"Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" in the West End: It's Just Prettyby Randi / April 14, 2015
Yes that is signed by Imelda!
After a 40-year absence from the West End, one of the most important American musicals is finally back. And it’s the best musical currently playing in this town that favors its straight plays. Imelda Staunton takes on the iconic (beyond iconic) role of Mamma Rose, and it’s not like anyone ever doubted her abilities or anything, but she kills it. And I’m not just saying that because she would make me write the rest of this blog with my own blood if I said anything bad about her like she did to Harry.
Having been spoiled by the greatest diva Patti LuPone as Mamma Rose in only the past decade, I had very high expectations for Imelda. Hell, Patti LuPone’s mere existence has given me high expectations for every facet of life, from dinner parties to toothbrushing. No one can try to rival Patti’s goddamn beautiful brassy voice on the big singing numbers; she LuPWNs everyone. But Imelda didn’t have to give us a big diva voice to effectively show us her crazy. While I did find myself yearning to listen to Patti’s cast recording later, Imelda’s acting, especially in her ballsiest moments, was off the charts impressive. Very often, I was transported to their world in the 1920s and ‘30s, forgetting that I was watching an actress I’ve adored for so long and sometimes forgetting to blink.
In case you don’t know, “Gypsy” tells the story of Rose, the original awful pushy stage mother whose name has become synonymous with awful pushy stage mothers, who will do anything to make her daughter a star. At first, she focuses her life and all of her being on June, the talented daughter, while pushing Louise, the not-so, to the side. (Or to the chorus as one of the boys in June’s act.) The family along with random boys (named after the towns they were picked up in, I love that) travel the country for years and years to perform at vaudeville halls for whatever they can get. June finally has enough when she’s at some grown-up age (they never really are sure of how old they are), and she and the boy that Louise had a crush on, Tulsa, elope. Poor Louise. Rose switches her focus to her remaining daughter, vowing to talent her up and make her a star. However, vaudeville is dying, and when their shitty act gets accidentally booked at a burlesque hall, everything changes. Louise almost accidentally finds her kind-of-creepy calling in a world where she doesn’t need or want her mother around anymore, and Rose realizes that her entire life was spent pushing her girls to stardom when obviously she just wanted fame for herself and never got it. So sad but so crazy.
Lots of important people say that “Gypsy” is the greatest American musical. I think it’s one of the most important, and definitely Rose is one of if not the most important female characters in the canon, but the show is not the best. It’s great, but there’s so much clutter – I had forgotten how much of the show is the stupid kids’ act. Oh my goodness! Baby June & Her Newsboys! Extra Extra! Look at the headline! Dainty June & Her Farmboys! Oh my god it gets ANNOYING. 70% of the first act is the kids performing. And 60% of Act II is the grow-up kids act with Louise as the star. We hear the act’s one song about 90 times, and then of course we hear “Let Me Entertain You” 99 times. I could sense my husband starting to hulk out when it literally became a stress test gone insane. Luckily, the parts that aren’t the kids performances are superb. It’s so funny, that the dramatic arc of the family dynamic is classic and brilliant, while the majority of the show, the pacing, the structure, is all these dumb kids. Once you make it through that, though, you are rewarded with some of the most compelling musical numbers ever. “Some People”, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”, and “Rose’s Turn” are of course the big three, the core of Rose’s performance that all need to be absolutely nailed, and Imelda nailed them. I never knew she could sing at all, and I was blown away by how it wasn’t even singing, it was just a continuation of her character.
So many of the other smaller songs are equally memorable and beautiful. We have “Small World”, “Together Wherever We Go”, “If Mama Was Married”, the latter of which gives us our one and only glimpse into the sister relationship and it always makes me want to see more of that. you wonder how much Rose created a divide between the girls and whether they could have bonded over complaining about her if given the chance to be friends. Although I suppose when June secretly marries the boy Louise had a crush on, the relationship is beyond strained.
