Quidam diabolo performer William Wei-Liang Lin – photo credit Jordan Wright
The critically acclaimed Cirque du Soleilis bringing Quidam to our area next month. The captivating extravaganza which has toured five continents and been seen by millions over its 17-year history, will be at the Patriot Center at George Mason University.
Last week at Georgetown’s newest restaurant and event venue Malmaison, I had a chance to chat with Jessica LeBoeuf and Cirque’s newest performer, William Wei-Liang Lin, the company’s 24 year-old diabolo act who hails from Taiwan.
LeBoeuf, Quidam’s publicist, described the complex logistics of moving the production from city to city via fifteen trucks loaded with the set, costumes and equipment to stage a show consisting of fifty-two world-class performers including singers, acrobats, musicians and characters from twenty different countries and staging it in an arena. “The show has been redesigned for an arena from the usual Big Top. But it’s the same show, just under a different roof. It’s theatre-style seating, which gives us five hundred to a thousand more seats, still with the sound of a live concert. We take about a third of the stage area, think of a hockey rink, for the backstage where there’s a gym, all the props, costumes and a place for the performers to warm up, plus the band pit and the garage. The stage comes out nearly to the front rows,” she explained.
“There are a lot of aerial acts in the show, though we don’t use a safety net or safety line. We use the téléférique, the French word for cable car. It’s an arch that comes halfway across the arena and stops above the audience and then there’s a cable car system on each of the five rails where we fly the performers in and out on their apparatus. It’s all sheer human power.”
For William Lin the journey to Cirque stardom has been as circuitous as it has been auspicious. As a schoolboy his aim was to study tae kwon do, but when the hoped-for class was filled he wound up studying ‘diabolo’, a technique evolved from the Chinese yo-yo that incorporates string and one or more axles that are spun and tossed.
Quidam by Cirque du Soliel
Eventually Lin developed tremendous expertise, winning first prize over all the acts at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in France, an international competition akin to the Oscars for the Circus Arts. Soon after he was discovered in England by Cirque’s scouts. Although he curtailed his university studies, he still needed to complete mandatory military service. Even so he had to wait a year until a spot opened up in the company this January. “Cirque du Soleil is my dream,” he beams. “My work is my diabolo. I love learning new tricks. Many of my ideas come from videos and movies. For me the possibilities are limitless.” Lin has become wildly popular back home in Taiwan where he is flooded with request for TV interviews.
In a story of a young girl bored by the world and her apathetic parents, young Zoé seeks to fill the void of her existence with the imaginary world of Quidam, which offers characters that encourage her to free her soul. The show is notable for its poetic transitions and beautiful acrobatics that create an exhilarating sensory experience.
As LeBoeuf puts it, “The performers need to keep their bodies in good shape for eight shows a week while performing at the same level. They do Pilates, stretching, yoga, dance classes, conditioning and cross training. To keep them interested and involved local dance teachers are often invited in to do demonstrations. In Detroit we had a famous dancer come in that did hip hop. It was very cool for the foreign performers to learn hip hop. The contortionists said, “I don’t understand how you move!” It was pretty funny coming from them.”
Quidam will hold seven performances from July 17th through July 21st at the Patriot Center at George Mason University 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030. For tickets and information visit www.CirqueduSoleil.com or call 703 993-3000.
JUNE 14, 2013 BY JORDAN WRIGHT Special to The Credits – MPAA
According to a 2007 British survey Hans Zimmer is considered “one of the world’s 100 living geniuses.” He shares space on the list with the likes of Stephen Hawking, Prince and Philip Glass. Zimmer’s own list of achievements includes an Academy Award, several Golden Globes, Grammys, Lifetime Achievement Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and dozens of film credits that attest to his significant contribution to many of the industry’s finest films.
Zimmer’s scored a slew of classics. Driving Miss Daisy, Rain Man and The Lion King are a few of his famous past films, as well as more recent blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean, Madagascar, The Da Vinci Code, Sherlock Holmes, The Thin Red Line and Dark Knight. Today’s release of Man of Steelcontinues this living legend’s legacy of creating the mood and musical identity of some of our biggest films.
There may not be a single filmgoer who has not been touched by his music. The Credits spoke to him about his craft, his passions, and his hopes for Man of Steel.
