WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE BOB AND REUEL? ... AND WHO ARE THIS BOB AND REUEL ANYWAY

2015 THEATRE/FILM/MUSIC

the local

TV Room in our "old" digs

JAN 2 BECOMING CALIFORNIA. TV Documentary. It's a 2 hour jog but a fascinating beautifully filmed historical view of how California got to be geologically the way it is. Narrated by Jane Fonda who reads well. Scary is California's changing hydrology. We're depleting our water supply. We're in trouble. "We're in the anthropocene, the age of humans, and we are destroying our planet. We take land and sea away from habitat." Says one of the professors cited. "What made a world class economy is now a nightmare."   Yikes.

Humans entered Ca 13,000 years ago. Great ethnic mix. With the  Spanish invasion, the landscape changed because of an invasion of Mediteranean plants. The gold rush was instant free enterprise. Get rich quick idea on everybody's mind. Fisheries caught all the fish by late 19th c. Agribusiness from the start. Today we produce nations 1/2 fruit and veggies. Southern cal Oil rush 60-70 years after gold rush. By 1940 superhighway. Urban sprawl, traffic jam.

(Bob conscious that I'm dieting as of today serves meatloaf "brought from PalmSprings"and quinoa and salad. Tiny martini and wine. Lunch was a salad.) Missing strategy to preventing loss of earths biodiversity is reconciliation ecology. Meeting nature. Half way.

Surprise, San Diego is critical to the existence of species, preserves lands with human stewards.

"Pretty good. A little discursive."

OLIVE KITTRIDGE. TV miniseries.

Grim but oh so good. Frances McDormand after all. Small town Maine. Husband (wonderful Richard Jenkins) pharmacist. She's a teacher. Everybody's repressed and depressed. It's riveting.

JAN 2. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GERSHWIN AWARDS. BILLY JOEL.

On PBS. He's being honored but it's a great excuse for significant entertainment. Those wonderful tunes. Entertainers like Billy Melancamp. Twyla Tharp with her amazing dancers from Moving Out, the tribute to Joel's music and its narratives, which we saw on Broadway years ago. Tony Bennett. Unlike Kennedy Honors where he was an awardee in 2013 he performed himself here, a long and satisfying set. And he sounds just like Billy Joel, that brash guy of the streets sound, very much like Barry Manilow's, terrific.

JAN 3. LA BARE. Netflix. We see this documentary produced by Joe Manciello one of the stars of Mike, essentially paralleling that fictional movie about male stripping. Not bad at all. Of course there's the beefcake but the film offers an insight into the lives, mainly professional, of the strippers and the performance aspects of their mercenary art (would have made s great dissertation topic--oh well missed opportunities and I don't think the genre, that is shows featuring straight men dancing for women, existed in my scholarly days.

Nice foray into amateur competitions for slots in the show and the aging lead dancer and mentor to the other men who with his proud mother have a thriving side business in private strip events.  Film gets a little bogged down in the sentimental weeds about  the murder of their "greatest of the dancers" colleague. But give it a B.

OLIVE.. Parts 3 & 4 and the finale of the mini-series.

SUNDAY JAN 4. THE POLITICIAN'S WIFE. (Netflix) British mini-series about married politicians playing high stakes games. With superlative Emily Watson and David Tennant as the "golden couple" warring for political position. All is in the steadiest hands, that terrific BBC direction and script.

FRI JAN 9. THE IMITATION GAME. At HILLCREST CINEMAS.

we're determined to see at least some Oscar contenders and this surely will be one.  With Benedict Cumberbach as Alan Turing, the British genius who cracked the enigma code and essentially won the war against the Nazis by so doing. It's directed with a sure hand and Cumberbach and supporting actors are terrific, especially Charles Dance as head of intelligence. Emphasizes not at all U subtly that Turing's lack of normalcy finally saved the day even though it exacts a price from him; he's shunned for his Aspergers-like eccentricities and finally made to take hormones for his sin of homosexuality. There's clearly a lot of made up stuff in  the interest of creating rooting interest, but it's an affecting and fine film.

SUN JAN 11. CAROLANDS HOUSE. KPBS.

A documentary about the history of the grandest of the grand houses (built as a 98 room FRENCH Chateau, in Hillsboro, CA ) and its heiress builder Harriet Pullman (yes that one) Caroland. Fascinating. Not finished for Panama Pacific Exposition. Caused end of her marriage. She couldn't afford to keep it up. Takes history of house to present. Daughter of buyer sees house after 50 years. Saved from the wrecking ball in 1950 by an American heiress "countess". At 93 didn't leave  enough to maintain it. Fell into decay. Porno filmed there. Teenage girls murdered there. Became "a place of darkness" for town of Hillboro. Suffered in 1989 earthquake. 1991 decorator showcase there. The Charles and Dr. Ann Johnsons were there, bought it in 1998 and restored it with Mario Buatta as decorator. (You see him handling Ann Johnson.) They endowed it as a museum in 2013.

    GOLDEN GLOBES. E TV.

