Theatre Talk: In Our Own Little Corner

[aradia22]

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Feldstein entertains with her wide-eyed, goofy antics, mugging to the audience at every turn and hitting all the "oys" in her Yiddishisms with extra gusto in her wandering Brooklyn accent. It's broad and campy, and often succeeds in landing the laugh. Her shtick, however, feels more grasping than authentically character driven.

Fanny Brice — a famous comedian, singer, and actor of the early 1900s — is framed in the musical as an unlikely but ultimately destined star. Raised in a Brooklyn saloon by Jewish immigrants (the very much not Jewish Jane Lynch plays her mother Rosie with plenty of Brooklyn shtick herself, but is more consistent and convincing in her comedy), Fanny has neither the glamor nor comportment for traditional stage roles. But a combination of persistence, outsize confidence, and irrefutable talent lands her at the center of the Ziegfeld Follies. What we should be seeing onstage is a fish in water — a girl proven worthy of every crumb of ego she touts the moment she steps into lighting designer Kevin Adams's spotlight. What Feldstein instead shows us is a talented performer working overtime to land the next bit. She may succeed, but seeing her reach for the bar only exposes the fact that she's not soaring over it.

Feldstein's vocal performances land in similarly territory: capable but controlled. Her singing is lovely (and sound designer Brian Ronan successfully sends it to the balcony), but the growling jazz number "Cornet Man" sounds just as pretty as the vulnerable ballad "People." Mayer has Feldstein stand at the top of a ladder for a large portion of Fanny's famous "I Want" song, "I'm the Greatest Star," as if to give her more physical space to encompass (David Zinn's attractive but cramped set, opening in the center like a time capsule, almost seems to offer its star a more condensed space in which to operate). Height, however, can't create the explosion of pent-up yearning that the song needs, and what we get is levitated stagnation. What's ultimately lost in this vice grip on performance is the fascinating dichotomy between Fanny, the unmatched performer, and Fanny, the self-doubting woman willing to surrender her cherished superpower for a man who simply finds her beautiful.

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Ramin Karimloo is perfectly cast as Nick Arnstein, the gorgeous but slippery gambler who makes Fanny a "Sadie, Sadie, married lady." Their chemistry is not exactly palpable but their cat-and-mouse game in "You Are Woman, I Am Man" makes for some of the show's most entertaining physical comedy. Karimloo and Feldstein also beautifully duet to "Who Are You Now?" — traditionally a Fanny Act II solo but now a shared reprise of the song Fanny sings at the very top of the show as she remembers all these shadows of the past. It's one in a handful of updates Harvey Fierstein has made to Lennart's book that reinforces Fanny's place as our storyteller in this memory play. It simultaneously requires the tectonic shifts in Fanny's character between these clearly marked bookends to be discernable by an audience. Most, unfortunately, are hidden by either quirky tics or far-off wistful gazes at nothing in particular (Susan Hilferty's costumes often feel underwhelming but they effectively trace Fanny's growth into maturity, from loose and childish to cinched and womanly).

But lest we forget, Funny Girl is not a one-woman show. Jared Grimes, in fact, steals all of his scenes as Fanny's friend and collaborator Eddie Ryan, performing Ayodele Casel's exhilarating tap choreography with ease and style. Casel shares choreographing duties with Ellenore Scott, whose traditional musical theater numbers like "Henry Street," featuring a fantastic ensemble of dancers, bring you back to the joyful aesthetic of Golden Age musicals.

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/review-beanie-feldstein-funny-girl_93691.html

[aradia22]

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Building an immense show around one person is a gamble. In 1910, the impresario Florenz Ziegfeld rolled the dice with the comic performer Fanny Brice — he invited her to headline his Follies, a recurring series of spectacles constructed around the flawless, interchangeable Ziegfeld girls. In that year, and intermittently for decades after, Brice was the axis for his carousel of glitz. A brilliant comedienne, Brice soon perfected her wildly popular, pratfalling, face-pulling shtick, and then, once Ziegfeld asked her to do the song “My Man” straight in 1921, she became a great tragic singer, too. As a humorist, she had become a galactic star. But Ziegfeld had seen another color in her — and the risk paid off.

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Some of Feldstein’s assets do make the trip over from film: She’s winningly fresh; she gives great “bumble;” she has beautiful eyes the size of hubcaps, which roll and twinkle and flirt. In the first act, when Brice is an inexperienced gal blustering her way into the big time, Feldstein exudes a nice mix of hard-charging ambition and surprised giddiness when she succeeds. But in song after song, Feldstein’s voice lets her down. Piercing and unpleasant when it gets any higher than her chest, fading and pitchy when it descends even a few steps, it’s simply not a sound you expect to hear on Broadway. Styne and lyricist Bob Merrill wrote some stunners for Funny Girl, including “People” and “Don’t Rain on my Parade.” The latter song sits in Feldstein’s narrow comfort range, and so she blasts it out — particularly its final note — with foghorn force (if not phrasing). Everything else, though, goes sour.

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There’s a palpable sense that the rest of the production is running hard to make up the relay. The night I saw it, the overture got excited applause — as the orchestra hit certain recognizable strains, director Michael Mayer bumped the lightbulbs around the proscenium, and the crowd (already in love with Beanie? With the music? With memories?) gave little shrieks of delight. It’s not exactly the musical you remember, though. Harvey Fierstein has created a new version of Isobel Lennart’s book, cutting a good chunk of dialogue and restructuring the second act so that it focuses on Brice’s feckless beloved, Nick Arnstein (Ramin Karimloo). Fierstein has said he wanted to find the Funny Girl we remember inside the Funny Girl that actually was. Apart from some rather confusingly reapplied songs (the newly interpolated “Temporary Arrangement” needs to convey a lot — and doesn’t), he does the job.

Whatever Fierstein’s contributions, it’s still a musical written in Brice’s dominating shadow: the original producer Ray Stark was her son-in-law. So if you want to know how she actually elbowed her way up the vaudeville circuit, you’ll need to look elsewhere. The messy truth is far from Lennart’s misty-eyed libretto, which elides the real Fanny’s first marriage and her many trips to Sing Sing, where she visited her mooching, criminal, married beau. You sense that harsher reality struggling under the musical’s hagiographic blanket, though, especially in the way Brice’s character flattens and falsifies in the second half.

