Veganizing "Friends": Rachel's Birthday Flanby Randi / September 6, 2013
Lights up on Washington Heights
Up at the break of day
I wake up and I got this little punk I gotta chase away
Pop the grate at the crack of dawn
Sing while I wipe down the awning
Hey y’all, Good morning!
Up at the break of day
I wake up and I got this little punk I gotta chase away
Pop the grate at the crack of dawn
Sing while I wipe down the awning
Hey y’all, Good morning!
So begins “In The Heights”, the 2008 Tony-winning Broadway musical, gingerly but decisively setting the scene and bringing the audience into its world. It’s a bold open for this groundbreaking show, since many audience members are surprised by the nakedness – the main character, Usnavi, is talking directly to us, rapping to very little music, and it’s a bit startling. But by the time the music builds and more characters join in verse, you’re there with them in Washington Heights. It’s one of those opening numbers that actually gives you chills, if done well.
Luckily, the new production at Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre (WST) is indeed done well. With a cast of mainly Latino actors (thank goodness), this regional production of “In The Heights” impressed me in many ways, and almost made me stop thinking about the Broadway production.
The show tells the story of a tight-knit community in the Washington Heights-section of way-northern Manhattan, in a neighborhood primarily composed of Dominican immigrants. Those in the neighborhood all work hard and struggle to make ends meet, but they would do anything for their friends and neighbors, who are more like family. The local abuela is the neighborhood abuela, and when one of them suffers, they all suffer.
“In the heights
I flip the lights
And start my day
There are fights
And endless debts
And bills to pay”
“In The Heights”, written by the dream team of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes, was a game changer when it debuted, like “Rent” was in its day. The style reflected modern times, with a score of rap and hip-hop, subverting what we took for granted about musical theatre while also paying tribute to it. If you were lucky enough to see the show on Broadway, especially with Miranda in the lead role, you know how hard it is to forget that experience, and the magic Miranda brought to it.
While I reminisced about Miranda’s unlimited charisma and talent a few times, the Walnut Street’s Usnavi, Perry Young, took over the role with aplomb. You miss some lines, as few people can spit out so many words as clearly as Miranda, but Young did an impressive job overall with the challenging role.
A few actors in the WST cast stunned me with their superb performances. Two supporting male characters, Benny and Sonny, respectively provide heart and comedy in the show, and it’s really important to cast actors who understand their characters’ sometimes unpleasant behavior. Rhett George as Benny was one of my favorite parts of this production, with his gorgeous voice and likability. You root for him even when he’s being kind of a jerk. Matthew J. Harris as Sonny was hilarious, and a few of his lines elicited the most laughter from the audience, thanks to his great comedic timing. The adorable Robin de Jesus played Sonny in the Broadway production, and while I love Robin, I don’t remember loving his Sonny as much as I did Harris’s.
While I reminisced about Miranda’s unlimited charisma and talent a few times, the Walnut Street’s Usnavi, Perry Young, took over the role with aplomb. You miss some lines, as few people can spit out so many words as clearly as Miranda, but Young did an impressive job overall with the challenging role.
A few actors in the WST cast stunned me with their superb performances. Two supporting male characters, Benny and Sonny, respectively provide heart and comedy in the show, and it’s really important to cast actors who understand their characters’ sometimes unpleasant behavior. Rhett George as Benny was one of my favorite parts of this production, with his gorgeous voice and likability. You root for him even when he’s being kind of a jerk. Matthew J. Harris as Sonny was hilarious, and a few of his lines elicited the most laughter from the audience, thanks to his great comedic timing. The adorable Robin de Jesus played Sonny in the Broadway production, and while I love Robin, I don’t remember loving his Sonny as much as I did Harris’s.
The wonderful set, plus heads in front of me (you can’t take pictures in the theatre; I had to be surreptitious!).
