Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 2 - The Theatre
18 Plays1 year ago
Ross and Gregg discuss opera, musicals, and being present experiencing the art that is the theater.
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:06
Speaker
You're listening to Unmotivated and Unprepared, a podcast where we take a break from the everyday hustle and bustle to muse about life, liberty, and the pursuit of randomness. Now here's Greg and Ross.
Theater: A Polarizing Art Form
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. I'm Ross. And I'm Greg.
00:00:35
Speaker
And this is another episode of unmotivated and unprepared. And Greg, this is, this, I think I was noodling on this. This, I think is going to be like the epitome of when we were in person, you and I hanging out, having breakfast conversation. Cause we're going to talk about the theater, what we're going to talk about today. You ready for this? I'm ready. I'm ready.
Opera: Understanding and Appreciation
00:00:57
Speaker
I'm in it. Ross all in.
00:00:59
Speaker
Okay, so we might lose one of our 10 listeners. We might gain a few because theater, I think the theater can be pretty polarizing if I do say so myself. But we're going to take different tiers. I think we're going to start pretty serious and then we're going to go into some more fun stuff near the end. But I need you to help me understand because I know you're an opera fan. You like the opera.
00:01:29
Speaker
Small town boy, I'm struggling connecting with opera. I understand the skill needed, but I need you to help me understand why I need to check out more opera shows, or whatever they're called. Opera shows, see? That tells you, I don't even know if they're just opera. Opera. Is it like a Lego? It's just Lego. It's just Lego. Yeah, yeah.
Opera in Popular Culture
00:01:50
Speaker
It's just the theater.
00:01:52
Speaker
OK, I think I think people's first foray into opera is the Looney Tunes. I think that's that's where people first get their first taste of what opera is or an Andrei Bocelli or somewhat or fifth element where they have the big song. You find opera scattered in popular culture, but it's it.
00:02:16
Speaker
because it's in the public domain and because it's available music, just like the symphony, I think opera's found its way scattered in life. Not as much anymore, because obviously Looney Tunes has, you know, I don't know, I don't know if kids today watch Looney Tunes, but for us, especially growing up, Looney Tunes was a big kind of part of our childhood.
00:02:35
Speaker
because it was on television or whatever. And so there's songs like the Barber of Seville, you've got songs from La Traviata, you have songs from opera scattered in. And I think it's for the humorousness of it because they're all really big songs. And so
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, they ease you into the extreme. Yeah, they ease you into, and I would say the stereotypical, or they ease you into a stereotype of opera that I guess we'll find out may or may not exist, but because of that type of easing you into it, that's what people think of when they think of opera.
Opera's Language and Prestige
00:03:13
Speaker
Right. And I think the other part about opera that makes it intimidating is that it's in another language. So not only is it quite old, but it's also done in Italian or French or German. And it's not as easy to, or Spanish. It's not as easy to relate to.
00:03:34
Speaker
And so- Yeah, and that's the thing for me, right? Because I've been to an opera show and your initial thought is like, oh man. An opera show. See, I've been to an opera at the theater and my verse reaction is, oh, thank goodness, there's that little thing up above that's telling me what subtitles tell me what they're saying because I am absolutely lost. I didn't even think they were saying words at first, but
00:04:01
Speaker
Then I realized, oh, OK, total another language, totally different like way that they sing. And we'll talk about musicals here in a little bit, but completely different. Right. But I think I think people approach the opera.
00:04:16
Speaker
People go to opera for multiple reasons. I think there's a lot of people that go to the opera to be seen. It's old art. It's elite. It is the vision people say where they got their tuxedo on and they go to the opera. But I've gone to the opera here in Charlotte and people are in pajamas. I mean, so it's kind of one of those things where you've got different groups. But the opera is because of its kind of prestige.
00:04:42
Speaker
associate to it, which is kind of funny actually, because from an opera perspective, a lot of the operas they perform today are what was actually made for the cheap seats.
Universal Themes in Opera
00:04:52
Speaker
They were designed for the core of the society. The old, old operas, the ones that were super popular for the rich didn't necessarily hasn't stayed
00:05:03
Speaker
as part of as much as the one. Yeah, they haven't aged well. Yeah. Because the themes that are in the for the for the credence, right, that the for the for the average Joe, the themes for the opera tend to be pretty consistent, big thematically, big ideas that you can easily assume, versus kind of nuanced things that had to do with the royal court or whatever at the time, because again, yeah, some some political like like, they'll go with like,
00:05:34
Speaker
hardcore, like this is a political thing, not a subtlety of, oh, there's this trade or this thing here. It's like, okay, I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to worry about that. That's not my day to day. It's not important to me. Right. And because opera is one of those things where you only have it come through, it only gets performed three times a year. You tend to see the same operas being performed over and over again, because it's people's first foray into the opera. They might go, I've never been to an opera. I'll go to an opera. And so they go to,
00:06:00
Speaker
kind of the big five. They go to the big five operas that people want to go see. The Met does perform quite a bit. There are operas. I mean, they just did Dead Man Walking. They turned that into a opera. So the Met does do quite a bit of them. And if you want to see a Met opera live and not be able to go to New York,
00:06:21
Speaker
Uh, you can actually get them on fathom events at the movie theater. I'm going to go on the 27th to see the Mets performance live of Carmen, which is a brilliant
Accessibility of Opera
00:06:29
Speaker
opera. Oh, that's, oh, that's cool. So you can, so it's just like, like live concert in theater, but it's, you know, in a movie theater, but it's live opera streaming and like, there's, there's options. And that's where I would tell people, because I would, if I took another run, because I've been to one opera, clearly I'm asking you to convince me.
