I loved it. My wife and I both loved the performance.

The fact that he uses "Gordon Shumway" as the pseudonym for Randy's puppeteer, makes me see the ALF puppet puppeteering the Randy puppet, with someone else puppeteering ALF

An interesting video. Nicely done, bro.

To be fair in regards to the Christmas Nuncrackers - it's a holiday special. Which I think lends itself to a more loose performance all around as the plot isn't as captivating as the "Christmas spirit." People come to hear and watch Christmas-themed canotical Nonsense stuff specifically, not a new and deeper show. IMO. :)

28:51 I saw this production, and their version of Milky White was hilarious!

they do perform in brazil, though! i dont know for how long, since i used to live in a smaller town but ever since i moved to a bigger state capital, the ads (posters, youtube ads etc) show up like clockwork around march-april

The South Coast of England, including Cornwall was ravaged by Pirates up to the 19th cent.

This is falun gong sect. be careful.their guru living in rich estate in US

Funny thing. I was never fooled. I didn't feel let down. Because I knew Randy was a puppet the whole time and all his stories are made up. Well, maybe 95%, since every once in a while he'll tell us about an event from a previous show. I don't understand how anybody was fooled into thinking Randy was a real person. That goes beyond suspension of disbelief. Because that just means we PRETEND to believe he's real. He's a character. Believing Randy's story is like believing a story told by a cartoon character. And the answer to Randy's question is - we feel satisfied at the end of a novel because we go into it knowing it's fake. If we started reading a book thinking it was non-fiction and then found out at the end that the whole thing was made up, we'd feel just as betrayed. The simple answer is, we don't enjoy being tricked.

This is such a fantastic video, you put the way that I and so many others experience flawed media into words so perfectly, and it has really changed my view of not just Drowsy, but media as a whole. I never thought to put it into words, but I have been guilty of brushing off a work's problematic or flawed elements in private countless times, and while I did acknowledge these elements, I really feel for MIC's journey of having to admit them and justify them to other people. I've always related to him, but this video really expanded my understanding of him and his arc through the show in a very well done way. Thank you for doing this wonderful show justice.

I was lucky enough to see the 1980 Papp production of "The Pirates of Penzance," twice at the Delacorte, and once on Broadway. I don't think that Linda Ronstadt sang everything in the original key, because there was one song that seemed to be lowered. I think it was "Poor Wandering One," and it may simply have been one of the runs, which isn't a big deal, but I remember being shocked to hear something different from what I remembered from listening to the D'oyly Carte recordings. But, yes, the production was revelatory. About 10 years later, I caught a high school production, and was pleased to see that Kevin Kline's interpretation of the Pirate King was now standard. But there's no reason that similar updates to the operas couldn't be done.

That’s a man

The Film is the first thing I ever saw on HBO back in the day! This is the only G and S work i can watch all the way through without cringing from the subject matter. Its still great!

I thought this was a randy special

I just watched your Drowsy Chaperone video and heard you mention opera a couple of times, so I am so pleased to discover several in-depth videos on opera that are right up my street. There was also a Fille du Regiment from the Wiener Staatsoper I loved (with Montserrat Caballe no less) but I think the filming was fairly similar to the ROH as opera on live stream was in its infancy then, so I'm looking forward to seeing the differences with the 2019 one!

So not the point but thank you for being the first KZbinr I've seen in ages who can pronounce the word "coif" correctly.

Shen Yun is weird and culty.

Wonderfully insightful! Glad I watched it. I have subscribed.

Thanks!

