Final Meal of 2014: Excellent Food & Great Value at Manna, Londonby Randi / January 2, 2015
“Someone tell the story, someone sing the song. Every now and then the country goes a little wrong. Every now and then a madman’s bound to come along! Doesn’t stop the story – story’s pretty strong. Doesn’t change the song.” Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant, dark, and often funny look at what drives certain people to commit atrocities, “Assassins” is an exceptional and provocative show. Its current production at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory is one of the most well-done shows I have yet seen in London. If you are a frequent reader, you may be thinking, well that doesn’t say much. However, I could say right now that I found not a single fault with it…but then you’d have little reason to keep reading, so I won’t.
These above-quoted opening lines of the show (the true opening of the story, after a crazy sort-of prologue) reflect what our main characters seek: for their story to be added to history, to become part of the main story, be sung of. To gain fame as part of history’s need to always mention them in the same breath as the great men they assassinated. And that’s what this story brilliantly tells – how Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Reagan, Ford, all these important presidents, were killed or almost killed, but by barely mentioning their names. The names that matter here are the assassins – Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz, Hinckley, Fromme – as we see things from their perspectives. To make things even more twisted and frightening, this is staged in a sort of abandoned carnival, with each assassination attempt treated as a carnival game and lit-up “Hit!” or “Miss!” signs accompanying each gunshot. Like carnivals weren’t scary before.
First, the central character: “Johnny Booth was a handsome devil!” These lyrics are hella true in this production. Broadway’s Aaron Tveit is adoooorable. More importantly, he handles the vital role of John Wilkes Booth sublimely, being a charming and debonair Southerner who clearly conveys a base desire for ill-gained notoriety. Although his main action (killing Abraham Lincoln, obviously) is done early on, he hangs around to support the others, because, as the Balladeer sings early on, “Damn you, Johnny! You paved the way for other madmen to make us pay!” Booth pretty much started a trend in America, and so his presence is required throughout the show.
First, the central character: “Johnny Booth was a handsome devil!” These lyrics are hella true in this production. Broadway’s Aaron Tveit is adoooorable. More importantly, he handles the vital role of John Wilkes Booth sublimely, being a charming and debonair Southerner who clearly conveys a base desire for ill-gained notoriety. Although his main action (killing Abraham Lincoln, obviously) is done early on, he hangs around to support the others, because, as the Balladeer sings early on, “Damn you, Johnny! You paved the way for other madmen to make us pay!” Booth pretty much started a trend in America, and so his presence is required throughout the show.
Despite his inherent evil, Booth seems the most stable of all the characters, and probably is. The most unstable is also my favorite. “Look on the bright side, not on the sad side…I am going to the Lordy”, sings Charles J. Guiteau, the most weirdly likable character in this production, probably because the actor, Andy Nyman, is so damn good in this role, petrifying but kind of lovable. Guiteau was executed for killing President Garfield, after being denied the ambassadorship to France, which he had long assumed would be given him when he requested it. Some of the lyrics to his big song actually came from the poem he wrote the day of his execution and recited on the gallows as he laughed and danced, before hanging. The poem was called “I am going to the Lordy”. Sondheim turned this into the most catchy, horrifyingly optimistic song that captures Guiteau’s, well, gallows humor and clear insanity. Here, Guiteau also sings and dances on the gallows, performing a cakewalk and an ever-intensifying song before swinging from the noose in front of us. It’s so disturbing and so powerful. Also, Nyman does the best American accent by a Brit that I’ve heard so far in London theatre.
Before deciding to kill the president, Guiteau writes books that don’t sell and he convinces himself and others that he’s the future Ambassador to France. By seeing our characters’ failures and blown ambitions, you start to feel for them. You think, this poor guy couldn’t catch a break, and yes obviously needs mental healthcare that no one is going to provide. The music and the stories lead you on a path to almost commiseration, and then hopefully you snap out of it and realize how f-ed up you have to be to consider making this turn. But that’s the genius of “Assassins”, showing history from their perspectives and forcing you to recognize their humanity.
