Top Five Songs: A Man of No Importance

I’ve been on an Ahrens & Flaherty kick lately, and this show has some astounding numbers.  Ahrens & Flaherty are an interesting composing duo.  To me, they’re a bit uneven – each score I’ve heard of theirs has at least a few forgettable songs – but when they’re on, they’re incredibly on.  Here are my favorites from A Man of No Importance.  (Fun fact:  all five are from Act I; this show is seriously frontloaded.)

 

“A Man of No Importance” – Yet another spectacular opening number from these two.  This song sets the stage, introduces the major characters, and hints at conflicts/themes to come.  That, and it’s gorgeous, modern Broadway with an Irish flair – a great introduction to the score.

Best line:  “A handful of people with journeys to make, / Leaving the everyday world in their wake…”

“Princess” – Alfie has decided that his new acquaintance Adele is perfect for the title role in his community production of Salome.  In this song, Adele argues with him, pointing out how unremarkable she is.  At the same time, the number reveals her deep-down desire to escape the quiet desperation of her work-a-day, provincial existence.  The violins are exquisite.

Best line:  “I don’t pretend to be a thing but plain and common. / When you’re brought up in Roscommon, what’s the use pretending? / I leave the fairytale ending to the people such as you.”

“The Streets of Dublin” – This song just radiates life, as Robbie shows Alfie the simple pleasures he enjoys on the city streets.  With its soaring melody and exuberant earnestness, it’s a song perfectly devised to show why Alfie is in love with Robbie.  The triumphant repetitions of the final line give me chills – just a beautiful, beautiful song.

Best line:  “The lamps in the park / Look like God in the dark / As they glow / On the streets of Dublin.”

“Man in the Mirror” – This important song sidles in with little fanfare.  It’s fitting, though, because Alfie is the same way – it makes sense that the first private admission of his sexuality comes in a quiet, wistful number.  Here, he gives tentative voice to the feelings he’s denied his whole life and invokes the spirit of his hero Oscar Wilde, who was as brave as Alfie longs to be.

Best line:  “Where is my golden love? / Where but in musty plays?”

(Yes, I'm recycling this picture - turns out it's super hard to find production photos from A Man of No Importance.)

“Love Who You Love” – Probably the biggest theme number in the show.  As Adele fears the whispers of those who might judge her “impropriety,” Alfie gently encourages her to pay them no mind, telling her that she can’t help who with loves.  Coming from a deeply closeted man, it’s of course full of emotionally-charged irony, but it’s also so simple and honest, you can’t help but root for Alfie to take his own advice.

Best line:  “People can be hard sometimes / And their words can cut so deep. / Choose the one you choose, love, / And don’t lose a moment’s sleep.”

Relationship Spotlight: Sarah Manning & Felix Dawkins (Orphan Black)

…And just for a change of pace, how about an Orphan Black Relationship Spotlight?  But seriously, this is the last relationship that I really want to talk about from that show, for the time being anyway.  I’ve mentioned both Sarah and Felix before, with Helena and Alison respectively, but their connection with one another warrants a closer look, too.

Unlike the other relationships I’ve highlighted from this show, Sarah and Felix predate the clone revelation.  Both were fostered from a young age by Mrs. S. and taken from their home country, the U.K., to be raised in relative privacy in the show’s non-specified Canadian locale.  When we initially see Sarah with Felix, freaked out from her first out-of-context clone experience, it’s clear how inextricably tied they are.

In some ways, the relationship first established by the show is one in which neither is all that good for the other.  Sarah is forever pulling Felix into her not-aboveboard schemes (not that Felix is an altar boy or anything, but him dragging her into something isn’t their usual dynamic.)  Despite his protests and lectures, he generally goes along with it; however, he’s far from spineless, and particularly in early episodes, he vents his feelings with pissy, passive-aggressive shows of force that are inconvenient for Sarah and drive her up the wall.  She’s of course the one who initiates him into Clone Club, enlisting him to be her lookout, her backup, and her safe-house, and even though Felix soon grows as invested in the whole thing as she is, he’s often the one telling her to stop and think, to not be reckless.  And what’s the typical result?  They both get reckless.

As such, I can see the point that their relationship might be enabling or self-destructive, especially from Sarah to Felix – she rarely considers what he wants or needs, and she regularly expects him to drop everything on her behalf.  (Yes, I know Sarah’s the protagonist, and as a woman who’s recently discovered she’s a clone with an enormous list of enemies, she has a lot more going on right now, but would it kill her to check in with Felix now and then?)  Yet, part of this dynamic is the fact that each will forgive the other pretty much anything.  They take each other for granted (like Sarah making Felix go on the run with her and her daughter and then insisting on calling all the shots and refusing to listen to any of his advice) and screw up each other’s plans (like Felix throwing a fake funeral for Sarah, who’s faked her death, using the money from the drugs Sarah wanted him to sell for her,) but neither takes what the other does personally for long.  They seem to get that they’re both stubborn people with a talent for screwing things up, that something stupid done in anger or desperation shouldn’t be a deal-breaker, and that each needs the other in their corner too much to hold grudges. 

That’s why Felix is the first person Sarah turns to when things go wrong.  It’s why she can’t leave him out of a major operation.  It’s why Felix initially accedes to helping out the other clones so much (as time goes on, he develops fairly strong sibling bonds with all of them, each with its own dynamic, but at first, it’s all for Sarah.)  And it’s even why he can get so mad at Sarah, because he knows she’s in over her head with dangerous people, and he can’t bear the thought of anything happening to her.  Both have had a tough time of it, and to a great extent, they both tend to hang onto the other for support because that’s what they’ve always done.  I’m guessing they always will.

