at the Nederlander back in early August and I wanted to post this a while back but I've had serious problems with my Internet (euphemism), and given the length of my typical post, writing all this on a smartphone isn't my favorite way to blog. Anyway, now "Newsies" is ending its Broadway run tomorrow after 2 1/2 years (they weren't even supposed to go to Broadway to begin with... then they were supposed to last only 12 weeks... and look what happened), and if you're reading this because you're wondering whether to go, either to the Broadway show or the national tour that will start in October, my answer is a resounding YES.

I'm not typically a Disney fan (too bland for me), but in this case, the combination of feel-good story lines, excellent singing and - what really made me love the show - superb, technical dancing makes "Newsies" a triumph. The show is very demanding physically because of the acrobatic dancing that is involved, and having danced in my younger years, I remain very enthusiastic for all things dance-related. I don't go to many Broadway musicals, and I only decided to go see "Newsies" because I'd heard it was closing and it had gotten the 2012 Tony for Best Choreography - am I glad I did! Every number is a show-stopper. The prowess of those teenagers (the cast consists mostly of teenage boys who perform bravura dance moves and acrobatics for two hours in a beautifully design set) left me speechless. 

While I was watching the show, I was reminded of a moment in Chorus Line, where one of the characters says (I paraphrase) that she knows she won't be able to dance forever and soon maybe she'll have to take a job she doesn't like but the opportunity to do what she loved for a short while was worth it. The acrobatics in "Newsies" are not for older dances, and it came as no surprise to hear that four of the dancers had been finished high school at the same time as the Broadway run, so they had a graduation ceremony on stage - you can find the moment on YouTube. Most of us are trained for careers. Actors or painters can look forward to practicing their craft until old age. The exceptions are dancers and singers. And yet, although we all know "Newsies" will only be a fleeting moment in the life of those very talented teenagers, the joy of the kids giving their performance overshadows the fact that the moment won't last. Whatever happens next, and whatever the (very real and sobering) challenges of finding a place in the workforce when you have trained for years for a career that is comparatively very short, they are doing what they love and they are amazingly good at it.

I'm glad they did the round of the morning talk shows so that some of the show's best numbers are captured on YouTube for posterity. Here is my favorite one, from the DisneyOnBroadway channel. It's called "Seize the Day". (It's followed by "Santa Fe".) I'll definitely try to see the show again. Maybe I can get a ticket for the Broadway tour if it stops in a city I can go to easily. And if it stops in your city, you should consider getting a ticket too!

Louise Erdrich's "The Round House"

 I picked up Louise Erdrich's "The Round House" at the airport in Seattle in June before heading back east (home), and while I hadn't paid much attention to the National Book Award winner before, let me tell you this is one of the best novels I've read in years. The main character, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a reservation with his parents in the 1980s, struggles with the assault that has profoundly traumatized his mother and tries to find the suspect. Pop quiz! Why do you think I like this book? I'll leave you a few seconds to think about it... five four three two one... the Native American theme! (This is one of the main reasons, as I've stated elsewhere, that I love New Mexico and the Southwest in general, although in this case the reservation is in North Dakota.) Admittedly, the main characters don't change much throughout the book, although the kid does make a dramatic decision that will affect his life forever, and at the very end of the book he has to grow up very fast - his childhood, in a way, is lost for good.

The characters are a bit two-dimensional: the good characters are very good - even when they are imperfect, like Whitey or Sonia, they have a good heart - and the flawed ones are very flawed. Yet I loved the book, in particular the voice (it is written from the teenage boy's point of view) and also the depictions of the life on the reservation and of the Native American protagonists. Erdrich excels in making the characters seem real. She is also a master storyteller, who drops the right amount of hints along the way and sets the reader along enough dead ends that the ending isn't telegraphed. Further, she creates the right amount of emotion, especially regarding the story of friendship between the main character and his buddy Cappy (they've got each other's back). It's clearly one of those books that determinedly straddle the line between commercial and literary fiction and aim at best-seller status from the start, but it's less commercial than Peter Heller's The Painter (which I loved too and reviewed here.) When I reached the last page I didn't want the book to end. Five stars out of five, easily.

Watch this! Debbie Millman on "Life Design"

I love, love, love this YouTube interview between designer Debbie Millman (host of the "Design Matters" podcast) and "Good Life Project" host Jonathan Fields, which was posted by Fields on his YouTube channel in April.

