Carousel

I went to see "Carousel" at Arena Stage Friday. It included a number of actors I've seen in other local productions, so it was a gimme for me, even if I knew that musicals of a certain age tend to include problematic things.  Which is to say, while I had listened to the music some in preparation, I had decided to go in blind on plot and well, yeah.  

Let's summarize first.  "Carousel" is the story of Carousel barker Billy who loses his job for flirting too much and ends up married to one of the flirtees (who also loses her job for engaging in behavior unbecoming of a factory girl).  His sadness over being unemployed leads to drinking and spousal abuse, but when he discovers his wife is pregnant, he engages in a ridiculous scheme to get more money and ends up dead and in purgatory.  He is offered the chance to attempt to up his heavenly entry points by going back to help his daughter who is now a teen with a bit of a temper problem.  it also includes a number of well known songs such as "June is Busting Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". 

So, having consulted post-show with a friend who was quite familiar with it, and also taken a peak at the summary here, it is clear to me that this version attempted to address some of the elements that in the original made spousal abuse seem adorable.  Yes, Julie still stays with Billy, but everyone else tells her that she shouldn't.  Domestic violence is a complex issue, and it's not impossible to address in a musical, but in this case it was clearly meant as a layer of Billy's character, not anything the show was going to spend real time exploring for Julie. Billy has to make amends but not to Julie, just to someone.  So it's essentially treated as a character flaw where the victims are unimportant other than it is preventing him from progressing on to heaven. 

The performances were great, and the orchestra was suspended over the stage in what looked like the top of the carousel.  Since it takes place in Maine there were what to my ears sounded like a good Down East accent.  

Project Runway: The Final Four

The final challenge is always so exhausting for everyone.  The designers are right at the point they can taste the end - although the end hopefully means six more weeks or whatever silly time frame they have of work.  Okay fine, honestly all five of these designers are going home to create a collection, but one of them may be a decoy.  Anyway, so, because they weren't tired at all, they whisked the designers to Austin where we met Nick Verreos who is there to tell the designers about the hotel.  Then they get swept to two locations for their unconventional shopping. I would hope that they got more than that nice meal in Austin because for a challenge that was supposed to combine high fashion and Austin's weird aesthetic, it didn't look like they got much time in Austin. 

But anyway, they made things, they got a surprise additional outfit (that I suspect was because no one was fighting so they were trying to amp up the tension, but this is just me spitballing here). No one had two bad outfits, and really it was just down to who do you want to see more of.  So Cornelius was sent home again. And we get to see what Laurence, Roberi, Rik, and Erin move forward.  I have to say, other than Laurence, none of this would have been my early challenge picks, and yet this feels about right.  So looking forward to my favorite part, the Tim home visits. 

Three Interesting Things

1. I had missed this story the first time around, but Jennifer Lawrence's use of this story as a hilarious set story when doing promo for an entirely different film is as disconcerting as the fact that her earlier versions were very much more I did a bad thing, instead of the current oops, I ruined ancient sacred rocks.  Lol!

2. Maureen Ryan asked that TV creators keep fighting for more diversity. 

3. US raises pandas, sends them "back" to China unable to understand Chinese and addicted to American crackers is probably not a metaphor for anything, but there are panda pictures. 

Irony Aging Badly

I have a number of ironic t-shirts.  I even have one that says "I <3 irony" which is less ironic and a little more straight up.  In the past few years, this past year in particular, things that used to seem funny or at least a bit arch have become less so.  

One of my shirts that is no longer funny said, "The fake news is all I need." I've been a fan of the comedic news, starting with "The Daily Show" and now that we have even more offerings.  (I am aware that "Saturday Night Live"s Weekend Update also does this, it's just not a thing I ever watched regularly.)  I've talked before about both the shirt and the study that showed that what we used to call fake news was actually substantive.  As one friend put it, the jokes wouldn't be funny if you didn't know what they were laughing about.  

But of course, as more and more people move away from more traditional news, the idea of fake news has moved from news provided with laughs, to news that is actually not correct, or more insidiously, news that is intended to cause harm.  I have also talked before about being your own curator as the internet provides increasing access to information.  

I talked Thanksgiving with someone who said that just as during the Obama administration we found many people turning to conservative sites sometimes of dubious truthiness, that during the Trump administration their concern was that liberals might find much of the same. I bring this up to say recent events at a DC pizza place are not about how one person decided showing up with a gun and shooting at things (thankfully just things and not people) was the best route to the truth not because one extreme person is a representative sample of any particular viewpoint, but more to say that if or as each of us feel that the mainstream news isn't serving us, it's something we all have to be vigilant about in seeking out other sources, in examining our own biases that let some stories seem more or less true, and in making sure that we seek out reliable information. Just as reading TV reviews is often more helpful if you have knowledge of a critic's general taste and style, the same is true of news. Knowing both your own biases, and those of your news curators makes you a better consumer. 

Three Interesting Things

1. You know when people tell you such and such mashup is the thing you needed, and you're like, I dunno, do we need a mashup of "Hamilton" and Beyonce?  We might.  We just might. 

2. And it turns out some sea lions are particular about grammar. 

3. Some native Americans have been reviving food and farming traditions.