Personal failures as well as professional failures take blame for coaxing some down this path. “I am unworthy of your love” is a duet between two strangers, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Carly Bawden) and John Hinckley Jr. (Harry Morrison), the failed assassins of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, respectively. The memorable and pretty lovely song shows how some are led towards awful deeds in trying to impress others. The show’s Hinckley is an odd man who can’t find love, in the all-too-familiar sense of men like the Santa Barbara killer who get angry and frustrated when women, whom they were told their whole lives that they as men were entitled to, rebuffed them. Our society’s continued view of women as playthings and pretty things that men should have a say over is creepily reflected in this character, as he decides to kill a president in order to impress a movie star enough that she’d actually know he existed (as opposed to, say, the modern version of men killing the women who threaten their world view).
Fromme, on the other hand, tries to assassinate Ford in order to impress her lover, Charles Manson, whom she believed was Jesus reincarnated. And if Jesus wishes for you to kill the president, you do that! (No, seriously, don’t, even if it’s really Jesus.) Luckily, she and Hinckley failed. In this production, Fromme’s failure is shown as mostly due to her ridiculosity of a partner in crime, played by British favorite Catherine Tate as Sara Jane Moore. It’s a smallish role but she’s hilarious. A lot of people think Tate plays it too over the top, but I found her antics necessary to brighten up all the dark psychology of the show. (Except when she accidentally shoots her dog. Not funny. Luckily a stuffed dog was used, so sort of funny.) Her best bits include her shooting practice on a bucket of KFC, after which she eats the chicken. But nothing is funnier than when Moore and Squeaky botch their assassination attempt so freaking badly that, in their mad rush to complete it in a crazy moving crowd, they are unable to reload and instead throw bullets at Ford while shouting ‘Bang!’ Amaaaazing.
The real brilliance of the show is demonstrating how a person’s disappointment in living a small life can lead to such a path, just to make some kind of name for himself. And we know this so well. Mental instability of all sorts leads many to commit mass atrocities because, as we know, our media will make perpetrators famous. Whenever the awful story of a school shooting or of President Lincoln’s final days is told, so too will the name of the murderers, or of Booth.
No one explains this better than Booth himself, who uses it as a selling point when trying to persuade our narrator, the Balladeer, whose identity becomes a beyond genius twist (that was added in the revival, and I can’t see the musical being as poignant without it). In the recording I know best, my balladeer was Neil Patrick Harris, so my favorite songs had a pop-star clarity and zest to them. Here, the Balladeer is sung like a twangy country singer by Jamie Parker, but it totally works and won me over. So the Balladeer has been on the sidelines all night, telling the tales of others most judgmentally – in the above-quoted “Ballad of Booth”, he reinforces that those madmen who have made us pay “have had their say, but only for a day….Angry men don’t write the rules and guns don’t right the wrongs. Hurts a while but soon the country’s back where it belongs.” But as things come to an end, the Balladeer is not so convinced that the country bounces back so easily, if ever, and he’s more open to discussion about leaving his moral high ground, not wanting to end things as a simple narrator strumming his guitar, but as someone who, like his subjects, will live forever in infamy as long as his target lives forever in fame. Booth tells him that their names will always go hand in hand, that just as Lincoln’s great life and deeds will never be studied without Booth’s being studied and remembered as well, so too will the next great Assassin in this way share the triumphs of his victim. It’s incredibly disturbing and true, that a killer can so easily usurp the greatness of his victim. (I wish so strongly for the media should stop reporting the names of people who commit mass shootings and the like, somehow, if it would make sense. Gaining such immediate fame is often the only goal, and I wish there was a way to not give these awful people the satisfaction of being remembered. (It would also be great if we had legit mental healthcare systems but that’s maybe more farfetched.))
All of this is demonstrated pretty remarkably by The Proprietor, the gun salesman and carnival runner, played hauntingly by Simon Lipkin, who represents a sort of universal id. He lures our characters into the darkness by reminding them of the show’s eerie twisted theme, that “Everybody’s got the right to be happy”. He opens the show with lines like, “Hey kid, failed your test? Dream girl unimpressed? Show her you’re the best – if you can shoot a president”, chillingly blunt lyrics that immediately set the disturbing and blackly humorous tone for the show.
