Yes, social networks are proliferating like popular girls in junior high, but I found Pinterest – an online scrapbook of sorts – to be a particularly good match for my photography. I’ve posted two boards on Pinterest so far: Rome & Florence

, and Minnesota Travels. The latter will continue to be updated indefinitely as I snap interesting pics of the state. I’ll probably add at least one board for each of the travelogues as well.

Stop by, follow, re-pin, or just enjoy the photos, not all of which will have been posted here at Northern Word.

My Pinterest address is: http://pinterest.com/northernword/

Happy pinning!

Directed by Terry Johnson – at the Guthrie through March 11, 2012.
At some point in the career of a legendary artist their outward persona becomes a kind of public cultural property. They start to appear in books, plays, and more recently, films, first as references, later as characters. Mark Twain, for example, has landed in everything from Star Trek to stage plays. At a time when our culture is increasingly locked down by trademark and copyright, this kind of art seems refreshing; here, just like the old days, one set of artists can build on the work and legacy of another and make something new that has value of its own.

End of the Rainbow takes on the troubled persona of Judy Garland in the last weeks of her life and tackles addiction, celebrity culture, and exploitation. The play revolves entirely around the wondrous performance of British actress Tracie Bennett, who becomes Judy Garland in voice, movement, and every visual aspect; the performance is so convincing, so immersive, that even when she seems to be going over the top, it’s impossible not to believe her. This Garland is both a force of nature and a vulnerable woman mired in addiction and trapped by a rolling financial disaster. It’s hard not to feel sympathy, though she is certainly not portrayed as a victim. Garland here is the logical result of a lifetime of exploitation and personal choices. There is not so much an arc for her character, as a steady downward trajectory. This is a play that doesn’t just have an ending, it’s entirely about an ending.

But despite the subject matter, the show isn’t particularly dark. The script is smartly written with plenty of ironic humor, and the composite character of the pianist (Michael Cumpsty) adds a gentler energy to the stage which balances well with Bennett’s Garland. And the musical numbers, in which Bennett’s characterization comes to life to its greatest extent, fill the room, sometimes brilliant, sometimes fragmented. The final rendition of “Over the Rainbow” is the highlight of the show.

This is an easy play to recommend – and an unusual opportunity to see a West End production from London as it stops in Minneapolis on its way to New York. Even the set (built at the Guthrie), which consists of a perfectly opulent hotel room with a surprise inside, will pack up and move east after the Guthrie Run is over. According to the stage manager, who commented during an excellent post-play discussion, this also includes costumes (also created at the Guthrie) such as a glittering pantsuit that evoked both Garland’s style and a bit of that magic that followed her from Oz throughout her career.

The theater was packed and advance reservations are recommended.  The play contains mature themes and strong language. Just like the post-Oz Judy Garland.

Other Resources:
Review of End of the Rainbow at The Morning After Blog (Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine)
Review of End of the Rainbow at the St. Paul Pioneer Press
Review of End of the Rainbow at the Minneapolis Star Tribune (may require subscription)
Minnesota Public Radio interview with Tracie Bennett
Review of End of the Rainbow at Howwastheshow.com
CBS Local (WCCO) feature piece on Tracie Bennett

If the sight of hundreds of ice age mammals caught in a deep pit interests you, there’s that and plenty more geological and paleontological wonders in the Black Hills. Stan the Dinosaur, petrified trees, and buffalo jumps all fascinate the science-minded visitor. And don’t get me started on the fantastic rock shops. We’ll take a look at the full variety of rock and bone related attractions in the Hills in this edition of the Black Hills Travelogue.

Mammoth Site

We’ll start with the Mammoth Site itself, the premier tourist-oriented scientific attraction in the Hills. Despite it’s relative isolation from other Black Hills attractions, a trip to the Mammoth Site offers a nice drive and can be combined with a trip to the nearby Wild Horse Sanctuary. We arrived in the sleepy town of Hot Springs and park in a large lot on a hill above the main part of town. The building itself is cathedral-sized and perches at the very top of this hill, but didn’t inspire at first glance.  Once inside, though, the size of this active dig becomes obvious.