00:06:49
Speaker
If I took another run at Opera, I would probably do something like that or like you can stream at their sites where you can stream. You can stream different opera performances. Obviously not the same thing, but you don't necessarily have to dress up. You can pause it, those type of things, depending on what you're watching. So that's that's kind of an entry level, I would say.
00:07:08
Speaker
I think for opera, for a lot of people, going back to Looney Tunes thing, there are the greatest hits of opera. There are certain arias, like the Queen's aria from the Magic Flute, Mozart's Magic Flute. There are songs that people know, but they've never seen the two and a half hour, three hour opera in its entirety. They just know that one song.
Emotional Engagement in Opera
00:07:30
Speaker
And what's happened, because
00:07:33
Speaker
consumption. People aren't wanting to go sit in the theater and watch the show actually be performed. You tend to have things like the three tenors or you have Andre Bocelli or you have other artists that are performing these kind of greatest hits and people get into watching the greatest hits of opera like they're singles like it's like a now thirty seven opera. That's now that's what I call opera. So that's that's kind of where I think I think opera has gotten to. But
00:08:02
Speaker
Back to the point of how would I explain opera to someone? So the very first opera I actually went to was in San Antonio. I went to see Carmen. I had season tickets. One year I had season tickets and I got to see three different operas. I got to see Carmen, the Mercado and Rigoletto, I think, or was it La Travia? I don't remember, but it was
00:08:27
Speaker
It was a good experience to go see. And it was a big show and it's a big production. And I knew the story because, again, Carmen's a story everybody's seen. Carmen Jones is a movie that was done, I think, by Otto Preminger. I can't remember. But it was the Carmen Jones is a retelling of it. You had Carmen with Beyonce on MTV. The story is pretty classic. Right. So you don't need to know what they're saying. It's opera. I think if you go in with the idea that I want to understand
00:08:57
Speaker
what's going on, the words they're saying. I think you miss out on the experience because I do believe the line from not the quote, the pretty woman is the greatest example of things that you should take quotes from. But I do think that Richard Gere's line where he says that you can learn to like the opera, but you'll never love it. Or the first time you see opera, you'll love it. And I think that's one of those things that for a lot of people, they can learn to like it.
00:09:27
Speaker
But loving it, you have to be that kind of emotionally aware, emotionally open person to feel what's happening on the stage, what's occurring, what's happening and and feel the emotions because it's raw. It's raw emotion that you're feeling from this. Yeah, which I don't think any other art form, I don't think any other art form
00:09:47
Speaker
translates that way. I really don't. Yeah. I was going to say, I was going to say, I think the amount of effort it takes to sing what they do, the emotion, I think you're right. I think they literally put, I mean, nothing against other forms of art, but they put so much
00:10:06
Speaker
physical energy into it as well, that it's just out there on the floor. I think if I were, and I probably will one day, go to an opera again, the thing I will really focus on is that the effort being put in, I was so hyper focused on what's the storyline, reading these things. I wasn't really focused on just being in the moment of that.
00:10:30
Speaker
And I think that's what I would probably change. Now, you said you said something earlier, which is a great word for crosswords because it's used so many times. Aria. All right. So Aria is the big like it's the big like, I guess, the solo or the big like the big, the big number, if you will. So my question for you, have you ever cried during an Aria? Have you ever have you shed a tear, gotten emotional?
00:10:58
Speaker
Uh, you know, I, I think when I saw La Traviata last year, I think there's a moment, there's a, I don't think I've cried in an aria just because, uh, they, by their nature, they don't tend to, they tend to evoke emotion, but not tears. It's almost a wow. It's almost a wow type of emotion. You're like blown away. Right.
