Smoke and Mirrors

Finished April 12

Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths

This is the second book in the series featuring magician Max Mephisto and police detective Edgar Stephens. This book is set in 1951 in Brighton. It is in November that the book begins, and Max is in a pantomime at the local theatre. Two tween-age children go missing from a local neighbourhood, and Edgar is involved in the search. But soon a winter storm moves in and the snow makes the search more difficult. When the bodies of the children are discovered a few days later, they are found under the snow with pieces of candy leading to them like a trail. 

It makes Edgar and his team Emma and Bob think of Hansel and Gretel, and when it turns out that the two were putting on a play using younger children as actors that is reminiscent of the fairy tale, they start looking at the adults who were mentors to them.

There are also echoes from a decades earlier child murder at a pantomime, and some of the people in the Brighton area may be connected to that earlier event. 

Max's newly discovered daughter Ruby is in a production nearby, and she appears here in a peripheral way, and we see the beginning of her relationship with Edgar.

Edgar takes his job very seriously and works on the case tirelessly, foregoing sleep and sustenance, so you get a real sense of his empathy and commitment. 

I had just read book number three in this series, so it was nice seeing more of the background of the characters here. Emma is interesting as she has taken an unusual job for a woman of her background, and she doesn't advertise her class when at work. Her parents don't necessarily approve of her career choice, but they do support her choices. 

The whole aspect of fairy tales and their history is interesting as well, and I really enjoyed this aspect of the work, seeing how surprised some of the adults were at what they learned, and what creativity the children had. 

Intelligence-Slave

Finished December 2
Intelligence-Slave by Kenneth Lin, produced by L.A. Theatre Works

This short play has a full cast, with Josh Stamberg taking on the role of Curt Herzstark, and Daniel Stewart taking on the role of the boy Finn. It tells the story of Herzstark, who was an Austrian industrialist working on the invention of the pocket calculator. He was taken by the Nazis to a concentration camp, and from there to an underground location to complete the work on his device. Also located underground was an armament factory. Herzstark knows that if he completes his device he will be killed, despite their promises to "Aryanize" him. When, after considerable time, the device is still not complete, and the Germans send down a boy, with a talent for mathematics, to "assist" Herzstark, he knows that the boy is also keeping tabs on him and he must be even more careful about his work.
This play is very well done, with believable performances by all involved. It is based on a true story, including an incident told by Herzstark himself about his experience. It is part of the Relativity Series, featuring science-based plays.

World War Z

Finished April 21
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, performed by an all-star cast: F. Murray Abraham, Alan Alda, Rene Auberjonois, Becky Ann Baker, Dennis Boutsikaris, Bruce Boxleitner, Max Brooks, Nicki Clyne, Common, Denise Crosby, Frank Darabont, Dean Edwards, Mark Hamill, Nathan Fillion, Maz Jobrani, Frank Kamai, Michelle Kholos, John McElroy, Ade M'Cormack, Alfred Molina, Parminder Nagra, Ajay Naidu, Masi Oka, Steve Park, Kal Penn, Simon Pegg, Jurgen Prochnow, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Henry Rollins, Jeri Ryan, Jay O. Sanders, Martin Scorsese, Paul Sorvino, David Ogden Stiers, Brian tee, John Turturro, Eamonn Walker, Ric Young, and Waleed Zuaiter.

This was like listening to a movie. The structure takes us around the world several times, workings its way from the first outbreak, through the spread of the disease, to the first public announcements, the ways that various countries or regions dealt with the outbreaks, the refugees, the fights against the zombies in various regions, what worked and what didn't, the emotional, physical, and mental effects on people. We see the heroes, the terrible mistakes, the losses, the struggles to survive. We see big battles and one-on-one fights to survive. We gradually understand the way that people began to understand what they were up against and how they had to adapt their defences and attacks to meet an enemy that wasn't what they'd see historically.
We see how even when they'd established areas of safety, they felt they had to move into infested areas and take back those areas, fighting to the last zombie they could find. We see how different environments made fighting more difficult and how small mistakes could have large effects on the way things turned out.
The casting was well done, and the actors really brought it all to life for me.
One of our pages at work recommended this to me, and I'm glad to have taken it up and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Beaux' Stratagem

Finished August 11
The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar, adapted by Thornton Wilder and Ken Ludwig

I picked this up just before going in to see the play performed at Stratford. I was buying a t-shirt for my husband in the shop, and they had a small display at the cash. In the intermission, I checked it to verify where we were and found that it did not match the production we were watching. So of course I had to read it over in the next day or two to see where the differences lay.
The story was originally written in 1707 and is a romantic comedy where a couple of financially challenged noblemen play at being a rich nobleman and his servant in order to find rich young women for themselves. They arrive in the town of Lichfield and discover there is a likely young woman, and the one man meets her in church one day and falls hard, as does she. So things are looking well. The young woman has a sister-in-law who is unhappily married to her brother, and a flirtation develops between the other man posing as a servant and her. Meanwhile, there is a gang of highway robbers in the neighbourhood, and they are attached to the inn where the gentlemen are staying.
We enjoyed the production immensely and we were lucky to see many of the top actors at Stratford in it. The print version here has scenes that were dropped from the production, and does not contain scenes that were in the production (from the introduction here, it looks like they were in the original, but dropped from this adaptation). Some of the scenes also seemed to be in a different order, and some of the lines were spoken by different actors. It was enjoyable in its own way, and the introduction alone provided useful information on the history of the play, which is little known.

The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial

Finished May 15
The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial by Peter Goodchild, with full cast

This recording is a docudrama that is based on original sources and trial transcripts of the Scopes Trial of 1925. Good actors make it come to life.
This has not only the different voices that help to tell the listener who's speaking when it isn't directly indicated, but the reaction of the court observers. Even though you know the history, you still hope things will turn out differently.
An interesting look at a point in history that doesn't seem that far off of some of the views still held in the United States.

Audio Plays

Finished May 11
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard performed by L.A. Theatre Works
I picked up this dual package of plays at a recent conference.
I went to a live performance of The Importance of Being Earnest when I was 14 (quite some time ago), but had forgotten most of the plot. I had never seen, heard, or read The Real Thing before.
The performances were very well done and very amusing and I enjoyed them both thoroughly.
As the introduction states, Oscar Wilde's humourous plays are a precursor to a variety of humour entertainment today, from sitcoms to Monty Python.  Stoppard's play is witty, with wry humour and shows raw emotion. A great way to enjoy theatre.