"Grease" Live! Renews Faith in the Fox Network If Not The Whole Worldby Randi / February 4, 2016
Several nights ago, a horrible excuse for a sack of meat, let alone a human, won a presidential primary thanks to extreme racist beliefs. He supports banning all people with a certain religious and ethnic background from entering the USA, and thinks we should register and track those already in the country. He, and every other leading Republican, thinks it’s okay to have a ‘total and complete ban’ on millions of people. And, he said he might have supported Japanese internment camps during World War II, obviously, because it fits well with everything else he supports.
The most disturbing part is how many people agree with him, with prejudice too strong to be countered with reason and humanity. Or maybe they forget or never even were told about the horror of Japanese internment. They probably don’t know that someone we all love grew up in one of the camps: George Takei. Aghast that the lessons our country was supposed to have learned from this have been forgotten, Takei gathered a few of his talented friends and helped inspire the new musical “Allegiance”, which ends its Broadway run on Sunday.
It’s a shame that it’s closing, but that speaks more to how business goes in the winter for shows that aren’t behemoths more than the show’s quality. Plus, it’s upsetting as hell to spend time with the issues concerned. Many tourists don’t want to spend their one Broadway show slot crying their eyes out, and others would rather turn a blind eye to our past horrors. I saw “Allegiance” just for Takei and costar Lea Salonga, the superb and the beloved, but had low expectations after reading a few online reviews bemoaning the lackluster score.
While it’s true that the score might not add new standards to the cabaret circuit, it didn’t matter. It was basic but solid, with pleasant melodies and good lyrics. As a whole, everything worked and I didn’t roll my eyes violently even once, which is a rare thing with new musicals nowadays. (“Bend It Like Beckham” almost rendered me blind. I can’t even talk about it.) More importantly, this show was one of the most moving and heartbreaking I’ve ever seen. Although a completely different vibe from “Spring Awakening”, it reminded me of it, with its similar theme of how ignorance and refusing to treat others with humanity can destroy generations.
“Allegiance” is inspired by Takei’s own experience in the camps, which repeatedly acts like a gut punch, when you realize not only did this happen to hundreds of thousands of people, but to someone you feel like you know, someone who is standing right in front of you. I wonder how republicans would feel if they saw this. I mean it shouldn’t take knowing certain people personally or being able to point to them to make you see them as human, but as we learned from all the republicans who only came around to accepting gays as people when it was their own relative &c., a lot of people have trouble empathizing unless they’re forced to in that way. A lot of people are terrible!
The show begins with Takei as elderly Sam Kimura, WWII veteran, putting on his uniform to commemorate Pearl Harbor Day. He’s interrupted by a woman informing him that his older sister, Kei, has died. This woman, the executor of Kei’s will, has a package for Sam, who starts cursing the heavens and his long-estranged sister, angry that she couldn’t just leave him in peace. Uh, damn son! What happened to make you so mad at your sister and so wounded? Let’s find out!
After this present-day prologue, the core of the show starts, with young Sam (played by Telly Leung) and Kei (Lea Salonga) as young adults just before the war really hits America. They are Japanese Americans, born in the USA after their father Tatsuo (Christopheren Nomura) and now-deceased mother immigrated. The family, along with grandfather Ojii-san (played by Takei) who was born in Japan and speaks little English, lives in California where they own and run a successful farm. Tatsuo is hard on his son, and Sammy thinks his father’s disappointment and unreachable standards stem from his mother having died during childbirth. Sammy thinks his father blames him.
The family, well liked and respected in their town, soon has its world turned upside down when the USA is attacked at Pearl Harbor and the insane government decides to send everyone in the country with Japanese ancestry to the camps. Despite being born there and/or being legal citizens, the whole family is sent to Heart Mountain camp, with their farm, house, and all property seized, with no reimbursement. It’s awful, to say the least. Military personnel with power issues are running things at the camp. There’s no clean water, no medicine, no privacy, and no freedom. Sure the writers took some dramatic liberties elaborating on reality, but still, even without the embellishments it’s still a mfing hellish internment camp.
Sammy is a young idealist who refuses to complain about or fight against his circumstances, who wants desperately to be a standup, respectable American, and a model Japanese-American man. But this drive to please his country’s government means he betrays his family’s and his people’s dignity. Instead of exercising civil disobedience or active insubordination with other inmates like his sister’s new boyfriend Frank, Sammy not only obeys but tries to get everyone else to conform as well, thinking that it’s for their own good in the long run. He makes friends with the head of the Japanese American Citizens League, Masaoka (Greg Watanabe), the ineffectual official who doesn’t fight hard enough, or at all, to stop the internment. Sammy helps him by identifying disloyal citizens, like Frank, who refuses to cooperate and refuses to join the army, burning his draft card. To be fair, it seems like a pretty dick move to draft people who you threw in internment camps, so we can’t fault Frank at all. But Sammy does, big time.
Despite being so troublesome in this regard, Sammy is pretty likeable due to Telly Leung’s portrayal. Telly, who can rival Jonathan Groff with how much he spits while singing, shows you that Sammy is not a traitor to any group but is trying to figure out the right path to take in a time when nothing was done right. He’s young, he’s naïve, and he’s trying to do the best he can by people who will never agree. While in the camp, he falls in love with the white nurse on campus, Hannah, played by Katie Rose Clarke. I heavily disliked her in ‘The Light in the Piazza’ when she took over for Kelli O’Hara, but that role is nigh impossible to nail down properly. Here, Katie is extremely likeable and well used.
Spoilies for my memory: Before all that goes down, Sammy joins the army and becomes a poster child for the government’s propaganda campaign on how successful the camps are and how some Japanese can be exemplary Americans. He promised nurse Hannah that he would come back to marry her – who would have thought he’d survive and she wouldn’t. His father, meanwhile, refuses to answer a bogus loyalty questionnaire in the manner the government wants, and is sent to prison. Kei gets preggers by Frank and they get married. Ojii-san, Takei’s wonderfully stereotypically grandfather character, full of wisdom and optimism, dies in the garden that he somehow managed to grow in their desolate mountain camp. It’s all pretty depressing stuff, one right after the other, all while Sammy is deep in the trenches with no idea.
Oh the audience is legit sobbing during all of this. I started crying as soon as I saw Lea Salonga like 5 feet in front of me (front row rush seats what what) and did not stop. Lea’s Kei gets the greatest song in the show, “Higher”, which is reprised several times. She sings about how as a little girl, she lived carefree, playing on her swingset with her mother. Then after her mother’s death, Kei had to be mother to Sammy and forget about being a child herself, but she loved her brother so much that she didn’t care. She helped him to always swing and fly and dream ‘higher’ to the detriment of her own growth, and she now decides to maybe start living her life more like she did before. It’s her “Ima get mine” song, pretty much, but beautiful and touching.
Meanwhile, Sammy is becoming a huge media star, this poster child for the war and all the decisions the government made, and he ends up on the cover of Life magazine. Tatsuo, in that horrible prison where he’s treated abominably, is released by the government just because of his son’s work. Although we were led to think Tatsuo was always disappointed in his son, he was just a tough old man but loved his son. He’s so proud of his soldier son even though they disagree, and he was overjoyed to see him on the magazine cover.
But when Sammy returns, everything has changed. The camps have been emptied, and he finds that his sister has her own family. When Sammy sees, after being through war, that his sister married the man he hates for refusing to defend America and that his father has accepted Frank into the family, he storms off – for good. That was the last time he saw any of them. The rift we heard about in the prologue has been that long, like 60 years. Insanity.
We cut back to present day, and old-man Sam (Takei) opens the package the executor left him. It’s that copy of Life magazine with him on the cover that his father and then his sister saved and cherished for all those years because they always loved him and were proud of him. So this is when everyone in the audience – EVERYONE – started sobbing if they hadn’t already been. Most people were like me and were just crying the whole time. But at this point the stragglers joined in.
Sam goes to Kei’s funeral to pay his respects and get some sort of closure. Afterwards, the executor walks over to him to see how he is. They share a few words before she mentions her mother – Kei. This is Hannah, Kei’s daughter whom Sammy met just once when she was a baby. They named her after Sammy’s nurse girlfriend, after she died saving Frank’s life. I mean. It may seem overwrought but it all worked so magnificently. Oh this is when the whole audience continued crying but much more violently and breathlessly, more like wailing. It was rough. And amazing. I’ve never been a part of an audience that was so emotionally invested and it was really special.
Also really special? Being that close to George Takei and Lea Salonga, George we know and love because of his real life persona post-Star Trek. Lea is a theatre goddess, after originating the role of Kim in “Miss Saigon” when she was just 18, in 1989. She also played Eponine in Les Miserables on Broadway so she just dies in every single f-ing show she’s in. Can we maybe get a show for Lea where she lives at the end? Anyway, her voice was spellbinding then and she is similarly captivating and wonderful here. She rightly gets the best songs, including the heartbreaking “Higher” and the show’s anthem “Gaman”, which is a Buddhist word meaning patience, perseverance, and ‘enduring the seemingly unbearable with dignity’. Like I said, the score isn’t life-changing but it is satisfying and moving, and these two songs alone make a case for it.
“Allegiance” won’t win any awards and will close far from recouping, but it’s a lovely show that is so heartfelt and powerful. I hope it has a long life with regional productions and maybe most importantly school shows. It’s the kind of show that needs to be performed and seen everywhere. I spoke with Takei after the show about how awful it is that the show’s lessons are so relevant today, when we should know better. He was the best person ever at stage door, by the way, and talked for a while about how he hopes the country will make good decisions and stop putting blatant racists in power. My words; George was much more eloquent and kind than I could ever hope to be. I hope for all of our sakes that the message this show shares so beautifully is shared, and embraced.
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“Othello” at Shakespeare’s Globe: Men Be Trippin
It’s Theatre Thursday! We’re talking about Othello, playing at Shakespeare’s Globe in London until October 13.
Othello is a bananas insulting play. We don’t need to hold Shakespeare to the standards of modern society in terms of equality (mainly feminism (and racism) (okay all equality kinds)) because the 400 year difference in eras makes that a fool’s errand, and pretty much all of Shakespeare’s works can be excused as ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘a product of its era’ in terms of equality and feminist ideals. But, hoo boy, Othello is a special one. It’s been a minute since I read it, so the details outside of ‘bad man convinces other man that wife is cheating and should die’ had fled my mind, but now that my memory has been refreshed, well there’s not much more I’d add to that gist. Not the most progressive stuff in this day and age, but the current production at the Globe, starring my man Mark Rylance, is faultless (other than the plot obvs), and it’s a must-see for any fans of Shakespeare, Mark, and/or theatre. What a fantastic production that will make you feel like you just got punched in the throat.
Othello is a bananas insulting play. We don’t need to hold Shakespeare to the standards of modern society in terms of equality (mainly feminism (and racism) (okay all equality kinds)) because the 400 year difference in eras makes that a fool’s errand, and pretty much all of Shakespeare’s works can be excused as ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘a product of its era’ in terms of equality and feminist ideals. But, hoo boy, Othello is a special one. It’s been a minute since I read it, so the details outside of ‘bad man convinces other man that wife is cheating and should die’ had fled my mind, but now that my memory has been refreshed, well there’s not much more I’d add to that gist. Not the most progressive stuff in this day and age, but the current production at the Globe, starring my man Mark Rylance, is faultless (other than the plot obvs), and it’s a must-see for any fans of Shakespeare, Mark, and/or theatre. What a fantastic production that will make you feel like you just got punched in the throat.
It’s so important to see this production that I was a GROUNDLING for the first time. In a nod to authenticity, the Globe in London still has the whole floor (where the stalls/orchestra seats would be in a normal theatre) reserved for the po-pos, called groundlings, who stand wherever they want and push each other around and tend to display all kinds of boorish behavior (-100 points!) for only 5 pounddollars! Three hours of standing for only $5, how lucky AM I? People love the groundling experience, and I will admit that it was very cool to see Shakespeare in the tradition of how people saw his plays back in the day, but only for like 20 minutes and then my feet hurt.
As for the plot aside from my barebones recounting of it above, I was a little confused at the beginning because, as a groundling, I was trying to get used to said boorish behavior of those around me. STOP TALKING IN THE THEATRE, EVERYONE! But I caught on. So there’s this skinny blond rich twink named Roderigo who is sad because he’s in love with a lady named Desdemona (sure you are) and she just secretly married a black man named Othello, and Roderigo is like how dare a woman marry who she loves. Roddy’s doing all his manly complaining to his friend Iago (dun dun DUNNNN) who is an officer, and Iago is like ‘okay I can get on board with hating this couple because Othello, the general of the army, just promoted this dude Cassio instead of me, even though I’m clearly a respectable soldier who isn’t proving Othello’s decision right or anything with my scheming, no way.’ Othello is a moor from Venice which means he is dark-skinned and everyone back then (lol not now no sir) was hella racist so that plays into the men’s distrust and dislike of him as well. They start plotting against Othello, although Roddy doesn’t really seem into the deathly parts but maybe I missed that because I was distracted by his appearance like he was waiting for the clubs to open in Barthelona. Iago is played by the great Mark Rylance in a real departure from his usual characters, since he is SO LOVABLE and Iago is NOT. His Iago contains some of Mark’s trademark awkwardness and is a little doofy so his evil is really not obvious. Sometimes his portrayal didn’t really jive for me because I was concerned that he was like confused from a head injury. It’s a very different take but it makes sense that no one would suspect this sometimes-bumbling fool to be plotting super bad things.
As for the plot aside from my barebones recounting of it above, I was a little confused at the beginning because, as a groundling, I was trying to get used to said boorish behavior of those around me. STOP TALKING IN THE THEATRE, EVERYONE! But I caught on. So there’s this skinny blond rich twink named Roderigo who is sad because he’s in love with a lady named Desdemona (sure you are) and she just secretly married a black man named Othello, and Roderigo is like how dare a woman marry who she loves. Roddy’s doing all his manly complaining to his friend Iago (dun dun DUNNNN) who is an officer, and Iago is like ‘okay I can get on board with hating this couple because Othello, the general of the army, just promoted this dude Cassio instead of me, even though I’m clearly a respectable soldier who isn’t proving Othello’s decision right or anything with my scheming, no way.’ Othello is a moor from Venice which means he is dark-skinned and everyone back then (lol not now no sir) was hella racist so that plays into the men’s distrust and dislike of him as well. They start plotting against Othello, although Roddy doesn’t really seem into the deathly parts but maybe I missed that because I was distracted by his appearance like he was waiting for the clubs to open in Barthelona. Iago is played by the great Mark Rylance in a real departure from his usual characters, since he is SO LOVABLE and Iago is NOT. His Iago contains some of Mark’s trademark awkwardness and is a little doofy so his evil is really not obvious. Sometimes his portrayal didn’t really jive for me because I was concerned that he was like confused from a head injury. It’s a very different take but it makes sense that no one would suspect this sometimes-bumbling fool to be plotting super bad things.
WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE A LOBBY BOY?
But plotting bad things he is! He does all kinds of dastardly little things like leaving handkerchiefs in telling places and whispering sweet nothings into Othello’s ear to make him doubt his wife. He of course has to bring Cassio into this, the man who got the promotion instead of him, and take him down too by having it look like Desdemona and Cassio are having an affair. I think we’re supposed to maybe feel sorry for Othello that he is so easily tricked by Iago but like, dude, how about talk to your wife first instead of killing her? But like also even if she was cheating, she doesn’t deserve to die, man, just get a forking divorce. MEN ARE SCARY. More on that later.
Othello was played by Andre Holland, the actor from ‘The Knick’ but really ‘Moonlight’ because I never watched ‘The Knick’. I’ve never seen or heard of him doing Shakespeare or anything of the sort before, and he was wonderful. He seemed so comfortable on this very challenging stage, and when you can hold your own against Mark Rylance, who kind of is the Globe theatre, you’re prettayyy awesome. Most of their supporting cast was great too. Jessica Warbeck’s Desdemona was solid, and given that I think Desdemona kind of sucks to play (she doesn’t do anything except be nice (and kind of bland) and then she dies and like isn’t mad) she seemed to be dedicated to her role. Aaron Pierre’s Cassio was one of my favorites, probably because he is the only decent man onstage. And let’s talk about Sheila Atim as Emilia, Iago’s wife. Not that I’d in a million years buy her married to Mark Rylance, but she is so magnetic and watchable in anything, even when she’s not singing. But they shoeshorned a few musical moments into this play literally just to make her sing (she did just win an Olivier for a musical), which I fully appreciated even if it was a little too shoehorny. But my god, she is so good. You kind of want to scream at Emilia for helping her husband with the whole planting the handkerchief scheme, and sure she doesn’t know that he is so wickedly scheming and she’s just having fun with her husband but like come on don’t be so daft. But you can’t be mad at Sheila Atim.
Also Sheila looked absolute FIRE in her space-age golden jumpsuit with shoulder pads straight out of the closet of a Star Trek Admiral’s closet. I almost yelled ‘fire’ too which is bad/illegal in a crowded theatre and extra bad considering this one’s burned down before but DAYUM. The costumer clearly loved Sheila and hated Jessica, though, because Desdemona’s Act II black velvet-looking gown was notttt flattering, mostly because it had my most-hated fashion don’t – cut outs in weird places. This dress fell victim to the worst culprit of all – the chest cutout, so somewhere between the neck and the cleavage there was an oval of missing fabric. THIS IS NOT A GUD FASHUN, EVERYONE. It’s actually really important to get the costumes right because in this instance it was so unattractive and misguided that for a second I was like ‘ugh kill it’ and then like, he did.
So let’s circle back now to the whole ‘Othello killed his wife because he thought she was cheating, but she wasn’t, so it’s sooo sad’ thing. Say this out loud with me: Even if she was cheating, she doesn’t deserve to die! It still would have been sad if Iago was right and they were having an affair because it would be a man taking justice into his own hands and really doing all he can to one-up his wife’s wrongdoing by doing a MURDER. It is not sad because an innocent woman died; it is sad because a woman died. I feel like Othello’s remorse at the end when he realizes Desdie wasn’t cheating mirrors John McCain’s famed town hall answer to that racist blonde woman’s question. In case you didn’t see the video that was widely used after his death to show that McCain was ‘one of the good Republicans’, a horrible woman said she didn’t trust Obama because she read that he was an Arab. McCain answered, “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man.’ And PEOPLE ARE USING THIS TO PROVE WHAT A SAINT HE WAS. The good answer in this situation, in case you too are a racist monster, is ‘He’s not an Arab but ARABS CAN BE GOOD PEOPLE TOO’, not ‘he’s not an Arab AND SO he’s a good person.’ MAN ALIVE (Or in this case, not (too soon?!)). Anyway, so I see a connection between this bonkers but ‘light-level’ racism being used to shore up McCain’s persona, and Othello’s ‘oh my god I shouldn’t have killed my wife, she was faithful to me after all’ realization. BOTH ARE THE WRONG TAKES, MEN.
And so this play leaves me infuriated, because the message seems to be that jealousy is bad, and you should trust your wife, and you should communicate better, when it should also include a bit about not killing anyone regardless of their wrongdoing. In the same summer I saw Carousel on Broadway – unaltered in its portrayal of a serial abuser, and so wrongheaded in this day and age – I can’t help but just sigh loudly and groan that men are trash. I am, however, very pleased with this production and this cast and the Globe’s return to faithful interpretations of classics, and I definitely recommend you see this if you can, but like, ughhh.
Othello was played by Andre Holland, the actor from ‘The Knick’ but really ‘Moonlight’ because I never watched ‘The Knick’. I’ve never seen or heard of him doing Shakespeare or anything of the sort before, and he was wonderful. He seemed so comfortable on this very challenging stage, and when you can hold your own against Mark Rylance, who kind of is the Globe theatre, you’re prettayyy awesome. Most of their supporting cast was great too. Jessica Warbeck’s Desdemona was solid, and given that I think Desdemona kind of sucks to play (she doesn’t do anything except be nice (and kind of bland) and then she dies and like isn’t mad) she seemed to be dedicated to her role. Aaron Pierre’s Cassio was one of my favorites, probably because he is the only decent man onstage. And let’s talk about Sheila Atim as Emilia, Iago’s wife. Not that I’d in a million years buy her married to Mark Rylance, but she is so magnetic and watchable in anything, even when she’s not singing. But they shoeshorned a few musical moments into this play literally just to make her sing (she did just win an Olivier for a musical), which I fully appreciated even if it was a little too shoehorny. But my god, she is so good. You kind of want to scream at Emilia for helping her husband with the whole planting the handkerchief scheme, and sure she doesn’t know that he is so wickedly scheming and she’s just having fun with her husband but like come on don’t be so daft. But you can’t be mad at Sheila Atim.