00:11:20
Speaker
But I think there's there are moments. I mean, operas. I mean, operas are genuinely sad, unfortunately. They are. Yes. Yes. They're thematically sad. And I think unfortunately. There's a lot of death. It's just a lot of death a lot of times. And they're. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to put it in perspective. These operas came out in
Storytelling in Opera
00:11:45
Speaker
the 1800s. People didn't live that long and they died of tragic things like
00:11:49
Speaker
like tuberculosis. Right. They died of tragic things. And and people were dealing with these that we don't deal with necessarily. But I'm going to see Madame Butterfly on Thursday. And that's a story that's been done. Miss Saigon basically is is the English rock opera version of Madame Butterfly, Madame Butterfly. But thematically, it's that idea of guys in the military
00:12:15
Speaker
He meets a girl for convenience. He gets married to her because he really just wants to have sex with her, I think. And then, of course, a kid gets whatever. He goes back to the States. She's left when she goes back to he goes back to United States. She's or I can't remember. Yeah, I think it's the US. But either way, the soldier leaves. She's left there with this kid and this pining for this guy to come back. And now she's, you know, she's got issues because now she's
00:12:42
Speaker
viewed by the community as less than, right? And so you've got this, you've got themes that we can all relate to. But again, that's all you need to know about the story. You don't need to know what they're actually saying. You don't need to pay attention to that. You're going for a feeling. And I think that boggles many people's ideas because they go into everything. I think we've become hypercritical as a society of everything.
00:13:09
Speaker
Like everybody's become an art critic. People love to critique movies on Rotten Tomatoes. No one goes purely for an experience. I mean, look, it's not Instagrammable, right? Opera is not something you can take your phone out for and sit there at a concert. That's very true. Right. You have to be present. You have to feel it. You have to be part of the show. And I think that's that's unique.
Cultural Significance of Opera
00:13:33
Speaker
I think now in our society to take a step back and go, I don't have my phone. I'm going to be present.
00:13:39
Speaker
I'm going to enjoy the music. I'm going to feel something. It may be negative. It may be positive, but you're going to feel something. And unless you go into the opera with the idea that I want to feel something.
00:13:51
Speaker
And again, you should like the story. It's the theater. You should like the story. You should read what the story's about. Don't go to an opera just because it's an opera. And also, I would tell people for your first opera, pick one that you remember from the Looney Tunes. Like if Barbara Saville comes through, go see Barbara Saville. It's got the big Figaro number. Everybody knows.
00:14:10
Speaker
Uh, yeah, which is hilarious because he's just saying i'm the best barber in the in civille And I do all the great hair like he's singing a song about cutting hair. So yeah, it's not it's not as tragic as some of those others talk about like just But I think people can relate to the big numbers because they've heard them
00:14:29
Speaker
And I think that's a good entry point for opera. Don't go to opera just to go to opera. I think you'll miss, you'll miss the joy of finding it and discovering it and the feelings that are associated with it. And of course, I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to go to the movies, the theater, the movie theater on the 27th to watch Carmen. So I have two operas in one week. But yeah, you're really going all in.
00:14:54
Speaker
I do think opera has a place in people's experiences, but not everybody has the depth emotionally to enjoy it. And I think those people end up being the people who go to the opera to be seen, not go to the opera to escape.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's probably going to be my takeaway, because I feel like, what are we in a business meeting now? My takeaway from this, my key takeaway. One of my favorite things is going to some performance or some sort of artistry and not being able to use my device, because then it forces that disconnect. And then I know everybody is on the same
00:15:40
Speaker
We're on the same page of like absorption, at least from a standpoint of we're not being distracted. Like you can't, you can't be distracted. So I think that's really for me, probably what's going to get me there again is like, look, focus on the performance. It's an escape, right? It's a, it's a mental hike out into the wilderness of you're not distracted by anything. You're going to absorb this thing. And that's, that's kind of how the way I have to perceive it and take it.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think the other part is, in our lives, we don't have as many exclamation points as we would like. There's only so many birthdays in a year. There's so many weddings. There's so many different events that you can go to. I think opera, specifically because it is such a, let's dress up, wear a tuxedo, let's actually be fancy. And it is this thing to be fancy for. It gives you a really interesting exclamation point
00:16:40
Speaker
to experience and experience art. And but again, it's not for everybody. I mean, it isn't. Unfortunately, it is. People don't love music as much as I probably do anyway. So I mean, there are but like
00:16:54
Speaker
There's not as many of those people who are listening to all the range. You have an eclectic taste in music. So it kind of lends itself to enjoying all ranges of theater because you can respect it. Whether you necessarily like the song, like how the person sounds their voice, you can respect it because you know the effort and the work it takes to go in there because you're a music fan through and
Styles of Opera
00:17:21
Speaker
through. Right.
00:17:22
Speaker
I actually my favorite opera, my favorite opera to watch is the Mikado because it is so funny. It's Gilbert and Sullivan. It is it is goofy. It's an English. It's a bit on the racist side of things nowadays. Like it would not be appropriate. Yeah, because it was not good. It was the English. It was the English. I mean, I don't mean go. But I mean, it was an English set of playwrights that wrote a play about Japan.
