#i’ll write a bit about the gd concert later but i had a great time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pocketsizedquasar · 4 years

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So, Dave Malloy’s Moby Dick Musical.

Soooo I have a long and weirdly personal relationship with this musical, in the sense that I have been following it and its production super closely for the past several months & interacted with Dave on a very memorable occasion re: potentially problematic elements of the show, and just generally have spent a ridiculous amount of emotional energy worrying about this for the past two months (I’ll get into that more later).

I went to see the dress rehearsal on Sunday, and saw the previews again Friday night. Here’s my thoughts! This will be slightly spoilery, and very long. TLDR at the bottom!

1.) Artistic/technical aspects: needless to say, wonderful. The cast all performed phenomenally, the music was great, the set was beautiful. They were such a delight to watch & you could really tell they were all having a good time and /I/ had such a good time watching them! Both shows I genuinely had fun and enjoyed myself (also shoutout to the lighting and set design, the orchestra, and really everyone involved). The show really excelled here, which really was to be expected — the songs were SO so wonderful. even though I had issues with the way some of the characters were treated, I still absolutely adored watching the actors and the performances, even if the material wasn’t always my favorite. But more on that in a bit. Like, off the top of my head? Starr Busby made me cry in Dusk, Manik and his raw nerdy energy was such a perfect Ishmael, Andrew & Manik were lovely as Queequeg & Ishmael together, Tom’s Ahab floored me, Matt’s voice as Tashtego literally transcended me from this mortal plane... on Sunday I went onstage for the audience participation bit and everyone was just so wonderful and lovely (and like I got to hold hands w some of the cast and I think I can honestly die happy now)... like seriously, shoutout to this whole cast for being perfect human beings (and so sweet to interact with after the shows!)

Anyways.

2.) Race & Moby Dick, in general, and with this musical:

So... I will preface this section with the fact that Moby Dick is already very much a story about race. It’s not always handled well, of course, but Melville deals with race and racism and white supremacy a lot in the novel. So, ANY adaptation of Moby Dick is inherently also going to be about race, and by extension, any adaptation is going to be Relevant to race in modern America. Some adaptations have dealt with it by just whitewashing the characters or otherwise ignoring the racial issues, but ignoring it is still making a powerful statement on it as it is. Cool? Cool.

The way Dave has spoken about the show in interviews & such sounds like he’s wanted to really specifically address & comment on race in modern America. Which, like, okay, cool. A little bit weird since you don’t really have to try to make MD about race, and I question the ability of a white male writer in general to comment on race and racism in the modern US, but I digress.

Around June this year, some friends & I find out about potential plans to change the races of several of the characters — white men being played instead by woc (w/ the exception of ahab), characters of color having races swapped, etc. — sort of similarly to how Great Comet was cast. This raised a few red flags, since MD and GC are Very different source materials and a lot of the characters’ of color’s stories are Inherently About Their Races (re: Pip, Queequeg) & the white characters are Explicitly Racist (re: Stubb, and to a lesser extent the other mates) — changing around characters’ races doesn’t make sense in a story so intrinsically tied to race. A couple of friends go to the preview concert in NYC, where they saw ‘the tambourine’ — a long segment of the show that was then sung by “Pip-Not-Pip” (played by a nonblack actor) and also contained a lot of racist and ableist elements, and just generally...yikes.

Soooo this is where my weird personal story comes in. I won’t get too much into it, but the TLDR of it is, I talked about my concerns w the racial casting a few times here and on twitter; I tried to go meet Dave Malloy in person at the A.R.T.’s open house in October and give him a letter that @starbuck and I wrote with our concerns, and he recognized me as That Person Who Made Those Posts on twitter/tumblr, and I was just overall a very awkward human being.

Anyway.

There Have been improvements made since then, since October, and even since Sunday, so I’m optimistic — most of the changes have been fixing the casting. However, the bulk of tambourine is still there in the show (though it has been changed), & all the mates are still played by WOC, even though they are referred to in the show as white men (I don’t strictly have a problem with this; it’s just an interesting take to have them be ‘metatextually’ white). l’m very glad for the changes that have been made thus far, & I hope he continues to take things like this into consideration. I would have loved it if Dave were a little more transparent about some of the racial issues and their changes (if only for my peace of mind because, truly, the amount of emotional energy I’ve expended worrying about this gd musical is... astounding), but also so that? His audience could know that he’s willing & able to accept critique and make changes? I don’t know; I feel like transparency with issues like this is pretty important.