That Sondheim makes you think all of this, makes you laugh and feel heartbroken at the world, all in a 100 or so minute musical is a testament to his genius. That this extremely difficult show is such a rousing success is a testament to the Menier, to this spectacular cast, and to this faultless production, which is now completely sold out, and rightly so. With any luck, it’ll transfer to mainstem West End so more people can appreciate how freaking great this show is.
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Thoughts on: Murder Ballad, Off-Broadway
Every single review of this show says it’s ‘sexy’ and ‘the actors are so hot’, and that refrain is really annoying and unoriginal.
But this show is sexy and the actors are so hot.
It’s true. I felt like I was breaking some kind of law sitting in the Union Square Theatre, with fellow audience members wrapping around the bar set in the middle of the room. The beginning especially, with the fantastic Rebecca Naomi Jones opening the show with her gloriously raspy voice, felt dangerous. (As it should; it’s about murder. “I googled murder.”)
This excitement continues through most of the show, but starts to wane when the focus shifts way too much to the hard-to-believe relationship between Michael and Sara. I just didn’t buy their chemistry. Maybe the audience isn’t supposed to fully buy it, but then don’t spend so much time focusing on their domestic life.
But this show is sexy and the actors are so hot.
It’s true. I felt like I was breaking some kind of law sitting in the Union Square Theatre, with fellow audience members wrapping around the bar set in the middle of the room. The beginning especially, with the fantastic Rebecca Naomi Jones opening the show with her gloriously raspy voice, felt dangerous. (As it should; it’s about murder. “I googled murder.”)
This excitement continues through most of the show, but starts to wane when the focus shifts way too much to the hard-to-believe relationship between Michael and Sara. I just didn’t buy their chemistry. Maybe the audience isn’t supposed to fully buy it, but then don’t spend so much time focusing on their domestic life.
Despite the problems with the story, the heavy rock concert-vibe of the show coupled with the actors’ fearlessness drive the show forward and render it a very enjoyable evening. Will Swenson, who stood on my seat during the remarkably exciting 2009 revival of Hair, does a lot more standing on furniture and generally being insanely hot. However, his crazy good voice doesn’t really get a chance to shine through. The rock score forces him to be belt gravel-voiced shouts that don’t show off what this incredibly talented man can do.
Caissie Levy does get to shine vocally, but her character’s quick trip to motherhood seems very odd and out of place. Maybe that helps you feel even more for John Ellison Conlee’s character, who has the best diction. But Jones steals the show. I never appreciated her skills in previous shows, but this is definitely her showcase. The sexy rock score is perfect for her perfectly raspy yet strong voice. Her hilariously mocking faces made just for the audience’s pleasure lighten up the drama and get laughs, from those who can see them in this theatre in the round. I walked away definitely wanting to buy at least 80% of the songs, and wanting to see Jones in whatever she does.
While it was overall a great experience, the show has a few major missteps. In addition to the aforementioned issues with chemistry and story focus, my biggest problem with it is that, while so many smart lyrics go unheard (due to really quick rhythms or really poor diction), the one lyric that sticks out like a sore thumb is the worst thing I’ve ever heard – “Your kiss is like a mouth tattoo.” I mean really. Who says that. What does that mean. I can guess what it means but it is odd, and it’s not good that that’s the one lyric that stuck with me (and other audience members I spoke with).
Luckily, the good outweighs the bad, and I’m really glad I saw this show. It’s a great time, with insanely talented actors and some really kick ass music.
Caissie Levy does get to shine vocally, but her character’s quick trip to motherhood seems very odd and out of place. Maybe that helps you feel even more for John Ellison Conlee’s character, who has the best diction. But Jones steals the show. I never appreciated her skills in previous shows, but this is definitely her showcase. The sexy rock score is perfect for her perfectly raspy yet strong voice. Her hilariously mocking faces made just for the audience’s pleasure lighten up the drama and get laughs, from those who can see them in this theatre in the round. I walked away definitely wanting to buy at least 80% of the songs, and wanting to see Jones in whatever she does.
