The Silent "I"

"Spring Awakening" Opens in San Jose

A little bit of magic Broadway found its way to San Jose this week, with the opening of the Broadway hit Spring Awakening at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts. Armed with a charming and dynamic young cast, a pop-rock score, and lively dance numbers, this 8-time Tony award winner is sure to be a hit with teens and young adults. 

The cast, capably led by Christy Altomare as Wendla, Jake Epstein as Melchior, and Taylor Trensch as Moritz, tell the story of teens in 19th Century Germany exploring their budding sexuality.  At turns comedic and tragic, the emotions are amplified by an indie-rock score using a modern vernacular, making it more like "Rent" than an Andrew Lloyd Weber period piece.  It's quirky, creative, and fun, with serious cautionary messages for teens and adults.  I enjoyed the piece overall, and think it is one that parents could use as a lynch pin for serious discussions about sex, suicide, sexual abuse, and abortion.  I don't recommend this for kids under 14, due to the mature themes, brief nudity, and strong language. 

To me, the standouts in the cast were Steffi D as Ilse, a troubled girl who runs away from sexual abuse at home.  Steffi has a wonderful, emotive voice, perfect for ballads and rock numbers alike.  I also enjoyed watching Andy Mientus as Hanschen, whose oily, brazen seduction of an innocent classmate, Ernst, was a scene-stealing moment.  My husband thought he looked like Spike from Buffy the Vampire, and with his white-blond hair and swagger, I thought that was a fair comparison.

Where the show fell down for me was in the story line.  Based on an 1891 play by Frank Wedekind that was banned for nearly 100 years, due to it's treatment of issues like homosexuality, teen suicide, and abortion.  It seemed as though someone sat down with a laundry list of horrific events that could befall a teen and stitched them together into a loose storyline. 

While the first act is all about discovery and confusion, my husband noted that the second act could have been called "Rude Awakening."  The second half of the play seemed to reinforce nothing good can come of sex, including death, despair, and reform school.  There didn't seem to be any sense of redemption or reconciliation, though the closing number talks of hope of rebirth and regeneration.  I don't think the story naturally led to that conclusion.

I was also not thrilled with the reinforcement of the notion that all adults are the same, depicted literally by having every adult role played by the same man and woman. The adult characters seemed uniformly oblivious and unsympathetic to what the kids were going through, whether they were parents, teachers, or clergy.  I can definitely see that from a child's perspective, that might appear to be true.  I can understand why this show has such a large teen following, particularly for kids who feel marginalized or that their parents just don't understand the pressures they feel. 

Our town recently been rocked by a serious of very public and painful teen suicides that has ripped the fabric of our community.  It was particularly timely and poignant to watch this played out on stage, and the music seemed to be very much on point, particularly in showing the anger that kids feel that no matter what they do, as the song says, they're "totally f*cked".  I hope if nothing else, this should could open a frank dialogue between teens and their parents.

Spring Awakening is part of a national tour that runs through Sunday, November 1 at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts. For tickets, click here.  For information on other cities and dates, check out the Spring Awakening tour website.

PHOTO 1: (l-r) Kimiko Glenn, Gabrielle Garza, Christy Altomare, and Sarah Hunt.

PHOTO 2: Steffi D. as Ilse

Photo Credit: Paul Kolnik. Photos used with permission of Carla Befera Public Relations.

Disclosure: I received two complimentary media passes to attend the show, but no other compensation for this review. Opinions expressed herein are solely mine.

Easter Island: A Music Video by Animoto

I received a free pass to try out Animoto, a website that turns your short videos and photos into cool music videos in a few minutes.  I've agonized over iMovie attempting to do things like this, but lack the patience or skills to complete anything.  With Animoto, you just upload your pictures, choose some music, and they do the rest. The video here took about 15 minutes to upload the pictures, set the music, and then wait for it to be created. The hardest part was figuring out what pictures to use.

If you sign up, you can do a 30-second video for free, but an all-access pass for one year to create longer videos is $30/year.  You can upgrade to an HD version to burn onto a DVD for an additional $5 per video, if you need it for a special occasion.  I'm thinking about doing one for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary next year.

