Random downtown photo

Liza + HSN = The Most Amazing Thing Ever

Sometimes there's nothing like a little HSN to brighten your day. All those idiotic products! All that excessive gushing! All those inane phone conversations with elderly women who spend their days buying things off TV and calling in to say how much they love their purchases!

Add Liza Minnelli to that mix and, well — roll the clip.

Where the sidewalk ends

North Tucker has been removed north of Cole Street, outside the McDonald's. Here's the view 30 feet down.

Demolition is well under way on North Tucker Boulevard, the street that runs right in front my my office in downtown St. Louis. The street actually is a bridge that's been decaying in recent years, so it's coming down to make way for a new street.

Here's some lame video:

Dinning served

Mixed signals

Theater review: 'Wicked' is a winner at the Fox

Vicki Noon as Elphaba in "Wicked" (Photo by Joan Marcus)

Thank goodness for "Wicked."

Before Stephen Schwartz' hit musical came along, we were left to believe all sorts of scandalacious lies about the Wicked Witch of the West: Water will melt her. She's ugly. And, worst of all, she's wicked.

Well, hold on just a tick-tock.

"Wicked," based upon Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel by the same title, is a prequel to L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," published 95 years earlier. The story explores the lives of the Wicked Witch (whose name, we learn, is Elphaba) and Galinda the Good (who later changes her name to Glinda) before that wretched girl in the gingham dress drops into Oz.

This show doesn't exactly mimic the familiar imagery and characters from the "Oz" film, but there are moments that will put a smile on your face simply because they're so familiar.

One of them: "Lemons and melons and pears. Oh my!"

Vicki Noon plays Elphaba, a role she has been involved with since 2008 in Chicago. Noon's pretty face shines through the green makeup, and she's got the voice the role demands.

On Thursday night, Noon played Elphaba for most of Act 1; when she began feeling ill, standby Anne Brummel stepped in and finished the show with aplomb.

Natalie Daradich is Glinda, the perky, optimistic Good Witch who becomes Elphaba's unlikely ally. But when both witches fall in love with Fiyero (Chris Peluso), their unexpected friendship takes an unexpected turn.

"Wicked" is full of big, enchanting musical numbers that demand your uninterrupted attention. In "One Short Day," when Elphaba and Glinda visit the Emerald City, the Fox stage transforms into a beautiful kingdom colored with a million shades of green. It's so bright the actors wear sunglasses. (Green, of course.)

Daradich sings "Popular," Glinda's signature song, with plenty of perkiness. Her hilarious lesson in hair flipping could easily be swapped with Elle Woods' famous Bend and Snap from "Legally Blonde."

Brummel's rendition of "Defying Gravity," the song made popular on Broadway by Idina Menzel, was perfect. While not an exact replication, she successfully made the song her own.

Scenic design by Eugene Lee, lighting by Kenneth Posner and projections by Elaine J. McCarthy create magical settings and effects that are very cinematic. Costumes by Susan Hilferty are both elegant and over the top.

There isn't a weak spot on this tour; "Wicked" fans will get the spectacular show they're looking forward to.

By Gabe Hartwig • ©2010 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, STLtoday.com • Published 06.19.10

Theater review: Muddy Waters weighs marriage in new show

For its second show in an all-Eugene O'Neill season, Muddy Waters Theatre presents one of the playwright's least-known works from his least-explored genre: "Now I Ask You," a comedy.

It's not clear how much of the play O'Neill wrote himself — his then-wife, Agnes Boulton O'Neill, allegedly rewrote and edited the script after he had abandoned it. But the result is a three-act show packed with witty dialogue and thought-provoking arguments about free love versus marriage — ideas that are especially intriguing now, when marriage equality has taken center stage.

The play opens with a gunshot, an apparent suicide. But a comedy quickly ensues when we meet free-thinker Lucy Ashleigh, played superbly by Katie McGee. She brings the perfect blend of pretension and naïveté to the role, making Lucy obnoxious but still likable.

Robert Ashton and Andra Harkins contribute fine performances as Lucy's parents, who dispense pearls of wisdom as needed.

Lucy's patient husband Tom — whom she'd really prefer to keep on as a friend with benefits, thanks — is played charmingly by a blond Ben Ritchie.

"Why this useless formality of marriage?" Lucy wonders.

Frustrated by Lucy's desire not to be tied down by traditional marriage vows, and by her interest in flamboyant poet Gabriel Adams (Alan C. David), Tom's eyes soon wander to Leonora Barnes (Sarajane Alverson), an artist with a dislike of all things bourgeois.

Gabriel ("Don't call me Gabe!") and Leonora are married, a fact they don't like to discuss. "Marriage is for propagation," Leo says, "and artists shouldn't propagate." David and Alverson play their eccentric roles (with plenty of delicious lines) with plenty of moxie, but it's hard to detect what Lucy or Leo could possibly find attractive about smarmy Gabriel.

What's a girl to do? We hope Lucy figures it out quickly, before meeting the fate of her Henrik Ibsen hero, Hedda Gabler.

The play's well-appointed set, full of details that make it feel truly real, was designed by Sean M. Savoie. Mary Beth Amsier's costumes bring the characters and their various personalities to life. Jerry McAdams directs.

By Gabe Hartwig • ©2010 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, STLtoday.com • Published 06.17.10