This Idina Needs Her Stage and Bryan Cranston Goes "All the Way"

It took me a few days to recover from last week's blog takeover, but I think I'm back to normal again!  It helped that I got to see two great shows in the interim, although both were vastly different from each other.

The first was a concert at Radio City Music Hall, featuring the "wickedly talented" Idina Menzel (I still picture John Travolta butchering her name at the Oscars.....ugh!).

The show was sold out and my seat was in the last row of the uppermost mezzanine, which would normally have caused some sadness until I remembered who this was.  Idina's voice can fill every inch of an auditorium without too much effort, a fact she proved on numerous occasions throughout the evening.  At one point, as she often does during her shows (have I seen her live too many times?), she sang without accompaniment and without her microphone, and even in the rafters we could hear her song, "For Good."

One of the great things about Idina is her ability to sing in such a classy, Barbra Streisand-style, way one minute, then tell the audience to cover their kids ears so she could talk like a grown up without fear of offending their innocence.  She tells great stories about her years struggling for success and has a good time making fun of herself (she almost popped out of the leather bra she was wearing at one point and this provided source material for most of the rest of the show) and, occasionally, others (funny bit about her ex).  Before her encore, she had to sing that horribly catchy and infectious "Let it Go" song from Frozen.  It seemed to me that she rushed through it (or was that my wishful thinking?), knowing we all had to be sick of hearing it, but knowing the kids in the audience would cry all the way home if she didn't do it.  I'm sorry Idina, but the best rendition I've heard of this song was when you were on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, with The Roots and Jimmy playing classroom music instruments (The Roots, Idina, and Jimmy kicking butt) as backup.

All in all, it was a great night of music in an iconic location.

Speaking of icons, the second show I caught was last night's performance by Bryan Cranston as LBJ in All the Way, a play about Lyndon Baines Johnson and his efforts to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 before he had to run for re-election.

This is Mr. Cranston's (I'm using his formal title because I saw him in Breaking Bad and to disrespect "Walter White" is to do so at your own peril) first time on Broadway and don't you know he hits a home run on his first at bat (Why am I making baseball references you might ask? I DON'T KNOW!).

It was a fantastic show and included all the major players of the time: Martin Luther King, Jr., Hubert Humphrey, J. Edgar Hoover (who was clearly a little too obsessed with bringing down MLK, Jr.), and the "compassionate and inclusive" George Wallace.  The story reminded me of the movie Lincoln, in how it showed the behind-the-scenes action that takes place in order for a bill to pass.  Everyone, of course, has their own agenda, compromises are made, and threats are leveled; you know, the basic method for anything to get done in politics, even today.  The play highlighted the relationship between LBJ and MLK, Jr. and what I learned, more than anything, is that I need to bone up on my history, which the play made a living, breathing thing, not just something to read in an old textbook.  While I doubt I'll become a history professor anytime soon, it was good to be immersed in it for a few hours, rather than reading about the most recent celebrity gossip in Us Weekly (the new issue arrives Friday!) or watching Gordon Ramsay yell at some horribly under-qualified "chefs" (new episode tomorrow night!).

Next week's a big one: Pride in NYC and Alan Cumming in Cabaret!  Keep a lookout!