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polychromatic) wrote2019-08-02 10:43 pm
polychromatic) wrote2019-08-02 10:43 pm
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I took my mother to see the musical adaptation of The Band's Visit last night. As someone who had never even heard of the original movie released some ten years ago, I made the decision to pick it over Aladdin because I suspect I will have many opportunities to catch a generally successful Disney musical (RIP The Little Mermaid), whereas a smaller musical like this one - even given it's Tony Award-winning pedigree - is much less likely to travel to Vancouver and thus I would need to rely on happenstance. The Band's Visit happens to be playing at The Kennedy Center while we're in DC. This, I figured, was my happenstance.
I approach musicals in one of two ways - I consume the soundtrack entirely and know almost every word by heart by the time I finally get to watch it, or I go in absolutely blind - although since many musicals are adaptations, I know the general story beats. I decided for the latter option with The Band's Visit, basically only knowing that an Egyptian band is stranded in an Israeli town.
To be fair, there's not much more than that.
While I've seen my share of musicals make themselves out to be sweeping epics with what may feel like large stakes at risk, The Band's Visit is more of a brief, lovely vignette on connection and loneliness, love and loss. It's a little slip of a thing at just under 2 hours with no intermission, but it was tender and sweet-natured in its own quiet way. It's just ordinary people living their ordinary lives, crossing paths and then moving onwards.
I suspect my mother would have enjoyed the theatrics and bombastic nature of Aladdin more, but she laughed at all the right places and seemed to enjoy it well enough. And that's good enough for me.
I approach musicals in one of two ways - I consume the soundtrack entirely and know almost every word by heart by the time I finally get to watch it, or I go in absolutely blind - although since many musicals are adaptations, I know the general story beats. I decided for the latter option with The Band's Visit, basically only knowing that an Egyptian band is stranded in an Israeli town.
To be fair, there's not much more than that.
While I've seen my share of musicals make themselves out to be sweeping epics with what may feel like large stakes at risk, The Band's Visit is more of a brief, lovely vignette on connection and loneliness, love and loss. It's a little slip of a thing at just under 2 hours with no intermission, but it was tender and sweet-natured in its own quiet way. It's just ordinary people living their ordinary lives, crossing paths and then moving onwards.
I suspect my mother would have enjoyed the theatrics and bombastic nature of Aladdin more, but she laughed at all the right places and seemed to enjoy it well enough. And that's good enough for me.