paratti

I just got back from James' Words and Music thing, followed by pub. I had a fabulous time. The first half of each performance was Macbeth (abridged by James) and done with an American Actress playing a powerful, equal partner Lady M. It was excellent. He got his dates a bit wrong and it was odd hearing Shakespeare (and some Scottish place-names) done in American accents, but the poetry, the intensity and the tragedy all came through beautifully. It had everything guaranteed to make me happy bunny. Macbeth and Lady M all over each other a la S2 Spike/Dru, that coiled spring, boneless energy of Spike, great mad scenes off an actress that was actually doing something, a Bring It On ending followed by death, plus all the great poetry from Thane of Cawdor to perfumes of Arabia. Everything that made Spike such an amazing performance was there - right down to the poetry. All this with great, quite light brown hair with waves and some errant curl, tight black T-Shirt on a S5 BTVS body, intact black jeans with belt and thick soled boots. Off Lady M in an all black outfit too (if a little, yes, your bum does look big in those trousers). Seeing that production approach of the two as equal partners and bringing out the warrior in M and the strong woman as opposed to bitch in Lady M really did work. It also fed the Samson and the Broken Dolls Sequel bunny of Spike and Illyria in Pylea like whoa!

In the Q&A afterwards, I really liked his idea of casting Banquo as a bigger than M warrior type that of course he'd have to take out, and Malcolm Canmore as a badass (which considering the real one was a complete hard bastard - big yes). Great Q&A, purely on the performance and the play as opposed to the usual questions, which was nice, even if one woman did seem determined to recite her entire thesis as opposed to actually ask a question. I think the matinee had the more intensity, but that may be because I was closer to the stage, but the boy filled that theatre and it was fabulous seeing him act one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. Come on, it's me, massive death, doom, disaster and a strong woman and intense fucked up men - what's not to like?

Except the theatre air con, which was a tad over enthusiastic and had my lungs twitchy by the second half both times. But that's the only real quibble. It was well organised. Picking up the tickets was a dream and everyone was really nice and James was fantastic.

The second half was the music portion of the evening. I'm not a music critic. I was tone deaf even before I ruptured both ear-drums diving and lost some registers, so I'm not exactly equipped to be one, but I enjoyed it muchly. He sounded good and better than when I saw him before at Halloween. He did Dangerous, Louise, Poor Robyn, Finer Than Gold, Birth of the Blues, Civilised Man, London City and lots of others. Though both performances were interrupted by him breaking strings. Those must be strong fingers:) And he might need to start taking a Blue Peter approach to guitars - here's one I re-stringed earlier, but the E string broke in the first and the A in the second. Some blues, which I loved, being a JJ Cale, Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn lover as well as Robert Johnson, BB King etc. Some rockier stuff - which fitting the amp in the first performance led to a bonus glimpse of (very nice) bum cleavage.

Steve Himber announced that James is off to start filming the lead in a feature film called Shadow puppets - a psychological thriller, which will include Jolene Blalock in the cast - and then will be doing more Smallville.

It was great to catch up with some of the folks I met at Halloween, see the evening performance with rozk and catch up with some of the girls at the pub before and after too, though I missed others that I really wanted to and meet more of my FL. *waves*

((((Hugs)))) the lovely pelinxf and marajade71. You were missed.