Almaty, Kazakhstan: Surprisingly Cosmopolitan City in the Middle of Whoknowswhereby Randi / October 30, 2017
Woot it’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s review is of the Broadway musical “War Paint”, which ends its run on Sunday.
The Broadway musical “War Paint”, which ends its respectable run this weekend, flew in completely under my radar, but once it was on it, I was so hooked. A new musical with a brand-new score, telling the story of two of the greatest women in business, and starring two of the greatest women in musical theatre? Sign me up! Doesn’t that sound just kick you in the shins spit on your neck fantastic? I don’t know how the anticipation of this show was so contained, because in theory it is just the greatest idea ever: Christine Ebersole, Patti LuPone, a new score by Korie and Frankel (who wrote the glorious “Grey Gardens” for Christine), and a biographical tale of cosmetics giants Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein and their long rivalry? I still can’t get over how incredible it is in theory. In theory.
The Broadway musical “War Paint”, which ends its respectable run this weekend, flew in completely under my radar, but once it was on it, I was so hooked. A new musical with a brand-new score, telling the story of two of the greatest women in business, and starring two of the greatest women in musical theatre? Sign me up! Doesn’t that sound just kick you in the shins spit on your neck fantastic? I don’t know how the anticipation of this show was so contained, because in theory it is just the greatest idea ever: Christine Ebersole, Patti LuPone, a new score by Korie and Frankel (who wrote the glorious “Grey Gardens” for Christine), and a biographical tale of cosmetics giants Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein and their long rivalry? I still can’t get over how incredible it is in theory. In theory.
GODDAMN QUEEEEENS
While the performances from Ebersole and LuPone were as phenomenal as one could have hoped, the show was decent but lacking. Despite having an out-of-town tryout in Chicago, it felt like it still needed edits and touch-ups. Based on the biographical book by Lindy Woodhead (erma what a name), “War Paint” chronicles Elizabeth Arden’s pink, waspy, lady-like domination of the cosmetics industry and American business world. That is, until Helena Rubenstein, the exotic Jewish immigrant from Poland, with her chic and harder edge and her focus on science, challenged Arden in every way to be her business equal and archrival. I am so in on this premise, because first of all it tells a story about a really crucial business rivalry that spurred even higher growth in the American cosmetics industry, and second of all, that rivalry happened to be between two middle aged women. You rarely get plays or movies that focus on women’s role in business, and if you are lucky enough to get such a story, the sole woman will be young and hot and surrounded by men who can take credit for her success. There’s no way in hell the story would focus on two women, and two older women at that. Yet “War Paint” does the impossible, and that is freaking amazing, and I wish that the show itself was as wonderful as that premise. But even with weaknesses in the score and book, it’s such a treat to be able to witness two legends of musical theatre portray two legends of industry when Hillary isn’t president.
I read some of Lindy Woodhead’s book (erma) when writing this up because I am hella professional, but going into the show I knew nothing about the lives of Rubenstein or Arden except that they were successful businessers whose names still carry significant weight today. Going in cold, I was so pumped to be blown away. However, from the start I could tell that I would be annoyingly unsatisfied. There were moments of greatness – LuPone’s humor, Ebersole’s vulnerability, both of their voices (in SUCH good shape), a few of their songs. But overall, the score was mediocre, the book was a g-d mess (such eye rolling at the dialogue and some unnecessary whole scenes), and the choreography was meh. If I’m sitting in an audience thinking “I could do that choreo” and I’m right? That doesn’t belong on a professional stage.
But really no matter how much I criticize it (and how much there is to criticize), it was amazing to be able to see these two pillars of musical theatre not only again but together. Patti’s vocal placement remains unparalleled. Christine is so lovely and heartbreaking as always. The show was unquestionably worth seeing for these performances, even though I questioned seeing it because I’ve seen both of them in other and better shows. At one moment I thought to myself “dammit they are incredible” and then was like “oh well yeah that’s why there are four Tony Awards up there between the two of them.”
Okay so what’s it about plot-wise and not just historically? It starts with a look inside Arden’s well-oiled machine, her super successful and popular salon with the famous red door, and all the inner workings and workers who keep it moving. Arden had pioneered the lighter touch to makeup to make it okay for higher class women to wear it, mostly tricking them with pink porcelain containers that were responsible for like 90% of a product’s cost. But then this brassy Jewish immigrant with an AMAZ accent comes around with an enticing brand that threatens to take Arden’s top spot in the industry. Whereas Arden’s was pink and soft and old moneyed, Rubenstein’s aesthetic is sleek and chic, black and white, sexual and violent, grabbing the attention of a lot of customers. The two battled back and forth, stealing ideas and secrets, trying to get a similar product out before the other, and most importantly upping their game consistently in their rivalry, which actually benefited everyone.
It was most interesting to see the two strong women reconcile the fact that they are pioneers for strong women in industry, with the fact that their success is coming in an industry telling women they aren’t good enough as is. An actual quote of Rubenstein’s is “There are no ugly women, only lazy ones,” which is HILARIOUS but like, terrible. This provocative conflict between what they represented and what they were actually doing added to all the interesting conflict with each other and the competition that was responsible for a lot of later success, when either could have easily just skated by instead of constantly trying to innovate. There was SO MUCH potential for this story, right?? and I hate that it wasn’t a home run.