Speaking of Tulsa, man that is such a good role for an up and coming young man. You show off your dancing and a little singing for like, 10 minutes, and then you are gone for the rest of the show. I love how subtle Louise’s falling for him is. It increases the emotional heft of her performance to feel that you’ve sensed a secret longing of someone onstage without overtly being told as such, like you form a connection with Louise and thus feel for her even more. The 2008 Broadway revival (Patti’s) spoiled me with Laura Benanti, who showed Louise’s emotional journey so subtly and exquisitely that she set the bar insanely high for future Gypsies. Also, her moos, as one of Dainty June’s farm animals, cannot be beat. (“Mu MOO mu moo.” She deserved a Tony just for that. It cracks me up.) Lara Pulver, the West End’s Gypsy, does a fine job in showing us Louise’s journey, and her voice is beautiful. My favorite moment of hers was her “Little Lamb”, a song I always forget about, but it’s really lovely and moving while being so so simple. But there’s nothing to Pulver’s performance that we aren’t explicitly shown, no deeper emotional levels or subtlety. I felt at times (as I so often do here) that her focus on keeping her American accent in check hindered her ability to fully be in character and show us more to Louise. Like, Gypsy Rose Lee isn’t some woodland sprite who lives a life of joy surrounded by singing butterflies, but that’s what she would have us believe at the end of this, that she was finally sincerely happy. There was no necessary edge to this proclamation of happiness, no bite undercutting it. And we need that.
The role of Herbie, Rose’s longtime, long-suffering partner, is equally important, and Peter Davison was very good, although he sounded eerily close to Gene Hackman’s chain-smoking tobacco magnate in “Heartbreakers”. However, he seemed almost too strong to be hurt by Rose, and when he finally finally leaves her for good, you are not upset because you are just happy for him! Yay Herbie! Run don’t walk and so on! I think that scene is supposed to be a bit more crushing though. When Herbie seems weaker, it is, because it’s easier to see that he really does love Rose for some reason. But this Herbie was a little too normal, and there’s no normal in “Gypsy”.
After such a remarkable night, the ending left me kind of confused and cold. In the 2008 revival and in the versions I’m more familiar with, the ‘reconciliation’ between Rose and Louise is tentative, to say the least. I always thought the point was that Louise despised Rose or at least blamed her for everything terrible that has befallen the family, and for her private anguish. I remember Laura Benanti’s Louise laughing at Rose’s dream and the tension between the two still being fo’ serious. Rose is left kind of pathetically dragging behind. Here, instead, they seemed to fully make up, with Pulver’s Louise being like ‘Dude I’m SO happy there is NOTHING I’m hiding in my talk about happiness, just pure joy!’ and the last shot should have been Rose tripping-running to catch up to her star of a daughter (that was such a shockingly good image, like Rose was scurrying still to chase stardom), but instead the last shot is Louise putting her arm around her mother when she does catch up! What is that! There’s no happy mother-daughter ending in “Gypsy”! I was quite taken aback by this type of forgiveness-filled ending to what should be a wretched, regret-filled end for Rose. It’s much more dramatic and moving if there’s no forgiveness (like in life!). It an unfortunate final minute or so to two hours of splendid theatre, so it’s okay. Imelda’s performance is so unbelievable, it’s a must-see. It’s kind of hilarious that the Olivier Awards occurred only a few nights before this show opened, because the fact that there is anyone else, male of female, lead or supporting, performing on the West End and supposedly giving an award-worthy performance while Imelda is living and breathing this role is kind of ridiculous.
OH. There’s a live puppy. So it’s worth seeing for that. PUPPIEEEEEE!
AUDIENCE: Oh dammit. I mean. PEOPLE. You’d think the audience at “Gypsy” would be well-behaved. For the most part, they were okay…but they talked during the overtures. And I don’t mean people behind me were whispering and I could shush them easily (I mean, they were and I did, but that’s not the point.) EVERYONE in the whole theatre was talking at regular volume during the overture. And especially when it is so rare to be treated to the full overture nowadays (or even to have one in shows at all), that is a crying shame. (And it literally almost made me cry, it’s so frustrating.) People apparently thought it was just like ‘sit-down’ music and that the show didn’t start yet. Ughhhhahhhh the overture sets the tone of the show! It has begun, you ingrates! It happened at the start of Act II as well, with the shorter interlude still being too long for our audience to stay quiet. What is wrong with people? It actually got to the point where I was thisclose to standing up and yelling “SHUT YOUR DAMN FACEHOLES!” But I haven’t quite figured out when that is the less disturbing/more helpful action to take in a crap situation like that. One day, I hope to have the courage to actually do it. Actually, if we’re hoping for stuff, I hope for people to stop acting like idiots in the theatre, how about that.