God the red carpet telecast starts at 1 pm even though the show starts at 5,. I apologize to Bob making our lunch (last night's casserole yum) that I'm really enjoying all the fashionista talk (especially from the oh so gay experts  Brad Goretsky and Ross Matthews ). "I'd like to take a ride on the back of his motorcycle." "Hold on tight." "Oh I will." I can't imagine that there would have been anything remotely like this when we were growing up. There's Kelly Osborne too. They're gelling together marvelously. Then Bob, not so reluctantly, gets with the program as it were. "We're watching real popular culture." And we're digging the triviality of it all. It helps that I I break my diet "just today" with a shared bottle red wine. The world is  going up in flames (see terrorism in France) but we have this. It's three afternoon waste time and the stars start coming in and telling us "who" they are "wearing". Need To Know! Bitch. "Nice to see you! (See you later.)"

     There's one celeb couple been together since 2006. "What is the secret of your longevity," asks the host. Bob and I exchange glances and laugh. (41 years of doing that.) What's the secret of our relationship, I ask. "Ignoring each other," is the response.

     Switch channels to NBC which is carrying the show.

     Of the show, Fey and Poehler are wonderfully funny ribbing the nominees and having an appreciated cringeworthy elongated go at Bill Cosby.

     At commercials there's a baby voice background vocalist and I say that this represents a growing exultation of youth as in female vocal sounds approach infancy whereas years ago in the earlier eras of the 20th century a mature sound was the ideal. )We're getting old In the wrong time and we're not even women.) bob says there's a dissertation there in Performance Studies. I say I was hoping it would be in physics. (Take physics pomp!)

       At one point Bob says you realize we have been sitting in front of the television for five hours. I say "and it's been totally satisfying". He says thank god it's been raining out. (As if that would have made a difference.)

    Kevin spacey wins and says "I wish I cold have been better." Best.

    Boyhood wins probably deserved for perseverance.

     A too funny MargaretCho at end as beloved leader Ung "show over. I host next year."

      After all that alcohol we need only a few pieces of cheese and we're ready for the after party. Will this thing never end? Ready to call it a day. A good one.

JAN 22. BIRDMAN. We're obligated to see this serious contender for the oscars, and with free coupons in hand we do. Repetitive (how many times is it necessary to say Michael Keaton's Birdman character he played in the movies represents a cult of celebrity that he seeks to overcome in ordered gain respect); it is unsubtle (ditto) yet this is a unique and audacious film. The director, Inaurato, presents his take on a has- been action hero actor who is directing and starring in his own theatrical adaptation of a Raymond Carver novel, with a kind of whirlwind single take (a la that Brilliant Hermitage documentary of a few years past) technique and elicits uncanny, ferociously passionate performances from his actors, in particular Keaton as the tormented Birdman, big-eyed Emma Stone as his sassy ex-druggy conflicted daughter, and Edward Norton ho is unequalled at playing cads, as Keaton's antagonist, an actor in birdman's play. Its driving unevenness, its riskiness, is a big part of its brilliance.

FEB 2. MARRIAGE OF FIGARO on KPBS. Love the subtitles. Met production. I remember Roberta Peters as Cerubino--this one, in 1930's white suit looks much more like a boy or a baby dyke. Those wonderful oft familiar melodies. And the cross dressing confusion amounting to fairly blatant lesbianism.

& MURDER FOR TWO @ THE OLD GLOBE.

With Joe Kinosian book and music and Ian Lowe. Book and Lyrics Kellen Blair. Marvelous. As some review when it first opened in New York said, something like unbelievably talented. The creator plays all of the suspects brilliantly for the manic Detective trying to determine who done it in order to win his badge,  both of whom accompany themselves brilliantly on the piano. I was reminded of my own murder mystery musical, Who's The Killa At The Villa? It too had that silliness quotient and with some intensive workshoping coulda shoulda woulda been a contenda.

QED FEB 4. THE DARRELL HAMMOND PROJECT. Long-lived Sat. Night Live alum Hammond stage creates his book about his mental illness, how his multiple personalities, the voices he could do made him a celebrity but were somehow--final revelation--the result of maladjustment from bad parents. Ain't it always the case. Clearly he's immensely talented, but he was occasionally grasping for lines and had a terrible cold. As Bob said "he's probably feeling like shit." 

SAT. FEB 7. STILL ALICE @ Hillcrest Landmark Theatres." Touching. A little repetitious. Though she'll win the Oscar, probably for her body of work.

SAT. FEB 21. THE 27TH MAN. @ Old Globe. Matinee.

With such venerables as Hal Linden, (who will show at 83 that he still has the chops) appropriate for such a venerable audience. Lot of them Jews judging by the noses. Bob hates when I say that.but it's also unsurprising since the subject matter of the play is aboutJewish writers in Stalinist Russia who are condemned to death, sharing a prison cell. Enormously moving--I guess I'm a Jew when I experience these events, just hearing Yiddish triggers memories of my youth as a child of Russian JEwish immigrants whose native language it was.

Here these men are about to be killed by the Stalinesque regime for being Yiddish writers. Very affecting. Amazing performances. Each actor gets at least one aria. Fine direction though a little too much preference for the rant and grand gesture.

SATURDAY, FEB 2. DAME EDNA'S GLORIOUS GOODBYE @ The Ahmanson LA. 

And she (actually he-Sir Humphries in the great British drag tradition) is glorious. Much the same shtik as we’ve seen before, referring to the balcony as paupers, the sweet but lethal put-downs, the gladiolas, the self-aggrandizement in words and song accompanied by lithesome dancers, the reference to her so very gay son Kenny and acknowledgement that much of her audience is, well, so very gayIt’s all improv as she selects audience members to embarrass, including one young gay man and one elderly woman to “marry” in tribute to Valentine’s Day then telephoning his mother with the good news. The woman upstages her but for a moment when she announces that her sex life is her vibrator. Nice to laugh so much.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8. REUEL WINS FIRST PRIZE IN THE S.D. ZUMBATHON SHIMMY CONTEST! THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!?

