Ed Heinzelman – Page 150 – an intuitive perspective

February 19, 2022February 28, 2022

The Bard, The Fab Four, The Rep or As You Like It

Roll up roll up for the Mystery Tour
Roll up roll up for the Mystery Tour
The Magical Mystery Tour
Is waiting to take you away
Waiting to take you away
Take you today
Magical Mystery Tour (Lennon/McCartney)

No, Magical Mystery Tour isn’t one of the twenty or so songs that powers this 21st Century mash up of Beatles music and a 400 year old comedy from William Shakespeare, but it should be an ear worm as you go to your seat because a Magical Mystery Tour is what the Milwaukee Repertory Theater is going to provide when you attend this version of As You Like It!

Courtesy of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, photo by Michael Brosilow

And about that go to your seat. You will want to go to your seat ten or fifteen minutes early for a bit of pre-show music and a bit of foreshadowing of the action to come later. Trust me on this!

Starting with the solid bones of a Shakespeare comedy with the requisite villains and banished royalty and the resulting mayhem and then of course the woman going afield pretending to be a man is surprisingly enhanced by any number of appropriately selected and appropriately inserted Beatles songs. Who would have thought. But the whirlwind events plus the fluid cast movement from band member to featured soloist/character can sometimes add to the character confusion that Shakespeare revels in. But oh, never mind, what fun!

Daryl Cloran, who adapted and directed this production, had an over the top amount of fun tweaking the nose of the Beatles, William Shakespeare, and the Summer of Love. Yes this is over the top in a good way and you will need to stay alert to catch the varied references to the Fab Four, Shakespeare’s common strategies, and every cliche from various cultural era of the late 1960s…and of course the odd merging of WWE style wrestling…you can in part blame that one on the Bard!

Savannah L. Jackson as the heroine Rosalind and Justin Gregory Lopez as her lovelorn love interest are incredible in establishing and toying with their relationship(s) as their situations and interactions change. From that first meeting through the hidden identity to the grande finale, they are the magic in the As You Like It part of this event.

But my goodness, Lizzy Brooks as Celia just exhibits an incredible voice and her renditions of Beatles songs, for me, stole the show! Another favorite vocal standout is Kurt Schwietz, who plays a number of roles throughout the evening.

And, I almost forgot…don’t miss our resident despondent beat poet Andy Warhol look a like, Jacque, most ably played by Trish Lindstrom!

And in a contemporary turn of events, with Savannah L. Jackson as Rosalind disguised as Ganymede, we have a woman playing woman playing a man…a bit of a twist on what Shakespeare would have written for his theater…a young man playing a young woman playing a young man. The Ganymede disguise would have been more believable in 1600 than in 2022 but now it is impossible not to see the woman beneath the male garb. But all the more fun because it twists and turns the jokes that Shakespeare built in making fun of the gender confusion…and it takes on some humorous new aspects in this presentation!

One small quibble…as a former cover band musician and long time Beatles fan, the drums were under mixed and the guitar could use a little more sass…particularly on Helter Skelter.

P.S. This is a British Columbia Invasion coming from the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival in Vancouver.

As You Like It just opened so there is plenty of time to see it between now and March 20, 2022 in the Rep’s Quadracci Powerhouse Theater! Here are the details and links for tickets. And please pay attention to the COVID safety protocols.

Extra credit reading?

The As You Like It program.

And the As You Like It Playguide.

Now, the only thing missing is Ed Sullivan’s “Ladies and Gentleman, THE BEATLES!”

February 14, 2022January 5, 2022

Monday Music: Sheryl Crow NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 12, 2022February 12, 2022

Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park! Part 2

Just two months ago I wrote the first post about some wonderful environmental sculptures that have popped up along Lincoln Memorial Drive in Milwaukee’s Lake Park area. These sculptures enhance the portion of the roadside that are wild and natural in our urban environment…and although parts of these are man made they are truly sensitive to their natural environments. Here is the original post: Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park!

And although I am identifying their locations, if you visit them please be respectful of the work and their environment. These are truly a joy to experience.

This first one is relatively monumental compared to most of the others. It is very reminiscent of one of those that I documented in my original post (see below). Again, this one resides just west of Lincoln Memorial drive along the bluff near what any unreconstructed hippie of an older Milwaukee era would refer to as the alternate site. Here we see a number of oval discs that appear to be made of water washed and formed pieces of concrete and black top paving materials. I was able to get a bit closer to these so they may have had some human intervention to enhance the natural feel of eroded materials. But serious thought has been put into their placement and relationship to the space as well as finding the perfect fallen log for the base.

I didn’t notice this one until mid-January. This may have been the fourth piece that I felt in the back of my mind back in December but couldn’t find at the time. It may have required the full winter drought environment to become noticeable. Or it may be a newer piece.

This next piece is probably the most sober and for me the least successful…partly due to its stark nature and maybe because of the relationship of the living trees just beside it. This one is also west of LMD, across from the lagoon, about a half mile north of the Milwaukee Art Museum. This one is the nearest to the road. But instead of a piece of eroded paving material this one appears to be fashioned from a local piece of granite or quartz. More color than the other pieces.

And this third and final one is certainly a new one. Even last fall it would have clearly stood out from its surroundings. I saw it immediately during my first drive to UWM in January for the start of the spring semester. And a friend of mine, Beth Vandervort, who travels the bike trail along the bluff also commented on it on Facebook and posted a picture shortly after it appeared in January.

Now this is significantly different than all of the others. It doesn’t have any rock or pavement pieces attached to an onsite log or stump or fallen tree. It doesn’t elude a sense of calm or tranquility or sensitivity to place. Instead it is red and right in your face and as Beth said, this is “The Earth’s circulatory system revealed.”

So my question…is this the same artist or someone who felt the soul of the other pieces and is putting a new and different stamp on our psyche? What do you think?

This one is up on the bluff above the bicycle path west of LMD and just north of the Milwaukee Art Museum. But given its color it is currently very easy to spot from the drive.

I am concerned about these sculptures. I don’t remember seeing the first one that I documented in my previous post recently. So please be respectful of the sculptures and the environment if you go to visit them.

AND AGAIN: if any of you know the artist, please share that information in the comments section so that I can properly attribute these here. And if you are aware of other ones in the park, please leave the locations in the comments because I would like to go see them in the wild!

I would really really like to interview the artist. I have a lot of questions about how and why and the future! These are exciting pieces and warrant our respect and admiration.

COMMENTERS NOTE: if you have never commented here before, your first comment won’t appear until I have approved it so don’t think you are doing something wrong! But after that first one is approved, your comments should appear immediately.

And this last image is repeated from my first post and just for comparison with the first sculpture shown above. Again, the first post: Stealth Public Sculpture In Milwaukee County’s Lake Park!