Culture Week
Jun. 27th, 2011 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebnessI feel like I need to sleep for a week. But I never get to sleep before 2am and I have to be up at 7.30am for work. This does not bode well. Predicted enegy crash: Wednesday.
So I was complaining to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mothergoddamn recently that though we live close to one another and in a nice cosmopolitan city (or at least, not too far from one) we don't do many Cultured Things together.
Last week was cultured week! I decided to start the week off with trashy fun with Glee!Live, then slightly higher with Evita (yeahIknow) ending with the Orchestra dell'Arte performing some classical works at the gorgeous old church nearby. Inevitably, it went like this:
Glee! Live
It seems half the people from my workplace went and my God, they were full of envy that we were in the pit section (right at the side of the stage) for the show. What can I tell you that you don't know? It was fun, cheesy, silly, exhilarating and fabulous. Naya Rivera continues to be my girl crush, because that woman is gorgeous IRL.mothergoddamn had a moment with her and I wanted to bite her out of jealousy. We also got slushied by Chris Colfer and it was fuuuuun. A guy in work told me with authority that some of it was mimed, but no1curr because Amber Riley has the most amazing voice. Tears in my eyes, tbh.
I don't care that they're people in their 20s and 30s pretending to be highschoolers. It seemed half the audience was older and it was knowing, silly fun.
Evita
What the hell is this. I was all happy and excited for this. I knew it would have a slight whiff of queso because Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I was not prepared to be so... offended. I knew it would be bad when Che came on (look, Webber. Don't pretend it's not Guevara because you were proven historically inaccurate. Why would Argentinians label another Argentinian 'Che' after their dialect?) and began to sing as if bored. His posh, posh English accent didn't help, either.
And it was just so hateful! Evita was capricious and silly and manipulative and a woman-hater. The men were victims of her feminine wiles. She was a bitch for trying to get out of the tough barrios and for chasing her dreams. It doesn't matter that O What a Circus has some really good ironic lyrics ('you were supposed to have been immortal/that's all they wanted/not much to ask for') when the whole thing was just so misogynistic.
I also had a problem with how the people of Argentina were depicted. Silly, Romantic fools! Who would go crazy over a pretty figurehead and plunge into hysterical national grieving over someone they had never met? Only those silly Latin types.
At one point, Evita angrily laments the callous people of England refusing to have their head of state meet her. It felt like we, the audience, were supposed to be amused at her pretensions. God forbid an island nation with an unelected head of state pay respect to someone else.
Anyway, did not like. It was very Eurocentric, very Anglo-Saxon, very misogynistic. At one point,mothergoddamn turned and asked me if I was bored, as well. I'd been thinking up drabbles while Evita died on stage, tbh.
Orchestra dell'Arte at Prescot Church
Beautiful and thoughtful and very soothing. Which it had to be, given that they never specified WHICH CHURCH in a town with several churches. We were late to the show, stressed and rained upon. But it was good.
Glee was still the most fun, though.
So I was complaining to
mothergoddamn recently that though we live close to one another and in a nice cosmopolitan city (or at least, not too far from one) we don't do many Cultured Things together.Last week was cultured week! I decided to start the week off with trashy fun with Glee!Live, then slightly higher with Evita (yeahIknow) ending with the Orchestra dell'Arte performing some classical works at the gorgeous old church nearby. Inevitably, it went like this:
Glee! Live
It seems half the people from my workplace went and my God, they were full of envy that we were in the pit section (right at the side of the stage) for the show. What can I tell you that you don't know? It was fun, cheesy, silly, exhilarating and fabulous. Naya Rivera continues to be my girl crush, because that woman is gorgeous IRL.
mothergoddamn had a moment with her and I wanted to bite her out of jealousy. We also got slushied by Chris Colfer and it was fuuuuun. A guy in work told me with authority that some of it was mimed, but no1curr because Amber Riley has the most amazing voice. Tears in my eyes, tbh. I don't care that they're people in their 20s and 30s pretending to be highschoolers. It seemed half the audience was older and it was knowing, silly fun.
Evita
What the hell is this. I was all happy and excited for this. I knew it would have a slight whiff of queso because Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I was not prepared to be so... offended. I knew it would be bad when Che came on (look, Webber. Don't pretend it's not Guevara because you were proven historically inaccurate. Why would Argentinians label another Argentinian 'Che' after their dialect?) and began to sing as if bored. His posh, posh English accent didn't help, either.
And it was just so hateful! Evita was capricious and silly and manipulative and a woman-hater. The men were victims of her feminine wiles. She was a bitch for trying to get out of the tough barrios and for chasing her dreams. It doesn't matter that O What a Circus has some really good ironic lyrics ('you were supposed to have been immortal/that's all they wanted/not much to ask for') when the whole thing was just so misogynistic.
I also had a problem with how the people of Argentina were depicted. Silly, Romantic fools! Who would go crazy over a pretty figurehead and plunge into hysterical national grieving over someone they had never met? Only those silly Latin types.
At one point, Evita angrily laments the callous people of England refusing to have their head of state meet her. It felt like we, the audience, were supposed to be amused at her pretensions. God forbid an island nation with an unelected head of state pay respect to someone else.
Anyway, did not like. It was very Eurocentric, very Anglo-Saxon, very misogynistic. At one point,
mothergoddamn turned and asked me if I was bored, as well. I'd been thinking up drabbles while Evita died on stage, tbh. Orchestra dell'Arte at Prescot Church
Beautiful and thoughtful and very soothing. Which it had to be, given that they never specified WHICH CHURCH in a town with several churches. We were late to the show, stressed and rained upon. But it was good.
Glee was still the most fun, though.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 09:48 pm (UTC)I just... can't seem to find it much lately. I think it may be related to summer. Not just the heat, but the constant light. ;_;
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:03 pm (UTC)it burrrrns
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:11 pm (UTC)Not Costa Coffee, though.
Or ASDA.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:20 pm (UTC)We so should. I'm home in July. And OMG WHAT is the point of having such a huge ASDA without a cafe in it? Wrong.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:23 pm (UTC)Yes! Okay, I shall keep an eye out. No goddamn Evita, though. Or ASDA cake.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:26 pm (UTC)Well what it was, right, was the Prescot School Christmas Choir. And my BFF sand filthy Christmas carols and someone complained and even though I totally would never have even had the nerve they assumed I was in on it and banned me from the choir. Guess how arsed I was.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:47 pm (UTC)Evita, no shit. Why doesn't he write 'Adolf, the musical' while he's at it?! Wait, why don't YOU write 'Joseph, the musical' ?! :D
no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-28 12:10 am (UTC)I pretty much love everything musical, and I really don't like Andrew Lloyd Weber. I've yet to see a show of his that I enjoyed. Yes, Evita when Antonio Bandares sang the opening number was funny but I was young and it was Antonio! and I didn't know the history back then either. Okay, wait, Jesus Christ Superstar is by him and I admit I like that. So there's one. But yeah.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 11:16 am (UTC)ALW just makes me cringe! I have seen four of his shows now and each time I've had a severe overdose of saccharine/80s overload. And not even the awesome sort.
Banderas is the only saving grace for me. <3
no subject
Date: 2011-06-28 01:51 am (UTC)DAMN YOUUUUUUUUUUUU.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 11:17 am (UTC)