SATURDAY, FEB. 14. ARTHUR MILLER'S THE PRICE @ The Taper LA.

Arthur Miller. One of his deep thought plays of familial dynamics, ethics, values written two decades after Death of A Salesman. With Kate Burton (wife of the  Center Theatre Group's Artisic Director, Michael Richie and daughter of Richard)  John Bedford Lloyd, Alan Mandell and Sam Robards (yes the son of Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall).

First act old couple behind us chattering as they try to adjust their hearing devices. The wife, "Take my word for it, it doesn't work." He doesn't (take her word) and lets everyone know. "They should take away their subscriptions," advises Bob. At plays end I will see these ancients sitting there with their canes and marvel.

"Peculiar play" Bob says. Excellent acting though we're having trouble hearing. A bravura performance by Mandell as the 89 year old furniture buyer who, conscripted by the policeman brother, who sees himself as a failure, to buy the furniture accumulated by his once wealthy then failure father, spouts a Jewish philosophy. Pacing is very slow. "But that's Miller," says Bob. There's the usual Miller dynamic of brotherly resentment. And there's the policeman brother's wife in the mix.

This is not top tier Miller a la Death, All My Sons, View from the Bridge. I guess it ranks with his Marillyn Monroe play, what's its name, but nevertheless he's in the top tier of American playwrights and "attention must be paid".

Over as scheduled at 3:30.

SUNDAY FEB 21. OSCARS. Pizza with Don at our place. Neal Patrick Harris. Dull.

FEBRUARY 28- MARCH 31. See our 31 day Andes-South America cruise diary for descriptions of the films and shows we saw aboard the Golden Princess. Here's a photo potpourri.

 SUNDAY APRIL 25 EX MACHINA @ Landmark Hillcrest. 90% Rotten Tomatoes. Futuristic tale that is brilliant but could have used the shearing scissors in respect to pace.

SUNDAY MAY 11. FAR FROM THE. MADDING CROWD. Hillcrest Cinemas. Hardy by way of Disney.

Long but enjoyable. A throwback to all those period costume films of the 80's. The star actress is charming, playing with chin held high and puckish smile a 19th century feminist of sorts. Heroine is faced with the dilemma of which of three men to choose, and by default satisfyingly winds up with the gentle loyal hunk the viewer is rooting for all along, not the swine soldier or the lovesick landowner. Long live happy endings.

UP FROM HERE. LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE. Musical about New Zealand's participation in safe landing of planes rerouted for 1911. Very well executed, 1st person experiences, but strangely parochial and limited.

SUNDAY MAY 17. IMMEDIATE FAMILY. "An interesting afternoon ," says Bob. "It isn't really strong enough for the main stage though it's fun." This coming out, black man bringing home his white Swedish lover to his family in eve of his brother's wedding, piece. Made me think with a little gusssying  up my comic gay musical could avoid the cliche, musty smell of coming outed-ness. Here a little overwrought at times but the young black playwright has possibilities and well directed and strongly acted. And some blacks do have a problem with the gay after all.

SUN MAY 25. HILLCREST CINEMAS. I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS.

"Gentle and depressing" is Bob's verdict. I think it's desultory. Lots of conversations about "life". Naturalistic in the extreme. Love, loss, aging. Blythe Danner in a bravura role as elderly widow who interacts with her girl friends, her 30 something pool boy, her daughter, her hunky 70 ish date Sam Elliot (perfect) who deals with the death of her dog and his death. Finally worthy but I fidgeted at its pacing.

FRI JUNE 12 MAD MAX:FURY ROAD IN 3D. Bob asks if I've satisfied my adolescent need for gore. For at least a year is my reply. Fantastic reviews. Genius cinematography. Save us from the unremitting violence and bombast.

SATURDAY JUNE 13. "IRIS" AT LA JOLLA LANDMARK. Last film of famed documentarian Albert Mayles about nonagenarian NYC  fashion maven IRIS APFEL. We can't resist anything authentically New York,

SUNDAY JUNE 14. 2 PM. GB SHAW'S ARMS AND THE MAN AT THE OLD GLOBE.

A matinee beats the alternative for us who walk to and fro the park bustling with all variety of humanity and their dogs. As to the play, I'm glad it was not the one I thought it was, the didactic "Major Barbara." Instead this is a charming, funny and excellently acted and directed production. The addition of a "village musician" violinist incorporated in the play and entre-act adds to the charm. The usual Shavian themes are there, in particular political naïveté giving way to awareness of the idiocy of war, but are given a humorous, even Mozartian farcical treatment. Naive Bulgarian rich country girl surprised by pragmatic soldier, the enemy, who she shields from harm. Betrothed to popinjay of a soldier she and he through a series of comic revelations are disabused of their illusions and all find their rightful partners. Yea.

 GRACE AND FRANKIE. NETFLIX. Love love this series starring Jane Fonda and as mismatched divorcees pushed together when their husbands reveal their need to live with one another after so many years in the closet. A gem.

SUNDAY JULY 3. LARRY KRAMER: IN LOVE AND ANGER. HBO. Excellent documentary about the firebrand. "Quite moving,"Bob. He essentially fought with passion and rage against the torpor of beurocracy in the face of death that eventually resulted in saving medication. We see him debilitated today, marrying his long time partner--an icon who exposed  a shameful and tragic era in gay history and in our nation's history. 

