Arabian Lights: Disney’s Aladdin at the 5th Avenue Theatre

July 27, 2011 Scott G

In the promotional video for Disney’s Aladdin (now through July 31 at the 5th Avenue Theatre; tickets), actor James Monroe Iglehart, who plays Genie in the new stage musical says, “Come expecting the movie, but come expecting a brand new vision of Aladdin.” He’s mostly correct in setting that expectation. Aladdin is a hugely entertaining musical that is tailor-made for fans of the Disney film.

Casting was pretty much dead-on. As Aladdin, Adam Jacobs couldn’t look more like his animated counterpart. With a smile you can see from space and a warm, rich voice, he was just as he should be. In one of the songs that didn’t make it into the original film, “Proud of Your Boy,” he shows off an impressive range with the ability to emotionally engage the audience.

As the classic Disney villain Jafar, Jonathan Freeman ate up scenery. Freeman provided the voice for Jafar in the original film, and it’s hard to imagine anyone doing it better. He does every British-accented bad guy from Ming the Merciless to Voldemort proud, with most perfect “evil plan laugh” on the planet.

But the no-contest, don’t-even-bother-to-pan-over-the-faces-of-the-other-nominees award for scene stealing goes to James Monroe Iglehart for his performance of Genie. This actor is a one-man big production number. He had a lot to live up to, given Robin Williams’ performance in the film. Iglehart brings his own voice to the character, while still following the fast-talking, accent-switching, pop culture reference-dropping example of Williams. What impressed me the most, though, was this guy’s seemingly limitless supply of charisma and energy. Iglehart isn’t, um, built like a gymnast, but his cartwheels and pure physicality gave you the impression that this is a guy could will himself to do just about anything on stage. While I’d recommend the production as a whole, it would be worth seeing just for Iglehart’s performance.

The stage musical stays very true to the movie in many ways, with some interesting tweaks. Some of the songs originally written for and eventually cut from the film are given a second chance in this production. The same is true for some of the characters as well. The trio of Aladdin’s friends dropped from the original movie–Babkak, Omar, and Kassim–are restored in the stage musical and serve as sort of a Greek chorus to move the story along. The tweaks are just enough to give fans of the film a reason to see the stage production, but they aren’t going to make 9-year-olds cry foul about any inconsistencies with the movie version.

This production is slick, and you can see how Disney could easily scale it up for a big Broadway theatre, or scale it down for a theme park or cruise ship version. It is, like so many things they do so well, extendable across multiple platforms.

Only a few things didn’t quite work for me. I thought the “Hey, we know we’re in a play” self-referential humor was hit a bit too hard throughout the production. When Babkak acknowledges his Greek chorus role (“That’s right, we’re a device.”), it’s cute. But then that sort of thing got old for me. Maybe kids love it, though. Courtney Reed as Jasmine looked perfect, but she didn’t have the belty voice of the Disney film princesses.

In this production, nothing offends, nothing challenges. There’s no real jeopardy, no surprises, since most of the audience has seen the movie (likely many, many times, if they have kids). But not every play should be Death of a Salesman. Sometimes you just want to be entertained, and this production does just that.

News, Sports

Sounders Begin/Have Begun Champions League Play Tonight

July 26, 2011 Seth Kolloen

One of the fun things about soccer is all the competitions outside of the regular league season. For us Mariners fans, it’s World Series or bust (aka, bust). But even if the MLS season goes south, we Sounders fans can still look for potential glory elsewhere. One of these opportunities begins tonight.

Our rave green fellers are in Panama, where they will play San Francisco FC in a 2011-12 CONCACAF Champions League preliminary stage game.

The CONCACAF Champions League is a tournament contested by 24 of the best pro teams in North and Central America. The Sounders qualified because they won the 2010 U.S. Open Cup.

The preliminary stage is a home-and-home series. The Sounders will host San Francisco August 3. The team with the most goals combined in the two games (“the aggregate,” in soccer lingo) will advance to a group stage of 16 teams, four in each group.

SAN FRANCISCO FC FUN FACTS/DIGRESSIONS:

–The team is located in La Chorrera, Panama.
–It’s named for St. Francis of Paola, the patron saint of La Chorrera.
–San Francisco, California is named for a different St. Francis.
–La Chorrera is kind of like the Tacoma of Panama, being 30 miles S of Panama City and much smaller.
–Yankees closer Mariano Rivera is from La Chorrera.
–But his official bio says he’s from Panama City.
–That must really chafe people from La Chorrera, right?

If you’d like a scouting report on San Francisco, Matt Gaschk of the Sounders wrote a great one. In brief, San Fran has played just two league games, so the Sounders don’t really know what to expect. “We’re going to have to adjust quickly in the game,” coach Sigi Schmid told Gaschk.

