First the basics: I caught the last performance of Theater of the New Ear tonight at UCLA’s Royce Hall. New Ear began in London, played in New York, and finally in Los Angeles which should be it’s final stop. The performance is of two radio plays, which in LA was Anomalisa by Francis Fregoli (A pen name), and Hope Leaves The Theater by Charlie Kaufman.
I’m not gonna say too much about Anomalisa. Funny, well-written, and entertaining. Nothing too out of the ordinary and very much what I thought a radio play would be.
To try to write a review of Kaufman’s Hope Leaves The Theater would involve a lot of confusion and inadequate praise. I think it’s safe to say that it was the best play I’ve ever seen and ever will see. Kaufman had so many things going on, working on so many different levels, with his trademark “play within a play within a play within a play…” style. His script used the best of his cast (notably Meryl Streep playing a conceited and arrogant version of herself) and both made fun of and praised himself.
I need to learn to write like Charlie Kaufman
Reviews: Daily Bruin, Ain’t It Cool News, Margo Channing, SimplyStreep. Being Charlie Kaufman is also saying they’ll have an mp3 of the play posted up shortly.
By sheer coincidence we must have gotten seats in the “friends and family” section of the audience. Sitting two rows in front were the parents of Seth McFarlane. Directly in front of us sat the director of the famed banned episode When You Wish Upon A Weinstein. And directly behind us, laughing the entire time, sat Sarah Silverman.
The Family Guy Live! show started out with a music video for Stewie that got old rather quick. The cast came out next with brief introductions from Seth MacFarlane and then launched into a live reading of When You Wish Upon A Weinstein. To hear the different voices come out of these people is quite jarring at first, and the actors all got applause when we first heard them say their lines. Poor Mila Kunis though, Meg doesn’t really have a “voice” other than that of Mila’s own.
For the most part the action was narrated and the actors would just say their lines with a big projector screen behind them showing a close up of the actor. Some of the cast had their fun when the projector did a cross-fade effect to display two actors at once. On occasion animated bits would be played, but only for important scenes where the animation was necessary.
They then did a musical number from the upcoming “Family Guy Live In Vegas” album coming out in a couple of weeks. Nothing of real note here as they played it like a marketing stunt and the song and music is what you expect from Family Guy.
Finally the much-awaited first act of the first episode of the new season of Family Guy premiering May 1 was shown to the audience, and it was freakin’ hilarious. People kept yelling for more when the clip ended but according to the cast, the rest hadn’t been completed yet. Definitely far better than American Dad
They ended with a brief Q&A session (no autographs) where people asked about obscure references, fanboys made requests to Seth Green, and casting choices were revealed (Lacey Chabert was fired?).
And this is where we stood up to leave, only to see Chris get all excited and shout, “That’s Sarah Silverman!”, and then Brad wanted to touch her and Richard couldn’t figure out how he knew her. According to Chris, seeing her was the highlight of the night.
I still don’t think she’s that hot.
I went to the Improv in Irvine on Friday to see the comic Mitch Hedberg. His comic stylings are exactly those you would expect from someone completely stoned out of his mind, and while very funny, I don’t think I found him quite as funny as everyone else did. The comic that went up right before him, Ryan Keegan (sp?) had some good material though.
Syndicate this site