Dishoom: London's Hippest Restaurant Pretty Good For Vegansby Randi / May 7, 2015
“New York, New York, a wonderful town! The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down!” I’m sure you know that line from the classic musical “On The Town”, because it’s the only memorable line in the whole shebang. Did you see the ol’ movie? With Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, freaking wonderful cast? I’m sure I saw it, but I don’t remember. If I remembered it, I’m pretty sure I would have been more prepared for the heavy onslaught of absolute CAH-RAZY that hit me in the Lyric Theatre when I saw the current musical revival.
I really don’t understand how this wacky, bizarre musical is considered a classic, and I reeeeally don’t understand whoever calls it a family show. The current revival is really good, very well done, but the material is off the charts nuts, just a gallimaufry of seemingly unrelated scenes, sight gags, baudy jokes, and nonsense that will have you wide-eyed and asking the stranger sitting next to you “Hey…hey man…what the hell is happening on that stage?…it’s happening, right?” P.S., this is the only instance where I condone talking in the theatre. Just to find out if you are hallucinating real fast.
It begins innocently enough, as innocently as sailors can be.
Three sailor boys in their little white uniforms and their cute little Purim hats have 24 hours of leave in NYC and are so excited! Like three little puppies except not as cute or as lovable! Because they are dirty! Dirty dirty boys! 24 hours in NYC, what do you do? Eat some bagels and pizza? Go to the Empire State Building? See a show? No! You troll the streets for random women for their one night. Oy!
Tony Yazbeck, a Tony nominee for his work here, plays Gabey, so yeah he’s 9 years old, and he has his heart set on a certain Miss Turnstiles, the girl whose poster is all over the subways because she won a weird creepy little beauty pageant. We flashback to the actual creepy ass pageant, where our heroine (?) Ivy wins. She has an annoying voice but is a beautiful dancer. We like her fine. So obviously we worry that some rando sailor is on the loose searching for her. (She’s played by actual New York City Ballet-erina Megan Fairchild, whose little brother Robert is a few blocks away kicking ass in “An American In Paris”! Both starring in Tony-nominated-famous-for-Gene-Kelly shows! I hope they don’t have another sibling.)
Our other two sailors, Chip and Ozzie, vow to help Gabey (we are either working with preschoolers or chipmunks here) find Ivy. Chip (Jay Armstrong Johnson) and Ozzie (Clyde Alves) separate to try to find her, because, well, it’s easier to find a random girl in NYC if you split up. P.S., I’m going to use the words ‘rando’ and ‘random’ 100x here and I thought it was worth mentioning that the director of this show is John Rando. Can’t make this shit up.
Chip hops into a cab that happens to be driven by a youngish white woman, but instead of being cool about how women can be cab drivers, the woman Hildy (Alysha Umphress) pretty much kidnaps Chip and assaults him. He begs to be let off at any of the famous places he wants to see but she refuses and instead takes him to her apartment, while singing a song to this perfect stranger called “Come Up To My Place”. But it’s okay because she’s a woman! It’s cool! No it’s not. It’s so freaking weird and creepy that we are supposed to laugh and love their dynamic when it’s still a victim and a sex offender. It’s like she’s an Uber driver and not a yellow cabbie.
Chip is too dumb to mind, really, which I guess is lucky. Alysha has a great booming voice (you may recognize her as one of the trolls in the Frozen 2 (Frozen Again) video. He indeed goes up to her place and is like fine with it? but still dumb and totally confused? And he meets Hildy’s sad pathetic roommate who is really probably the least necessary character in any show ever. She has a cold and sneezes a lot. I do too.
Our third Sailor, Ozzie, seems equally dumb but I think he’s a bit of a calculating genius, because he offers to look for Ivy in NYC landmarks and big museums. Meaning, he gets to see the stuff he wants to see. He’s a smart cookie. Named Ozzie. He goes to the Museum of Natural History and is in the Early Humans room with apes and Neanderthals and what not and there’s a blonde sitting on the bench writing! Look! A blonde! Her name is Claire de Loone (not joking, and yes she is a loon) (played by Elizabeth Stanley who is like the Ann Veal of Broadway musicals) and she is doing anthropology research. She asks Ozzie if she can measure him, because apparently her advanced scientific research is to find men and record their measurements, so apparently she is less apt for anthropology than she is for just anthropologie.
When Claire takes men’s measurements, she naturally finds them irresistible and, even though she is engaged to a judge, she seduces them. Again, family show. So she and Ozzie get carried away and sing one of the most hideous songs I’ve ever heard, not joking, called “Carried Away”, which is in some godawful minor key with a horrible melody. Then the early humans on display and the primate models COME TO LIFE and they all dance and sing this acne song with the apes and the homo habilis and everyone is like acid tripping more than Willy Wonka and at this point my companion said ‘What is happening?’ and it was insane. What is this show.
