Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Watched Gypsy in school last Thursday. A very engaging student production. Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by Arthur Laurents. Mother Rose was hungry for stardom for her daughters. When the older one June eloped, the younger one Louise bore the brunt of maternal attention until she gained fame as a stripper and renamed herself Gypsy Rose Lee. The musical also bore witness to the fall of vaudeville and the rise of burlesque. Then on Sunday, with TB I watched The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess , directed by alumnus Diane Paulus, and adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre Murray from the original folk opera by George Gershwin, DuBose, Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin. Crippled Porgy took Bess in after her man Crown killed someone and had to flee. Crown returned to claim his woman, and Porgy killed him after a struggle. I have not watched the original, but was told by a colleague that the adaptation cut a few of Porgy's arias, and so shifted the attention to...

I enjoyed the play, performed in the Barrymore Theatre, more than I thought I would. When LW watched it, she walked out after the first act because she did not find its portrayal of racial issues in America convincing. She also explained, interestingly, that because she grew up in the South, she has a certain idea of racism. Not having grown up in the States, I have no idea how "true" the play is to racism in America. The perspectives depicted in the play may be unrealistic, overdrawn or cliched to many Americans, but I still find the play thought-provoking. A legal firm, with a white male principal, a black male principal and a black female associate, decides if and how it should defend a white man accused of raping a black woman. Jack Lawson (James Spader) is the tough-minded white lawyer who investigated Susan more extensively than other non-black applicants, before hiring her for being talented and black, although she lied in her application. Henry Brown, played by a fo...