This colossal animal trap was created when an underground cavern collapsed 26,000 years ago. The resulting pit included a lovely spring which bubbled up fresh water and lured animals ranging from Mammoths to saber-toothed cats to their deaths. Eventually the sinkhole filled up and nobody was the wiser, until the discovery of the fossils in recent times. At the attraction visitors take a guided tour and though the guides are quite young, they are very well trained and can answer even complex questions (I bring this up as this is not the case at most private geological attractions). The facility could use some upgrades – their phone-based tour guide amplification system is something straight out of the 60′s – so try to stay near the front of the pack if you have trouble hearing. But what you’re here for is the science, and the spectacle of hundreds of years of wildlife frozen in time.

A highlight of the Mammoth Site is also the small attached museum. There’s some gorgeous reproductions here:

I especially enjoyed their pygmy mammoth, a species which lived nearly until historical time on the islands off the coast of Southern California (now Channel Islands National Park). Just the right size of for a family pet. Not so good as a family pet would be this fellow:

If you happen to know the species, please drop me a comment. It’s either a bear or a cat. It’s big enough to eat you.

The Black Hills Institute – Home of Stan™ the Dinosaur

One of the treasures of South Dakota is the Black Hills Institute, a museum and nonprofit which celebrates geology and paleontology in a densely packed but impressive collection in downtown Hill City. Hill City is a delightful stop for many reasons, but this is a big one.

The Institute is probably most famous for its involvement in the controversy over Sue the Dinosaur. A massive T-Rex, Sue was excavated by Institute’s staff, but after a contentious dispute ended up in Chicago, where she would go on to play fetch with Ben Stiller in “Night at the Museum.” Well ok, that wasn’t actually her, but I’m sure she would if she could.

But that controversy is of little matter to the visitor, who can still see Stan™ (yes, he’s trademarked), an enormous original T-Rex skeleton. Stan™ towers over the small museum. This is an opportunity to get a sense of how extraordinary these creatures really were. There are two creatures have the power to remind apes like ourselves of how small we really are: a living elephant, and a dead dinosaur.

Because the museum is so crowded, it feels like the T-Rex is running in a herd of dinosaurs, a la Jurassic Park. The smaller specimens are all fascinating. Many are originals, a few are replicas.

In addition to the displays the Institute has a large gift shop full of rocks, fossils, geological equipment, and an excellent selection of books on relevant subjects. If you actually ARE a scientist of some sort, or an amateur enthusiast, you’ll geek out.

Petrified Forest

The Petrified Forest is one of those old geological attractions that has an authenticity to it you don’t see in too many museums these days. Some of the exhibits are 30 or 40 years old, hand made, but explain the geology of the black hills to a layperson better than anything else I’ve seen. The site is on a ridge top on the property of the Elk Creek Resort and is in the city of Piedmont, a northern suburb of Rapid City. The forest is up a very steep, but short, dirt road in back of the resort (note: a shuttle is available at the resort if you don’t think your car can make it up the grade).

All visitors are given an introductory video on VHS – yes, VHS still exists – which though filmed at least 25 years ago, is an excellent overview of the geology of the area. The Black Hills are unique, and the story of how these isolated mountains erupted from a stark plain will change the way you look at this landscape. From there, visitors tour through a museum of carefully designed dioramas which further illustrate the point. If you are short of time though, you can just continue on to the trail with your self-guided tour card and walk out into a lovely forest. The trail passes numerous examples of petrified wood from the site, in some cases not moved from the original position.

That wood looks almost real, but in fact it is roughly 125 million years old. The trail is littered with these stumps and logs which are strewn as casually as the day they fell. There’s so much, it can be stacked up like cord wood.

This walk isn’t just nice for the petrified wood. The views from the ridge top are lovely.

Don’t let the lack of a sophisticated web site or the presence of a VCR put you off – this really is worth it for the geologically inclined. Kids might enjoy hunting for petrified logs, and trying to tell the difference between modern and ancient from a distance.

And one final thought: I have no idea if the owner is looking for a sponsor, or donations, but if someone has a pile of money to throw around, this place could be even more awesome. People with piles of money: please contact this guy. But let him do his thing, he’s good at it. See website link above.

Located at 8229 Elk Creek Road in Piedmont, SD, just a short drive off of I-90 northwest of Rapid City.

Vore Buffalo Jump

(Note: Closed during winter) There are probably several other places where Native Americans rounded up bison to be pushed off cliffs back when there were enough bison for this strategy to be both effective, and useful. This, however, may be the most accessible to a modern day visitor. On a windy rise right next to I-90 in Northeastern Wyoming, the Vore Buffalo Jump is an active paleontological and archeological site which got a brand new protective building in 2010 to help preserve the layers yet to be excavated. You pay a small fee to a volunteer and then hike down a spiral path into the pit. It’s like a miniature version of the Mammoth Site, but focused on Bison and Native American culture. Multiple tribes probably used this site over many years.