And then we have... Fedallah.

In the book, fedallah is a very poorly represented Parsi Zoroastrian man — melville really just went ham with the orientalism here. He’s just this badly written mystical exotified mess, and it’s awful.

In the musical, Fedallah’s actor gets a monologue where he talks about his experiences as a Black Muslim man & calls out both Dave & Melville on their respective racism, and just generally goes off about religion & racism. It’s not... terrible? But I’m curious as to a) who it was written BY (the actor? Or Dave? Bc it’s questionable at best if Dave) and who it was written FOR. It felt very self-congratulatory, very “hey look I’m woke for writing this and calling myself out like this, and you’re woke for hearing this.” I as a POC in the audience (specifically an ethnically persian person, so like, literally the group that fedallah is from) felt extremely uncomfortable, (1) with the erasure of Fedallah’s race & religion, (2) with his lumping of all religions together as “bad” and “fucked up” (which like, yikes, yeah you can criticize religion without lumping in indigenous religions, Islam, Judaism, etc with Christianity like that and implying that they’re all on the same level), (3) with the fact that this speech seemed to be taken as a free pass for the audience to just, like. Exonerate themselves of their own racism?? It felt like it was Dave congratulating himself for being “better” than melville (which congrats ?? You’re less racist than a white man from the nineteenth century), it felt like he was trying to Prove Something to a presumed white audience, and in doing so, alienating the audience of color. Like I distinctly remember the feeling of like “this show is not meant for me. I’m not the target audience.” And (4) because the actor did an accent whenever he was actually acting as fedallah and that just really rubbed my persian ass the wrong way.

Anyways.

Idk, I’m still on the fence about the whole thing there. Again, part of my discomfort stems from the ambiguity on who wrote it? And parts of it — calling out Melville’s racism, the actor talking about his own experience — were actually quite good. I just think it needs to be reworked, both from a racial and just a general writing perspective (which I’ll talk about next).

That and cut tambourine. The rest of the Ballad of Pip was fine, even great, without it.

3.) Writing: I’m pretty torn on this one, because there were a lot of things I really really liked, but a lot of things I really didn’t like. A lot of the added dialogue felt a bit clunky and unnatural, for one. I’m really happy with how Tashtego and Daggoo both got more development — their scenes together were great to watch — but it felt like it came at the expense of Queequeg’s character, who felt underdeveloped and like he was played off for laughs, especially in his intro. I ADORED how ishmael was characterized / acted, and I loved how he broke the fourth wall and went in and out of the show like he goes in and out of the narrative of the book, but I feel like his and Queequeg’s relationship (while, again, was acted so so sweetly & honestly made me cry) didn’t get, like, the narrative or emotional treatment it deserved? I felt baited the first time I went to see it, and I felt better the second time, but I still would’ve loved at least some kind of explicit narrative confirmation.

And I’ve talked about this before, but I really do believe that any take that reduces Ahab to just “privilege” is wont to flatten his character — and in this case it did. The performance was phenomenal, like I said, but from a writing standpoint, Ahab doesn’t really get the depth that the book gives him. I figured this would be the case going into this, especially given that he is the only white man on stage and Dave’s apparent take of “white man leading America to its doom,” but still.

So from a character standpoint I wasn’t too happy with how either Ahab or Queequeg were narratively handled (again, they were performed beautifully!)

And then both of the segments I had issues with race-wise (fedallah & the tambourine) also just from a writing perspective felt incredibly out of place and tonally dissonant from the rest of the story, to the point where they jarred me out of the show and even had a negative impact on the parts of the music that I DID like.

I think, ultimately, the show is trying hard to be too many things at once. It’s trying to be a faithful adaptation and a modernized retelling at the same time; it can’t decide which it wants to be and so it fails at both. It feels like at times Dave is trying too hard to prove a point (a point that it’s questionable whether he should even be making at all, as a white writer), and in doing so, loses us on the story. Storytelling should be about posing a question, not proving a thesis.

