High's and Low's

The final two shows of our Broadway and Beyond trips were War Horse and Spider Man. I have two very polar opposite, strong opinions about the two performances.

War Horse was the highpoint of the day! It was a powerful, beautifully captivating show. It won the Tony Award for best play and it most definitely deserved that title. This show has to be the most exhausting, challenging acting to undertake, physically and mentally, in regards to the actors who played the horses. They put their bodies through a severe workout in terms of the upright, bent leg, positioning they have to be strapped into the entire performance and the mentally they have to portray as being a horse. They have to produce sound affects, emotion and chemistry with their team players in order to make the horses come alive and be successful. The beauty of this show was through the mechanical engineering that turned into a story that had emotion that pulled the audience into the show. Bravo to War Horse and the magic they created on stage that Broadway has never seen before!

Spider Man on the other hand, was the low end of the night. It was the most disappointing Broadway show I have ever seen in my life. I have never wanted to leave a theater as much as I did that night--and I have been to my fair share of good and bad Broadway shows. This show to me was a blockbuster hit, that was a franchise out to get money. I felt like it had nothing to do with high, artistic quality, or talent on stage, or the telling of a story. It simply had to do with special effects and entertaining the crowd with the twenty flying spiderman's they had. The music was not tasteful and they singing done by the two leads was mediocre in quality. I was extremely disappointed and even more disappointed by the fact that it is still on Broadway and filling the house every night.

I am sad to see the trips to NYC come to an end, but I have enjoyed every trip whether I thought the show was wonderful or below my expectations. I have learned a great deal about the city, how to navigate my way through it and where all the theatre's are located. I will miss this luxury of going to see a Broadway performance every weekend, but all good things must come to an end at some point, but the memories can still be valuable and looked back on with fondness.

Warhorse and Spiderman

The October 29 trip to New York was unlike any of the others. This trip focused less on the museum aspect of the class and more on the art of theater. The plays we saw were Warhorse and Spiderman and the outstanding artistic ability was evident in both of the shows. You didn't have to be an artist to appreciate the hard work that was put into both performances.
I thought that the way the horses were designed in Warhorse would make it difficult for me to believe there was actually a horse on stage. I didn't think I would be able to ignore the three people required to control the puppet but after a while they really did just blend into the background. I was amazed at how realistic the puppet felt to the audience. I actually found myself feeling sprry for the horse even though I knew it wasn't real; it was definitely a unique performance and above all, very well executed.
Spiderman's stage setup was amazing! The prop designers went to great extents to make the stage look like an original comic book scene. The stage was hardly ever still because the props were switching so quickly. Just as impressive as the props was the way Spiderman swung through the theater. The mid-air fight with the Green Goblin was incredibly impressive! The fight had to be so well choreographed just so the wires on the two characters didn't tangle! However, I could have done without the musical aspect of the performance. It was an interesting idea to make a comic book into a musical, but this show in particular did not benefit from the singing at all. I don't even think the music would have been any more tolerable if the actors were able to sing better. The only way to improve the music would really be to rewrite all of it.

The Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC is definitely a treasure of the city. Hurrying up the stairs to get inside, pushing my way through the bustling crowd, it was difficult to really get a good look at the outside architecture. The large columns I did manage to glimpse though were pretty impressive. Inside, there was a really high ceiling in the entry way, giving the place a sense of grandeur within the first five minutes of your visit.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get all that much time to visit the met; you really need a lot of time to make the most of your visit.

The section with the Egyptian art and artifacts was pretty impressive. There was this one room that opened up so it was really huge and part of the ceiling was glass to let in a lot natural light. There were these pieces from tombs that showed different hieroglyphics that you would see on similar Egyptian structures.

The Greek statues were absolutely gorgeous. The various marble figures were so elegantly crafted. It’s a shame that throughout time and transportation that so many of the pieces had parts of them break off. There were missing heads, arms, noses, and various other appendages. Even still, the amount of life-like qualities that were present in the sculptures was absolutely amazing. The smoothness of the skin versus the texture of the fabric of their clothing was greatly contrasted. I have no idea how artists were able to make such amazing sculptures.

The one thing I didn’t like about the met however, was how easily I got lost.

