Starting to get into gear for World Horror. I leave on Wednesday afternoon for a 10-hour nonstop flight into Heathrow. On a 777, so I’m hoping the in-flight entertainment system is in full gear. If not, I’ll have my Kindle loaded up with lots of reading options. I don’t usually sleep very well on flights, but I’m going to give it a shot. Otherwise Thursday is going to be a very long day.
We went to see The 39 Steps at the Alley Theater this weekend. The play is fairly faithful to the Hitchcock movie (which diverges greatly from the Buchan novel), but it’s played very much for laughs. It has a minimal stage set (the same packing trunks are used for a train, a car, various beds and other sundry props, for example), and only four actors. One plays the main character, Richard Hannay, the typical Hitchcock wrongly accused man who races across the country trying to stay one step ahead of the police while determined to prove his innocence. One female actress plays three different roles, and the other two actors, misleadlingly called Man #1 and Man #2, play a host of other characters, not all of them male. There’s a Monty Python/Benny Hill/Carol Burnett aspect to the play. At moments, the two “Men” play as many as four characters. In one instance they switch hats and rotate around to signify the other character. Another time, they play at the edge of the stage and execute a kind of sleight of body, marching off stage, quickly changing clothes before marching back on in another guise, repeating this several times in a matter of seconds or minutes. It’s all very clever. Some of the stage gags are hilarious. In a Scottish moor scene, every time the (portable) door opens, huge gusts of pretend wind come roaring into the house and the actors all behave as if they’re about to be blown away. They jostle and joggle while seated on the “train” and respond to the brakes in the “car.” For a couple of “wide shots,” the players are replaced by stick figures silhouetted on a rear-projection screen, with plenty of sight gags, including a cameo by the Loch Ness Monster. The actors must have been exhausted after this tour de force performance. The names of several Hitchcock movies are woven into the script, and the soundtrack contains many recognizable themes from the master’s movies.
I finished Chuck Hogan’s Devils in Exile this weekend. It’s about an ex-Iraq vet who’s having a hard time readjusting to life in Boston. The only job he can get is as a parking lot attendant, where he is discovered after he fights off some would-be robbers, almost killing one in the process. He is enlisted by a guy who has made it his mission to eradicate the big drug dealers in the city. They execute well-planned interventions, where the drugs are destroyed and the money confiscated. Readers familiar with Hogan’s previous book, Prince of Thieves, may notice that common element. There is also a love story of sorts, and overlap with a DEA agent who resents that someone else is doing his job. Everything is not as it seems, though–is it ever? A very good crime novel.
We also finished A Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle. The opposite side of the coin in terms of capers. Light-hearted and devoted to descriptions of France, French meals and wine. My wife guessed the book’s outcome just before it was announced. I came up with a neat twist, but that didn’t prove to be the case. We’re moving on to Corduroy Mansion by Alexander McCall Smith, and I am going to give Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter a spin.
Alas, Jeff and Jordan started falling farther and farther behind on Amazing Race and finally had their luck run out. I was rooting for them, but the detectives seem the team to beat now that they’ve figured out a winning game plan. Of course, one false move (like dashing off to the wrong town) could be the end of any team.
I watched Undercover Boss after the Super Bowl and thought it was an interesting concept. However, it suffers from the same problems as a lot of reality shows of this type. The first few minutes essentially reveal the entire episode, and what isn’t covered there is previewed before commercial breaks. Then things are reiterated two or three times along the way in case you happened not to be paying attention. This show in particular is in a real repetitive rut–once you’ve seen an episode or two, there’s not really much point in watching another. There’s going to be the sentimental story, the sob story, the motivational story and the bad-employee story. And it’s all too staged. How can you manage a two-camera interview, with intercut reaction shots, and expect it to seem unrehearsed?
Lost viewers take note: this week’s episode runs 66 minutes, so if you’re relying on the DVR, adjust your end time accordingly!
I did a lot of revamping of the story that I mentioned last week, the one lying fallow until a set of submission guidelines appeared in my INBOX that fit it. The biggest change required was to get a second character on screen sooner, so I had to untie the knot and loop it together differently, making sure I didn’t introduce any continuity errors in the process. I should have written it that way in the first place, I now realize, so I think it is a much stronger story than before. I also got four other stories back into submission on Saturday.