Back to sailor #1, Gabey, who is so depressed and lonely wandering about NYC because he hasn’t found this girl on the poster yet. I’m pretty sure he sings “I’m So Ronery” at this point; could have been something else. In a flash of smarts/stalkerness, he goes to Carnegie Hall because the poster said she studied there. And hey will you look at that, he goes in to the rehearsal rooms and she’s there! Yay! Show over! No it’s not. They meet and he asks her out and she says yes! I wanted to yell “No Ivy don’t! He’s some random sailor!” but I didn’t.
Luckily, Ivy’s voice teacher is Jackie Hoffman, the funniest person, the best thing about most productions she’s in or even not in. She’s a drunk voice teacher here as well as an angry old lady running through the streets during the rest of the show. Most of her anger is from seeing the sailors vandalize property and harassing people. We’re supposed to think she’s crazy and laugh at her but she’s actually the only sane character in the entire show.
Gabey and Ivy plan to meet that night, but sadly the voice teacher forces Ivy to work that night (as a dancer on Coney Island it’s not weird) or else she’ll smear her reputation. I mean she was doing her a favor. So Ivy stands Gabey up and Gabey is sad because he’s nine.
Act II
The sailors and the two non-Ivy random women all agree to meet up at a club where Claire and her judge-fiancé are having an engagement party with no guests. Gabey is so so sad, and Jackie Hoffman is a lounge singer singing a song called “I Wish I Was Dead”. It’s a weird start. The group bar hops a few times, each time leaving Claire’s judge-fiancé (who is okay with her having affairs) to pay the bills, each time entering a new club to find Jackie Hoffman singing the same song. Finally Jackie Hoffman is in a bar not as a lounge singer but as the drunk vocal coach, and Gabey gets out of her that Ivy is at Coney Island. So they all RUN to Coney Island! Yay!
On the way to Coney Island, Gabey dreams about meeting Ivy, and they have a beautiful dream ballet which is the real reason for seeing this show. Considering Ivy is played by a ballerina and not really an actress, and that the rest of the show is nonsense and this is beautiful, this is where she and the show come to life. It’s really the saving grace of this show.
Gabey finds Ivy on Coney Island pretty easily. She’s a belly dancer sort of thing in a club’s harem. Awwwkward. Gabey “accidentally” rips her costume off, and she’s arrested for indecent exposure! The cops come about the time the rest of the boys and their girls come. The three sailors are taken to the naval authorities for cavorting with this CRIMINAL who dared show her belly and all seems lost as the boys board their ship, but then the three women chase them saying how the judge helped clear all the police mess. And they all get to say goodbye and happily look back on the ridiculously random and disturbing day they had.
The whole thing makes so little sense that it was almost hilarious and worth seeing for that reason. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so surprised by a show. I guess I had no idea what it was about. The cast is uniformly great, they’re just given the wackiest material to work with. Godspeed to them.
Tony Yazbeck, a Tony nominee for his work here, plays Gabey, so yeah he’s 9 years old, and he has his heart set on a certain Miss Turnstiles, the girl whose poster is all over the subways because she won a weird creepy little beauty pageant. We flashback to the actual creepy ass pageant, where our heroine (?) Ivy wins. She has an annoying voice but is a beautiful dancer. We like her fine. So obviously we worry that some rando sailor is on the loose searching for her. (She’s played by actual New York City Ballet-erina Megan Fairchild, whose little brother Robert is a few blocks away kicking ass in “An American In Paris”! Both starring in Tony-nominated-famous-for-Gene-Kelly shows! I hope they don’t have another sibling.)
Our other two sailors, Chip and Ozzie, vow to help Gabey (we are either working with preschoolers or chipmunks here) find Ivy. Chip (Jay Armstrong Johnson) and Ozzie (Clyde Alves) separate to try to find her, because, well, it’s easier to find a random girl in NYC if you split up. P.S., I’m going to use the words ‘rando’ and ‘random’ 100x here and I thought it was worth mentioning that the director of this show is John Rando. Can’t make this shit up.
Chip hops into a cab that happens to be driven by a youngish white woman, but instead of being cool about how women can be cab drivers, the woman Hildy (Alysha Umphress) pretty much kidnaps Chip and assaults him. He begs to be let off at any of the famous places he wants to see but she refuses and instead takes him to her apartment, while singing a song to this perfect stranger called “Come Up To My Place”. But it’s okay because she’s a woman! It’s cool! No it’s not. It’s so freaking weird and creepy that we are supposed to laugh and love their dynamic when it’s still a victim and a sex offender. It’s like she’s an Uber driver and not a yellow cabbie.
Chip is too dumb to mind, really, which I guess is lucky. Alysha has a great booming voice (you may recognize her as one of the trolls in the Frozen 2 (Frozen Again) video. He indeed goes up to her place and is like fine with it? but still dumb and totally confused? And he meets Hildy’s sad pathetic roommate who is really probably the least necessary character in any show ever. She has a cold and sneezes a lot. I do too.
