D.C. Diary

Baby is Back

Last night marked the official beginning of the Fall, at least according to the TV networks. All the big U.S. season premieres are taking place this week and, apparently, this is a big deal. But before you begin to give me credit for finally assimilating completely into American life, I must confess that the only reason I know this is because I heard it on an NPR radio report. Anyway, I thought I should at least try and participate in the Season premiere excitement and, having had such a close (albeit virtual) relationship with Evan Lysacek last year, I was indeed mildly excited to see that Dancing With the Stars was back, particularly as this season apparently features 'the most 'A'-list cast list ever'. The line-up includes seven people I have never heard of (two reality TV stars, two ex-sportsmen and three actors), two singers I would not be able to identify in an identity parade (Brandy & Michael Bolton) and the three people I'll be tuning in for: Bristol Palin (whose Wikipedia entry inventively describes her as a 'Teen Activist'), Jennifer Gray (whose casting is a stroke of genius) and The Hoff (whose trademark brand of slightly creepy buffoonery I am sure will make for strangely compelling viewing). I sat down at 8pm to watch the season opener of DWTS only to find that I can't get ABC on our TV. I'm not sure quite what happened since we went digital and most of the channels disappeared but now I think about it I remember having the same problem trying to watch DWTS last season. So instead of tuning in to see Bristol strut her stuff, this was the enticing line-up awaiting me:

• ION MOVIE: Back to the Future III
• Qubo: Intermittent glimpses of a kids' cartoon about a precocious 8 year old called Miss BG.
• NBC: Some absolutely TERRIBLE drama called Chuck. Have no idea what it is about but the 5 minutes I watched reminded me of all the good reasons why I watch so little TV. Unbearably bad. I could literally feel my life slipping away as I ingested the atrocious dialogue.
• NBC PLUS: A static picture showing the weather forecast for the Washington region. For anyone that's interested, it will be 72'C and sunny in Manassas tomorrow, with humidity at 68%.
• Universal Sports: A replay of the World Triathlon competition from June 6th 2010. The footage was somewhat murky, but I could make out two men's lycra-covered bouncing bottoms - I think the blue bottom was Atkinson from Australia and the black one was Brownlee from Britain. I tuned in just in time to see the sprint finish, won by the Brit in 1:52.41. A sensational sport. And this was followed by a replay of the Women's Beach Volleyball World Championships in Finland (yes, Finland) from August 21 2010. From what I could make out through the fuzz, the crowd all sported plastic green mackintoshes in the stands whilst two bikini-clad teams (Brazil versus Brazil) battled it out in the rain. Unsurprisingly, there seemed to be no sign of any men's event.

Fortunately, all the DWTS footage that I wanted is available on their website and, less legally, but more convenient for international readers, on YouTube. The short review is that Bristol Palin was fairly awful. Jennifer Grey was fabulous, although she actually looks like a completely different person - due not to her age but her disastrous nose job. I cannot believe she is FIFTY. But she was already 26 in 1987, even though she was playing a 17-year old. And I have to admit that the segment where she started crying about Johnny, sorry Patrick, had me weeping too. And The Hoff was just pure Hoff - tragically comic. Video below. But, beware, his hip-grinding and grimacing is not for the faint of heart:

Spartacus

 

My mother is staying with us at the moment and last night we went to see the Bolshoi Ballet, who are performing at the Kennedy Center this week. I booked the tickets several weeks ago, before the programme was advertised, and so it wasn't until we got to the theatre that we discovered what was in store: Spartacus. 

Spartacus was created in 1968 by director Yuri Grigorovich and has been a mainstay of the Bolshoi's repertory ever since. The production has been performed to great acclaim all over the world over the past 40 years and I was delighted to have a chance to see this signature work on stage. However, coming just a few days after watching the Synetic Theater's production of Antony and Cleopatra, I couldn't help but compare the two. Spartacus seemed so dainty in comparison - the movements were so much less visceral, less emotional and less intimate. The corps de ballet seemed to prance across the stage when what Spartacus really called for was some powerful boot-thumping marching, with perhaps a spot of wrestling thrown in for good measure. Right from the opening scene, I kept being distracted by the very short leather skirts that the men were wearing. Was Crassus wearing tights? Or any pants? Judge for yourselves here:

 

To make things worse, I couldn't help thinking that Spartacus looked rather effeminate in his figure-hugging lycra outfit. I know he was incredibly strong and technically brilliant, but his off-the-shoulder ruby toga was just the sort of little number that Johnny Weir would wear - and his haircut was straight out of the Plushenko salon. (Yes, I too have become obsessed with the Olympic figure skating over the past couple of days). 

Nevertheless, parts of the ballet were very moving and the music was wonderful. Pretty much every scene featuring Phrygia was magical, although even then I couldn't concentrate properly as I spent the whole time trying to remember which TV programme the Phrygia 'theme tune' had been used in. My Mum told me at the end of the night that it was The Onedin Line. Just wish she'd mentioned that during the first interval.

State of the Union

I was intending to write a learned blog today about Obama's first State of the Union address and the public and critical reaction to it. Unfortunately, although Obama may be this century's most eloquent President, he was no match for a stomach full of spaghetti meatballs, 8 weeks' worth of feeding in the early hours and too many late nights watching the Australian Open. We sat down to watch the coverage at 9pm and Simon fell asleep almost immediately - murmuring something in his slumber about waking him when Obama mentioned Afghanistan. I managed to keep my eyes open, but was unable to concentrate on a word of the President's speech because I was so distracted by CNN's fantastically funny Facebook feed.