Tonight’s game is at 5 p.m. and will be televised live on Fox Soccer Channel. You can also follow developments on the SoundersFC.com live blog.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

A Freaky, Fabulous Tale of a Tiger at the Jewelbox

July 26, 2011 Michael van Baker

“One day, an image popped into my head,” explains Rachel Hynes. “A girl goes down to the river to feed the tigers. ‘What does she feed them?’ I asked myself.” Tonight’s the last night you can can find that out for this short run of Tale of a Tiger; curtain is 7 p.m. at the Jewelbox Theater at the Rendezvous. Tickets are $10.

If you know Hynes from her work as co-artistic director of avant-garde Helskinki Syndrome, you might be surprised by the fable she tells in Tale of a Tiger, though the little story leaves claw marks in its unfolding. It’s suffused with brief illuminations that, in this fantastic context, recall childhood more clearly than trying to recall a particular day.

Hynes puts it like this: “In the magical world of the fairytale, we can accept odd things happening, we can feel basic instincts. Together, just by listening, the teller and the audience make sense of story. And together, we find the parts of ourselves that peek out to call, ‘Hello? Is anybody out there?'”

It’s preceded by Call on Me, with a character born from Jacques Lecoq’s Buffon who “stomps on the border between Mystery and Grotesque.” This is why reasonable people are scared of clowns, and it proves that laughter, where clowns are concerned, is more like protection money for keeping your dignity intact.

Tale of a Tiger is as much about Hynes’ physical narrative skills as her speaking voice. Her movement vocabulary isn’t necessarily naturalistic, though it can be visceral. Tall and willowy, she’s more graceful than you might expect, after seeing her stump around in Call on Me.

She’s an austere mime when called for, creating a rocking chair (and floorboard squeaks) for the town gossip, who’s perturbed by the way a little girl is being brought up out there in the forest, all alone except for her father, and he isn’t…well, anyway. Hynes is also a prowling great cat, the little girl in question, and a gang of maladroit suitors. If you are a solo performance fan, you’ll be fascinated by her transitions between characters, the quickness and cleanness between signature postures.

After she had her initial idea, of a girl who feeds tigers, Hynes developed the story by telling bits of it to other people, and gained an appreciation for “the act of storytelling, the nature of two live bodies in a room together, sharing something.”

“I didn’t try to tell a story about anger, about how childhood coping mechanisms no longer serve us in adulthood, about savage self-sufficiency,” she says, which is all to the good. All the ad hoc analysis in the world can’t create a compelling story. Tale of a Tiger asks for something more participatory than that, it wants you to come with it into a claustrophobic place, when a child takes certain steps for survival that can’t be untraced.

News, Real Estate

Seattle Real Estate “Heat Index” Map Tracks Lukewarm Summer Temps

July 26, 2011 Michael van Baker

Redfin has created a quick way to see where the hot real estate markets are, rather than poring over spreadsheets. If you are a true real estate wonk, you probably still want to check out their June data, since the map (below) differs in some respects from the detail you get from the numbers: As Redfin’s Tim Ellis explains, “The map breaks it down by zip code (and uses SFH or Condo or Townhome, whichever had the most sales in that zip code), but the table shows neighborhood breakdowns (and uses only SFH).”

Redfin, like many Seattleites, considers 75 degrees perfectly comfy, so that’s the baseline, and reflects “6.0 months of supply and +5 % price change year-over-year.” Seattle has some hot spots, but in general this is the summer of real estate inventory discontent. As you can see from the graphic, there’s just not a lot available.

From Redfin’s blog: “New listings are slow to hit the market, and buyers are getting frustrated with the inventory,” said Redfin Redmond/Bothell Agent Kurt Pepin. “Buyers are anxious to buy, but are also being very smart about their purchases. The pure emotional buy is gone, while crunching every number possible has become the new norm.”

Case-Schiller May home prices for Seattle were down seven percent year-over-year. Voters at the Seattle Bubble (Ellis’s other project) overwhelmingly say that foreclosures haven’t peaked, and the news backs them up. Nationally, RealtyTrac reported one million homes were foreclosed on in 2010, and expects this year to be worse, even with an additional one million foreclosures punted to 2012 as mortgage servicers attempt to foreclose with legal paperwork.

News, Sports

Seahawks’ Hiring Spree Begins Now; Will It Include Matt Hasselbeck?

July 26, 2011 Seth Kolloen

I don’t care how many meetings, off-sites, or team-building events you’ve got on your Outlook calendar, there’s no way you’re busier than Seahawks GM John Schneider. He’s got nine months’ worth of work to do this week.

