This has been another summer of big changes for me. Once again, I've completed a major relocation. It is back to the west coast after a one year stay in Pittsburgh. I can't say Pittsburgh was a good match for me. The job I left Maui for didn't turn out to be anything at all like I expected and I am sure that in itself has colored my impressions of the city. However, living in Pittsburgh did afford me the opportunity to catch Patrick Stewart perform Macbeth in Brooklyn as well as see Emmanuel Ax perform with the Pittsburgh Symphony at Heinz Hall. I met some nice people, made a few friends, but overall, I'd characterize my time in Pittsburgh as disappointing. Sometimes you just know when a city/place isn't right for you.
Rather than fly out west, we drove across the country in the Miata. What a fun drive! The weather was awesome, we got to listen to some great music and best of all, got to unwind a bit. It also gave me some time to think, about what I've done, what I'd like to do etc. I've posted a few pictures like the one below to my flickr account.
One thing that is staying, is this site, at least for the foreseeable future. Our decision to move came shortly after giving this site a new look in March and as anyone who has ever moved before knows, moving has a way of discombobulating even the best laid plans. Blogathon 2008 became the Day of Blogs and this year I participated as part of team Starbase Karma raising money for the US Campaign for Burma. It is events like these that give me a new resolve to continue blogging, or at the very least, set a goal to blog more often. I think the content/subject matter will remain about the same, although I will probably sprinkle in some more posts about music.
During my absence from blogging, some cool things have been happening for Patrick Stewart. I was very happy to see him nominated for a Tony award for Macbeth, but disappointed he didn't win. I didn't catch any of the awards show hosted by Whoopi Goldberg as we were already starting our drive at that point, so I'm not sure if he was on hand or not. Since then, he's moved on to playing Claudius and the ghost of Hamlet's father, in the RSC production of Hamlet. I'm glad to see the production is getting decent reviews. There is also an excellent interview with Patrick Stewart in the Birmingham Post. I think i'd finally gotten used to the mustache he grew for Macbeth, but he definitely rocks the clean shaven look with suit/tux.
Patrick Stewart in RSC production of Hamlet
Now Playing: Stand By Me from the album "The John Lennon Collection" by John Lennon
Tonight marked the start of Macbeth on Broadway and a Newsweek reporter tried to put down Star Trek fans in a Q&A with Patrick Stewart, but he wasn't taking the bait. I've never had a high opinion of Newsweek but these questions were lame even for them. At least there was a nice picture accompanying it.
For a better idea about the production, check out the New York Times review, or the announcement in Playbill. This is truly a spectacular performance, by the entire cast, and well worth seeing. For what it is worth, when I attended the performance while it was at the BAM, there was not a single audience member dressed in Trek attire. I wonder if the actors involved in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings will be forever asked aren't the HP or LOTR fans weird?
On another note, I've given this site a bit of a new look. I wanted to use the new features of MT4 and switch to a 3 column layout. I also wanted to clean up the navigation a bit. The image galleries, videos and icons are still all here, and hopefully easier to locate.
I attended the Feb 23rd evening performance of Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood and I've been procrastinating posting a review. I'm not sure what value I can add to the numerous professional reviews that have already been posted and read by many, but since quite a few of the posts of this blog involve Patrick Stewart I felt I owed it to my readers to share something of my experience. After tossing a few ideas about in my head I decided that what I could post about was MY experience at the play and the Q&A that I attended the following day.
Getting to the play was an adventure in itself and we very nearly didn't make it. This was the weekend with all the snow/sleet and messy winter weather that closed airports and cancelled flights. When we arrived in Detroit on Friday, Feb 22, our flight to New York had been cancelled. The airline informed us there were no flights available until Monday. Since this would have meant missing the play and the Q&A we were faced with two options, fly back home and find another way to get to New York, or scrap the trip to New York and just go somewhere else for the weekend. We went with the first option and flew back home. I wasn't keen on driving in bad weather, so we waited and left Saturday morning, leaving us with about 10 hours to get there. The drive took us about 7 hours and went pretty smoothly. After arriving in New York things went a whole lot smoother.
The Harvey Theater, part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was smaller than what I expected. According to the website, it seats 874. Our seats were seven rows back, off to the left (if you are facing the stage) and just about in front of the sink, where many interesting things happened. When I was fortunate enough to catch Patrick Stewart's one man version of A Christmas Carol at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1994, a theater which according to its website seats 492, I recall being about 13 rows back and yet somehow I seemed much, much closer to the stage at the Harvey Theater, even though there were only 6 rows difference in seats. Perhaps it is because the stage at the Harvey Theater is not raised and that the first row of seats literally rings the stage. Whatever the reason, when one of the actors looked in my direction, it felt like they were actually looking at me, not just at some point over my head. I could clearly see their eyes, facial expressions, props and a lot of little details. There were times in the play where the actors would enter/exit from the audience and there was one particular segment where one of the actors was shining a flashlight at random audience members and incorporating them into the scene. All these little details, pulled the audience in and at least from my perspective made it almost feel like I was part of it, rather than just a spectator. There has been so much written already about the technical details of the play, the use of video screens, the music, the freight elevator, there really isn't much I can add. I will say, however, that it all worked very well. I was a bit skeptical when I'd heard that there were going to be video screens and automatic rifles and other modern elements. But the director's modernizations fit in so well, it did not seem the least bit gimmicky.
I'm going to upgrade to Movable Type 4 on Saturday. The image galleries should still be available but the blog will be down for a hopefully short time starting around 9 am Eastern.
Born to Be a Dancer from the album "Employment" by Kaiser Chiefs