The King and I & News Nuggets

Last night, we went to the Arizona Broadway Theatre to see The King and I. My wife and I are old enough to remember Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr in the 1956 film version, and both of them would have been looking down on this production with pride and envy. Proud that they were also a part of this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, and envious that their two counterparts at ABT were every bit as good, maybe even better, than they were. This show has a really large cast, with all the king’s wives and children, and all the voices were good, especially that of Chelsea Soto, who played the reluctant gift from Burma Tuptim, and Kyoko Ogawa, who played the head wife Lady Thiang. But the voices and performances of Jill Tieskoetter as Anna and Alan Ariano as the king of Siam were better than good. And such memorable songs: “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” “Hello, Young Lovers,” “Getting to Know You,” “We Kiss in a Shadow,” “Something Wonderful,’ “I Have Dreamed,” and, of course, “Shall We Dance” with Anna and the King doing an energetic waltz around the stage. Then there’s the staging, which just keeps getting more and more elaborate with each show. The same for the costuming, which in this show involved some really gorgeous designs for those in the ballet segment. called “The Small House of Uncle Thomas.” The choreography during this little play put on for the king and his English visitor was magical. Now we can’t wait till March when we get to see what ABT can do with Les Miserables. That should be a good test for the stage crew.

News Nuggets:

Isis has taken atrocity a step further with the video of the burning death of the Jordanian pilot they took captive. The world really needs to unite to put an end to these barbarians who kill in the name of religion.

Bruce Jenner, at 65, is now transitioning into a woman. And Chaz Bono a long time ago went the other way. Such an odd announcement about Jenner. Here’s this super athlete who has spent all his life, apparently, wishing he was a woman instead of a man. The divisions between the sexes keeps getting less and less distinct, with more and more shades of gray, until one day we may have completely done away with any distinctions between us and we’ll all be one sex, with procreation left up to the scientists. And all the condom and erectile dysfunction companies will be out of business.

A young man in Alexandria who wanted to be a pretend police officer made the sorry mistake of pulling over a real police officer. Now he can pretend to be a convict in a pretend prison. Oh, wait a minute, it wouldn’t be pretend at all.

It seems that whales may have a way to repel danger by putting out a stream of poop. A scuba diver, Keri Wilk, reported such an episode, a “poonado,” in which he was awash in whale feces. But, according to Wilk, the cloud of poop washed away and left no apparent poopy smell. Good to know in case I ever decide to go scuba diving in an area with whales.

And speaking of poop, let’s go to Fargo, North Dakota. Most of us already consider Fargo a strange place based on the movie and television series of that name. But we now learn that Fargoites are having a problem with jack rabbits that are residing in town and procreating rapidly, causing a problem with all the poop they produce. Residents are worried about stepping in it or having children possibly picking some up and eating it. Oh, yuck!

And finally, not a news nugget so much as simply a hilarious lip sync duel between Jimmy Fallon and Emma Stone. Watch it and see Miss stone beat the Fallon pants off.