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It’s lucky, therefore, that Karimloo brings a honeyed voice and such capacity to his part. His Nick is a sexpot (not to spoil anything, but he did pioneer the shirtless Valjean moment in Les Misérables), a clown (during a very silly seduction scene, he bounces from the floor to a chaise while remaining perfectly horizontal), a charming addict, a secret boor, and, in a superb final moment, a broken man. Jane Lynch flutters at him, as do all the busybody noodges down in Brooklyn (Toni DiBuono is a particularly good Mrs. Strakosh), and his sweetness with them and with Fanny carries a great deal of the first act. He and Feldstein make their early romance flicker with humor and heat — her zany awkwardness makes him feel awkward, which, for a smoothie like Nick Arnstein, must feel like getting hit by a bus. Feldstein seems flummoxed by the transition to more adult scenes in part two, however, and Karimloo winds up playing those almost as if he’s alone.

Funny Girl does not want you to think about that too much, so it hurls dance-filled production numbers to distract you. Admittedly, Mayer and choreographer Ellenore Scott’s Follies don’t feel that glamorous, despite the amazing costumes by Susan Hilferty (women dressed as flowers, as silver soldiers, as … leggy wedding centerpieces?) and various explosions into virtuosic tap choreographed by Ayodele Casel. Perhaps it’s because of a pervading visual glumness: David Zinn’s set consists of two black spiral staircases and a central playing area that closes over occasionally with curving brick walls — these make some scenes look like they’re being played outside a lighthouse. The big extravaganzas are still welcome, though.

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But this is not really a show about shows—it’s a show about a woman. It spends most of its time with her, listening to her, sympathizing with her. When it comes to function, Fanny’s songs are the whole caboodle: They must explain Brice’s titanic success, they should carry the narrative forward, and they need to do something painful to our hearts. Feldstein cannot sing them. It seems brutal to place a woman in such an exposed position, where a whole Broadway production rests on notes she can’t sustain. Though, you know, I don’t think it’s inevitable that a strained, everyday voice would necessarily ruin the calculation at the heart of the musical. Funny Girl is itself preoccupied with celebrity, and the mechanisms of fan-love are an un-extractible part of the experience. Why was Brice such an immense star? Watching clips of her work, it seems a mystery; some alchemy must have taken place, and we in the future are missing the chemical ingredients. I can picture a version of Funny Girl that makes that case — that an odd lady with an odd voice nevertheless had it. But Feldstein doesn’t give us that, either. Vocal issues, you can work around. But presence? That one, you gotta have.

Oof. Those are some rough comments for a Helen Shaw review. I do appreciate how, whenever possible, she tries to contextualize a show and add a history lesson.

https://www.vulture.com/2022/04/theater-review-funny-girl-beanie-feldstein.html

[Spartan Girl]

Next season for the Wharton Center has been announced! Pretty Woman, Jagged Little Pill, Beetlejuice, Tina, Wicked, and Jesus Christ Superstar! 

I guess I should’ve figured Pretty Woman and JCS because they were supposed to come this season and got postponed. And Wicked was the show I was suppos3d to see in 2020 right before everything went you-know-what. Beyond psyched to see Beetlejuice and Tina!

Not gonna lie, was reeeeeeeeeeeeally hoping for Six because that’s going to be in Grand Rapids. But that means it’ll be coming at some point 🙏🏻

[bosawks]

10 hours ago, aradia22 said:

Oof. Those are some rough comments for a Helen Shaw review. I do appreciate how, whenever possible, she tries to contextualize a show and add a history lesson.

https://www.vulture.com/2022/04/theater-review-funny-girl-beanie-feldstein.html

I thought the Vulture review was very measured.

I've never been a fan of the book and Act II is always a slog and they needed a casting homerun to get me to consider it.

From the clips she seems fine but, wow, the staging looks DARK.

[Dr.OO7]

Some news:

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Jordan-Donica-Maree-Johnson-and-Kanisha-Marie-Feliciano-Join-THE-PHANTOM-OF-THE-OPERA-20220425

Jordan Donica will be returning to the part of Raoul on May 29 (I'm not sure for how long), so for a while, we'll have a black Christine and Raoul, like in London.

And Kanisha Marie Feliciano will become the FOURTH black actress to play Christine when she joins as the Christine alternate/understudy.

 

[aradia22]

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Plays written by women, directed by women, and starring women are rare — if not non-existent, making POTUS a unicorn on Broadway. [...] Playwright Selina Fillinger (The Morning Show) appears to have sat down at her keyboard in an especially “c*nty” mood (her word, not mine) and laughed off her heartbreak by creating a pandora’s box of political parody seething with bodily fluids, failings, and functions.

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Sadly, these women mostly come across as stereotypes: Harriet (Julie White), a mannish, harried careerist; Stephanie (Rachel Dratch), her imposter syndrome-riddled assistant; Dusty (Julianne Hough), the blue slushy, blowjob-loving Midwestern mistress; and Chris (Lilli Cooper), an ambitious, do-anything-for-a-scoop reporter. Even the president’s butch lesbian sister-with-a-criminal-record Bernadette (Lea DeLaria) is a retread of Big Boo from Orange Is the New Black — but what’s not to love about DeLaria’s bulldyke in a china shop act? This isn’t Shakespeare. This is the clown car of caricatures surrounding an incompetent president.

Only intense, double minority (Asian, lesbian) press secretary Jean (Suzy Nakamura) feels like a new character. At the same time, the queenlike miracle that is Vanessa Williams as the president’s strangely detached wife, Margaret, rises above the fray with true First Lady vibes — and she rocks her stiletto Crocs.

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You can feel Fillinger’s disgust at this country’s gender inequity in the endless quantities of vomit, blood, and breast milk that soak this play. You might think you’re arriving for sharp feminist political commentary. You’re really coming for an episode of Veep put through a Saturday Night Live blender and turned into a blue slushy. It might make you happy and feel good. It might make you sick. Either way, it’s a purge.

https://www.queerty.com/potus-carries-clown-car-caricatures-onto-broadway-20220427

Honestly, I have no idea what to think still. It's been getting good word of mouth. If I'm not too busy, I'll check in with their covid policies after April 30th.

