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revdorothyl at 11:30am on 01/01/2005 under movie reviews
revdorothyl at 11:30am on 01/01/2005 under movie reviewsIn spite of learning yesterday from the guy who's fixing my car in Kentucky that it will be another week, at least, before that car is ready to drive (meaning that I'll have to drive another car back to Nashville early this next week, and two other drivers from my family in Wisconsin will have to make a special trip later to pick up that vehicle), I spent an enjoyable and safe New Year's Eve, and I hope the same was true for all of you.
After taking Dad to his physical therapy appointment in the morning and mailing off another accident report to my insurance company, I drove over to my sister's house in Milwaukee and spent the next 12 hours happily goofing off with her.
Sister treated me to her favorite sushi restaurant for lunch (they have a wide variety of vegetarian sushi), and then we walked her dogs for a couple of miles, and after that it was pure couch potato time!
First, we watched the library DVD of a performance of "The Taming of the Shrew" that I remember watching when it premiered on Public Television back in 1976.
Sister didn't remember watching it back then, but I remember being so "inspired" by the incredibly physical and sexy performance of the young actor playing Petruchio, that I'd made a point of looking for his name in the end credits and had tried to commit the name "Marc Singer" to memory, so that I could look for him in other things someday.
I'd nearly forgotten his name (though not his performance, which if I hadn't already gone through puberty some years prior to that would certainly have jump-started it for me!) by the time I finally did see him perform again, in the title role of The Beastmaster in 1982 (I managed to shock many of my male friends in seminary a few years later by keeping a large poster of Marc Singer in his Beastmaster loincloth displayed in my dorm room -- strangely enough, it never seemed to offend any of my female classmates!).
From there on, I pretty much tried to watch anything that had him in it.
Anyway, if you've never seen this San Francisco theater company production of "The Taming of the Shrew" in the broadest commedia del arte / slapstick style, then do by all means look for the DVD of that performance in your public library system or video rental stores (or you can buy it for a VERY reasonable price from a dealer on Amazon.com).
As Petruchio, I think Marc Singer's anatomy was even more openly displayed than it was in his Beastmaster loincloth, and that's saying a lot. Plus, there was some decent acting involved, also!
(I couldn't resist googling Marc Singer, to confirm my memory regarding dates and roles performed, so here's the link to his TV Tome bio, which informed me that not only did he play the Beastmaster and star in "V", among other sci-fi related roles, but that his sister star in the sci-fi series "VR5" with Anthony Stewart Head -- which I knew already -- and that Bryan Singer of X-Men fame is his cousin, I found interesting from a general fannish perspective: http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-39544 )
I then persuaded Sister to skip ahead from the "Highlander" episode "Methos" (which I'd gotten her to skip ahead to the day before, as it was taking us way to long to work through season 3 in order) to the next appearance of Peter Wingfield in parts 1 and 2 of "Finale", which was the point at which I'd first started watching the series in earnest last summer.
Having dutifully worked our way through all of the special features and commentaries on those episodes, Sister got us Thai take-out food for supper, and we went on to watch Hellboy with the cast commentary, followed by the special features on the Hugh Jackman "Oklahoma!" DVD.
All in all, it was a very merry "Beefcake" New Year's Eve, for a couple of single gals of a certain age to enjoy.
After taking Dad to his physical therapy appointment in the morning and mailing off another accident report to my insurance company, I drove over to my sister's house in Milwaukee and spent the next 12 hours happily goofing off with her.
Sister treated me to her favorite sushi restaurant for lunch (they have a wide variety of vegetarian sushi), and then we walked her dogs for a couple of miles, and after that it was pure couch potato time!
First, we watched the library DVD of a performance of "The Taming of the Shrew" that I remember watching when it premiered on Public Television back in 1976.
Sister didn't remember watching it back then, but I remember being so "inspired" by the incredibly physical and sexy performance of the young actor playing Petruchio, that I'd made a point of looking for his name in the end credits and had tried to commit the name "Marc Singer" to memory, so that I could look for him in other things someday.
I'd nearly forgotten his name (though not his performance, which if I hadn't already gone through puberty some years prior to that would certainly have jump-started it for me!) by the time I finally did see him perform again, in the title role of The Beastmaster in 1982 (I managed to shock many of my male friends in seminary a few years later by keeping a large poster of Marc Singer in his Beastmaster loincloth displayed in my dorm room -- strangely enough, it never seemed to offend any of my female classmates!).
From there on, I pretty much tried to watch anything that had him in it.
Anyway, if you've never seen this San Francisco theater company production of "The Taming of the Shrew" in the broadest commedia del arte / slapstick style, then do by all means look for the DVD of that performance in your public library system or video rental stores (or you can buy it for a VERY reasonable price from a dealer on Amazon.com).
As Petruchio, I think Marc Singer's anatomy was even more openly displayed than it was in his Beastmaster loincloth, and that's saying a lot. Plus, there was some decent acting involved, also!
(I couldn't resist googling Marc Singer, to confirm my memory regarding dates and roles performed, so here's the link to his TV Tome bio, which informed me that not only did he play the Beastmaster and star in "V", among other sci-fi related roles, but that his sister star in the sci-fi series "VR5" with Anthony Stewart Head -- which I knew already -- and that Bryan Singer of X-Men fame is his cousin, I found interesting from a general fannish perspective: http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-39544 )
I then persuaded Sister to skip ahead from the "Highlander" episode "Methos" (which I'd gotten her to skip ahead to the day before, as it was taking us way to long to work through season 3 in order) to the next appearance of Peter Wingfield in parts 1 and 2 of "Finale", which was the point at which I'd first started watching the series in earnest last summer.
Having dutifully worked our way through all of the special features and commentaries on those episodes, Sister got us Thai take-out food for supper, and we went on to watch Hellboy with the cast commentary, followed by the special features on the Hugh Jackman "Oklahoma!" DVD.
All in all, it was a very merry "Beefcake" New Year's Eve, for a couple of single gals of a certain age to enjoy.