While it was overall a great experience, the show has a few major missteps. In addition to the aforementioned issues with chemistry and story focus, my biggest problem with it is that, while so many smart lyrics go unheard (due to really quick rhythms or really poor diction), the one lyric that sticks out like a sore thumb is the worst thing I’ve ever heard – “Your kiss is like a mouth tattoo.” I mean really. Who says that. What does that mean. I can guess what it means but it is odd, and it’s not good that that’s the one lyric that stuck with me (and other audience members I spoke with).
Luckily, the good outweighs the bad, and I’m really glad I saw this show. It’s a great time, with insanely talented actors and some really kick ass music.
The Inheritance Part 2: A Fine and Fitting Conclusion to A Masterpiece
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Part 2 of The Inheritance, playing along with Part 1 until January 19 at London’s Noel Coward Theatre..
Before I saw Part 1 of The Inheritance, I had been putting off seeing the show for a very long time because I couldn’t imagine that it was worth the serious time investment: two separate theatre visits of 3 ½ hours each. I said stupid things like ‘if I’m going to see a superlong two-part show it’s going to be Angels in America’ and ‘but they’re not even singing!’ As we learned a few weeks ago, I was hella wrong, because I found Part 1 to be one of the most gripping, moving, full-blooded shows I’ve ever seen. In the few weeks I had between seeing Part 1 and Part 2, I again wished I could put off seeing the second half, but now for incredibly different reasons: I didn’t want to be finished with this story or have to say goodbye to these characters. Spending so much time with this play, the story became part of my mind the way a book does, the way dedicating so much personal time to a book results in it becoming a part of you. I didn’t want it to end. And I was simultaneously scared of how it would end, because this play isn’t exactly a romp. But even though Part 2 is not as great – after the glorious perfection that was Part 1, no second half could really ever measure up – it’s still riveting and emotional and, ultimately and most importantly, satisfying.
Before I saw Part 1 of The Inheritance, I had been putting off seeing the show for a very long time because I couldn’t imagine that it was worth the serious time investment: two separate theatre visits of 3 ½ hours each. I said stupid things like ‘if I’m going to see a superlong two-part show it’s going to be Angels in America’ and ‘but they’re not even singing!’ As we learned a few weeks ago, I was hella wrong, because I found Part 1 to be one of the most gripping, moving, full-blooded shows I’ve ever seen. In the few weeks I had between seeing Part 1 and Part 2, I again wished I could put off seeing the second half, but now for incredibly different reasons: I didn’t want to be finished with this story or have to say goodbye to these characters. Spending so much time with this play, the story became part of my mind the way a book does, the way dedicating so much personal time to a book results in it becoming a part of you. I didn’t want it to end. And I was simultaneously scared of how it would end, because this play isn’t exactly a romp. But even though Part 2 is not as great – after the glorious perfection that was Part 1, no second half could really ever measure up – it’s still riveting and emotional and, ultimately and most importantly, satisfying.
The simple-seeming title, The Inheritance, was relevant to several aspects of Part 1 – the inheritance as in a last will & testament, as in what you receive from ancestors, as in what you get from and what you owe to those who came before you in certain struggles. Part 2 develops that even more, as the play is also about what you get personally from your own family and your upbringing, what you can do with what you’re given and what you can’t fix, what you’ve inherited that might ruin you. Every aspect of what the title encompasses finds a way to break your heart, and even though the emotional reach doesn’t have the same breadth as Part 1, it retains its depth.