00:17:51
Speaker
And so it's at the time they take stereotypes. I wouldn't say it's racist. I think it's done with it. It's done with a reverence that isn't isn't cruel but does play on stereotypes of what English people would have thought of Japanese people at the time. And so time. So. So it's dated. And so you don't see it as often just because of its from a sensitive nature where we're kind of at that point. But I don't know. I mean, not to get into whitewashing of history, but
00:18:20
Speaker
But there but it's a fun opera because all the songs are silly and all the music is fun and it's easily consumable and it's designed for I mean it is it is this is the you know the Judd Apatow opera it is it is slapstick it is goofy it is you know you could you could put Paul Rudd and Steve Carell and
00:18:43
Speaker
and put them in it and it would fit, right? So from a consumption perspective, it's an opera I think that's worth, if you see it come through, it's worth seeing or watching because it just is, it's easy to get and it could be a very quick way to understand the ranges of opera that I think it's not just the big, I mean, because I'm not a big fan of Madam Butterfly, it is so depressing. It's beautiful, but it's depressing. But yeah.
00:19:29
Speaker
which I enjoyed that from a musical perspective in the theater.
Comparing Musicals and Opera
00:19:35
Speaker
So let's talk musicals. Now, I'm a huge fan of musicals. One, because of, I think for me, there's
00:19:36
Speaker
I still think it's worth seeing. I think it's worth experiencing.
00:19:45
Speaker
There's more stimulus, right? A lot of musicals, there's a lot more stimulus, there's more movement. And not saying that once again, there's another angle of talent involved in the choreography and everything else around that. I think that's very intriguing to me. I also still appreciate the Sunday matinee where they show the subtitles because musicals, once you've seen it and you've heard it, I'm a
00:20:14
Speaker
There's many things in life where I don't like to be surprised. Actually, most things in life. You know, me, I don't like going to a restaurant without having to, knowing what I'm going to order and looking at the menu. Never ordered a chef's special in my life. No, no, no, no, no, no. You can't spring this on me. What do you mean, pureed carrots? That's not on the menu. But the point being,
00:20:42
Speaker
A musical, surprisingly enough, I don't like reading about the story before I go to it if I haven't seen it. I think there are the new one that's really popular, Anne Juliette or I don't know, I forget what it's called.
00:20:58
Speaker
But I wouldn't want to read like, okay, what is kind of their take on this and everything else. I just want to go there. But then I get there and they're like singing the songs and I'm like straining because I'm a lyric guy. I'm unlike my wonderful wife who is the sound and how the music sounds and the beat and everything. I'm a lyric guy first. So then I'm like straining and then I miss some of it. So like usually my second time around to see a show,
00:21:24
Speaker
is when I know whether or not it's like top three, top five for me. But that's also what makes musicals interesting for me. I think they're like rewatchable for me and I can watch them like multiple times because I catch new things every time. But that's a musical thing for me. So I don't know your thoughts on musicals though. Yeah. So I like musicals. They're sometimes a bit contrived.
00:21:50
Speaker
I'm tired of, I just saw Beetlejuice two weeks ago, right? I saw Beetlejuice, the musical. It was like Charlie Day from Always Sunny. Basically just, that's what the Beetlejuice character, it's just completely a Charlie Day set of jokes. The music is forgettable. It is not, it's not, I mean, it's fun. It's a fun campy little musical. It's cute. It takes the Beetlejuice movie in a different direction. It adds some different color.
00:22:19
Speaker
You know, they do the day dance and some different things, the banana boat song, whatever. But it is. I think I think it's because in order to get people to go to the theater, you have to give them something they've seen before. I think their musicals are so expensive to produce. And I think and people aren't going out like they used to. They're not spending the money like they used to. And
00:22:46
Speaker
And it's really expensive. I mean, tickets to go to the musicals are a hundred something dollars. I mean, it's not a cheap exercise. Yeah. We have a choice to go to a musical or go see your favorite singer who comes to town. You probably are going to go see your favorite singer because it's familiar. You know it. You've listened to the songs. Whereas a musical, you sing along. It's there. It's a different energy. You can Instagram it or tick tock it. And that's another topic I know. Yeah.
00:23:15
Speaker
to the see and be seen thing. It's it's I always joke. You know, I was a DJ and met very famous people when I was younger and people, young people want to have proof. They want to see pictures of did you do this? They don't believe you outright. You have to have photographic proof in order for someone to believe you. And I think that's a lot of times I think people are going out just to Instagram. They're just going out to just say I'm out. Look at my life. Look how great I am. Look how special I am. And
00:23:45
Speaker
that's just a whole validation problem. Like you're special to begin with. If you don't think you're special, what is a thousand followers on Instagram matter? That's right, folks. You heard it here. You don't need to post it. Greg thinks you're special. That's right. So after you listen to this, the next day you're feeling down, think that random dude on a podcast said, I was special. Anyways, but yes, I agree. But back to the
00:24:13
Speaker
I'm like, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They're special. They're special. This is what I heard is great. Greg thinks Ross is special too. So that makes me feel. Greg does think Ross is special. Thank you. But I think musicals. Yeah. But I think musicals, I think the, where I was going with the theater and the films, I film doesn't, I mean, while I love the Legally Blonde musical and actually liked the Legally Blonde musical better than I liked the movie Legally Blonde, it's because the music is so great.
00:24:41
Speaker
It's a lot of fun. It's fun to sing. It's a cute little show. But again, I think the music was done really well. But I don't know if movies do a very good job of being translated into musicals. I mean, they turn Mean Girls into a musical. I don't know.