Our third Sailor, Ozzie, seems equally dumb but I think he’s a bit of a calculating genius, because he offers to look for Ivy in NYC landmarks and big museums. Meaning, he gets to see the stuff he wants to see. He’s a smart cookie. Named Ozzie. He goes to the Museum of Natural History and is in the Early Humans room with apes and Neanderthals and what not and there’s a blonde sitting on the bench writing! Look! A blonde! Her name is Claire de Loone (not joking, and yes she is a loon) (played by Elizabeth Stanley who is like the Ann Veal of Broadway musicals) and she is doing anthropology research. She asks Ozzie if she can measure him, because apparently her advanced scientific research is to find men and record their measurements, so apparently she is less apt for anthropology than she is for just anthropologie.
When Claire takes men’s measurements, she naturally finds them irresistible and, even though she is engaged to a judge, she seduces them. Again, family show. So she and Ozzie get carried away and sing one of the most hideous songs I’ve ever heard, not joking, called “Carried Away”, which is in some godawful minor key with a horrible melody. Then the early humans on display and the primate models COME TO LIFE and they all dance and sing this acne song with the apes and the homo habilis and everyone is like acid tripping more than Willy Wonka and at this point my companion said ‘What is happening?’ and it was insane. What is this show.
Back to sailor #1, Gabey, who is so depressed and lonely wandering about NYC because he hasn’t found this girl on the poster yet. I’m pretty sure he sings “I’m So Ronery” at this point; could have been something else. In a flash of smarts/stalkerness, he goes to Carnegie Hall because the poster said she studied there. And hey will you look at that, he goes in to the rehearsal rooms and she’s there! Yay! Show over! No it’s not. They meet and he asks her out and she says yes! I wanted to yell “No Ivy don’t! He’s some random sailor!” but I didn’t.
Luckily, Ivy’s voice teacher is Jackie Hoffman, the funniest person, the best thing about most productions she’s in or even not in. She’s a drunk voice teacher here as well as an angry old lady running through the streets during the rest of the show. Most of her anger is from seeing the sailors vandalize property and harassing people. We’re supposed to think she’s crazy and laugh at her but she’s actually the only sane character in the entire show.
Gabey and Ivy plan to meet that night, but sadly the voice teacher forces Ivy to work that night (as a dancer on Coney Island it’s not weird) or else she’ll smear her reputation. I mean she was doing her a favor. So Ivy stands Gabey up and Gabey is sad because he’s nine.
Act II
The sailors and the two non-Ivy random women all agree to meet up at a club where Claire and her judge-fiancé are having an engagement party with no guests. Gabey is so so sad, and Jackie Hoffman is a lounge singer singing a song called “I Wish I Was Dead”. It’s a weird start. The group bar hops a few times, each time leaving Claire’s judge-fiancé (who is okay with her having affairs) to pay the bills, each time entering a new club to find Jackie Hoffman singing the same song. Finally Jackie Hoffman is in a bar not as a lounge singer but as the drunk vocal coach, and Gabey gets out of her that Ivy is at Coney Island. So they all RUN to Coney Island! Yay!
On the way to Coney Island, Gabey dreams about meeting Ivy, and they have a beautiful dream ballet which is the real reason for seeing this show. Considering Ivy is played by a ballerina and not really an actress, and that the rest of the show is nonsense and this is beautiful, this is where she and the show come to life. It’s really the saving grace of this show.
Gabey finds Ivy on Coney Island pretty easily. She’s a belly dancer sort of thing in a club’s harem. Awwwkward. Gabey “accidentally” rips her costume off, and she’s arrested for indecent exposure! The cops come about the time the rest of the boys and their girls come. The three sailors are taken to the naval authorities for cavorting with this CRIMINAL who dared show her belly and all seems lost as the boys board their ship, but then the three women chase them saying how the judge helped clear all the police mess. And they all get to say goodbye and happily look back on the ridiculously random and disturbing day they had.
The whole thing makes so little sense that it was almost hilarious and worth seeing for that reason. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so surprised by a show. I guess I had no idea what it was about. The cast is uniformly great, they’re just given the wackiest material to work with. Godspeed to them.
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“She Loves Me” and I Love It: Broadway’s Cheeriest & Loveliest Revival
Honestly? I don’t think I’ve ever smiled so much during a show. Okay, well aside from funnier comedies that make you laugh the whole way through (this season’s “Noises Off” hurt my face, Martin Short’s “Fame Becomes Me” did the same, probably “The Book of Mormon” too). But this was a different kind of constant grinning, the kind that you can’t help but do when you are in the presence of perfection and nothing can bring you down from this floating type of elation. Okay, well aside from the bitches next to you who won’t stop talking until you glare at their male companion until he feels embarrassed on their behalf and then you finally just say shut your mouths or I’ll shut them for you permanently you ungodly pieces of heaving garbage. Okay I didn’t say that but what I am saying is, “She Loves Me” was flawless (well, aside from the actual flaw in the performance I attended, but we will get there) and will live in my heart like a little pink bubble that won’t kill you.