Anyway...TLDR:

Overall? It was a good show. I had a Lot of fun both times I went. I know the show is still changing a lot in previews, even more than the changes I’ve already seen between Sunday and Friday (apparently they’re adding an entire musical number? holy shit this cast is superhuman); I’m curious to see where it goes and what gets changed before it officially opens. Im much more optimistic about it now than I was.

But I think there’s still some pretty glaring racial issues that sort of drag the rest of it down for me, and from a writing perspective, I don’t believe that it can do the book justice without revisiting some of the characters and the way of approaching the storytelling.

So, yeah.

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universetwo · 7 years

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My Experience at #BeautifulinNY + Tips

So let me start with the fact that this was my very first time to go on a k-pop concert and I was so nervous, hard to explain why. I tried to read people’s experiences from previous concerts, but that didn’t calm my nervousness.

{long post ahead}

Unfortunately, I do not own a lightstick, so that made me a little bit sad. I could have pre-ordered it (to pick it up at the venue) or buy it there because they set up a table for merch. But I found it kinda expensive for $55 so for this time I gave up on it. One thing to note, it’s better if you order it before the concert (which I wanted to but was sold out on their site) because everything is more expensive at the venue. Like I legit bought a pack of stickers for $25 which was a lot, I know, but that was the only thing left by the end of the concert and I didn’t want to walk out without an official merch. (the fangirl was strong in me post concert)

Anyway, back to the beginning.

I left work at 1 pm and when I got home I got ready and waited for my mom to come home from work. I started to panic about not getting there on time so I decided to watch Monsta X Ray’s new ep while eating ramen, only for Wonho lol While I was watching them on my screen, it was still hard to process in my mind that I will see these guys in a few hours perform right in front of my own naked eyes.

I saw on Twitter that people were already lining up by the venue and I was seriously freaking out. Although my ticket was for P3-P5 (somewhere in the back lol) and I knew I have an exact seat and everything, I was still worried that I’m going to miss something.

So it was almost 6 pm when we left the house and got on the D train (which I hate because it always fucks me up). We got off by Bryant Park/42nd st around 6:45-ish and went to Playstation Theatre at Times Square. There were so many people so I didn’t see at first where the line was for the venue. But then by the entrance, I saw some people standing there but the security came and put us in the right direction for the line. Good thing to know, Playstation Theatre is located on 44th st and 7th ave and the security told us to go to 45th street and 8th ave. So we followed the line and looked for the end. BUT WHERE WAS THE END??? like legit almost at the other side of the whole block, like I don’t even know how to explain it but it was damn long. And people were still lining up after us so it became even longer.

We had to wait for one and a half hour to get into the venue and by then it was way past 8 pm, which was supposedly the starting time of the show. I had no idea why it was delayed, why the line went so slowly, and I don’t think anyone around me knew it. But later on twitter, I read fans saying that a fan got injured in the line and that’s why. Which is actually a nice thing that they took care of the fan and didn’t ignore the injury. I didn’t mind standing in line for long because at least I got the chance to buy a fanmade cute Kihyun cut out that I could hang on my neck. I would have bought Jooheon’s too but it was all gone TT but I love that thingy so much like I hung it up on my neck even for breakfast the next day. And I also got a banner for free, which was handed out to everyone and it said “I’ll protect you, so you can bloom more beautifully” in English and in Korean (Beautiful lyrics) and I loved how the directions were on the back, like when do we need to hold it up and in English, Spanish, French, and Korean. We held up ours at 5:14 (Last Page), the very last song.

So fast forward to when we finally got into the venue, it wasn’t actually long after that they came out and boy the screams were so loud but of course I joined in. (I had no voice by the end and even now while writing this my throat still hurts). The setlist was pretty much the same as in Chicago so I won’t be going over that.