00:25:02
Speaker
I enjoyed, I enjoyed that one. I thought it was good. I just, I don't, and it was fun. I mean, Beetlejuice was fun. It was cute. It was fun. It took it a different direction, but you could have called it anything. You could have made that a whole different story, taken out a couple little things that were Beetlejuicish, like the sandworm and the banana boat song and the shake Sonora, taking the rest of it out, made a whole different story. But then again, consumerism, I don't think if you didn't have the Beetlejuice moniker, people would go.
00:25:31
Speaker
wasn't relatable or it wasn't like it wasn't it didn't catch and I will tell you like for me
Experiences with Jukebox Musicals
00:25:38
Speaker
And I agree. I've been like my, some of my favorite musicals definitely were either retellings or, or necessarily like from a movie, but I will say the thing that's for me, cause I'm going to go, I'm going to be seeing, uh, the Tina Turner musical. And I, the first like artists, like story of an artist when I saw was the Donna Summers one. And then I saw the temptations one, a two proud.
00:26:06
Speaker
I will tell you, I was totally skeptical on those, changed my mind completely because I almost saw it as, I mean, a lot of it were very documentary-esque, but it really made me have more respect. Telling it that way made me have more respect for those people, for the story. I was listening to their music for weeks afterwards just because I enjoyed it so much.
00:26:32
Speaker
Those are songs that you really know. They're songs you can sing along because it's almost like a concert, but I like how they wove in some of the stories. I was very surprised that I was like, I want to hear a unique story, but I was like, oh wait, this is really good. I enjoy it.
00:26:47
Speaker
I don't know. I think music translates. I haven't seen the Green Day musical, but they say that the American Idiot, they said that's a pretty good musical. But I saw the very first musical I ever saw that used popular music that already existed was We Will Rock You, the Queen musical. And it just uses the songs. The guy who wrote it wrote Black Adder, so it's funny, right? It's a really funny show.
00:27:14
Speaker
I think it was black at her, but he, uh, the, the music, the story is about this like dystopian world where there's like the killer queen and like she's tamped down music.
00:27:27
Speaker
And you're not allowed to have free speech and all this stuff. And then it's like this group of, you know, uh, rough misfits are going to try to overthrow the dystopian world and they sing queen songs. Uh, it was good. It was really, really good. So I can't say I hate on taking popular songs and turning them into musicals. I just, I would like it to be more original ideas.
00:27:50
Speaker
then it's just a movie that I take the kind of the IP from that movie. Yeah. Like, I don't want to see the Star Wars musical. Like, I don't want to see it. And you know, there's going to be one. They're going to make one. And I don't want to share. Sure. What about what did you think of Moulin Rouge? Because it's Moulin Rouge is the Moulin Rouge. Like, just over. Just tell me your thoughts, because that's you're not going to make me sad if you didn't like it.
Evolving Perspectives on Musicals
00:28:16
Speaker
It's top three for me from a musical perspective.
00:28:20
Speaker
So I when I remember seeing the movie, right, the movie, but Baz Luhrmann and I remember going and I wasn't a huge fan of Romeo and Juliet, the movie. And then I went to see the musical movie. And at first, it really kind of turned me off because I just thought certain songs that they chose belong to those artists. And I didn't think Baz Luhrmann did such a great job of weaving them in. But as time went on,
00:28:45
Speaker
I got older thematically, Moulin Rouge becomes much more, I mean, it's the story of, you know, it's...
00:28:52
Speaker
It really is a pretty classic story, right? Girl needs gotta take care of her. She's got tuberculosis. Remember, tuberculosis, it's always tuberculosis. Yes, it's always TB, folks. Get your shots. Yeah, always. It's actually, I think it's the story of La Traviata, actually, because she falls in love with the poor writer guy. She goes off, whatever, and then she kicks him out and then goes back to the rich guy. It's actually the story of La Traviata, is actually what it is, not loved one.
00:29:16
Speaker
Um, it that's the actual so again opera go see La Traviata. It's the same story but when they redid the musical on the stage And you got to feel it a little differently. It wasn't so acid trippy Uh as the movie was I think it became it was a lot more it was a lot more engaging and I think it was
00:29:39
Speaker
It was really well done. It was well done as the musical on the stage. Now, again, not my top favorite, just because I think musically it was never on the top of the list of the songs they chose because I thought they belonged in certain places that didn't belong in the musical itself. But I think it was well done. Well, that's good. And I mean, I think like I.
00:30:01
Speaker
Like I said, for musicals to me, maybe it's just as more stimulus. And like I said, I feel like they're rewatchable so many times. And I guess I haven't gotten that far into opera to feel that way. I've seen a couple come through multiple times, or I've seen it somewhere. And I'm just like, ooh. You get excited about this one part. Now, there's a point where you get where you're just like, OK, I've seen it enough. I need a delay. I need to wait.
