Theatre Review: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Just a capsule-review for now. melted_snowball and I saw this on Thursday night.

The production: awesome. Every one of the four actors was believable in their role, and they seemed to have appropriate chemistry (or anti-chemistry, as the case often was). Every bit of the production seemed spot-on to me.

The show itself: painful, in content and presentation. This might be the most sadistic play I've seen. Over three hours plus.. oof. I found myself wondering what was the force that kept George and Martha together? Some co-dependent sort of love? Inertia? Inertia seemed to be the main force that kept the two guests from leaving; inertia, playing with greed (Nick, greed for influence at the college and for Martha; Honey, greed for the brandy).

Since the show is one of the masterpieces of the 20th century, I will think about renting the movie version, though I am not certain I need to see it again. I'll say it this way: if I don't ever see this show ever again, I feel totally comfortable letting this production of it, be the one I've seen, it was that well done.

Film Review: C.R.A.Z.Y

C.R.A.Z.Y. is a coming-of-age and coming-out story set in the 60s through the very early 80s; Zac is the fourth of five sons, born in an unnamed Québec town on Christmas morning, 1960. It's clear he's different from the beginning and his mother believes "Madame Whats-her-name", the neighbourhood mystic, that he's bound for special things. His dad is afraid his son is a sissy. The movie plays out the next 20 years.

When it was over, I told melted_snowball that if they were going to add the magical realism touches, they should've gone further- like Ma Vie en Rose. Now, I don't think so- it had just the right touches: Zac's imagination and his mom's faith do well to set part of the tone. At the same time he's lost in music and his imagination, the movie is driven by Zac trying to be what his dad wants him to be, lying to himself in the process, and finally coming to some form of truth. I felt the coming-out story was slightly hackneyed, but that's probably a result of seeing more than a few of such movies. But this is definitely one near the top of that collection, as well as being a great look at life in the 60s and 70s. (Those clothes! That hair!)

In Québécois French with English subtitles. imdb's page says when it played in France, they provided subtitles to Parisian French, and I can totally believe it. Québécois French is... difficult. ;)

Photos: Chicago.

I've posted photos from my Chicago trip. They're indexed here (25 total). There are various themes, from good architecture, to bad design, to public art. Here's a sample of the latter: