kimono

Get excited theatre lovers! Today is none other than the Tony Awards!! To celebrate the occasion, I had to don something sufficiently zany, but (if I do say so myself) wholeheartedly FABULOUS. Can’t you just see Gloria Swanson walking down a boardwalk adorned as such, tipping her sunglasses and crooking those ominous eyebrows? Or maybe I could belatedly join Anything Goes? I think the closest aesthetic I could fit to anything currently playing would be the King and I, up for a best revival nomination, but it’s quite a stretch (and I’d need to trade in the trousers for a hoop skirt). Ah well, I will have to content myself to watching. For those of you who don’t know, competing for Best Musical are:

An American in Paris: two (coincidentally very good dancers) fall in love in Paris after WW2- think old Gene Kelly
Fun Home- a woman realizes she’s a lesbian at the same time her father struggles with the fact he is gay- based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel)
Something Rotten- two aspiring playwrights try to outdo Shakespeare in the 1590s by writing the first musical- the makers of Avenue Q and Book of Mormon collaborate on this for nothing short of comic hilarity
The Visit- the richest woman in the world returns to her poverty-stricken hometown. What will happen?- based on a Swiss 1956 play of the same name (but in Swiss)

For Best Original score, switch out An American in Paris and add The Last Ship, or Sting’s (you heard me right) new musical currently on Broadway. The musical focuses on a man who returns to the shipyards of his hometown after his father’s death and tries to woo an old flame…

I am very conflicted as to what to vote for. Fun Home is probably the most controversial, and though it addresses issues not covered before of the Great White Way, to me the modern musical scores are kind of hokey. Ring of keys (the song that will be preformed from it tonight) centers around the word “swagger,” which ends up annoying me so much that I can’t listen to it. Telephone Wire is catchier, but uses what seems to me an obvious metaphor that feels stale when it becomes more of a symbol than an object.

I haven’t heard how they’ve redone an American in Paris or anything from The Visit. Something Rotten is very funny but has frequent language (making it, I think, less applicable to universal audiences, even if it is truer to Shakespeare’s usage). Further, as the title promises, a lot of the jokes are “rotten” as in more base toilet humor, which I find boring after a few times, personally. So! I guess I’ll just have to see who wins.

Real talk: Today’s outfit was shamelessly inspired by the wardrobe of the heroine in my new favorite Murder Mysteries Mini-series (scoot over Angela Landsbury). Meet Miss Phryne Fisher of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. There will be more to come on this topic in future posts.

My Mimi used to tell me, “When God was giving out _________, you must have been at the water fountain.” She would fill in that blank with anything from common sense to patience (depending on the variation of my mood of the moment). Well in the past week I’ve felt this way about the “kimono” craze. It’s like I walked to the water fountain, and when I got back everyone was decked out in gag-me-“Eastern,” amorphous pieces of drapey fabric, aka glorified “ethnic” or “tribal” rugs.

Kimono?

Welp, now that it’s here I might as well all get myself an over-sized cardigan too. At least it would cover my failed attempts at tanning over Spring Break, and it comes not a moment too soon for festival season!

But now that we’re on the topic, let me just go ahead and voice the elephant in the room: should this shameless cultural appropriation (“kimono”) be blamed on the artistic groupthink that is Coachella?

I know what you’re thinking, Rebecca, “kimono” translates literally into “thing to wear,” making it a perfectly apt word for these window treatments people are donning. And you have a point. Nevertheless, in a needless effort to curb Americans’ perceived ignorance (don’t remind me of freedom fries), I propose the term “festival fringe” to describe these flowy cardigans. Let’s be honest, its just as terrible as the word “kimono” in describing these articles. How to use it in a sentence?

Hey girl, do you have your festival fringe for Coachella?
My festival fringe is cray. I feel like Woodstock revisited.
I did NOT feel like getting dressed this morning. Thank goodness for festival fringe.

But I know, I know, many of you are unphased and would still like a good ol’ fashioned kimono, regardless of my commentary. So I’ve gathered a few recommendations.