into the woods - a man a part

well, i saw into the woods last night. if you haven't seen it and are planning too, you might want to skip the next few paragraphs:

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[i'll let you know when i'm done]. my biggest complaint, too long. This is coming from a fella who's favorite movie of the past year or so is Dogville, clocking in at 178 minutes, ~~that's three hours and 18 minutes~~ that's two minutes shy on three hours. I can do long. I really can. I do however, have this problem that if i know it's going to be long, which i did last night, i kept checking the time to see how much of it was left. I did that the first time i watched dogville too, but i lost track of it. for the middle hour+ i just got lost in the story--which made it feel shorter and therefore more digestable.

The concept of into the woods, the fact that fairy tales end with "happily ever after" and they don't tell you about the troubles after the end is good, it's interesting, but it's not something that we can fix really. Stories need to have resolution. they need to end. Not everything is going to end perfectly, but some of it might, for the stories sake. I think they earned the second act--the ever after act, but i'm not sure that it kept my interest. again, this may be a length thing, but it is something they have to think about when writing, producing and making this sort of production.

the other thing that i was unsure of was the "Woods". What is the woods? is it life? is it hardship? they went into the woods when they had a wish. they went into the woods [skipping everytime they sang it] and bad things, or conflict happened. but i'm not sure what the woods were supposed to represent. i think it would have proved to be a better show, if they all knew what the woods were. and by they, i mean the director, producer, sound designer, and most importantly the actors. they may have done this, i haven't asked anyone yet, but it felt muddy to me. this could be because of poor/inexperienced acting, but it still missed something.

I liked the show. It didn't grab me and throw me around. It didn't make me want to see it again. I liked it. I'd reccomend it, especially the first act, to any age.

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i'm done. ifin you didn't want to read that, you can start up again.

i had quite a lazy day. i might have slept in until noon.

i'm working on finding a place to stay while we drive out to la. any readers in the albuquerque area? really we need a half way point between wichita, ks and kingman, az so, anyone live in those parts? let me know if you do. jack (dot) maatman (at) gmail (dot) com.

i'm excited to go. things are really winding down here, which i'm thankful for.

hope you all are well.

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Now I know it is nicer to stay with people. But at Rehoboth you can stay in the dorms I am pretty sure and it is cheap. I want to say a month was 200 so a day should be much less. This is kindof on the way

Posted by Anonymous #

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who would i get in contact with joel?

great suggestion.

Posted by Anonymous #

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hey jack,

great blog and congrats on the engagement!

but isn't 178 minutes 2 minutes short of 3 hours?

cheers,

myronius

Posted by Anonymous #

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oh myron. you are right. for some reason i thought three hours was 160, not 180. i used to be a math major.

Posted by Anonymous #

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i think you're confusion on "the woods" may be both valid and invalid. i don't think they're supposed to be labeled as one thing such as hardship, or magic...i think they are life, and all that life encompasses, which would be good, bad, ugly, horrible, tragic, wonderful, etc. so the confusion is that noone really knows what's in store in the woods. if you listen to the song the baker sings at the end (which i can't remember specifically), i felt that that is what was implied, and therefore i thought that made sense. but hey, i could be wrong. overall, i really enjoyed the play. unlike you, it was the first act i had trouble getting into...i guess i didn't feel involved in the play until a bit into the second act, when it seemed to gain some depth. i saw it on thursday night and many of the actors seemed to feel it was the best performance yet, so that may have something to do with it, too, but all in all i really enjoyed most of it. it was long, though.

Posted by Anonymous #

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I saw it last night, and I think that I wouldn't have been checking the clock so often if they had laid out the synopsis more clearly in the program. There were no titles given for the acts or scenes, and that really threw me off. I'm glad the little kids left after the first act, otherwise their parents would be confronting nightmares for the next week. As for the woods.... I viewed it as an escape from reality, especially the adultery scene. You get something from the woods, but you have to keep coming back for more (the 10th commandment) and what the woods gives you in incomplete.

Wow, that was long.

Posted by Anonymous #

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