00:30:27
Speaker
I think I can watch Wicked a couple of more times and not feel like that, but Rent is an incredible musical to me, but it's, once again, it's incredibly depressing. So there's only a couple of times I can see it before I'm just like, nope, I got pause.
00:30:43
Speaker
It's so sad. It's so sad. It is. It is. But I think but I think there is a lot there is diminishing returns. I think I've seen Legally Blonde four times the musical. I've said it done by Broadway twice. I saw it done at two community theaters did Legally Blonde. And I think I like the community theater once better just because they're kind of
00:31:05
Speaker
kind of throw it together and they're not great and it's goofy and it's campy. The Broadway show and plus it's very expensive to see the same musical over and over again. But again, I think we go back to what I said in the beginning about opera. I think
00:31:22
Speaker
And I was. I was not critical of Beetlejuice. I think it was good. I liked it. It was fun. It was a fun little show to see. I think we are. We default to criticizing something and it should be thinking about how did you feel when you walked out of the theater? How did it make you feel? How did you enjoy it? I think Beetlejuice has a place. It has a place in the musical canon. I think Moulin Rouge has a place in the musical canon. I think
00:31:45
Speaker
There's so many shows that people I think go in with expectation and lose that sense of what did I feel? How did I feel walking out of it? How did I feel going there? Like America in Paris. I went to see American in Paris and I like the movie, but it's a dancing movie. It's a dancing musical and it's a lot of dancing. So you really have to like dancing.
Performance Preferences
00:32:09
Speaker
And I don't necessarily, I've learned that that's probably one of the art forms while I enjoy dancing. I don't necessarily like watching, like the ballet isn't my choice of art form that I wanna go see. Okay, okay, okay. So not a ballet thing. But yeah, walking out, walking out of there, I still felt like, wow, that was a pretty, that was really impressive. I don't need to see it again, but really impressive.
00:32:35
Speaker
Uh, but I also learned at the same time that no matter what dance for, what, what art form it is, if it's mostly dancing and not a lot of anything else, just dancing, I probably not the show that I'm going to pick. Yeah. So don't go, don't go to the flamenco shows. Um, like you're not going to enjoy that. I mean, I've seen Swan Lake, I've seen the nutcracker, I've seen Shen Yun, um,
00:33:05
Speaker
I've seen that. I can say, I can say there's only a certain amount of dancing that I can really enjoy. And I think I turn into the Marx brothers watching the
00:33:20
Speaker
watching ballet, right? It's just like, these seats are terrible. They're facing the stage. Like you get to that point of the
Theater Experiences and Anecdotes
00:33:28
Speaker
show. It's like, I, I need a drink. Like I just. Yeah. Yeah. When's the intermission? I need something to drink. Yeah. Okay. So, okay. So we've talked, we've, we've, we've, uh,
00:33:41
Speaker
I would say we've touched on, we've tapped on ballet just because, you know, I had to throw in something corny there. Talked opera, we talked musicals. So let's, let's wrap up with, okay, let's have you- It was such a bad pun and you called yourself out on it. Yeah, well, of course, it's terrible because a lot of people didn't know how I thought of that. I thought about that.
00:34:06
Speaker
So let's talk about our theater performances. Have you ever been, have you ever played a part in a theatrical performance, Greg? Because I've played a part, but I'm sure everybody's eagerly awaiting to hear what made the self-proclaimed honest to goodness introvert has played in the theater. But what has Greg played in the theater?
00:34:33
Speaker
So I was I was a bit of a drama kid. I mean, I'm a drama queen to begin with. No, no, no. My life is a cartoon. But I so last I did did drama in high school.
00:34:52
Speaker
Uh, I think my first foray, my mom put me in a play called the wind of the willows. And I got to be the translator when the, when the, the, the rat, the, the bad guy, rat guy, the weasel or whatever, uh, lost his voice. So I got to do all the fun stuff. But, uh, what I would say is, uh, the last play I was in, this is probably, people always ask me, what's the probably one of the most embarrassing stories. Uh, I was in a play called the ugly duckling, which is a mill. You know, the guy wrote Winnie the Pooh. And.
00:35:21
Speaker
The teacher had decided to do this whole Arabian Nights kind of thing, and I'm the king. So I was the main star of the show, this one act. I was the main guy. I was on the stage the whole time, etc. The teacher had given, and I weighed 120 pounds, right? So I've got no shirt on. I've got no shirt on. I've got this thing that wraps around. So basically it tied around your waist and went under your legs and came up and became kind of a vest. So you look like Aladdin or Aladdin, right? Yeah, yeah. So I'm the king.
00:35:52
Speaker
And we had done the play a bunch. We actually won, we won the best one act that year at the competition. And one of the pieces of it that was really cool was we got some advice to throw myself off the stage. So I had to learn how to basically chuck myself off the stage onto some mats. No, no, no, it was a funny little thing because the girl, basically the play is, my daughter is not exactly
00:36:23
Speaker
a sweet, demure, suitable girl. She's a very like, kind of awkward and whatever. And the whole play is me trying to help her get a suitor. And so I teach her how to like, basically I have to go in and like, what happens when a guy kisses your hand? And the goal is, is she puts her hand out and I would kiss her, I would go to kiss her hand and she'd think I was gonna bite it. And so she threw me, but I mean, I literally threw myself, but she threw me off the stage. And so I fell off the stage.