Also Sheila looked absolute FIRE in her space-age golden jumpsuit with shoulder pads straight out of the closet of a Star Trek Admiral’s closet. I almost yelled ‘fire’ too which is bad/illegal in a crowded theatre and extra bad considering this one’s burned down before but DAYUM. The costumer clearly loved Sheila and hated Jessica, though, because Desdemona’s Act II black velvet-looking gown was notttt flattering, mostly because it had my most-hated fashion don’t – cut outs in weird places. This dress fell victim to the worst culprit of all – the chest cutout, so somewhere between the neck and the cleavage there was an oval of missing fabric. THIS IS NOT A GUD FASHUN, EVERYONE. It’s actually really important to get the costumes right because in this instance it was so unattractive and misguided that for a second I was like ‘ugh kill it’ and then like, he did.
So let’s circle back now to the whole ‘Othello killed his wife because he thought she was cheating, but she wasn’t, so it’s sooo sad’ thing. Say this out loud with me: Even if she was cheating, she doesn’t deserve to die! It still would have been sad if Iago was right and they were having an affair because it would be a man taking justice into his own hands and really doing all he can to one-up his wife’s wrongdoing by doing a MURDER. It is not sad because an innocent woman died; it is sad because a woman died. I feel like Othello’s remorse at the end when he realizes Desdie wasn’t cheating mirrors John McCain’s famed town hall answer to that racist blonde woman’s question. In case you didn’t see the video that was widely used after his death to show that McCain was ‘one of the good Republicans’, a horrible woman said she didn’t trust Obama because she read that he was an Arab. McCain answered, “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man.’ And PEOPLE ARE USING THIS TO PROVE WHAT A SAINT HE WAS. The good answer in this situation, in case you too are a racist monster, is ‘He’s not an Arab but ARABS CAN BE GOOD PEOPLE TOO’, not ‘he’s not an Arab AND SO he’s a good person.’ MAN ALIVE (Or in this case, not (too soon?!)). Anyway, so I see a connection between this bonkers but ‘light-level’ racism being used to shore up McCain’s persona, and Othello’s ‘oh my god I shouldn’t have killed my wife, she was faithful to me after all’ realization. BOTH ARE THE WRONG TAKES, MEN.
And so this play leaves me infuriated, because the message seems to be that jealousy is bad, and you should trust your wife, and you should communicate better, when it should also include a bit about not killing anyone regardless of their wrongdoing. In the same summer I saw Carousel on Broadway – unaltered in its portrayal of a serial abuser, and so wrongheaded in this day and age – I can’t help but just sigh loudly and groan that men are trash. I am, however, very pleased with this production and this cast and the Globe’s return to faithful interpretations of classics, and I definitely recommend you see this if you can, but like, ughhh.
“Honeymoon In Vegas” on Broadway is More Fun Than it Should Be
Obviously, they made a Broadway musical of the movie “Honeymoon In Vegas”, because the story of a nice but weak-willed man who loses a shittonne of money to a Vegas casino mogul who in turn requests a weekend with nice man’s fiancée who is a dead ringer for casino man’s dead wife instead of holding him to his losses just screeeeams Broadway musical. No, I’m actually not being sarcastic. This musical freaking works.
If you haven’t seen the movie “Honeymoon In Vegas”, with those celebrated dramatists Sarah Jessica Parker and Nicholas Cage, you really need to watch it right now. It’s one of those awful but amazing movies that is completely offensive when you think about it but if you choose not to think about it then it’s just super fun. Nicholas Cage plays a man who is haunted by his deceased overbearing mother who told him never to get married. His unlucky blonde girlfriend Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker) obviously wants to get married because that is all women aspire to do in life, and also they are always blonde if they are worth all this fuss/treating as currency.
If you haven’t seen the movie “Honeymoon In Vegas”, with those celebrated dramatists Sarah Jessica Parker and Nicholas Cage, you really need to watch it right now. It’s one of those awful but amazing movies that is completely offensive when you think about it but if you choose not to think about it then it’s just super fun. Nicholas Cage plays a man who is haunted by his deceased overbearing mother who told him never to get married. His unlucky blonde girlfriend Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker) obviously wants to get married because that is all women aspire to do in life, and also they are always blonde if they are worth all this fuss/treating as currency.
