Golden Globes 2017: The Good and the Ugly and the Crazyby Randi / January 10, 2017
For a show that begins with four Jews in a room bitching, in a song called “Four Jews in a Room Bitching”, you would think I’d love “Falsettos”. But when I saw the current Broadway revival of this show, I was somehow left cold, which is pretty hard when the focus is on family dynamics and, suddenly, AIDS. I was having trouble with the choppy direction and erratic pacing throughout the show, but I believe the suddenness of the AIDS story is what fully shut down all my feelings aside from ‘disbelief’ and ‘like you’re being punked’. I’ve been told that I would have enjoyed this particular production more if I was at all familiar with it beforehand (I wasn’t), and I could see how this cast would be a treat if you were a fan of the show. But you shouldn’t need to know a piece beforehand to enjoy it. And honestly, it’s a weird show. There are moments of brilliance (possibly due to the actors involved here), but oof, it was difficult to get through. I’ve never been so impatient for a show to end. And I barely remember ¾ of what I saw.
“Falsettos” is the story of a ‘tight-knit family’ of Trina (Stephanie J. Block), her ex-husband Marvin (Christian Borle), their son Jason (a child), Marvin’s new male lover Whizzer (Andrew Rannells), and their therapist Mendel (Brandon Uranowitz). Marvin has just left Trina for Whizzer but still wants to keep his family close and have them accept Whizzer as a new member, which is supes awks for everyone. But even more awkward is the opening number, which I enjoyed tremendously before thinking, wait, WTF, what’s happening. The four male characters are dressed like Israelites straight from the desert as they ‘bitch’ and Trina does some community-theatre-style assistant directing, flying flags and banners and adding some props to the mix. So, going into this cold, my actual first thought was, is this show about an acting troupe? Not joking. It made more sense than the truth, which is that this opening had nothing to do with their reality because no, they weren’t putting on a show, so it was just breaking the fourth wall I guess for a few laughs. Yet it was one of the most enjoyable parts of the show, so I can’t knock it too much.
Weirder was when that vaguely odd number ends and the real story begins, and you realize that despite this being an expensive Broadway production, there is no set aside from some giant gray cubes. And the actors throughout the entire show are constantly rearranging the blocks into different shapes to represent tables, chairs, therapy couches, beds, exteriors of houses, &c. This set design was really distracting and had very little payoff, the only interesting uses being as a house that could be easily knocked down, a decent metaphor for the family strife, and when all the cubes rearranged into a grave at the end. But despite how strong that ending visual was, I don’t think it was worth two hours and 45 minutes of wasted set design and extra jobs for the actors. It looked very ill-fitting for such an enormous stage, and I thought how much more appropriate this production and show in general would be in a small black box theatre. I think I could have appreciated it more in that setting.
Early on, as the cast forms the gray blocks into living room and bedroom furniture, we learn that Jason, the child, is scared that he’ll be gay because his ‘father is a homo’, as he sings. The funniest part was that Anthony Rosenthal, playing Jason, seemed to have a bad cold, and he kept sneezing and coughing in Christian Borle’s face and they tried not to laugh. Not as funny was that, in the wake of Sydney Lucas in “Fun Home” putting all other child actors and child roles to shame, this role (and sadly the actor) was indeed put to shame. We also learn that Marvin sees a therapist to figure out his tumultuous relationship with Whizzer – based more on lust at first than love, though they do admit that they truly love each other. Christian and Andrew’s chemistry was stronger than that of most couples, onstage or onscreen, and these two Broadway superstars made the thin story of the first act more compelling because of it. Nonetheless, their characters were kind of thankless until the very end, which is unfortunate for such incredible actors. They both do extremely well with what they’re given, but aside from a few money notes and their killer chemistry, they aren’t given much.
Then we learn that Trina needs a therapist because of this very difficult time for her family, which is understandable. But what isn’t understandable – except for purposes of the fake story – is that she goes to Marvin’s therapist Mendel. And then they all decide that Jason, who is having an understandably rough time with this transitional period, needs a therapist too…so they also enlist Mendel to therapize Jason. One really important lesson that I wish the characters learned before the show started is that there are lots of psychiatrists in New York City. Like I bet there’s at least one on every block of Manhattan and more when you get to the Upper East Side. So, there’s no good reason for a father, mother, and the son to all see the same psychiatrist. That’s the kind of crazy talk that would merit a visit to a psychiatrist. A different one.
