Seth, we love you, show us another clip!
And so the funniest man in New York cranks up the video where Patti Lupone, reaching the high notes at the climax of an Evita ballad attempts to take Peron by the arm - and misses. Then he shows it again, in slow motion.
Scroll down for the World Music Institute and Olafur Eliasson at MOMA.
Because Professor Seth, the funniest man in New York, is teaching. This is Broadway 101, and there will be questions. Like "What is a swing?", "Is a synthesizer an adequate substitute for a live string section?", and why isn't Seth Rudetsky a superstar?
I suppose one answer to the last question is that Seth, who has made me laugh harder than any human being - with the exception of Peter Cook, and possibly Eddie Izzard in his early club days - has a stock of material which assumes, indeed demands, some basic knowledge of the Broadway musical.
That is his life, his passion, his career - he's an eminent musical director and pit pianist - and it's the subject of his gloriously rich comedy. The occasion was a double dose of Seth and friends in support of The Actor's Fund, staged in an auditorium in the maze-like bowels of New World Stages, a bewildering complex just off Eighth Avenue.
I had guessed this would be Seth doing his one man patter, with a few stage friends to play...well, I don't know if straight man is the right word in Seth's glittering world. In fact, this was a spectacular production: a full orchestra - considerably fuller, as Seth observed, than the small outfits you pay $120 to hear on the Great White Way; a full chorus line, too; and a terrific list of guests, from Spring Awakenings Jonathan Groff, to Andrea McArdle (the original Annie) to Pamela Myers (who introduced Sondheim's "Another Hundred People" in Company).
Musical highlights? McArdle and Andrea Burns duetting on "Stick To Your Own Kind" from West Side Story, and Lillias White belting "Don't Rain On My Parade". Comedy highlight, and it nearly killed me, was Seth and company re-enacting three of the most famous catastrophes on the Broadway stage. The funniest was Maria's mishandling of a gun in a production of West Side Story - but you had to be there.
Nevertheless, in the privacy of your home, you can find out why a line from The Sound of Music becomes inadvertently problematic when pronounced slowly in a heavy German accent. Mother Superior to Maria: "What is it you can't face?" Slowly and lugubriously, please. Off you go.
What point is there in raving about a one-off benefit? Well, he might do it again. And in any case, you can still get a smaller dose of Seth at his "Broadway Chatterbox" - every Thursday evening at Don't Tell Mama.
The WMI Season
A source of reliable, if less ribald, entertainment, I'd also recommend the concerts sponsored by the World Music Institute, which run season after season at some of the city's more comfortable venues: the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Symphony Space uptown; the Skirball Center downtown.
Selections from the WMI's annual season have been a fixture on my social calendar for several years. Unless your knowledge of music and culture is global, there's an element of risk. There are forms of folk dance and music out there which are, I'm afraid, monstrously dull. On top of that, the scholarly atmosphere of some WMI performances can sanitize the most raucous and vulgar performers.
One example was the recent Cajun Jamboree, up at Symphony Space. The musicians played true country cajun, not electrified zydeco, but it's dance music nevertheless, and dancers were compelled to retire to the space at the rear of the theater to shake the dust off their shoes. The best of an unnecessarily solemn evening was D.L. Menard, the cajun Hank Williams, stetsoned author of a quite filthy song called "La Porte D'en Arriere". Imagine Maurice Chevalier shouting "Hot diggity dog!"
More recently, a Fiesta Mexicana began with a scurrilous, largely improvised Veracruz form known as son jarocho - new to me, and performed by José Gutiérrez and amigos. The mischievous performers had to ask for the houselights to be turned up so that they could more readily select audience members to invent rude songs about.
One thing which must have struck everyone is the strong German influence in Mexican music - the close spiritual cousinship between mariachi and a Munich oompah band. I gather this has its roots in widespread German settlement of Texas in the nineteenth century. In any case, Santiago Jiménez and his Conjunto Tejano swept through a frantic, accordion-led set of overtly mitteleuropeen polkas and waltzes.
The highlight, however, was a large mariachi ensemble, led by the venerable Nati Cano. I am no fan of mariachi. I associate it with improbable hats and suits, and tenors demonstrating unnecessary vibrato to their horses in old Mexican movies. This crew was superbly polished, though, and reminded me of just how much Mexican instrumental music we absorb unknowingly over the years. Every other tune was familiar to me from some soundtrack or MOR performer, or some old radio show.
And I liked the brown suede outfits.
The WMI's home on the worldwide web is right here.
Olafur Eliasson: Take Your Time
To paraphrase the band Art Brut, contemporary art has often, in the past, made me want to rock out. Increasingly, it gives me a bit of a headache. Although I'm a member of the New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery, I've not yet returned since the claustrophobic disappointment of small rooms cluttered witb ugly installations which comprised its opening show.
I'm afraid I'm just too delicate a bloom for Eliasson's work too. This Danish-Icelandic conceptual sculptor (my phrase) is currently enjoying a generous show of his work at MOMA and PS 122. My tip: read the notes before you look at the works. If I'd done so, I'd have missed less.
After stumbling around the frighteningly illuminated nooks and booths of the MOMA part of the show, I left without the remotest idea of what he was trying to tell me about time. In fact, perceiving the conceptual lucidity of his constructions requires greater patience than I'd been able to expend.
Finding myself, for example, trapped in a glowing white circular arena - a bit like a Serra elipse, but without the textural interest - my eyes started to hurt and I headed for the exit. Later, I noticed it had changed color; the idea is to withstand the piece - "360 degree room for all colors" - while it goes through a series of color changes.
I beat a hasty retreat too from a small, dark room in which several lamps illuminate the fumes of a fog machine. It reminded me of a rock gig in a very small club. An even more uncomfortable environment housed some kind of long, black trough, and was subjected to fiercely flashing strobes. It says, "a curtain of water droplets...appears frozen in midair." I didn't see them.
Rather more diverting was a wall covered with grey, sponge-like detritus I took for coral. The notes tell me it's actually live reindeer moss, and if I hung about for a few weeks it would change color and give off "a natural fragrance."
Where I really felt I was running the gauntlet was in the entrance corridor. Monofrequency lights are used at such low frequency as to "affect your normal color perception" making the space appear the most bilious, migraine-inducing yellow you can imagine. Leave my color perception alone, please.
Racing out, I came across the one object which cheered me up. An electric fan, suspended from the high atrium ceiling by a long cord, swings in great arcs, looking like it's going to take off someone's head. Make sure to see this while you're on your way to look at some paintings.
A little more information here.