In the movie, James Caan plays the rich casino guy Tommy Korman, who conspires to trick Nicholas Cage out of lots of money in a fixed poker game, knowing he can’t pay, and says that he’ll forego the debt if he gets to borrow Betsy for a weekend. I mean, it’s pretty much the least feminist movie you can think of and yet I’m okay with it. Mostly because there are flying Elvises and because Nicholas Cage yells “Betsy!!!!!!” so well at the end.
Okay, so it’s on Broadway now with a score by my love Jason Robert Brown, in a serious detour from his past/serious/artistic stuff. You can tell he had fun with this one, relishing the opportunity to write hysterical, silly songs in a range of styles suitable for Vegas, from Sinatra-like crooning to Elvis-style rock to an actual number about straight flushes. The show stars the already great Rob McClure as Nicholas Cage, well as Jack Singer, and he is the biggest reason to see this show. I said already great because Rob has only recently become a recognizable name in the Broadway community, after his fabulous Tony-nominated performance in “Chaplin”. (He’s also widely considered the best guy to work with on shows, as no one beats his work ethic.) The producers are hoping that you want to see the show because Tommy Korman is played by Tony Danza, yes that Tony Danza, and no when I met him after and got a freaking picture with him and his arm was on my back I FORGOT TO SAY “Hold me closer Tony Danza” and I will never ever forgive myself for missing that opportunity of a lifetime.
Anyway, Rob as Jack is completely winning, and despite the character’s serious commitment phobia and other flaws, he successfully wins you over with the very first song. He’s in New York, and he sings about all the things in life he enjoys and likes, but how the thing he loves is Betsy. “I like taxis, I like trains, I like Brooklyn when it rains, but I love Betsy. I like walking after dark, I like jogs in Prospect Park, but I love Betsy.” It’s catchy as f@&$, unfortunately, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head for 3 weeks now. He’s so adorable in this song, and so necessarily charming, that he gains needed leeway in terms of your forgiveness for his actions to come. Comparing his girlfriend to all these activities and objects that he merely likes is also a great way to set the tone of the misogynist show to come, in a chipper way.
The high energy continues as Jack takes Betsy to Tiffany’s to finally propose, and in a fantastic little bit of theatre magic, one of the display cases turns in an instant to a hospital bed holding his dying mother, the ridiculously hilarious Nancy Opel, in a flashback to her death 10 years prior. She tells her son never to get married because no woman would ever love him like she does. It’s pretty absurd and amazing all at once, and it all just works.
Actually, side note, the most absurd and amazing part of the show was when the people sitting behind me – who I recognized from the rush line that morning, so they know at least a little about living – were talking and one girl said “What’s this about?” and the other said “Oh you never saw the movie? It’s like this really interesting drama that Woody Allen wrote and directed and you can tell it’s just sooo Woody Allen, you know?” I died. The movie is written by the guy who wrote “Fletch”, FFS. Not Woody Allen. My brother had tears. And he said loudly later “Yeah I love that they kept so many of Woody’s lines” and other things to mock these idiots. It was HILARIOUS. Also in line for the bathroom, these old ladies were talking about how “the girl in the Demi Moore part” was adorable and how “no one can beat Robert Redford, though.” Which is at least a tiny bit more forgivable because “Indecent Proposal” is just the slightly less funny version of the same exact movie, but still. How do people not know “Honeymoon In Vegas”?! It’s a Cage classic!
The pacing of this first act is so tight and really well done. Tony Danza as Tommy Korman is fantastic. He can’t really sing, and he is given WAY too many ballads that prove this, but he is pure charisma and he oozes that mobster-ish sleazy charm. He also gets a tap number that is actually really impressive.
My favorite Tony/Tommy song is pretty awful, in subject matter and black humor, but it’s so funny. When he first sees Betsy in his casino, he is shocked at her resemblance to his late wife. How did his wife die, you ask? Well, he sings about it. We move to a beach scene, and his wife is laying by the pool in the sun. Day after day after day. Tommy sings about how he should have made her get out of the sun. She died of skin cancer. It’s awful. But it’s so funny! Some people are saying how this song is really offensive and unfunny, but everyone in my packed audience thought it was hilarious. Also, it’s a good message?