EVRYBODY'S TALKIN @ THE LYCEUM SAN DIEGO. Excellent. Featuring Harry Nilsson's songs. 

THE PRODUCERS. Netflix. Much better on the home screen than in the movie theatre. Still can't reproduce the uproarious joy that the stage show created.

BEST IN SHOW. NETFLIX. Always a joy. Great satire and great improvisational fun from his repertory co. This time a take on the nuttiness of dog shows. Worthy of this repeat viewing. 

SAT JULY 4. JOHN ADAMS.

Perfect accompaniment to this patriotic day and antidote to our "moving experience" from our apartment to our condo. A sumptuous, magnificent production with Paul Giametti as Adams and Laura Linney as Abigail. Has integrity too. (We even witness them having passionate sex.) First one we catch, he and Abigail are in Paris until he's named Ambassador to England and thence back to the U.S. Where he is Vice President. Next as veep; I missed most of his presidency in the house moving (big one comes Tuesday) but caught the death of his daughter. We both watch his death scene at age 90 on July 4th saying, erroneously as it turned out, "Jefferson survives". Ironic that as one notices in the final credits this story of early America was filmed in Hungary.

SAT. JULY 4TH. City of San Diego entertains us as we watch fireworks from our new home.

SUN JULY 5.

Yikes. It's a Penny Dreadful marathon and we're supposed to be getting ready for the packers (pac men?) tomorrow.  Absolutely fascinating stuff. Victorian England and Grand Guignol.  Taboos on display. S&M, witchcraft, transvestism, and gasp homosexuality, accompanied by an an oceanic underscore. Excellent acting--even Patti Lupone--and production values.

JULY 23. KISS ME, KATE @ the Old Globe.

It's my birthday so I treat myself to this eternal Cole Porter pleaser. Not the star megawatt production we saw on Broadway but offering many exceptionally directed and performed moments. The choreography and the dancers who perform it are exceptional. Fun anticipating the great numbers and wondering how they will be staged, Brush Up Your Shakespeare, it's Too Damned Hot, I Hate Men, et al.  The Bianca, doing a Vivian Blaine-like bubblehead, is brilliant. Directed by the talented Darko--former OG artistic director now Broadway darling--to emphasize the bawdy and lascivious and without any subtlety, the Fun.

JULY 26. BALLET 422. New York City Ballet, it's 422nd commissioned work. Documentary (Netflix) focusing on Justin Peck member of corps de ballet and a choreographer. Lovely. Watching the rehearsal process, calibration for the best performance.

WED JULY 29. UP HERE. @ La Jolla Playhouse.

"I'm not absolutely sure but I think I hate this musical," this from Bob at intermission. I say I'm not "connecting with it". We agree the music is sometimes wonderful. I particularly like a rhyming number from the snob intellectual incarnation of the hero Dan's bran. (He overthinks and his warring emotions are almost omnipresent onstage in this tale of romance in New York.) We agree it's overproduced which leads to a discussion of the lavishness of LJP productions. It's over and Bob declares that his mind is made up and that it needs a lot of work. "There's not world enough and time," I say.

SAT AUG 8. THE IDEAL HUSBAND. Netflix. Excellent cast led by Rupert Brooks and Kate Blanchette. Excellent period detail but lacks sense of the Wildean fizz--not nearly enough epigrams in this dark tale of a politician (Jeremy Northampton) being blackmailed by a beautiful, sly divorcee (Julianne Moore) and fighting his conscience to regain his wife's trust (she who over-idealizes him). It's at least 18 years old and these actors all look the same today.

SUNDAY AUG 9. BENT at the LA Taper. Reluctantly we make the auto trek to LA. One part of the reluctance is that we've seen Bent on Broadway with Richard Gere and I think a TV production. Bob doesn't think we've seen it in the west-end though. After 2 1/2 hours of driving, the last half once again navigating closed streets for some downtown event, B says, not to my regret, that he will never drive to LA again. Only the Mexican outdoor stand is open.

Of the performance. Bob "I have ambivalent feelings about that play. Sometimes powerful and sometimes . . . static. Moises Kaufman's direction kind of pedestrian." I agree. Well acted. I always enjoy the scene where the two gay protagonists in Dachau who are not allowed to look at or touch one another climax through imagination. We've been wondering why Taper chose to do this play now. I wanted to do it at Diversionary but it had recently been essayed by South Coast rep. In those days it had more resonance--now maybe it elucidates the great chasm of bigotry against gays that has been lept.

SUN AUG 16. On a whim Bob suggests we see Ken Ludwig's BASKERVILLE at the Old Globe for a matinee. Based loosely on Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskerville's, it's all silliness and that is perfect. Apart from the 2 leads who play Holmes and Watson, three character actors portray--quick changes in the style of 39 Steps-all the ancillary characters, 35 I believe. The director, appropriately a choreographer, squeezes every possible sight gag out of the plot.

SUN. MISS SIMONE. Netflix. Great reviews.  Nope. Netflix is f---g acting up again. And we can't see it. What are we paying for?

So, in frustration, we watch FRIDA, on the real TV CABLE. 76% rotten tomato. Novel. Interesting.

FRI. Aug 27. MISTRESS AMERICA.  HILLCREST LANDMARK.

