If I were to initially comment on my take on Mamma Mia! (The Musical), I would simply sing this line to you:
Mamma Mia, here I go again My my, how can I resist you?
Since experiencing the zest of “Mamma Mia!” last month, I’ve been raving on how great the show is and how it’s such an unforgettable experience. Definitely worth anyone’s time and money.
This is a dream come true for me. Since I’ve migrated here in 2005, I’ve always wished that they’ll show Mamma Mia! in Sydney again for my sake (hehe). When they made a movie of this musical, I watched it in the cinemas aloneand when the DVD was released, I bought it to share the experience with the Husband. He loved the movie and I promised him we would see the musical if ever we get a chance, whether it was here or in another part of the world.
After watching Mamma Mia! The Movie a thousand times and after playing the CD soundtrack inside our car everytime we’re on a roadtrip (yes, that’s how much we loved it), the universe has finally conspired to make our dream come true. Mamma Mia! is celebrating it’s 10th Anniversary in Sydney!!!!!
To-date, this is the most entertaining and funnest theatrical experience for me and the Husband. Here are the reasons why:
The storyline and the songs. Those ABBA hits became the foundation of a story which anyone can easily relate to: a wedding, a reunion of friends, finding one’s self, a lover coming back to your life, giving second chances. If you’ve ever been inlove or had great friends, this will surely warm your heart as you hear melodies of “Dancing Queen”, “Chiquitita” or “The Winner Takes it All” come to life infront of you. Note:There are more songs in the musical compared the movie.
The actors. The cast has the funniest leads and ensemble I’ve ever seen. My favorite is Anne Wood who played Donna Sheridan and Jennifer Vuletic who played Tanya, one of the Dynamos. They were both funny, beautiful and acted really well. The cast sang every song beautifully and they danced really really good.
The choreography. Each production number will make you want to dance as the choreography is highly energetic. My favorite from all the production numbers is “Voulez-vous”.
The fun costumes that complimented the lighting. Very modest set but they made sure that lighting was great and the costumes were fun and sparkly.
A mini-concert by the end of the show. An encore that’s sort of a mini ABBA concert with the lead players disappearing just long enough to come back in eye-popping, deliciously colorful costumes that made the audience get on their feet and dance!!!! Yes, I was one of those that danced while they sang “Mamma Mia!”, “Dancing Queen” and “Waterloo”. It was such a fabulous experience. I loved it! I never wanted the experience to end–that’s how good it was.
For anyone who’s in Sydney right now, I recommend you watch and experience this musical. Bring your husband, I assure you he will enjoy it too. Or go with your girlfriends and you will surely have lots of fun.
Mamma Mia! will make you sing, cry, laugh and dance. A must-see for everyone.
This will run til February 2010. Buy your tickets now via Ticketmaster.
Trivia Time:
(b) The most touching part of the story was when Donna (the mom) helped Sophie get ready for the wedding. Donna sang “Slipping Through My Fingers”. For anyone who’s a mother or a daughter, I’m sure this will warm your heart.
(c) Since Chris and I were in such a festive mood that night, all because we are having so much fun, Chris brought me a “Super Trouper” Daiquiri in a flashing glass (which you can take home) during intermission. In honor of the musical, they named the daiquiris after ABBA’s song titles.
(d) Given a chance, another time or place perhaps, I will watch and experience this musical again.
“Up”, the recently shown venture from Pixar, is an endearing tale of a 78-year old man named Carl who succumbs to the call of great adventure in order to fulfull a lifelong dream. The biggest surprise of his life was discovering too late that an optimistic 8-year old Wilderness Explorer named Russell has joined him in his quest to reaching Paradise Falls. And so the thrill begins as Carl and Russell met exciting and funny circumstances along the way before discovering some of life’s greatest lessons.
I had no expectations when I saw this film and I was greatly in awe as the story and some life lessons unfold before me: Marriage is an adventure (I was surprised that this cartoon movie is actually a love story! :)) and the journey of everyday is more exciting and fulfilling when the couple work as a team. It is also up to the couple to make their life as happy and fun as possible even thru challenges and disappointments.
If you have a dream, make it come true. Even if there are delays and things you need to prioritize in the meantime, there is no need to lose faith in yourself. You sometimes forget about it too and that is okay. Trust me, FATE will somehow make you remember. Whatever reason or excuses you may have, it will not matter anymore as long as you make it come true sooner or later.
Take care of each other. You may be with your husband/wife, son/daughter, parents, siblings, relatives or friends. Or you can even be with a stranger at one point in your life. Always remember that there is a reason why you are with that someone and you have the responsibility to look out for each other.
We all have something to learn from each other. Every person is a blessing in our life because we all have something to impart to each other–an encouraging thought, a positive advice, a lending hand, a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear…a smile.
Life is an adventure. Love it, enjoy it, cherish it…savour every moment. Love deeply, have friends, help other people, travel and explore. Never take the small things for granted. I know this blog post is too late to encourage some of you to watch it in the cinemas. But this may be useful if you have plans of buying the movie’s DVD as this is very much worth your time and money. I highly recommend that you see it.