Confession: Although “She Loves Me” is a musical theatre classic from the 1960s, by all- stars Harnick & Bock (also responsible for the sublime music of “Fiddler on the Roof”), and is the source of one of Barbara Cook’s most iconic roles…I didn’t actually know it. I never listened to the original cast album. I didn’t know that the lovely heartfelt showtune “Will He Like Me” was from it, even though I loved that song. Worst of all guys, I mean, what is my favorite movie? Tied for first with “The Princess Bride”? “You’ve Got Mail”, of course, because I’m of sound mind. Well, guess what, “She Loves Me” is of the “You’ve Got Mail”/”Shop Around the Corner” lineage, being also based on the story of “Parfumerie”, the gift that keeps on giving to reinvention. So the fact that I, professional musical theatre obsessor, didn’t know that there was a CLASSIC MUSICAL that was an earlier version of YOU’VE GOT MAIL, well, let’s just say it made me question everything. The only thing I didn’t question was that holy shit, a musical version of “You’ve Got Mail” was going to be the one single [show] in the world that filled [my] heart with joy. (“Well don’t be ridiculous. Have I ever [seen a show] that fit that description? Have you?!”)
So I knew it was going to be good, because of my YGM bias and because the cast was even better than when Broadway forums dream-cast stuff. Man alive, I didn’t know it would be a vegan cream puff of perfection. About that dream cast: Laura Benanti would take the Meg Ryan role, of course, because Laura Benanti is probably the funniest actress there is who is also a sublime soprano. Her Amalia Balash would be edgier than Kathleen Kelly because Laura has the sarcastic deadpan delivery to deadpan all deadpans. Done, amazing, Tony nom guaranteed (and win in any other year). The rest of the cast is where things get interesting. Josh Radnor, the actor behind the much maligned Ted from “How I Met Your Mother” (mostly maligned by me), was initially supposed to play the Tom Hanks role of Georg Novack (spelled like The Sound of Music’s ‘Gay-org’ but just pronounced ‘George’, so why not use the second e huh? Huh?), which is interesting to me because I’ve never heard him sing for real. And also I would just see Ted the whole time and be like UGH YOU SUCK TED STOP WHINING. But luckily, Josh pulled out (so he won’t get preeeeeeeeeeeggggggggggnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnttttt) and Broadway favorite (in just two shows!) Zachary Levi (of “Chuck” fame) stepped in. Listen. Several years ago, Zachary starred in “First Date” on Broadway, which wasn’t a great show but he delighted the whole theatre community, which recognized like, oh Broadway does have the potential to have handsome talented Clooney-style leading men. With Robert Fairchild last year, Steven Pasquale, and now Zachary Levi in his greatest performance yet, we’re in like a golden age of Broadway leading men to match the golden age of actual theatre productions we’re also in. (Can we please get Raul back onstage?)
Levi is even more delightful and enthralling and captivating and joyous than he’s ever been before. He really was perfection. Even better than THanks. His big number, the title song (“she LOOOOVES me!”), was the best moment of the night. There was so much damn joy on that stage, even though he was all by himself, and then he did a cartwheel and it was even more joyous. The song itself is wonderful, with its adorable lyrics that Levi played perfectly (my favorite line is “I’m trembling, what the hell does that mean? I’m freezing. That’s because it’s cold out”. He made it hilarious). I was so surprised at how winning his performance was, even as he was sharing the stage with Benanti and the supporting cast that initially was the reason for drawing me in: Jane Krakowski, Gavin Creel, and Michael McGrath. All my <3s! It’s a relentlessly great cast that was only almost outdone by the jaw-dropping set design. Set in a perfumerie like the original story and not in bookstores, “She Loves Me” tells the story of a group of lovable Hungarian perfumerie clerks in the 1930s, selling their wares while developing relationships with each other, as friends, as lovers, and sometimes as haters. Georg and Amalia initially get on each others nerves, like big time, and they caaaan’t staaaand each other. Little do they know that they have been writing love letters to each other through a Lonely Hearts pen pal kind of thing (the old version of online dating I guess). Their letters start with ‘Dear Friend’, which is where YGM gets it!! loved that!