Buster Keaton’s Single-Line Pitches: Independent Shorts

More single-line pitches, for the classic shorts this time.  I’ve already mentioned some of these highlights in my rundowns of the shorts, and a few pop up in “A Letter to MGM,1928-1933,” but they’re definitely worth repeating.

One Week – in which Buster invents the mobile home

Convict 13 – in which Buster wears a noose made of bungee cord

The Scarecrow – in which Buster fries eggs on a record player

Neighbors – in which Buster constitutes the top of a human ladder

The Haunted House – in which Buster tries to raise his hands in surrender while said hands are glued inside his pockets

Hard Luck – in which Buster thinks he can walk on water

The High Sign – in which Buster gets lost in a newspaper

The Goat – in which Buster disguises a photograph with a real mustache

The Play House – in which Buster plays a fantastic monkey

The Boat – in which Buster nails his shoes to the floor of a perpetually capsizing boat

The Paleface – in which Buster tries to punch a butterfly

Cops – in which Buster turns a ladder into a seesaw

My Wife’s Relations – in which Buster makes beer foam into a valid hiding place

The Blacksmith – in which Buster markets a saddle shock absorber

The Frozen North – in which Buster goes ice fishing and catches a fisherman

The Electric House – in which Buster invents the dishwasher

Daydreams – in which Buster nearly drowns in a manhole

The Balloonatic – in which Buster plays the ukulele in an air-born canoe

The Love Nest – in which Buster catches a whale

Favorite Characters: Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who / Torchwood)

 

*Disclaimer: Shortly after the Noel Clarke allegations were coming out, stories were reemerging about John Barrowman. I remember reading about some of them back when I was first getting into Doctor Who and Torchwood and, unfortunately, my reaction was the same as a lot of fans’: not exactly, “Oh John, that loveable prankster!” but not properly upset. While these allegations are obviously different than the ones against Clarke and seem to stem from a very different motivation, they still fall on the spectrum of unacceptable behavior/language/attitudes that fuel the wider landscape of rape culture. That’s not something that people should ever have to deal with in their workplace.*

 

 

Jack!  I may have some periodic issues with the good captain on Torchwood (as I do with most everything on Torchwood,) but the Jack we meet on Who is an utter delight and a fantastic addition to the series 1 TARDIS crew.  Any quibbles I have with Jack on Torchwood tend to vanish as soon as he returns to the mother show.  While I’ll touch on Torchwood a little in today’s post, it’s Who’s version of Jack that I really want to celebrate.

In hindsight, I suppose Jack fits Moffat’s cool-supporting-character template.  Like River and Vastra, he’s a techie badass with a come-hither attitude who’s comfortable with time-hopping, has an intriguing backstory (with hints of darkness) whose surface is barely scratched, and tends toward quippy dialogue and action poses.  (Come to think of it, if you take out the sci-fi bits, that fits Irene Adler pretty well, too.  Moffat definitely has a type.)  I don’t really tire of Jack on Who, though, while River and Vastra (and Irene) can sometimes be a little “too much” for me.  I’m not sure why that is.  Is it because Jack has had more writers behind him, evening out his larger-than-life edges?  Did he have the good fortune to arrive on the show before I started to experience intriguing sexy badass fatigue?  Is it because he’s male, or because Moffat’s penchant for writing these characters as female sometimes makes it feel like he only writes one kind of woman?

Whatever the reason, Jack completely works for me on Who.  A 51^st-century time agent turned conman, the Doctor and Rose meet him working a job in the middle of the London blitz.  He’s roguish, deceptively charming, and self-confident to the point of vain, and he first tries to pull a fast one over on our heroes and later willfully ignores his part in the bad stuff going down – not your typical companion, right?  However, Jack is more than he appears; his past isn’t all breezy heists and partying, and he steps up to the plate in the end.  Though Rose feels he’s earned his place on the TARDIS, the Doctor isn’t so quick to be sure.  When Jack makes the usual remark about the TARDIS being bigger on the inside, the Doctor tells him, “You’d better be.”

And really, he is.  When it comes down to it, Jack is all about life, and that’s what he brings to the show.  He’s more shoot-first than the Doctor likes, but he’s also brave and dedicated – he comes back for those left behind, and in the face of death, he squares his shoulders and orders a drink.  Traveling with the Doctor satisfies his adrenaline-junkie rush, and he throws himself wholeheartedly into his new, less destructive way of life.  He gushes over flashy alien tech, his default setting is take-charge, and he has the best “pursued by aliens while naked” stories.  His omnisexuality can be a bit of a joke (when he flashes that smile and introduces himself, you can practically hear the show saying, “Here we go again!”), but I think it’s ultimately affectionate.  Jack loves/desires/beds the same way he does everything:  with 100% commitment.

This is what I think Torchwood doesn’t get.  It’s true that, by the time we get to Torchwood, a lot more crap has happened to him, but it still feels like that show works too hard to make him a “dark brooding hero,” and the flirty cheekiness is just a perfunctory nod to continuity between angsty backstory and present-day “someone has to make the hard calls” moments.  If the show is saying that this is the natural progression of Jack’s experiences, then I’d say it’s a road it shouldn’t have gone down.  Dark brooding heroes are everywhere, and Jack is a more novel character without all that baggage, as evidenced by his reappearances on Who in series 3 and 4, which feel like returns to form and breaths of fresh air after the Drama! on Torchwood.