In case you don’t know, “Gypsy” tells the story of Rose, the original awful pushy stage mother whose name has become synonymous with awful pushy stage mothers, who will do anything to make her daughter a star. At first, she focuses her life and all of her being on June, the talented daughter, while pushing Louise, the not-so, to the side. (Or to the chorus as one of the boys in June’s act.) The family along with random boys (named after the towns they were picked up in, I love that) travel the country for years and years to perform at vaudeville halls for whatever they can get. June finally has enough when she’s at some grown-up age (they never really are sure of how old they are), and she and the boy that Louise had a crush on, Tulsa, elope. Poor Louise. Rose switches her focus to her remaining daughter, vowing to talent her up and make her a star. However, vaudeville is dying, and when their shitty act gets accidentally booked at a burlesque hall, everything changes. Louise almost accidentally finds her kind-of-creepy calling in a world where she doesn’t need or want her mother around anymore, and Rose realizes that her entire life was spent pushing her girls to stardom when obviously she just wanted fame for herself and never got it. So sad but so crazy.
Lots of important people say that “Gypsy” is the greatest American musical. I think it’s one of the most important, and definitely Rose is one of if not the most important female characters in the canon, but the show is not the best. It’s great, but there’s so much clutter – I had forgotten how much of the show is the stupid kids’ act. Oh my goodness! Baby June & Her Newsboys! Extra Extra! Look at the headline! Dainty June & Her Farmboys! Oh my god it gets ANNOYING. 70% of the first act is the kids performing. And 60% of Act II is the grow-up kids act with Louise as the star. We hear the act’s one song about 90 times, and then of course we hear “Let Me Entertain You” 99 times. I could sense my husband starting to hulk out when it literally became a stress test gone insane. Luckily, the parts that aren’t the kids performances are superb. It’s so funny, that the dramatic arc of the family dynamic is classic and brilliant, while the majority of the show, the pacing, the structure, is all these dumb kids. Once you make it through that, though, you are rewarded with some of the most compelling musical numbers ever. “Some People”, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”, and “Rose’s Turn” are of course the big three, the core of Rose’s performance that all need to be absolutely nailed, and Imelda nailed them. I never knew she could sing at all, and I was blown away by how it wasn’t even singing, it was just a continuation of her character.
So many of the other smaller songs are equally memorable and beautiful. We have “Small World”, “Together Wherever We Go”, “If Mama Was Married”, the latter of which gives us our one and only glimpse into the sister relationship and it always makes me want to see more of that. you wonder how much Rose created a divide between the girls and whether they could have bonded over complaining about her if given the chance to be friends. Although I suppose when June secretly marries the boy Louise had a crush on, the relationship is beyond strained.
Speaking of Tulsa, man that is such a good role for an up and coming young man. You show off your dancing and a little singing for like, 10 minutes, and then you are gone for the rest of the show. I love how subtle Louise’s falling for him is. It increases the emotional heft of her performance to feel that you’ve sensed a secret longing of someone onstage without overtly being told as such, like you form a connection with Louise and thus feel for her even more. The 2008 Broadway revival (Patti’s) spoiled me with Laura Benanti, who showed Louise’s emotional journey so subtly and exquisitely that she set the bar insanely high for future Gypsies. Also, her moos, as one of Dainty June’s farm animals, cannot be beat. (“Mu MOO mu moo.” She deserved a Tony just for that. It cracks me up.) Lara Pulver, the West End’s Gypsy, does a fine job in showing us Louise’s journey, and her voice is beautiful. My favorite moment of hers was her “Little Lamb”, a song I always forget about, but it’s really lovely and moving while being so so simple. But there’s nothing to Pulver’s performance that we aren’t explicitly shown, no deeper emotional levels or subtlety. I felt at times (as I so often do here) that her focus on keeping her American accent in check hindered her ability to fully be in character and show us more to Louise. Like, Gypsy Rose Lee isn’t some woodland sprite who lives a life of joy surrounded by singing butterflies, but that’s what she would have us believe at the end of this, that she was finally sincerely happy. There was no necessary edge to this proclamation of happiness, no bite undercutting it. And we need that.
The role of Herbie, Rose’s longtime, long-suffering partner, is equally important, and Peter Davison was very good, although he sounded eerily close to Gene Hackman’s chain-smoking tobacco magnate in “Heartbreakers”. However, he seemed almost too strong to be hurt by Rose, and when he finally finally leaves her for good, you are not upset because you are just happy for him! Yay Herbie! Run don’t walk and so on! I think that scene is supposed to be a bit more crushing though. When Herbie seems weaker, it is, because it’s easier to see that he really does love Rose for some reason. But this Herbie was a little too normal, and there’s no normal in “Gypsy”.
