Mother Tongue: Monologues for Black Girls and Stolen Women Reclaiming Our Bodies, Our Selves, Our Lives. Friday February 24 2012 8pm

I witnessed an amazing performance at the National Black Theater. Mother Tounge: Monologues for Black Girls and Stolen Women Reclaiming Our Bodies, Our Selves, Our Lives began with a pre-event at 6:30 including fresh food, silky wine and a very interesting audience. Its not often we get to prepare ourselves for a ritual peformance with offerings of food and drink, to meet the others we are about to embark on the journey of witnessing. It was well recieved. The pre-event definitely set me up for the experience about to take place. I had no idea it was actually 12am when I walked out the door.

Another wonderful treat was finding the 2nd day event advertised in the program: Catharsis. Many of the performers and other people involved seemed to not know about it taking place. But I definitely enjoyed the event! A day dedicated to healing and recovery. What an important, too often overlooked component.

The event was put on by the Black Women's Blueprint, and I am now convinced I need to join the organization.

La Traviatta, Sunday February 12th 1:30pm

I saw La Traviatta's opening performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this past sunday. The story began with its music, playing a mildly melencholy rift which is repeated throughout the main characters plight throughout the 3 hour performance.

Richard the III, Sunday February 5th 3pm

I saw Richard the III this past Sunday, and was not very impressed. The epic 3 1/2 hour performance caught me off gaurd with its unruly visciousnessness and length. Perhaps if the set design did not drone me out with its horrificly bland symetrical arragements of small furniture in oversided rooms with endless doors, perhaps I would have watched more closely. The actors were in fact tallented, although the accents would make one think they appeared from a range of locations throught the english speaking colonies. I was not conviced. Kevin space's physicality was convincing, most of all, and perhaps justified his horrific acts with the pain he was perhaps experiencing internally. I attended this show with family, as part of Bam's Fall/Winter season which I will see 5 all together. Between my grandmothers occasional snoring, and the siloute of my dads head dropping between acts, I decided to join for one short moment. Listening with closed eyes is a great experience. It lets me know that the text is working, but there is a disconnect with the visual arrangement on stage. The harvey theater is a medium sized theater, and in its 2nd teir orchestra i felt distant due to the long hallway on stage. The visual projections of clouds and text announcing scene changes felt like broadway tricks and did not enhance the story at all. I felt like these are things that would land me a bad grade in an undergraduate course, but I somehow cast a brillant array of characters.

Lastly, I thought it was intereting the director chose to cast two women as the twin boys, as the presence of women in drag was appropriate of course in context of the time, but with men dressing as women. Perhaps this was a political statement I can read into our current age in theater. My brain was interested mostly in this small detail.

Phantom of the Opera: February 1st 2012 8pm

So I went to see the Phantom of the Opera. It was a longtime goal of mine. Something mysterious lay in the name of the show. I didn't quite know why I wanted to see it, but since I was a young girl I seemed to know about its existence.

I've been on a pathway, quenching my curiosty of theater. Why do shows exist on broadway? Does that mean they are incredible? In the case of the phantom of the opera, I entered without already understanding the story. I didn't understand why there was a phantom, his presence was alluded to as if the audience should already expect him to be there although the characters constantly doubted his presence. Apparently, I should expect to fill in all the blanks with the 5 words in the title. By the second act, I came to understand the phantom was in fact the instructor of the young opera singer he haunted, and I could not be less interested in thier love affair or her fear, and the protective male boyfriend.

However, I went for the music, which was quite incredible. I closed me eyes at the male/female embracing love song, because i've just seen toooooo much of that lameness, and I was surprized such a week story made it to broadway. The singing was incredible. And perhaps stories that are well known don't need to be told well. Perhaps the audience is entering with an understanding of the action, and we instead are looking at the lighting design, costumes and stage settings. I was happy with my eyes closed. No choreography, or physicality to design interested me to the point i was particuarly compelled.

The phantoms riding of the chandelier was perhaps quite interesting to observe, as that does not happen in the small off broadway theaters i frequent. But for the 40 or so dollars I spent, I think i would have prefered a $20 ticket with an intimate small downtown crowd. perhaps that is where my true theater heart lives.