A Weekend of Theater

This weekend I sat in a lot of theaters, both live and movie. I saw Jersey Boys, which is a Broadway musical and then I saw Children of Men, Pursuit of Happyness and Dreamgirls (which is a Broadway musical too, but is also a movie). I sure did spend a lot of money supporting the arts this weekend (Do movies count as “the arts”? I say yes. Anything that involves sticky floors and $4.00 Kit Kat bars is definitely art.)

Jersey Boys was good, it is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In case you didn’t know, they sang a lot of songs. And quite a few of them were in Jersey Boys. My season tixs for the theater are for matinee showings. About 80% of matinee-goers are over the age of 65. In case you didn’t know, these people LOVE them some Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. These peopled CHEERED after every song as if they were at a rock and roll concert. It was hilarious. On the way home Madonna’s “Vogue” came on the radio and I said, “Someday there will be a Broadway musical with this music and my generation will CHEER too. On that day I will know that I am old.” My dad did not appreciate me calling his cheering a sign of him being old.

I also saw the African American Double Feature when I movie-hopped between Dreamgirls and Pursuit of Happyness. Will Smith was about the only African American actor not in Dreamgirls, so I went and caught him in Pursuit of Happyness so he wouldn’t feel left out. It says a lot about the scant amount of black roles available that I recognized pretty much every actor who played any role in Dreamgirls. As far as the movie goes, I thought it was okay. I have trouble when they make theater into a movie, it’s just not the same. Plus, somehow people breaking into song seems to work a lot better on a stage than on a screen. I dunno, something felt off to me. And another thing that’s off? The fact that Jennifer Hudson is nominated for a Golden Globe in a supporting role. Huh? She is clearly the star of the movie. I didn’t realize that fame was a deciding factor in determining how big a role was. I thought maybe little things like number of lines and importance to the plot might play a bigger part. But no. Beyonce had like 6 lines and the rest of the time just stood around looking pretty, and she's billed as the star of the movie. Don’t get me wrong, she does pretty very well, so maybe she got extra points for that.

The last thing I saw was Children of Men, which is the pick-me-up movie of the year. Not so much. It’s set in the not too distant future where the whole world has gone to hell in a handbasket. Iraq everywhere, so to speak. It was a good movie, but maybe Beyonce could have come over for a couple of scenes and looked pretty, just to lighten the mood a little.