Jenna and I were in New York this weekend, and took the opportunity to catch a couple of plays.
First up was Avenue Q, the one with the puppets. Very funny, and played well off the Sesame Street tropes. Before the play started, I had wondered how they would get the puppets up and about without your seeing the puppeteers--they just put the puppeteers out there in full view. I'd have thought it would be distracting, but it actually worked really well; mostly you end up watching the puppet anyway, but the puppeteer's face can express emotions that the puppet can't.
We also saw Cyrano, with Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner. Jenna and I both went into it thinking it was going to be a comedy, and were taken aback by acts 4 and 5... I think the ending grabs you that much more since the beginning is so light--the play gets darker and darker as it progresses.
While in the city, I started reading A Gentleman's Game. It's a thriller about an agent sent in to avenge a bombing on the London Underground. Not too much to say about it yet (about 2/3 through), except that Rucka is obviously much less interested in the actual "thriller" parts than in the people around the action. Our agent is sent in to assassinate the mastermind behind the attack, and then we're told that it succeeded a few paragraphs later. Only then, when it's a bit anti-climactic, do we get a (fairly short) run-through of what actually happened. It's a gutsy move, but I think it works well--it keeps us focused on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering in London and Saudi Arabia.
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