[aradia22]

I saw The Skin of Our Teeth at the Vivian Beaumont tonight. I had a tension headache by intermission so I'll need a little time before formulating a review.

[SomeTameGazelle]

I'm seeing good reviews of Jake Epstein's show Boy Falls from the Sky . 

[choclatechip45]

I saw Take Me Out this afternoon. I thought Patrick J Adams, Jesse Williams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson were all fantastic. I highly recommend it to anyone on the fence. 

 

 

 

 

[aradia22]

OK, so ideally I would write all recaps when I'm in a good mood or fired up. But I don't think we can keep waiting on that forever with the backlog I've got going. So we're just going to go off my notes and see how much we can get through. 

The Skin of Our Teeth

tl;dr version: Beautiful dinosaur puppet. Some good moments. I hated act 2 and it felt like a very long night overall. I wish there was a way to skip the ensemble scenes and Priscilla Lopez as the fortune teller because those moments really felt like they slowed down the rest of the night. If not for the two moments I mention in act 2, I'd sit it out entirely and just watch act 1 and act 3.

For this production of the play, I thought it made a lot of sense to map the story onto 1950's gender and nuclear family dynamics. It played well with the conflicts within the family as the story unfolded. Mr. Antrobus is the patriarch, the brilliant inventor, who leaves the domestic sphere to do all these “important” things and then absolves himself of responsibility for the children and relationships he isn’t nurturing. Henry/Cain is basically a representation of toxic masculinity, a kind of violence that can’t be excised, partially because of the permissive protectiveness of Mrs. Antrobus. Meanwhile, Gladys, their daughter, is forced to be “perfect.” In act 1, she’s not allowed makeup. In act 2, she’s reprimanded for colorful tights. Her father largely ignores her except when he needs reassurance about his perfect family and his legacy. (I found the growling voice that James Vincent Meredith used, especially in act 1, to be a little difficult to decipher.)

I understood the choice to have Gabby Beans recite her lines in act 1 as Sabina like an actress who didn't really understand the play she was in. However, because she had so much of the script to deliver, it really forces the audience to work hard when she's not giving the words proper inflection or acting them and instead just rattling them off. It also inhibited the biggest moment of direct tension between Sabina and Mrs. Antrobus in act 1 which establishes their relationship for the rest of the play. 

On that note, I'm not sure about the depiction of women in this play. You see how the women are trapped in their roles throughout the play but it really comes out in act 2 when Natasha (Sabina) stops the performance and when Mrs. Antrobus throws the bottle into the sea. Wilder lampshades the fact that he's created female characters who aren't real women. And yet, even in the asides, he never rises to meet that challenge. Maybe he feels incapable or like it's not his place.

I don’t know if I totally grasped what they were trying to convey in act 3. I think I'm slowly coming around to the conclusion that I like this play if the point is that none of the women in the play are accurate but we should listen to real women; and the focus on a literary canon or male achievement or upholding the family and the importance of the patriarch is what keeps dooming human society. I dislike this play if the point is that you just have to keep trying and making it work because toxic masculinity will always be there and other people need your beef cubes and ultimately you do need your husband to come home with his fancy book learning to help rebuild society again and again. I can't say what version of the play this production was presenting or which interpretation is closer to Wilder's original vision.

Edited May 5, 2022 by aradia22

[aradia22]

A review of Baby off-Broadway with Julia Murney

I went into this show knowing the song “The Story Goes On” and thinking of it as a Liz Callaway musical. I left this production thinking of the show as a lesser, now dated entry in musical theater history and wishing this production would have been bolder in its reimagining of the material. I know the book was written by Sybille Pearson but when the book writer isn’t involved with the lyrics, the music stands on its own and this show really distinctly felt like it was written by men and from another decade despite the attempts to make it more inclusive and contemporary. I would compare the way this show is pro-baby to how Waitress handles things. In both shows, characters struggle with their pregnancies, no one opts to get an abortion, and babies are greeted joyfully when they’re born. But Waitress is so immersed in a female point-of-view where this show is obviously not.

It's hard to recall exactly what felt so dated about the storylines and lyrics this long after seeing the show without listening to the OBC album. I just wish more had been changed to make the student couple feel like contemporary young people and to make the lesbian couple a part of the show rather than fitting them around the old framework. The music was also dated. There were proto-contemporary musical theater ballads but mostly very talky songs. The little musical flourishes just felt so rooted in a particular time but there were also whole songs that had a sensibility that did not translate. I wrote that it was like Falsettos without the charm. The humor was painfully unfunny and without singers who could make it effortless, the show came across as melodically confusing. Why those notes with that phrasing? Also, in this production, the drums were way too loud which made everything worse. With a small band, the music couldn’t swell and the drums were just fighting against the style of music. The vocal performances were not calibrated for the space, alternately too loud and too quiet.

Julia Murney was fantastic and it was thrilling to watch one of her performances in such a small space even if I didn’t love the material. Jamila Sabares-Klemm has a strong, capable voice and seemed to be the most natural actor after Julia. The rest of the cast floundered. I do blame the material in part because it was tough to make it coherent. But the acting was also amateurish and unfortunately, I thought the couple that signed was not up to par with acting or vocals. It was very high school and they weren’t that young. The actors were definitely game and earnest though.

The seats were aggressively uncomfortable. The direction wasn’t too bad given the pole right in the center of the space but there were some questionable choices like the staging of The Story Goes On. Richard Maltby Jr. wore his mask below his nose the whole time and it slipped farther when he fell asleep. He napped through much of the performance I attended.