The jump is a good stop on the way back to Rapid City from Devil’s Tower (take exit 199) or a short trip out of Rapid City from the east (exit 205). Better directions are here. The day we were there, a couple of volunteers staffed the dig site and answered questions.

Before leaving, take a moment to look up at the ledge above. Though not the original contour of the land, it gives you an idea of how bison might have gone flying over the edge in a stampede.

Other geological attractions

There are several other ways to enjoy the rocks and the bones of the Black Hills.

Rock shops: It seems like the rock shops are scattered every few yards. Some of these are run by geologists with advanced degrees, others by knowledgeable enthusiasts, and any one of these intriguing stores can suck up an hour of your time (and a portion of your wallet). Tip: figure out if you need bookends before you leave home.

Turtle skeleton at Reptile Gardens: I’ll be posting a separate installment of this travelogue to cover the Reptile Gardens, but that attraction also has an ancient sea turtle skeleton that is pretty impressive:

I don’t know about you, but with the glass dome and all the plants that scene looked like the visitor’s center in Jurassic Park to me.

Museum of Geology: Finally, one attraction we missed on our trip was the Museum of Geology at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City. Their collection is said to be both vast and unexpected, including full skeletons of seagoing dinosaurs and giant hunks of gold. You can satisfy your scientific cravings and your inner greed in one stop. They even have a baby Plesiosaur from Antarctica and a gigantic Mesasaurus, which is a seagoing lizard that would have eaten you if you had taken a dip in the ocean way back when.

Don’t miss the rest of my Black Hills Travelogue – see the Table of Contents, here.

At the Guthrie Theater – Directed by Lisa Peterson – Runs through 26 Feb 2012

It’s been a while since I got down to the Guthrie – I’ve been distracted by the lovely Cowles Center on the other side of down town, as well as some traveling Broadway crews. But Cat looked like a good way to fill in one of the gaps in my theatrical education.  It’s an uneven production, with some stellar performances and a few weak spots, but worth the trip.

Emily Swallow as Maggie the Cat is stellar, and that’s fortunate. Not only does she have 90% of the lines in the first act, she plays against an oddly passive Brick (Peter Christian Hansen). Without this powerful Maggie, the energy would have drained from the room. Brick is supposed to be disconnected, uncooperative, and hostile; that’s just how he rolls. But this Brick crosses the line from obstacle to object. His presence on the stage at times is so passive he seems like set dressing. Even with his limited lines in this section of the play, I wanted Brick to be a bigger, more imposing, more noticeable guy. I needed him to be more brittle, more on the edge, and to have a lot more energy around him.This issue is far less noticeable in the second act, where Brick’s emotional climax was deftly handled. But I didn’t have a foundation upon which to appreciate it.

Big Daddy, played by David Anthony Brinkley, is perfect in his role of an old plantation boss on his way out. His climactic scenes with Brick are a highlight of the play. This is an actor who walks on stage with his character fully formed and understood without saying a word. Also notable was Melissa Hart as the long-suffering wife of Big Daddy, and a woman who has created a fantasy version of her husband. Her comic timing was excellent in a role that can easily become cartoonish, but in this case, succeeded.

Another feature of this production is the handling of the “No-Necked Monsters” who are the five children of Brick’s sneaky brother, Gooper. These young actors appeared to be having an absolutely fabulous time, as about every ten minutes they get to run screaming through the Guthrie, often shooting cap guns and otherwise causing mayhem. (I must admit some jealousy there. There’s been one or two theatrical productions over the years where I might have liked to do that, too.) The children’s costumes are bright and far too pretty, as if they are living dolls, and they sing horrifying inspirational tunes and say inappropriate things. This contingent was used to exactly the right degree, and did not overwhelm the production. Instead they created a comic thread that ran nicely throughout.

One sound note: we were in the 5th row, orchestra, and I had a hard time hearing Brick several times in the first act. This might have contributed to my perception of his energy. Didn’t have that issue with any of the other actors.

Other Resources
Star Tribune Review (This article may require subscription)
TC Daily Planet Review
Brainerd Dispatch Review
Twin Cities.com Review
Citypages – The Dressing Room Blog – Feature piece
Star Tribune feature piece
How Was the Show blog – Review

The Black Hills have numerous caves, but the two biggest and most impressive are in the national parks. I’ve already written about the fascinating Jewel Cave National Monument here, so it’s time to take a look at the more popular of the two, Wind Cave National Park.