So many themes resonated with me, it's hard to know what to mention, but a good starting point is the fact that we were both raised in blue-collar families where you went for sufficiency (meaning choosing the safe career paths rather than artistic pursuits), because you needed to be able to provide for yourself, and you had no real clue what you were good at in the wide world. I also noticed how she points out her life was divided in 10-year tranches, which reminded me of Howard Gardner's thesis in Creating Minds that creative types make their contributions in 10-year intervals as well (he argues that it takes about 10 years to master a new field; in Millman's case, the 10 years refer to phases in her life, and it turns out I may also obey the 10-year rule at some level).

Millman also comments on a key difference between successful artists and entrepreneurs that had never occurred to me, namely, that artists may be considered successful without making money because of their novel ideas, but success in business and entrepreneurship is defined by the ability to make money from a chosen endeavor, which might explain some of the very different attitudes between (successful) artists and entrepreneurs. She also raises good points on our society's emphasis of fame as a measure of success, and the need to be successful quickly, which puts a lot of pressure on young adults.

My favorite segment of the whole interview starts at 42:34. (Second favorite is the segment right before that when she describes the course she took with design icon Milton Glaser.) I'm exactly like her, taking on new things without officially giving up old ones and a big proponent of "busy as a decision". Here is the quote that hit the bull's eye for me: "you decide what you want to do... and you don't find the time to do things, you make the time to do things, and if you aren't doing them because you're too busy, it's likely it's not as much a priority as is what it is you're currently doing... you have to own it."

I can't even begin to count the number of people who have asked me how I find the time to write the blog and the books, and I always give them a blank stare and say something along the lines that I make the time because it makes me happy, and people just don't get that - that you can make time instead of finding time, and that if I'm late doing things, maybe it'll be because I've had other same-priority items in the pipeline before reaching that item, but maybe also it's because (gasp!) I prefer to use my time for other things that are more important to me.

Millman also talks about her fear of letting go of the secure for the unknown, how she's struggled with taking clean breaks, how there is always a moment where you have to "jump" and take a chance for the new endeavor to reach its potential. In the host's experience, people who change courses in life past their 20s (to go from something heartless to wholehearted, in his words) don't usually take a clean break the way they'd do if they were right out of college, but instead try to keep both things going for as long as they can until they have to let go of one of them. Story of my life... The only down note was the parting message at the very end - the nuggets of wisdom - that I felt weren't consistent with the rest of the talk and a bit weak, but the interview is a gem otherwise.

I was amazed by how articulate Millman was, and of course she looks fantastic at 50-something! I definitely want to read her books now. And make sure to check out other Good Life Project videos on Fields's YouTube channel!

"Walk the line"

Random plug for my favorite movie, "Walk the Line", about the life of country singer Johnny Cash, which I recently watched again instead of packing. I must have watched the DVD five times by now, but it's been a few years since the last time I saw it, and frankly even if it'd only been weeks, I would still have enjoyed every single scene of the movie (except the one where his elder brother Jack dies, which I find very hard to watch, although very powerful).

Isn't it stunning to realize how many top artists have become who they are due to incredible hardship early in life? I can't say it comes as a surprise, though: if you have never been thrust into the role of an outsider, from which you see the world in new ways, you have little opportunity or reason to develop an original take on society. If you can't see the world in new ways (and you won't if you're part of the "in" crowd), you're just better off doing your hair or reading fashion magazines. I do think a lot of people are aware of that, but perhaps not as many as we'd like. In a way, the proliferation of low-quality books also follows from some of their authors' inability to recognize they're not bringing anything new to the table and the story they've written about has been told before, in a better way to boot.

My favorite character in the movie is June Carter. She is incredibly modern for the times but remains principled, grounded and family-oriented throughout, and after some rocky years with Cash (before they really started their relationship) she is the one who helps him get clean and stands by him for decades after their wedding in 1968. (They died within four months of each other in 2003.) 

In the same vein, another movie I think I'd like but have in fact never seen would be Ray, about jazz musician Ray Charles. It was released in the fall of 2004 when I had just started working and had other things to do than going to the movies. (I didn't see Walk the Line in theaters either - it was released only a few months after Ray and I discovered it in DVD.) Again, long odds of success, traumatizing death of a sibling, families of modest means, drug use and ultimate redemption.

People say Charles wrote his best songs before he quit using, though, which makes his story more complicated than Johnny Cash's. But in both cases, a tragedy experienced in their youth transformed them and ultimately allowed them to leave an incredible body of work to posterity. As for Cash, it took some time (and it took Carter two failed marriages) but he finally found love and peace and all that, with another creative super-star of the music world who was every bit his equal.