One of the biggest problems for me was that Rubenstein’s and Arden’s male companions’ and partners’ storylines and songs take up WAY too much space. Their whole thing reeks of fragile white masculinity and it is so eyeroll through all of it. It made me angry that even in my safe space I couldn’t get away from white men complaining when they might not be in charge of literally every single little bit of the world and oh how terrible it was for them to have (gasp) ladybosses. But more than that, I was furious that it seemed like the creators were seemingly trying to shore up a show about two strong amazing women by adding a B plot about their partners, adding a male story just in case the ignorant masses would be too scandalized by a show only about women. Like the thought that “oh to be safe we need a lot about the men in their lives” was probably the focus of a lot of early discussions. And it made the show worse. Trust female stories to be enough.
Aside from these men, my other big problem with the show was another white man, Charles Revson, who grows up to form Revlon and who in the movie version would be played by that creepy guy who shows up in literally every TV show, Isaac Heller. Revson is responsible for nail polish being so easy and accessible. Early on, he tried to sell his product to both women, who both passed. His bit could have been a short thing just so we knew his name and his deal and that both women passed, and his later enormous success – and his overtaking both Arden and Rubenstein in sales – would have had the same impact on the audience, as we realize oh shit this was probably a big mistake on both their parts. But to have looong boring scenes where he tries to sell his product and then later a whole drawn out mess with his big Revlon commercial/musical number? We did not need to see the TV commercial for Not One of the Main Characters. And we REALLY didn’t need that mess where Arden tries to warn Revson’s model girlfriend that she should be careful being his model because…actually it’s unclear why she felt so sad about the model, except that maybe she meant to say ‘don’t rely on your looks, they fade’ and was guessing at how sad the pretty girl might feel one day? BUT WHY WOULD THAT MAKE A COSMETICS GIANT SAD THAT JUST MEANS SHE’D HAVE A DEFINITE FUTURE CUSTOMER.
In the book (#woodhead), it’s clear that both women’s failure to recognize Revson as a serious player in the cosmetics industry and as a potential competitor was a huge mistake, and I think that could have effectively been shown without giving him unnecessary stage time. The women were too busy concentrating on fighting with and one-upping each other to notice new opponents creeping around them. This is an important fact, but the show addresses it way too messily.
But that competition and rivalry was the best part, creating such drama and intrigue between the two as representatives of their companies. They engaged in back and forth recipe leaking thanks to their partners who swapped companies (that should have been the focus of the men’s stories – that they both left to work in the rival company – AND THAT’S IT), and that led the FDA to require cosmetics to list every single ingredient on the label. We have all the shady dealings of these women to thank for knowing what’s in our stuff. How interesting is that? That’s strong material I wish we saw more of. (There was a Senate hearing or two but I wanted more and I wanted facts!) Both had to rename products and rethink advertising campaigns – especially when we saw both of them sell creams that were identical but one was sold for night and one for day. Companies still pull that shit today though when we can clearly see it’s all the same ingredients!
I also loved that we saw how these amazing women adapted when the war broke out – by creating products specifically for women in action and by veering away from using materials being rationed. This was interesting! Do more of that! I loved that they said they were helping to provide women in action with the war paint (take a shot) they needed to stay strong. The commitment of these women to make the companies they built as strong as possible could have made such a solid show if the creators believed in that story enough. Luckily the two performances are incredible, as I said. And not just their singing; they are some of the best actresses too. Patti’s biggest line, delivered when she is yet again trying to think of ways to destroy her rival, was, “It is dangerous to leave an enemy wounded. The attack must be fatal.” It’s a good line and her delivery was one hundred emoji but it did NOT need to get extended audience applause. What the crap kind of psychopaths was I sitting among.
Christine’s best line won’t really translate to the page, but when she was dismissing all the other sources of competition in the industry (really, they only had eyes for each other), she waves off the idea of being threatened by one of them because “she’s from Hoboken!” Right it sounds like nothing but Ebersole’s delivery was maybe the best of any line ever by anyone and the audience was crying. Patti’s funniest moments were from her ridiculous accent that I LOVED. It made her say things like ‘shits’ instead of ‘sheets’. “Where’s that contract?” “It’s right here on the shits.” Obsessed.
See I complain but there was so much good in this show. I just so badly wanted it to be better. The big number “Face to Face”, the duet performed on the Tonys, felt like an important piece of musical theatre history, just watching these two sing a duet. And Arden’s big 11 o’clock number “Pink”, about how her dismay that her entire life’s legacy might just be boiled down to her signature color, was Tony worthy in my opinion. And honestly, the costumes stand out as the most striking part of the show. They really deserved to win the Tony. I’ve never really noticed costumes before, not enough to realize that I’m noticing them, but I was in awe of Catherine Zuber’s work here. She is flames.
Side note, I learned afterward that Elizabeth Arden’s real name was Florence Nightingale Graham lolol her shitty parents.
So if somehow you have the chance to see this show in the next few days, you should. It’s so frustrating that it wasn’t constructed more thoughtfully and that all the songs aren’t as good as the best ones, but there is still some greatness in the story, and seeing LuPone and Ebersole together is a magical experience.
THEATRE
- The Nederlander redid the bathrooms since I was there last and it’s maybe the best bathroom situation I’ve ever seen in a theatre except for the Lyric, that shit is enormous.
- I got rush tickets for a Saturday matinee right before showtime. Definitely one of the easiest rushes I’ve ever encountered. (Although probably not for its final weekend.)
- This had the latest start of any show I’ve been to, I think. But it was a Saturday matinee and it was the oldest crowd I’ve ever seen too, older even than the people on the cruise I was on 8 years ago when it was me and husband and then 100 people from The Villages retirement home in Florida. So, I guess there’s at least a reason.
STAGEDOOR
OMG are you kidding, you do not stagedoor on two-show days for people of this calibre! They’re not coming out for shit!
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One Jewish Boy at Trafalgar Studios is Incisive, Upsetting, & Too Relevant
Honestly, forking finally. Stephen Laughton’s One Jewish Boy is the Jewish representation London’s theatre scene has been not only severely lacking but opening mocking the need for. A four-hander (that’s right) telling the story of a couple – one Jewish boy and one mixed race girl – over their 15-year relationship, Laughton’s work is like all our (the chosen our) anxieties about identity and prejudice in anti-Semitic England and the world at large distilled into an hour and a half of excellent, inventive, heartbreaking story-telling.
One Jewish Boy shares the relationship of Jesse and Alex and how anti-Semitism (and specifically its effect on the titular boy) affects their happiness. The storytelling jumps around through time to show Jesse and Alex at different points, from the day she serves him with divorce papers to the day they first meet, from their wedding day to the day he proposes, the day they decide to have a baby, in seemingly random but ultimately poignant order. The key flashback is glimpsed multiple times but never fully shown: a 2013 attack that left Jesse hospitalized. He was beaten on the street for being Jewish, as his white supremacist attackers shouted things about Hitler and gassing (lines that are played several times on the speaker system, definitely necessitating more of a trigger warning than I saw anywhere). Jesse rightly deems this a hate crime, and understandably suffers a sort of PTSD for years and years to come, as this realization of how much hate exists threatens his ability to live fully and without constant fear, for him and his son and his community. Alex thinks he should get over it.
Now I said that a little flippantly, and Alex does give him time (although the anti-therapy vibe is so very British and so very infuriating (and accurate)), but ultimately she cannot abide his inability to get over it. Even though it’s impossible not to be haunted by that sort of trauma, she sees a line where that crosses into debilitating preoccupation. And this is one of the several incredibly difficult and heavy ideas that this play handles so well. Even though I tended to side with Jesse, you see where Alex is coming from, regarding this and all their problems. Alex wants Jesse to stop letting his attack define how he sees the world. As someone who is mixed race, she definitely has experience with racism and with coping with it, and her view is valid. (Although it’s kind of ridiculous to ask a Jew to stop being anxious, like is she new.)
Where the play excels is in presenting these significant issues in a provocative way, where even if you side with one of them, you understand both and there’s no clear answer. The content is difficult because it’s so relevant, for really all young people trying to navigate a world of more blatant racism as well as longstanding cultural differences with the people in their lives. Laughton touches on incredibly important concepts like inherited trauma (done so well on season 2 of Transparent, btw), circumcision, and even who to vote for. (I appreciated the very new bits about Labour and Corbyn’s anti-Semitism in the recent general, since people are still blaming Jews for his loss and I could go on a big long rant as I have before about how Jews are really the only group to be blamed for not happily supporting people who have clearly shown to be against them but I won’t do that right now.)
A lot of the content is distressing and leaves you with a “well, fuck” kind of sigh, so the amount of laughter throughout is pretty remarkable. That’s due to the writing (some of the jokes, my god, RightMove is the Tindr for married people?? THAT IS TRUE) as well as the superb performances. Robert Neumark-Jones makes his Jesse open and vulnerable and deeply felt while also remaining likeable even when he’s being a dick, driving Alex, a vibrant Asha Reid, crazy in the good and bad senses of the word. It seemed obvious to me that in the sort of battle where no one is right or wrong, Jesse was clearly not wrong, but it could be that I identified with and understood him more for the obvious reasons. Or maybe I side so strongly with Jesse because he liked to stay home and Alex seemed like a ‘fun girl’ who likes to go out, yeesh. But they both feel so authentic and so connected to each other’s performances, making their characters’ fundamental differences all the sadder.
The only thing I actively disliked was putting forward as fact, through Jesse’s statements, the dangerous idea that white Jews are not white. This is an ugly battle that Jews face, and to give in to the idea that Jewish is a race and not a religious or cultural identity plays into and gives ammunition to the ever-increasing othering. It wasn’t clear if this was a statement being made by the author or a nuanced way to show that Jesse was going over the top with his obsession about the world rejecting him, but even if it was the latter I don’t think it will be clear to many theatergoers, who might think ‘oh I guess white Jews aren’t white’ (and London audiences are traditionally mmm not the best at getting nuance with these sorts of issues; see e.g. every single other review of mine).
Aside from that, One Jewish Boy is an exceptionally discerning and sensitive play, with sharp writing and strong performances. It’s a must-see for anyone who cares about society’s prejudice and racism and rising hate, which should be everyone.
INFORMATION
One Jewish Boy is playing at Trafalgar Studios 2, the small studio, until April 4. Studio 2 is on the bottom level, the same as the bar, with one 4-stall ladies room next to the bar. There are no bad seats as it’s a small square, but I had the best seat in the history of theatre and I’m super thankful – right next to the door. Also it was 20 minutes shorter than I anticipated so I was OKAY (shout out to Greg Serrano (you know what I mean)).
There is some smoking, not to much but amplified by the tiny unventilated room, which got a little rough for me but most people should be fine. If you’re in the front row you will get vaped in the face.
Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen”: Why Dehydration from Crying is Possible but Worth It
I have never put off writing about a show as long as I put this one off. Long-time readers know that I have the most fun writing about bad shows, or at least shows with elements of the ridiculous in them. It’s so much easier! And funnier! But shows that are good are harder. Shows that are great? Really hard. Shows that are so amazing that they rip your heart out and replace it with a new heart composed of their music and brilliance and all of the feels plus new feels? Rill hard guys. And that’s what “Dear Evan Hansen” is, and what it did to me, both off and on Broadway. Although we saw it on Broadway just a few months ago, I just realized I saw the Second Stage production on Mother’s Day weekend, so a full year ago. So this is overdue, sorries.