Don’t miss the rest of the Black Hills Travelogue, here.

The first thing to know about Wind Cave National Park is that there’s just as much of interest above ground as below. Unlike Jewel Cave, which is a postage stamp surrounded by National Forest land, Wind Cave has over 28,000 acres of prime Bison and Prairie Dog habitat and plenty of wide pullouts for visitors to stop and enjoy the wildlife. The vistas here are rare: natural prairie barely exists in America anymore, and here you can look for miles and see landscapes similar to those encountered by Native Americans before the arrival of European settlers.

The Prairie Dog viewing in this park was the best we saw in the Black Hills, and second only to the viewing opportunities at Devil’s Tower N.M. in Wyoming. So if you’ve got chubby, chirping rodents on the brain, head to Wind Cave.

But most people go here to see what’s underground. And this is where our experience was a bit more mixed. Wind Cave has a plethora of tours – at times as many as 5 – and the selection is a bit confusing. We only had time for one, and so we chose the most popular, the “Garden of Eden” tour. We met the tour at the expansive visitors center:

Parking was tight, but manageable, though we were there during “shoulder season.” Parking could be an issue in the high season. We met our guide under a canopy close to the entrance out back. The tour was huge – at least 30 people, far too large (their limit is 40!). When I did tours of Oregon Caves National Monument as a guide there, we limited ourselves to 12. Sure, Oregon Caves is more hazardous than this relatively unchallenging route, but the smaller group gives the visitor a much better overall experience. There is a definite feeling of a cattle call at Wind Cave.

Visitors enter the cave through a door in the rock and quickly descend down a long, straight slope with stairs and low ceilings. It’s far more closed in than Jewel Cave, so claustrophobes beware. Our guide stopped to show us this cave’s “signature formation” – the speliothem for which the cave is internationally renowned. It’s called “Boxwork” because it looks like a grid of old mail slots. At Oregon Caves we had a couple of small examples of this, but at Wind Cave, the boxwork is everywhere.

What you’re looking are the echoes of cracks in the rock. Water oozes through the cracks and builds up formations in the same shape.

Once we’d seen the boxwork, it was a long slog to the end of the route, which for this tour is a low room with few features where the guide gave us the end of her canned lecture.

And that is my major objection to what’s going on at this cave. The guide was simply awful, and embodied all the major mistakes a tour guide can make: condescending tone; tour content clearly designed for small children with little of interest to adults; inability to answer even basic questions, betraying an underlying lack of knowledge – or care – about the science; and an inability to go off script and adjust to her group. It was like being led around by a computer-automated kindergarten teacher, and I mean no disrespect to kindergarten teachers. That they put this person in what appeared to be a ranger outfit was even more of an insult. I’d rather the Park Service not pretend it has real rangers when in reality it’s just employing part time college kids with no expertise, as was clearly the case here. Put them in another outfit. And don’t call the low-rent staff “rangers.”

Even more amusing (or not), at the beginning of the tour the guide asked us to tell her what other caves we’d been to. I volunteered that I’d worked at Oregon Caves as a guide. She said, “Oh yes, that’s a lava tube cave.” I said no, it’s a karst cave, predominantly marble. She actually disagreed and insisted it was a lava tube cave. I corrected her again and she moved on without acknowledging her mistake. Not only was she generally ignorant of the geology of Wind Cave (dispensing false notions about how long it takes cave formations to form, for example), she was willing to commit to wildly false information just to have something to say.

I really hope the National Park Service eventually recovers from all this endless budget cutting and misguided outsourcing and downgrading, but I’m not optimistic after seeing this.

Logistics: Wind Cave National Park is on the south end of the Black Hills, and borders the southern edge of Custer State Park. It’s easily reached in a day trip from Rapid City, Custer, or Hill City. There is a special cave tour for those with limited mobility, but the Park Service site gives no information on how extensive this tour is, so call ahead to make sure it’s worth your while.

It’s perfectly possible to visit, as we did, both Jewel Cave and Wind Cave on the same day, as both are on the southern end of the hills. You’ll just be doing a lot of stairs.

Parking was limited when we stopped by during the shoulder season and could be an issue during peak times.