As their relationship grows in starkly different ways in the shop and in their letters, Georg and Amalia are buoyed by a glorious supporting cast having their own excitement. Amalia’s Miss Rhode Island here is Ilona Ritter, played by the hilarious Jane Krakowski. As hilarious as Jane gets to be on television, her role here was more gentle and endearing, probably because, while she had lots of great lines, Laura’s Amalia had all the zingers. Ilona begins the show by having a very imprudent dalliance with fellow clerk Kodaly, a suave and unkind man played by the suave and very kind and very talented Gavin Creel. Their big number is rousing fun and features Jane doing full splits and then being pulled across the stage – still in the split. Pretty impressive! However, at my performance, some crazy loud whirring noise was coming out behind the speakers on the right side wall, like from behind the boxes. They didn’t stop the show, and I wish they would have. Sometimes you have to keep the show going, and it’s not the actors’ call usually, but man I really wish they stopped it because it was so loud for the mezzanine that you couldn’t even hear Gavin sing. I missed his whole number, pretty much. Actually now that I think about it I wish I asked for a free ticket to another performance. Actually now I’m really mad they didn’t stop the show. Stupid whoever is in charge of that. I could see members of the orchestra looking towards the sound and being like ‘wtf is that!’ grrrr anger.
Okay, breathe, let’s breathe, and whoever knows people at Roundabout make sure they get me a free ticket. Moving on. The only strangely downer part in “She Loves Me” comes courtesy of Byron Jenkins’ Dabney Coleman, I’m assuming. As Maraczek, the owner of the perfumerie (named Maraczek’s), Byron is very mean to poor nicest person ever Georg for no good reason, going so far as to fire him at one point. We find out that it was because he suspected Georg of having an affair with his wife, when of course it wasn’t and of course it was the scoundrel employee among them (Kodaly). When Maraczek finds out he was wrong and fired the wrong man, he tries to kill himself. Fortunately we don’t really see it (just some red lights behind closed doors), and fortunately he doesn’t succeed, but damn, that is some jarring, out-of-place drama if I ever saw it. That poor sad multi-millionaire I feel so *sorry* for him. Happily, Mr. Maraczek is (quickly) fine and makes it up to Georg by promising him the store. So that’s quite good.
Then we have the very lovable Michael McGrath in the Dave Chappelle role of Georg’s bestie and confidante. Listen. Dave Chappelle in “You’ve Got Mail” is one of the great cinematic performances of the century. “She gon be a real dog” is #1 on all AFI lists of Most Influential and Important Film Quotes of all time. Say it with me Kanye-style: OF ALL TIME! He was amazing. So for anyone to try to top that performance is a real test. Luckily, this being set in 1930s Hungary and Michael McGrath being a 58-year-old white man, he was directed differently than Dave was. McGrath plays a kind-hearted, decent man who wants everyone to be happy and everything to run smoothly. He also sees early on that Georg and Amalia love each other, even though they think they hate each other. McGrath was so perfect in this role, I am very sad to report that I think I saw his last performance, because he left the show for personal reasons. I don’t think anyone really knows why and I hope he is okay.
In addition to the perfect cast and the perfect score and direction and everything was the set, perhaps my favorite traditional set design ever. Oh my goodness this set had me jumping up and down in my seat in giddiness metaphorically of course because I would never disturb the people around me in a theatre like that even though everyone else who goes to the theatre seems to have no problem disturbing those around them because we live in an age of entitlement and zero manners. The set was so gorgeous, like a little (but giant) toybox that spun around and opened into endless compartments to form all the different rooms of the shop. It was BIG and BEEYOOTIFUL. Like the architectural version of a French pastry on display in a window.
Obviously I have been saving the best for last. Laura Benanti is so wonderful in this. She’s played a lot of supporting characters, and here she gets the chance to really shine as she was meant to. Amalia lets her break out her rarely heard (lately) beautiful soprano voice, hitting high notes and staying up there with that great operatic style that we don’t really get anymore in newer musicals that are all about belting. But she also plays Amalia with a hardness in her that comes out as comedy and is understandable for her character, before she opens herself up to love. Her comic timing is impeccable, and her specific brand of it is different from anything I’ve seen from a musical theatre actress. Some find her sarcasm and cynicism off-putting but, maybe because that’s often my style of comedy, I love it. Amalia’s big famous number, “Vanilla Ice Cream” (what Georg brings her when she’s sick, like when THanks brings Kathleen daisies because they are her favorite flower and she sneezes in the intercom and it’s so funny and then she has her trio of amazing yeses) was indeed beautiful, but my favorite was the extraordinarily silly “Where’s My Shoe?” Some people hate that song because it’s silly, but omg it was so funny and well done. Amalia is trying to get dressed for work and can’t find her shoe. And she jumps around her bed and stuff and it’s just the funniest thing, so well orchestrated.
This year was unparalleled in the quality of musical revivals. Two fantastic ones, “Spring Awakening” and “The Color Purple”, reinvented their original stories in meaningful, effective ways. While “She Loves Me” didn’t do anything similarly revolutionary, this revival was instead a wonderfully traditional version of its show, nothing revelatory except how perfectly it was done. It’s special to have such insanely high quality of both kinds of reviving in the same season.