We watched the SOTU address via CNN.com, which provided footage of Obama on the left of the screen and a window showing a live Facebook feed on the right. Wisely, the great American public chose to completely ignore Wolf Blitzer's banal prompts ('What do you think President Obama should say in his SOTU address'?; 'What do you think of President Obama's SOTU address?') and instead delivered a running commentary on the speech, publishing individual comments which refreshed every ten seconds or so. This is the type of blather which voices exactly what you are thinking but which the official political commentators could never say. A few of my favourites were as follows:

'That dress makes the FLOTUS's butt look big';

'Is this cameraman an intern'?;

'Pelosi is blinking WAY too much';

'Nancy looks like Skeletor';

'30 minutes before Biden sleeps';

'McCain looks like Tombstone from Marvel comics';

'1 drink for 'Wall Street', 2 drinks for 'Main Street'';

'Someone get the Supreme Court Justices a red bull';

and my absolute favourite...

'Did anyone see Mariah Carey at the SAG Awards? I thought she looked amazing'.

I'm not sure what all that says about the State of the Union, except that there's nothing like facile social networking sites for getting a snapshot of how the nation (or at least a certain section of it) is feeling. I am however fairly confident that the Founding Fathers wouldn't have been very impressed with any of the 34,678 posts which appeared on CNN.com last night.

Update: I just read the transcript. Sounds like it was quite a good speech, if perhaps a bit long. But we needn't worry about that for 2011, by which time the SOTU address will undoubtedly have been reduced to 140 characters.

Helen Mirren vs Susan Boyle

I was almost faced with tough culture call this evening: a last minute ticket to see Helen Mirren in the acclaimed National Theatre production of Phèdre which opened tonight at the Shakespeare Theater in D.C. - or a night in watching the results of Season 4 of America's Got Talent. However, given that we still don't have a working TV*, Mirren won. 

(*Apparently the US went digital in June; we discovered in mid-August that the only TV station we can now receive is a Mexican soap channel. But seriously, who needs a TV when you've got NPR, can watch Wimbledon and the US Open on the internet, all the good TV programmes get broadcast on Hulu and America's Got Talent auditions are posted on YouTube within a couple of hours of the live programmes?).

I studied Phèdre at A-level and have seen it twice in the past. The first was a production in the West End starring Diana Rigg which my mother treated me to but about which I remember nothing. This is undoubtedly either because a) my Mum took my sister instead of me but doesn't remember or b) my Mum did her usual trick of dragging us down to London on a 5am train from Diss in order to maximise the day in the Big Smoke and to ensure we fell asleep during the very performance around which our trip revolved. (Other classic performances I remember falling asleep during, courtesy of my well-intentioned mother, include Richard III with Robert Lindsay, Midsummer Night's Dream at Regent's Park and numerous RSC productions at the Barbican). My second Phèdre was a production at the Comédie Française in Paris, which was so melodramatic that it became farcical. I was seated in the front row of the stalls, close enough to see the actors' greasepaint melting under the stage lights, smell their sweat, see their tears falling onto the floorboards...and feel their toe-curling embarrassment when the curtain came down prematurely between one of the acts and whacked Phèdre on the head, prompting cries of 'C'est une honte!' from the audience, many of whom failed to return after the interval. So tonight's performance was definitely an improvement on the previous two - although I was momentarily thrown when the actors began reciting prose (albeit Ted Hughes's excellent version), rather than Racine's rhyming couplets. In summary, Helen Mirren was really rather good, Hippolyte (Dominic Cooper) was excellent and Theramene (John Shrapnel) did a great job conjouring up the imagery of Neptune riding the sea monster and inciting Hippolyte's death. One complaint: I was most peturbed by the reaction of the D.C. audience, who laughed and tittered at various inappropriate moments throughout the two-hour performance. This was odd: There is nothing to laugh about during Phèdre as far as I can see (Theseus's Yorkshire accent excepted) and I'm sure wouldn't have been the reaction at the National. I wonder what the cast thought.

 

Anyway, whilst I was at the theatre, the rest of America sat in front of the TV awaiting the results of this season's 'America's Got Talent'. The competition was won by a chap called Kevin Skinner, who is an unemployed chicken catcher from Kentucky and had never been outside the state in which he was born before auditioning for the show. He can't actually sing that well - he has the Bob Dylan slightly-out-of-tune thing going on, but his first audition (of which an edited version is available here for anyone outside the US) was definitely one of the most memorable moments of the season. However, it seemed to me that the real highlight of the evening was Susan Boyle. What a makeover. Particularly the shots of her at 2.25 on the Youtube video below, where she looks so regal dressed in pearls and seated in an oak throne next to a heavy wooden fireplace that she would give Helen Mirren a run for her money playing the Queen. And the movie-trailer-voiceover all-American introduction is just fantastic: "One voice, one incredible story, one woman who inspired the world to never give up on their dreams...Ladies and Gentlemen, Susan Boyle...":

 

Apparently Susan Boyle is the most famous Brit in the US, and her debut album has already outsold Kanye West, Whitney Houston and the Beatles in the Amazon pre-ordering stakes. Perhaps Dame Helen might even get an audition for the role of Superstar Boyle when this particular 'incredible story' is eventually brought to the big screen...