The main questions I had from Part 1 were, whether Eric would ever find out the truth about the house; whether he would take over the house’s spiritual purpose of providing a refuge for gay men with nowhere else to turn; and whether Eric would actually continue this relationship with Henry, the real estate billionaire who doesn’t seem to care about anything but himself. Part 1 ends with Eric finally seeing Walter’s country house and feeling the history of the place just as Walter thought he would, in a beautiful tearjerker of a scene that seemed to go on too long but also should never have ended. It created a sense of peace and importance. Part 2 opens with the exact opposite sensibility, an abrupt flip to coldness and ignorance of the house’s tranquil beauty, as Henry Wilcox (John Benjamin Hickey) tells Eric Glass (Kyle Soller) they’re ready to leave only minutes after they’ve arrived. The painful change served as a reminder that these stories aren’t going to work out easily or happily or how I wanted them to. You yearn with Eric to stay and find out more about what has happened there, and in the bigger picture you want Eric to decide that this life of helpfulness that Walter had found in the house is the kind of life he’s meant for, and that Henry’s lack of awareness in this regard shows why he’s wrong for him. Of course, that wouldn’t happen in the first scene, and so he follows Henry back to the city, even though you’re like, dude, why are you spending time with this jabronie?? But it effectively reminds you that these stories are probably not going to go how you wish they would.
The jabronieness of Henry Wilcox is amplified in the first major part of the play, and the most upsetting, when Eric has all his friends over to Henry’s $30 million house in the Village for brunch. I don’t know what he was expecting to happen, but when you bring a bunch of liberal gay men to the house of a billionaire Republican, things are gonna get ugly. In Part 1, it was hinted at that Henry was an R-word when he said he didn’t think the direction of U.S. politics was so bad, and that seemed bad enough for me. But here, they go full out and have Henry talk openly about supporting Trump because he supports what’s ‘best for the market’ and probably loves him some tax breaks because all a billionaire needs is more money. This whole long scene, I felt like Chidi with the stomachaches. Jasper, Eric’s most politically active friend, tries to talk some sense into Henry, but it’s a lost cause and the frustration I felt in my belly exploded onstage as Jasper lost his cool in the ensuing argument. Sure Jasper was wrong for fighting with Henry in his own home, I guess that’s rude, but is it as rude as someone actively making the world worse? I think not. Just go out on the sidewalk and fight the monster. This scene was well done, with Henry at least offering the arguments that aren’t ‘because I hate everyone who isn’t a white man’, and showing how Eric’s sense of morality is disappearing as he spends more time in the billionaire’s world. But it was so frustrating to have to listen to any republican apologists and to think about the diaper genie during my theatre time. Ughh the frustration at Eric for standing by this patently immoral man made me long for the craziness of Toby.
And then we get hours of craziness from Toby (Andrew Burnap)! Like I said before, if Burnap doesn’t win an Olivier and a Tony, then the awards truly don’t mean anything. We already know awards don’t mean anything but they REALLY won’t extra extra. Toby tries to feel something and escape his problems not by getting direly needed therapy or rehab, but by partying on Fire Island with the prostitute Leo (played by the same actor who plays Adam, Samuel H. Levine). The Fire Island club scenes are literally my nightmare, with all the unce unce unce music and the flashing lights and just all the noise, guys, can we keep it down. I was surprised that the focus seemed to switch from the role of Adam in Part 1 to the role of Leo in Part 2, with Adam barely in it anymore, but the actor doubling shows how important both men were for Toby in different ways. Leo’s character was fascinating and heartbreaking, and while Toby still wins the prize for Most in terms of both of those things, the ways they help and hurt each other made both characters more compelling.
Leo gets some of the most spellbinding reveals in Part 2, from the riveting wedding appearance and all the multitudes that can be said by saying just one word, to the ending when we come back to the framing device and it all makes sense. But it’s Toby this time around whose heart you worry about the most, whereas in Part 1 I was concerned most with Eric’s well-being. Eric, though misguided with Henry, shows he can remain standing on his own two feet when things get hard. Toby, on the other hand, is fragile, and even though someone who can be so horrible to others and to himself can seem tough and resilient, he’s really the one most in need of help. I find myself still worrying about Toby and heartbroken at his strife, and mad at playwright Matthew Lopez, Boy Genius, for causing him so much sadness. Oh Toby.
