rev:text
| - What a perfect night!
The whole family went to see "Anything Goes", where my cousin Vincent Rodriguez III played one of the main roles. So proud of him. We took up eleven spaces with all the kiddies in tow. It was a delight that they enjoyed the show, for it was old school with not much prop stimulation, just good old fashioned singing and tap dancing.
Wright's last masterpiece is a gaudy one, at best...love him for that. What the Shah of Iran lost, we received. Yipee! They must not drink as much in that part of the world, because Wright did not take into consideration how much Phoenicians use the potty, especially us women. Then again, let's be Frank here, form follows function that has been misunderstood. Only one stall on the main floor was bladder busting. I had to run up several floors to find a shorter line. Even in cocktail dress and high heels, I got up the ramp pretty quickly! There are bars and snack concessions, if you need to wet your whistle and/or whet your appetite.
Gammage has a very open layout with a wrap around stadium seating and an unobstructed view of the grand stage. I didn't see much reminiscent of Wright's earlier works. The superfluous "Baghdadish" design exterior is not exactly a dead give away. No stooping down entrances, then the "wow" factor... not there. There are the clean lines and the simplicity of the interior, which many of today's contemporary architects bestow, are so very Wright.
Heed the parking warning. Get there at least an hour before a show. Wright's hatred of parking lots bastardizing his designs are clearly exhibited here.
The Gammage is one of the first building I fell in love with when I first moved to Phoenix. I wonder what Frank's thoughts would have been if he had seen his last design come to fruition. I'll take a past quote and plug it in for him:
"Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age." --Frank Lloyd Wright
|