Rayanne Gonzales as Abuela Claudia was another standout, fully bringing the audience along on her character’s emotional arc. By the second act’s plot development, you feel, as the other characters do, as if she’s your abuela. My other favorite female character in this production was Nina, the smart girl who made it out of the barrio, played by Julia Hunter apparently in her professional debut. She is giving some performance as her debut! The Broadway cast featured the wonderful Mandy Gonzalez as Nina, and while you cannot really compare the two, I think Julia’s innocent take on the role affected me more.
One actor that stood out to me in a negative way was in the role of Daniela, because every time I looked at her she seemed to be making the same face – a big, wide-eyed smile. It just seemed off. Maybe this was the one case when original Broadway performer, the incredible Andrea Burns, was too much on my mind, but I think it’s at least in part a misstep in direction.
The real gripe I have with this production, that I wish they would work on ASAP, was that the sound seemed off! For a show that won the Tony for Best Orchestrations, the orchestrations for this production sometimes got in the way, and sometimes were lacking. For example, my favorite musical number in the show, “96,000”, features the characters taking turns in the first half rapping about what they’d do if they won the lottery, and then in the second half the backbeat builds behind the verses and then the full chorus belts into song. This climax gives legitimate chills even on the cast recording. However, in the WST production, I didn’t even realize this section had started until the song was over. You couldn’t hear the beat, you couldn’t hear Usnavi’s continued rap, and you somehow couldn’t hear the entire ensemble of the show singing the chorus. There are some serious sound issues if twenty-odd people singing the same thing couldn’t break through this strange din of confusion.
Even with these issues, the WST production is solid and definitely recommended. The overwhelmingly white, senior audience seemed to enjoy every moment of it, which pleased me to no end. “In The Heights” is a fresh, thrillingly modern show, enjoyed by anyone and everyone, and the WST is doing some fabulous work.
One actor that stood out to me in a negative way was in the role of Daniela, because every time I looked at her she seemed to be making the same face – a big, wide-eyed smile. It just seemed off. Maybe this was the one case when original Broadway performer, the incredible Andrea Burns, was too much on my mind, but I think it’s at least in part a misstep in direction.
The real gripe I have with this production, that I wish they would work on ASAP, was that the sound seemed off! For a show that won the Tony for Best Orchestrations, the orchestrations for this production sometimes got in the way, and sometimes were lacking. For example, my favorite musical number in the show, “96,000”, features the characters taking turns in the first half rapping about what they’d do if they won the lottery, and then in the second half the backbeat builds behind the verses and then the full chorus belts into song. This climax gives legitimate chills even on the cast recording. However, in the WST production, I didn’t even realize this section had started until the song was over. You couldn’t hear the beat, you couldn’t hear Usnavi’s continued rap, and you somehow couldn’t hear the entire ensemble of the show singing the chorus. There are some serious sound issues if twenty-odd people singing the same thing couldn’t break through this strange din of confusion.
Even with these issues, the WST production is solid and definitely recommended. The overwhelmingly white, senior audience seemed to enjoy every moment of it, which pleased me to no end. “In The Heights” is a fresh, thrillingly modern show, enjoyed by anyone and everyone, and the WST is doing some fabulous work.
Correction: The original version of this review named Karen Olivo as the original Nina, when it was Mandy Gonzalez. No more writing at midnight!
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Not a Fando of this Orlando at the Garrick Theatre
After just watching Emma Corrin in Netflix’s new adaptation of Naked Chattering with My Sturdy Lover or whatever it’s called, I was very excited to see what this likable performer can do onstage and maybe with more clothes on. (No I still haven’t watched The Crown, I’m bored thinking about it.) But despite all the glowing reviews from everyone else about Orlando at the West End’s Garrick Theatre, I found it quite the disappointment, especially compared to the book or to the superior movie with Tilda Swinton. The tone was hard to pin down, and more pressingly, it felt chaotic in its energy. More than anything, watching this show felt like reading a book by reading a few sentences every 50 pages.
This adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s beloved novel feels like the creatives were trying to erase the magic that theatre could have so ingeniously enhanced. Theatre’s unique potential to show the wonder and intrigue and joy of this story — of a young man in Elizabethan times who falls asleep for 100 years and then becomes an ambassador to Constantinople but then falls asleep again and wakes up a woman and then lives for centuries more but doesn’t really age and has a gay old time dressing as both men and women and having all kinds of lovers and then getting married for like a day and so on — felt kind of squandered in an attempt to pare the story down to bare bones. But this story doesn’t really have bones — its magical flowery surrealism is its essence! So paring it down — and at 90 minutes or less, it really is unnecessarily pared down — feels like the wrong move.
It felt like they were trying to ground (or really, ground down) the surrealist aspect of the story (and isn’t it all surreal??!!) instead of letting it fly and having the magic of theatre smooth the rough edges and augment the ambiguity in a great way. Instead, all the rough edges seemed to be highlighted. Like the fact that Orlando keeps falling asleep and waking up in new centuries even though his nursemaid is alive and the same age feels forking weird, instead of being another lovely thing to let color the mood and shape of the piece. Sure the nurse is the funniest part of the show but even that feels like a random insertion when compared to the rest of the cast and happenings.
The attempts at sincerity, especially at the end trying to show Orlando’s feelings for her new husband, feel incredibly unearned and false since nothing was given the chance to feel earned. Everything felt quick, random, chaotic. The pointed proclamations made about gender and living freely etc thus also feel unearned, even though they were disappointingly weak and bare to begin with. So overall it just felt like a missed opportunity, focusing too much on the meta-story of the 8 or so Virginias Woolf writing the story as it was shown to us (even that felt half-assed) and not enough on letting the story breathe fully in its gloriousness so it could have the strength to say something worthwhile.
INFORMATION
Run time: 90 minutes.
Orlando is playing at the Garrick until February 25. The Garrick is an old for the earth theatre and I keep forgetting that the circle is better than the stalls, but for this short show the stalls weren’t so bad. Just remember that the ladies toilies are upstairs. And old. For the earth.
The pillars that restrict views in the stalls aren’t really that bad, so it’s worth saving a few pounds.
Mask count: two, me and husbo. Everyone else was coughing freely. Humans are gross.
Broadway’s “Shuffle Along, Or the Longest and Most Unnecessary Title Since the Horrors of Birdman” Is Prettayy Good
Best show art of the season
In this Broadway season of beyond splendid revivals and nice enough new shows dwarfed by “Hamilton”, one important show is kind of a mix of the two. “Shuffle Along, or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed” (I know) (whose idea right) (so ridic) (but it is accurate) actually petitioned to be considered a revival, because it uses the score of the original show “Shuffle Along” from 1921. But it was wisely considered a new show because this new Shuffle is telling the story of that 1921 show, how it was made, who was involved, and how it was received. And of course all that followed.
What makes the 1921 “Shuffle Along” worth discussing? It was a groundbreaking musical revue written by four African-American men – Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, F.E. Miller, and Aubrey Lyles. Not only was it the first musical for all four writers, it was the first major production in a long time to be created and produced entirely by African-American, like at all. That it played in New York of all places, and that it had an incredibly successful run for its time, shows how important a cultural milestone it was.
Why was it groundbreaking? It convinced the theatre community (and white producers) that a ‘black show’ could be successful, and that people of all races would pay to see an exciting, quality show like this. The black community embraced it wholeheartedly for showing the world its exuberant singing and dancing styles, and the theatre community at large embraced it too, legitimizing these new-to-them styles for the uptight people of that world. “Shuffle Along” famously had to add a midnight showing (always sold out) so that other celebrities with similar schedules – fans like Fanny Brice and Al Jolson – could catch it regularly. And not only did the show introduce a new kind of theatre to the world, it also launched the careers of luminaries like Florence Mills, Gertrude Sanders, and Josephine Baker, while showcasing already-famous stars like Lottie Gee.
