Tale of Two Musicals

The gales of November came early on Tuesday, as some crazy hurricane force winds tore through our area. This forced the fam into the basement for the duration of the tornado warnings, and that's where we set up shop for the day. I quickly tore through a slew of little nagging chores and mini craft projects, which means last season's skating medals are finally hung as well as all the baseball bats. Things were glued, sewn, cleaned and collected.

Later, it was quality family time by way of a couple of musical offerings. First, we watched "Under the Sea," a Kevin Spacey musical on the life of Bobby Darin. It was a confusing mess. The way of getting the show started was confusing: was it Spacey as the actor portraying Bobby Darin talking to the child actor also portraying Darin discussing how to introduce Darin or Spacey AS Darin talking to himself as a child how to best tell their story? What I knew of Darin prior to the movie could fill a thimble (Splish! Splash!), but what I did know was oddly absent, that being his forbidden love affair with another starlet, one of my dad's favorites, Connie Francis. Overall, I found Darin's story neither compelling nor unique; I also didn't find Darin that compassionate a character. Then there was the ending: a baffling song and dance finale by either Darin the elder and darin the younger or Kevin Spacey and the child actor. Then the graphic designer in me was annoyed by the choice of type font for the end cards and credits. You just don't use display type for copy blocks. Bleh.

On the flip side was the Rocky Horror "Glee" episode. A few laugh-out-loud moments. A very clever management of the more adult themes in RHPS by having them enacted by the adult characters instead of the schoolkids. Lively musical numbers, the one that stands out for me is Mercedes as Dr. Frank N Furter - belt it girl! I was disappointed that they backed down from performing the show for the public. I've only seen a grand total of 2 1/2 episodes of this show, but I think more are in the future. I give it a "woot!"

The cutest thing of all is the boy's reaction. Not a music critic at all, he just loves song and bebopped through every song, from "Splish Splash" to "The Time Warp."

It's just a jump.... to the left!