Daily Archives: November 4, 2013

The Cloisters

Over the summer, my wonderful significant other Michele and I visited the Cloisters museum in Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan. The location itself is absolutely marvelous; the walk up to the museum is through a completely green park that gives off a “forestlike” feeling. There’s a rocky walkway with arches and benches that overlooks both the river and the rest of the city.

Cloisters is definitely one of New York City’s best kept secrets. It’s a small “museum” that focuses on architecture and art from mainly medieval Europe (which is ironic, because the walls inside the museum all have outlets for hipsters to charge their iPads before taking pictures). I think the architecture was my favorite part; the villas and the rooftops as well as the pillars pictured below all stuck out to me more than anything else.

Cloysters!

The weirdest part about the museum, I’d say, is its hardcore focus on paintings and murals of unicorns. Why on earth would people obsess over unicorns, you ask? Great question, I don’t know either. Might have something to do with imagination and a passionate yearning for discovering the unknown, but that’s just my opinion.

24UNICORN1-articleLarge

Fun Home

Late “Fun Home” review!

For the first time in my 18 years of life, I attended an off broadway play. Shameful, I know, but you always remember your first and I definitely will for this one.

‘Fun Home’, a new musical directed by Sam Gold and composed by four-time Tony Award-nominated composer Jeanine Tesori, was a triple threat. It weaved the genres of tragedy, comedy, and musical into a successful source of entertainment but also great insight on social and familial problems.

The opening scene of ‘Fun Home’ was a powerful one as it gloriously displayed the Bechdel’s hectic and distressed home with the meticulous Bruce Bechdel, played by Michael Cerveris, at the forefront. Mr. Cerveris played the character of Bruce with great ferocity. Even through the stability of home improvement and funeral work, Bruce’s life was uncomfortable and unfulfilling and it showed through the performance of Mr. Cerveris. Though I had imagined Bruce as a much more distant and colder character from the novel, Cerveris’ portrayal convinced me of an equally dissatisfied Bruce.

One might’ve thought that the frequent transitions between young, middle, and older Alison would’ve been confusing but I felt that these added to the story and its themes. It showed how Alison’s father, regardless of how neglectful or unrelatable he was to her, shaped her own life, every step of the way. Sydney Lucas, playing young Alison, was simply vivacious and stunning in her performances. Her scenes were the most compelling and invigorating. Alexandra Socha also played college Alison in a great and unique way. From the book, I understood that college Alison was an awkward character but when Ms. Socha portrayed her on stage, it was awkward in an awesome and empathetic way.  The rotating set was surprise to me and at the beginning, I was afraid that I would be distracted by the other sets on the stage. However, each scene utilized the setting very well. From the hilarious commercial filming scene in the funeral home to the tense scenes in the study, every performance brought its best so it was easy to disregard the extra sets in the foreground.

I do believe, of course, the tragicomic is a lot more in depth but the play provides a good support and complement. The musical pieces flow extremely well with the scenes and don’t seem to come of nowhere. The pieces often stole lines from the tragicomic and made them catchy and relatable. The story in the play was obviously cut down from the tragicomic but the weirdest thing was that whereas the play actually made me laugh at times, the book did not at all. Personally, I thought the book offered too much information in one frame but the play offered just the right amount to keep me interested. They kept the powerful scenes of the book (although I do wish they included more self revelation scenes of Alison’s sexuality during the college years) and brought them to life.

Overall, for my first off Broadway play, I’m glad that ‘Fun Home’ was the one.