Review: War Paint

I began my Labor Day Weekend with a performance of the musical War Paint on Friday evening. I had minimal expectations because, honestly, I hadn’t heard much buzz about it at all. I knew Patti (Lupone) and Christine (Ebersole) would be fabulous, so that’s really all the convincing I needed to go see it, and I knew it was about some rivalry between Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden but not much else. Douglas Sills was out that night and Chris Hoch stepped in for him. I wasn’t there to see Sills, so I couldn’t care less.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the story the most (Doug Wright did a great job with the book). Helena Rubenstein is my new hero, although she was portrayed a bit more punk rock in the script than in real life (for example: she had kids in real life which were never mentioned). We began in the 1930’s when Rubenstein moved back to New York City and Elizabeth Arden finds out from her associates and: drama. Arden’s salon is the ultimate destination for feminine pampering (and everything is “Arden pink”) and Rubenstein sells herself as beauty + science. It was because of the questionable ingredients they both used in the “age-defying” products that the FDA decided all ingredients must be printed on the bottle (thank you!).

Helena Rubenstein was, at one point, one of the richest women on earth and attempted to make an all-cash offer on a penthouse triplex on Park Avenue. When she was denied board approval because she was Jewish, she instead bought the entire building and lived in the triplex for 35 years until she died (per Wikipedia).

Elizabeth Arden’s first marriage falls apart in part because she won’t give her husband any credit for the sales work he’s doing. She says, “The moment I give you [her husband] credit is the moment I lose all of mine.” So true.

These two women detested each other and only met once.  They died within months of one another, too.

The music was fine – as in I don’t remember hating it. The dancing was also fine. But really, everyone was there to see LuPone and Ebersole and they were AMAZING. They are worth any price of admission (within reason, unless you’re Rubenstein-esque levels of rich then by all means, buy premium tickets). You should put “seeing two powerhouse women portray two powerhouse women onstage” on your bucket list right now because OH MAN.

War Paint is your standard length – two acts, two and a half hours long, but I never felt like it dragged. It was too much of a pleasure watching those two badasses onstage to check my watch.

And finally, I’ll leave you with a photo of Rubenstein’s childhood home in Krakow that I took last year while I was in Poland. (It’s the little green house.)

 

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Warsaw | Poland

This photo makes me nostalgic for Warsaw. Out of the three cities that I visited in Poland in October, Warsaw was my favorite. Warsaw had history spilling out of every corner. 

Krakow was beautiful because it was basically untouched by the Nazis (and Russians) during WWII so it’s all original and old AF. But Warsaw was completely decimated during the war. The photo you see above is the Old Town Square. After the Polish attempted their first uprising, the German’s, who’d left the Old Town alone for the most part because it was treasured (obviously, look at it), gave a big middle finger to the Polish people and destroyed it.

This is what the Old Town looked like after the Germans destroyed it. 

After the war, the Russians and the Poles rebuilt the Old Town. The Russians wanted to show the world what fine work they could do and that communism was great. On the other hand, 500 feet away stood the Royal Palace which took twice as long to rebuild because a palace didn’t exactly align with Communist principles. But the brilliant rebuilding and duplication of the Old Town is why it’s an Unesco World Heritage Site now. 

Warsaw has so much more history than just the Old Town Square and that’s why I loved it so much. Hopefully I’ll get around to writing about them soon. 

Auschwitz / Birkenau-Auschwitz II

After America voted Hitler v. 2.0 into office, today seemed like an appropriate day to write about my experience traveling to the Auschwitz concentration camp and Birkenau-Auschwitz II extermination camp while I was in Krakow last month. I hopped on a bus outside the city walls early one morning and made the trip an hour and forty five minutes to Oświęcim, Poland, with a tour group and guide. It seemed appropriate that it was pouring rain, and freezing, that day.

In Auschwitz, there are various brick buildings, former SS buildings, that have different exhibits about who was brought to the camp, when the camp was built and why, how many people died, among many other things. There’s one haunting room with a glass case the size of my apartment filled with human hair of some of the 1.5 million victims. The Nazis sold this hair to companies to make stockings and socks, and this was the hair that hadn’t been sold after the camp was liberated. We walked through the barracks, seeing the claustrophobic bunks where political prisoners were kept before being executed, and then we viewed the execution wall, which is adorned still with flowers all these years later. We also walked through a gas chamber that was reconstructed with the remains from a gas chamber at Birkenau, since the Nazis started trying to cover up all the evidence of their actions once they knew the war was the lost and the Allies were coming.