[Lady Whistleup]

I went to the Encores! production of Into the Woods last night. it was AWESOME!!!! Absolutely joyous three hour evening. I wrote a review on my blog:

https://humbledandoverwhelmed.blogspot.com/2022/05/encores-into-woods-fulfills-every-wish.html

[aradia22]

Last day to watch the Cynthia Erivo Live from Lincoln Center concert online

https://www.pbs.org/video/cynthia-erivo-in-concert-wuj9wr/

[aradia22]

Jealous was one of the better numbers, possibly because it felt like a song that channeled Celie. Songs like This Woman's Work just don't show off her voice to its best advantage. I guess it was a twist on all the Broadway actors who have huge voices and insist on doing concerts or albums of "jazzy" standards. She's able to access an incredible warmth but for a soprano, her voice has an oddly smoky quality that almost tricks you into thinking it's raspy, which didn't work as well for smooth R&B especially in pseudo-falsetto. Ain't No Way was a great way to end. I need to track down that Aretha series.

 

[Spartan Girl]

So this happened at a Company performance last night.

All I can say is if you come at Patti fucking LuPone, you’d best not miss.

[aradia22]

Queen. She is an icon and a legend. She is the moment.

https://www.gawker.com/celebrity/a-brief-history-of-patti-lupones-unbridled-rage

Edited May 11, 2022 by aradia22

[aradia22]

I've been listening to covers of this song today and I've concluded that part of why it falls flat regardless of singing ability is that younger actresses (I mean under 40) don't know how to sing torch songs anymore.

 

[EtheltoTillie]

I'm very interested in seeing the new Sarah Silverman musical, Bedwetter.  I'm hoping for Fun Home lightning to strike twice.  Everything I've been reading about it seems like it could turn out that way.  I read the book, as I did the Fun Home graphic novel before seeing it.  

[EtheltoTillie]

Update, the Sarah Silverman show is almost sold out!  It's a very small theater.  I got two tickets for June 26.

[aradia22]

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Mrs. Doubtfire, the new musical, will close on Broadway May 29th, 2022, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.

After breaking box office records at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre over the holidays in 2019, Mrs. Doubtfire began preview performances on March 9, 2020 before being shut down three days later by government order in response to the COVID pandemic.

Performances of Mrs. Doubtfire resumed on October 21, 2021 and stopped again on January 9, 2022. The final block of performances resumed on April 14, 2022 will end on May 29, 2022.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/MRS-DOUBTFIRE-Will-Close-On-Broadway-This-Month-20220512

[aradia22]

I saw Into the Woods at New York City Center tonight. I may have more to say later (in which case, I may edit this comment if it hasn't been lost or just reply to the thread again) but I wanted to jot down some thoughts while it's fresh.

I don't know if this production was the most Sondheim but it was entertaining and VERY funny. Eschewing sophistication and depth (though part of that might be the lack of rehearsal time to develop characters and relationships), this production went for a community theater or perhaps Hollywood Bowl take on the show. It played very broad with lots of mugging, the performances rooted more in the "star" actors rather than the text. NPH did all the NPH things you'd expect and a lot of his affectations and gestures relied on his persona since they relied on a limp-wristed sort of camp. (I do think he was stronger in act 2 as he's great at that sort of quick bitter banter that you need to sell the song where they're all trying to assign blame. And his voice rang out as it ever does during No One Is Alone. Shades of his performances in Assassins and Sweeney. Sara found a way into the character that wasn't Joanna Gleason. It felt less like a sophisticated plot about marriage and more like a sitcom with a lot of Jenna from Waitress. But I loved her and she sold the comedy really well. Along with Heather, it made me wish they'd stepped out of the traditional musical theater sound for all of the roles. Something was happening but she needed more time/direction to find real depth in the character.

The real stars of this production to me are Heather Headley and Gavin Creel. Gavin comes off a little better just because he doesn't have much heavy material. He knew exactly what this production wanted from him and he delivered. This is the pitch that every performance should be calibrated to match. You lose a little bit of the menace of the Wolf but his dandy-ish take was very funny. He carries the same energy through to his Cinderella's Prince and Jordan Donica does a solid job matching him. Did I miss Robert Westenberg's rich baritone? Yes, of course. But given this interpretation, it wasn't too great a loss. Two preening fops vs. a more traditional toxic masculinity. The actors playing Little Red and Jack were excellent, finding a way into childlike earnestness without being cloying. Jack was just so earnest and Giants in the Sky was sung beautifully. Red ends up kind of aggro in this one. Like... shivving a stranger feisty. Again, lots of mugging. Shoutout to Ann Harada as Jack's mom. Annie Golden has still got it. Obviously better as the giantess than Cinderella's mom/tree.

Back to Heather. She was just incredible. In perfect voice. I think act 1 suited this character interpretation more. She plays the witch like a comedienne... I don't know, maybe like Jennifer Lewis? It has a very particular sass to it. I did think it took some of the air out of the Witch/Rapunzel relationship which should be much more meaningful. She's mugging and selling almost all her lines as comedic, so we don't feel the sting of how much she has ruined Rapunzel's life and her chance at happiness. By the time act 2 rolls around, Heather is still singing the hell out of those songs but at a basic level. It's showy like an actor getting a juicy monologue, but it's not grounded in relationships in the show so it's just stirring singing with imperiousness. Which is worth the ticket price, don't get me wrong. It could just be so much more if she'd been allowed to feel deeply before Rapunzel dies. I do think her voice is a real asset because from the beginning, the soulfulness of her voice adds something... it communicates pain and longing even if the direction doesn't ask that of her.

The other actor let down to a more substantial degree was Denee Benton. She was great. But she sang most of her songs (until the ballads) in a more airy soprano. I know she has more vocal power than that. And she didn't really sell the comedy in On the Steps of the Palace. It's like an Anne Egerman or a Johanna Barker who isn't funny. Yeah, it still works but then you've just got an ingenue when you could have MORE. Even in act 2, I kind of felt like she was playing it on the level of her character in UnREAL, which made me think she just wasn't getting enough strong direction. The other problem is that of all the characters, Cinderella just has a lot more sophistication. You can't sell it all with comedy mugging and you could feel the lack of direction when that wasn't an option. Leaving the theater, I did wonder how Ashley Park would have been because she has no trouble singing out and she can play comedy. I think NPH was fine but I can definitely see a quirkier production with Ashley and Christian Borle that would fit with the vibe of Heather, Gavin, Sara, Annie, Ann, etc. Broad comedy and a sonic diversity with singers comfortable with other genres + character voices. Rapunzel can be a bit of a thankless role but the actress sounded lovely. She doesn't have a lot of lines and when she was reacting she was often turned away from me.

