Poor Wandering One

Not too long ago, a friend sent me a link to this. Click it! You know you want to! If you don't, you will miss Sir Mix-A-Lot meets Gilbert & Sullivan. I won't have it on my head that you missed the greatest cultural revolution since the fateful day that chocolate met peanutbutter, because you were too busy reading my blog, so click. My humble writings will wait...

So, you've come back? Great!

Now as I was saying... Watching the video in the link reminded me of an 80's Central Park production of The Pirates of Penzance that I remember watching when I was very. Very young. Frankly, I am surprised that I even remember it. Maybe I just heard about it from my grandmother and adopted the memory as my own. It can happen, right? Isn't that what they mean when they talk about genetic memory? It's not? Well, anyhoo... The connection has less to do with my great memory than the fact that the team of Gilbert, Sullivan & Mix-a-lot used footage that appears to be from the Central Park production in order to make their video, which in turn induced me to procure a copy of the original from the library.

Even though I generally find watching recordings of stage productions disappointing (because they invariably pale in comparison to the energy of seeing a live performance), I found that the not being live only distracted me for a short while and that I began to really enjoy the music as I watched it. The production stars (along with Linda Ronstadt, Kevin Kline and Hyacinth Bucket, aka Patricia Routledge) former Solid Gold host (again that's just a rumor I heard...I am far too young to remember seeing it myself!) Rex Smith, who is now a singing realtor/actor whose favorite color is, according to his website, chartreuse. Chartreuse??? Whose favorite color is chartreuse? But back to the musical...

Sure, Linda Ronstadt was an abyssmal actress with all the copious moony gazes and handwringing that go with it, but she really does have a lovely voice that lends itself well to many genres, including the more operatic sounding parts of Gilbert & Sullivan. And Kevin Kline is someone I almost always find entertaining. Despite, the quality of the video, it is difficult not to love him as the pirate king. How can you not love a pirate whose pillage and plundering comes to a quick halt any time the word "orphan" is mentioned? Most importantly, along with seeing Chicago live last night, watching the production of Pirates helped me reach my May epiphany, which is this:

I miss musicals! There are not enough of them. And there certainly is not enough of people spontaneously breaking into song to express their deepest hopes and feelings in real life. Think about how much better the world would be if they did? Disputes could be settled by Sharks-Jets style dance offs and people would not have time to go around murdering each other, because they'd be too busy singing, building shrines to Bob Fosse, and choreographing big dance numbers. I think that is what's missing in today's society. Well, that, and maybe jazz hands. You don't see enough of the jazz hand these days either...