Saturday, May 24, 2014

The 19th Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, keep track here...through one person's attendance and participation...  I opened the Friday Evening in the Cabaret, solo.   Sam was there, thank you! so I can find out what I did later.  Then saw Dr. Sue's Daphne/Apollo excerpt.  There was some disguised identity as they prepared the chariot for morning, and she noted later that Helios was also a, or the, sun god, in the Great Greek God Nature-Personification Religion we today call myth.  Yes I was on the edge of my seat when she concluded, somehow connecting Apollo and Daphne as young boy chariot passenger with the Daedelus Icarus flight.  And she presented alone... Sue Sloan, David Sloan's cousin? David is the MC with a dickensian presence.  He appeared in the Nicholas Nicholby excerpt upstairs.  After Dr. Sue I went upstairs to the Johnson and obtained a third row aisle seat and felt I had to stay, because James Rado came on after the rap dancers who accurately interacted vocally with recordings.  Was that reallly the Rod Rodgers Dance Company?  I missed Ben Harburg but heard in the lobby a recording of How are Things in Glocca Mora.  Steve Bogardus was perhaps with him... from the Falsetto cast recordings?  James Rado sings effortlessly stylishly and accurately.  He couldn't hit a wrong or false note.  His phrasing is his own but it is perfect for the lyric and music.  He had help from the tuxedoed flyswatter... Great to see a swatter on stage.  Who came back to join him in the irving berlin you're just in love... you're not sick, no... that's a theme echoed and catharicized by Epstein and Hassan, who were more loving than ever.  Hassan's singing is beautiful.  He has a Malkovich presence.  They warned us of the love police in all of us.... and the love risk was further echoed by Tammy Grimes reminding as if we needed it and I do need it... The Rose Song, like the rose itself, is a gift from God.  It's the ones afraid of dying who never learn to live (It's the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live...).  I was crying.   So I saw The Cell, hard times, also exploring interracial relationships in the five points... recorded accompaniment... ok.   Dixon Place J Chen training the devil... Fantastic interaction.  Nicholas Nickleby was ok... I could not handle the ghost I miss the most... the fellow later sang from the Pearl Fishers Thank you.  That's Douglas McDonnell...  Uh, Native American song dance percussion costumes hoops... Forgive my unconscious existence but this meant everything to me.  The American Indian!  It's a reminder of what a great heritage this country has, completely unrelated to me.  and my imagining of connecting with it naturally involves natural hallucinogens.  It's a haunted country.  We're living on top of them.   Their power is eternal and evolving.  I love them and am humbled by them.  Oh, they're hosting  one of the nation's top 10 pow wows in the Queens Farm Museum this July... Please I'm crying....Butoh couple with beautiful music.  Bob Lyness Katherine Adamenko..   Louisa Bradshaw and Gregory Nissen have some great cabaret thing going.  and they played original songs.   Then downstias with Cathie Boruch speaking in a stand up style.  Definitive Yiddish theater song performance by Arthur Abrams...Stan Baker, Anne Pasquale and Schizophrenia in the household... Stan Baker Better than Ever... Voice, Channelling... beautiful.  with guests...Bob Havemeyer and Steve? Weber... Ellen Steier with Francesse.  Micha Lazare with Fitz who ended the night.   Oh, yes, Lindsay Davis alternated with Omar Bustamante the various bad dates...cute.  touching upon reality...