Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Mephistopheles of Pancakes' LiveJournal:

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Saturday, October 4th, 2008
11:43 pm	NYMF Roundup, Day 9 ( Twilight in Manchego ) ( I Come for Love ) And so ends my NYMFing for this year. As usual, I'm going to claim that I may do a post-mortem in a day or to; as usual, don't hold your breath. (Say something funny)
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
11:36 pm	NYMF Roundup, Day 8 Lines Music and Lyrics by Timothy Huang Jason Robert Brown already wrote Songs for a New World. Mr. Huang, you didn't need to write it again thirteen years later. I exaggerate, but only slightly. (2 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Sunday, September 28th, 2008
1:38 am	NYMF Roundup, Day 7 Capsule reviews again, since it's late. ( Bonnie and Clyde: A Folktale ) ( To Paint the Earth ) (Say something funny)
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
12:00 am	NYMF Roundup, Day 6 Jason & Ben Book, Music, and Lyrics by Matthew Loren Cohen There really isn't a lot to say about Jason & Ben, mostly because there's not a lot of show about which to say anything. If a younger, gayer Harold Pinter wrote a play set in present day New York City and then decided to plop a bunch of 1990s-era-sounding indie rock songs in, the result would be the same. The show is essentially 90 minutes of elliptical dialogue, interrupted by a bunch of largely indistinct songs and one shirtless make-out scene. The marketing hints at there being some sort of S&M component (logline: “It's the end of the rope for Jason, and Ben is all tied up.”), but that isn't even mentioned until the last ten minutes of the show. In short, the recently-dumped Ben meets the slightly older Jason (whose name might also be Ben) in a park on Christmas Eve; they play songs for each other, then retire to Jason's apartment, a place Ben only agrees to go when he learns that Jason works for a record company. There, they talk, make out, fight, and...well, that's all they do, for about an hour and a quarter. A grand total of nothing whatsoever actually happens. Cohen comes from an improv background (he's the musical director for The Nuclear Family and The Next Big Broadway Musical!, if those mean anything to anyone); if the song are a cut above hoedowns, they still have the feeling of being trunk songs plugged into the show. Only one, an interesting sorta-quodlibet called “What I'm Thinking Right Now” (one of only two duets in the show), hints at any theatricality whatsoever. The band, under keyboardist Adam Wachter, is at least energetic, which is more than can be said for much of what they're playing. Zach Fischer is intriguingly alluring as the mysterious Jason, but he gets little out of Will Taylor's Ben, who sort of fades into the walls except during an exuberant, underwear-clad paean to Jake Gyllenhaal. (3 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
1:42 am	NYMF Roundup, Day 5 The Jerusalem Syndrome Book and Lyrics by Laurence Holzman and Felicia Needleman Music by Kyle Rosen It is one of the great pleasures of attending readings and developmental productions of shows: seeing a show and thinking to oneself “this is something special, something that could really be a hit.” Such is the case with The Jerusalem Syndrome. It isn't the best show of the festival, but it's the one that feels most like a potential hit; it's one where, while watching it, I found myself imagining how great it would be in a big production, with an orchestra and real sets. (Lauren Helpern's use of folding cardboard pieces is inventive but drab and unattractive.) What The Jerusalem Syndrome has going for it is its book. Taking its cue from a real-life psychological condition where westerners visiting Israel start to believe themselves to be Biblical personages, we end up with a host of characters who meet in a psych ward: a lit professor in an unhappy marriage becomes Sarah, a clumsy young tour guide thinks he's Moses, a gay man with daddy issues decides he's Jesus. (That last one ends up with more than he bargained for when two separate Virgin Marys argue over whose son he actually is.) The first act is mostly exposition and comedy; at intermission, the patients have escaped the ward (after a sweet, unlucky-in-love young lady who thinks she's God (literally) ties up the night nurse), and the second act is dedicated to getting everybody back in the hospital, back in their right minds, and back home safely. That the plot is thin is indisputable, but it's all solidly structured and the characterization is spot-on; more importantly, it's funny. Really funny. Spit-take funny. The score is merely okay; there are a pair of nice patter songs in Act I (the title song and “Room 17,” sung by a starstruck nurse bringing medication to a soap opera star Abraham), two amusing comedy numbers in “Daddy Loved Jesus” ad “Weirdo in a Bed Sheet,” a lovely ballad called “Is It Crazy?,” and a memorably jaunty first act closer (“You Can Lead”), but on a whole the songs aren't up to the level of the book. Not that that's a