After such a remarkable night, the ending left me kind of confused and cold. In the 2008 revival and in the versions I’m more familiar with, the ‘reconciliation’ between Rose and Louise is tentative, to say the least. I always thought the point was that Louise despised Rose or at least blamed her for everything terrible that has befallen the family, and for her private anguish. I remember Laura Benanti’s Louise laughing at Rose’s dream and the tension between the two still being fo’ serious. Rose is left kind of pathetically dragging behind. Here, instead, they seemed to fully make up, with Pulver’s Louise being like ‘Dude I’m SO happy there is NOTHING I’m hiding in my talk about happiness, just pure joy!’ and the last shot should have been Rose tripping-running to catch up to her star of a daughter (that was such a shockingly good image, like Rose was scurrying still to chase stardom), but instead the last shot is Louise putting her arm around her mother when she does catch up! What is that! There’s no happy mother-daughter ending in “Gypsy”! I was quite taken aback by this type of forgiveness-filled ending to what should be a wretched, regret-filled end for Rose. It’s much more dramatic and moving if there’s no forgiveness (like in life!). It an unfortunate final minute or so to two hours of splendid theatre, so it’s okay. Imelda’s performance is so unbelievable, it’s a must-see. It’s kind of hilarious that the Olivier Awards occurred only a few nights before this show opened, because the fact that there is anyone else, male of female, lead or supporting, performing on the West End and supposedly giving an award-worthy performance while Imelda is living and breathing this role is kind of ridiculous.
OH. There’s a live puppy. So it’s worth seeing for that. PUPPIEEEEEE!
AUDIENCE: Oh dammit. I mean. PEOPLE. You’d think the audience at “Gypsy” would be well-behaved. For the most part, they were okay…but they talked during the overtures. And I don’t mean people behind me were whispering and I could shush them easily (I mean, they were and I did, but that’s not the point.) EVERYONE in the whole theatre was talking at regular volume during the overture. And especially when it is so rare to be treated to the full overture nowadays (or even to have one in shows at all), that is a crying shame. (And it literally almost made me cry, it’s so frustrating.) People apparently thought it was just like ‘sit-down’ music and that the show didn’t start yet. Ughhhhahhhh the overture sets the tone of the show! It has begun, you ingrates! It happened at the start of Act II as well, with the shorter interlude still being too long for our audience to stay quiet. What is wrong with people? It actually got to the point where I was thisclose to standing up and yelling “SHUT YOUR DAMN FACEHOLES!” But I haven’t quite figured out when that is the less disturbing/more helpful action to take in a crap situation like that. One day, I hope to have the courage to actually do it. Actually, if we’re hoping for stuff, I hope for people to stop acting like idiots in the theatre, how about that.
Related Posts
My Mixed Day at MTFest: The Assassination of Katie Hopkins & Soapdish
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are (finally) looking at two works in progress I saw at MTFest a week or so ago and hoping that creatives make the necessary fixes as needed.
Let me first state for the record that MTFestUK is a phenomenal project, a weeks-long showcase of new musical theatre works and works in progress. In a city where new musical theatre talent and ideas can easily take a backseat to big shiny commercial ventures at the expense of artistry, this platform gives a much-needed boost, hopefully towards a full-fledged production, to creativity and originality. London needs to nurture more original and innovative musical theatre and more undersung talent, so this festival rocks.
I had time to see two shows during this festival, The Assassination of Katie Hopkins (AKH) and Soapdish. I had low expectations for the former, as it’s a new-to-me creative team and it sounded either silly or too much and I just didn’t know about it. I had high expectations for the latter since it came from Stiles & Drewe and had a cast of super recognizable names. As they say about expectations or assumptions or what have you, the results were the exact opposite: AKH (I wish it abbreviated sensibly to ASS because that’s what she is) was incredibly impressive and has stuck with me, where Soapdish was almost offensive to me as a human person and is the latest entry in my How to Fix Your Show series. Let’s start with the good.
The Assassination of Katie Hopkins
Extremely relevant politically and socially, ASS AKH shows the aftermath of the imagined murder of Katie Hopkins, notorious far-right political commentator, English Trumpian, racist, bigot, stupidhead, and all around c-word. On the first consideration of this fictional event you’re like ‘eh all in a day’ but you know, it’s still a murder, and that’s bad. The show follows several threads of narrative post-event, with interweaving lyrics and melodies to show the connectedness of ‘different sides’ and all of our lives. There’s young intern Kayleigh (Bethzienna Williams), tasked with researching Hopkins for a human rights charity and finding herself somehow propelled to the spotlight as she sort of takes up Hopkins’ mantle. The path of this young lost person getting swept up in right-wing fanaticism in order to find her foothold in our society seemed so authentic, and it was cool (I mean not cool but you know cool) to see the radicalization of a girl for a change.