Interestingly, one of the aspects of Part 2 we were most keenly aware of was not the presence of something but the absence: we missed Walter (Paul Hilton). It’s remarkable how he managed to create such a warm, wise, beloved character in Part 1, so much that his absence was deeply felt, creating in our minds a semblance of what Eric and Henry must have been going through. We grieved with them.
Amid all the anxiety I had about Part 2 and where the various stories would go, I had excitement for one specific aspect: to see Vanessa Redgrave onstage. And while I mean no disrespect to this living legend, they should cut her entire part out for Broadway. They won’t, because you can’t fire Vanessa Redgrave, but they should. It’s the same exact situation as with Meryl Streep in “Mary Poppins Returns” – sure she’s a g-d ledge and you’re lucky to have her in your thing, but neither her character nor her scenes do anything to augment rather than detract from the story you’ve built. It didn’t serve the story well, and although she shares some emotional moments as she talks about her past, they weren’t anything novel and so it wasn’t enough to outweigh their feeling out of place in this play. Shame.
There’s so much I want to talk about and cry about and rant about, but I’ll avoid any more spoilers in case some of you decide to see The Inheritance when it opens on Br’dway. Suffice it to say, the total work was one of the best theatrical events ever, and I’m so glad I finally got to experience it. As my last show of 2018, it was fitting to end a stupendous year of theatre with this masterpiece.
INFORMATION
Trying to rush this show on TodayTix is pretty much impossible – they’re gone in a matter of seconds, not minutes. Luckily, the grand circle (that’s the second mezzanine) is still as good a view as the royal circle (that’s the first mezzanine) and slightly cheaper, so affordable tickets are still to be had. Although this Part is five minutes longer than Part 1, there is only one full intermission and one 5 minute ‘pause’, whereas Part 1 had two full intermissions. However, the pause is more than long enough for a sprint to the bathroom if you sit on the correct side – house right (stage left) is closest to the women’s. YOU’RE WELCOME.
The main questions I had from Part 1 were, whether Eric would ever find out the truth about the house; whether he would take over the house’s spiritual purpose of providing a refuge for gay men with nowhere else to turn; and whether Eric would actually continue this relationship with Henry, the real estate billionaire who doesn’t seem to care about anything but himself. Part 1 ends with Eric finally seeing Walter’s country house and feeling the history of the place just as Walter thought he would, in a beautiful tearjerker of a scene that seemed to go on too long but also should never have ended. It created a sense of peace and importance. Part 2 opens with the exact opposite sensibility, an abrupt flip to coldness and ignorance of the house’s tranquil beauty, as Henry Wilcox (John Benjamin Hickey) tells Eric Glass (Kyle Soller) they’re ready to leave only minutes after they’ve arrived. The painful change served as a reminder that these stories aren’t going to work out easily or happily or how I wanted them to. You yearn with Eric to stay and find out more about what has happened there, and in the bigger picture you want Eric to decide that this life of helpfulness that Walter had found in the house is the kind of life he’s meant for, and that Henry’s lack of awareness in this regard shows why he’s wrong for him. Of course, that wouldn’t happen in the first scene, and so he follows Henry back to the city, even though you’re like, dude, why are you spending time with this jabronie?? But it effectively reminds you that these stories are probably not going to go how you wish they would.
The jabronieness of Henry Wilcox is amplified in the first major part of the play, and the most upsetting, when Eric has all his friends over to Henry’s $30 million house in the Village for brunch. I don’t know what he was expecting to happen, but when you bring a bunch of liberal gay men to the house of a billionaire Republican, things are gonna get ugly. In Part 1, it was hinted at that Henry was an R-word when he said he didn’t think the direction of U.S. politics was so bad, and that seemed bad enough for me. But here, they go full out and have Henry talk openly about supporting Trump because he supports what’s ‘best for the market’ and probably loves him some tax breaks because all a billionaire needs is more money. This whole long scene, I felt like Chidi with the stomachaches. Jasper, Eric’s most politically active friend, tries to talk some sense into Henry, but it’s a lost cause and the frustration I felt in my belly exploded onstage as Jasper lost his cool in the ensuing argument. Sure Jasper was wrong for fighting with Henry in his own home, I guess that’s rude, but is it as rude as someone actively making the world worse? I think not. Just go out on the sidewalk and fight the monster. This scene was well done, with Henry at least offering the arguments that aren’t ‘because I hate everyone who isn’t a white man’, and showing how Eric’s sense of morality is disappearing as he spends more time in the billionaire’s world. But it was so frustrating to have to listen to any republican apologists and to think about the diaper genie during my theatre time. Ughh the frustration at Eric for standing by this patently immoral man made me long for the craziness of Toby.
