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Penn and Teller at Radio City Music Hall (8/21/25)
Busy social calendar this month. Last Thursday, the family unit ventured into Manhattan to see Penn and Teller on their 50th anniversary tour.
Penn and Teller's act really hasn't changed all that much in 50 years. They cycle in new magic tricks all the time, but the style remains the same: Penn Jillette, bombarding and distracting the audience with a stream of sarcastic patter; Teller, ever silent, Penn's able assistant and a fountain of physical comedy; and the tricks themselves--objects (envelopes, exotic needles, guys in gorilla suits) disappearing from plain sight or appearing where they simply could not be.
The real treat of a P&T performance is the high concept stunt that would tickle the brain on a deeper level than your average card trick. In the Radio City show, they opened the second half with two life sized inflatable Penn and Teller figures bouncing on to the stage. Penn's voice is coming out of the speakers, but are they really in there? (And should they be aiming sharp objects at Teller?) The show's conclusion was a brilliant, almost elegant stunt centered around the concept of entropy. (I'm not going to spoil it here; you can download it on the internet.)
One pleasant surprise for me was Penn's facility for working with audience volunteers, especially kids. He's still the same acerbic personality, but he knows when to dial it back to goose the trick along. Then again, as my wife reminded me, he's had 50 years of practice.
Great show. And on the way home, we bumped into an old friend of mine (from my international travel days) who I hadn't seen for at least a decade!
WICKED (on the Jumbotron) at Maimonides Park
Normally, I wouldn't pay to see a movie like Wicked. But if it's going to be FREE and projected onto a 50 foot screen? I can indulge my curiosity.
I'm going to be nice to any Wicked musical fans out there and praise the set design, costuming and choreography. Absolutely impeccable. Ariana Grande as G(a)linda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba? Divine. (I have loved Cynthia Erivo since Bad Luck at the El Royale.)
The problem? Every time I was really getting into the story, the damn musical got in the way.
It occurred to me--after we staggered out of the ball park, exhausted from the 160 minute runtime--that everything I loved about this movie was from the Gregory McGuire novel, and I would have been perfectly happy if it had been a straight drama. The ingenious inversion of the Baum story, with the wizard as a fascist dictator and the Wicked Witch of the West as the courageous freedom fighter, came through loud and clear without the singing and dancing.
[My favorite moment in the movie was non-musical: Grande's Galinda in a dramatic display of virtue signalling so spiritually empty that I had to laugh out loud.]
Were the musical numbers BAD? No, not really. (Except for the Wizard's. Jeff Goldblum is not much of a singer.) But I didn't feel they added much to the story, and it just went on... so... long.
So am I going to see the inevitable Part Two (Wicked: For Good)? Probably when it comes to TV.
THE WHO live at Madison Square Garden (8/30/25)
The farewell tour (and we mean it this time!). The last show at the Garden. There is no way in this universe I am missing this. I have my ticket. I'll tell you all about it on Sunday.
Busy social calendar this month. Last Thursday, the family unit ventured into Manhattan to see Penn and Teller on their 50th anniversary tour.
Penn and Teller's act really hasn't changed all that much in 50 years. They cycle in new magic tricks all the time, but the style remains the same: Penn Jillette, bombarding and distracting the audience with a stream of sarcastic patter; Teller, ever silent, Penn's able assistant and a fountain of physical comedy; and the tricks themselves--objects (envelopes, exotic needles, guys in gorilla suits) disappearing from plain sight or appearing where they simply could not be.
The real treat of a P&T performance is the high concept stunt that would tickle the brain on a deeper level than your average card trick. In the Radio City show, they opened the second half with two life sized inflatable Penn and Teller figures bouncing on to the stage. Penn's voice is coming out of the speakers, but are they really in there? (And should they be aiming sharp objects at Teller?) The show's conclusion was a brilliant, almost elegant stunt centered around the concept of entropy. (I'm not going to spoil it here; you can download it on the internet.)
One pleasant surprise for me was Penn's facility for working with audience volunteers, especially kids. He's still the same acerbic personality, but he knows when to dial it back to goose the trick along. Then again, as my wife reminded me, he's had 50 years of practice.
Great show. And on the way home, we bumped into an old friend of mine (from my international travel days) who I hadn't seen for at least a decade!
WICKED (on the Jumbotron) at Maimonides Park
Normally, I wouldn't pay to see a movie like Wicked. But if it's going to be FREE and projected onto a 50 foot screen? I can indulge my curiosity.
I'm going to be nice to any Wicked musical fans out there and praise the set design, costuming and choreography. Absolutely impeccable. Ariana Grande as G(a)linda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba? Divine. (I have loved Cynthia Erivo since Bad Luck at the El Royale.)
The problem? Every time I was really getting into the story, the damn musical got in the way.
It occurred to me--after we staggered out of the ball park, exhausted from the 160 minute runtime--that everything I loved about this movie was from the Gregory McGuire novel, and I would have been perfectly happy if it had been a straight drama. The ingenious inversion of the Baum story, with the wizard as a fascist dictator and the Wicked Witch of the West as the courageous freedom fighter, came through loud and clear without the singing and dancing.
[My favorite moment in the movie was non-musical: Grande's Galinda in a dramatic display of virtue signalling so spiritually empty that I had to laugh out loud.]
Were the musical numbers BAD? No, not really. (Except for the Wizard's. Jeff Goldblum is not much of a singer.) But I didn't feel they added much to the story, and it just went on... so... long.
So am I going to see the inevitable Part Two (Wicked: For Good)? Probably when it comes to TV.
THE WHO live at Madison Square Garden (8/30/25)
The farewell tour (and we mean it this time!). The last show at the Garden. There is no way in this universe I am missing this. I have my ticket. I'll tell you all about it on Sunday.