Not a day has gone by when I don’t think about this show (or listen to the cast album). If you don’t know me well enough personally to know my schej, know that I write about maybe 1/3 of the shows I actually see. So I see a lot. And “Dear Evan Hansen” is one of the best original shows I have seen. Just, period. At first I was going to say ‘of the past few years’ – which is pretty strong company already because that time frame includes “Hamilton”, which you are aware is beyond amazing – but that if you offered me free tickets to a show to go see a thousand more times, I would pick “Evan”, partly because I have dry eye syndrome and need to make my eyes water a lot so ya know job done but mostly because I’d wanna be in Hamilton so ya know technicalities &c. But upon further reflection I a) get stage fright so no but b) “Evan” really is one of the best, just period (or full stop), that I’ve ever seen. It’s moving and surprising, pulling off more and more insight and nuance when you think it’s done as much as it can in that regard. When I first saw it, I didn’t expect to sob uncontrollably at an off-Broadway show about a teenage boy. That’s pretty much all I knew about it going in, that it was about a teenage boy, which is hilarious but not recommended – you should know that it can be grave and that you gon cry. Apparently same went for the middle-aged men next to me who were dragged by their kids and wives to the theatre, and the 6-year-old girl behind me who needed a tranquilizer and for her idiot parents to remind her that it’s just make-believe as she had a panic attack. (Seriously, parents, do your research before bringing children to a movie or a show or anything. NOT EVERYTHING IS OKAY FOR THEM ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S ABOUT CHILDREN COMMITTING SUICIDE.)
Another thing readers will know is that I traffic in spoilers. Ah ‘ont kerr. Shows, movies, I usually ‘review’ by explaining and commenting on the plot so caveat emptor. But an important part of the “Evan” experience is learning the story as it unfolds. Being spoiled and not getting to experience the story as it’s told and as secrets are revealed and as surprises unfurl would be such a shame. By this point, I’m sure it’s impossible to have avoided all information as I did (unwittingly) a year ago, before this show was super duper popular. So I’m going to try my best to talk about the show without doing my usual spoiling spree. I am going to assume that you probably know it’s about a teenager committing suicide and how it affects those in his life (and not in his life) in the aftermath, both because I think it’s common knowledge in the show’s advertising and because I kind of already mentioned that above. Despite how awkward I think some of this will read, it’s worth it if anyone reading this has the chance to see the show. It’s so so special to me and I want you to gasp at least once when you see it or at the very least not be the person responsible for you not gasping.
“Dear Evan Hansen” tells the story of a high school student who suffers with some serious anxiety and has no real friends. He likes trees? and worked at a national park or some such maybe over the summer? where he fell from a tree and broke his arm (hence the show’s logo). He’s an outcast who feels invisible, as he tells us in his big song, the best song in the show on most days, “Waving Through a Window”. This is Evan’s first big song in the show, and it’s a beautiful, glorious beast. Ben Platt, Tony-worthy if there ever was such a thing, has to sing this monster of a song as the very first musical thing he does in the show. Like, it opens, he has a few short book scenes, and then the first thing he sings is this confession about how he feels like his whole life is being lived from the outside looking in, and like he’ll never be able to do anything about it. His performance bursts at the seams. It’s raw and wrenching and unmatched in terms of pure unadulterated vulnerability yet vocal insanity. That is until of course his next big song and then the same goes for that and then the next one after that and so on. He can sang, is what I’m saying, and he gives everything he has to every word he sings that there’s really no medical explanation for how he regenerates. Ben’s physical commitment to this anxious, awkward character is so complete that you will forget that he’s acting. This full embodiment, with all the nervous tics and quirks and vocalisms, will convince some that Ben isn’t acting at all, that this has to be just how the actor is in real life, because it seems so natural and so impossible to fake, but he’s just an incredible actor, which you wouldn’t know if you just saw him do some cute magic in “Pitch Perfect” but you would know if you saw him in “The Book of Mormon”, playing Elder Cunningham even though he is skinny.
Evan lives with his mom Heidi, who works tirelessly as a nurse and goes to school at night and tries to take care of her son, so despite her meaning well, she isn’t aware of what’s going on with him. He also, like most teenagers, won’t be open and tell her. She tries to get Evan to take his anxiety meds and do what his therapist wants him to, but there’s only so much she can do when he won’t tell her that anything is wrong. Not that that excuses her lack of awareness, but it does explain it. As Heidi, Rachel Bay Jones is a force. She’s a favorite of mine because she took the usually nothing role of Catherine in “Pippin” and made it one of the funniest performances ever. She’s a brilliant comedian who should have won a Tony for that. Seriously my two biggest Tony Gripes™ are 1) Raul Esparza shattering the earth in “Company” but losing to David Hyde Pierce for I don’t know, Frasier? I mean I saw the show DHP won for and he was great as usual but come on, and 2) Andrea Martin winning for the same show when Rachel should have but wasn’t even nominated. Luckily, she is this year, for this powerhouse performance of a single mother trying to do her best. And it’s so impressive to see Rachel do a completely dramatic performance, without her ridiculous comedic skills to rely on. She breaks your heart reminding you that it’s not just kids who can feel invisible. I dare you not to do that awfully embarrassing hyperventilating crying when she sings her big wrenching song “So Big/So Small”. JFC.