Afterwards we were bused a mile or so down the road to Birkenau-Auschwitz II extermination camp. This camp was built, obviously, after Auschwitz and it was an extermination camp more than a work camp. Eight to ninety percent of the prisoners who exited the trains at Birkenau went straight to the gas chambers. Birkenau was mostly destroyed by the Nazis so a lot of the camp is eerily quiet with grass, barbed wire, and wooden guard stations along the train tracks. 

At Birkenau stands the International Monument, in memory of the 1.5 million victims who perished there. The monument is black stones of various shapes (I don’t remember what the meaning is of them) with plaques in many different languages that say, “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and child, mainly Jews, from various countries in Europe. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945.” It’s located in between the ruins of the second and third crematorium at the end of the train tracks where most people disembarked the train to die.

For our last stop, we walked through one of the prisoner’s quarters that several hundred Jews were packed into at a time. They were dark, damp, cold, and dirt floored. 

When we exited the brick gates of Birkenau, our tour guide told us that now that we’d visited the camps we were witnesses of the crimes and atrocities that were committed during the Holocaust. He was very passionate, pressing us not to let anyone try to lie and deny that the Holocaust happened because if we forget, or deny, history has a way of repeating itself. That said, let’s have other’s backs as the new president elect comes to power next year. If his cronies start coming for one group, your group will be soon after. Let’s be better than this. Let’s be nice to one another and prepare to stand up, if need be. 

If you ever have the change to visit Auschwitz, I highly encourage it. Let’s remember so history doesn’t repeat itself. Photos after the jump.

Auschwitz

Eye glasses that were collected from prisons before they were killed.

Execution wall

Barbed wire covered path

A crematorium reconstructed from the remains of a crematorium at Birkenau.

The brick entrance way to Birkenau-Auschwitz II

The end of the train tracks where most prisoners walked from to their deaths in the gas chambers.

The International Monument at Birkenau-Auschwitz II

The remains of a demolished crematorium.

The chimneys still stand even though the wooden houses where prisoners lived were destroyed. 

A prisoners house that’s still standing. 

Along the train tracks in Birkenau, an original train car that used to transport Jews to the camp sits on the tracks.

Ghost Tour in My ‘Hood

The day I left for Poland, I convinced J to buy tickets for the UWS Ghost Walking Tour on Halloween because I love walking tours (I did, like, 8 in Poland) and especially ghost ones! On Halloween nonetheless.

We met at the “Ghostbusters” building at 55 Central Park West (you know, the one Sigourney Weaver lives in) and there was one other person there, as well as our tour guide, an older man wearing a cape and a black hat. He looked the part, for sure.

During the 90 minute tour, we weaved through the streets from 65th and Central Park West back to 72nd and Central Park West. First we took a detour along 69th Street between Central Park West and Amsterdam. The neighborhood association shuts down the street every year and goes really insane. It was quite the scene to walk through. There are some photos after the jump…

Back to the Ghost Tour: It was a ghost tour along with some history thrown in. We saw the Masonic Temple on West 73rd Street; we heard a story about a single woman who lived at 234 West 72nd Street and liked to pick up men at the bar across the street and once was killed by one of them in that apartment; we heard the history of the grand Ansonia. Our guide also pointed out that the first ever automobile accident was at the corner of 74th and Central Park West where someone was hit by a car while getting out of a horse-drawn carriage. Supposedly if you stand in the middle of the street, you’ll feel the hand of the man who was killed pulling you back towards the sidewalk. The townhouses on the north side of 73rd Street were designed by Henry Hardenberg, who designed The Dakota and later The Plaza. Our guide also pointed out the building where supposedly the first rock’n’roll song was ever recorded in this country (”Rock Around the Clock”) and it later became condos and home to Lady Gaga’s parents and later Lady Gaga. He said he likes to think the spirits of those musicians had something to do with her musical talents. 

We ended at my favorite building in New York City – The Dakota. If you’ve seen Rosemary’s Baby, you’ll recognize it. It’s the only movie that was ever permitted to film inside the building. I watched with envy as we stood outside, listening to ghost stories, and watching the occasional resident run inside. Edward Clarke, the original owner of the building who died two years before it was finished, still haunts the building, we were told. There’s also the ghost of John Lennon, of course. And the ghost of a crying woman who can occasionally be seen.

The tour was less informative than some other walking tours I’ve been on, but it was still the perfect way to spend a chilly Hallow’s Eve.

Poland Excursion

Remember how I said my next foreign vacation would be Poland? Well, it will be! A couple of months back, I found a super cheap (relatively speaking, $670-ish) flight to Poland and I booked it. I’m going to Krakow, Warsaw, and Gdansk. I’ll be there for 9 or 10 days in October. 