Anyway, everything gets more ridiculous as Jack decides to go to a poker game Tommy invited him to, instead of rushing to marry Betsy as they came to Vegas to do. He says he’ll just be an hour, but obviously he stays much longer and she gets upset while shopping for her dress and all her shoes and stuff because she is a woman and just shops and shakes her head disapprovingly while she waits to get married. Brynn O’Malley is great in the role, really lovely and a strong singer, but she must have to do some serious readjusting of the brain pan after every show. I hope that she has a sign over the mirror in her dressing room that says “You are a worthwhile person and not just as currency!” or something like that.
So as the poker game goes on and on, this one song obviously called “The Game” goes on and on, and showgirls hold up enormous playing cards to show the men’s hands. It’s all just so ridiculous and yet so enjoyable. That’s the basic summary of this show. Anyway, they get to the part of the song when they sing “Straight flush!” and “Jack of diamonds, queen of diamonds, king of diamonds…” etc. as the notes get higher and higher. I really love that JRB wrote that. So Jack bets more money than he has and OMG I just realized why her name is Betsy, because she ends up standing in for his bets or something I wonder if the writers did that on purpose or if that’s just a really wonderful coincidence??? Yes so Jack loses $58,000 even thought he had a straight flush to the king, because Tommy had a straight flush to the ace. Yeah that is totally realistic and would ever possibly happen in a million years. No, we learn later Tommy obviously cheated.
Without the money to pay his losses, Jack is pretty forlorn and torn apart. Luckily! Tommy says heyyyy, how about we come to an agreement – this is the song called “An Agreement” – where I get to borrow your fiancée for the weekend? And Jack says absolutely not, that is disgusting and wrong! But Tommy has all that Terry Benedict charm and convinces Jack that it’s the only way to not lose Betsy, because if she found out how much money he lost, she would leave him anyway. So it’s worth a try!! No, it’s really not.
When Jack tells her what has happened, Betsy is obviously shocked and mortified and she refuses to be treated as currency, but then she gets reminded that she is a woman and that she only matters so far as the men say she does, so she agrees. I don’t know, it makes sense during the show but then when you think about it you are like whaaaaaaaaaaaaat. So she goes to Hawaii with Tommy, who like owns an island, and Jack is like what? You can’t take my fiancée to Hawaii! And Tommy’s people are like, well you only had parameters on the timeframe, not the location. Boom! Lawyered!
Jack realizes he was a total idiot and he flies to Hawaii to save Betsy from her lovely weekend with Tommy, who is nice but so sleazy. He even hired people to pretend to be his relatives so he would look good. And of course he lies about how much money Jack actually lost; when Betsy mentions the $58,000, Tommy says “Is that what he told you? He only lost $800!” or something horrendous that you’d assume Betsey wouldn’t believe, or that she’d at least be suspicious, but she is like drunk and really likes the pineapple in Hawaii so she believes him. Meanwhile, Jack tries to find Tommy’s house but Tommy pretty much owns everyone and everything on the island and he planned ahead to make sure everyone does their darnedest to keep Jack distracted if he followed them. The weakest part of the show is when the local Hawaiian, Mahi, yes that is her name, tries to seduce Jack in the jungle in a song called “Friki Friki.” I don’t know if I have ever cringed so hard during a song in a show. I wish they cut that. The rest of the audience seemed to like it though, somehow.
While Jack is being led all over tarnation by Tommy’s people, Tony Danza is inexplicably getting more and more ballads to sing and Betsy is getting drunker and madder at her spineless fiancé, so she agrees to marry Tommy. Okay monster man. They immediately fly back to Vegas. Jack finds out, and – in the most important scene of the movie and therefore of the play – hitches a ride back to Vegas with a troop of Flying Elvises, with his only option for landing being to skydive with them. It’s the best! I wish the show’s budget had had room for a more impressive skydive display, but then again it is happening on a stage, so it’s okay. The Elvises are a lot of fun, and Rob does his best Cage impression when he yells ‘BETSY!!!!’ and even though these Elvises are skydiving and landing who knows where in relation to the Las Vegas Strip, Betsy obviously hears him and runs up to him because we like things to be realistic. They reconcile and apologize and yada yada yada they get hitched and it’s all really happy and fun and that’s the show, folks. You really should see it.
