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Three exciting things on this chizzly* Saturday, in order of excitingness:

1. I have a watch again! Thanks, Mom! (Stop reading this!!!) Ah, the gift of time.

2. I finished the SATURDAY NY Times crossword for the first time ever. (Saturday is the hardest of the week, followed by Friday, then Thursday/Sunday tied.)

3. Sweeney Todd, currently in previews, hotly sought-after tickets, starring Michael "Scary Hedwig/Awesome Wilkes-Boothe" Cerveris and Patti "Never Heard Her In Evita But I Heard She's Good" Lupone-- the production where the cast all plays their own instruments-- I had had no hope of seeing this show, being light of purse, and then Steph told me that her cousin couldn't go, and invited me to come along to the matinee today. Holy cow! A Dream-Come-True-Garage-Door-Opener-Silly.

WELL! It was very different from the NYCO production I saw last year with Andrew-- but it was fantastic. Sparse set and costumes, (sometimes overly clever) staging (sometimes worked,sometimes didn't), brilliant performances not to be believed. How do people play instruments AND sing and move around the stage at the same time? You have to see it to believe it. And it works almost always. And they're not simple songs-- they're tricky harmonies and odd metres, and these people all did it brilliantly. Patti Lupone danced around with a damn tuba. And played it. No wonder people are clamouring to see this thing.

I think I had a leg up, having seen two other productions (one on PBS), so I knew, for example, that the little white coffin Sweeney cradles in act 2 is somehow supposed to represent a fancy barber's chair set over a trapdoor. Yeah. That didn't exactly come across. And the pouring of blood into buckets to represent bodies falling through the trapdoor into the bakery downstairs, I don't think that really came across. I had to kind of explain it afterwards.

There was a hot violin-playing guy (yeah I know, I find most violin-playing guys hot, I don't know, it's a thing I have) singing all perty and acting all crazy.

What a great show.

*I'm inventing a new portmanteau, do you like it?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 7:29 PM | shower me with attention