And then we get hours of craziness from Toby (Andrew Burnap)! Like I said before, if Burnap doesn’t win an Olivier and a Tony, then the awards truly don’t mean anything. We already know awards don’t mean anything but they REALLY won’t extra extra. Toby tries to feel something and escape his problems not by getting direly needed therapy or rehab, but by partying on Fire Island with the prostitute Leo (played by the same actor who plays Adam, Samuel H. Levine). The Fire Island club scenes are literally my nightmare, with all the unce unce unce music and the flashing lights and just all the noise, guys, can we keep it down. I was surprised that the focus seemed to switch from the role of Adam in Part 1 to the role of Leo in Part 2, with Adam barely in it anymore, but the actor doubling shows how important both men were for Toby in different ways. Leo’s character was fascinating and heartbreaking, and while Toby still wins the prize for Most in terms of both of those things, the ways they help and hurt each other made both characters more compelling.
Leo gets some of the most spellbinding reveals in Part 2, from the riveting wedding appearance and all the multitudes that can be said by saying just one word, to the ending when we come back to the framing device and it all makes sense. But it’s Toby this time around whose heart you worry about the most, whereas in Part 1 I was concerned most with Eric’s well-being. Eric, though misguided with Henry, shows he can remain standing on his own two feet when things get hard. Toby, on the other hand, is fragile, and even though someone who can be so horrible to others and to himself can seem tough and resilient, he’s really the one most in need of help. I find myself still worrying about Toby and heartbroken at his strife, and mad at playwright Matthew Lopez, Boy Genius, for causing him so much sadness. Oh Toby.
Interestingly, one of the aspects of Part 2 we were most keenly aware of was not the presence of something but the absence: we missed Walter (Paul Hilton). It’s remarkable how he managed to create such a warm, wise, beloved character in Part 1, so much that his absence was deeply felt, creating in our minds a semblance of what Eric and Henry must have been going through. We grieved with them.
Amid all the anxiety I had about Part 2 and where the various stories would go, I had excitement for one specific aspect: to see Vanessa Redgrave onstage. And while I mean no disrespect to this living legend, they should cut her entire part out for Broadway. They won’t, because you can’t fire Vanessa Redgrave, but they should. It’s the same exact situation as with Meryl Streep in “Mary Poppins Returns” – sure she’s a g-d ledge and you’re lucky to have her in your thing, but neither her character nor her scenes do anything to augment rather than detract from the story you’ve built. It didn’t serve the story well, and although she shares some emotional moments as she talks about her past, they weren’t anything novel and so it wasn’t enough to outweigh their feeling out of place in this play. Shame.
There’s so much I want to talk about and cry about and rant about, but I’ll avoid any more spoilers in case some of you decide to see The Inheritance when it opens on Br’dway. Suffice it to say, the total work was one of the best theatrical events ever, and I’m so glad I finally got to experience it. As my last show of 2018, it was fitting to end a stupendous year of theatre with this masterpiece.
INFORMATION
Trying to rush this show on TodayTix is pretty much impossible – they’re gone in a matter of seconds, not minutes. Luckily, the grand circle (that’s the second mezzanine) is still as good a view as the royal circle (that’s the first mezzanine) and slightly cheaper, so affordable tickets are still to be had. Although this Part is five minutes longer than Part 1, there is only one full intermission and one 5 minute ‘pause’, whereas Part 1 had two full intermissions. However, the pause is more than long enough for a sprint to the bathroom if you sit on the correct side – house right (stage left) is closest to the women’s. YOU’RE WELCOME.
