Mini-review – Woman in Black – Fortune Theatre

We went out to see a play with someone I work with tonight (after dinner at Inn Noodle). The Woman in Black was REALLY fun, even though I saw the final plot twist coming about two hours before it happened (aren’t I the theater burnout). I’ve never been to a play where the people screamed like, what, four times? even though we were way up in the £12.50 nosebleed seats. I was very proud of myself for not screaming but part of that is because I was just looking the wrong way. The batch of American kids who were sitting behind us, and who spent all of the intermission talking about how they were having a hard time not falling asleep (I think it was jet lag, really), were bouncing and chipper and totally energized in the way only a burst of adrenaline can do at the end of the night. That was really pretty cool. It was a perfect piece of stage craft, well acted and brilliantly lit. We recommend it!

(This review is for a performance that took place June 22nd, 2007 and was migrated from another blog in June, 2011. This show seems to be infinitely extended and is probably just as much fun now as it was when I wrote this review.)

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Review – Fretwork – Wilton’s Music Hal

We went to the Wiltonian Music Hall in Spitalfields to see Fretwork tonight. It was a “fine” concert, not excellent – with the exception of Tan Dun’s “A Sinking Love,” which was excellently sung by Clare Wilkinson. She really captured the feel of spoken Chinese in a way I find hard to explain, though what I said to her was that listening to her sing this song was like watching a movie. (And what is it with Renaissance/Baroque singers doing really modern stuff? It worked, of course, but it seems so odd …)

Afterwards we came home, ate some pizza from Mascalzone (not Hot Mamas but who is), then dinked with the computer and made plans. Me, I made some plans for my birthday, and wished Libby happy birthday. And now, if we can find it, we’re going to play Boggle.

A quick poem (from the concert), by Li Po, “In the Quiet Night.”

So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed,
Could there have been a frost already?
Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlght.
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.

(This review is for a performance that took place on June 5th, 2007.)