AUDIENCE
This is the show where Benanti famously stopped because someone’s phone was ringing. She looked out and said coolly “I’ll wait.” F-ing badass. And because it’s an older traditional show, it does attract the oldies who are typically the worst audience members. Like I said above, the people next to me were f-ing horrible. They weren’t so much old as they were girlfriends excited to be drinking overpriced drinks. Oy. Nothing worse than any other audiences though, really. Side note: Row E in the rearish mezzanine is actually sort of its own front row because there is a break that doesn’t show up on seating charts. So it’s a great seat that happens to be on the cheaper side. Studio 54 (not that one) (is it?) is an enormous cavernous theatre, though, so it all seems far away.
STAGE DOOR
Even though only Zachary Levi came out even though it was a Saturday night and I waited for everrrr, it was still the best stage door experience ever. Just as he did for “First Date”, Levi came out, as he does after every show, with his speakers and turned it into a dance party. He is just so full of joy and gratitude and kindness that it’s infectious and everyone has a gay old time. I hope he stays on Broadway forever. Benanti sent out signed Playbills, which she kindly does very often when she doesn’t sign. Both of them are going beyond the call of duty and it’s really nice.
The Phantom of the Opera: Incredible New Cast, Fantastic Production, Weirdest Show Ever
Let’s talk about the Phantom of the Opera. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘masterpiece’ (I’m not disputing or agreeing with that; it’s just what it’s called) concerns a deformed prior circus freak who now hides behind a 3/5 mask (because some of his face is apparently still purdy and he wants to show it off to…no one) and becomes scarily obsessed with a pretty young chorus girl in the opera under which he lives in the darkness…darkness…darknesssss. This Phantom (who doesn’t have a name, but in the original novel and some subsequent adaptations was referred to as Erik, which is just the totally wrong name for a Phantom menace) teaches the girl, Christine Daae, to sing uhhh-mazingly, because wants her to somehow simultaneously be the prima donna of the opera house and be his lake dungeon bride, after which he will ostensibly kill her and use her pretty face as a new mask or something because he is hella creepy.
“The Phantom of the Opera” has been running on Broadway for 26 years now, can you even believe it? And this production is aging extremely well. The moving sets and the bits of stage magic don’t seem outdated at all, and the music is haunting and wonderful as always. But the real reason to see this show again, now, is because of the new cast members. Two of musical theatre’s best working actors have joined, with Norm Lewis – the first African-American phantom on Broadway – and Sierra Boggess, as Christine. Normy is my favorite. His “Music of the Night” is gorgeous, moving, and his acting makes you actually feel bad for the Phantom at the end of the show. Yet the biggest treat for me, surprisingly, was Boggess’s Christine. Sir Andrew has said that she’s the greatest Christine there ever was, and until now I had thought he was just saying that to be a dick to his ex-wife Sarah Brightman (the original Christine). But he was absolutely telling the truth. She’s incredible. I never gave Boggess enough credit, because the only big thing I saw her in was “The Little Mermaid” which was sad shit. (Crazy weird trivia: Norm played her father in that. Ewww.) She shines here and is positively astounding. They absolutely need to make a new cast recording with her and Norm. I will buy 9.
So back to the story, which in the years since I last saw it, I forgot the craziness of. While Christine is getting her voice lessons from what she thinks is the ‘Angel of Music’ that her now-deceased father had once promised he would send to her (creepy incestuous and patriarchal b.s. runs rampant), the opera is undergoing a change in management. Unfortunately, the new owners and managers can’t be bothered with the talk of this rumored ‘phantom of the opera’ who causes accidents if he isn’t happy, and they reeeally can’t be bothered with paying this ghost his usual salary: 20,000 of some currency per month. Holy crap, that’s some good money. But he lives in the freaking sewers or some such; what on earth does he do with that money? Burn it for warmth? Or is that how much his fog machine upkeep costs? And his wimpy flame thrower? Actually I think he spends it all on sequins. He like invented the Bedazzler, so it would seem. But then he’d have Bedazzler money too! Where does all the money go?! Can I have some??
The new bosses ignore his demands, which he communicates through many notes passed through Madame Giry, the severe dance mistress who generally knows what’s up with Phantom. (Giry also has a young daughter in the ballet who, whenever the Phantom pulls one of his shenanigans, leaps across the stage and sing-songs “the phantom of the opera!” in like no discernible key and it’s hilarrrious.) This upsets the Phantom because being ignored sucks, so he starts offing people! Like, hold up Webber! I don’t know why people refer to this as a family show, but this is totally dark and scary! I can’t do horror movies, so thank goodness there was incredible music here else I would have peed myself.
