Negative capability

Half past twelve, and I’m watching the late show in my flat all alone,
How I hate to spend the evening on my own.
Autumn winds blowin’ outside my window as I look around the room.
And it makes me so depressed to see the gloom.

Is there a man out there?
Someone to hear my prayer?
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
A man after midnight!
Take me through the darkness
To the break of day.

Movie stars find the end of the rainbow with a fortune to win.
It’s so different from the world I’m livin’ in.
Tired of TV I open the window and I gaze into the night.
But there’s nothing there to see, no one in sight.

Is there a man out there?
Someone to hear my prayer?
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
A man after midnight!
Take me through the darkness
To the break of day.

I saw “Mamma Mia!” last weekend with Janet when I was down in Chicago for a “summer in the city” excursion. I haven’t laughed and giggled so much at a movie in I don’t know how long. Perfect summer escapism. Those silly ABBA [sorry, can’t get the B’s to go backward] songs linked together by the thinnest of plots. Pretty “Greek islands” scenery, and plenty of middle-aged performers trying their hardest to keep up on the dance numbers. Personally, I loved the “amateurish” feel to some of the performances by actors whose agents probably warned them against doing the show. I mean: Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth in a singing and dancing spectacular? There’s something Ruby Keeler-ish about their performances: “Look ma, I’m in a musical – and on film!!” It was “Hollywood Karoake Night goes to the movies”!

[Ruby Keeler was the ingenue in a series of Warner Brothers film musicals in the 1930s. She usually played the plain girl from Kansas - or somewhere else obscure - who is unexpectedly thrust into the limelight when the star of the show breaks her leg two minutes before curtain. Ruby could dance, just barely, but she won the audience over with her heartful earnestness. “You’re going out there a nobody, but you’ve gonna come back a Star!]

On the other hand, Christine Baranski is a complete professional, 110% comfortable with the material. You just know that she would have no difficulty doing 7 performances a week of the show in New York or London.

Meryl Streep – LOVE HER! Here’s America’s finest screen actress going “outside her box” and plunging fully into the world of 1970s dance-pop music. Kudos to her for trying something a little different.