Even though all those adaptations of the original fairytales are there, the production downplays them. You don't feel the bite of the stepsisters cutting their feet or Rapunzel being banished to the desert. The lines are still there but they don't have that resonance. Same for the marital conflict and infidelity, the way Jack and Red "know things now" after their respective experiences, the magnifying glass placed over happily ever after as the community fractures, the understanding of death and storytelling, etc. etc. All of the "adult" themes are still there in the text but you don't feel them in the same way. The production doesn't have the deftness and nuance and sensitivity to properly illuminate those plot threads.

Costumes were all over the place. I can deal with the simple "peasant" costumes but the wild contrast with the wealthy characters (especially Cinderella's stepfamily) did not work at all and made it feel like they'd rummaged through the costume closet to dress everyone. The production really wants to have the feel being cobbled together but you don't need that Publicworks energy for everything. I did not like extra singers miming at the end but they were easy to ignore.

Edited May 14, 2022 by aradia22

[choclatechip45]

I saw the new POTUS play this afternoon and it is hilarious. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time. Rachel Dratch is amazing. 

This evening I saw Lion King the audience wasn't great (cell phones out) which I expected, but I still enjoyed it. It's my third time seeing it, but the last time I saw it was in 2004. 

[Spartan Girl]

The proshot of Anything Goes with Sutton Foster aired on Great Performances last Friday. I admit I’ve got a soft spot for the show since it was one of the musicals I did in high school…but hoo boy some things did not age well. Cast was great though.

[aradia22]

I tried to see Belfast Girls at Irish Rep tonight. I spent the entirety of act 1 debating whether I would leave at intermission. When I saw that it was 8:30pm at the end of intermission (it was supposed to start at 7pm and I think it was only a few minutes late at the most), I let myself just go home early rather than suffer through it. 

It felt like a pretty average play with its heart in the right place. The dialogue is a bit harsh but it's doing that sort of thing that's meant to reflect how "real" women talk to each other. And there's the fact that many of the characters are supposed to be a coarser, crude talking sort who are used to scrapping and having to be tough. I don't disagree with its politics. A large part of the reason I wanted to see it was a review mentioning the lesbian couple. And I have no objection to the feminist or leftist politics. But the way books are discussed is SO cringe and awkward. It's like a bright-eyed naivety the way one characters gifts the other books and when it was revealed they were reading Marx, I wanted to die. Just like, zero subtlety. Also, one character wants to be an actress which is only one step better than a character wanting to be a writer/playwright. The cringe was neverending. The play in general was lots of tell and little show, except in the lesbian romance which was all lingering glances and then neck kissing. It wasn't overwritten in the sense that it was flowery but more that they were talking too much. No one has that many thoughts. And because it was all tell, it came across as lecturing. Like, passages of dialogue were just speeches and not the characters talking to each other. Better actors could have helped the dialogue feel more natural but every actor in this was painfully amateurish. It felt like watching a fringe festival show, and the way they were almost always directly to stare out into the audience (full on, no three quarter turns) just made it more painful to sit through. Like watching a friend's recital that was too earnest but not good. I was painfully aware of every laugh line they couldn't land, every moment they couldn't emote... the dialogue just sounded so strange for most of the play because of how truly bad they were at delivering it. It was almost like someone reciting a poem or a monologue rather than acting. The accents weren't a deep struggle but I did lose words here and there. I could forgive that if they were actually Irish, but they're not. I've seen international companies perform and had no trouble with their accents. 

I would only recommend this if you think you could sit through the weak performances for a so-so play. It's a million times better in concept than execution which was deeply disappointing because I wanted to like it.

Edited May 18, 2022 by aradia22

[EtheltoTillie]

On 5/16/2022 at 10:40 AM, Spartan Girl said:

The proshot of Anything Goes with Sutton Foster aired on Great Performances last Friday. I admit I’ve got a soft spot for the show since it was one of the musicals I did in high school…but hoo boy some things did not age well. Cast was great though.

I had never seen it so I was looking forward, but it was pretty terrible.  What a dopey story, and a lot of the jokes failed to land. I enjoyed some of the songs. It can still be seen on demand or the PBS app. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by EtheltoTillie

[aradia22]

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The Fantasticks librettist and lyricist Tom Jones has penned a new version of his classic musical—in collaboration with Flint Repertory Producing Artistic Director Michael Lluberes—that will premiere June 3–19 at the not-for-profit professional theatre company in Michigan.

Jones and Harvey Schmidt's The Fantasticks tells an allegorical story loosely based on Edmund Rostand's 1894 play The Romancers (Les Romanesques), concerning two neighboring parents who trick their children into falling in love by pretending to feud. The LGBTQIA+ focused rewrite features two young gay men, Matt and Lewis, at the center of the story, instead of a young man and woman (the original characters were Matt and Luisa).

“Transforming the boy and the girl into two boys (Matt and Lewis) is an idea I’ve had for a long time,” says Lluberes. “Rethinking the show through the lens of two young gay men reveals so much about first love, identity, and self-discovery.”

“I knew that to be done properly it would require a lot of rewriting, especially of lyrics. The more I thought about it, the more interesting it seemed. And when I actually began working on it, I became more and more enthusiastic,” adds Jones. “I had great fun doing it. I hope people have great fun viewing it.” 

https://www.playbill.com/article/the-fantasticks-creator-tom-jones-rewrites-classic-musical-as-gay-love-story-premiering-in-june-in-michigan

[Spartan Girl]

Happy Eliza Doolittle Day, everyone!

[aradia22]

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The Broadway League announced today that the owners and operators of all 41 Broadway theatres in New York City will extend the current mask requirement for audiences through at least June 30, 2022.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/The-Broadway-League-Extends-Broadway-Mask-Policy-Through-June-30-20220520

I'm still feeling iffy with frequent cancellations and the lack of vaccination checks. I will probably just skip POTUS and I can continue to wait on Company and Hadestown and Six. Thankfully, it seems like a lot of off-Broadway theaters are still doing masks AND vaccination checks, though some allow concessions. 