Noah Baumbach film with his muse Greta Gerwick. She's supposed to be older model to freshman future step-sister who unfortunately looks 30. Slight, unsubtle, too clever by half despite good reviews. Bob on the other hand liked it. No accounting . . .

SUN. AUG 30. PIPPIN @ CIVIC THEATRE (downtown).

Haven't been in this big barn of a theatre in years. We saw the original Pippin, Bob thinks on the Shubert Theatre Archives (where I was a fellowship archivist) dime with John Rubenstein as Pippin. Here he's Charlamagne (43 years later) and Priscilla Lopez (of original chorus Line fame) recreates Berthe. I'm feeling a little vertigo in the upper loge. Better get over it. At least we see the whole stage and no one sitting in front of us.

WED SEPT 9. BLUEPRINTS TO FREEDOM.

An Ode To Bayard Rustin, the gay civil rights activist, Directed by Philicia Rashad ("of Cosby Fame"). Michael Benjamin Washington is both playwright and Rustin. And the play? Very powerful. Brilliantly directed (Rashad) and acted (led by Washington as the terribly conflicted Rustin, mastermind behind the 1963 March on Washington and the pillar behind J. Phillip Randolf and M L King). The play chronicles the events leading up to the Washington March  and the immediate aftermath, victory undercut by the bombing of King's church. (Makes me want to start immediately developing my Baden Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, play.) We wonder if this play, developed at the LJP, will continue in theaters around the country and provide a lifetime of continuing work and royalties for its talented playwright and star. It should.

SUN SEPT 13. GRANDMA @ Hillcrest Landmark.

Slight sort of mini-picaresque with Lily Tomlin, showing her chops, as an acerbic lesbian grandmother who attempts to find cash for her granddaughter's abortion. Yes, sketchy premise. Very much a "woman's picture", even some preachy liberal passages. Bounces between sentiment and toughness. Wary 3 generations of women eventually bonding. But worth seeing for Tomlin. Nice reward for renting out our old (expensively refurbished) apartment earlier today.

SAT SEPT 26. BLUES FESTIVAL With Beth.

At parking lot. Bus driver lady an activist angrily proclaiming  that the parking lot is charging $15 and dispensing $5 tickets. We're early. No checking so could have imported contraband vino. Ah well! Meet Beth's friends Letitia and Dave. Of course there's Niece Judy and fiancé Scott saying they are getting married next July. Yippee! There are aging hippies dancing. The pure joy is palpable.

Great variety--almost all shake the bejeezes danceable--from country, to the kind of blues you expect from an 86 year old charismatic singing about  "have some breakfast--hot and brown, a jelly roll" (get it?), and mean women who done him wrong, and rockabilly (which sounds much like hard rock).

WED SEPT 30. THE VORTEX @ Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.

In previews. We've almost the best seats in the house. 2nd row center. And purchased at half price too. Enjoy walking around the bogus Mexican village before the show--listening to a Mexican band on the fiesta shops area, and reminiscing about Casa De Bandini the now defunct Mexican restaurant that served giant marguerites.

Love  this three quarter round intimate theater.

Turns out to be a mixed bag though good to see this chestnut "shocking" in its time and Coward's early breakthrough  play. I did wonder what all the fuss was about however. A narcissistic deluded mother, her drug addicted, probably gay son--rather overplayed to show his addiction--too loving and too clashing. Set in the sixties but why. Some good acting. Think we see neighbor Jerry there. Bob thinks play was not well directed. Director Shawn Murray opted for manic production when a more mellow one would have been better.

FRIDAY OCT 2. THE MARTIAN. FILM @ MISSION VALLEY AMC. Director, Scott, Ridley. Starring Matt Damon who, inadvertently abandoned by his crew mates on Mars, is thrust into survival mode. Wow $27.98 for our two tickets. Bob is outraged. Get over it. Long--but great pyrotechnics in 3D. We are not as entranced as the reviewers. The rooting interest is overwhelming. 

SUNDAY OCT 11. A SUMMERS PLACE. TCM. Actually I may not have seen this in 1959 when it was released. Pretty steamy stuff, teen pregnancy (Sandra Dee no less) back then. Sumptuous color, fine acting--the veterans like Dorothy Macquire, Richard Egan, and Kevin McCarthy as parents married to the wrong people--and the dewey eyed youngsters, Dee and Troy Donohue--and an insistent score with that memorable theme song.

SUNDAY OCT 11. IN YOUR ARMS. OLD GLOBE.

The idea--little plays written by distinguished contemporary playwrights but interpreted through music and dance. Only a 4 note musical theme connecting the playlets though I didn't detect that as there were other distractions during the performance (good ones). Director-Choreographer Christopher Gratelli, Music Stephen Flaherty. Clearly a work of devotion that largely works. Fabulous dancers--many quite beautiful. Standouts were Carri Fisher's self parody piece (as a writer with addiction problems letting her characters run away with her work) and Chris Durang's comic international dance contest, both featuring a bravura comic performance by Jenn Harris in the latter smitten by Henry Byalikov (justified!). Donna McKechnie and George Chakiris are around for aging star glamour.

FRI OCT 17. HEALING WARS @ LJP.

We're all early and lined up for an environmental pre-show experience. Since this is part of LJP's Without Walls Festival, we're told by a charming gal at the line that there will be 7 "installations".