If Schneider’s annoyed, I wouldn’t blame him. His bosses (NFL owners) and their employees (NFL players) have been locked in a labor dispute since February–aka Schneider’s usual window to re-sign existing players and draft picks, woo veteran free agents, sign undrafted rookies, and broker trades with other teams. Now, Schneider must do all that in about seven days, and he won’t get a day of rest like that lazy, unionized God did.

This sucks for Schneider, but for football fans it’s thrilling. Instead of the usual slow drip of signings and trades that go on during the long NFL break, we’ll enjoy a monsoon of moves. The clouds burst today.

As of 7 a.m., Schneider (with heavy input from Seahawks head coach and “executive VP of football operations” Pete Carroll) can make trades, sign rookies, and negotiate with free agents. Seahawks training camp begins Wednesday. On Friday at 3 p.m., he may begin signing free agents to contracts.

Job one for Schneider and Carroll: Figure out who’ll play quarterback.

Quarterback is a position unlike any other in professional sports. Besides his responsibility for pre-snap adjustments, and the fact that he handles the ball on every play, the quarterback is seen as the de facto team leader–whether you’re playing on an NFL field or two-hand touch in the park.

Matt Hasselbeck, the Seahawks’ starting quarterback for the past ten seasons, is a free agent. Though aging and prone to injury, Hasselbeck provides stability, which could be appealing in this bizarre year. The man is a leader–Hasselbeck organized and led team workouts during the training-camp-less offseason, despite having no contractual obligation to the team. Yet Hasselbeck’s incumbency is not as critical as it might normally be. The Seahawks hired a new offensive coordinator in the offseason. Under former Minnesota Vikings OC Darrell Bevell, who prefers a run-heavy version of the West Coast offense, Hasselbeck must learn a new, if not entirely unfamiliar, playbook.

Given the compressed training camp schedule, a quarterback who already knows Bevell’s system may be a better fit. So you might be hearing the name “Tarvaris Jackson.” It’s a name you may have heard before–as the punchline to a joke.

Once a promising quarterback prospect for the Vikings, Jackson has never recovered from a comically inept performance in the 2008 playoffs, which compelled the Vikings to replace him with 97-year-old Brett Favre. Still, Jackson’s five seasons in Minnesota coincided with Bevell’s tenure there. If there’s one quarterback who could step in right now and run that offense, it’s Jackson. Well, Jackson and Favre, but let’s not go there.

The Seahawks have one quarterback under contract: Charlie Whitehurst, acquired last year as the presumed successor to Hasselbeck. Whitehurst did not impress coaches, to the point that the Seahawks had to develop a special “training-wheels” game plan for his emergency start in the pivotal Week 17 game against the Rams.

Hasselbeck, who made $5.75M last season, may well get offers approaching that from other teams–money that in the rebuilding Seahawks’ case would be better invested in younger players. Then again, Hass did throw 4 TDs in a playoff game last January. Jackson hasn’t thrown 4 TDs in a game since 2008. Whitehurst hasn’t thrown 4 TDs in his entire NFL career.

Other possibilities:
—Kevin Kolb, who was Wally Pipped by Michael Vick, and now wants a trade. The Seahawks will surely be in on the bidding for Kolb, but may not be able to match desperate Arizona, still shell-shocked from Year One of the post-Kurt-Warner era.
—Matt Leinart, who won the Heisman Trophy under Carroll at USC but flopped in Arizona.
—Carson Palmer, another former USC Heisman winner who’s had more NFL success (though not as much since his 2008 elbow injury). Palmer has demanded a trade from Cincinnati.
–-Vince Young, who won 30 of 47 starts as the Tennessee Titans QB but will be released due to his emotional instability.
—Donovan McNabb, if the Redskins release him from his massive contract (he’s actually younger than Hasselbeck).
—Kyle Orton, a solid starter for Denver the last two seasons, now on the trading block with Tim Tebow ready to take over.
—Rex Grossman, who has, at times, been a competent NFL quarterback.

Complicating things even more, any free agent QB the Seahawks sign–even Hasselbeck–couldn’t practice with the team until August 4.

Besides finding the person who’ll be the most important player on the team, Schneider must also decide whether to resign several Seahawks who started last year but are now free agents. These include defensive line star Brandon Mebane, starting safety Lawyer Milloy, starting offensive linemen Chris Spencer and Sean Locklear, and kicker Olindo Mare.

The action will come in Twitter-time. Follow ESPN’s Mike Sando (@espn_nfcwest), or the Seattle Times’ Danny O’Neil (@dannyoneil) for breaking news. For in-depth, Seahawks-centric analysis, check out Field Gulls or the inadequately-named Seahawks Draft Blog. And once the downpour’s over, I’ll be back to try to make sense of it all. Unless the Seahawks sign Brett Favre, in which case I’ll have drowned myself in an Occidental Ave. puddle.