Last Saturday, a different kind of sunset was seen from our balcony. This time the sunset had haze.
Tried taking a photo of the haze. I’m not sure where it was coming from. Probably from the mountains because it was a hot day that day.
In a few more minutes, the sun had set and this beautiful spectacle left me in awe and grateful for another beautiful, blessed day.
I only uploaded these photos tonight and when I saw this 3rd photo above, it reminded me of one of my favorite songs, “Visions of a Sunset” sung by Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men. Every word of that song is very true to me. Whenever I hear or sing that song, I shed tears of joy as I’m grateful for the life I’m given and living.
Let me share the lyrics with you. If you get an MP3 of this song, I swear you won’t regret it. Also, this song was an original soundtrack from the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus”, a movie that I also like because it’s a touching story of a teacher, who instead of composing music, chose to selflessly teach in order to raise his family and educate young students.
Visions of a Sunset”
Oh Yeah Lived all my days trying to embrace Life with my heart by all the beauty I feel and create it spins and moves Flows at my pace telling its story From the tear running down my face
[Chorus:] Visions of a sunset just appear when I close my eyes Takes my closer to heaven when the Flute starts to fly And the violin cries
Confusion leaves while peace Orchestrates runs through my Veins and in other seekers it Penetrates my reason why The big city air smells so sweet
Takes me through journeys In time from my youth to as Far as I can see
[Chorus ]
It’s all I need in my life It’s all I need and no one Can take your place by my side You’re all inside of me
[Chorus ]
We’ll free from all sorrow Like the wind blows from the sky Takes me closer to Heaven when the Flute starts to fly
Since MJ died, his CDs have been on sale at the shops. I bought a few to add to my CD collection.
There’s the History album which comprises of two CDs, the first one containing his hits during the 80’s while the second disc were his most recent songs like “Earth Song” and “Childhood”. I specially like this album because this was when he and his sister Janet Jackson (who is also my favorite) sang the duet “Scream”.
In 2008, MJ’s “Thriller” celebrated 25 years in the music industry so they decided to release a 25th Anniversary Edition of “Thriller” that contained songs from the first “Thriller” and some new unreleased bonus tracks and remixes by Akon, will.i.am, Fergie and Kanye West. We have a vinyl record of the “Thriller” album at my parent’s home so I bought this one so we can have a CD copy.
The third CD that I bought is “The Essential Michael Jackson” album which contained two CDs that had all his hits songs from the time he started with the Jackson 5 (“I Want You Back”, “ABC”, “Ben, etc.) til the time he released “History” (You Are Not Alone”, “They Don’t Care About Us”, etc). This album has a great collection, a good memoir of MJ’s musical ingenuity.
We’re down to the 8th month of the year and I can’t believe it is nearly Christmas (!!!). So I want to start the month of August with a funny, yet very inspiring speech from Ellen Degeneres, TV host of The Ellen Show. Hoping that this speech will give you that extra boost to your enthusiasm in achieving your goals this year.
I hope you enjoy it as much my Husband and I did. I’ve also provided a transcipt should you want to read instead of watch. Could be a long read for you but I’ve marked some key phases in bold letters.
Have a great week and be inspired!
Transcript:
Thank you, President Cowan, Mrs. President Cowen; distinguished guests, undistinguished guests – you know who you are, honored faculty and creepy Spanish teacher. And thank you to all the graduating class of 2009, I realize most of you are hungover and have splitting headaches and haven’t slept since Fat Tuesday, but you can’t graduate ’til I finish, so listen up.
When I was asked to make the commencement speech, I immediately said yes. Then I went to look up what commencement meant. Which would have been easy if I had a dictionary, but most of the books in our house are Portia’s, and they’re all written in Australian. So I had to break the word down myself, to find out the meaning.
Commencement: common, and cement. Common cement. You commonly see cement on sidewalks. Sidewalks have cracks, and if you step on a crack, you break your mother’s back. So there’s that. But I’m honored that you’ve asked me here to speak at your common cement.
I thought that you had to be a famous alumnus – alumini – aluminum – alumus – you had to graduate from this school. And I didn’t go to college here, and I don’t know if President Cowan knows, I didn’t go to any college at all. Any college. And I’m not saying you wasted your time, or money, but look at me, I’m a huge celebrity.
Although I did graduate from the school of hard knocks, our mascot was the Knockers. I spent a lot of time here growing up. My mom worked at Nucum and I would go there every time I needed to steal something out of her purse. But why am I here today? Clearly not to steal, you’re too far away and I’d never get away with it.