Bottom line: if you’re visiting only one cave during your trip to the Black Hills, I recommend Jewel Cave. Though Jewel Cave has fewer formations (except its crazy preponderance of cave popcorn), the formations of interest on the Wind Cave Garden of Eden Tour – the most common tour – were mostly limited to the boxwork. While I nerded out on that fascinating formation, which is at its best in the world in this cave, I know from experience that the average visitor wants either amazing formations to see OR a fantastic guide who can bring the science alive and show them how special the cave is without needing the visual aid of a ten foot column. And this cave just hasn’t made the investment in interpretive staff. I base this not just on our guide, but on conversations I had with 5 other rangers while I was there – only one of them appeared to be experienced and knowledgable, and he wasn’t in the cave.

Jewel Cave, on the other hand, makes up for its lack of large formations with a much more grand, and mysterious, cave environment. And kids will love the cool elevators. The only upside I can see for Wind Cave is a far more developed visitor’s center, so larger families might find it more convenient.

Don’t miss the rest of the Black Hills Travelogue, here.

Les MIserables – Cameron Mackintosh production – Minneapolis at the Orpheum through Dec 18 2011.
I first saw Les Miserables (gasp) 25 years ago, as a birthday present from my parents when I was in junior high school. For a fourteen-year-old girl, Les Miserables is the perfect play: full of emotional depths and peaks, a couple of cute guys, and a feeling that yes, the entire world might end right now, but god, isn’t it BEAUTIFUL?

Fortunately, Les Miserables has enough going on to keep my, er, slightly older self just as engaged 25 years later. This new production is just different enough to feel fresh and modern, and sacrifices none of the good bits.

The “good bits” includes those great solos. J. Mark McVey’s Jean Valjean is a little quiet at first but he delivers where it counts. My personal favorite from the song list is “Bring Him Home,” and a thrill went through the audience after the last impossibly high, gentle note. His performance grows throughout the night until he fully claims the gravity of the role toward the end.

Javert’s (Andrew Varela) smooth baritone delivers throughout, and with this character was one of the more notable differences in the staging of the old vs new. In the original, Javert simply jumps off a bridge, presumably into a soft cushion in a pit. In this version, Javert goes high tech, in an intriguing combination of a massive video wall and flight cables so that he looked as if he were falling horizontally into a black hole. It felt a tiny bit silly, but I liked it anyway. Such is the power of Les Miserables.

And that video wall is used to great effect, more so in the second half of the show. The video wall – showing drawings based on author Victor Hugo’s own sketches – created the illusion of tunnels deep underground. At one point the innkeeper/thief character enters through dark portion of the screen, creating the convincing effect of a mysterious figure emerging from deep underground. These sorts of effects couldn’t have been imagined 25 years ago, and yet they don’t distract or overwhelm the play today. I for one am glad to see the lazy susan has been retired (previous productions had the barricades on  a rotating table).  Despite the high tech bells and whistles, this set helped focus more on the actors and the story by not creating a giant central focus/distraction.

The major negative of this performance was Fantine (Betsy Morgan), who shouts bitterly at the beginning of “I dreamed a dream.” Her performance seemed rushed; the timing was off in comparison to the rest of the show.

But after 25 years, Les Miserables still pleases the crowd, receiving one of the most spontaneous standing O’s I’ve seen in a while, from 2500 patrons. What is it that makes this play endure when other musicals, like “Cats” have become stale jokes? Hard to say, but I’d pin it on a combination of operatic style, emphasis on crowd-pleasing expansive vocal range, and a popular storyline of redemption against a wider historical backdrop. And one more thing – there’s not a trace of irony in this show. What comedy there is is brief, and largely physical. When you see Les Mis, you’re allowed to be that 14 year old girl again, caught up in the emotional roller coaster, all snark and cynicism having been left outside the theater.

Current exhibitions: Antiquities from Ukraine: Golden Treasures and Lost Civilizations and The Art of Oleg Vassiliev: Discovering 20th Century Russian Masters (both through Feb 19, 2012)

After visiting the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis last weekend, I made a decision: that this small museum, housed nonsensically in an attractive Spanish Mission-style building, is my pick for the best overall museum in the Twin Cities.

The Russian Museum isn’t the biggest, by a mile. Nor it is the most comprehensive. But every exhibit here is exquisitely curated in a way that genuinely advances a layperson’s understanding of the artist, movement, or historical period to a degree I haven’t seen elsewhere in Minnesota. Rather than just being a cheerleader for a particular culture, this museum takes the art and history seriously – trusting that such a dramatic and complex cultural region can be appreciated for its entre scope.