deal-breaker; they're certainly good enough. Plus, it's got a great cast. The perennially excellent Liz Larsen and Stuart Zagnit as the professor and her workaholic husband; the big-voiced Alan H. Green as gay Jesus (he gets the nice ballad); charming Nick Verina and Felicia Ricci, as Moses and God respectively (hey, it's canon!); Austin Miller (known for his participation in the Grease reality show, but so excellent in Tully in last year's NYMF) as the actor, whose costume offers ample opportunity to show off his abs (when you got it, flaunt it); Chandra Lee Schwartz as the sweetly ditzy nurse (although how this young lady, who is obviously intended to be American, ended up in Jerusalem is never satisfactorily (or even unsatisfactorily) explained); and the nicely grounded Bruce Sabath as the doctor in charge of the psych ward. (The remaining six actors, who all play a multitude of roles, should be named as well: Vanessa Lemonides, Mary Gutzi, Ronica Reddick, Ron DeStefano, Roger DeWitt, and J.D. Webster.) (6 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Monday, September 22nd, 2008
12:48 am	NYMF Roundup, Day 4 Love Jerry Book, Music, and Lyrics by Megan Gogerty Y'know what? Just go read Matthew's review on TB. Why bother writing the same things over again when he's written them already, and far more effectively than I would have? In short, it's a searing, nigh-unto-amazing play, into which songs have been sort of needlessly dropped (they're sung as commentary on the action, Spring Awakening-style). No matter that the songs are pretty good in their own right (which they are): they're simply not needed. Cut'em, and realize what an intense, beautiful drama is the result. (Say something funny)
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
12:42 am	NYMF Roundup, Day 3 Capsule reviews tonight--I have to be up in less than eight hours for the Flea Market. Happy to elaborate later, should anyone desire. (Odd piece of trivia: for all three shows I saw today, the composer played keys.) ( About Face ) ( The Hatpin ) ( Bedbugs!!! ) (3 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Saturday, September 20th, 2008
1:22 am	NYMF Roundup, Day 2 Wood Book and Lyrics by Dan Collins Music by Julianne Wick Davis Three watchwords (and one modifier) for Wood: adorable, sexy, unbelievably gay. To borrow a phrase from an old Magic card, “it's gay. Really, really gay. No, gayer than that. It's GAY.” Or, to steal from a fellow I spoke to on the way in, “it's awesome. Gay as hell.” The show—which began life two years ago as Collins and Davis's thesis at NYU Grad—is a very loose recasting of A Midsummer Night's Deam (there are woods and there are fairies, although rather a different sort than in Shakespeare). It's essentially an ensemble piece, but it centers on Herman, an out-and-proud teen who just wants to meet his boyfriend in the the woods outside Normal, Anywhere for a little after-hours nookie. Attempting to summarize the twists and turns in the ensuing plot would be futile; suffice to say that it involves pornographic cross-stitch, prayers to Jesus, a color guardette hopelessly stuck on Herman, a policeman with equipment that would make John Holmes blush, and a game of naked Twister. Also, more “wood” puns than you can shake a stick at. Despite a rough start (the opening number needs an overhaul), Wood quickly settles into itself. The strongest part is the music: Davis has crafter a richly melodic score that successfully blends pop and traditional musical theatre into a style all its own. Collins's lyrics, despite a handful of suspect passages (“boys” and “choice” don't quite rhyme, especially when the rest of the words rhyme pretty perfectly) are by and large witty. The top-notch cast doesn't hurt, either. Jason Michael Snow is utterly lovable as Herman; ditto Ben Thompson (boyfriend Luke), the always-reliable Kate Wetherhead (marching nerd Diana) and Stanley Bahorek (lone straight guy Chad). The adults are splendid, too—Cady Huffman as Herman's overly supportive mom, Joe Cassidy as his dad (who spends his nights in the woods, masquerading as a size queen named Big Bottom), and Patrick Ryan Sullivan (the well-endowed cop, nicknamed, for obvious reasons, Big Top). Roland Rusinek, Maurice Murphy, and Ryan Ratliff cut amusing figures as the trio of archetypal fairies (Bear, Down-Low, and Twink, respectively). (8 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Friday, September 19th, 2008
1:03 am	Anything that happens, happens. Eoin Colfer, author of my beloved The Wish List (not to mention the Artemis Fowl series, and a bunch of other stuff, too) is writing an official sixth volume of the Hitchhiker's Trilogy, at the request of Jane Belson, DNA's widow. Although not necessarily my first choice (that would probably be Gideon Defoe), I suspect that Colfer will do a bang-up job. Link via Paper Cuts. (1 Promise of the morning | Say something funny)
Thursday, September 18th, 2008
12:09 am	Open Letter Dear J. J. Abrams, Tonight I watched the first episode of your new show, Fringe. I liked it better 15 years ago, when it was called The X-Files. All love, Me (3 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