Mendel quickly falls in love with Trina, which is against lots of rules and makes Marvin feel even more alienated from his family. He also needs a new therapist now. We’re supposed to feel bad for Marvin when these things start biting him in the ass but he did leave his family for a hot young thang so I mean what did he expect would happen. Mendel seems great at first, if severely in breach of ethics rules, but he really is the same immature sort that Marvin is, and Trina knows it, but having a husband turn out to be gay has apparently destroyed her confidence so she tells herself she could do worse and convinces herself that its in her best interest to marry Mendel. And I can see how one could arrive at that conclusion because Brandon Uranowitz is flipping hilarious. His subtle gesticulations really made the character and I was loving it for a while. But his character didn’t live up to the early potential. At one point amid all the constant familial drama, Marvin slaps Trina, and I was sooo ready for Trina to stand up and fight back (physically or verbally) but Mendel physically holds her back to prevent any escalation. I think that’s when I lost it. I was pretty close to the stage so it was really hard for me to remember that this wasn’t real and it took all my might to stop myself from climbing up on that stage, punching Marvin for hitting a woman/his ex-wife and then beating the crap out of Mendel for failing to stand up for his new wife. Like what is that shit about. It doesn’t matter that there are two lesbians in the second act (conveniently referred to continuously as ‘the two lesbians who live next door’); this is really a show by, about, and for (gay) men.
Even so, I really tried to love it. I wanted to love it. And one scene got me closer to that point than any other. In fact, as incongruous as it sounds for a show I didn’t really enjoy that much, this one scene – Trina’s “I’m Breaking Down” – might be one of the best performances of a song I’ve ever seen live. I know! Stephanie J. Block is that talented, and this song is directed that perfectly and performed that impeccably. In it, Trina is chopping up food for dinner or a pie or something while she sings a hilarious song about how all this tumult and disorder in her family and in her life is making her lose her mind and all her control, which isn’t that funny on its face, I guess, but Stephanie nails every nanosecond of this scene with perfect comic timing and hysterical frenzied humor, and this one song was worth the ticket price alone. She gets so wild in her crazy that by the end she’s singing through a mouthful of banana and is just a complete mess and it’s amazing. I never thought of Stephanie as a comedian or saw her do anything funny, but this shot her up to the top of the musical comedy list. So, everyone else in the theatre community thought this production was fantastic, to the point where it’s a frontrunner for the Best Revival Tony award. As much as I disagree with that, I would condone such a win just because of Stephanie and this one song. She was that great. As much as I kind of wished I chose a different show to see that night, I am so happy I got to witness this expert performance. I really can’t get over it.
After that scene, I tried even harder to get a bit more into it, as the dynamic was more understandable, with a growing family trying to get through all these changes. But I could not get past how unfortunately terrible a lot of the music was. Not all; there are some bright spots. But too much of the score was terrible. I remember literally gagging when Mendel sings a line about going ‘to jaw’ – as in TO EAT, just so it would rhyme with ‘my paw’ – as in A HANDSHAKE. I can’t stop having nightmares about how terrible that lyric is. There’s no reason for a rhyme that forced when both sides of it are horrendous. Just change both lines!!
And then two insane surprises happen. The first is the most unforgivable because I still don’t understand what it was going for – “The March of the Falsettos”. The four male characters come out in the dark and march over the cubes which are set up as a city skyline or some such. They are wearing bodysuits with patches that reflect the blacklight in the dark, so it’s very 1970s college dorm vibe. And they are singing in falsetto voices. This is legit the one reference to the title of the show. And they march and they sing in those high voices “march of the falsettos, march of the falsettos” and it’s WEIRD. Like, look-around-at-all-the-patrons-around-you-to-see-if-it’s-just-you weird. It was like the opening number in that it was divorced from the reality of the characters’ story and was just for fun or something, I don’t know, but I know my eyes were open rull wide.
The next unforgivable thing is unforgivable for an entirely different reason. See, this is the 1980s, and it’s about some gay men. So maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t because so far it was a comedy, and a silly one at that, at least at times. And its first act didn’t let on that anything of the sort was coming. So when Whizzer starts getting sick, I didn’t get sad; I got ANGRY. Really angry. You can’t have a kind of absurd tone and then all of a sudden start talking about AIDS and expect everyone to quickly get on board with the requisite depth of emotion necessary to discuss the AIDS crisis. It made me angry that they broached this topic in such a poor manner as to prevent me from getting emotionally invested, because we all should always be emotionally invested when this disease comes up. I was pissed that I wasn’t able to connect with this more serious material because it came out of nowhere. And I guess the argument is that well the disease came out of nowhere, to unsuspecting people, and that’s totally true. But so far, this show wasn’t about reflecting pure reality, as the march of the falsettos showed. So I don’t buy that, instead of continuing to tell the story in an artistic way that allowed for maximum empathizing and connection, they suddenly switched to a cold blank reflection of reality. And the whole section of the story about Whizzer dying was incredibly emotional and well done, but because there was no bridge from the former section of the story (the whole first act and change) to this intense drama, I never found a way to catch up to that drama. We were never given another route to it, so it felt very far away and detached from any emotional connection with the audience. Well, some people did manage to find another bridge because there was some SERIOUS sobbing at the end, and I wanted to be there with them, but I wasn’t.