If you sign up using this link, you can get $5 off an all-access pass, and I earn a discount off future purchases.

Also, if you want to see some other great travel photos, check out Delicious Baby's Photo Friday today!

Disclosure: I received a complimentary temporary all-access pass to try out Animoto, but no other compensation or incentive for writing this review or trying out the product.

Easter Island: Where to Play

 

February 2004

When traveling with kids to any destination, it's always good to know what kid-friendly activities there are for the time when you're not touring interesting landmarks or watching locals run around recreating ancient rituals.  I think our son would be happy anyplace in the world where we could find a playground, a swimming pool, and a soccer field.  It seems as though wherever you are in the world, and wherever you find kids, you can find opportunities to play.  It's also a great way to meet local people and see how kids in other cultures are so much like kids in the US.

Our hotel, the Tahatai, had a small swimming pool, but Alex was entranced with the idea of swimming in the ocean after our day at Anakena Beach, one of the most gorgeous spots on the island.  We forgot his swimsuit that day, but swimming au naturel (for a three year old, at least) was not a problem.

We were able to satisfy his wish by going to a walled-off swimming hole near the hotel, right along the coastline.  There were retaining walls around the area, keeping the waves to a minimum and the water fairly shallow.  Alexander loved splashing around in the cold Pacific waters. Local kids took swimming lessons in this spot, so it definitely had the local stamp of approval for kids.

Easter Island: Of Cannibals and Caves

 

February 7, 2004

After trekking up to the cliffside ruins of Orongo, China took us on a tour of caves that had been used by the ancient Rapa Nui for ceremonial purposes.  One was down a steep, slippery path by the sea, and featured some amazing cave paintings.

The paintings were of some kind of bird, and were rust, white, pink and black.  The lighting inside the cave was not great, but you can see some of the outlines of the drawings in the picture above.

Easter Island: The Birdmen of Orongo

February 7, 2004

On our third day in Easter Island, Chile, our fabulous tour guide, China picked us up at our hotel for a day exploring another aspect of Rapa Nui Culture: the Birdman competition.  After seeing the modern-day version involving skimpily-clad men running around a lake carrying bundles of banana, we were interested to see some of original sites.

China drove us to Orongo, part of the Rapa Nui National Park.  Orongo was formerly a village set on a cliff with spectacular views of the Ocean, over looking a small island called Moto Nui.  The micro-island was famous as a nesting ground for the sooty tern, a bird whose eggs were prized by the early Rapa Nui people.  In the 17th to 19th centuries, European explorers wrote of a "birdman cult" in which young men would compete in a contest to see who could recover the first sooty tern egg of the season by jumping off the cliff at Orongo, swimming across shark-infested waters, stealing an egg, and then scaling the cliff without breaking the egg.  The first to do so would hold be crowned as Tangata Manu ("bird man") and hold a place in the tribe for the following year.  The Birdman competitions were held long after the moai-building ceased, despite any Hollywood representations to the contrary.

Shopping in Hanga Roa, Easter Island

This post is part of a retrospective on our trip to Easter Island for the Tapati Rapa Nui festival in February, 2004.

After our day seeing moai in various states of completion and decay, we spent a few leisurely mornings shopping in the town of Hanga Roa and visiting the Rapa Nui Museum.  The town was in walking distance from our hotel, the Taha Tai Hotel, and featured some nice restaurants and shops. I enjoyed shopping on a quiet little street at the Mercado Artisanal, which featured handmade crafts of -- you guessed it, moai big and small. 

The Mercado is actually an open air market with little grass tiki huts with various vendors selling key chains, magnets, statues big and small, and other goods.  When we visited, it was a lazy day with not many tourists. The people working the stands were friendly and charming. They forgave my poor attempts at Spanish, and many of them spoke enough English to be able to barter and complete a sales transaction.

I met a woman from Connecticut at one of the key chain vendors, who told me that she came to this island every year for the past twenty years, and it was her favorite place on earth. The island is not that big, so there's not a huge variety of things to do, but I could certainly see getting attached to it and wanting to return.  We go to Kauai every other year for the same reasons, but it's only a four hour flight from California.  I admired her dedication in getting here every year, despite the travel.

