Since things are a little boring here at the moment (random stress-outs about the upcoming move aside), I'll wrap up that NYC travelogue that was left unfinished back in -- uh... when was that? I just realized that the archive pages aren't working properly. Something else to fix when I stop leaning on the Blogger built-in template crutch and overhaul the blog again. (It was
back in July, if you want to read the first part.)
Saturday morning we got up pretty early and zipped out to Christina's favorite place in Manhattan: the Natural History Museum, where they were showcasing an exhibit of exotic frogs. I told my wife the only way I was going to see a frog exhibit would be if they had "buckets worth" of frogs, and they didn't disappoint. True, the definition of a bucket was somewhat hazy and just how many buckets of frogs were actually there I couldn't say, but no one who walked in wanting to see oodles of frogs left disappointed.
The sounds of "ribbit" faded as we left the museum behind and met up with Lisa M and her friend Jodi. We've been trying to coordinate a visit to New York with Lisa for a couple of years now, with no success. Naturally, the one time we don't even try is the time it works out. After much rejoicing at the serendipity of it all, we went somewhere schmancy for lunch. I forget where. A trip to
Hennes & Mauritz was apparently warranted, after which we split up again, promising to meet somewhere ritzy for drinks later that evening.
Each weekend in the summer brings with it the closing of a street somewhere in Manhattan, and on that street vendors erect tents so that they might hawk the most worthless of wares for low, low prices. There are a few flea market enclaves with interesting old stuff, but not even the vintage magazines or funky old cameras could tempt me that day. I did get some nice pictures, though. We slogged back to the hotel for a siesta before the evening's main event.
Ordinarily
Chicago is not the sort of musical I'd pick. It's one of those modern shows with no set, lots of overly-made-up actors in all black, and some pretty tepid humor dropped into a standard (if showy) score. It badly wants to be
Cabaret, right down to the bent-wood chairs and menacing stares from behind pancake makeup. In the case of this particular production, however, it was all about the talent: Brenda Braxton has been getting some pretty amazing reviews in the part of Velma Kelly, and Paige "Trading Spaces" Davis was taking a summer hiatus from her TV show to play Roxie Hart. Not that I'm terribly enamored of the perky Ms. Davis, but curiosity won the day.
Having seen her perform, however, I can say that there's a reason Paige Davis attracted some attention in the first place. Granted, the role of Roxie Hart isn't too far removed from that of a perky DIY show hostess, but this actress brings presence to the stage and, even when "out of practice," she matches steps and notes with full-time Broadway pros like Brenda Braxton. The film version of Chicago was made disappointing largely because of the way Renee Zellweger (as Roxie) was outclassed by Catherine Zeta-Jones (as Velma), but there was no such mismatch of talents on stage that night. (There were, however, a couple of teenaged girls sitting behind us who had the score memorized. They
insisted on singing along with every song.)
It's easy to see why Davis continues to host "Trading Spaces" -- a good paycheck, a best-selling book, and lots of name recognition. I hope she'll return to musical theater -- on screen or on stage -- at some point, however. I don't think that switching out house keys on basic cable is where she really belongs.
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