After Hero ended they greeted us and they had an “official” translator who was pretty quick with translating hopefully everything that they said. I have to just say I can’t get enough of Changkyun’s English, I really love it lol

They interacted a lot with the crowd like they were always like ‘are you having fun’, ‘did you like what we just did?’ and I think those were really good for hyping up the crowd. They also did like small comedy bits like who is the most romantic and they showed, sang something to prove their romantic sides. They also sang snippets from songs that have New York in it like Kihyun sang a bit from Empire State of Mind. Hyunwoo from English Man in New York. Also Wonho mentioned that Hyunwoo is a romantic person because he buys his friends in Korea all different types of presents. I got to experience Jooheon’s and Kihyun’s beatboxing lol Jooheon also sang from GD’s Untitled.

They talked SO much about Hyungwon and I really loved that. At the beginning and at the end they mentioned him too, and Wonho after they did their special stages and how he hoped he could fill in for Hyungwon. It made me feel really warm especially as I saw how many times they left a special space out for Hyungwon and sometimes acted as if he was there too.

The performances were SO L I T, they were dancing so well and so powerfully and the energy was no joke. But then they were also able to slow it down and make the crowd melt with songs like Ex Girl, Honestly, I’ll Be There, and Sweetheart. I like how one time Changkyun was like we gonna slow down to mid tempo and they literally sang their slowest song, Broken Heart. And then Kihyun’s iconic mom moment to Changkyun with ‘There is something on your face’ and started to get something off from his face. And Kihyun wiped the sweat off from Wonho (K I H O) They also mentioned like twice for the pit to take a few steps back for safety. That’s how Hyunwoo’s ‘please safety’ was born. (did I mention how much I started to love Hyunwoo after the show? Like literally he was one of the highlights of the concert.)

I also loved their outfits, especially when they went for this mint theme. And then for the rocker versions of songs, like there is nothing better than rocker!kihyun and his leather jacket.

Their special stages were no joke. When Hyunwoo, Minhyuk, and Changkyun performed 24k Magic, the whole crowd was excited because it’s everyone’s fave song don’t lie. Wonho performing From 0 with their dancer was great, but I missed Hyungwon. Especially that ionic movement in the dance was weird with the dancer and not with Hyungwon lol but it was still great and Wonho put his heart into fully.

But my favorite was definitely Mirror by Jooheon and Kihyun. When Jooheon was having sort of his highest point in the rap parts, I legit got goosebumps. He is such an amazing rapper, I was truly speechless. But then Kihyun’s powerful voice added even more to it, and that performance really left me amazed. I knew I have the right biases. THESE TWO LOVES OF MY LIFE DESTROYED ME.

They also had some problem with moving the chair like lol one problem was that they were sitting on it (during the slower songs) so no surprise but I think it also got stuck in something. Which reminds me of… WHY STUCK WASN'T ON THE SETLIST? It’s like legit one of my biggest faves from them, but they performed Blind and it was sexy and I was close to passing out.

Their vcrs were cute and creative. First they had one before the unit performances where they talked about what they prepared. I couldn’t see the screen well but there were English subtitles and I could kind of read it, so that was helpful. They were being dorky and I love nothing more than that haha. The other one was a bit more emotional because they were showing a mature side of them and a whole story. I don’t remember exactly how it all went down, I definitely have to watch it again. But it was emotional, that’s for sure, and it showed how important it is for them to be together and stick with each other.

Also Wonho the dear clumsy one accidentally spilled his candies from the basket to the stage and he was throwing them to fans from the floor. Jooheon was also there picking all up probably until the very last one was thrown to a fan, and he even bent down for them while singing his part in Sweetheart. One thing is that his voice was stable lol but even my mom mentioned it that how considerate of him was to not let them go to waste and make sure fans can have them. (side note, after Hyunwoo and Wonho, my mom’s new fave, she even said almost #1, became Jooheon lol we are in the same boat now)

It also took them forever to come back for the encore. I thought they are going to leave us so we had to chant Monsta X two times and we even started to chant Hyungwon :’) but then they finally came back and it was better waiting for longer because it was more precious to see them again. It took them longer because they changed into another outfit. And then they performed Fighter (L I T) and 5:14 (Last Page) (S A D). It took them so long to say goodbye because they shared their thoughts again, we had a picture taken, and then they bowed like four times from four different directions (while dragging each other hand by hand from one side of the stage to the other) Even my mom said that it looked as it was hard for them to say goodbye. Trust me, I didn’t want to say goodbye either. 2 hours was enough and I was exhausted, yet it still feels like it went by so fast.