Other storytelling threads involve the increase in harassment for people of color who had nothing to do with the murder, as is the sad but super predictable result, like post 9/11 bullshit. One such target is Shayma (Maimuna Memon (who we LOVED in Ghost Quartet, put her in everything)), a paralegal at a big law firm who expects better from people but feels like she’s the only one recognizing so much of the tragedy happening constantly. Shayma has a history of being ‘problematic’ at her firm, because she was sexually harassed by a bigwig and got him fired, so she’s on thin ice because that’s how that works. (The firing is the only hard to believe part of this show, since big law firms love to just pay the victims hush money so they don’t have to discipline ‘important men’. Happens super frequently it’s astounding. FUN WORLD.) She serves as the voice of most conscience-having people, wondering if we are taking crazy pills as the rest of the world seems to move on from enormous tragic events after a single breath. The whole show gives a good voice to the idea of empathy exhaustion, an aspect I found quite moving.
I hope that in the full show, Kayleigh’s journey to the right-wing spotlight is shown as more of a progression rather than a jump, since that journey is really believable and important to discuss. I hope Shayma is given more to do (I mean just let her sing the whole time) to show the interplay of her story with the rest, because as it stands, her song about slaying dragons after a tube incident could be cut, as it didn’t flow with the rest of the show as I saw, but if it’s woven more fully into the narrative it would be great because that song was forking fire. A lot of the music (by Matt Winkworth and Chris Bush) is wonderful, actually, and a lot of it is haunting. There was one point when Shayma was singing the list of names from one horrific tragedy and she said ‘Victor’ at the same time someone was singing the word ‘victim’ and I almost gasped, it was gorgeous. I cannot wait to see this show as a full-fledged production; I think it has the potential to be incredible.
Soapdish
Boy oh boy, you big man, you boy. Based on the 1991 Sally Field movie, Soapdish is about soap opera darling Celeste Talbert who is America’s sweetheart onscreen and a real b word offscreen. Her younger costar schemes to knock her off her perch and become the star. And there’s a secret love child involved. So this all sounds super fun and should be ripe for the romcom musical treatment, but so far, this show felt way too amateur. I wouldn’t be so blunt about these sorts of progress report showcases but given the talent involved, I expected much more refined work. They need to chuck the score out the window and start over (but keep the two instances of good rhymes – future with suture and Brecht with expect; those were good). It was like rough draft of Mean Girls songs (and that’s saying something since the final version of Mean Girls has like one good song). No song passed the smell test.
Also, the lead character of Celeste (Louise Dearman) needs to be reconsidered. The whole thing is that she’s an awful monster in real life – at least that’s what the preshow introduction said – but she didn’t seem like a bitch at all; she just seemed sad and pathetic knowing that her days were numbered as she gets older. So after the score, my second big problem is that there is no consistency to the lead character. Why should we be interested in her younger costar’s attempt at a coup except to say that like, it’s kind of sad?
And that brings me to the biggest problem. This younger costar Montana (Laura Pitt-Pulford) uses the promise of sex to get the producer, David (Richard Dempsey), to go along with her shenanigans. I get that this was the movie plot, in 1991, but that is no excuse for having such a grossly sexist storyline. (See, e.g. Pretty Woman the Musical and how copying the movie is not an excuse to be shit.) Everything about this felt super icky and suuuper obvious that it was an all-male creative team. Look people, there’s a way to do old-fashioned storylines, and even sexist storylines, without actually having your show feel sexist. It was infuriating, this whole thing, even though LPP says the name ‘David’ hilariously – but like most good jokes they repeat it ad infinitum and thus run it into the ground, destroying the fun of it. Actually the ruining of a great bit of comedy might be the most upsetting part. And of course the fact that London audiences will eat this shit up, and did.
The only person who comes out on top is young Alice Croft, who has a voice like baby Laura Osnes and honestly I cannot wait to hear her sing full (improved) scores.
Daniel Radcliffe in “The Cripple of Inishmaan”, One of the Best Plays of the Season
In Martin McDonagh’s fantastic, heartbreaking comedy “The Cripple of Inishmaan”, Daniel Radcliffe proves that he’s got more in him than Harry Potter. With great respect for the humorous yet depressing subject matter, Radcliffe and an insanely talented ensemble cast give this play its best imaginable incarnation.