The Phantom is frustrated that people aren’t taking him seriously. He becomes murderous and destructive, crashing the famous chandelier (which is still a great piece of theatrical magic), and yet he thinks all of this will win Christine’s love? Not that he cares about reciprocation but it seems he is doing everything for her.
Damn I never realized just how creepy this show is. Seriously, it should come with all kinds of warnings, especially about how utterly misogynistic it is! Omg! Really, even more than Sierra, the biggest standout of seeing it again was realizing how patriarchal and anti-feminist the whole thing is. The premise is that this creepster, shadowy male figure wants to take this young naïve girl to his dark lair of darkness to be his child bride forever. And she misses her father and Cannot. Stop. Talking. About him. And she recalls how her father, on his deathbed, promised to send to her the Angel of Music. And she thinks the Phantom, the creepy sort of man that she should have been told to fear and stay away from, is this Angel of Music, so she keeps being nice to him even though he is KILLING PEOPLE. Because she thinks her father sent him to take care of her. So like, the Phantom is himself a father figure to Christine but he’s also obsessed with her and she is in turn kind of drawn to him because of the father figure stuff or maybe because he does magic. It’s all super creepy. So the Phantom is like, “I must have you, I don’t care what you might actually want, because ha ha that doesn’t matter, and I don’t care if you’re scared because women be scared allatimes, and oh wait, you’re already engaged to your childhood sweetheart Raoul? Well I’ll at least pay attention to that, because we all know the universal rule among men is that the only valid reason a woman wouldn’t want to be with a certain man or do what he says is if she already belongs to another man.” Seriously, this is how most men think, and the Phantom and Raoul exemplify that. So anyway the Phantom is like, “I guess I have to kill Raoul…orrrr I’ll kill the poor random guy who works the sets, and just shoot fireballs at Raoul.”
The best part is that Raoul, our Prince Charming/savior/supposedly decent guy, is exactly like the Phantom! Just better dressed and coiffed and less deformed. Seriously, right after the Phantom kills the set guy, Raoul sings to Christine, “Forget your wide-eyed fears, I’m here. Nothing can harm you.” I MEAN, he sings this to her after the Phantom LITERALLY just killed a guy in front of a packed audience! But Raoul’s a man, so he’s like, “Christine, baby, why are you scared? It’s just a crazy unstoppable murderer on the loose, NBD! I’M HERE, AND I HAVE A PENIS. WE’RE ALL GOOD.” How f-ing dumb is that! What can his blond hair and pinkie ring do to stop the violence? I bet you that whenever someone, anywhere in the universe, is struggling to open a jar, Raoul appears in the doorway and goes “Gimme, I got it. I got it. Gimme it.”
Raoul also mansplains to Christine that, since he didn’t see the Phantom’s lair, she is totes prob making it up, because poor small woman brain. Luckily, he gets captured by the Phantom in said lair when he is trying to rescue Christine, so he learns a little lesson. Also, while Christine decides whether to save Raoul and marry the Phantom or…not, Raoul is hanging in a noose and imitating Chiwetel in “12 Years A Slave”, trying to keep a toe on the ground. For like TEN MINUTES, while Phantom and Christine are discussing the options and singing and stuff. It was ridic.
Unfortunately, the fighting over who gets to keep Christine doesn’t end with her being like, “Both of you, begone! I have a career to focus on,” but with her kissing the Phantom to show him kindness (because he deserves it?) and then marrying Raoul. Yet despite the book’s crazy heavy misogyny and light-on-the-happy vibe, the music and the performances make this actually a must-see. If you are like the many, many people who watch Downton Abbey as a comedy, you’ll love all the crazy in this. Norm is fantastic, though aside from “Music of the Night” the music doesn’t let his voice shine as much as it can. It does seem perfectly written for Sierra, though, and her performance is a revelation. (Even though she doesn’t realize how cool it would be to be a prima donna in a great opera house without worrying about two not-so-great men fighting over her.) I didn’t see the sequel, “Love Never Dies”, but I like to imagine that it features Christine saying, “Listen guys, you need to stay at least 50 feet from me because I’m gonna be a great opera star, and you guys are trippin’.”
Obviously a must-see.
So back to the story, which in the years since I last saw it, I forgot the craziness of. While Christine is getting her voice lessons from what she thinks is the ‘Angel of Music’ that her now-deceased father had once promised he would send to her (creepy incestuous and patriarchal b.s. runs rampant), the opera is undergoing a change in management. Unfortunately, the new owners and managers can’t be bothered with the talk of this rumored ‘phantom of the opera’ who causes accidents if he isn’t happy, and they reeeally can’t be bothered with paying this ghost his usual salary: 20,000 of some currency per month. Holy crap, that’s some good money. But he lives in the freaking sewers or some such; what on earth does he do with that money? Burn it for warmth? Or is that how much his fog machine upkeep costs? And his wimpy flame thrower? Actually I think he spends it all on sequins. He like invented the Bedazzler, so it would seem. But then he’d have Bedazzler money too! Where does all the money go?! Can I have some??