00:36:51
Speaker
But the embarrassing part of that show was, uh, again, all I have on is a pair of kind of spandex bike shorts and underneath this kind of very, very flimsy, lacy thing that looks like a Latin, right? So it's basically like, I mean, the pants are just basically cloth that are kind of wrapped around. Well, this guy named Ron.
00:37:16
Speaker
I needed help tying it. He tied my thing, my waistband real tight. So this thing is pressed very, very close to my body. And being at the age that I was, you don't, you're acting. You have no idea what's happening with your body when you're acting because obviously your brain is on the lines and what I got to say. Yeah. Yeah. You're thinking other things. So apparently I had
00:37:43
Speaker
the nerves or the hormones or whatever had decided that I was going to be awake for the entire play. I had a very sizable noticeable appendage for view. And I didn't realize it while I was in the show because I saw people looking at me and they were clearly looking at my waist, but I had no idea it was going on. And when we got done with the play,
00:38:13
Speaker
And we were done and the play was over and whatever. Someone came to me and goes, were you excited during the play? Were you really like, whatever. And they were making jokes about it. We go to watch the video and I can see very clearly that all of me is on display for the entire student body of my high school and parents and parents. Oh no.
00:38:34
Speaker
I would have thrown myself off of the stage without the mats at the next performance and never looked back, but oh my goodness. I'm so sorry, Greg. I am so sorry. So forever, that will always be my most embarrassing story of all time. Actually, that was the last time I actually played. Do you actually go back to high school reunion? Do you think anybody remembers that? They're like, oh, hey, Greg, what's up?
00:39:03
Speaker
I don't think so. I think I'm probably the only one, I hope, I'm the only one that will ever remember that. Of course, now if anyone listens to it, they're going to remember. Let's hope our listenership doesn't expand. People are going to be like, oh yeah, I remember that. Hey, but you know what? Like you said, you're a teenager, it's hormones. What else? Yeah, I mean, what else are you going to do, right? I mean- There's nothing else to do, right? It's just embarrassing.
00:39:31
Speaker
I did not have nearly as embarrassing of a moment. I'm sure there's pictures of mine. I don't know how many performances I did, probably very few, but I remember that I was forced in probably elementary school and the Nutcracker play to be one of the rats. I didn't get even to be the rat king. I was just like a rat henchman, you know, one of the rats running around there.
00:39:56
Speaker
I mortified, absolutely mortified. All I had to do was literally pretend to scurry around, just to scurry around. That was my part. I didn't know how many lines. All I had was this terrible line.
00:40:15
Speaker
My mom probably wishes Etsy was around a bit at that point, because she made me some rat ears that really looked like that. I was like a discarded drawing of Mickey Mouse, because it was like being looked like a rabbit at all. It was absolutely awful, and nothing against my mom, but I looked like a mouse. I'm like, there's a rat king. He ain't going to deal with mice. What's going on? But anyways, that was my-
00:40:44
Speaker
That was my one theater performance. On the big stage of Fredericksburg. The big stage of Fredericksburg. Yeah. Yeah. It was not good. I think that's my one and done performance from an acting perspective. I mean, like I said, I think if you ask me, could you act? I don't think I'm a very good actor, but could I get up on stage? Sure, because to your point, I think you're a different person at that point in time.
00:41:14
Speaker
It's like giving a big presentation or something else. It's like something clicks and you're in a different mode. You're remembering your lines. You're going through the choreography and people get that. People don't see you when you're on stage as that's that person. They see you as the character. Or they empathize because most of those people wouldn't want to be up there anyway. So it's not that. No arguments. They're not going to feel bad.
00:41:41
Speaker
I forget that sometimes as well. I mean, it reminds you of the Will Ferrell scene from old school where he's like, I just blacked out. Like he has that very astute answer. Yes. Yes. Nothing's blacked out. But I do. I do forget that. That that is difficult for people to do.
00:42:00
Speaker
presentations. There's a lot of nerves. I mean, even for me, so I just got they just asked me to be the emcee for all of our kind of company wide town halls. So I'm now the master of ceremonies to keep it going. The recognition stuff. Do all the do all the little bits. Right. And I think one of the things about doing that is it is a lot of nerves. You every time I have to get on the screen, I get nervous because it matters because I care about it.
00:42:27
Speaker
I think, and no matter how many times you do it, there's always a little bit of stage fright. There's always a little bit of nerves. And I think those are important because that reminds you that it matters.
The Importance of Live Performances
00:42:37
Speaker
I think that's what I liked a lot about being on the stage was that feeling of kind of adrenaline and that feeling of, okay, you're live. It's right or not like it's going to go. And however it goes, it's going to go. That's it. Yeah, it's never you're not going to take that back.