I learned after the fact that my feelings of disjointedness and choppiness were warranted, because the original show was a series of three separate one-acts presented Off Broadway in 1990, like sequels. The Broadway incarnation of “Falsettos” is composed of the second and third one-acts in that series, so, although they are related and follow the same characters and story, the first and second acts are really two completely separate shows. That explains a lot for me. Well, except for the “March of the Falsettos” number. And why they didn’t work more on combining the two more cohesively. And why they kept the second act longer than the first, which should be rule #1 of theatre – never have a longer second act omg especially when people’s attention spans are getting shorter. The show was so long. My hair is so now.
A few days after I saw it, I heard that they are going to air it this season on PBS, as is usually done with one Broadway production per season or so. Despite my frequent exhortation that musical theatre has to be enjoyed live to be appreciated, and despite how lucky I feel having seen these amazing actors live, I kind of wish I’d skipped this one and waited to see it on TV. For free. Still, I’m ecstatic about a few things: one, that I did indeed get to see these actors live, and especially that I saw Stephanie J Block perform this role so wonderfully, and two, that I get to see her perform that role again. For free.
Weirder was when that vaguely odd number ends and the real story begins, and you realize that despite this being an expensive Broadway production, there is no set aside from some giant gray cubes. And the actors throughout the entire show are constantly rearranging the blocks into different shapes to represent tables, chairs, therapy couches, beds, exteriors of houses, &c. This set design was really distracting and had very little payoff, the only interesting uses being as a house that could be easily knocked down, a decent metaphor for the family strife, and when all the cubes rearranged into a grave at the end. But despite how strong that ending visual was, I don’t think it was worth two hours and 45 minutes of wasted set design and extra jobs for the actors. It looked very ill-fitting for such an enormous stage, and I thought how much more appropriate this production and show in general would be in a small black box theatre. I think I could have appreciated it more in that setting.
Early on, as the cast forms the gray blocks into living room and bedroom furniture, we learn that Jason, the child, is scared that he’ll be gay because his ‘father is a homo’, as he sings. The funniest part was that Anthony Rosenthal, playing Jason, seemed to have a bad cold, and he kept sneezing and coughing in Christian Borle’s face and they tried not to laugh. Not as funny was that, in the wake of Sydney Lucas in “Fun Home” putting all other child actors and child roles to shame, this role (and sadly the actor) was indeed put to shame. We also learn that Marvin sees a therapist to figure out his tumultuous relationship with Whizzer – based more on lust at first than love, though they do admit that they truly love each other. Christian and Andrew’s chemistry was stronger than that of most couples, onstage or onscreen, and these two Broadway superstars made the thin story of the first act more compelling because of it. Nonetheless, their characters were kind of thankless until the very end, which is unfortunate for such incredible actors. They both do extremely well with what they’re given, but aside from a few money notes and their killer chemistry, they aren’t given much.
Then we learn that Trina needs a therapist because of this very difficult time for her family, which is understandable. But what isn’t understandable – except for purposes of the fake story – is that she goes to Marvin’s therapist Mendel. And then they all decide that Jason, who is having an understandably rough time with this transitional period, needs a therapist too…so they also enlist Mendel to therapize Jason. One really important lesson that I wish the characters learned before the show started is that there are lots of psychiatrists in New York City. Like I bet there’s at least one on every block of Manhattan and more when you get to the Upper East Side. So, there’s no good reason for a father, mother, and the son to all see the same psychiatrist. That’s the kind of crazy talk that would merit a visit to a psychiatrist. A different one.
Mendel quickly falls in love with Trina, which is against lots of rules and makes Marvin feel even more alienated from his family. He also needs a new therapist now. We’re supposed to feel bad for Marvin when these things start biting him in the ass but he did leave his family for a hot young thang so I mean what did he expect would happen. Mendel seems great at first, if severely in breach of ethics rules, but he really is the same immature sort that Marvin is, and Trina knows it, but having a husband turn out to be gay has apparently destroyed her confidence so she tells herself she could do worse and convinces herself that its in her best interest to marry Mendel. And I can see how one could arrive at that conclusion because Brandon Uranowitz is flipping hilarious. His subtle gesticulations really made the character and I was loving it for a while. But his character didn’t live up to the early potential. At one point amid all the constant familial drama, Marvin slaps Trina, and I was sooo ready for Trina to stand up and fight back (physically or verbally) but Mendel physically holds her back to prevent any escalation. I think that’s when I lost it. I was pretty close to the stage so it was really hard for me to remember that this wasn’t real and it took all my might to stop myself from climbing up on that stage, punching Marvin for hitting a woman/his ex-wife and then beating the crap out of Mendel for failing to stand up for his new wife. Like what is that shit about. It doesn’t matter that there are two lesbians in the second act (conveniently referred to continuously as ‘the two lesbians who live next door’); this is really a show by, about, and for (gay) men.