I like Winnie the Pooh and I like Falun Gong, CCP hates Winnie the Pooh and the Falun Gong

The truth or lie behind a joke aren't necessary for the enjoyment of the joke itself, if you go into a performance looking for something real you're missing the point of a performance. The only time you really should do this is when someone presents a front to you. "I am X type person who does Y." and then uses that to gain an audience of people who like their content and from there leapfrogs their points previously and discards it to move to what they really want to do. In a modern sense, those people are what's known as "Grifters" people who have a vested interest in selling you a lie while presenting it as their genuine opinion and then backing away from it when it comes to making some bucket load of money or attention. Those people damage the ability of the general public to sit back, enjoy something and just revel in the enjoyment. I don't care that Randy's story is fake, in the moment of telling the story he's telling me something in a humorous manner, overexaggerating things and comedically playing up a scene for my amusement and for that I enjoy it, that it "didn't really happen" doesn't matter anymore than Sasha Baron Cohen pretending to be from Kazakhstan and throwing dollars at cockroaches to ward off the evils of the Jew. It isn't a real thing and is meant to be laughed at for the absurdity of it because on some level we know some people think, act and react like this and someone somewhere has had an experience like this as people can be insanely crazy when they want to be.

You could replace the word "cult" for "religion" in every phrase you've mentioned it, and it would be the same. If there were Christian symbols and messages in an art show, you wouldn't conclude that Christianity is a cult (even though it sometimes kind of is).

It would have been even easier for Chad Kimball to shake feverishly since he spent the whole pandemic breaking COVID protocols

i vividly remember being a kid in town with my mum and this woman telling us both about the 6 year old chinese boy who had his eyes gouged out by his auntie.

I see that many professional dancers praise Shen Yun; you can consult them. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYuQp2iqmKarp7M

loved your channel and insights since your drowsy video! so bummed i missed this con but so so glad i can watch this here!

Shirley Ballas, the head judge on "Strictly Come Dancing", praised Shen Yun highly. I believe that praise from someone with her expertise is more credible than that of an ordinary audience member. You can check the video titled 'London Audiences Impressed by Shen Yun | 2023 Audience Reviews' on ShenYunCreations to see what she and other experts have to say about Shen Yun.

This was really amazing! Thank you for the inspiration. I share a lot of similar views in theater and art as you so this whole thing really resonates with me. Thank you so much for sharing this.

You are my favorite human. So proud to say that my best friend is now cow famous.

I'm so glad I found this channel!!!!

7:59 Actually, Penzance did have a pirate problem in the past, about a century before the operetta was written. Barbary piracy (slavers) in particular. But at the time of the writing, yes it was quite respectable.

I own three copies of the Pirates of Penzance movie, and have seen it at least 20 times. I recommend it to anyone who wants to try Gilbert and Sullivan for the first time. I tell them that G&S is the immediate predecessor to the modern day musical, halfway between opera and musical, and that's even more obvious with the Joseph Papp version.

The algorithm gods have blessed me on this day. This was amazing!!

11/10, no notes

This panel was amazing! I love how you articulated your thoughts, especially your analogies on static and dynamic art. You are correct, we ARE Milky White!!

oh this eats (the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold, that is)

Finally, I can't wait to watch and share this. I've had so many people ask me about it when I mentioned it on my social media. Now I can finally link them!

Lovely!

Let's gooooooooo!!!!!!

Reprehensible is using Stravinsky's music as wallpaper

Where has this channel been hiding all my life?? Super interesting video essays, I've been binging your videos the whole week. Thanks for putting your work out there!

Can I ask where you found the recording of "The Last Temptation"? It's the only one I can't find on KZbin

Don't you consider George M Cohan's work prior ot 1926?

I’m a simple guy. I first saw Randy in Melbourne around 2010 at a comedy festival. Funny. Insightful. Yeah, good mate. Then started watching him on KZbin. For me, Randy is simply the physical expression of the guy behind it that is, I’ve assumed, more comfortable being behind the curtain than in front. When Randy espouses philosophies, ethics, insights about the human condition, they’re simply those of the shy guy we don’t see. If I had a stubby with the guy, I’d already feel I know him through the acts. I don’t care about the puppet; that’s no more or less a projection than what everyone else does to present themselves to others. With maybe a little bit more fear of Velcro.

I definitely want to watch the in-depth take on the development of Little Women, which is a better show than I think it has any right to be. What depresses me about the Gatsbys is the clear reliance on IP. Like, would Gatsby musicalize well? Yeah! But Gatsby has been adapted ENOUGH times by people who misunderstand the novel. I dunno. Better write my own.