1:46 am	Some people might call this a GIP. Some people might be right. (Say something funny)
12:29 am	NYMF Roundup, Day 1 Castronauts or, How I Killed Fidel Book by Bobby Houston and Patricio Bisso Lyrics by Bobby Houston Music by Randy Courts At one point midway through the first act of Castronauts, the actors take a moment to throw tortillas at the audience. The flying foodstuffs form an unwittingly perfect metaphor for the show itself: flat, empty, almost completely devoid of flavor, and pointlessly hurled at the unfortunate spectators. The intermittently comprehensible musical is structured as a show-within-a-show, with a group of ragtag Havana nightclub performers (two drag queens, two actual women, and two men-as-men, plus their wardrobe mistress and a snarky old lady in a wheelchair) recreating their misadventures. Alas, they don’t have much of a story worth telling: exactly one event happens in each act. Before intermission, they accidentally kill Fidel Castro (he visits the club (don’t ask why) and chokes on the cherry in his piña colada); afterwards, they all hop in a stolen ’56 Chevy (which has, at some point, been converted into a boat, maybe) and flee for the safer shores of Miami. The other 95 minutes are filler, with the occasional catty one-liner thrown in for balance. Bobby Houston’s lyrics—his bio proudly trumpets that this is the first time he’s written them—are simplistic and meandering, and the songs often stop and start with little rhyme or reason. Randy Courts’s score is appropriately Latin (very different from his usual work—he’s collaborated on some six quieter, more sophisticated musicals with playwright Mark St. Germain), and it at least brings a semblance of melody to the proceedings. A few of the cast members do their best to bring things to life: Hechter Ubarry is amusingly fabuloso as proprietress/star/narrator Lolita, April Ortiz is nicely bitchy as his wheelchair-bound mother, and Candace Reyes Newton is sweetly adorable as the dim, sweet-toothed costumer (she is less effective in a fake beard, appearing as El Comandante himself). Guto Bittencourt, to his credit, is very handsome (looking like a blend of Cheyenne Jackson and Scott Wolf), which is mostly what he’s called on to be. Will Pomerantz’s direction is disastrous; every scene ends with a quick blackout and the actors consistently deliver their lines face front to the audience. (Shades of John Doyle!) Brian Prather’s static set does little to help; differentiating amongst various locations is nigh-impossible. And one last thing: at the end of the show, the cast members once again throw objects at the audience. This time, they lob rolls of toilet paper. The jokes just write themselves, no? (2 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
1:18 am	Semi-Rhetorical Question Why does The Ten get no love? It's hilarious. (Okay, so it's uneven. But so are the Rocky Mountains, and people love them!) (4 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Saturday, September 13th, 2008
11:28 pm	Bragging Rights One of us has an advance copy of The Graveyard Book...and the other one is you. (2 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Sunday, September 7th, 2008
12:11 am	If you need a spoon, keep one around For the past two days, I've been getting a lot of spam on how to keep your wife from cheating. Is this what they send to taunt you after you ignore all of the penis enlargement ads? (4 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
12:38 am	When all else fails, try iambic pentameter The pre-closing announcement I made at the store on Friday: The hour is now eight forty-five, it seems. This Barnes and Noble store is closing in Exactly fifteen minutes, so you must Bring all desired items to the front So that the proper money we can take. At nine o'clock tomorrow, we reope. (4 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
12:40 am	One of the weirder things I never knew until now Jonathan Carroll and Steve Reich are half-brothers? And their mother was actress/lyricist June Carroll? Baffling. (Say something funny)
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
1:18 am	Things you learn from Playbills Apparently I saw Nick Jonas as Gavroche in 2002. Who knew? (9 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Friday, August 15th, 2008
1:25 am	Everything's better with... ( So today I made some cookies. ) (5 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
9:01 pm	Interpretation Last night, I dreamt of a history museum staffed entirely by porn actresses. What does this mean? In other news, last week one of my managers and I chased after a guy who stole a hundred dollars' worth of books from the store. The cops got him. We're awesome. A few days before that, a young man claimed he had dropped something that fell behind one of the displays in front of the cash register, then proceeded to kneel down, pick up all of the dustballs from behind said display, put them in a bag, and leave. I don't understand it. I just report it. (8 Promises of the morning | Say something funny)