These depict civil war scenes. Solos. There's a nurse tending to a dying soldier. Clara Barton distributing letters. A gravedigger. An imprisoned insane guy. A young soldier missing home. As we wend our way and watch their slow careful stylized movements. Finally a conversation between two men, one interrogating a real contemporary amputee. Once seated we see a scrim on which a narrative of a veteran's experience navigating war and home is projected.

The performance combines narrative, soliloquy and dance, often arresting and Twyla Tharp-esque. "That was intense," is my response after the show. We agree that LJP deserves accolades for doing theatre like this that pushes daring ideas of performance. Many representations, expressions, of the ravages of war. Somewhat repetitive and long but a serious and worthy work.

SAT OCT 17. HARRY POTTER AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHOENIX.  On TV @ our Palm Springs condo.

Part of a binge watch Saturday, With a martini Better than seeing it in the movie theatre. Harry being expelled from Hogwarts for practicing underage magic by attacking the Dementia in the presence of mortals. Valdamort recruiting his army. Metaphors of British government bureaucracy. Every great actor in England working here. Terrific effects. Sense of humor. Not sure we're invested but nothing much else on is our excuse. And Daniel Radcliffe (and cohorts) is a teen and nicer to look at than the younger boy Potter. Clearly a diatribe against conservatism. Defying such as Amelda Staunton as a pillbox-hat-wearing arbiter of the ministry's rules, Margaret Thatcher. Harry enlists Dumbledore's Army against the forces of darkness. "We've never seen this . It's a good movie."  This from Bob. Ok.

SUN OCT 19. APPROPRIATE @ The Taper in LA. Busy weekend from point of view of Theatre. Here we sit at the outside Pinot Grill awaiting our drinks. Having just arrived from Palm Springs. "We're seeing .something about historical guilt and sin. It's that kind of weekend,"says Bob. Me: Of Adam our server. "The first thing they learn at the UCLA acting program is how to pretend to be a waiter." Lots of extremely well dressed children around. Sound of Muzak at the Ahmanson. Surely not here for Moby Dick currently at the opera house here. I do a riff on the theme song, "it's Harry, Moby and Dick-a-Dick" cf. Cole Porter. 1950's handsome Celebrity guy at adjoining table--he and also Caucasian wife seen to have 3 Indonesian looking kids. Much speculation at our table.

Woman at first intermission saying "it's over the top." Indeed. This play it feels like we've seen repeatedly, usually at the Taper--family dis- function revealed after the death of the matriarch or in this case the patriarch--the selling of the family southern manse.

   Act 2 seems useless. The harridan of Act 1 becomes uncharacteristically soft. We learn the son is gay. Big deal. Bob. "I bet they're having lots of fun over at Sound of Music. 'I am 16 going on 60.' And we're here at the Sound of Crying." We are desirous of reading the reviews now.

The 3rd act is almost unbearable. Will it ever end? Director has his actors deliver soliloquies of redemption at the top of their lungs. The "over the top" woman of act 1 left before the third act. Lucky. Bob says this is the worst play he's ever seen. I say another play several years ago at the Taper about women film directors might have been worse. We are glad in our resolve not to resubscribe for our fifteenth season.

FRIDAY OCT. 30. NYC BALLET @ SD CIVIC THEATRE.

Absolutely wonderful. 4 dances by the esteemed company--what astonishing perfection--featuring choreography by Jason Peck, a San Diegan about whose documentary we saw recently, Josh Wheeldon and Peter Martins (who is here). Second part is a delightful Pictures at An Exhibition.

SUNDAY NOV 1. FULL GALLOP. OLD GLOBE.

Bob swears we saw this Diana Vreeland monologue 20 years ago at the Globe starring its writer Mary Louise Wilson. Now it's Mercedes Ruhel and she's brilliant, fully embodying the larger than life doyenne of the fashion world, here in Paris having just been fired from her long-tenure job at Vogue and weighing whether, out of desperation, to take on curating the costume collection at the Met museum in New York. She struts, she pouts, she manipulates, interrupting her first person narrative to take calls, order her assistant around and opine about her personal aesthetic, her art for arts sake world view. Worthy.

THURS OCT 5. PAL JOEY on Netflix.

How delightful on a lazy retirees afternoon to rediscover this 1956 musical starring Frank Sinatra, brilliant as the cad Joey, not Gene Kelly's dancer in the original theatre musical based on John O'Hara's book, but a down and out singer--and a brilliant one. It's wonderful to hear Sinatra's rendition of the great Rodgers and Hart standards--and Rita Hayworth perfect as the former stripper-to-socialite ("Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered") looking her age and Kim Novak not convincing as the virginal dancer singing "My Funny Valentine" in the nightclub Hayworth builds for her Joey. Worth it just for Sinatra's spot-on performance and those great songs.

FRIDAY NOV 6. BRIGHT HALF LIGHT. DIVERSIONARY.

Yes the same Diversionary Theatre that I was executive director of almost 30 years ago. This time we're invited to an opening night by Scott Williford to be smoozed in before and after parties, meet their new Exec Artistic Director, Matt and see a play about the relationship over many years of two gay women unique in that in 70 minutes it cuts back and forth offering chronologically intermixed slivers of their lives before during and after the "together".