Hans Zimmer – photo credit to his wife, Zoe Zimmer
The Credits: Can you talk about your approach to composing for Man of Steel? How did your sense of the script guide you?
Zimmer: Not one bit. I never read it. I told David Goyer [Man of Steel scriptwriter] forgive me for not reading it. For me there are two types of directors. There’s the writer/director and the director that works from somebody else’s script—and what’s important for me is figuring out what the director has in his head. So I said to Zack [Snyder, Man of Steel director] let’s sit down. Tell me the story. And while the telling is going on I find out what’s really in his heart—what the emphasis is for him. The weird part of the process is that as someone tells you the story you start to come up with sounds and music. So in my head I’m scoring Zack telling me a story. That helps with starting. But also I was somewhat overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. Because I was working on Dark Knight Rises at the same time and I didn’t think I was quite up for it. The master, John Williams, had done rather well by it, and it was part of my growing up and DNA loving John Williams’ score. The inevitable comparisons are out there, but I couldn’t care less about what anybody says. Find me a composer who isn’t driven by paranoia and neurosis.
I don’t ever remember seeing a film that had a musical score throughout most every scene. It must have been quite a task to create such an enormous score. What was the reasoning behind that decision?
It’s because the score is fairly new. It goes from me playing a little upright piano to these rather grand gestures that you’d expect. In an odd way, though it’s a Superman movie, there’s an absolute inherent reality in this film, because America really is America, and America is real. So it felt like it would be nice to create this “through line” from the word go to the end. When we get to the second half it gets pretty intense, but we tried to use music to create beautiful silences as well. For example, when Krypton blows up, and I don’t think I’m giving anything away here, the tendency would be to go hugely bombastic and throw everything at it–but it’s just one single solo violin.
Can you talk about the musical transitions in the film when you segue from battles to farm scenes? Do you look at the film and it comes to you or is it a separate process?
Transitions are tricky because we change tones so dramatically, and you just hope that you’re replacing very kinetic energy with emotional energy, because I did try to make the farm scenes tiny and emotionally poignant. Part of the disadvantage I have in this interview is I haven’t seen the movie with an audience. All I know is that I spent many months loving the process and that’s truly the whole thing. I love writing music and sitting with my friends and colleagues and the musicians and the director and we’re building something and hoping people will love it as much as we love the process. But by the end of it you have no idea if you’ve succeeded or not. You just try your best.
How hard was it to make this music different when everyone already knows the music from the Christopher Reeves’ movies and John Williams’ score?
It really comes from the filmmakers having a very different take on how we can tell the story. I remember when we were doing Gladiator with Ridley Scott and he was speaking about when he first saw Spartacus and how it resonated with him and how those movies should sound. And I kept saying to him but that’s my job, that the next bunch of fourteen-year olds should have their own music.
And that’s what Chris [Producer, Christopher Nolan] wanted me to do…to find my own language. If Zack had sat down with John Williams and told him the story the way he told it to me, John would have written a very different score from the one he wrote [for the earlier film], because it’s a very different movie. Ultimately I write from a very personal perspective. I have to find my own personal bits. Being a stranger in a strange land, being a foreigner in a culture that is not necessarily your own culture, and forever being torn between the two cultures, I think is interesting. And so for me as a foreigner I think there’s a chance to hold up a mirror to America and to let it see the things it’s become a little bored with. The things it takes for granted.
What do you mean by ‘the things America takes for granted’?
I remember when we were in the Grand Canyon shooting Thelma and Louise and we were saying, “Wow! It’s the Grand Canyon!” and there were these kids standing there saying, “Dad, Can we go home? It’s just the Grand Canyon.” So as a foreigner that used to look at America with wonderment, I just want to give that back to America. To say, “Look at your towns. Look at your people. See what’s good and decent and noble.” I have no idea if I’ve succeeded. At the end of the day it comes down to two questions; were you entertained or did it make you feel something? That’s all you can hope for. That somewhere in one little corner of this vast movie you got to feel something and you were in this world.
It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to use the old Superman theme. Because suddenly you would have recognized it and thought, this is the old Superman, and then you would have been aware you were watching a movie. I was terrified of parody in any sense, even unwitting parody. Part of my very simple plan was to exorcise anything out of my orchestra, like the main instruments that I remember John Williams using, like the trumpet fanfare. I didn’t use any of that. By narrowing my palate I felt I was doing something different.
