M E T R O S I L I C O N VA L L E Y AUGUST 26-SEPTEMBER 1, 2009 COVER STORY
Seasons’ Greetings THE CHANGING OF THE SEASONS takes away our long summer evenings but happily replaces them with a surge of opportunities to experience new plays, concerts, operas, movies and art shows—a fair trade. This fall sees a couple of signal birthdays as MACLA looks forward to its 20th birthday, Teatro Visión celebrates its 25th and the San Jose Museum of Art turns 40 years old. Meanwhile, Broadway San Jose begins a new series of touring shows to fill in where American Musical Theatre of San Jose left off. Indeed, one of the recurring notions that came up as we surveyed the new season was the cautious but not cowed attitude of arts groups toward the new economic realities. Despite some nipping here and tucking there, most groups are exploring ways to thrive and even expand without being profligate. Our annual Fall Arts Guide offers a way to pinpoint both the breadth and depth of the new performing year. As always, in the weeks to come we will cover these shows at length; and more details and expanded listings are online at www.metro active.com and SanJose.com.
Mariachi Festival THE 3-D comeback craze is bigger than ever at theaters right now. But Hollywood has nothing on the San Jose Mariachi and Mexican Heritage Festival, Sept. 20–27. Besides big-name musical headliners like Carlos Santana, Joan Baez and Los Lobos, festival organizers are also going multimedia with a salute to the Golden Age of Mexican film— and it will have the movies literally leaping out of the screen. Like the opener, 1949’s Alla en el Rancho Grande, starring Jorge Negrete. One cantina scene in the film features Negrete singing with eventually an entire town in tow. When the scene is shown as the kick-off of the festival’s “Mariachi Goes to the Movies” concert on Sept. 26 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, the show’s singers will appear to jump right out of the film and lead an equally large ensemble of musicians and dancers in a live re-creation. “There’s literally a cast of hundreds for the opening,” says the festival’s executive producer, Marcela Davison Aviles. “I think it’ll be one of those goosebump moments the show has a reputation for creating.” The show will also highlight others superstars of the era, like Pedro Infante and Maria Felix. But Negrete is a special case—for years, he was considered the most popular Latino entertainer in the entire world. To many, he was “The Latin Bing Crosby,” as many Mexican movie stars were compared to their American counterparts. And just as films in Hollywood set musical trends, Mexican movies from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s led to an explosion in the popularity of mariachi music, in many ways defining it as a genre. American movies put all their focus on the choreography of big productions—in Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers vehicles, for instance—while rarely showing much interest in the songs themselves. Not so in Mexico. “It Mexican movies, it was flipped,” says Aviles. “There were these beautiful tenors dueling each other in song.” “Mariachi Goes to the Movies” fits nicely into this year’s theme,“Celebrating the Heroes of Our Heritage.” Some of the artists slated include Joan Baez (Sept. 25), and a tribute to Cesar Chavez with Los Lobos, Carlos Santana and Joe y La Familia (Sept. 27). And the series, which Aviles considers the most ambitious the festival has ever done, is also a warm-up for 2010, when artistic director Linda Ronstadt is planning a blow-out multimedia celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, including the commissioning of an original work.
John Cleese Nov. 8, Fox Theatre, Redwood City As we take a look back at the incredible career of John Cleese, it’s impossible not to quote Monty Python. This is not because Cleese hasn’t accomplished plenty on his own—for instance, as the star of the classic comedy A Fish Called Wanda, or on Fawlty Towers. It’s because the legendary British comedy troupe has soaked through so much of our pop-culture fabric; sometimes quoting Monty Python is more like a reflex than a voluntary act. For newbies, here are three examples of how this phenomenon might come up in real life: (1) Whenever anyone asks you your favorite color, say “Blue! No, yelllll . . .” and then act like you’re falling off the Bridge of Death. (2) Whenever you’re in a room full of people and someone yells for “David,” wait till the guy says, “I’m David!” and then say “I’m David . . . and so’s my wife!” (3) Whenever your friends point out that your parrot has died, say “It’s not dead! It’s resting!” Anyway, it’s not clear exactly what Cleese will be speaking about on this tour, but really, does it matter? The guy can be funny about anything, as proven on his
appropriately surreal blog, www.cleeseblog. com. (SP)
Leonard Cohen
Steve Palopoli THE SAN JOSE MARIACHI AND MEXICAN HERITAGE FESTIVAL runs Sept. 20–27 at various locations in San Jose. Schedule information is at sanjosemariachifestival.org. For tickets, call 800.745.3000.
Nov. 13 at HP Pavilion At the ripe old age of 74, singer/ songwriter/poet and ordained Zen monk Leonard Cohen says the only two things he doesn’t talk about are his mistresses and his tailors. By the time Leonard hits San Jose, he will be 75 and performing the
Mfpobse!Dpifo
last show of nearly 200 on his 2008–09 tour, his first global go-around in 16 years. Last year he performed to soldout arenas all across Europe and the resulting concert DVD, Live in London, earned more than 80 five-star reviews. Another leg of the tour brought him to the States, including three shows at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre last April. In the early ’90s, Leonard often quipped, “I have a five-note range. And that range drops one octave each year.” Now, during each show, he says, “I haven’t been onstage in 14 years. Back then, I was 60 years old, a kid with a dream.” Believe it or not, Cohen’s voice actually sounds better these days, and he skips around the stage like a 5year-old. The band of virtuosi behind him appear tireless throughout the three-hour show, which is seriously quite Zenlike in its depth and simplicity. (Gary Singh)
Richard Thompson Dec. 4–6, Montalvo Arts Center Who can forget when British singer/ songwriter Richard Thompson released his smash hit “Oops! . . . I Did It Again” in 2000? It changed everything. Suddenly the former leader of famed ’60s folk group Fairport Convention was a media sensation. It went Top 10 in the United States, and to No. 1 in countries around the world, eventually selling millions of copies. And the video! Featuring astronauts discovering Richard Thompson dancing on Mars in a tight red cat suit, it was controversial for it’s strong sexual overtones. After that, it was nothing but global celebrity and scandal, with Thompson photographed getting out of a limo wearing no underwear, and later caught driving with his baby in his lap. Wait, all that happened to Britney
19
[17]