00:42:56
Speaker
I don't think I'd ever do stand up comedy again. I think stand up comedy was I did that three times. It was really hard. It is really, really hard. It's why I hate hecklers. I think I hate it's so hard. Yeah. And tick tock and tick tock and Instagram and stories or whatever, all the different things other people use people because comedians can't do their work because if they film their work, they don't have new material to bring back up.
00:43:25
Speaker
people now see crowd work as being kind of what comedians do. And they want to be part of that crowd work is if they're helping. And I think that's again, back to our wrapping this all up again about feeling. This is this is for you. You're paying money for you to go experience a feeling. You're not going because you're the show. You're not the show. You're not. I think this this this is the part of where I think people filming and it sounds like I'm an old curmudgeon now.
Surrendering to Art
00:43:55
Speaker
that I don't like people with their cell phones and their videos. But this idea that you are in your microcosm of yourself and you, the self, are so much more important than the tribe, you're missing out on experiencing art. You're missing out on experiencing something that you can really get engaged with and feel part of. And opera, musicals, comedy shows, all those pieces, people put a lot of work into creating an experience that if you don't just
00:44:25
Speaker
give in right surrender to the experience you're missing out on the feelings that should
00:44:32
Speaker
be evoked by being there. 100%. Totally agree. Yeah. I think it's something that I hope it doesn't get worse, but I think the way everybody experiences things now and the way you see it when you go to theme parks and when you go visit places and Vegas and everything else when I went there recently, it is all very
00:44:59
Speaker
It is all very screen-oriented and Instagram-able things. But like you said, here's the thing, folks. Greg did tell everyone on here earlier that they are special. So even though you're special, that doesn't mean you're the show, okay? You can be special and be a part of your own show. You don't have to be the show, okay? So just remember that. Greg's just bringing us back down to Earth here.
00:45:24
Speaker
But like ending ending on the thing, I think I'd ask you, Ross, have you ever. Have you ever gone to a show and remember the entire set list that the band played? No, unless it's a tool show because they have songs that are so long, it's usually only like five songs. But no, I think that's the interesting part is conversations, this podcast, everything else.
00:45:54
Speaker
What you remember, and maybe it's because I'm a really emotional guy, and so I have a certain perspective and I have to be mindful that this is my opinion, but you usually remember how you felt leaving the show. You remembered a couple key moments where you thought it was cool or it was a memory, but you usually remember how you felt about the show, not the show itself. And if you're Instagramming it or you're filming it, how are you going to remember how you felt?
00:46:22
Speaker
Like how are you like what? You're not back and watch that grainy ass video? No, it sounds horrible. They post them on YouTube and the bass blows out the microphone. So all you're just here and some grainy lyrics like who's watching that?
00:46:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And I like how you say that because typically when you, in any sort of thing in life, and when we talk about mindfulness in the past and everything else, it's about being present in the moment and it's about how you feel about something.
00:46:55
Speaker
You know, like what, what, what feeling did it give you as opposed to you're not necessarily going to read. I've never rewatched more than like a 15 second clip. Usually when I go somewhere, I'll take a 15 second clip or something. And then that's good. Right. Typically for me, journaling. So I remember, oh, hey, I did that thing. But yeah, you're, it's really more about how you feel about it. And that's why I like going with other people.
00:47:19
Speaker
because then I can talk to them about it and I can say like, how did you experience this? Oh, I experienced it this way or how did they experience it? So that's really what's interesting to me. Okay. All right. Well, we have gone over our, as usual, our allotted, our soft guardrail of 30 minutes.
00:47:43
Speaker
by 45 minutes. We're at 45 minutes now. But hey, I appreciate the conversations about the theater today, Greg. I will give opera another shot because based off of what else I like, I think I would enjoy it. I need to experience it a different way, but if you hear of an opera
00:48:07
Speaker
I'm just what I'm going to do is I'm just going to look up types of noodles because I think operas all sound like types of noodles. Oh, the farfale, the orchiete, you know, I don't know. I don't know if it's new or not. But when you see one that you think I would like, let me know and I'll read up about it. So the 27th, the 27th of January is this Saturday. It's playing at your local theater at 11 a.m. in San Antonio.
00:48:36
Speaker
You can go watch Carmen for three hours. There you go. Three hours. It's a lot. It's a lot. But I'll do. But you can watch it with me.
00:48:48
Speaker
That's true. That's true. Well, we need to, we need to do a meetup and then go to an opera. And then you could help me because we're going to have a fashion episode at one point in time. The time I went to the opera, I was way underdressed. So you're going to need to, you need to hug me up because I need to know the, I need to know the fashion and the etiquette. All right. Is that, is that fair? That's fair. Okay. All right, Greg, it was great talking to you, man. Talk to you soon. Talk to you soon.
00:49:17
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Unmotivated and Unprepared. Join us again next time as we continue to meander through random topics at a pace defined by our mood, the weather, and what happened five minutes earlier.