Do you compose electronically, on a piano or on another conventional instrument?
Nothing conventional! I had two weeks of piano lessons. That’s my formal education. I write the stuff in my head and then I use a computer with a music word processor. After all, I am a child of the twentieth century and whatever works is how I get there.
Have you ever had your music pirated?
Yes, of course my music gets pirated all the time! The thing that worries me the most, from a film composer’s point of view, is that the more things get pirated, the less value they have. And the flip side of this is there are all kinds of horrible and nasty things you can say about Hollywood. But you should always remember that Hollywood is the last place on earth that commissions orchestral music on a daily, if not hourly, basis. It gives children a reason to have a passion to learn an instrument and actually make a living at it. So every time one of those very expensive film scores gets pirated what you are doing is directly affecting if we’re going to have, or not have, orchestras left in this world. If we lose orchestras, it’s going to rob us of more than just a bit of culture. There’s a lot of heart that’s going to go missing.
In Mozart’s time he had to make sure he could get his score published the following day because during the premiere there would be people in the audience scribbling along and pirating it the next day. Pirating has been going on forever.
Featured image: Henry Cavill and Amy Adams in Man of Steel. Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Heather Norcross (Anita Highland), Michael Gerwin (Dr. Grover Lockwood), and Ben Norcross (Porter) – Photo Doug Olmsted
There’s nothing like the sound of a collective gasp from the audience as when the curtain draws back to reveal a dazzling stage set. Co-Set Designers, John Downing and Bill Glikbarg, achieved this stunner after months of pouring over historic photographs of the 20th Century Limited, dubbed the “Most Famous Train in the World”. Their construction consists of three railroad cars decorated with Art Deco period furnishings in cool pearl gray tones that move on hidden pulleys as the action shifts wildly from private berths to a sitting car. Scrims inserted into the back windows of the cars allow the audience to catch sight of the passengers as they race back and forth in pursuit of each other – be it out of greed, lust or retribution.
For Roland Branford Gomez directing Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of 20th Century was a trip down memory lane. Not only had he ridden on the iconic train as a former child actor, but he had met and befriended a fellow dance studio student he had come to care for. Mary was the daughter of one of the play’s authors, Charles MacArthur and his lovely wife Helen Hayes, the “First Lady of the American Theatre”. Both parents frequently took the children to matinees in New York and so for Gomez it was a dream come full circle to direct this play for his adored playmate who died at the age of nineteen.
Kathy Fannon (Ida Webb), David James (Oscar Jaffe), Margaret Bush (Lily Garland), and James McDaniel (Owen O’Malley) – Photo Doug Olmsted
Meet Oscar Jaffe, a producer with three recent flops, buckets of bombast and a burning desire to get back in the game. Lily Garland is his muse – a glamorous actress flush off an Academy Award and eager to return to the stage. Along with their respective press agents, a cheating husband and his paramour, and an escaped mental patient they are all on the train to New York City. In between stations they serve up plenty of comedy, farce and whodunit in this delightful comic stew. And for that we should all be grateful.
David James plays failed producer, Oscar Jaffe, the self-described “Wizard of Broadway”, to the hilt in a flamboyance of zany, physical comedy that often out-emotes the rest of the cast. Margaret Bush as Jaffe’s former lover Lily, delivers in fine fashion, but as with the other terrific cast members she is often overshadowed by James.
Gary Cramer (Matthew Clark), Heather Norcross (Anita Highland), James McDaniel (Owen O’Malley), and Kathy Fannon (Ida Webb) – Photo Doug Olmsted
Heather Norcross as the coy sex kitten Anita Highland and Michael Gerwin as the adulterous doctor Dr. Grover Lockwood, make the most of their small roles, as does Kathy Fannon as Ida Webb, Jaffe’s assistant. And Gary Cramer does high anxiety to a T as the bible-thumping neurotic pill saleman Matthew Clark who convinces Jaffe he will underwrite his new play. I couldn’t get enough of their quirky well-crafted characters.
The second act picks up nicely when Max Jacobs, Jaffe’s rival for Lily, shows up on the train to thwart Jaffe and offer her a contract. That’s when Bob Cohen strides onstage and nearly steals the show with his portrait of the big time New York producer with a heart of steel.