The two actors are amazingly adept at switching instantaneously between seconds-long vignettes reflecting different moments, whether conflicted, tentative or loving of their history together as a mixed race couple weathering with mixed grace their roles in their families, professions, as parents themselves, and as apart and inevitably together. I wonder how it would work cinematically? Probably better than here where it took a while to realize what was going on. Nevertheless a worthy try and it was good chatting after all these years in particular with Tom Vegh, my former associate and founder of the theatre as well as the new director Matt. Bob. "It's a traditional story and what she's done is chop it up. I kept checking my watch. That's not a good thing." As usual, Bob is right.

THURS NOV 13. MOGAMBO. Got to see this on my elyptical screen at the Y. TCM. Not a great movie. Half travelogue, cutaways of elephants, impalas, what have you. But, the incandescence of the star power is irresistible, especially after recently reading the Sinatra bio, his tempestuous relationship with the film's star, his then wife Ava Gardner, and how unhappy he was that she was making this movie in Africa while his career was going nowhere in the States.

SUNDAY NOV. 15. SPOTLIGHT @ Fashion Valley AMC.

Brilliantly scripted and acted down to the day player.  An essential film seriously rendered about the Boston Globe's uncovering of the Catholic church's cover up of the priest molestation of children. This has got to be a contender. The 4 member Spotlight team of the Globe pursuing the story with roadblocks from the church, its lawyers, the victims and the Boston community. Reminiscent of the Watergate movie. This time Ben Bradlee Jr., not his father, is at the helm though Lieb Shriver plays the new editor in charge. With Mark Rufallo, excellent as always, Rachel McAdams and others of that ilk.

SUN NOV 15 @ LJP. 7 pm. Quite the day for entertainment and food. (Spotlight, the movie, PF Changs for lunch and this.) A world premiere play with music inspired by true events surrounding the controversial 1922 debut of the Jewish play God of Vengeance. Written by Paula Vogel, directed by Rebecca Taichman.

    "What a day," says Bob as we leave the theatre. "A good movie [Spotlight] and play."

"I'm emotionally wasted." My reply. Actually Vogel's brilliant play touched so many buttons for me. This story of Jews coming to this country speaking Yiddish to produce plays, in particular here the conflicted God of Vengeance and escaping the pogroms and the genocides in Europe that followed. I kept thinking of my parents, their journey. And my own. At the center of Ash's play is a lesbian couple being denied and seeking their freedom to be. All this performed with stylized assurance. Wow.

FRIDAY NOV 20. PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT @ Ken Theatre.

We are enticed to see this documentary about the great lady since we've greatly enjoyed our visit to her estate in Venice.

As the commercials run, Bob whispers that in the Edward White bio about Paris he's reading he says that Peggy Guggenheim was very generous but very dull.

However she almost singlehandedly rescued modern painting after the war by importing paintings to the US where she operated a gallery before opening the museum that was her home in Venice.

She knew every great artist of the 20th century and famously slept with most of them. The film with excerpts from her interviews and slides of the artworks is not only an in-depth portrait of this driven but finally sad woman but of the history of modern art with which she was so large a mover and shaker.

SUNDAYNOV 23. ON THE TOWN. Netflix. The classic.

We are seeking something light (after Oirot multiplemurders on the moors.) what talent. Leonard Bernstein. Condensed and Green. Sinatra. Kelly. 3 sailors on leave in NYC. Vera ELLEN Ann Miller. Some interpolated songs are cheesy. We think it's a corruption of the original show. It still has wonderful energy, that wonderful talent and that premise. Bob. "Awful but fun to see."

SAT NOV 28. TAB HUNTER: CONFIDENTIAL. @ CAMELOT THEATRE, Palm Springs.

The big theatre is almost full of gay men at this daily 5:15 pm showing. What a remarkable life Tab Hunter, still good looking at 84, had. He was beautiful, billed as "The All American Boy". The documentary, produced by his partner of more than 30 years, Allen Glaser, consists primarily of Hunter reminiscing, supported by hundreds of images of Hunter and his fellow actors,  talking heads and vignettes from his movies, remarkable archival material. Highlights his relationships with a figure skater, Anthony Perkins, his mother, Jack Warner, various other actors of the period. It recounts his career as a Hollywood top box office star, recording artist (bellowing out "Young Love"), seeking roles after leaving Warner Bros., resorting to dinner theatre, his camp films with Divine, and his reclusive life with Glaser and with his horse in Santa Barbara. We enjoyed it.

WED. DEC 2. GREAT EXPECTATIONS,  TCM. Seen on the screen above the elyptical machine at the Y. Lovely tale (which I've seen before so knew how Pip arrived in London (no doubt read the book as a lad) with a settlement from his benefactor, escaped convict he helped as a boy. There's Miss Haversham of course lurking over events. Wonderfully atmospheric. Great British actors although playing lots younger than their years. And I allegedly lost weight watching it.

WILD . Netflix. With Reese Witherspoon as author Cheryl Strayard who hiked the Pacific Trail.She was nominated for an Oscar. I think Laura Dern was too for supporting as her mother who dies and thus sets her off on a life of dissolution and purposeless which she turns around by her arduous hike. A little more desultory but sufficiently absorbing with flashbacks.

DEC. YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN. Seen on the screen above my YMCA elyptical machine. 40 minutes of this terrific nourish biopic starring a conflicted Kirk Douglass and a smoldering Lauren Bacall, two Jewish actors being, well, not.

DIOR AND I.

SATURDAY DEC 12. HITCHCOCK: TRUFFAULT AND ME. @ The Ken. 1 pm.