The new bosses ignore his demands, which he communicates through many notes passed through Madame Giry, the severe dance mistress who generally knows what’s up with Phantom. (Giry also has a young daughter in the ballet who, whenever the Phantom pulls one of his shenanigans, leaps across the stage and sing-songs “the phantom of the opera!” in like no discernible key and it’s hilarrrious.) This upsets the Phantom because being ignored sucks, so he starts offing people! Like, hold up Webber! I don’t know why people refer to this as a family show, but this is totally dark and scary! I can’t do horror movies, so thank goodness there was incredible music here else I would have peed myself.
The Phantom is frustrated that people aren’t taking him seriously. He becomes murderous and destructive, crashing the famous chandelier (which is still a great piece of theatrical magic), and yet he thinks all of this will win Christine’s love? Not that he cares about reciprocation but it seems he is doing everything for her.
Damn I never realized just how creepy this show is. Seriously, it should come with all kinds of warnings, especially about how utterly misogynistic it is! Omg! Really, even more than Sierra, the biggest standout of seeing it again was realizing how patriarchal and anti-feminist the whole thing is. The premise is that this creepster, shadowy male figure wants to take this young naïve girl to his dark lair of darkness to be his child bride forever. And she misses her father and Cannot. Stop. Talking. About him. And she recalls how her father, on his deathbed, promised to send to her the Angel of Music. And she thinks the Phantom, the creepy sort of man that she should have been told to fear and stay away from, is this Angel of Music, so she keeps being nice to him even though he is KILLING PEOPLE. Because she thinks her father sent him to take care of her. So like, the Phantom is himself a father figure to Christine but he’s also obsessed with her and she is in turn kind of drawn to him because of the father figure stuff or maybe because he does magic. It’s all super creepy. So the Phantom is like, “I must have you, I don’t care what you might actually want, because ha ha that doesn’t matter, and I don’t care if you’re scared because women be scared allatimes, and oh wait, you’re already engaged to your childhood sweetheart Raoul? Well I’ll at least pay attention to that, because we all know the universal rule among men is that the only valid reason a woman wouldn’t want to be with a certain man or do what he says is if she already belongs to another man.” Seriously, this is how most men think, and the Phantom and Raoul exemplify that. So anyway the Phantom is like, “I guess I have to kill Raoul…orrrr I’ll kill the poor random guy who works the sets, and just shoot fireballs at Raoul.”
The best part is that Raoul, our Prince Charming/savior/supposedly decent guy, is exactly like the Phantom! Just better dressed and coiffed and less deformed. Seriously, right after the Phantom kills the set guy, Raoul sings to Christine, “Forget your wide-eyed fears, I’m here. Nothing can harm you.” I MEAN, he sings this to her after the Phantom LITERALLY just killed a guy in front of a packed audience! But Raoul’s a man, so he’s like, “Christine, baby, why are you scared? It’s just a crazy unstoppable murderer on the loose, NBD! I’M HERE, AND I HAVE A PENIS. WE’RE ALL GOOD.” How f-ing dumb is that! What can his blond hair and pinkie ring do to stop the violence? I bet you that whenever someone, anywhere in the universe, is struggling to open a jar, Raoul appears in the doorway and goes “Gimme, I got it. I got it. Gimme it.”
Raoul also mansplains to Christine that, since he didn’t see the Phantom’s lair, she is totes prob making it up, because poor small woman brain. Luckily, he gets captured by the Phantom in said lair when he is trying to rescue Christine, so he learns a little lesson. Also, while Christine decides whether to save Raoul and marry the Phantom or…not, Raoul is hanging in a noose and imitating Chiwetel in “12 Years A Slave”, trying to keep a toe on the ground. For like TEN MINUTES, while Phantom and Christine are discussing the options and singing and stuff. It was ridic.
Unfortunately, the fighting over who gets to keep Christine doesn’t end with her being like, “Both of you, begone! I have a career to focus on,” but with her kissing the Phantom to show him kindness (because he deserves it?) and then marrying Raoul. Yet despite the book’s crazy heavy misogyny and light-on-the-happy vibe, the music and the performances make this actually a must-see. If you are like the many, many people who watch Downton Abbey as a comedy, you’ll love all the crazy in this. Norm is fantastic, though aside from “Music of the Night” the music doesn’t let his voice shine as much as it can. It does seem perfectly written for Sierra, though, and her performance is a revelation. (Even though she doesn’t realize how cool it would be to be a prima donna in a great opera house without worrying about two not-so-great men fighting over her.) I didn’t see the sequel, “Love Never Dies”, but I like to imagine that it features Christine saying, “Listen guys, you need to stay at least 50 feet from me because I’m gonna be a great opera star, and you guys are trippin’.”
Obviously a must-see.