Cal Whitehurst (Conductor) and Kathy Fannon (Ida Webb) – Photo Doug Olmsted
Sound Designer David Correia does a bang up job of recreating the glorious rumble and screech of a train streaking down the tracks. But, like a train that slows when it pulls into the station and speeds up to its next destination, this production has its fits and starts, moments of brilliance, and periods of static, still with plenty of high jinks and snappy repartee to go around.
Through June 29th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street. For tickets and information call the box office at 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com
The cast of “Company” turns Manhattan into a dance floor as they sing “Side By Side By Side.” Photo: Scott Suchman.
When the cast of Signature Theatre’s Companystruts onstage in the musical’s first number, the thing to keep in mind is that three of the four onstage couples, Sherri L. Edelen as Joanne and Thomas Adrian Simpson as Larry; Tracy Lynn Olivera as Sarah and Evan Casey as Harry; Erin Driscoll as Jenny and James Gardiner as David are in fact real-life married couples. Only Erin Weaver as Amy and Paul Scanlan as Paul are not. Got that? Knowing that underlying dynamic makes it all the more compelling to watch their interactions with each other. Set in 1970’s Manhattan to the dawning of the sexual revolution, the reimagining of the meaning of marriage, and the requisite neuroses of the typical New Yorker, the musical is reminiscent of a Woody Allen movie set to music – fabulous, iconic, Stephen Sondheim music.
Perennial bachelor, Bobby, is a cad and a charmer, the type of guy who won’t commit to any girl. But his married friends adore him. He remembers their birthdays and brings them flowers when they are sick. They reveal their innermost selves to him and he stays as neutral as Switzerland. Light and breezy Bobby, the perennial observer, who stands on the sidelines and watches as the couples bicker or praise, need one another, yet feel trapped. Marriage. It’s complicated. And for middle-aged Bobby, bed hopping is far less messy.
Joanne (Sherri L. Edelen; center) gets fired up to sing “The Ladies Who Lunch” while out on the town with Larry (Thomas Adrian Simpson; left) and Bobby (Matthew Scott; right). Photo: Scott Suchman.
When he queries the husbands about their marital satisfaction they explain the dichotomy of their lives with ” Sorry-Grateful”, a song that attempts to clarify both the loneliness and the comfort of marriage. Given such conflicting advice Bobby hunkers down in his bachelor foxhole examining the paradoxes of modern relationships. The wives sing about Bobby’s loneliness and trash his choice of women in “Poor Baby”, synching up with their husbands in the tune, “Have I Got a Girl For You”.
For more than four decades the music from Company has been sung in every city and cabaret from here to Timbuktu. Memorable showstoppers like “The Ladies Who Lunch”, “Another Hundred People”, “Barcelona”, “Side By Side”, “Marry Me a Little” (a later addition) and “Getting Married Today” have become beloved classics.
The cast of “Company” serenades Bobby (Matthew Scott; center) as they sing “Side By Side By Side.” Photo: Scott Suchman.
Matthew Scott as Bobby is outstanding throughout, especially if you like Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live whom he could double for in adorableness. Notable too is the effervescent Erin Weaver recently off her starring roles in The Last Five Years and Xanadu, who tears off the roof with her rendition of“Getting Married Today”.
Choreographer Matt Gardiner keeps the cast on their toes with snappy slick dance routines and a karate scene between Sarah and Harry that is outright hilarious. (Oh, yes, there’s plenty of comedy amongst all that angst.) Scenic Designer Daniel Conway employs a sleek three-tier stage bracketed by a grand staircase, sliding doors, a lofty apartment terrace and hydraulically controlled mid-century modern furnishings.
Producer Eric Shaeffer has put together a strong cast of powerful singers to showcase Sondheim’s musical and in turn give us a terrific show.
Through June 30th 2013 at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
Last week the organizers of the 2013 America’s Cup – the gold standard of sailing and crème de la crème of international yacht racing – came to the Willard Intercontinental DC to showcase their plans for this summer’s premiere event and flew in Michelin-starred chef Daniel Corey. Wouldn’t you if you wanted to impress? Partnering with the timelessly elegant Intercontinental Mark Hopkins and its sister hotel the ultra-contemporary Intercontinental San Francisco, they’ve dubbed their mission “The Luce Cup Tour” after the hotel’s Luce Wine Restaurant where Corey is Chef de Cuisine. In the shadow of the White House we lunched on Corey’s distinctive cuisine and learned a good bit about an iconic race that began as a loop around Britain’s Isle of Wight back in 1851.
