Tag: musicals

Big Birthday Memory #3: TRY TO REMEMBER — THE FANTASTICKS, JERRY ORBACH, THE INTERNET AND ME

Fantasticks album sized

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I’ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today – from August 24, 2006

OK – so I should be used to it by now.  I’ve been — as I often say, a walking demographic Baby Boomer as long as I can remember.  But on this morning after the re-opening of THE FANTASTICKS*  – which ran off-Broadway for 42 years, I read “adults 55+ adapting online.”  Of course they are — sooner or later whatever I’m doing becomes part of a generational wave.

Don’t worry – there IS a connection.

I saw THE FANTASTICKS  with my college room mate and her mother during fall vacation of my freshman year.  That was 1964 – four years after it opened.  At the end, all of 18, I was crying so hard that the woman sitting next to me – probably 25 or so – handed me the rose her date must have given her at dinner.  I kept it on the wall of my room for years.

El Gallo swordEl Gallo — the irresistible seducer  and originator of the “hurt’ without which “the heart is hollow” —  was first played by Jerry Orbach.  [hear him sing Try to Remember here.]  I met him when I was close to 50 – and told him I’d seen the show when I was 18.  His face just changed – not a trace of Lennie Briscoe but a combination of affection, nostalgia and pleasure.  We spoke a bit more and then I apologized for approaching him at a reception and acting like a groupie.  He replied “You saw the Fantasticks when you were EIGHTEEN!  That wasn’t an interruption that was a pleasure.”  So I guess the story had the same impact on the cast that it had on girls like me.  “Please God please,” the young girl (“the girl”) cries out – “don’t let me be NORMAL!”  That was me alright.  Please let me be singular – not like the others!

Well it hasn’t turned out that way.  Whatever I come to, my peers hit within a year or so.  It made me a great talk show producer – never a visionary too far ahead to be relevant, just enough ahead to know what story to do next.  I guess that’s why I accommodated to my role as close enough to normal but with an edge — rather than the downtown woman I had once wished to be.

I know about this headlong Boomer journey online because my older son, in the industry, had read a similar study.  Last weekend I told him that I seemed to be getting a lot more online consulting work and his theory was that companies need boomer consultants more because more “civilian” boomers are finally hitting the web.  I always knew we would; the tribe that is the baby boom loves to be connected.  The web was a perfect home for us.  Just like THE FANTASTICKS.

*OK Feminist friends, there’s an element of sexism in this original fairy tale (they’ve rewritten the only really troubling song) but I have chosen to ignore it.  It just can’t trump the wonder and poetry.

Hey Oscar? You Have Some Explaining to Do!

Images-4SWhen I was a kid on Oscar night, my parents made me go to bed way before the show was over, but my dad always kept a winners list for me on a shirt cardboard so I wouldn't miss anything.  It seemed so important then.  Without the entertainment shows like ET and Access Hollywood, the unedited Oscar acceptance speeches were one of the few times we got to see celebrities revealed.  It was thrilling.

Of course, the mystique – and the Oscar TV audiences — have eroded since then.  It will be interesting to see if tonights "new" Oscars  – which do look better and at least are doing things with a little more wit and humor – make a difference.  I'm watching as I write this – amazed that Jessica Biel, the wayward daughter from the sentimental but sweet Seventh Heaven, got to present alone  – even if it was the tech awards.  Who would have predicted that?

I think I'm out of touch, or I've gotten crotchety in my old age.  Why?  First of all, though I'm a real, loyal Woody Allen fan, I did NOT like Vicky Christina Barcelona. . Penelope Cruz was fine, but not the best.  It's so sad when two nominees (like those in Doubt) are set against one another and split the vote.  I'm assuming that's how Cruz won.  The two women from Doubt - – Amy Adams and and Viola Davis -  especially Davis,  were just astonishing.  Their bad luck to be opposite one another in the same category.

Meanwhile, I'm struggling to figure out how to talk about the presenters in the "best supporting"category.  Goldie Hawn, whom I've always loved, just made me sad.  We're nearly the same age, and she certainly looks better than I do.  BUT tonight she looked so over surgeried, overstuffed into her dress, over everything.  It was like she had been blown up with a bicycle pump – all swollen.  BUT tonight she looked so over surgeried, overstuffed into her dress, over everything.  It was like she had been blown up with a bicycle pump – all swollen.  The toughest thing of all, though, is how many of this year's most honored movies were movies I really didn't like. 

I've written before about Slumdog.  I probably should have known I wouldn't love it; I wanted to see it too much.  It's sweet and explores the poverty and misery in India, but it just didn't do it for me.  Too neat, too pat, And, to me, terribly manipulative.  As I said, Vicky Christina Barcelona was disappointing too, shallow and silly.  I'm also ornery about the show itself.  I actually loved the musical numbers- long or not, even though everybody on Twitter was complaining about them.  Probably showing my age.  
Anyway, the show was way too long but I'm not sure what I would have cut.  I loved the five veterans honoring the nominees too.  Beyond that I'm not sure.  What I am sure of is that at least now I don't have to wait until I wake up in the morning and get the Oscar results from a shirt cardboard on the kitchen table.