So, plot without spoilers, hmm. Very early in the school year, one of the characters commits suicide, and the show is about how the boy’s family and classmates, and others, deal with it. A tiny-seeming misunderstanding, one that could be cleared up with the simple phrase ‘oh that’s not actually what you think it is’, gives Evan a chance to at least pretend that his life has more meaning than it does, by fabricating a relationship with the boy in order to help the family grieve. His intention is debatable, because although he’s obviously going along with the lie in order to help the mourning family (‘oh look our outcast son had a friend, and he was a good friend back to him and not a total shit like we thought’), Evan continues the charade because it gives him purpose, and popularity, and the knowledge of what it’s like to be cared for. Which you can’t really blame him for! It’s an awful no good thing to lie about and ohhh how it growwws but this kid is feeling seen for the first time, and that’s hard to give up. The biggest problem people seem to have with this show is that they’re mad Evan gets away with so much, that he doesn’t get really punished for his lies, and that he’s doing a terrible thing, which makes him a terrible person. First of all, doing a dumb thing doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. And he does indeed suffer for it (have you SEEN Ben perform “Words Fail”? He literally is pouring snot out of his face), so I don’t know what other kind of punishment people want to see. Not letting him get into any college? What? He’s lying for the benefit of these people in mourning. What he does, when you consider how it affects them, is beautiful in the short-term. It’s confusing, because yes overall it’s terrible to be lying about it and that makes it hard to grapple with because the immediacy of how it soothes their aching souls is also beautiful. It’s a bit of comfort he’s providing when nothing else would do it. You see the stories and lies start taking shape slowly but deliberately, and it all happens so naturally that you’re kind of right there with Evan saying ‘oh just make something up to make them stop crying!’ And of course it gets out of hand, and it’s wrong from the beginning, but still it helped give them something to actually mourn for a little and you can’t fault him for that. The reasons for his lies get even more complicated when we learn how much Evan needed this too, because even just pretending that he mattered to someone brings him a lot of comfort. The criticism misses the point of what’s driving Evan to continue the fabrication, the reasons which are perfectly laid out in “For Forever”, the first time Evan starts lying to the grieving family about his friendship with the son. He tells them that their son was there when he broke his arm, saying “I’m on the ground/my arm goes numb/I look around/and I see him coming to get me/he’s coming to get me/and everything’s okay”. The truth is that Evan fell, all alone, and was on the ground for a while before anyone found him, alone with his misery (and the truth, we learn, surrounding his fall). The way Ben’s voice breaks when he says these lines, it’s obvious how badly he wishes it were true that a friend actually was there to find him when he was hurt. It’s heartbreaking and so clear at that point that Evan is doing this because he needs it just as much as the family does. And his game of pretend ends up giving his life and his relationships a lot more actual meaning than they otherwise would have had.
As the grieving mother, Jennifer Laura Thompson is a wreck most of her onstage time, and I don’t know how she does it. Crying the whole time is understandable, of course, that goes without saying, and Jennifer manages to bring you along with her the entire time as she sobs and then tries to smile and listens to stories and then sobs again. She doesn’t get much more to do than sob, but still she’s wonderful. She’s so perfect as a suburban white middle-class lady too, opening the show in the morning in her stretchy gym pants. We learn that, like all suburban white middle-class ladies worth their salt, she’s gone through periods of various trendy lifestyles to give her life some purpose or maybe just to be trendy, from being Buddhist last year (obvs) to one year ‘not eating anything that came from animals’. It’s too bad that one didn’t stick but honestly, this is the first vegan joke in recent pop culture that wasn’t very very lame, so bravo. As the father, Michael Park returns to Broadway (he originated the role) after John Dossett played the role off Broadway, and both were very good in a not very fleshed out role. (Honestly I didn’t know the actor had changed I’m sorry? Older white men I mean.) He’s a very stereotypical white man with money, talking about how stressed he is at work and how disappointed he always was in his no-good no-ambition son that was nothing like he was ‘supposed’ to be. His character does get more attention in the Act II opener when he teaches Evan how “To Break in a Glove” and gives Evan the baseball mitt that his son never touched. It’s heartwarming, but a little boring and slow – but you don’t even care that this is breaking my #1 show structure rule (you need a great rousing Act II opener to bring everyone back into the story after intermission) because you need a break from everything that came before. A 20 minute intermission is not long enough to get your heart rate back to normal and your head to stop whirling from all the painful crying before the break. So this song, although the weakest in the show, is fine but more importantly necessary because you need a little bit of an emotional break. And the fact that a scene of a father who lost his son teaching another boy whose father left him about baseball with the dead son’s glove is considered an emotional break (relatively) shows just how much you gon cry.
As Zoe, the cute girl that Evan has had a crush on forever, Laura Dreyfuss is wonderful. Her unique voice is really cool and a little gravelly despite her youth but shockingly strong at times, and she is completely believable in everything her character does. It adds another level to both the inappropriateness and the inexorableness of Evan’s lies that they bring him closer to his dream girl. I love her voice on “Requiem”, her refusal to mourn the brother she thought she hated. It’s such a glorious song, despite its melancholy, showing how the different family members react to the death, with the mother being optimistic that Evan’s stories (and fabricated emails) prove that she was right to always have faith in her son, and the father angry that the son disappointed him yet again. I also love the lyric Zoe sings “When the villains fall/the kingdom never weeps/no one lights a candle to remember” because this is soooo exactly “No One Mourns the Wicked” from “Wicked” (“No one mourns the wicked/no one cries they won’t return/no one lays a lily on their grave” &c) and I kind of crack up through the tears when I remember this.