Oratorio for Living Things cancelled their remaining performances so I'm not seeing that. I'm sure Suffs will be impossible if they even manage to come back for their last few performances after May 25th. I am vaguely considering Little Girl Blue and Islander while 20at20 is happening. 

Other than that, I'm looking forward. I've got tentative Carnegie Hall and Met Opera seasons planned mostly for the fall/winter.

[SusanM]

On 5/16/2022 at 10:40 AM, Spartan Girl said:

The proshot of Anything Goes with Sutton Foster aired on Great Performances last Friday. I admit I’ve got a soft spot for the show since it was one of the musicals I did in high school…but hoo boy some things did not age well. Cast was great though.

I ended up fast forwarding through the dialogue and just watched the song and dance numbers.  Sutton Foster was awesome but the play itself, well, yeah.  I don't know if it was the story or the acting - probably both - but it did not work for me.

[aradia22]

Parts of Anything Goes are deeply offensive and others are just dated (I don't know what edits they have or haven't made for this version yet). But it might also be the West End of it all. Even acknowledging the success of the megamusicals, I've never been convinced that they understand the art form of musical theater in the same way as Americans. 

[theatremouse]

Anything Goes should be played as a farce. I mean, structurally, it is one. This production seemed to forget that. The tempo and rhythm of all the not-songs was off. It draggggggggged. Some of that is the script and some of that was the acting, and I put some blame on the director too. 

 

[Spartan Girl]

Speaking of problematic musicals, I saw Dear Evan Hansen. It was thankfully better than the movie. The stage version makes it clearer that Evan’s anxiety may put him on the spectrum, which makes his actions slightly more understandable.

But why in the hell did the movie try to make Jared and Alana likable? They were such opportunist hypocritical assholes. Jared in particular is right up there with Janis in Mean Girls and Andie’s “friends” in Devil Wears Prada. Him getting snide about Evan benefitting from the lie was SUPER RICH when he was gleefully selling Connor “memorabilia” in the first act. Ugh, what a dick.

[aradia22]

Quote

Into the Woods is moving out of New York City Center and into a Broadway theatre! Jordan Roth, President of Jujamcyn Theaters, announced today that the hugely acclaimed and completely sold-out New York City Center Encores! production of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's beloved musical, Into the Woods, will transfer to Broadway for a strictly limited, 8-week engagement. Performances begin Tuesday, June 28 at the St. James Theatre, ahead of an official opening night on July 10. Into the Woods is directed by Lear deBessonet, music direction by Rob Berman with The Encores! Orchestra, and choreographed by Lorin Latarro. This production is dedicated to the memory of Stephen Sondheim.

Tickets will be available via SeatGeek.com/into-the-woods beginning today at 10 AM ET. American Express® Card Members can purchase exclusive American Express® Access tickets at 10 AM ET by visiting SeatGeek.com.

The star-studded cast will include Sara Bareilles as the Baker's Wife, Brian D'Arcy James as the Baker, Patina Miller as the Witch, Phillipa Soo as Cinderella, Gavin Creel as the Wolf/Cinderella's Prince, Joshua Henry as Rapunzel's Prince, Ta'Nika Gibson as Lucinda, Annie Golden as Cinderella's Mother/Grandmother/Giant's Wife, Albert Guerzon as Cinderella's Father, Brooke Ishibashi as Florinda, Kennedy Kanagawa as Milky White, David Patrick Kelly as the Narrator/Mysterious Man, Julia Lester as Little Red Riding Hood, Cole Thompson as Jack, David Turner as the Steward, Jason Forbach, Mary Kate Moore, and Cameron Johnson. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

I am tempted but I don't know if I want to splash out on a production I already saw (relatively affordably) just because of the recasting. Also, I'm not thrilled about Broadway right now. I saw How I Learned to Drive last night (more of that later) and the amount of times the guy in the surgical mask next to me adjusted his mask back over his nose and the woman on my other side coughed (not too many in her case) set me on edge. There were vaccination checks though.

Of the cast changes, I'm most curious about Brian D'Arcy James because I don't think he'll play it anything like NPH (as I said, a lot of the humor came from affectations and line deliveries that only work from a gay man) and Joshua Henry because he can sing it in the original keys and is probably overqualified for the part. I don't know if Philippa can bring that much more humor than Denee as the only comedic performance of hers I've seen is Amelie. Patina doesn't have the gravitas and weight Heather could carry simply being 10 years older but I'm sure she'll be fine. 

It was a very fun night, but seeing it again for a more expensive ticket might lessen the impact. I'll be following word of mouth closely.

[aradia22]

[SomeTameGazelle]

On 5/21/2022 at 12:09 PM, theatremouse said:

Anything Goes should be played as a farce. I mean, structurally, it is one. This production seemed to forget that. The tempo and rhythm of all the not-songs was off. It draggggggggged. Some of that is the script and some of that was the acting, and I put some blame on the director too. 

Definitely. I loved Sutton Foster in The Drowsy Chaperone, but I am having a hard time feeling her as Reno Sweeney. She needs to be big and charismatic if she's leading revival meetings. Also when she serenaded Billy with I Get a Kick Out of You it was hard to see what she saw in him. You're the Top was a bit better, I guess because he had more to do than awkwardly sit there, but I am making very slow progress watching it. 

[theatremouse]

I also found him to be possibly the blandest dude I've ever seen onstage.

[SomeTameGazelle]

18 hours ago, theatremouse said:

I also found him to be possibly the blandest dude I've ever seen onstage.

I wonder whether the dudes for Ethel Merman and Patti Lupone were actually any less bland. William Gaxton and Howard McGillin are not household names to me.

[aradia22]

I love Howard McGillin. He was the singing voice of the dumb prince in The Swan Princess (I don't know if he did it past the first movie). And I've been lucky to see him in concert and on stage in the last few years. He's still got it. 

Edited May 27, 2022 by aradia22

[bosawks]

50 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

I love Howard McGillin. He was the singing voice of the dumb prince in The Swan Princess (I don't know if it did it past the first movie). And I've been lucky to see him in concert and on stage in the last few years. He's still got it. 

He was by far my favorite Archie in The Secret Garden.

