I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: JULIETA VENEGAS-Tiny Desk Concert #126 (May 9, 2011).

Julieta Venegas has a sweet voice.  She plays accordion and guitar and, for this show, is accompanied by a clarinet and flute.  The whole concert is delicate and lovely.

She sings threes songs in Spanish but describes them in English.

“Si Tú No Estas” features her on the accordion.  She plays a delightfully simple riff that sounds jaunty on the little accordion.  The clarinet is a fitting accompaniment to her on this quiet song.  I love that it feels vaguely French, even though it is sung in Spanish.  This is about the people you leave at home when you travel.

“Debajo De Mi Lengual” (Under My Tongue) is a bit more folk sounding because she plays the song on guitar and is accompanied by a flute.  The song is about being insecure to talk to others.  The melody is simple, but the flute adds some lovely notes.

For “Bien O Mal” she stays on guitar but this time is accompanied by the accordion.  This song is the most rollicking (not very rollicking at all, of course, but the tempo is much faster.  The accordion mostly plays chords to flesh out the song.  The song sounds lovely, which is why it’s especially funny that at the end she seems unsure of just how good it was.

[READ: December 14, 2015] Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense

I have never read any of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, although I have seen most of the series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (incomparably played).

This play is a “new” story written by the Goodale Brothers.  It is based on a bunch of Wodehouse’s pieces, particularly The Code of the Woosters (1938).  Robert and David Goodale were asked to put the above story on the stage.  So they worked on it and modified it and came up with this version.

They came up with the idea of Wooster telling one of his tales and Jeeves “helping” as only Jeeves can.  So in this production, there are only three actors.  But they play multiple parts each trying to flesh out Bertie’s story.  Wooster is Wooster, Jeeves is Jeeves and several others, and their friend Seppings plays many many roles, including some women and a nine foot tall man.

The story itself is intentionally convoluted and hilarious.  It involves an expensive creamer, a police officer, Bertie’s aunt and the ghastly woman Bertie might jut have to marry.

Most of the comedy is in the way Jeeves, ever polished and composed, is able to pull of the most remarkable things (in this case, making the simple set transform around Wooster’s story–much to Wooster’s own delight).  And of course the effortless way Jeeves gets Bertie out of his preposterous troubles.

It’s not even really worth summing up the plot.  It may not even be possible to  sum up the plot.  Three people want the creamer.  One of his friends (the wonderfully named Gussie Fink-Nottle) desperately wants to marry Madeline.  And through some preposterous farce, if that wedding doesn’t happen, she will have to marry Wooster instead (heaven forbid).

He needs to get the creamer for his Aunt, but the owner is aware of his desire to steal it.  And of course, there’s the nine-foot policeman who is after him as well for previous and future crimes.

If reading the script of this play can make me laugh as loud as this did, I can’t imagine how funny it would be to see performed.  Get on it, small theater companies!