As Connor, Mike Faist is sneakily good, so sneaky that his much-deserved Tony nomination was a huge but very welcome surprise to literally everyone, even the voters I bet. In his intense interactions with Evan after the suicide, Mike manages to maintain the true essence of Connor while still conveying that he’s being shaped by Evan, that he’s really a part of Evan’s imagination. His song “Disappear” is really moving when you look at it from both forms of his character, both the real Connor and the one that is a part of Evan. He’s also freaking hilarious in “Sincerely, Me”, the most fun song of the show and thank god an actual laugh-out-loud scene. This is in large part due to the comic relief Jared, played by Will Roland as every jewish boy who ever went to my overnight camp. When Evan tries to talk to him in school, Jared reminds him that they are just ‘family friends’, which is so suburban jewish I can’t stand it. His timing on his hilarious lines is the funniest part of the show, and so necessary because of the aforementioned floods of tears. He and Kristolyn Lloyd as Alana round out the cast as Evan’s main school friends, Alana being a very stereotypical overachiever who brags about all the various clubs she is president of. As a result, it is obvious that she would be ‘co-president’ with Evan when they form a suicide awareness group, and you accept it as just another thing she wants to put on her college applications. But of course, like everything in this show, it ends up meaning more, because of course, like everyone in this show, Alana too struggles with feeling invisible and like her life doesn’t matter, as does Jared, whose sarcastic and endless humor serves as his armor against the world. We don’t even consider that these two smaller characters would have the same problems and journey of self-reflection as our main character, but that’s the entire point of the show, that everyone has these same heartaches and worries and everyone feels unimportant at times. It’s the most universal, uniting show ever.
I know you’re probably like JFC this sounds like the saddest most miserable stuff you could sit through for 2 ½ hours. And it isssss but it’s also the most incredible and moving and important show in a while. I am still in awe in every way. The set, even. I loved the brilliant use of projections, usually and deservedly maligned for being a cheap and cheap-looking way to enhance scenery. But here, instead, it nails the modern age by using the projections almost exclusively to show social media and other internet usage. When Evan’s story begins to spread and then goes viral, the reactions of people on the internet across social media stream on the walls and pillars of the stage. That connection to how our lives really look today, I can’t get over how brilliant it is. Then, the book is so original, finally, a really truly original modern story for today, and the score is one of my favorites. That’s no surprise considering it’s from one of my favorite composing teams, Pasek & Paul, fresh off their Oscar-winning work on “La La Land”. It seems like “The Great Comet” is picking up Tony awards steam and so they might not win a Tony this year too, but they really should. This score will rip your heart out like I said before, but it will put it back together very carefully too. The story is inspired by Benj Pasek’s experience in high school, which adds more depth to the story’s real-life parallels and just ugh it’s so sad. It’s hard because everyone has lost or knows someone who lost someone in this way, and it seems crazy to sit in a dark theatre remembering your sadness. But the show tells us how important it is to learn from heartache and try to help even one person feel better in their skin. Yes, the big songs of the show, like “You Will Be Found”, will make you sob, but that’s because it’s mostly uplifting and comforting, not just sad. It’s such a great song. I really can’t get over how important this show is for kids, and adults, today, when everything seems so cruel and unfair and horrible. It’ll crush you and dehydrate you from crying, yes, but then it’s like a rainbow after the storm when it seems like everything is going to be okay. There’s a sense of relief that comes with all the sadness, especially with “You Will Be Found” and the Finale, oh god that finale. I wish I could tell you to go see it now, heck I wish I could go see it again this weekend, but it’s sold out for a while (yay!!). Buy tickets for when you can though; you’ll be glad you did. And start listening to the cast album. BSE.
Another thing readers will know is that I traffic in spoilers. Ah ‘ont kerr. Shows, movies, I usually ‘review’ by explaining and commenting on the plot so caveat emptor. But an important part of the “Evan” experience is learning the story as it unfolds. Being spoiled and not getting to experience the story as it’s told and as secrets are revealed and as surprises unfurl would be such a shame. By this point, I’m sure it’s impossible to have avoided all information as I did (unwittingly) a year ago, before this show was super duper popular. So I’m going to try my best to talk about the show without doing my usual spoiling spree. I am going to assume that you probably know it’s about a teenager committing suicide and how it affects those in his life (and not in his life) in the aftermath, both because I think it’s common knowledge in the show’s advertising and because I kind of already mentioned that above. Despite how awkward I think some of this will read, it’s worth it if anyone reading this has the chance to see the show. It’s so so special to me and I want you to gasp at least once when you see it or at the very least not be the person responsible for you not gasping.
“Dear Evan Hansen” tells the story of a high school student who suffers with some serious anxiety and has no real friends. He likes trees? and worked at a national park or some such maybe over the summer? where he fell from a tree and broke his arm (hence the show’s logo). He’s an outcast who feels invisible, as he tells us in his big song, the best song in the show on most days, “Waving Through a Window”. This is Evan’s first big song in the show, and it’s a beautiful, glorious beast. Ben Platt, Tony-worthy if there ever was such a thing, has to sing this monster of a song as the very first musical thing he does in the show. Like, it opens, he has a few short book scenes, and then the first thing he sings is this confession about how he feels like his whole life is being lived from the outside looking in, and like he’ll never be able to do anything about it. His performance bursts at the seams. It’s raw and wrenching and unmatched in terms of pure unadulterated vulnerability yet vocal insanity. That is until of course his next big song and then the same goes for that and then the next one after that and so on. He can sang, is what I’m saying, and he gives everything he has to every word he sings that there’s really no medical explanation for how he regenerates. Ben’s physical commitment to this anxious, awkward character is so complete that you will forget that he’s acting. This full embodiment, with all the nervous tics and quirks and vocalisms, will convince some that Ben isn’t acting at all, that this has to be just how the actor is in real life, because it seems so natural and so impossible to fake, but he’s just an incredible actor, which you wouldn’t know if you just saw him do some cute magic in “Pitch Perfect” but you would know if you saw him in “The Book of Mormon”, playing Elder Cunningham even though he is skinny.