Why Poland? It’s not a place that people often go to but I hear it’s awesome. One of my long-time yoga teacher’s is from Gdansk, so she’s always raving about it. My dad’s grandmother is also from Poland, in Radomysl, which is near Warsaw, but I can’t find any public transportation to it. The building she lived in is gone anyways. 

I also love World War II history, so this is going to be exciting, albeit a bit depressing (as fuck). I know I said no more fucking hostels, but booking a private room in a good hostel is the same price as booking a small room in a shitty hotel. So, that’s what I’m doing. I always love meeting people from other countries, too, in hostels. It’s part of the fun!

I bought an amazing travel backpack that I got to try out in San Diego this weekend and I’ve decided to take the train in between cities. No city is more than 3-4 hours apart and they run pretty regularly, so that’ll be nice. I’ll get to see the countryside, I guess! (Honestly, I’m pretty sure trees will look the same in Poland.)

I was looking for packing blogs and backpacking blogs about Poland and I didn’t find a whole lot. I know Poland is far from a tourist destination, but I didn’t know just how far. Apparently, it’s pretty far down the list. But the blogs I did find say Poland is AWESOME. Here’s what I’m planning on doing in each city….

Krakow: I’m definitely going to do walking tours around Kazimierz (the Jewish Quarter) and Old Town, as well as the Wawel Castle, Rynek Underground Museum, Royal Way Walk, the Barbican City Wall, and the Main Market Square. There will also be a half day spent in Krakow across the river at Schindler’s Factory Museum. I might try to take a day trip to the Wieliczka Salt Mines, too, because I hear those are super neat, but there’s a lot to cover in Krakow.  Did I mention how cheap Krakow is? Super cheap. Very exciting. There will be a half day trip to Auschwitz, of course. 

Warsaw: They have a Royal Walk Way, too, so I’ll walk up that. I’ll also go to the Royal Castle, Old Town Market Square, Warsaw Museum, and possibly the Chopin Museum. I’m going to do walking tours in the Old Town and Muranow (the Jewish Ghetto), and visit the Warsaw Uprising Museum and the Museum of the History of Jewish Poles. 

Gdansk: Just to be consistent, I’ll go see their Royal Way Walk,. I’ll go to the Historical Zone of the Free City of Gdansk, the Gdansk Historical Museum, and take a few hours to go to Westerplatte where the first shots of World War II were fired. I have to go check out the other two cities in the Tri-City: Sopot and Gdynia. 

I’m going to eat lots of perogies, go to all of the Bar Mleczny (milk bar), and drink lots of beer and vodka. I’m going to try to see a bunch of the palaces (though I’m not sure which will be accessible or open). I have a bunch of other things on my list of things to see but I didn’t want to list out every possible little thing. 

I wish I had more time to also hit Wroclaw, but you can’t do it all, I suppose. I might squeeze in a day trip from Warsaw to the Bialowiezka Forest – an UNESCO site and a forest that dates back to Medieval Times, which is kind of cool. It’s also the forest that Daniel Craig & co. travel through in the movie Defiance. And I take a day trip to Treblinka from Warsaw, but I will already be seeing Auschwitz and Birkenau, so I’m not sure how many concentration camps I really need to see on a short trip. I’ve been learning Polish with Duolingo, so I might recognize some words and say them, but I have zero chance of writing anything out. 

Is there anything off the beaten path that I’m missing? Anything else I should do or see that I wouldn’t necessarily find out about from my Lonely Planet guide? 

Hamilton Prediction

I stopped reading the Hamilton cancellation thread on BroadwayWorld after I was able to buy tickets the last time they went on sale. The waits had gotten to 3+ days and there’s no show worth losing that much time over. So: no. I was wasting far too much time reading about teenagers “choose to be homeless” to obtain tickets to a show. 

But last night, I was curious as to how the waits were now that 3 of the principal cast members (including the writer) were gone and I was shocked – sort of – to see that you could now, apparently, get in line the day-of at 6am and get tickets for the show that night. 

I’m starting to think that Lin-Manuel Miranda, lyrical genius as he may be, let Hamilton be more about him – as Lin-Manuel – than about Alexander Hamilton and that Hamilton, the show, without him won’t last anywhere near as long as we all thought – Decades? Centuries?! 

I think the market will soon be saturated. Everyone who has the means to see Hamilton on Broadway soon will have done so and ticket demand, as well as ticket prices, will start to go away. I mean, it’s already been filmed for mass consumption. The tour is starting soon, too (and it has a pretty bomb cast). 

I’m going to place my bets on Hamilton running a good 5 years. This is a fantastic run for any show on Broadway, including Hamilton (and they’ve also already recouped, so fuck it, right?). 

We will see, I suppose. 