Even so, I really tried to love it. I wanted to love it. And one scene got me closer to that point than any other. In fact, as incongruous as it sounds for a show I didn’t really enjoy that much, this one scene – Trina’s “I’m Breaking Down” – might be one of the best performances of a song I’ve ever seen live. I know! Stephanie J. Block is that talented, and this song is directed that perfectly and performed that impeccably. In it, Trina is chopping up food for dinner or a pie or something while she sings a hilarious song about how all this tumult and disorder in her family and in her life is making her lose her mind and all her control, which isn’t that funny on its face, I guess, but Stephanie nails every nanosecond of this scene with perfect comic timing and hysterical frenzied humor, and this one song was worth the ticket price alone. She gets so wild in her crazy that by the end she’s singing through a mouthful of banana and is just a complete mess and it’s amazing. I never thought of Stephanie as a comedian or saw her do anything funny, but this shot her up to the top of the musical comedy list. So, everyone else in the theatre community thought this production was fantastic, to the point where it’s a frontrunner for the Best Revival Tony award. As much as I disagree with that, I would condone such a win just because of Stephanie and this one song. She was that great. As much as I kind of wished I chose a different show to see that night, I am so happy I got to witness this expert performance. I really can’t get over it.
After that scene, I tried even harder to get a bit more into it, as the dynamic was more understandable, with a growing family trying to get through all these changes. But I could not get past how unfortunately terrible a lot of the music was. Not all; there are some bright spots. But too much of the score was terrible. I remember literally gagging when Mendel sings a line about going ‘to jaw’ – as in TO EAT, just so it would rhyme with ‘my paw’ – as in A HANDSHAKE. I can’t stop having nightmares about how terrible that lyric is. There’s no reason for a rhyme that forced when both sides of it are horrendous. Just change both lines!!
And then two insane surprises happen. The first is the most unforgivable because I still don’t understand what it was going for – “The March of the Falsettos”. The four male characters come out in the dark and march over the cubes which are set up as a city skyline or some such. They are wearing bodysuits with patches that reflect the blacklight in the dark, so it’s very 1970s college dorm vibe. And they are singing in falsetto voices. This is legit the one reference to the title of the show. And they march and they sing in those high voices “march of the falsettos, march of the falsettos” and it’s WEIRD. Like, look-around-at-all-the-patrons-around-you-to-see-if-it’s-just-you weird. It was like the opening number in that it was divorced from the reality of the characters’ story and was just for fun or something, I don’t know, but I know my eyes were open rull wide.
The next unforgivable thing is unforgivable for an entirely different reason. See, this is the 1980s, and it’s about some gay men. So maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t because so far it was a comedy, and a silly one at that, at least at times. And its first act didn’t let on that anything of the sort was coming. So when Whizzer starts getting sick, I didn’t get sad; I got ANGRY. Really angry. You can’t have a kind of absurd tone and then all of a sudden start talking about AIDS and expect everyone to quickly get on board with the requisite depth of emotion necessary to discuss the AIDS crisis. It made me angry that they broached this topic in such a poor manner as to prevent me from getting emotionally invested, because we all should always be emotionally invested when this disease comes up. I was pissed that I wasn’t able to connect with this more serious material because it came out of nowhere. And I guess the argument is that well the disease came out of nowhere, to unsuspecting people, and that’s totally true. But so far, this show wasn’t about reflecting pure reality, as the march of the falsettos showed. So I don’t buy that, instead of continuing to tell the story in an artistic way that allowed for maximum empathizing and connection, they suddenly switched to a cold blank reflection of reality. And the whole section of the story about Whizzer dying was incredibly emotional and well done, but because there was no bridge from the former section of the story (the whole first act and change) to this intense drama, I never found a way to catch up to that drama. We were never given another route to it, so it felt very far away and detached from any emotional connection with the audience. Well, some people did manage to find another bridge because there was some SERIOUS sobbing at the end, and I wanted to be there with them, but I wasn’t.
I learned after the fact that my feelings of disjointedness and choppiness were warranted, because the original show was a series of three separate one-acts presented Off Broadway in 1990, like sequels. The Broadway incarnation of “Falsettos” is composed of the second and third one-acts in that series, so, although they are related and follow the same characters and story, the first and second acts are really two completely separate shows. That explains a lot for me. Well, except for the “March of the Falsettos” number. And why they didn’t work more on combining the two more cohesively. And why they kept the second act longer than the first, which should be rule #1 of theatre – never have a longer second act omg especially when people’s attention spans are getting shorter. The show was so long. My hair is so now.