This time we enjoyed two radically different exhibits. In the main hall was a collection of Ukrainian antiquities, including pottery and food and drink vessels dating back over 5,000 years, and a few items going back 7,000 years. The condition of many of these was shockingly good. Though many had been restored and reassembled from pieces, there were a number of items in this age category that were largely intact – and seeing a hand made milk jug designed by human beings from that long ago is fascinating.

Toward the back of the gallery were the rooms of gold – treasures from buried stashes called “Hoards” that the various peoples of the Caucasus/Black Sea used to hide their valuables from an increasingly volatile world. Hoards, it turns out, were handy for keeping your stuff safe from marauding neighbors, but it appears many didn’t survive to claim their items, as this museum features many that were dug up after being abandoned thousands of years ago. Some of these pieces boggle the mind. A crown of gold leaves and acorns. Solid gold gryphons in various sizes. Heavy gold necklaces and diadems. Even a piece from an old Hungarian wedding crown. The craftsmanship was exquisite, and most were examples of the finest craftsmen of their day.  These treasures were displayed according to subsequent settlements in the general area of the modern Ukraine, and a walk through the displays in order gives an excellent overview of the rise and fall of tribal European cultures, including gruesome descriptions of burials in which dozens of young servants were slaughtered to keep their dead master company.

The second exhibit, both upstairs and down, was the art of Russian illustrator/artist Oleg Vassiliev, who now lives right here in Minnesota. Vassiliev’s work can also be enjoyed best by walking through the downstairs exhibit in order, as you can watch illustrations designed around a particular Checkov story (House with the Mezzanine) unfold, and later, the events of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia erupting from newspapers and other media. His popular children’s book illustrations are also featured in a cabinet downstairs.  My favorite works, though, are on the Mezzanine level, where some of his most recent paintings can be found. In contrast to some other Russian artists I’ve seen at this museum and elsewhere, Vassiliev is not painting highly realistic landscapes; his works all incorporate sophisticated graphic design, and play with perspective, contrast, collage, and abstract representations. In this way the whole collection, including the works from decades ago, feels fresh and current.

HAIRSPRAY – CDT – Directed by Michael Brindisi – Runs through May 26, 2012
It’s been about two years since my last stop at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater – maybe longer. The theater has changed ownership since then, and my return was predicated on the assumption a change in leadership might improve the experience. Last time around, the food was horrendous, the service confused, and the play roughly average. So how did CDT measure up this time around? MUCH better.

The Play
Hairspray is a modern musical adaptation of a musical film, which is also an adaptation of a previous film. It’s not hard to see why so many have taken a stab at this delightful story, which bubbles exuberantly from the stage in Chanhassen. From the compact set decorated in happy colors and unexpected lighting effects, to the glittering costumes that make even the enormous Edna Turnblad seem fashionable, to the high-energy choreography, this is the sort of production that gets an entire audience legally high.

Therese With is perfectly cast as Tracy Turnblad and throws herself completely into the role without becoming cartoonish. Another standout for me was Kasono Mwanza as Seaweed – his gorgeous voice, along with his elegant dance moves, stole more than a few scenes.  And the choreography by Tamara Kangas Erickson was so detailed, and so uncompromising, I was amazed it was all happening on such a small stage.  Even the choreography in the fantastic H.M.S. Pinafore production at the Guthrie last year doesn’t come close to what was accomplished here with far more constraints.

One of the things I love about live theater is that it’s never the same twice, and our show was certainly no exception. During what was supposed to be a “love song” between Edna Turnblad (played for maximum effect by David Anthony Brinkley) and her beloved husband (Jay Albright) something went wrong, and we were treated to about five minutes of improvisational comedy that had the audience roaring with laughter. Albright got in so many zingers I wanted to send him over to the comedy cabaret to finish his thoughts after the show.  When something goes awry, actors always have to make a choice – ignore, adapt, or embrace. This was, appropriately, the latter.

The Food
The dining has improved drastically since my terrible experience with the last owners – ingredients are better, and some of the dishes are quite good (mother loved the lasagna). But a lack of bus staff was crippling their service on the night we were there. At one point, our food arrived, but there was nobody to take away the salad dishes, so they put our food down and left it on a nearby table for about ten minutes until someone came and took the salad plates away. By then my rib tips were lukewarm. And twice more during the evening, we had to chase someone down to clear our plates.