Radcliffe plays a poor crippled lad named Billy living on the island of Inishmaan, Ireland in the 1930s or thereabouts. His parents died when he was a baby – some taunt Billy (really ‘Crippled Billy’, as this town primarily full of assholes calls him; Inishmaan didn’t get the memo about bullying) by saying his parents killed themselves to get away from his poor crippled babiness. Billy was taken in by his two ‘aunties’, played by Gillian Hanna and Ingrid Craigie, who are freaking hilarious Irish perfection. Seriously, the play opens with the two of them deadpanning near nonsense and if that went on for 2 hours, with Radcliffe never showing up, the audience probably would have been ok with it.
One of the aunties looks exactly like Marla Hooch and the other talks to stones when things get rough. The aunties get more than their fair share of gossip from Johnnypateenmike (Pat Shortt), who has the worst name since I thought Conchita Wurst was a real name. JPM comes by the aunties’ shoppe (which is overflowing with canned peas) every day, sharing bits of ‘news’, including such winners as whose cat bit whose rabbit or some such, and in return demands eggs and what not.
One of the bits of news he shares is that a Hollywood film crew is filming on the nearby island of Inishmore and wants to cast locals!! Squee! says the whole town. We all want to be in the Hollywood moving pictures! This kind of random turn of events sets the main ‘plot’ in motion, thought the play isn’t really plot-driven so much as character-driven and it would have been equally effective without this whole, well, plot. Anyway, the Crip hears this news and believes it to be his chance to make something of himself.
Johnnypateenmike seems pretty darn annoying, and not just because of his name, and kind of assy, but of course our first impression is super wrong because this is a play and we have to learn that we’re not always right about red-nosed greasy-haired Irish men who drink a lot. Our first impression is also wrong, though moving from the opposite direction, of Babbybobby, another unfortunately named male considering babby = baby in Ireland speak. He seems pretty sensitive and kind at first, helping Billy get to Inishmore to try out for the film crew. But he shows himself to be a crazy kind of sensitive in that when he is offended he beats the shit out of crippled boys. But he does agree to stop calling him Crippled Billy (before he cripples him even more), so that’s something.
Babbybobby takes Billy across the sea or whatever body of water is legendarily difficult to cross but reasonably doable in a handmade canoe. Although the other characters were laughing at Billy’s desire to try out for the film crew, they actually end up wanting him to come to Hollywood for a proper screen test. Yay Billy! He goes without telling his aunties what he’s up to, and rumor spreads (that Billy himself may or may not have started) that he is dying and left to die in solitude. Prettayyy dire. But then he comes back. But then he probably is dying anyway. There’s a lot of great dramatic irony. You should read or see the play.
The most electric member of this superb ensemble (freal) is Sarah Greene as Helen, who is pretty much the Irish ginger lass version of Reese Witherspoon’s Melanie Spooner from “Sweet Home Alabama”. (Actually, whichever one of these came second may have stolen the character from the other.) Melanie was famous for attaching dynamite to a cat to blow up a bank; Helen kills a neighbor’s cat for money. (Kind of also like Angel Dumott Schunard BUT NOT NEARLY AS AWESOME.) At first, as Helen’s first scene features her recounting how she hit or egged some priests for inappropriate touching, I was like, oh wow this chick ROCKS! Beat those priests! But as we observe Helen, her ballsiness evidences its tendency toward sadism. Maybe it’s a result of her being treated as women were and still are, but like you could adapt to be more Daenarys and less Ramsey Snow.
Anyway, this total crazy bitch eggs things and people any chance she gets. To demonstrate this, the production destroys at least a dozen real eggs during every performance. I almost leapt down from my box to stop her. Ok, so having a young girl throw eggs a lot shows that she is ‘fun’ and ‘rambunctious’ and ‘confident’, but really it’s just sad and wasteful and unnecessary to use real eggs when we already understand the character. They were going to be chickens! And instead of at least being used as eggs so the many lives lost in their production wouldn’t be completely in vain, they are cracked upon another ginger’s head and thrown at bedsheets acting as movie screens. UGH anger. Between this and the eggs Andy Karl drinks every show in “Rocky”, this Broadway season is not cruelty-free.
ANYWAY. That other ginger being egged so much is Helen’s brother Bartley, who is kind of lovable and sweet, but he’s completely incapable of deflecting his sister’s constant need to beat the shit out of someone. All this kid wants is American candies, or in a pinch any candies, which he persistently asks the aunties for in hilarious bits. The best such bit is when Auntie Marla Hooch just keeps repeating “We have what you see!” in tones of increasing impatience. (He calls candies ‘sweeties’ but we will not stoop to such low levels because it’s a terrible, awful, no good word in that awful trend of taking the defining trait and making a noun of it WHICH IS BULLSHIT. Add to my list of verboten words ‘tasty’, ‘brekkie’, ‘choccy’, ‘biccie’, and more we will get to at some point in the future.)