A few days after I saw it, I heard that they are going to air it this season on PBS, as is usually done with one Broadway production per season or so. Despite my frequent exhortation that musical theatre has to be enjoyed live to be appreciated, and despite how lucky I feel having seen these amazing actors live, I kind of wish I’d skipped this one and waited to see it on TV. For free. Still, I’m ecstatic about a few things: one, that I did indeed get to see these actors live, and especially that I saw Stephanie J Block perform this role so wonderfully, and two, that I get to see her perform that role again. For free.
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I’m “The Most Happy Fella” Because of Encores! at NY City Center
None of these three guys is the most happy. But they look regular happy.
Does Encores! ever disappoint? No, it really doesn’t. The program’s just-about-one-weekend-only productions (at NY City Center) of classic musicals are always as good as full throttle Broadway productions, and in some cases better. Its recent presentation of “The Most Happy Fella” was the latter type. While the show itself has issues, this production and this spectacular cast were undoubtedly the greatest ever of this musical. If the New York theatre crowd didn’t already know to run, money waving in hand, to the NYCC box office every time an Encores! production was announced, everyone knows now. The full, gorgeous production outshone most of what’s on the boards now, or has been lately, thanks to Casey Nicholaw’s (of “Book of Mormon” fame) efficient direction, good cuts for time, the perfectly cast leads, and most of all the lush, romantic Frank Loesser operatic score.
Yes, “Fella” is totally operatic, but no it is not an opera and don’t call it one or Laura Benanti will yell at you. It feels like one because a lot of the scenes are sung-through in recitatives that aren’t quite full songs on their own, like an opera. Yet it is pure classic musical theatre. But it does require singers (at least in the lead female role of Rosabella) somewhat of opera caliber, and that’s why the casting of Benanti as Rosabella, whose legit soprano voice we don’t get to hear enough in most of her roles, was the key that made this production work so well. Even with the flu – she had the flu baaad the entire run – she was perfection. You could not tell she was sick at all. (She is pretty much the definition of trooper. Also, during her first big song, “Somebody Somewhere”, someone up front sneeze-cough-died SO LOUD I could hear it in the balcony like it was in my ear, and Benanti was completely unfazed. (She told me afterwards that it was “the craziest thing I’ve ever heard”.)) It was crazy how perfect she was in this role of a San Francisco waitress, who finds at the end of the night that a customer left her a lovely pin as a tip, along with a letter written on his menu professing his love for her. Okay yeah, that’s how the show starts, and it sounds corny as hell, but it’s old-fashioned and just swell.
The customer is Tony, an Italian farmer in the Napa Valley, who has to deal with everyone always commenting on how this Italian is so foreign and exotic which is kind of awkward, but then again he still speaks broken English in a very heavy Italian accent so we’ll just let that go. Tony is the biggest-hearted man, but he’s also pretty damn old, which is why Rosabella at first is like ew gross old man get away from me. (She actually says this, sort of.) Well that’s how it is supposed to be, but Shuler Hensley (playing Tony, in his best performance poss ever) is like only ten years older than Benanti. So it just felt mean but whatever. Anyway so plot. Rosabella (this is just what Tony calls the beautiful waitress and what she ends up being called by everyone in Napa; we find out her real name at the end and it’s prettayy funny) writes to the address Tony left on the menu and sends a picture of herself. Tony receives the picture and shares it with his entire community in Napa, and they all perform the title song that has been stuck in my head for 2 weeks now. (Seriously I’m even singing to my dog “YOU’RE THE MOST CUTEST FELLAAAA”.) P.S., we learn that all the gals in Napa shop exclusively at Modcloth. So Tony is the most happy fella, over the moon that she actually responded to his love letter, but then he’s upset, rightly so, that she asks for his picture in return (he’s not the most handsome slightly overweight old man). But then! Cheyenne Jackson, the most gorgeous person to ever walk on this planet (this is not an exaggeration, it’s like even his Wikipedia entry) enters as Joey, Tony’s right-hand farmhand, and Tony’s all heyyyy Joeyyyyy lemme ahh take ahh peetch of ahh youuuuu! Then Cheyenne sings and everyone dies from happy. Including Rosabella, who gets Joey’s picture and is all “This guy’s HAWT I’m gonna go to Napa and marry him!” So, this show is not the most feminist piece of theatre.
Watch the below video to get a feeling for it all. And also to understand why Cheyenne and Laura are two of the best people ever. And everyone else.