So the original “Shuffle Along” stands as a vital moment in theatre history, yet so few people know about it. George C. Wolfe, legendary Broadway director, decided to bring its story back to Broadway, but not the story the original told (some forced plot about a mayoral race that no one really cared about because the score and the dancing was really what they were after). Instead, he wanted to tell the story behind the mounting of that show and how it came to be and what happened to those four creators and all those stars they made after all the success of the musical sensation of 1921. Naturally, to tell this story, you hope to gather the most incredible African-American performers there are today. You hope to get Audra McDonald, queen of everything, to play the diva Lottie Gee. You hope that Brian Stokes Mitchell, Broadway’s longtime beloved leading man, will join you as one of the four creators, along with other Broadway stars Billy Porter, Joshua Henry, and Brandon Victor Dixon. You even have the pipe-dream that Savion Glover, the best tap dancer in the entire world, will choreograph the whole thing and attract the most incredible dancers to the ensemble. And then that all happens! And you get “Shuffle Along 2.0 or the Show That Could Have Been Amazing But Is Really Just Very Good”.
Yeah, not joking. All those amazing parts came together, but yet you are left feeling a little unsatisfied. You expect the show to really hit you and resonate with you, but it never fully makes that emotional connection. No matter how far I put out my feelers, the ones coming from their end never made contact. “Shuffle” is wonderfully exciting to watch for the most part, but it’s more like the original than it wanted to be: The score (the same score as the 1921 one) is great, the dancing is out of this world, but the book is a bit of a mess. Such a mess that, unlike most shows, “Shuffle” wisely took advantage of its preview period, making necessary changes night after night until the show was frozen. Unfortunately, this is one show that definitely could have benefited from an out-of-town tryout so it was in even better shape before the move to Broadway. Then it could have used previews to hone and tighten rather than reimagine and rewrite as much as it did. Because of the wattage of all the stars involved, an out-of-town tryout was nigh impossible, but I wonder what could have been possible if they made it happen. As it is now, “Shuffle” has a fine story in the first act, and you pull for them to make it to New York and have success and be able to buy train tickets and stuff. It is positively magical when Audra, one of the greatest divas of our time, sings as another great diva; when BSM sings because oh my god that voice (and they didn’t make nearly enough use of it); and when the ensemble dances to Savion’s insane choreography. I say insane both in the way I describe things that are amazing, and also in the way that means actually insane. Some of the dancing is almost manic, all maniacally energetic and so fast and disjointed and trippy that you can’t believe they aren’t falling down or convulsing but somehow they are still dancing. The ensemble really deserves as much credit for doing these moves as Savion deserves for making them do it.
But then much of it feels blank. My mind wandered a little in the first act and then a lot in the second, when they tell you how important everything that happened in the first act was and how monumental the original “Shuffle” was and how it affected all their lives, but they kind of just tell you. Repeatedly, yet nothing sticks. I know some people are still confused at what Joshua Henry’s Noble Sissle talks about in a monologue about how his former military officer was killed and made Noble promise to continue what he was doing by creating opportunities for black musicians…I think. It was obviously a really important moment, but it didn’t come across very strongly. There’s a lot of talk about how these men had such an important job to do and how meaningful what they did was, and it was of course, but this show didn’t do much to make you believe it and know it for yourself. Without any background about the original “Shuffle”, it’s not easy to jump in accepting how significant it really was. It’s a difficult task this show took on, and they do a good job, but not great.