I’d love to see this theater continue to improve. The show was such high quality, a bump in the quality of the food and service seems worthwhile.

Other Resources
Twin Cities Metro review of Hairspray at CDT
Citypages review of Hairspray at CDT
Minnesota Monthly review of Hairspray at CDT
Star Tribune review of Hairspray at CDT

Sioux Falls isn’t exactly in the Black Hills – actually, it’s on the other side of the state – but if you’re driving from the east, you’ll likely spend the night there on the way to South Dakota’s more traditional tourist destinations. For some travelers, Sioux Falls seems like a frustrating stop in “flyover country” on the way to the Hills, but there’s enough to do here to spend a day or two, and one of the sights – the falls themselves – matches anything else in the region as a destination on its own.

Go the Black Hills Travelogue Table of Contents

The Falls
Most of Sioux Falls is low one and two story structures, built without any apparent focus. Though civilization fades quickly outside the core city, the sense of sprawl is still there, and most areas have a distinctly utilitarian look. But the city has been working hard on improving the areas close to the Big Sioux River, and the famous Sioux Falls themselves, and that is the main attraction here:

The falls and rapids cover several acres and there is a constant roar of water. Paths snake up both sides of the river and the downtown – where the tallest buildings in the state reside – is visible in the background.  This photo was taken from the viewing tower, which is open to the public and free of charge.  The tower is recently built and completely accessible – it has a nice elevator, as well as a gift shop. You really shouldn’t drive through this town without at least a short stop at Falls Park.

Another view from up top, this one showing the bridge which knits the two sides together.  The building has a small cafe. In the wintertime, this view lights up – the city turns the park into “Winter Wonderland” with colored lights. This year the show runs from Nov 19, 2011 – Jan 08, 2012. I found a good pic of this on the new Sioux Falls tourism site, but you’ll have to wait for it to rotate into view at the top of the page.

When we crossed the river we got different, but equally spectacular, views. In springtime the hard pinkish quartz is juxtaposed with lush green lawns.

And one final look at the falls as the sun goes down.

Great Plains Zoo
The second major attraction in Sioux Falls for the out of town visitor is the Great Plains Zoo. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to recommend this zoo, due to small size. But expansions for the last couple of years have brought rhinos into the mix, and it’s worth the stop. We found it only a few minutes from our hotel (Clubhouse Inn; highly recommended).

 In the spring and summer the giraffes will be out, as well as dozens of other animals. We saw a large number of big cats, and an interesting bird collection. Most of the exhibits had been upgraded to modern, tolerable sizes, though I felt the primate area was a little inadequate.   But the main attraction for this zoo is its rare black rhinos.

The Eastern black rhino is exceptionally rare, and given the recent declaration of extinction for the Western Black Rhino, zoos are becoming life rafts for the rhinos that are left. Only about 3,000 Eastern Black Rhinos exist in the wild, mainly due to poaching. Because of this, the zoo often has a baby rhino on hand due to captive breeding programs. And baby rhinos are all kinds of cute. You can also see these guys in winter in their indoor pen.

Another notable exhibit is the tigers. I believe there were more tigers than usual while we were there due animals displaced by flooding near another zoo in Minot, ND, and perhaps this explained the restless behavior we observed. One of the tigers became fascinated by a woman’s motorized wheelchair and as I watched, the tiger stalked her back and forth, watching her closely as she moved around. The woman figured this out and decided to play along, riding her chair back and forth, and the tiger couldn’t look away, following her every movement. This went on for over fifteen minutes. Note to the Great Plains Zoo: spare no expense on that fence…

Below, a final look at a ubiquitous zoo peacock perched on a Japanese-themed building near the entrance. The entire zoo can be easily seen in a couple of hours, and snacks and refreshments are available. There’s also a large indoor museum of life-sized statues dinosaurs and other magafauna. The zoo and falls alone make Sioux Falls good place to rest before pushing on to the Black Hills, 300 miles west, or before returning to Iowa or Minnesota to the East. If you want more, check out the new Sioux Falls tourism site for ideas.

Go the Black Hills Travelogue Table of Contents for more photos and commentary on travel in South Dakota.

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s “Wonderland” certainly promises a lot.  Promotional materials feature dramatic costumes, emphasizing rich colors; the Queen is featured with a wild expression, her stiff blond hair juxtaposed with her sculptural red dress. We’re expecting these dramatic elements to carry through the show, and we’re expecting to have a lot of fun.  I caught the show on Nov. 13, 2011, in Minneapolis on the weekend of its American debut.