Evan lives with his mom Heidi, who works tirelessly as a nurse and goes to school at night and tries to take care of her son, so despite her meaning well, she isn’t aware of what’s going on with him. He also, like most teenagers, won’t be open and tell her. She tries to get Evan to take his anxiety meds and do what his therapist wants him to, but there’s only so much she can do when he won’t tell her that anything is wrong. Not that that excuses her lack of awareness, but it does explain it. As Heidi, Rachel Bay Jones is a force. She’s a favorite of mine because she took the usually nothing role of Catherine in “Pippin” and made it one of the funniest performances ever. She’s a brilliant comedian who should have won a Tony for that. Seriously my two biggest Tony Gripes™ are 1) Raul Esparza shattering the earth in “Company” but losing to David Hyde Pierce for I don’t know, Frasier? I mean I saw the show DHP won for and he was great as usual but come on, and 2) Andrea Martin winning for the same show when Rachel should have but wasn’t even nominated. Luckily, she is this year, for this powerhouse performance of a single mother trying to do her best. And it’s so impressive to see Rachel do a completely dramatic performance, without her ridiculous comedic skills to rely on. She breaks your heart reminding you that it’s not just kids who can feel invisible. I dare you not to do that awfully embarrassing hyperventilating crying when she sings her big wrenching song “So Big/So Small”. JFC.
So, plot without spoilers, hmm. Very early in the school year, one of the characters commits suicide, and the show is about how the boy’s family and classmates, and others, deal with it. A tiny-seeming misunderstanding, one that could be cleared up with the simple phrase ‘oh that’s not actually what you think it is’, gives Evan a chance to at least pretend that his life has more meaning than it does, by fabricating a relationship with the boy in order to help the family grieve. His intention is debatable, because although he’s obviously going along with the lie in order to help the mourning family (‘oh look our outcast son had a friend, and he was a good friend back to him and not a total shit like we thought’), Evan continues the charade because it gives him purpose, and popularity, and the knowledge of what it’s like to be cared for. Which you can’t really blame him for! It’s an awful no good thing to lie about and ohhh how it growwws but this kid is feeling seen for the first time, and that’s hard to give up. The biggest problem people seem to have with this show is that they’re mad Evan gets away with so much, that he doesn’t get really punished for his lies, and that he’s doing a terrible thing, which makes him a terrible person. First of all, doing a dumb thing doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. And he does indeed suffer for it (have you SEEN Ben perform “Words Fail”? He literally is pouring snot out of his face), so I don’t know what other kind of punishment people want to see. Not letting him get into any college? What? He’s lying for the benefit of these people in mourning. What he does, when you consider how it affects them, is beautiful in the short-term. It’s confusing, because yes overall it’s terrible to be lying about it and that makes it hard to grapple with because the immediacy of how it soothes their aching souls is also beautiful. It’s a bit of comfort he’s providing when nothing else would do it. You see the stories and lies start taking shape slowly but deliberately, and it all happens so naturally that you’re kind of right there with Evan saying ‘oh just make something up to make them stop crying!’ And of course it gets out of hand, and it’s wrong from the beginning, but still it helped give them something to actually mourn for a little and you can’t fault him for that. The reasons for his lies get even more complicated when we learn how much Evan needed this too, because even just pretending that he mattered to someone brings him a lot of comfort. The criticism misses the point of what’s driving Evan to continue the fabrication, the reasons which are perfectly laid out in “For Forever”, the first time Evan starts lying to the grieving family about his friendship with the son. He tells them that their son was there when he broke his arm, saying “I’m on the ground/my arm goes numb/I look around/and I see him coming to get me/he’s coming to get me/and everything’s okay”. The truth is that Evan fell, all alone, and was on the ground for a while before anyone found him, alone with his misery (and the truth, we learn, surrounding his fall). The way Ben’s voice breaks when he says these lines, it’s obvious how badly he wishes it were true that a friend actually was there to find him when he was hurt. It’s heartbreaking and so clear at that point that Evan is doing this because he needs it just as much as the family does. And his game of pretend ends up giving his life and his relationships a lot more actual meaning than they otherwise would have had.
