5:21 my mans *performing* that vibe part! Also, the center snare's head-snap at 6:18. So clean! They definitely move like RCC, but it's cool seeing the scrappier vibe this group are putting out this year. Big fan!
With RCC coming in strong, and having now seen every single iteration of their show (Monrovia x Arcadia x Great Oaks x Long Beach), here is my full review. Keep in mind, I'm a film critic and frequent author of social sciences editorial reviews so naturally my writing style reflects these academic disciplines. And while it’s a deep dive, it by no means represents the only interpretation. To each her own. The show is immediately engaging and is one of the few shows I've seen that rises above the crowd on a story-telling level. At its core, Home is a metaphor about feeling trapped by social conformity and breaking away from its binds. The show opens with the symmetrical theme of hope and longing. The chorus of the 1984 classic by Chicago, You're The Inspiration, segues into the titular song by Phil Collins, Take Me Home. These are themes built on the spiritual foundation of the 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Cuckoo's main character is McMurphy, someone who inspires and provokes his group of long-term residents to challenge and disrupt the institution of society. The group is stuck in a routine that might feel a lot like a prison that's trapping them in a prison of their mind. Instead of Nurse Ratchet, electric shock, and lobotomies to induce conformity; society now uses prescription drugs, social media, video games and the malaise generated by saying "whatever" all the time. "I've been a prisoner all my life,'' Collin's lyric goes. ''They can turn off my feeling like they're turning off my light, but I don't mind.'' Visually congruent with the lyrics, our eyes pop to the middle of the floor. An austere lamp with the light suddenly flipped “on.” This moment represents the transition to a blossoming of repressed feelings. He wants to be taken home ''because I don't remember” how good it felt. Frankly, during this afternoon's show I got goosebumps when that opener song was kickstarted by the amazing duet of the drum set and timpani players as they were joined by the violin. So good. The second act shifts to mosaic-like images with aesthetics inspired by Pat Metheny's The Heat Of The Day. A complex, uptempo piece that has connections to Iranian folk music, flamenco and this imaginary music the McMurphy-esq character is trying to dream up to go with his imaginary day. "We wanted to find a playing form that had several arcs in it, like you find in flamenco music with things building and building and building to a peak, and then it calms back down again," explains Metheny. True to the lyrics, it is this frame of reference that brings us to the denouement of the second act. At this point of the show, the vibe is chill, bringing the show's tempo back down a notch to let the audience find a moment of reflection. The third act comes from down to up again, increasing crescendo as we are introduced to the exotic life of the gypsy as depicted in Carmen, reflecting McMurphy's continuing journey to break free from the binds of emotional authority and mental entrapment. Carmen, as created by French Composer Georges Bizet, was the stereotypical Spanish woman of the 19th century in the popular imagination. She's hedonistic, impetuous, hot-tempered and cold-hearted... the physical manifestation of McMurphy's imaginary longing, if you think about it. For both the show and the protagonist, it’s a brief period of rejoicing. As the third act approaches its emotional denouement, enter the world of Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre. Skeletal strings and haunting melodies provide a vivid example of musical storytelling. In the novel, McMurphy rebels against Nurse Ratchet as the industrial metaphor for the centralized harvesting machine that threshes and bales people into perfect products of mindless mass consumption and conformity. During one of the show’s most playful and upbeat moments, McMurphy is represented by the solo violin, calling out the other residents to dance with him. He challenges them to step out of their routine. And find their home. Here, the snare drummers and the bass drummer break out of their usual instruments as if to signify breaking out of their trapped shells. It’s an eerily soul-stirring piece of performance. The final movement presents us with the anthem of the 80s, Don’t You (Forget About Me). The theme of the show is brought together by its optimism and its hope for the future. By his refusal to conform to the system (the nurses), the violin-playing protagonist inspires the institutional residents to leap out from the windows of the oppressive machinery just as McMurphy inspired Big Chief to do the same. "You bring feeling to my life, Your the inspiration." In the novel, one of the long-term residents insists: "I'm voluntary you see, I'm not committed here. I don't have to stay here I can go home anytime I want." The mantra reflects a uniquely American optimism that even the darkest days of the pandemic couldn't suppress. Will they come out victorious and liberated from the system, or will they come out defeated by society as Big Chief lamented, "It beats everybody. It will beat you too." It seems apt to compare the educators at WGI themselves to the McMurphy character, as the beacon of the indoor percussion activity. Ever reinventing the State of the Arts. In this era of increased testing, standards, rubrics and the sterility of online learning, I like to believe that the role of an educator is to create dynamic (liberating) opportunities for students to write honestly and expertly about themselves and their world, publish magazines, literary reviews, take photographs, perform at open mics and rock festivals, and go on road trips. Nurse Ratchet would hate that.
On a deeper level, I think this was one of the books that led me away from being a passive thinker, to an observer and a more critical thinker. It really got me to question authority. That and '1984.'
nitpick but from a vis perspective - upper part of harnesses stick out so bad , when will they cover them with some matching color material to blend into their unis better 👀