[Spartan Girl]

21 hours ago, aradia22 said:

I love Howard McGillin. He was the singing voice of the dumb prince in The Swan Princess (I don't know if he did it past the first movie). And I've been lucky to see him in concert and on stage in the last few years. He's still got it. 

I THOUGHT he sounded familiar!

[aradia22]

I can see shades of Mayer's Rigoletto. That static set and those costumes (the ones that aren't mimicking outfits from the movie) are so bad. 

[aradia22]

Full disclosure, I'm not entirely in the mood to write this but I figured I might as well get some thoughts down and come back to edit or add to this post later. I saw The Bedwetter last week, a musical at The Atlantic based on Sarah Silverman's life/autobiography. I did not read the autobiography and though I am a standup fan, I never got into her comedy because around the time her show was on, it felt too "edgy" (read: racist) for me to want to engage with it. But I went into the show wanting to see Adam Schlesinger's last musical and see Bebe Neuwirth on stage for the first time. (I've been watching a lot of youtube clips in quarantine... especially the concert performances from Sweet Charity.)

Spoiler

After a week, I have to say it was enjoyable but forgettable. I don't know if there's a meaningful show inside there. Even though it has some bad words and grazes up against heavy topics, the core of the show and its sensibility is really rooted in children's theater. It's a coming of age story about a 10-year-old with a lot going on around her but ultimately she does not have a lot going on. Her direct problems are the bedwetting and depression in response to the adults' problems and the show doesn't take that extra step like Fun Home or Caroline, or Change to give it the benefit of an adult perspective of someone looking back. It isn't contextualized any further than as Sarah Silverman's origin story as a comic.

I say this a lot but I do think this is a show that has tone problems and would benefit from stronger direction. It wasn't egregious but I really started to sense it in act 2. It started to click how certain numbers were actually not bad on paper but played awkwardly in the theater (vs. on a show like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) or how they just weren't nailing it in the performance. For example, there's a song from the doctor who prescribes Xanax and I could sense what they were going for and it was still good and one of the stronger songs, but that number should have been a knockout. It should have played like something from The Producers. But comedy requires a deft hand. They also create a device out of Miss New Hampshire (yes, I mean a beauty pageant contestant). It ends up being a good choice but I wish it were even more camp and that the rest of the show met that level of crazy and fantasy. Instead, we get some heavy numbers that almost feel like a play, but they again, they fail to capture the pathos of Fun Home or Caroline, or Change. It seems out of the creatives' wheelhouses and even the goal of this project, which again, feels very simplistic at heart. 

I think the strength of that simplicity is that, unlike Kimberly Akimbo, this show manages to stick the landing. The last few minutes when Sarah takes the stage to perform standup are fantastic. It wraps you in that easy moral of everybody's weird so you're not weird and believe in yourself and all that jazz. And while it's certainly no "That Thing You Do," I can still hum a phrase from the finale song. Overall, I'd say there are musical standouts but I didn't quite understand where they were going with the pastiche. Like Caissie Levy (Sarah's mom) has this song about her depression and how Sarah's parents were when they first got married. And it has a doo-doo-doo chorus that I guess is supposed to be comforting to her daughters like any singalong but it feels like a weird choice to go for this easy-going 60's pastiche for such a heavy topic. There are a lot of choices like that. But then you get a number like the dad's song about f**king all the neighborhood moms and you realize how good the show could be if it could nail that level of comedic sensibility consistently. I would not say that there were showstopper vocals in the show (it's not really that kind of show even if someone is singing well) but in addition to the finale and the dad's song, I liked "I Couldn't Agree More" which is Sarah's song that finally wins over the popular girls (it's the first good number in the show), Bebe's solo about appreciating Sarah's good qualities (even if she's the only one), and the teacher's solo (I think it was about the talent show). 

As for the performances... everybody's good though some people don't have a lot to work with or what they have isn't really pitched to their strengths. I don't want to criticize child actors too much but I found the lead a little... much. I was in the front row so it might read better from further back (and further from the mics) but she was not shrill, but... sharp. She played Sarah like a second-rate Annie and I've just come to expect more nuance from child actors. (It is possible that her mic and the mic of the actor playing the doctor were just not adjusted properly that night because I found them both much louder than everyone else.) I found the actor who played Sarah's sister Laura much more charismatic and a better match for Sarah herself but obviously she was too old to pass for 10. Caissie did get a tear out of me but I don't think the character of Sarah's mom was written that well or really got great songs. She was trying to mine that part for something but again, a lot of it was stuck the heavy drama parts of the show that weren't as good. I'd say her best moment is the speech where she stands up for Sarah (and kind of herself) arguing that she doesn't need to be fixed. It was also nice when she managed to make it out of the house to the talent show. The guy playing Sarah's dad was a solid actor. He had that one good solo and he has a nice moment later in the show at the hospital where he makes an effort to talk to Sarah on her level and understand what she's feeling. I actually think the supporting cast is the strongest part of the show. One actress' main role is Miss New Hampshire, another mainly plays Sarah's teacher, and a male actor is the doctor/psychiatrist. But they also cover other roles and bring a lot of the humor and camp and life to the show, capably switching between bit parts. Bebe is a goddess and this show doesn't deserve her. There's a bit about an accident in the past and the death of Sarah's brother, but like with Caissie, because that part of the show doesn't really work, it doesn't carry much weight. So most of the show is just her being a fun functional alcoholic and mostly supportive grandma. (I do have to point out to circle back to the racism that they really skirt the line with a long bit about Genghis Khan. Grandma just gets stuck on explaining to Sarah why there are Ashkenazi Jews with "Asian eyes" because of all the "raping and pillaging" and I do think they keep the joke on her ignorance and not anything hateful but it goes on for too long and I don't know why it's in the show. It's very unnecessary.) Overall, while the show has bright spots of humor, compared to other musicals at the Atlantic, I found Kimberly Akimbo, and even The Band's Visit, much funnier. I think the problem for me was rooting so much of it in a 10-year-old's perspective. There's a lot of bad language but there isn't strong joke construction underneath it. A lot of the show does feel like you're with a 5th grader expecting you to laugh at funny words without any jokes. It's not great when I prefer the fart sounds to the jokes in the book (and I don't like bathroom humor) just because at least the actresses get to be charming while a lot of the normal "jokes" in the dialogue fall flat. 