You can buy that pin (illustrated by Mad Magazine’s Jack Davis) for $15 at Seattle’s Gasoline Alley Antiques. Here’s all their Seahawks memorabilia.

News, Politics, Transportation

For Just a Nickel a Day, You Can Feed King County Metro

July 25, 2011 Michael van Baker

The hundreds of people who have turned out in support of their bus still arriving hasn’t fazed the Seattle Times, which today editorialized against Metro’s Congestion Fee because a) bus drivers are well-known fatcats, and b) “part of ‘sustainable’ means not continually asking for more money.”

Last week, the Times ran an editorial from Michael Ennis of the Washington Policy Center: “Raising King County’s car fee would prolong Metro’s inefficiency.” Though it worked much the same territory, the Times editorial board doesn’t thank him for the rough draft.

Here we see the dangers of copying off another person’s notes, as virtually everything Ennis, and by extension the Times, has argued is wrong, or misstates the facts.

Ennis would like you to believe that a cut of 600,000-hour, 17 percent in Metro service is just trimming the fat: “most of the proposed service changes are a result of recommendations from the King County Regional Transit Task Force (RTTF).” Here’s the RTTF: “Let me be clear that the RTTF did not provide recommendations for reductions in Metro service. ”

As Metro General Manager Kevin Desmond has just written, in his post “Debunking myths about Metro’s efficiency,” “Nowhere does the Transit Strategic Plan or the Regional Transit Task Force recommend cutting 600,000 hours, or 476,000 hours, or even one hour of service for the public.” The recommendations are for King County Metro to reduce service on inefficient or redundant routes and reinvest those hours elsewhere.

Ennis: “passenger demand on Metro’s buses has fallen significantly over the last two years.” What “significant” means may vary, but for March, April, and May 2011, ridership demand exceeds both 2009 and 2010 during the same period.

Also, while we’re on demand effects, it might be significant to note that Metro has raised fares 80 percent in the last four years, though Ennis forgets that. Riders, however, probably do know that they’re paying between $400 to $500 more per year now than four years ago–that may be why they don’t see $20 per year as an outrageous cost.

The Times‘ grasp of economics is sadly not in great shape either. As proof that Metro is inefficient, the Times mentions the top salary that bus drivers can be paid. Not what the average salary is. Not how many bus drivers make the top salary. Not how many drivers are full-time. Not how many bus drivers were beaten unconscious last year. Also–you wouldn’t think you’d need to point this out–an area’s cost of living has a strong effect on what people get paid.

Surprisingly, finding out the real cost associated with Metro’s 2,800 bus drivers requires only that you read Friday’s Times, when Paul J. Bachtel, president and business agent of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587, noted that the average bus driver wage in 2009 was $49,520. (Median per capita income in King County is $58,000.)

Writes Bachtel:

Metro has pared its budget repeatedly over successive years and is down to only two weeks of operating reserves. Metro employees have already forestalled service reductions by accepting furlough days, cuts to benefits and cost-of-living adjustments. Bus drivers work nights, weekends, and split shifts spread over 10, 12, even 16 hours, without overtime. Drivers are even sacrificing lunch and bathroom breaks!

UPDATE: Bachtel got back to me with me more data you might find useful. Of those 2,800 drivers, about 1,750 are full-time and are 1,050 part-time. (That will skew the average wage a bit.) Also, shifts can be split without drivers accruing overtime: “Mandatory split shifts can be up to 12 hours in duration for Full-Time and 13 hours in duration for Full-Time. Both Part and Full-Time may agree to work overtime up to 16 hours per day,” writes Bachtel.

The most absurd claim, though, is that Metro is “continually asking for more money,” as if the problem is not that Metro is continually getting less in the first place. “Voters have already given Metro two recent tax increases,” writes Ennis, “in 2000 and 2006.”

As Desmond points out, King County Metro’s financial struggles stem from 1999’s I-695, which left transit dependent solely on sales tax revenues. The 2000 “increase” supplied Metro with less money than it had lost. After the 2006 “increase,” and the recession, “Metro’s revenues dropped twice as much as Transit Now was supposed to raise.”

If buses actually ran on the money supplied by dictionary definitions of the word “increase,” then Metro would be continually seeking “more” money. But they don’t. The fact is that Metro’s funding was gutted a decade ago and it’s never been fixed since.

These are woefully serious economic times, and the decisions we have to make will have real effects. The rationales advanced by the Washington Policy Center and the Seattle Times editorial board are in themselves embarrassing and uncivil, but in context of the public’s reliance on transit, they’re misinformed and misinforming. It tarnishes the Pulitzer a bit when you get bullshit all over it.

The SunBreak

Monthly Archives: July 2011