But I happened to fall in love with them once again. They are so humble, down to earth, but then SO SO SOOO talented and powerful and energetic and funny and know how to hype up the crowd. I’m so happy that they were my first group for my kpop concert experience because I wasn’t disappointed at all. And I love them so much pls give more love and appreciation to Monsta X, they deserve the world.

Here are some concert tips:

it’s okay if you don’t own a lightstick and can’t afford to buy merch, you are still a true fan ^^

don’t worry if you can’t get to the venue early, if you are not in the pit then it doesn’t matter when you enter the venue, just try to be there at least around the time when the doors open and have time for yourself to use the bathroom, eat, and look through the merch they have

BUT if you are in a big city and you rely on public transportation then it’s good to get out of your house early because you never know when they will get into a problem, same with cars and traffic

if you have time, prepare with the fan chants because it always makes it better for the crowd and for the idols

try to know more info about fan projects and freebies or even fan made merch for a couple of dollars — it’s always good to be up to date and to support fellow fans, I told my mom I would rather buy from a fan a few handmade cutesy stuff while supporting that fan than buying a bunch of expensive merch at the venue, I mean it’s everyone’s different opinion but I always have the chance to support the boys, but not always have the chance to support fans

wear something comfortable on foot and prepare for standing up for the whole concert even if you have a seat (i was standing the whole time too)

bring a smaller bag, preferably not a big backpack, a small one is fine

prepare to be either very cold or very hot: like when I went to see 5SOS I was feeling cold in MSG but in Playstation Theatre there was legit no AC (idk how the boys could handle it TT) and I was burning up

if you have a shitty android like me and not an iPhone with a great camera, that’s okay if you record at least their voices are still good on the recording especially if you catch the ment part, otherwise songs with heavy bass and techno sound won’t be that good

a lot of people say this but it’s true: try to enjoy the concert and not record the whole thing — it won’t be that good anyway on your phone as if you see it with your own eyes, that’s why I decided for some of my fave songs to record maybe like 30 seconds or something and then I put my phone away and for the ment I really wanted to record their talk but even then I was just holding my phone but not really focusing on the stage through it

try to socialize (this is a big tip for myself too), concerts are great to befriend people with the same interest and likes as you, I did talk to some people but it’s not like I befriended them because I’m a social flopp and my mom was there with me too so I was just talking to her

if you have no idea about kpop concerts, like me, then know that hi-touch is after the show (at least that’s how it was) and the security makes everyone leave who doesn’t have a wrist band for the event, but they still let you take a few pics of the venue and of the stage, just hurry up because if it takes more time for them to push people out then the hi-touch is delayed and it’s bad for the fans and for the boys too

Specifically for Playstation Theatre:

The venue is small so be ready to feel a little crowded

but the good thing is that even if the stage is far (if you have a seat like in P5) it’s not as far as in a stadium

if you are in P5, don’t expect to see the screen, Playstation Theatre has a couple of small TVs hung up above people and they are just in the way to see the screen

I was legit so mad I wanted to tear all of them out from the ceiling like you think they might show them on those small TVs too but NOPE I guess they never thought about advanced technology and multi screening

There is a place for you to give your coats in

the restroom is pretty lol it kind of reminded me of Harry Potter because all the sinks are placed in the middle of the room and I felt like we can get down to the Chamber of Secrets in New York, besides they also blasted Shine Forever (when they give you nice background music for peeing lmao)

So that’s it from my part, I hope I could cover everything important but even if I was there I couldn’t process everything because it was so fast and I was so happy and living in the moment. I’m definitely going to watch back some videos and be nostalgic about it lol I’m also waiting for the HQ version of THIS pic which was taken there by wonderful fansite-nim, I thank you with my life

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to message me or send me an ask ^^

btw, at the beginning of the concert while we were lining up on the street, a random old lady asked us if it’s worth lining up for this long for the concert and hell yeah it was so I think that once in your life you deserve to see your faves and to not care about how much it costs. It was great for not thinking about life’s problems for two hours and just to enjoy the moment. So please be kind to yourselves.

#monsta x in new york #beautiful in new york #monsta x #monsta x world tour #my writings #review

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