For some reason, Billy is crazy so crazy in love with Helen, which I don’t get unless he believes that shit about how the meanest kids in elementary school really just had crushes on you or something because otherwise he is just a glutton for punishment. I mean she treats him so terribly, making fun of his ailments and telling terrible stories about his parents. God she’s the worst (but the actress is amazing. And looks exactly like Emma Stone.).
Radcliffe’s affectations of the deformities are so well done that, while at first they are shocking, they become so accepted and you get used to it. It’s an amazing physical performance, as he swings one of his legs around and keeps one arm bent at his shoulder. Very strange. Anyway, Crippled Billy goes to Hollywood, and in the second act we wonder if he made it, or if he’s actually dying, or dead. Then we think the question is answered, as Radcliffe’s performs the show’s biggest “Watch Me Acting” scene, in which he convulses and coughs and prays and cries out to his deceased parents and clutches things, as he dies. It’s pretty heartbreaking…yet it seems like a manifestation of a playwright’s manic excess and not like anything the character would do. It was like someone exclaiming in Shakespearean monologues when a train is late (which I do but still). But it all makes sense when we learn later that this ‘scene’ we saw, Billy’s death, was actually Billy’s screen test! And it went badly and caused the producers to send him back home! So, like, knowing this is even more impressive on Radcliffe’s part. He had to act this big huge scene as dramatically as all get out, and expertly do it poorly. No easy feat.
For about two minutes everything seems hunky-dory, with the aunties and Billy reunited, but being a dark Irish play, everything goes to shit soon after. In the span of maybe five minutes, we learn from Johnnypateenmike the truth about Billy’s parents, and it is a doozy. Possibly the saddest thing ever and reminiscent of a part from Benjamin Button. And in that moment JPM becomes like the greatest man alive. Aw. Then, just as the rumors about Billy’s terminal illness are revealed as lies he introduced himself, we learn that lying about having bad diseases angers the gods or something and will lead them to give the liar in question the very disease they lied about having, in an ironic twist of fate. Pretty f-ing sad, Ireland. But none of it seems overwrought or theatrical. The play, so expertly produced and acted, leaves you not feeling dejected but feeling lucky to have witnessed such insight into human emotion and the randomness of fortune. It’s definitely one of the best of the season.
One of the aunties looks exactly like Marla Hooch and the other talks to stones when things get rough. The aunties get more than their fair share of gossip from Johnnypateenmike (Pat Shortt), who has the worst name since I thought Conchita Wurst was a real name. JPM comes by the aunties’ shoppe (which is overflowing with canned peas) every day, sharing bits of ‘news’, including such winners as whose cat bit whose rabbit or some such, and in return demands eggs and what not.
One of the bits of news he shares is that a Hollywood film crew is filming on the nearby island of Inishmore and wants to cast locals!! Squee! says the whole town. We all want to be in the Hollywood moving pictures! This kind of random turn of events sets the main ‘plot’ in motion, thought the play isn’t really plot-driven so much as character-driven and it would have been equally effective without this whole, well, plot. Anyway, the Crip hears this news and believes it to be his chance to make something of himself.
Johnnypateenmike seems pretty darn annoying, and not just because of his name, and kind of assy, but of course our first impression is super wrong because this is a play and we have to learn that we’re not always right about red-nosed greasy-haired Irish men who drink a lot. Our first impression is also wrong, though moving from the opposite direction, of Babbybobby, another unfortunately named male considering babby = baby in Ireland speak. He seems pretty sensitive and kind at first, helping Billy get to Inishmore to try out for the film crew. But he shows himself to be a crazy kind of sensitive in that when he is offended he beats the shit out of crippled boys. But he does agree to stop calling him Crippled Billy (before he cripples him even more), so that’s something.
Babbybobby takes Billy across the sea or whatever body of water is legendarily difficult to cross but reasonably doable in a handmade canoe. Although the other characters were laughing at Billy’s desire to try out for the film crew, they actually end up wanting him to come to Hollywood for a proper screen test. Yay Billy! He goes without telling his aunties what he’s up to, and rumor spreads (that Billy himself may or may not have started) that he is dying and left to die in solitude. Prettayyy dire. But then he comes back. But then he probably is dying anyway. There’s a lot of great dramatic irony. You should read or see the play.
