Hair and Merchant of Venice

I'm going to make these next two quick, because one, there's not much to say, and the other we didn't come back after intermission.  So yeah, not so good. 

First off Hair - this was one of the list I wouldn't have purchased if we didn't have season tickets.  I saw the movie back in college and was not impressed at all.  I know some of the music.  I know my ex-hippie mom adores it.  That was about it.

But hey - it could be fun right?  

And it was.  

But.

The audience was the fun part for me actually.  Seeing these ladies around my parents age having a blast, wearing old rock band shirts, and basically they would be dancing in the aisles if the ushers allowed them too.  

Otherwise, the sound was off and I couldn't understand a lot of the lyrics.  The story is a bit lame.  The whole thing, audience included, reminded me of Rock of Ages.  So I can say I saw it, and I don't need to see it again.

The following weekend we saw The Mechant of Venice which was brought to us by Theater for a New Audience.  Updating old shit basically.  And it's still shit to say the least.  

I loathe this theater (Bank of America Theater) with a passion - but too bad since there's three shows being put in here this season - so this was the first one.  Our seats were cheaper and much better than the last time we were here for Rock of Ages.  Note to people going to this theater - even in the first row of the dress circle you cannot see the entire stage.  So our new seats are first row balcony.  And though STEEP you can finally see everything!  

This show is throwing around the name F. Murray Abraham like crazy.  He looks familiar....not *too* familiar....I had to have IMDB help me out on that one.  Oh, he was Noah in Muppets From Space.  Okay.  That's about all I know of him.

In short this was weird.  I know the story having studied Shakespeare for many years in college and high school.  Merchant is not one of my favorite plays to begin with.  And so with this one, it's taking place in a Wall Street setting and instead of three coffins to choose from it's three MacBooks.  Ummm....no.

Not to mention we could not hear ANYTHING coming out of the actors mouths.  And Mr. Abraham was the worst.  I think they weren't miked and for that large of a theater that was unacceptable.  Every time they turned their backs to the audience there was practically silence.  And you could tell every time a joke happened, the main floor would crack up while upstairs it was silent.

Needless to say we left at intermission.  I bitched to Broadway in Chicago on Twitter.  They contacted me.  I emailed them.  They found my wife's phone number (I would assume through our season ticket information) and called her.  I left a message regarding this and got no answer in return.  I didn't want anything out of it to be clear, I just hope they got my email and phone message so that perhaps they could make sure this won't happen again.  

It was a sad two shows though.  A waste of time and money.  

Next week we hit up New York to catch these fine folks in Company at the NY Philharmonic:

Neil Patrick Harris

Patti Lupone

Christina Hendricks

Stephen Colbert

Martha Plimpton

Jon Cryer

etc, etc, etc......

So hopefully that will make up for all the short falling as of late from Chicago's offerings.  

Has there been a show, concert, or anything you paid a lot of money to see and left early?  Movie even?