The shops in the Mercado had a variety of wooden and stone moai to choose from, from tiny to about the size of Alexander.  I wasn't sure how anyone would pack a 4 ft tall stone statuary in his or her luggage, but I guess they could ship it home to you at some exhorbitant rate.  I opted for the ones that we could fit in our pockets or in the spare spaces in our suitcases, which were already pretty full from our trip to Iguazu Falls.

Easter Island: Tapati Rapa Nui Festival Lake Competition

This post is part of a retrospective series on our trip to Easter Island in 2004 for the Tapati Rapa Nui Festival. Note: some of the photos in this post are rated PG for partial nudity.

February 5, 2004

In the afternoon of our second day on Easter Island, we caught a cab to take us to the big "Birdman" competition at the lake in the volcano.  By 'taxi" I mean beat-up, grimey blue Gremlin with no seatbelts and a driver who was about 8 months pregnant.  I think she may have been our tour guide China's cousin.  China wasn't with us on this day, but promised she'd send a taxi for us, and she did.  Anyway, the driver didn't speak much English,but she knew where we needed to go. She drove across the dustry roads and went off-road a bit to drop us  near an entrance to the festival that didn't require risking life and limb and a steep climb up the side of the volcano to see the race. 

We walked through a narrow canyon of red rock a with a stream of people all headed toward the same destination, the volcano crater lake, Rano Raraku.  In this event, young men representing one or the other of the Rapa Nui Queen contestants compete in a sort of native triathalon. 

Easter Island: Redefining "Statuesque" for Photo Friday

This is my favorite photo of Alexander from our trip to Easter Island. The perspective makes him appear nearly as big as the moai, which are actually at huge in comparison. Our family has a tradition of standing in front of statues and posing like them.

Easter Island: Moai on the Beach

February 5, 2004

After spending some time at the fallen moai site, our fabulous tour guide China drove us to Ahu Tongariki.  This featured 15 stone moai of varying sizes and in various condition, all facing out to sea. This is one of the largest display of standing Moai on the island, and was quite impressive.  Some of them were being restored, and had scaffolding and blue tarps over them, which made them look like some of them were using porto-potties.  

It was quite amazing to me that somehow the ancient Rapa Nui had carved these multi-ton stone statues, somehow managed to drag them down the mountainside, and place them upright on a platform or Ahu.  This was some feat of engineering and physics to be able to manipulate stone using only primitive tools.  The Ahu also served as the final resting place of various chiefs and tribal nobles, so you can't walk on the ahu, but can get close enough to admire the size of the statues. 

It's thought that the original statues had large top-knots made of a different kind of stone than the bodies, and the eyes were made of white rock with obsidian irises.  None of the original eyes survived, so most of the statues have haunting, eyeless sockets.  I'm not sure if that is something that was added by the restorers, or if it was discovered that way.  The rock that made up the top-knot is much more porous and crumbly than the stone used in the bodies, so it was easily broken.  Even though China told us these head pieces were supposed to be top-knots or hair, we still called them hats.

While we were there, several workers scurried around moving piles of rocks to and from the ahu.  Alexander wanted to help out and move some rocks, but they were too much for him.

Easter Island: A Day at the Races

February 5, 2004

On our first day in Easter Island, we met up with China, our tour guide from Kia Koe Tours.  Before she arrived, we complained to the Taha Tai Hotel staff about the broken air conditioner in our room, and they very nicely allowed us to move to a larger room with a working air conditioner. We spent the morning scrambling to move all our belongings from one room to another.  When China arrived to pick us up, we were a little harried, but glad to see her and ready to see some moai.

China (pronouced like "Tina") is a native Rapa Nui who was educated in Chile and had moved away for a time. China is not her real name, but her nickname.  She said when she was born her eyes were small and almond shaped, like a Chinese person, so her parents nicknamed her China. She seemed like an industrious woman, who worked several jobs on the island, and had big plans for the future. She was friendly and talkative and seemed to know a great deal about the island history and people.  Alexander warmed to her immediately, and the four of us set off on an all-day excursion to see the stone heads (moai), caves, and activities around the Tapa ti Rapa Nui fesitival.