I’m here because of you. Because I can’t think of a more tenacious, more courageous graduating class. I mean, look at you all, wearing your robes. Usually when you’re wearing a robe at 10 in the morning, it means you’ve given up. I’m here because I love New Orleans. I was born and raised here, I spent my formative years here, and like you, while I was living here I only did laundry six times. When I finished school, I was completely lost. And by school, I mean middle school, but I went ahead and finished high school anyway. And I – I really, I had no ambition, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I did everything from – I shucked oysters, I was a hostess, I was a bartender, I was a waitress, I painted houses, I sold vaccuum cleaners, I had no idea. And I thought I’d just finally settle in some job, and I would make enough money to pay my rent, maybe have basic cable, maybe not, I didn’t really have a plan, my point is that, by the time I was your age, I really thought I knew who I was, but I had no idea. Like for example, when I was your age, I was dating men. So what I’m saying is, when you’re older, most of you will be gay. Anyone writing this stuff down? Parents?
Anyway, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and the way I ended up on this path was from a very tragic event. I was maybe 19, and my girlfriend at the time was killed in a car accident. And I passed the accident, and I didn’t know it was her and I kept going, and I found out shortly after that, it was her. And I was living in a basement apartment, I had no money, I had no heat, no air, I had a mattress on the floor and the apartment was infested with fleas. And I was soul-searching, I was like, why is she suddenly gone, and there are fleas here? I don’t understand, there must be a purpose, and wouldn’t it be so convenient if we could pick up the phone and call God, and ask these questions.
And I started writing and what poured out of me was an imaginary conversation with God, which was one-sided, and I finished writing it and I looked at it and I said to myself, and I hadn’t even been doing stand-up, ever, there was no club in town. I said, “I’m gonna do this on the Tonight Show With Johnny Carson”- at the time he was the king – “and I’m gonna be the first woman in the history of the show to be called over to sit down.” And several years later, I was the first woman in the history of the show, and only woman in the history of the show to sit down, because of that phone conversation with God that I wrote. And I started this path of stand-up and it was successful and it was great, but it was hard, because I was trying to please everybody and I had this secret that I was keeping, that I was gay. And I thought if people found out they wouldn’t like me, they wouldn’t laugh at me.
Then my career turned into – I got my own sitcom, and that was very successful, another level of success. And I thought, what if they find out I’m gay, then they’ll never watch, and this was a long time ago, this was when we just had white presidents – this was back, many years ago – and I finally decided that I was living with so much shame, and so much fear, that I just couldn’t live that way anymore, and I decided to come out and make it creative. And my character would come out at the same time, and it wasn’t to make a political statement, it wasn’t to do anything other than to free myself up from this heaviness that I was carrying around, and I just wanted to be honest. And I thought, “What’s the worst that could happen? I can lose my career”. I did. I lost my career. The show was cancelled after six years, without even telling me, I read it in the paper. The phone didn’t ring for three years. I had no offers. Nobody wanted to touch me at all. Yet, I was getting letters from kids that almost committed suicide, but didn’t, because of what I did. And I realised that I had a purpose.And it wasn’t just about me and it wasn’t about celebrity, but I felt like I was being punished… it was a bad time, I was angry, I was sad, and then I was offered a talkshow. And the people that offered me the talkshow tried to sell it. And most stations didn’t want to pick it up. Most people didn’t want to buy it because they thought nobody would watch me.
Really when I look back on it, I wouldn’t change a thing. I mean, it was so important for me to lose everything because I found out what the most important thing is, is to be true to yourself. Ultimately, that’s what’s gotten me to this place. I don’t live in fear, I’m free, I have no secrets. and I know I’ll always be ok, because no matter what, I know who I am. So In conclusion, when I was younger I thought success was something different. I thought when I grow up, I want to be famous. I want to be a star. I want to be in movies. When I grow up I want to see the world, drive nice cars, I want to have groupies. To quote the Pussycat Dolls. How many people thought it was “boobies”, by the way? It’s not, it’s “groupies”.
But my idea of success is different today. And as you grow, you’ll realise the definition of success changes. For many of you, today, success is being able to hold down 20 shots of tequila. For me, the most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity, and not to give into peer pressure, to try to be something that you’re not. To live your life as an honest and compassionate person.To contribute in some way. So to conclude my conclusion: follow your passion, stay true to yourself. Never follow anyone else’s path, unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path, and by all means you should follow that. Don’t give advice, it will come back and bite you in the ass. Don’t take anyone’s advice. So my advice to you is to be true to yourself and everything will be fine.
And I know that a lot of you are concerned about your future, but there’s no need to worry. The economy is booming, the job market is wide open, the planet is just fine. It’s gonna be great. You’ve already survived a hurricane. What else can happen to you? And as I mentioned before, some of the most devastating things that happen to you will teach you the most. And now you know the right questions to ask in your first job interview. Like, “Is it above sea level?” . So to conclude my conclusion that I’ve previously concluded, in the common cement speech, I guess what I’m trying to say is life is like one big Mardi Gras. But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain, and if they like what they see, you’ll have more beads than you know what to do with. And you’ll be drunk, most of the time. So the Katrina class of 2009, I say congratulations and if you don’t remember a thing I said today, remember this: you’re gonna be ok, dum de dum dum dum, just dance.