I got separated from the group while I was looking at one piece and I didn’t realize they had moved on to something else. I spent the next 15 minutes or so walking in circles trying to find them, but I couldn’t find them ANYWHERE. There was a simple explanation for that though. They had left the building without me.

Once I was told by one of my classmates that everybody was waiting for me at the bus, I hurriedly tried to find my way out of the maze of paintings I had found myself in. It seemed like no matter which way I turned, I couldn’t get out. All of the paintings were of a similar style so it took me a while before I realized I was pretty much roaming in circles, not making any progress. So I had to swallow my pride and ask a security guard how to get out.

Even with directions from one person, I had to ask any security person on my way out which way the exit was. It was so embarrassing. But hey, I guess I got to see a little bit more of the museum than everybody else in my class did!

I know that I am definitely going to have to find a chance to go back to the met and visit for a much longer time, so I can slow down and really look at the art.

Cloisters

Going to the Cloisters Museum was a very interesting experience for me. Just a week before going there with the class, I had been to the surrounding park for a miniature one-day renaissance faire that is held there annually. When I was walking around outside, I was so intrigued by the building. It really looks like somebody built a castle right in the middle of the park hundreds of years ago. So going there with the class, I was pretty excited and ready to go inside.

When we got there however, this man told us that we weren’t allowed inside because we got there really early before our tour was scheduled. He argued with Professor Baxter and told all of us we would just have to wait outside. Professor Baxter went inside to talk to the manager/owner, whoever it was that could give us the authority to enter. When she came back, we had absolutely no problems.

The Cloisters Museum is so amazing because even though you know that it is a more modern-built building, there are bits and pieces of it that are actual historic buildings! When you look at the building from the outside and actually pay attention to the details, you will notice that there are some sections where the color of the stone changes from dark to light or vice versa. This is where bits of older buildings have been reassembled as part of the newer structure. That’s just so AWESOME that they actually brought buildings over from Europe to remake here in the middle of NYC.

Once you go inside, you need to look everywhere to get the full experience of the museum. There are all different types of architecture throughout the building, real or simulated. Paintings hand on the walls, and are even part of some of the walls! These are called frescos, which are pretty much murals and are really cool. There’s differently shaped windows and some have scenes of stained glass inside of them. Lots of art in the museum tells a story.

My favorite room was the “unicorn room” where a series of tapestries was hung. These tapestries told the story of the hunt of a unicorn. A group of maybe five to ten men accompanied by several different dogs the unicorn and wounded it while the unicorn tried to fight back, kicking people and dogs! These were absolutely beautiful tapestries and were even more stunning when they were first made, before they began to fade.

One of my favorite aspects of the museum was the open courtyards that were scattered throughout. They had statues, fountains, and different types of plants that would have existed in gardens during medieval/renaissance times. I just thought stepping out into the open air was so refreshing after being inside for a while. Also, if you stepped out on the terrace, you could see across the river into the more wooded area of the park instead of the city. It really felt like you were in a medieval castle.

Around the Riverbend

“Around the Riverbend” is a collection of impressionist paintings of the Lehigh Valley area that was on display in the Moravian College Payne Art Gallery for the past month or so. These paintings were from when the town was beginning to develop, not at all like the present day landscape.

There are many landscape paintings that are included in the collection, and they are at once similar and different. Many of them are either looking down into the Lehigh Valley or are along a river at some point.

Many of these paintings are paired up with a photo of what the area looks like today, to show the change of the area over time. This one painting of Glen Onoko Falls for example shows how there once used to be a bridge that crossed over the stream and there was a trail that ran alongside it. There were people scattered along that trail that were either out just to enjoy the beauty of the spot, or they were perhaps on their way to or from the hotel that could only be reached from that nature trail. I wish that I could have gone to that hotel.

Nowadays however, the hotel must be long-abandoned, and the trail and bridge are gone, destroyed by the ravages of nature as it reclaimed the area for itself. It is still a beautiful area though. No housing developments have moved in, and hopefully that land is under some sort of protection from encroachment by society in the future.

My favorite piece shows a moon reflected over a slow moving river. The color of this piece is absolutely gorgeous, with a bluish- purple hue cast over the entire scene. Unfortunately the painting has suffered some damage over the years and there are cracks and lines that have formed in the upper right corner of the piece.