A Visit to Hamilton Heights // Hamilton’s The Grange

After watching the Hamilton performance from the Grammy’s, I finally listened to the cast recording in it’s entirety on Spotify last week. The performance on the Grammy’s didn’t translate very well, but I’m pretty sure musicals don’t often translate well to TV. The score is very catchy, I’ll give it that. I noticed the same four to six musical themes being reprised over and over and it’s long, but it’s good. I think the lyrics are great.

I thought the story was really interesting and I knew Alexander Hamilton’s house was in Harlem so I convinced Justin, who is a history junkie, to walk up to 141st Street on Sunday after brunch and he was more than happy to oblige. Hamilton Heights still isn’t the best area in Harlem. The mile and a half walk from my apartment is only half questionable.  The City College campus, though, was on the walk up and it was gorgeous. The buildings are SO pretty. You can see one of the building’s behind the house below:

We walked up to the house and into the lower level. The next tour of the actual house wasn’t starting for about an hour, so we just walked around the ground floor exhibit which contained an exhibit about his life and everything he accomplished. The house was actually moved from it’s original site on 143rd Street in 1889 to 141st Street, but Hamilton owned a huge portion of Harlem – something like 32 acres. Across from his house is a statue of him in the courtyard of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. 

We hopped in a cab home afterward. It was a treat that’s so close to my apartment. I need to do more historical things in the city. Things like walking tours and stuff now that it’s getting nicer out. 

What’d we do after brunch and the race on Sunday? We settled in with some healthy snacks (thanks, Trader Joe’s!) watched the last 8 episodes of The Man in the High Castle. This show is simply amazing – the scale of which their imaginations had to climb is staggering. Nothing could be as it was today – there were swastikas or Japanese writing on everything. Such an interesting, and scary, thing to think about, if we lost the war. The last episode dragged a little bit and the ending was a little confusing, but overall I really loved it. I think there might be multiple universes going on in the show. 

I’m a bit conflicted regarding whether or not there should be a second season (and I haven’t been able to find online if there is one planned or not). It’d just be the same thing over and over, but then again, with the way things ended in season 1, there are lots of unanswered question.

If you have Amazon Prime, load this onto your Apple TV/Roku/computer immediately. 

On Friday night I went with the awesome dude I’ve been seeing to see Selma. We met at the march for Eric Garner on December 4th (no, he didn’t ask for my number that night) so it made sense that we go witness this piece of cinematic history together.

I really, really liked it. It was incredibly sad, disturbing, inspiring, and enraging. Police violence is not as bad as it was in the 1960’s but some of the scenes could’ve been taken out of this movie and inserted into today’s headlines easily. I went to school at a moderately liberal high school and I don’t recall ever having learned about the marches. We learned of course who Martin Luther King Jr. was but I feel like I was totally cheated out of learning some pretty important lessons as an adolescent.

David Oyelowo was unbelievable as MLK Jr. and Carmen Ejogo was inspiring as Coretta Scott King. Everyone in the cast was stellar and all deserve shout-outs but I don’t anyone wants to read all of that in a blog post (check IMDB here). 

I feel like school’s should be taking field trips to see this movie in every single district in the country. This should be mandatory viewing for every American citizen. We’ve made progress in this country, but not anywhere near enough. History is repeating itself and I don’t think enough people know that.

Go see Selma. That’s an order. 

I was lucky enough to be able to see a preview performance of All the Way a couple of weeks ago which opened a week ago tonight. It’s a new drama by Robert Schenkkan that received ridiculous reviews at A.R.T. in Boston. A drama about LBJ’s first year or so in office trying to get the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 passed starring Bryan Cranston as LBJ.

I love history plays so I loved this one. It was an era that I’d not known the exact details of. The violence, the struggle, the bargaining behind closed doors. It reminded me of the movie Lincoln if only because it reflected what’s going on today in government and how nothing really ever changes. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I’ve seen Cranston in a couple of movies, but not Breaking Bad (give me five years). But I was thoroughly impressed by his acting chops onstage. He conveyed to the audience his inner struggles excellently. I also really enjoyed Betsy Aidem as Lady Bird Johnson. Other noteables in the cast were John McMartin (duh) as Senative Richard Russell, Michael McKean as J. Edgar Hoover, and James Eckhouse as Martin Luther King Hr. 

That said, every person in the cast was fantastic. The lighting (Jane Cox) and sound designs (Peter Fitzgerald) were also notable and effective.

Was All the Way long? Oh yes. Clocking in at a few minutes under 3 hours, it was longer than your usual Broadway play. But did I care? Not for one second. Bryan Cranston was just that good.

Tickets provided by the production. All opinions are my own.