The big dance numbers are the best parts of the show, by far. My favorite featured the ensemble split into two groups, facing each other, kind of having a dance-off but using crazy tap-as-weapons that looks like their feet are falling off. It was crazy fun. I wanted more of those kinds of numbers to fill the holes in the book. Luckily, the entire cast is terrific. Of course Audra and B(d)SM are phenomenal, and it’s really special, beyond special, to see them onstage together again after starring in “Ragtime” so many years ago. One of my favorite facts is that Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Eubie Blake (one of the few creatives who had success after “Shuffle”), said his first Broadway show was “Ragtime”, starring his now his costars (and Audra plays his love interest). I love that! Hooray for this community! I also loved Billy Porter’s big number, “Broadway Blues” (I think). He gets a big bluesy number to bring the house down, and he does. It’s tailored to his talents – overdoing it, but in a fun way. It’s the perfect opportunity for him to let loose, because it works as this huge and exaggerated number, and it’s not bad if Billy overacts, which he sometimes does but we love him for it. And Adrienne Warren, Tony nominee for this show, was really fantastic pulling double-duty as Gertrude Sanders & Florence Mills. She really performed the two characters so distinctly and was truly lovely. Sadly, I don’t remember Joshua Henry getting to really shine on any song. He’s solidly good but has the smaller role of the four men, so his beautiful voice doesn’t get enough airtime. I loved loved the train station song that had Brian lifting the spirits of the ensemble, leading to some impeccable dancing, but I wanted Brian to sing more too. That voice is just velvet and I would have been happy if he (and Audra) just started singing the phone book (or “Ragtime”). I wish I could speak specifically on each song, but weirdly, there is no song list in the Playbill. This made sense during previews when the show was changing every night, but now it’s been frozen for a while so I don’t get it. I can say of course that “I’m Just Wild About Harry” was phenomenal, as sung by Audra, because that is the most famous song Sissle & Blake wrote so I’m pretty sure it was in there. RG.
The surprising thing to me, though, is that if “Hamilton” wasn’t around this season, “Shuffle” would be winning the Best New Musical Tony Award (it has already won the lead-up awards that Ham was eligible for last year). I’m kind of like whoa about it, because the book is a mess – which makes it all the more upsetting that some pundits think it should win the Best Book Tony over Hamilton just to spread the wealth. And, without this current cast, I have some doubts about how it will hold up. Audiences will get an answer to this sooner rather than later, as Audra’s preggernancy will bring in her replacement Rhiannon Giddens. I don’t know her, and I’m sure she is wicked talented, but a lot of the magic of this show came from knowing you were watching Audra, the greatest musical theatre actress maybe ever, play another famous singer. And a lot of the magic from watching the men’s scenes came from knowing you were watching a group of beloved Tony winners and nominees shine. Without a strong second act and with the importance of the original cast, it would be a winner on the weaker side. Still, as it is now, it’s a solid show with an all-star cast that I would jump at seeing onstage together again if I could. I am so lucky I saw it before Audra got preggers. She’s leaving soon, and I’ve heard reports that in the meantime she is sometimes a bit scaled back, probably because the alien inside her is making her nauseous. And it’s the best tap dancing you’ll see maybe ever. The story they are trying to tell is one of great importance, and I wish it was told a little more clearly, a little more cleanly. But you know, it did get me interested enough in the original “Shuffle” to do my own research into it. If other audience members do the same, and if a lot more people now know about the original show and what it did for African-Americans and for theatre, then that is a big success.
AUDIENCE
I think fine. One night when I didn’t have to yell at anyone! OH important note – this is a Scott Rudin production, and he famously does not allow late seating in his shows. If you miss the very start of the show, you don’t get to come in from the lobby until Act II, no joke. This is really great to stop all the shitheads who don’t think live theatre is important enough to stop them from hanging at the bar a little longer or stuff like that, but I do worry about the very few people who will be negatively affected who don’t deserve to be for reasons out of their control (read, I worry that one day I will be late). But for the most part it’s a good idea. I did hear from a few people that ushers at his shows don’t let you bring water bottles in, but that shit should be illegal and if anyone tried to take mine away I would have starting railing about all the amendments. ALL OF THEM.
STAGE DOOR
No one came out boooooo. I wanted to ask Brian to record my outgoing voicemail. Just kidding. Not really. #velvetteddybear