The photo that accompanies this painting makes for a very interesting pairing. There is now a concrete bridge that spans the width of the river, and where in the original painting the moon had been now there is a streetlight. This is just an interesting fact to me, and it’s kind of funny, the way things lined up.

Many of the other paintings were very similar to each other. They either showed valleys full of flowers or perhaps barns or other farming-related buildings. The little details in these were also kind of interesting to look at, such as some of the livestock in the farming pieces. However, I just don’t think the images were really as striking as they could have been.

Either way, this is still a great representation of the Lehigh Valley, both today and in years past.

Theatre in New York City

Despite the fact that our section of First Year Seminar is entitled “Exploring the Great Museums of New York”—not “Broadway and Beyond,” our class has had the pleasure of seeing a few Broadway productions nonetheless. Back in September we saw the musical Hair on its closing night, and on Saturday, October 29th, we attended a matinee of the play Warhorse and an evening performance of the musical Spiderman: Turn off the Dark. Although “museums” more or less is the technical topic of our art-related class, it is clear that theatrical productions are each unto themselves individual works of art. It would seem that just as there is great variety among works of visual art, so too is there great variety among theatrical productions—variety in style and perceived quality.

Warhorse was phenomenal. It is very easy to see why it won several Tony Awards, particularly that for “Best Play.” It depicted the dramas of World War I through the eyes of a horse “Joey” and through the relationships of its characters. The idea to use a “puppet” horse instead of a real horse was a fabulous one, and the puppeteers pulled off the feat really well. I was a bit distracted and confused by the puppeteers in the beginning of the play when the horse was first introduced, but eventually, the realistic mannerisms of the horse overshadowed the humans helping it achieve those mannerisms. The horse breathed, flicked its tail, and twitched his ears. And though physically the horse did not appear incredibly realistic, the realism of the movements more than made up for it. The strong bond between Albert (the boy who was a main character) and Joey, the horse, was a moving one. When it appeared that they could be separated forever, I must confess that I did shed a few tears. In short, the production—in my own inexpert opinion—was absolutely wonderful in every respect. From the acting to the set to the puppets to the music, Warhorse is an exquisite work of art.

Spiderman, on the other hand, is like a piece of artwork that is aesthetically pleasing but technically lacking. It is somewhat like a pretty watercolor painting of flowers done by a child—nice to look at, but from a professional standpoint, there is much room for improvement. Before I go any farther, however, I would like to make two things perfectly clear: I am not trying to say that Spiderman is truly comparable to the work of a child, and unlike many others in our party, I did not hate the musical. I do think that it lacked finesse, though, and that the music left much to be desired. Parts of the song lyrics and parts of the script were corny at times, sometimes uncomfortably so. Perhaps the vocalists could have been better—indeed, perhaps much better. Yes, the plot could have been more fluid. In spite of all this, you may be wondering, can Spiderman have any redeeming qualities at all? My answer is yes. Its redeeming quality, for me, was simply that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed Spiderman’s high-flying acrobatics and the little romantic plot line. I enjoyed simply learning about Spiderman, as this musical was my first exposure to it. I enjoyed the light-hearted nature of it. Also, the cartoonlike props and stage sets didn’t bother me, because Spiderman is generally first and foremost known as a comic. I thought it was neat how that “comic” quality was incorporated into the show. I wish that more people had caught sight of that. All in all, I found it entertaining. I was glad that I went, and that my arachnophobia did not act up too much. :)

While they may have differed in levels of quality, Warhorse and Spiderman, both pieces of art in some way or another, were very enjoyable. The bottom line? I am very glad that I had tickets for both of these shows.

Spiderman hits the Broadway Stage

Unfortunately I was unable to to attend the class trip to see Spiderman on Broadway, but I did get a chance to go on my own. This play is a combination of America's favorite superhero coming to life on stage and songs produced by some legendary rock artists. Even though the music wasn't really my style, I loved the play over all. It was amazing to see how they managed to get Spiderman to perform some of the stunts that he did. This play probably had a lot of planning go into it to make it the success that it is today. Spiderman did have a rough start on broadway, but really did end up being an exciting show for all ages.