The customer is Tony, an Italian farmer in the Napa Valley, who has to deal with everyone always commenting on how this Italian is so foreign and exotic which is kind of awkward, but then again he still speaks broken English in a very heavy Italian accent so we’ll just let that go. Tony is the biggest-hearted man, but he’s also pretty damn old, which is why Rosabella at first is like ew gross old man get away from me. (She actually says this, sort of.) Well that’s how it is supposed to be, but Shuler Hensley (playing Tony, in his best performance poss ever) is like only ten years older than Benanti. So it just felt mean but whatever. Anyway so plot. Rosabella (this is just what Tony calls the beautiful waitress and what she ends up being called by everyone in Napa; we find out her real name at the end and it’s prettayy funny) writes to the address Tony left on the menu and sends a picture of herself. Tony receives the picture and shares it with his entire community in Napa, and they all perform the title song that has been stuck in my head for 2 weeks now. (Seriously I’m even singing to my dog “YOU’RE THE MOST CUTEST FELLAAAA”.) P.S., we learn that all the gals in Napa shop exclusively at Modcloth. So Tony is the most happy fella, over the moon that she actually responded to his love letter, but then he’s upset, rightly so, that she asks for his picture in return (he’s not the most handsome slightly overweight old man). But then! Cheyenne Jackson, the most gorgeous person to ever walk on this planet (this is not an exaggeration, it’s like even his Wikipedia entry) enters as Joey, Tony’s right-hand farmhand, and Tony’s all heyyyy Joeyyyyy lemme ahh take ahh peetch of ahh youuuuu! Then Cheyenne sings and everyone dies from happy. Including Rosabella, who gets Joey’s picture and is all “This guy’s HAWT I’m gonna go to Napa and marry him!” So, this show is not the most feminist piece of theatre.
Watch the below video to get a feeling for it all. And also to understand why Cheyenne and Laura are two of the best people ever. And everyone else.
Rosabella and Tony get to know each other though and, despite Rosabella’s initial anger at being tricked (plus some other sheet that goes down), of course they fall for each other while singing absolutely glorious songs, with a full orchestra (such a rarity nowadays, and such a g-d treat). Meanwhile, Rosabella’s best friend Cleo (Heidi Blickenstaff, hilarious as always but dancier than normal) comes to keep an eye on everything (this is effectively a mail-order bride situation, so good on Cleo for being all um I’m gonna check this shit out…) and falls for a different farmy guy named Herman (Jay Armstrong Johnson, wonderful and FOR REAL channeling Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf…he even says “I love smiling smiling’s my favorite!!” Well he says style but in the same way). They realize they’re both from Dallas and they sing the second most fun song in the entire show, “Big D” (as in “Big D, little A double L-A-S!”). Blickenstaff also sings one of the most ridiculous songs in musical theatre, “Ooh! My Feet!” It is a ballsy way to open a show, with a supporting character rubbing her aching feet and literally wailing “Ooh, my feet, my poor poor feet” and singing about each one of the little piggies. The first time I heard this song I cried from laughing so hard. Blickenstaff’s was a little too well sung and not groany enough for me, but it was still funny.
Texans looove each other
The first most fun song in the show was “Abbondanza”, sung by like chefs getting ready for the wedding (which happened as soon as Rosabella arrived, like wtf give a girl a day or something) and I was crying during it. The three chefs repeat the names of items and then sing “Abbondanza” a lot and I don’t know why but it killed me. It was so well done for comedic effect. That was clearly the work of Nicholaw, because otherwise that song can be kind of dumb. But somehow they made “I frutti i frutti i frutti…la torta la torta la torta…Abbondanza! Abbondanza!” freaking hilarious.
Everything was so perfectly done, but in making the show only 2 acts (instead of the usual 3), some necessary story was cut. Like all of a sudden Rosabella actually does love her old man husband? We think she and Joey are totes into each other but then Joey is not really in the second act? I mean, the end reveal makes all of this make sense, but it could have been written better. However, every other aspect, from the lighting (except for one spotlight mistake) to the costumes to the cast to the direction, was wonderful. Unless a heavenly decree comes down and declares a Broadway run with the same cast (or at least a cast recording for chrissakes), the 5 days when “Fella” was on the Encores! stage will be remembered as one of the most magical times in recent New York theatre.
Everything was so perfectly done, but in making the show only 2 acts (instead of the usual 3), some necessary story was cut. Like all of a sudden Rosabella actually does love her old man husband? We think she and Joey are totes into each other but then Joey is not really in the second act? I mean, the end reveal makes all of this make sense, but it could have been written better. However, every other aspect, from the lighting (except for one spotlight mistake) to the costumes to the cast to the direction, was wonderful. Unless a heavenly decree comes down and declares a Broadway run with the same cast (or at least a cast recording for chrissakes), the 5 days when “Fella” was on the Encores! stage will be remembered as one of the most magical times in recent New York theatre.
“Macbeth” at the Royal Shakespeare Company: Stop Trying to Modernize Billy and Just Let the Genius Be
IT’S THEATRE THURSDAY! Today we are talking about ‘Macbeth’ at the Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I KNOW!
