neotoma

Went to see Synetic's production of The Snow Queen today with pleasance, greenygal, and A Pseudonym. It was a lovely adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story, and a very funny sequence with the Robber Girl.

We're trying to hash out holiday plans, including see The Muppet Christmas Carol sometime next weekend, and maybe Star Wars as well. And watching Spider-man cartoons over the break, as Disney+ apparently has most of them available, if you've subscribed to the service.

I have to say, the days right before the solstice are the worst -- the performance was an afternoon show, and after we had dinner at We, the Pizza it was only about 6 or so and it felt late. Why can't just take all of the winter easy, stay inside mostly and not go out into the cold and damp?

I went to see Syntetic Theater's Sleepy Hollow last night with greenygal, pleasance and A Pseudonym.

All in all, it was a very loose adaptation of Washington Irving's classic story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but mostly the differences came from making Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones into soldiers recently returned from the Revolutionary War, instead of a schoolmaster and a local tough in the 1790s. They kept the Headless Horseman as the ghost of a Hessian solider, but had him out for revenge because Ichabod and others had killed him during the war, and unnecessarily slaughtered his beloved horse as well.

Which mean there were several fairly terrifying scenes of the Horseman and the horse spirit chasing through the woods after various characters. Yet again, Synetic made one fairly static set piece into several terrifying different things. They also had strips of a Hessian flag (well, an approximation of the actual Hessian flag of the period, anyway) that the Horseman left on the bodies of victims for just that perfect ominous touch.

The scene where the Horseman comes out of the woods on his horse to confront Ichabod and is surrounded by the decapitated ghosts of his victims (played by the ensemble, dressed all in black, wearing identical masks, and carrying their heads) was incredible spooky. The horse at that point was the dancer who'd been playing the horse's spirit throughout, a member of the ensemble working the front legs, and another ensemble member with the Horseman on his shoulders to give him the illusion of being mounted on horseback. It worked really well and was really creepy.

The next play in this season is an adaptation of My Father's Dragon, which should be much more family-friendly.

Yesterday, greenygal and I went to see the production of Three Musketeers at Synetic Theater, the local stage company that uses dance, Russian physical theater, and non-traditional interpretations in their performances. They're well known locally for putting on silent (wordless) production of Shakespeare. These are the people who put on the all-clown production of King Lear that was creepy as fuck.

Thankful, The Three Musketeers was not creepy. ( It was awesome! )

Basically, it was a ton of swashbuckling, some tragedy with Athos and deWinter's backstory (her wanting revenge on everyone was great, but I missed why she thought her first murder was justified...), the sweetness of Constance and D'Artagnan's romance, D'Artagnan's complete puppyness, and generally a lot of fun and good dancing.

Next, Synetic is doing their A Midsummers Night's Dream adaptation, which I have seen before, but wouldn't mind seeing again. I'm actually thinking about buying a subscription for the season, since 2013-14 is The Picture of Dorian Grey, Twelfth Night, Hamlet … the rest is silence, and Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog).