In which we take in a show

We hit the road yesterday to see the National Theatre Live performance of Mrs. Warren's Profession. These filmed performances are very well put together. The last one we saw was The Importance of Being Earnest with Ncuti Gatwa as Algernon. (The team that filmed Merrily We Roll Along could learn a thing or two from the NTL.) There is no question that watching these are very much like being at a play rather than a movie. This one shone brightly because of Imelda Staunton in the title roll. Her work in the third act as the embittered mother is absolutely thrilling. You get chills watching her. How often does that happen watching anything? On the surface, of course, the play is about prostitution—it was banned all over the place in its early days—but with Shaw, one sees hints of his complicated political thinking throughout, reading into it what one will. I haven't seen a play like that in a while. It makes me wish that NYC theater was more available (I find the costs ridiculous), and it makes me reconfirm my desire to see more plays when we visit London (where the costs are reasonable). 

The first play I ever saw was on Broadway was Peter Pan with Mary Martin, so I do go back a long way theaterwise, seeing all sorts of original casts over the years. The best of it was when we lived in Manhattan in the 70s. Chorus Line, Chicago, Sweeney Todd... Obviously my bent was for musicals, but there were straight plays too, including bunches of Stoppard. The only difference is that with the straight plays you don't take home the original cast recording and play it for the next five decades. Nowadays, aside from family trips to London—last time there we introduced my granddaughter to the spectacle of The Lion King—our theater these days is mostly limited to the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, which we support as patrons because of their education program. 

We live in a historical moment where the arts are being hit hard. Supporting the arts, sure, but also just bathing oneself in the arts is highly recommended. See Stoppard's Rock and Roll, for instance, for further elucidation. 

Listening (audit division): "Paradise and Lunch" by Ry Cooder. I'm rather happy that I didn't find out about Ry Cooder when I was younger; I don't think I could have financially afforded to keep up with his amazing output. I would have had to give up theatergoing! A brief bio: Cooder has played with [everybody] [ever] in addition to his own albums. Cooder discovered [most everybody else] [ever]. This album at hand is great. If nothing else, I'm a sucker for slide guitar. (And pedal steel guitar, while we're at it, which is probably somewhere in the Cooder resume). I've got a boatload more albums to queue up that are him, and then there's the "appears on," and then there's the ones he's merely associated with, e.g., "Let it Bleed." We'll be seeing more of Mr. Cooder in the future.