To celebrate Jesus’s zombification this past week, my family took a wee little trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of that other influential man, William Shakespeare, or as I call him endearingly, Billy Shakes. We visited the wee little house where he was born and grew up, and the not so wee cottage where his future wife, Anne Hathaway (not that one) grew up down the road, as well as the truly authentic Ye Olde Souvenir Shop of yore where my mom could buy magnets of Meghan Markle. But that’s all for a different post. Today is Theatre Thursday, and so we will talk about the most exciting thing to me about visiting Stratford – seeing a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Our dates coincided with their performance of Macbeth, which despite reading a lot and knowing in various inspired-by forms, I’ve never seen performed as written. Exciting! Guess what, Macbeth is forked up. Like reals forked up. It’s so gory and troubling and violent and creepy. That Billy tho.
To celebrate Jesus’s zombification this past week, my family took a wee little trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of that other influential man, William Shakespeare, or as I call him endearingly, Billy Shakes. We visited the wee little house where he was born and grew up, and the not so wee cottage where his future wife, Anne Hathaway (not that one) grew up down the road, as well as the truly authentic Ye Olde Souvenir Shop of yore where my mom could buy magnets of Meghan Markle. But that’s all for a different post. Today is Theatre Thursday, and so we will talk about the most exciting thing to me about visiting Stratford – seeing a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Our dates coincided with their performance of Macbeth, which despite reading a lot and knowing in various inspired-by forms, I’ve never seen performed as written. Exciting! Guess what, Macbeth is forked up. Like reals forked up. It’s so gory and troubling and violent and creepy. That Billy tho.
If you don’t know, Macbeth tells the story of this guy named Macbeth who is close to the king and calls everyone cousin and his wife is cray and he is visited by three prophetic witches who tell him that he will become king while reciting names of Olsen Twins direct-to-video movies. Macbeth is like okay I guess I’ll kill the king so I can become king, even though he’s not next in line of succession but bully for him, the king’s children flee, wisely assuming that whoever killed the king will likely go after them, the princes. Macbeth becomes all consumed by murderous ambition and keeps killing anyone who might figure out his evil deeds or get in his way and it’s prettayyy prettayyy scary. He kills or orders to be killed guards and waitstaff and his best friend and poor Macduff’s entire family, even the little baby (and, in this production, the wife was pregnant again). He’s a bad guy. And his wife is a bad lady. At first she talks shit about how they should totally kill whoever they need to in order to rule Scotland, no big deal what a good plan, but she also makes passing comments about how she would happily kill babies if they were suckling at her breast and you’re like wait what, the fuck did you just say? So a lot of Shakespeare scholars think that she’s probably killed babies that she had and didn’t want, which is a whole other thing we don’t need to talk about, but suffice it to say that she starts out at a pretty high level of evil and doesn’t have far to go in order to become completely crayballs bananapants real quick.
This production of Macbeth attempted to modernize it just a wee little bit, by performing the original text (I mean thank god; no one coming to the RSC wants to hear anything but the original text) but with the actors dressed in modern attire: gowns at the dinners, regular suits, and the kingsmen and army people wearing camo and bulletproof vests during battle scenes. It was unnecessary. I understand the desire to put your own stamp on a production of a play that has been performed innumerable times, but there’s no need to update Shakespeare. I mean it’s Shakespeare. It’s been performed a billion trillion times because it is pretty solid as is. And if you are going to try to modernize it, changing up the costumes is a half-assed attempt that really isn’t going to cut it. Go big or stick to what’s foolproof. But don’t go big if you are the Royal Shakespeare Company because people are coming to see og Shakespeare, you know? Just do it og. The few set pieces were also modern: desk chairs, dinner set, water cooler, &c. I don’t actually get the water cooler bit, because that and a few waiting-room style chairs made an area look like, well, a hospital waiting room, and at first I thought it was going to be directed to make it look like all the action was just inside a deranged person’s head, and I was all ‘hey I liked this better when it starred Alan Cumming on Broadway’ and while there are indeed two deranged persons onstage, there was never anything hinting at it being a mental patient’s hallucination or anything like that.
But forget everything I’ve said so far. Really, the only thing you need to know was that they had the witches portrayed by three little girls in pajamas and slippers carrying creepy baby dolls and it was the CREEPIEST FORKING THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN. Like, the witches are already scary. Little girls in horror movies are the scariest things. And baby dolls of the sort they were carrying are beyond terrifying. You put them all together and what do you get, the most bloodcurdling rendition of the witches in the history of time. NOT OKAY. NOT APPROVED. Their tiny little voices in unison will give me nightmares for years.
