SPA's new season

Society for the Performing Arts dazzles with diverse 2019 lineup

The Society for the Performing Arts has recently announced its 2019-2020 season, and it is certainly a high-calibre list of who’s-who performers. It’s quite the power lineup from Houston's leading, multidisciplinary, performing-arts presenter, which has been around for over 50 years.

“Throughout the season, we celebrate extraordinary artistic collaborations and inspirational artists,” says Meg Booth, SPA’s new CEO. “We’re proud to present many Houston debuts as we continue to introduce the next generation of virtuosic artists.”

Here is a rundown of who and what will be performing at either Jones Hall, Cullen Theater, Zilkha Hall, and Miller Outdoor Theatre.

Drama, drums, and high-flying spectacle
Of course, SPA will offer up some serious Broadway fare. The Tony-winning musical version of Alice Walker's The Color Purple (January 3-4) will come to Houston in an all-new revitalized production, and STOMP (January 23-25) will celebrate 25 years of being in NYC with an inventive and invigorating stage show.

Internationally acclaimed percussion crew Drum TAO (March 27) returns to SPA with a new modern, high-energy show that showcases the ancient art of Japanese drumming, while The Peking Acrobats (February 22), a troupe of China’s most gifted tumblers, contortionists, jugglers, cyclists, and gymnasts, will mesmerize folks with their death-defying antics.

SPA will also have Chicago-based Manual Cinema performing, for the first time in Houston, with its multimedia production of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (October 30). Handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music will be used to create an immersive visual retelling of the monster story for the stage and screen.

Divine dance
A host of shows will wow audiences with the art of dance this season. MacArthur “genius” Kyle Abraham and A.I.M (Abraham in Motion), his phenomenal contemporary dance company in their Houston debut, will perform the world premiere of An Untitled Love (June 4-5), SPA’s first commission in five years.

Bon Iver & TU Dance will come through with Come Through (February 20-21), a fusion of contemporary dance and brand-new music, performed live by Bon Iver. Martha Graham Dance Company (October 18) returns to Houston for the first time in 15 years, performing Chronicle and other works from The EVE Project, which celebrates the hundredth anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

And Mark Morris Dance Group will present Pepperland (January 30-31), a unique tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Much music
This season's Music Series has a diverse collection of heavy hitters. The whole season kicks off with legendary, eccentric actor Jeff Goldblum performing jazz standards with his band, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra (September 20).

Latin Grammy winner Lila Downs (March 6) will be singing songs in Spanish, English, and the languages of the Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya, and Mahuati cultures. Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will give us French Enchantment (January 16), a program that begins and ends with early works by Saint-Saëns and Fauré.

The Brubeck Brothers Quartet (May 16) will honor the centennial of their iconic father, Dave Brubeck, and Black Violin (April 7) will come with an electrifying mix of hip hop and classical music. And let's not forget that Broadway legend Bernadette Peters (November 2) will show up and woo the crowd for an evening.

Serious laughs
SPA will also bring in some funny people. Former Tonight Show host and recent John Oliver target Jay Leno (December 6) will be in town for a show. TV vets Jane Lynch (Glee) and Kate Flannery (The Office) will team up for Two Lost Souls (November 8), their comedy/cabaret show. Longtime Carol Burnett cohort Vicki Lawrence will do Vicki Lawrence & Mama: A Two-Woman Show (May 8) for Mother's Day weekend.

And for all y'all who love straight-up witty folk, famed author and essayist David Sedaris (November 1) will be discussing his latest book, Calypso.

Kids only
There will be several, elaborate shows in store for the kiddies. Wild Kratts LIVE 2.0 - Activate Creature Power! (January 26), the theatrical production based on the Emmy-nominated PBS Kids series, will bring audiences along on a wild ride with a mix of live-action and animation.

After the whole fam has celebrated Christmas, y'all can check out Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical (December 26-27). And fresh off of Broadway, the award-winning The SpongeBob Musical (June 23-28) will make its Houston debut for eight shows, ending the season on a very fun note.

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For more information, tickets, and showtimes, visit the Society for the Performing Arts.

David Sedaris brings his dry, rapier wit.

Photo courtesy of David Sedaris

David Sedaris brings his dry, rapier wit.

dance comedy music

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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