DEC 13. SUNDAY. CHARADE. TCM at home. With Carey Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Seen it before. She's got the priceless stamps. He's the good guy but she thinks he's the murderer not Walter Mathau who is. Hence frantic mistaken identity chasing and showdown in a theatre with fatal trap door.

DC 13. LADY ON A TRAIN. TMC at home.

Starring former child star Diana Durbin who sees a murder from her train window. Premise lightly delivered. A little feeble. Vehicle for her, zany character who gets to sing artificially a few songs.i guess they built a screwball comedy around her. They're all dunderheads.

DEC13. We're addicted. It's now BOSTON BLACKIE next on ATM. 1942. Chester Morris. B &W. One of a series.

DEC. 13. GREAT HOUSES WITH JULIAN FELLOWES. PBS. Decidedly our sort of thing.- But my eyelids are heavy. Catch it later.

WED. DEC. 16. HERSHEY FELDER AS IRVING BERLIN. LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE. Audience Bob notes, no one under 60. I remind him that Irving Berlin was my father's contemporary. Both served in WW1. Immigrants also I think. Guess I'll find out if this is meticulously biographical and FELDER is a scholar as well as musician and entertainer. (We know his work). Set is a snowy Christmas decorated interior, goyisha tree, garland of Christmas balls around a fireplace, grand piano, wheelchair (must be about Berlin in his dotage--we'll see).

And of course the performance is brilliant, FELDER surmounting the difficult and-then-I-wrote scenario with imagination and sensitivity to pacing and variety in this rags to riches story of the Jewish "singing waiter" who wrote White Christmas and Gof Bless America. His impersonation  of Berlin is remarkable, the playing of course is virtuosic, ironic since Berlin could barely play and his singing, well it's a little strained but after all Berlin could barely sing. Especially interesting for me as I get ready to send off my play about another musical genius, Jesse Shepard.

THURS., DEC 17. A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS. @ DIVERSIONARY THEATRE.

We take Uber Mercedes drivers both to and fro at $8 bucks each way--makes sense for old people in the night-to attend Scott Wilkerson's invitational for this performance. Perhaps my complimentary martini was too stiff for me to focus on the details of Act 1 and I couldn't make heads or tails of this story set at Christmastime in the Lincoln White House days before his assassination. Enjoyed greatly the pre-show reception and chance to snooze with Maureen Steiner of the Democratic Club and Judy Foreman of the Big Kotchen and float down memory activist lane with them. Although act 2 was more coherent to me, the sheer ambition (not absolutely bad) of this concert style presentation subsumed it.

DEC 24. GRAND ESTATES OF SCOTLAND. Netflix.

Seen before we head for Rick Campione's annual Christmas Eve party. Fascinating glimpses and histories of these magnificent castles. Goes into economic problems of those ho have inherited these great drafty places. This highlights Kinkardine Estate. How industrious the owners are, their sense of responsibility. Like the old lord and fiefdom model. Building Many businesses employing the locals. I say to Bob,  These people are remarkable. And we thought we were hot shit." Andrew and Nicky Bradford.

FRI DEC 25. We're at home and we can't go to the movies because Bob is preparing for our Xmas dinner at 4 with Don. So we do what we always do on holidays after a lovely walk through the neighborhood, we binge watch. This time it's Madame Secretary which admittedly is not brilliant but sufficiently absorbing. Besides it will give Hillary an edge. So we faithfully watch the contrived domestic vs. world events that propel the story. 

SAT. DEC 26.

"Two Seniors for YOUTH," says Bob to the Hillcrest Landmark ticket seller. That sounds funny. Film with Michael Caine as a composer who seems to have given up on life, refusing to accept a knighthood because he must conduct his "simple songs" for the queen, Rachel Weitz as his daughter who is being abandoned by her husband, the son of Caine's best friend, a movie director, played by Harvey Keitel. Brilliant acting (though Jane Fonda gets to chew up the scenery unconvincingly) especially by Caine, some wonderful imagery, fine musical score but finally a pretentious mess or, more charitably, too ambitious.  I say the director "packed" his movie. Wants to fill it with so much of his thinking about aging, desire, disappointment, what have you. Bob notes Felini and Last Year At Marienbad references. "Doesn't hurt to have seen all kinds of films to understand it." It's long--not good when you are aware of that--but nevertheless it's possible to pluck out worthy moments.

SUNDAY DEC 27.

They are cutting down the pine tree at the Music Center that was the Christmas Tree. It is indeed a day for endings as the Taper understands it is for us; theire on my seat is a note from Michael Richie, exec artistic director, beseech ing us to continue our subscription after so many seasons. But it is a day for endings. The ride has become too burdensome. And frankly the La Jolla Playhouse does more daring work on a big budget.

The Taper is ending from our point of view on a high note. The play is absorbing. A minister of a mega church informs his congregation that they need no longer believe in hell nor that it is the destination for all non believers. A kind of colloquy in turn begins between him and his associate pastor, a parishioner, the board chair and his wife all of whom must believe that he is wrong. Very well directed and acted.

We may visit occasionally in the future.

WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 30.

As the year winds down we take in a yearly tradition THE KENNEDY HONORS. This year's honorees were coincidentally (ha!) a racially and gender diverse group: Cicely Tyson, George Lucas, Rita Moreno (looking old), Sergi Azawa and Carol King. In her segment, represented in part by bits from the Broadway musical about her life, Aretha Franklin, draped in furs, brought down the house. Obama, always the epitome of cool, quietly nodded in apparent enjoyment.