As the grieving mother, Jennifer Laura Thompson is a wreck most of her onstage time, and I don’t know how she does it. Crying the whole time is understandable, of course, that goes without saying, and Jennifer manages to bring you along with her the entire time as she sobs and then tries to smile and listens to stories and then sobs again. She doesn’t get much more to do than sob, but still she’s wonderful. She’s so perfect as a suburban white middle-class lady too, opening the show in the morning in her stretchy gym pants. We learn that, like all suburban white middle-class ladies worth their salt, she’s gone through periods of various trendy lifestyles to give her life some purpose or maybe just to be trendy, from being Buddhist last year (obvs) to one year ‘not eating anything that came from animals’. It’s too bad that one didn’t stick but honestly, this is the first vegan joke in recent pop culture that wasn’t very very lame, so bravo. As the father, Michael Park returns to Broadway (he originated the role) after John Dossett played the role off Broadway, and both were very good in a not very fleshed out role. (Honestly I didn’t know the actor had changed I’m sorry? Older white men I mean.) He’s a very stereotypical white man with money, talking about how stressed he is at work and how disappointed he always was in his no-good no-ambition son that was nothing like he was ‘supposed’ to be. His character does get more attention in the Act II opener when he teaches Evan how “To Break in a Glove” and gives Evan the baseball mitt that his son never touched. It’s heartwarming, but a little boring and slow – but you don’t even care that this is breaking my #1 show structure rule (you need a great rousing Act II opener to bring everyone back into the story after intermission) because you need a break from everything that came before. A 20 minute intermission is not long enough to get your heart rate back to normal and your head to stop whirling from all the painful crying before the break. So this song, although the weakest in the show, is fine but more importantly necessary because you need a little bit of an emotional break. And the fact that a scene of a father who lost his son teaching another boy whose father left him about baseball with the dead son’s glove is considered an emotional break (relatively) shows just how much you gon cry.
As Zoe, the cute girl that Evan has had a crush on forever, Laura Dreyfuss is wonderful. Her unique voice is really cool and a little gravelly despite her youth but shockingly strong at times, and she is completely believable in everything her character does. It adds another level to both the inappropriateness and the inexorableness of Evan’s lies that they bring him closer to his dream girl. I love her voice on “Requiem”, her refusal to mourn the brother she thought she hated. It’s such a glorious song, despite its melancholy, showing how the different family members react to the death, with the mother being optimistic that Evan’s stories (and fabricated emails) prove that she was right to always have faith in her son, and the father angry that the son disappointed him yet again. I also love the lyric Zoe sings “When the villains fall/the kingdom never weeps/no one lights a candle to remember” because this is soooo exactly “No One Mourns the Wicked” from “Wicked” (“No one mourns the wicked/no one cries they won’t return/no one lays a lily on their grave” &c) and I kind of crack up through the tears when I remember this.
As Connor, Mike Faist is sneakily good, so sneaky that his much-deserved Tony nomination was a huge but very welcome surprise to literally everyone, even the voters I bet. In his intense interactions with Evan after the suicide, Mike manages to maintain the true essence of Connor while still conveying that he’s being shaped by Evan, that he’s really a part of Evan’s imagination. His song “Disappear” is really moving when you look at it from both forms of his character, both the real Connor and the one that is a part of Evan. He’s also freaking hilarious in “Sincerely, Me”, the most fun song of the show and thank god an actual laugh-out-loud scene. This is in large part due to the comic relief Jared, played by Will Roland as every jewish boy who ever went to my overnight camp. When Evan tries to talk to him in school, Jared reminds him that they are just ‘family friends’, which is so suburban jewish I can’t stand it. His timing on his hilarious lines is the funniest part of the show, and so necessary because of the aforementioned floods of tears. He and Kristolyn Lloyd as Alana round out the cast as Evan’s main school friends, Alana being a very stereotypical overachiever who brags about all the various clubs she is president of. As a result, it is obvious that she would be ‘co-president’ with Evan when they form a suicide awareness group, and you accept it as just another thing she wants to put on her college applications. But of course, like everything in this show, it ends up meaning more, because of course, like everyone in this show, Alana too struggles with feeling invisible and like her life doesn’t matter, as does Jared, whose sarcastic and endless humor serves as his armor against the world. We don’t even consider that these two smaller characters would have the same problems and journey of self-reflection as our main character, but that’s the entire point of the show, that everyone has these same heartaches and worries and everyone feels unimportant at times. It’s the most universal, uniting show ever.
I know you’re probably like JFC this sounds like the saddest most miserable stuff you could sit through for 2 ½ hours. And it isssss but it’s also the most incredible and moving and important show in a while. I am still in awe in every way. The set, even. I loved the brilliant use of projections, usually and deservedly maligned for being a cheap and cheap-looking way to enhance scenery. But here, instead, it nails the modern age by using the projections almost exclusively to show social media and other internet usage. When Evan’s story begins to spread and then goes viral, the reactions of people on the internet across social media stream on the walls and pillars of the stage. That connection to how our lives really look today, I can’t get over how brilliant it is. Then, the book is so original, finally, a really truly original modern story for today, and the score is one of my favorites. That’s no surprise considering it’s from one of my favorite composing teams, Pasek & Paul, fresh off their Oscar-winning work on “La La Land”. It seems like “The Great Comet” is picking up Tony awards steam and so they might not win a Tony this year too, but they really should. This score will rip your heart out like I said before, but it will put it back together very carefully too. The story is inspired by Benj Pasek’s experience in high school, which adds more depth to the story’s real-life parallels and just ugh it’s so sad. It’s hard because everyone has lost or knows someone who lost someone in this way, and it seems crazy to sit in a dark theatre remembering your sadness. But the show tells us how important it is to learn from heartache and try to help even one person feel better in their skin. Yes, the big songs of the show, like “You Will Be Found”, will make you sob, but that’s because it’s mostly uplifting and comforting, not just sad. It’s such a great song. I really can’t get over how important this show is for kids, and adults, today, when everything seems so cruel and unfair and horrible. It’ll crush you and dehydrate you from crying, yes, but then it’s like a rainbow after the storm when it seems like everything is going to be okay. There’s a sense of relief that comes with all the sadness, especially with “You Will Be Found” and the Finale, oh god that finale. I wish I could tell you to go see it now, heck I wish I could go see it again this weekend, but it’s sold out for a while (yay!!). Buy tickets for when you can though; you’ll be glad you did. And start listening to the cast album. BSE.
