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In Which We Watch Big
Jul. 22nd, 2019 11:32 pmAlas, our final year of subscription to the Berkeley Playhouse has come to an end. There are two more musicals while we're still in Berkeley, Mamma Mia! and A Christmas Story, and we may watch the first, if we have the time and the energy, because it's got so much great music (and a fun story). But seeing the last play from our last subscription year is yet another milestone.
We started seeing musicals at the Berkeley Playhouse when Seussical caught my eye. We saw that on July 27, 2011. And we've seen every play there since, including Annie twice (in their 4th and 10th seasons). Lots of great stuff, only a few disappointments.
So anyway, our last season-pass play was the musical Big, which is of course based on the movie, a movie that I've never seen.
Obviously it's the story of a boy who wishes to be big and becomes an adult and the hijinx and life lessons that ensue.
And the story of the boy (Josh) is about what you'd expect. He gets his wish and it seems great for a while but he decides it's not wants after all.
But what really surprised me is that Josh felt like he was mainly the inciting event, and that the play was really about Susan, the woman who falls in love with adult Josh. And hers is a terrific story. They have a joint song about him giving her stars, and then she offers a tear-inducing monologue song about the first boy she ever fell in love with. And then as we hit Act II, it's all about how she's learning to dance again and remembering what it was like to be a kid and finding her childlike innocence and joy.
I mean, maybe that's just 47-year-old me seeing Susan as the star of the play and the one whose story moves me, but a 12-year-old kid would say the opposite (while asking what's going on with the "I Want to Know" song sung by Young Josh). But Susan's story really felt like the heart of the play.
(Kimberly and I talked about the fact that Susan might have had a more central role in the musical because there wasn't a Tom Hanks to overshadow her and her story.)
There was some good music, though nothing that really stuck in my head, and some absolutely great dancing. And the plot of working at a toy company is pretty terrific too.
Perhaps I'll have to see the movie sometime, but I think I'll miss the lack of music.
I'd hoped to see one other play while in the East Bay. There's a theatre called the Woodminster, which is up in Joaquin Miller Park. It's an outdoor theatre, and they run about three musicals every summer, and this of course reminded me of The Muny in St. Louis that my grandma Appel used to take me to (and whose season passes have been passed down to my Uncle and cousins). So, I've been wanting to go there for a few years, since I discovered it, but the logistics of getting up there without a car at night are challenging (I mean, I bike up there; I actually just did it on Saturday, but not with Kimberly at night to go to a play). So I thought to look this year at their schedule and it was like the last day of "Newsies", and then they were showing "Billy Elliot", which we saw pretty recently at the Berkeley Playhouse. But their last musical was one whose music I love, and which I've never seen on a stage: "Into the Woods". Perfect, eh? Except it turns out that the days they're running "Into the Woods" are the precise same days that I'll be in Prague at the end of summer. I'm actually getting back at 2.30pm on the last day of the play, so theoretically I could make it to an 8pm showing ... but that just ain't going to happen after 15 or 16 hours of travel, and my still being on Central European Time.
Alas.
But we've seen lots of great plays and musicals in Berkeley. And hopefully we will in Kauai too.
We started seeing musicals at the Berkeley Playhouse when Seussical caught my eye. We saw that on July 27, 2011. And we've seen every play there since, including Annie twice (in their 4th and 10th seasons). Lots of great stuff, only a few disappointments.
So anyway, our last season-pass play was the musical Big, which is of course based on the movie, a movie that I've never seen.
Obviously it's the story of a boy who wishes to be big and becomes an adult and the hijinx and life lessons that ensue.
And the story of the boy (Josh) is about what you'd expect. He gets his wish and it seems great for a while but he decides it's not wants after all.
But what really surprised me is that Josh felt like he was mainly the inciting event, and that the play was really about Susan, the woman who falls in love with adult Josh. And hers is a terrific story. They have a joint song about him giving her stars, and then she offers a tear-inducing monologue song about the first boy she ever fell in love with. And then as we hit Act II, it's all about how she's learning to dance again and remembering what it was like to be a kid and finding her childlike innocence and joy.
I mean, maybe that's just 47-year-old me seeing Susan as the star of the play and the one whose story moves me, but a 12-year-old kid would say the opposite (while asking what's going on with the "I Want to Know" song sung by Young Josh). But Susan's story really felt like the heart of the play.
(Kimberly and I talked about the fact that Susan might have had a more central role in the musical because there wasn't a Tom Hanks to overshadow her and her story.)
There was some good music, though nothing that really stuck in my head, and some absolutely great dancing. And the plot of working at a toy company is pretty terrific too.
Perhaps I'll have to see the movie sometime, but I think I'll miss the lack of music.
I'd hoped to see one other play while in the East Bay. There's a theatre called the Woodminster, which is up in Joaquin Miller Park. It's an outdoor theatre, and they run about three musicals every summer, and this of course reminded me of The Muny in St. Louis that my grandma Appel used to take me to (and whose season passes have been passed down to my Uncle and cousins). So, I've been wanting to go there for a few years, since I discovered it, but the logistics of getting up there without a car at night are challenging (I mean, I bike up there; I actually just did it on Saturday, but not with Kimberly at night to go to a play). So I thought to look this year at their schedule and it was like the last day of "Newsies", and then they were showing "Billy Elliot", which we saw pretty recently at the Berkeley Playhouse. But their last musical was one whose music I love, and which I've never seen on a stage: "Into the Woods". Perfect, eh? Except it turns out that the days they're running "Into the Woods" are the precise same days that I'll be in Prague at the end of summer. I'm actually getting back at 2.30pm on the last day of the play, so theoretically I could make it to an 8pm showing ... but that just ain't going to happen after 15 or 16 hours of travel, and my still being on Central European Time.
Alas.
But we've seen lots of great plays and musicals in Berkeley. And hopefully we will in Kauai too.