The most electric member of this superb ensemble (freal) is Sarah Greene as Helen, who is pretty much the Irish ginger lass version of Reese Witherspoon’s Melanie Spooner from “Sweet Home Alabama”. (Actually, whichever one of these came second may have stolen the character from the other.) Melanie was famous for attaching dynamite to a cat to blow up a bank; Helen kills a neighbor’s cat for money. (Kind of also like Angel Dumott Schunard BUT NOT NEARLY AS AWESOME.) At first, as Helen’s first scene features her recounting how she hit or egged some priests for inappropriate touching, I was like, oh wow this chick ROCKS! Beat those priests! But as we observe Helen, her ballsiness evidences its tendency toward sadism. Maybe it’s a result of her being treated as women were and still are, but like you could adapt to be more Daenarys and less Ramsey Snow.
Anyway, this total crazy bitch eggs things and people any chance she gets. To demonstrate this, the production destroys at least a dozen real eggs during every performance. I almost leapt down from my box to stop her. Ok, so having a young girl throw eggs a lot shows that she is ‘fun’ and ‘rambunctious’ and ‘confident’, but really it’s just sad and wasteful and unnecessary to use real eggs when we already understand the character. They were going to be chickens! And instead of at least being used as eggs so the many lives lost in their production wouldn’t be completely in vain, they are cracked upon another ginger’s head and thrown at bedsheets acting as movie screens. UGH anger. Between this and the eggs Andy Karl drinks every show in “Rocky”, this Broadway season is not cruelty-free.
ANYWAY. That other ginger being egged so much is Helen’s brother Bartley, who is kind of lovable and sweet, but he’s completely incapable of deflecting his sister’s constant need to beat the shit out of someone. All this kid wants is American candies, or in a pinch any candies, which he persistently asks the aunties for in hilarious bits. The best such bit is when Auntie Marla Hooch just keeps repeating “We have what you see!” in tones of increasing impatience. (He calls candies ‘sweeties’ but we will not stoop to such low levels because it’s a terrible, awful, no good word in that awful trend of taking the defining trait and making a noun of it WHICH IS BULLSHIT. Add to my list of verboten words ‘tasty’, ‘brekkie’, ‘choccy’, ‘biccie’, and more we will get to at some point in the future.)
For some reason, Billy is crazy so crazy in love with Helen, which I don’t get unless he believes that shit about how the meanest kids in elementary school really just had crushes on you or something because otherwise he is just a glutton for punishment. I mean she treats him so terribly, making fun of his ailments and telling terrible stories about his parents. God she’s the worst (but the actress is amazing. And looks exactly like Emma Stone.).
Radcliffe’s affectations of the deformities are so well done that, while at first they are shocking, they become so accepted and you get used to it. It’s an amazing physical performance, as he swings one of his legs around and keeps one arm bent at his shoulder. Very strange. Anyway, Crippled Billy goes to Hollywood, and in the second act we wonder if he made it, or if he’s actually dying, or dead. Then we think the question is answered, as Radcliffe’s performs the show’s biggest “Watch Me Acting” scene, in which he convulses and coughs and prays and cries out to his deceased parents and clutches things, as he dies. It’s pretty heartbreaking…yet it seems like a manifestation of a playwright’s manic excess and not like anything the character would do. It was like someone exclaiming in Shakespearean monologues when a train is late (which I do but still). But it all makes sense when we learn later that this ‘scene’ we saw, Billy’s death, was actually Billy’s screen test! And it went badly and caused the producers to send him back home! So, like, knowing this is even more impressive on Radcliffe’s part. He had to act this big huge scene as dramatically as all get out, and expertly do it poorly. No easy feat.
For about two minutes everything seems hunky-dory, with the aunties and Billy reunited, but being a dark Irish play, everything goes to shit soon after. In the span of maybe five minutes, we learn from Johnnypateenmike the truth about Billy’s parents, and it is a doozy. Possibly the saddest thing ever and reminiscent of a part from Benjamin Button. And in that moment JPM becomes like the greatest man alive. Aw. Then, just as the rumors about Billy’s terminal illness are revealed as lies he introduced himself, we learn that lying about having bad diseases angers the gods or something and will lead them to give the liar in question the very disease they lied about having, in an ironic twist of fate. Pretty f-ing sad, Ireland. But none of it seems overwrought or theatrical. The play, so expertly produced and acted, leaves you not feeling dejected but feeling lucky to have witnessed such insight into human emotion and the randomness of fortune. It’s definitely one of the best of the season.