A big other directing decision that I understand but highly disapprove of was the use of a digital timer right in the middle of the stage, counting down two hours from when Macbeth kills the king until Macbeth himself dies (do we need spoiler warnings? you’ve had 400 years). It’s saying something lofty about how we have limited time and everything is a matter of time and time is of the essence or WHATEVER but all I could think was how on earth did that entire scene take only 4 minutes? what time do you think it stops at for intermission? is it going to keep running through intermission or do I really have an hour and 40 minutes left? wait what just happened I was too busy watching the seconds tick? So, yeah, it was incredibly distracting and everyone I was with and everyone we spoke to at intermission agreed that it was too distracting for what it was worth. It made the play seem longer than it is and it took me out of it. It’s hard enough to understand the Elizabethan language without having your attention spar with a distracting clock.
The first act did drag a big even aside from the timer situation. Maybe because there wasn’t enough of Lady Macbeth, as the actress playing her, Niamh Cusack, was the strongest in the cast. Maybe my wee little brain just needed the time to acclimate to the language; it’s been a while since my last Shakespearean outing. Also I was counting the minutes (well, tracking via the timer) until I could yell at my dad for whispering. Also the person behind us was super sick and coughing the entire time and I couldn’t wait until the lights came up and I could say ‘hey did you mean to go to the hospital because you went to the wrong place.’ The second act was much more captivating as all the shit went to shit and as you felt the comeuppance of our leading evildoers getting closer and closer. You really wanted them to get comeupped; they’re REALLY bad people. I thought the actor playing Macduff, Edward Bennett, did a fantastic job with his scene when he finds out about his family. What he did by simply repeating the word ‘all’ over and over with clearly changing emotions and realizations was quite moving. And our leading man, Christopher Eccleston, was no slouch either. He did seem to be ramped up the entire time, with a Macbeth that operated at or above a certain level of intensity and never dipped below it, so I was kind of like ahh chill dude the whole time, but I suppose that Macbeth never should dip below a high level of intensity anyway so it was a good performance. It’s just so hard to watch this show with anything other than a cringey feeling of ‘ahhh just someone anyone please kill these monsters already!’ Which they do, yayy.
The best part of this production was honestly the actor playing the porter. Michael Hodgson could have easily been a character in Beetlejuice, or maybe Addams Family Values, with his creepy but hilarious manner and his deadpan, matter-of-fact delivery. He was seated onstage (near the water cooler) pretty much the whole time, so he was almost an all-knowing character. I loved when he was eating a little snack pack of something while talking to some murderers, and one of them snatched it out of his hand, and he just pulled out another little pack from his pocket. I love when someone came out looking for Macbeth, who was cowering in a corner, and the porter pointed over to him. But the best was his subtle tracking of Macbeth’s victims, by drawing chalk tallies on the brick wall at the back. Well, it was subtle in Act I. In Act II, he spends most of his time tallying up all the deaths, I imagine to come, as the battles get under way. Hundreds and hundreds of chalk marks cover the walls in a pretty dramatically effective use of the porter’s time, though not as fun as when he was talking.
As I said, I haven’t seen a different straight production, so I’m not sure if our ending was special or regular, but it did seem special. Maybe it’s because I just saw a production of Pippin where they use what’s called the ‘Theo ending’, where the little boy playing the little boy actor playing Theo comes back onstage after the regular ending and hints to the audience that maybe one day he would be ready to take Pippin’s place. It’s really disturbing and it works really well. Here, they did a similar thing that made me think of the Theo ending, something I’ll call the Fleance ending because oh my god, that name. So one of the witches’ prophesies was that Banquo’s heirs would inherit the throne after Macbeth is king, yet after Macbeth’s death, og King Duncan’s eldest son, Malcolm, is rightfully crowned. So when does Banquo’s son Fleance get in on that to fulfill the prophesy? Usually audiences just assume that at some point, the crown falls to him and his line. Here, however, Fleance comes onstage while Malcolm is being crowned, and stares at him, and then draws his sword menacingly. Hella spine-chilling, especially from someone named Fleance.
All in all, it was a very solid production, acting-wise. All the stuff that’s supposed to be in there – the text, the acting, the ability to be creative with stage directions like that ending – was good. It was the unnecessary bits – the modern costumes, the modern ‘setting’ that was half-assed, the gd m*f*ing timer that should have been cut from day 1 of rehearsals – that was extraneous and hurt the production, I feel. Yet there’s only so much damage you can do to a show like this, so overall I still enjoyed it verily.
AUDIENCE
Ugh that person coughing behind us was really annoying. It was like nonstop. Also I still can’t believe my dad was the one talking. Otherwise it was fine I think! I guess people who go to Shakespeare don’t need to check their phones every ten minutes.
THEATRE
The toilets for the mezzanine/dress circle NEVER had a line! It was epic! So well designed. I can’t say for the stalls.
It’s about 2 hours and 20 minutes with intermission, so it’s a pretty short show, actually. One of the ushers told me, when I asked about the length, ‘Oh we love Macbeth! It’s so short!’