Unfortunately, Wonderland delivers only periodically throughout the night.   Segments of visual and technical brilliance flow into relatively desaturated, muted passages. Choreography ranges from sprightly and energetic (eg, the group of “Tooney Loons” which appear throughout the production and punctuate various scenes) to oddly staid and traditional (the dance of the live flowers).  Technical elements, including video and voiceovers, are overwhelming at times, or are entirely absent. For me, this resulted in an inconsistent pace and a bit of frustration that even the most charming moments couldn’t quite overcome.

To understand what is going on in this version of Wonderland – a narrative that is commonly done by ballets throughout the world – you should first understand what it is not. Take a look at a minute or two of this English production on youtube: the Winnipeg Ballet Wonderland is the exact opposite of that.   Cute animals in full muppet-like headgear this is not, and therein lies the Winnipeg production’s greatest strength – it’s sophisticated costume design. With only a couple of misses the costumes were whimsical and full of color and odd accessories and patterns, as well as unexpected structures. The Queen is well dressed, but I also enjoyed Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, who had wire beer bellies hanging from their thin dancer frames.  The misses included the rabbit, who needed a tad more actual rabbit to be convincing, and Alice, who is curiously dressed in red for the second half of the show and blends into the Queen’s dress when standing in her presence. Unfortunately those are the two leads, but their costuming issues were overshadowed by the better outfits of the rest of the company.

The dancing is skilled – I was particularly impressed by the Mock Turtle, who has an extended solo (Nurzhan Kulybaev), and the Rabbit who dances throughout the show (Harrison James).  There weren’t too many solo dances, though, and there were many sequences where huge numbers of dancers were on stage doing completely different things, making it hard to focus on individual choreography.

The opening sequence shows off the technology that probably highlights the show for many patrons. Moving projection screens are used to great effect, allowing for all sorts of illusions, characters appearing and disappearing and moving designs of leaves or expanding paisleys.  The computer graphics are very well designed and the constant movement of the imagery on stage, stretching from the top to the bottom of the visible area, is exciting. When the show really loses momentum is when the colors projected on the screens occasionally dial back to blacks and maroons or monotones. the worst example of this was the Dance of the Live Flowers, in which the flowers are all white, and nothing else seems to be going on for quite a while. The dancing here was also very traditional, and for a few minutes I felt as if I’d walked into another production – only to be jarred back into the quirky world of THIS Wonderland, where the Queen does interviews with the paparazzi and the Wheel of Fortune puzzle board briefly appears on the stage.

And that takes me to what I’m going to call the fatal flaw of this production: the Queen. It’s clear the producers believe this Queen is their biggest asset, as she is front and center not only on the brochures, but throughout the second act. She is also an esteemed veteran dancer. That would be fine if they hadn’t handed her a megaphone and told her to interrupt multiple, extended scenes. I wish I was kidding, but this is actually part of the production: the Queen takes a modern, powered megaphone, and shouts what are assumed to be clever remarks through it again and again and, unfortunately, again.

What is a cute joke in keeping with the quirkiness of the show quickly becomes annoying as the Queen seems to shout randomly without regard to the action or the music, and is often hard to understand. When she can be understood, she complains about the choreography or makes other inside-baseball type jokes about the show, a la Jane Lynch on “Glee”. This is then amplified by a video segment projected over half the stage in which the Queen is chased by paparazzi back stage and asked questions. That segment actually seemed like an interesting idea – if the script had been any good.  Instead it’s drawn out too long and lacks the creative verbal style I would associate with a world-dominating angry queen.

You add to that the heavy handed but vague intro and ending voice over, and I would have liked this ballet to be less wordy. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but they needed better writers.

My biggest question of the night was this: does Wonderland want to be a ballet, or a play? I could pull out a few scenes to make it either one, but altogether, it doesn’t quite work.

Other resources:
Minneapolis Star Tribune review of Royal Winnipeg Ballet “Wonderland” (disagrees with me on almost every point! Fabulous!)
Toronto Globe & Mail review of Royal Winnipeg Ballet “Wonderland”
Feature article on Wonderland at Vancouver’s Straight.com
Straight.com review of Royal Winnipeg Ballet “Wonderland”
 CBC Arts feature story on Wonderland Ballet
Canadian blogger Schmutzie with a candid take on Wonderland