As for the design, I found the set very busy. It felt like pieces were constantly moving and unlike Kimberly Akimbo, it was all a little cobbled together and it looked cheap. Like, KA could feel a little claustrophobic with the rooms of the house moving in and out but they felt like rooms. The Bedwetter felt like there were always walls moving into place and outside of the school and the one decent house setup, the stage was often distractingly bare. It didn't point to a strong sense of design. Like, I didn't need a lot from the Falsettos revival because that show committed to its vision. I do think this show was very strong on its period costumes which you don't always see for a relatively contemporary decade.

[aradia22]

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Silverman devotes a large part of her 2010 memoir, The Bedwetter, to defending herself against claims of racism. In the memoir, the main incident in question is a 2001 appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, where Silverman used the racial slur “ch**k.” Following her appearance, the head of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, Guy Aoki, said that Silverman’s joke was racist and called for her apology. Silverman then wrote him an email—included in her book—which could be considered an apology, if you’re being generous, but mostly functions as a lengthy explanation of why her joke is not racist. Silverman explains that she is using irony and “playing the role of the ignoramus” to “turn the public toward the bigotry that goes unnoticed.” She explained to Aoki, a civil-rights activist who has dedicated his life to creating a nonprofit that monitors Asian representation in media, “We obviously have different approaches to addressing racism,” which, if nothing else, is undoubtedly true.

In Silverman’s letter to Aoki she claimed that she is aware that laughter isn’t the only measure of success, and also that she cares about the source of her listeners’ laughter. Because her fan base is “multi-ethnic,” she is sure the laughs are coming from a good place. Earlier in her book she contradicts herself, though, as guilty people often do. She mentions a run-in with a famous singer who she doesn’t name, but heavily implies is Journey’s lead singer, Steve Perry. The singer approaches her and says, “You have the best n**ger jokes!” She explains that the man “has a mouth full of blood laughs,” which is to say that he is laughing at the use of the slur and not the intended irony behind it. It’s possible that the singer simply misinterpreted Silverman’s joke, but if someone like that singer thought they were on my team I might reevaluate how “ironic” my “ironic” racist jokes were.

If Silverman paid more attention to her audience, she might find that her fan base is less multi-ethnic than she thinks. For many people of color, racist slurs are not “bigotry that goes unnoticed,” as Silverman calls it, but integral to their daily lives, whether or not they choose to notice it. The fact that many people of color have the words “n*****” or “c****” leveled against them in ways that can’t be described as ironic, but are still met with laughter, makes me question who exactly these “ironic” racist jokes are supposed to be cathartic for.

Quoting an article that speaks to Sarah Silverman's past use of racist jokes. I do think the problem lingers in her comedy, as evidenced by The Bedwetter, not because the show tries any "edgy" racial humor but because of that joke construction. Like the jury duty joke where she used the Asian slur, the joke and the joke construction itself are pretty underwhelming and the focus is on the use of the bad word and its impact. The sex jokes and the bathroom humor in The Bedwetter are not offensive but they also aren't magically funny. There are some funny lines but they rely on good joke construction or the charm of the actors.

[aradia22]

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TINA - THE Tina Turner MUSICAL will play its final performance at Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (205 West 46th Street) on Sunday, August 14, 2022 prior to launching a 30-city national tour on September 14, 2022 in Providence, RI, which will mark the sixth global production of the musical.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/TINA-THE-TINA-TURNER-MUSICAL-Will-Play-Final-Broadway-Performance-in-August-20220607

[aradia22]

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 Dear Evan Hansen will end its run at the Music Box Theatre on September 18. At closing, it will have played 1,678 regular performances and 21 preview performances.

Following Piser's run as Evan, Stephen Christopher Anthony, who currently plays the lead role on the North American tour, will join the Broadway company as Evan Hansen for a limited 4-week engagement beginning August 9, 2022. Sam Primack, who made his Broadway debut as an Evan cover, will take over the role from Anthony, beginning in September 6, 2022 through September 18, 2022. On July 19, 2022, Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo joins the company as Jared Kleinman, alongside returning cast members Ann Sanders as Cynthia Murphy, Noah Kieserman as Connor Murphy, and Ciara Alyse Harris as Alana Beck.

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/dear-evan-hansen-to-end-broadway-run_78304.html

Edited June 7, 2022 by aradia22

[aradia22]

Shows I saw this season that I still haven't reviewed: Girl From the North Country, How I Learned to Drive, Flying Over Sunset, Intimate Apparel, Paradise Square, Anyone Can Whistle

What are you most interested in? I might make a push before the Tony's to get stuff written up.

[aradia22]

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Come From Away will end its run at the Schoenfeld Theatre on Sunday, October 2 after 25 previews and 1,670 performances. [...] Bromley, Samayoa, Smith, Van Wieren, Wheatley, Breckenridge, and LePage are still with the production, joined by De'Lon Grant, Becky Gulsvig, James Seol, Emily Walton, Jim Walton, Gene Weygandt, Paul Whitty, John Jellison, Monette McKay, Happy McPartlin, and Julie Reiber. Colella will return for a limited run June 21-August 7, with Sharone Sayegh joining the cast June 21-September 25, filling in for a vacationing Bromley, who returns on September 27. Rachel Tucker will return to the company on August 9.

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/come-from-away-to-close-broadway_79529.html

[Spartan Girl]

Come From Away will be great for community theaters.

[ebk57]

6 hours ago, aradia22 said:

Shows I saw this season that I still haven't reviewed: Girl From the North Country, How I Learned to Drive, Flying Over Sunset, Intimate Apparel, Paradise Square, Anyone Can Whistle

What are you most interested in? I might make a push before the Tony's to get stuff written up.

How I Learned to Drive and Anyone Can Whistle.  I think I read your thoughts on Girl and the other shows I'm not really interested in.  Not that that should stop you from sharing.  I love reading your reviews.

[Lady Whistleup]

I saw Funny Girl yesterday with the understudy Julie Benko. Benko was great but the show overall was a huge disappointment:

https://humbledandoverwhelmed.blogspot.com/2022/06/summer-diaries-funny-girl-how-i-learned.html