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Last night, I went with my cousin to the National Theatre to see The Wizard of Oz. No politics!
BWW Review: THE WIZARD OF OZ Gets Modern Update at the National Theatre.
The trailer from the 1939 film production of The Wizard of Oz:
Some of the music performed last night differed from that used in the 1939 film. But still wonderful! And the special effects? Way beyond anything offered in days gone by.
Unfortunately, my cousin had only one extra ticket, so Mr. AOW didn't get to attend the production.
It's amazing all of the stories we tell small children that can scare them to death. The Wizard plus many of the fairy tales gave me nightmares. For some reason they are considered a fun read. Maybe I was a bit too young. Glad you had a great night out!!
ReplyDeleteBunkerville,
DeleteI've loved scary stories ever since a toddler -- and no nightmares ever. Go figure.
There were almost no children at last night production. Offhand, I'd say that the average age of the audience was 30. I think that I was the only one over 60!
The Sorcerer's Apprentice from Fantasia gave me nightmares.
DeleteEd,
DeleteLast night's production included a riff from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" to dramatize the tornado.
I'm sure both of you must have been thinking of Mussorgsky's Night On Bald Mountain (Witches Sabbath) –– which truly WAS terrifying –– and not Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which in Fantasia was made comical by the presence of Mickey Mouse in the Title Role.
DeleteFT,
DeleteYes! The piece from which I heard riffs last night was "Night on Bald Mountain."
Thanks for the correction.
Thanks, AOW. FYI:
DeleteP___U___B___L___I___C ..^.. N___O___T ___I___C___E
I, the one and only FreeThinke, have FINALLY had MY IDENTITY STOLEN along with my AVATAR!
WOO HOO! WHAT an HONOR!
I take it as a sign of RECOGNITION of Intellectual Superiority and Great Literary Prowess by the imbeciles who think they don't like me –– or what they stupidly imagine I represent. };^)>
Thanks, IDIOTO, whoever you may be, –– as if I gave a fragrant stool specimen. (:-o
Sorry about that, AOW, but I wanted my friends to know about this now that I've been officially counterfeited. So, in case you get any strange messages that don't sound like me, you may be sure I am NOT the one publishing them.
FT,
DeleteI saw one of those imposter comments yesterday and deleted it.
Thank you, AOW! It's a childish trick, but it doesn't bother me all that much. Those who know me will be able to tell the difference, and those take pleasure in constantly finding "reasons" to misbehave don't matter.
DeleteThis type of thing is another version of what-my-mother-called "The Subway Morons" –– people who wrote dirty words and drew mustaches on the ads in subway stations and on the trains.
I think the whole thing may have started back in the 1940's when KILROY WAS HERE started to appear all over New York City. Remember that?
Actually, I had nightmares of the brooms walking as a child.
DeleteThe only thing from my childhood that ever gave me nightmares, Ed, was a radio adaptation of Shirley Jackson's Ultimate Horror Story "THE LOTTERY."
DeleteHave you ever read it?
I woke up screaming every night for several weeks after having been exposed to that.
My Mom and Dad and I had been out to dinner at a place we'd never trued before –– an old German Restaurant with dark wood panelling and lots of deer and moose heads mounted high up on the walls. The antlers cast weird shadows that gave me an uneasy feeling. I was six years old.
At any rate, my parents turned on the radio as we were driving home, and this terrifying story came on. I threw up in the car, and was afraid to go to sleep that night.
Fantasia on the other hand delighted me completely –– probably because of the magnificent music. I've been devoted to classical music since I first heard it –– probably in my cradle.
Most of my family were great fans of The New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera, so we listened to the then-frequent broadcasts of great symphonies all the time.
To get back to The Lottery: Shirley Jackson, must have been a leftist, because she certainly took great delight –– as leftists usually do –– in making people feel anxious, ill, frightened, and depressed.
FT,
Delete"The Lottery" is not a story for young children!
I didn't read anything written by Shirley Jackson until I was over age. In fact, I didn't hear about her until I was in college.
I sought out "The Lottery" to read because -- Get this! -- every other student at the university had been assigned to read "The Lottery" (1948) when in high school. Required reading in most public schools, but I'm not sure when it became required reading.
"The Lottery" is a disturbing story. But what did was the point of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"? According to Wiki:
Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.
The other work which the other students had read but which I had not: John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."
BTW, you might like this sentence from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House: "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." Indicative of some aspects of her life.
It's great that you enjoyed a respite last night.
ReplyDeleteThe original is the best. "Wicked" is a good deal more overtly political.
ReplyDeleteOf course The Wizard of Oz was a thinly disguised political commentary when it was written. I went to the Dallas Summer Musicals for The Wiz a couple years ago. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Bought the flying monkey's T-shirt and called it a day.
ReplyDeleteTammy
Tammy,
DeleteNo T-shirts for sale last night at National Theatre. Bummer!
I deeply resent any attempt to "appliqué" a POLITICAL INTERPRETATION onto our most beloved fairy tale –– L. Frank Baum's uniquely AMERICAN creation.
ReplyDeleteThe "message" there is simple: No matter how you fervently you may dream of experiencing exotic adventures in far away places sooner or later, like Dorothy, you're bound to discover "There's No Place Like Home."
I do recall though that there was something political relative to the gold standard at the time.
Delete