The Luce Cup Tour Luncheon at the Willard Intercontinental – photo credit Jordan Wright
Here’s the backstory. Exercising their right as the current cup holders the American team of BMW Oracle Racing opted to hold the event in San Francisco – only the seventh location to host the race in its 162 years. It will be held in the terrible, awful, no good, crazy tides and death-defying eddies of San Francisco Bay, a body of water akin to the Bermuda Triangle on a bad day. For the first time viewers can watch the multi-hull action from a beautiful shoreline that includes cities like Sausalito, Tiburon, Berkeley and naturally “The City By the Bay”. It promises to be an exciting spectacle filled with bravery, terror and camaraderie.
Daniel Corey’s Amuse Bouche – Pacific Amberjack marinated in yuzu with radishes and creme fraiche – Dark Chocolate and Olive Oil Cake with preserved kumquats – photo credit Jordan Wright
Did you know that nearly fifty preliminary races are held from July 4th through the end of September? I didn’t. Race aficionados from around the world will begin flocking to the city next month to witness the preliminary Louis Vuitton Cup races as well as the excitement of the finals. Capturing the “Auld Mug”, as the silver ewer-shaped trophy is familiarly known, from the Golden Gate Yacht Club will be any sailor’s game in these high stakes, high-tech, hyper-engineered catamaran races.
Here are some of the ways to view the race. Charter a private luxury yacht. There are over a dozen accredited on-water charters to choose from. Commodore Yachts names its six multi-level boats after wines. Rent the “Chardonnay” or “Cabernet” with your sailing pals for a celebration party or opt to watch from atop the Pier 39Rooftop Lounge. The World War II SS Jeremiah O’Brien a living museum at Pier 45 and has tickets available for all races. The new America’s Cup Park and Pavilion is yet another absolutely spectacular site that will host concerts at night. There are family-friendly rates at the Race Course Bleachers and swank waterfront chalets adjacent to the America’s Cup Village at Marina Green for the seriously nautical minded.
Organizers have partnered with the San Francisco Giants and AT&T Park (the stadium itself is another amazing viewing venue), to handle ticket and event sales. If you choose to watch from the Liberty Ship, which comes with its own naval museum, prices start at $110.00 per ticket. But if entertaining in luxe style is how you see yourself and your peeps, rent out the Club 72 at the tip of the Park. It can accommodate 450 guests for a mere $30,000. Keep me on your speed dial if you decide to go for it!
Jordan Wright, Publisher/Writer on Food/Spirits/Travel/Theatre Whisk and Quill, LLC
As the sole celebrity judge for this weekend’s Taste of Del Ray, I’m pondering how I’ll be able to select a winner from a slate of twelve very qualified competitors vying for just one trophy. A nicely balanced three-person panel might have taken some of the heat off of me, but organizers were firm. “One judge!” they insisted in unison. So there you have it. Yours Truly acceded to their demands. The event will take place in the heart of Del Ray in the tented parking lot of the Virginia Commerce Bank on Mount Vernon Avenue on June 9th from 1 till 3pm and I’m hoping you’ll be there.
The plan is to sample everything from cheese to chocolate and pizza to BBQ. Everyone gets to taste the dishes. There’ll be French, Mexican, Modern American and Italian tastings that I expect to wash down with glugs of coffee from Swing’s, a century-old coffee roasting company that recently moved their operations into an historic building in the Soho-hip community.
Following in the footsteps of previous judges Rock Harper (third season winner of Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen), and Carla Hall (of Top Chef and ABC’s The Chew) will not be an easy task. I’ll need to channel my inner Sonya Thomas aka “The Black Widow”, a Virginia native and uber competitive eater who can put away forty-five Nathan’s hotdogs in ten minutes. I’ll have five minutes per restaurant to sample their wares. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Sheriff Lawhorn Gayle will announce the Chef’s Choice Award (That’s me!) and the People’s Award Choice (That’s you!). Let’s hope I don’t get arrested for public gluttony.
