Metro Weekly Magazine: Print Edition for Oct. 10, 2019
By Randy Shulman
on
October 10, 2019
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Fanny Brice really was the greatest star, at least at the Ziegfeld Follies. The famously expressive singer-comedian headlined the premier Broadway theatrical revue for years in the 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s, then segued to radio stardom, motion pictures, and a hit-making recording career highlighted by signature songs “Second-Hand Rose” and “My Man.”
But Fanny appeared in only a few films of note, and folks don’t much listen to her music anymore. Her legacy as a performer has largely been supplanted by the popularity of Funny Girl, the musical that’s loosely based on her life and that the whole world associates with a different funny girl from New York City.
Russian authorities reportedly forced at least two men to participate in a sting designed to entrap and imprison gay men.
Matvey Volodin, a Moscow resident who creates adult content under the name USSRboy, was lured by police in the autonomous Republic of Dagestan, located in the North Caucasus region, according to the independent investigative Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Volodin -- who reportedly identifies as a heterosexual who has sex with men -- came to Dagestan in late May in response to an invitation from presumed fans who contacted him online and told them they had rented him an apartment in Makhachkala, Dagestan's largest city.
READ THIS REVIEW IN THE MAGAZINE
The global phenomenon known as Cats began percolating in 1977 when composer Andrew Lloyd Webber decided to musicalize segments from T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, one of his favorite childhood books. One can only imagine Webber's pitch to producer Cameron Mackintosh a few years later.
"Cameron, I'm imagining a musical set in a junkyard, based entirely on these stories of cats. But the actors portray the cats with costumes and make-up and they move as though they are felines. There is no dialogue. They all just sing and dance. Also, the plot is paper-thin. It involves an older figure, Old Deuteronomy, who after witnessing their stories through song, chooses one of the junkyard cats to ascend to kitty heaven for eternal life."
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