What Do You See: “Red” Brings Rothko Back to the West Endby Randi / May 17, 2018
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about “Chess” at London’s English National Opera, playing until June 2.
You know how Broadway keeps trying to make shows about basketball and they never really take off? Well at least basketball has some action to it. Imagine a show about the most boring game ever. “Chess”, the 1980s musical from ABBA menfolk Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus with lyrics from Tim Rice, really truly did that. The music still stands as some of the most famous and mainstream to come out of musical theatre (‘One Night in Bangkok’, anyone?), yet the book veers on ridonk. It’s one of the few shows I prefer to be done in a concert version. Still, I had high expectations for London’s new big production at the English National Opera’s Coliseum, but these expectations were not met. The score was well sung, but the production – both in terms of visuals, sound, and more – did more to hurt the show than help it.
“Chess” is a musical that went full-80s by centering on a chess championship between two stars of the game that happen to be from the major Cold War players – America and the Soviet Union. We have Soviet grandmaster Anatoly Sergievsky, and we have American grandmaster Freddie Trumper. I know – I was groaning too when I realized that was his name, because I assumed they stupidly made it special for this newest production. But that’s actually the original name. I wonder if Trump was a famous enough buffoon at the original time of writing to make the connection legit and I’m sure he was; it’s just extra weird to have it be in a show now. (A change wouldn’t be so bad.) But like his namesake before he acquired the power to destroy so many lives, Freddie is a loud, obnoxious, mean-spirited but fairly harmless jerk who is so cocky of his chess ability (I mean I can’t really accept in the first place that this guy would be playing chess or acting like this about chess) that it makes audiences root for the imposing Russian instead. Our Freddie is played by Tim Howar, who really did a great job being obnoxious and jerky and added to it being very yelly, so it made it really simple for me to root for Anatoly in every possible way. And that’s a huge accomplishment because Anatoly was played by London legend Michael Ball who, although he sings the role beautifully, is way too old and just wrong in every way for the part. Honestly, this mistake in the most principal casting is a huge reason why the show doesn’t work.
“Chess” is a musical that went full-80s by centering on a chess championship between two stars of the game that happen to be from the major Cold War players – America and the Soviet Union. We have Soviet grandmaster Anatoly Sergievsky, and we have American grandmaster Freddie Trumper. I know – I was groaning too when I realized that was his name, because I assumed they stupidly made it special for this newest production. But that’s actually the original name. I wonder if Trump was a famous enough buffoon at the original time of writing to make the connection legit and I’m sure he was; it’s just extra weird to have it be in a show now. (A change wouldn’t be so bad.) But like his namesake before he acquired the power to destroy so many lives, Freddie is a loud, obnoxious, mean-spirited but fairly harmless jerk who is so cocky of his chess ability (I mean I can’t really accept in the first place that this guy would be playing chess or acting like this about chess) that it makes audiences root for the imposing Russian instead. Our Freddie is played by Tim Howar, who really did a great job being obnoxious and jerky and added to it being very yelly, so it made it really simple for me to root for Anatoly in every possible way. And that’s a huge accomplishment because Anatoly was played by London legend Michael Ball who, although he sings the role beautifully, is way too old and just wrong in every way for the part. Honestly, this mistake in the most principal casting is a huge reason why the show doesn’t work.
The story begins with men singing about the history of chess, and projections of like Egyptian hieroglyphs line the walls and you’re like wat. Oh yes, so this production’s biggest faux pas is relying on digital projections instead of sets or ya know taste. Weird images that suggest that someone was having a bit too much fun with a new computer program make up most of the artwork projected onto the various block-shaped screens. The set up of the square screens is copied from the original concept album artwork, which is…a nice throwback, I guess, but not enough of a reason to design the entire staging that way. You can see the same idea of the squares in the picture at the top of the page – the set up is such that images projected onto the square screens were chopped up in places where the squares don’t meet, so there was a lot of distortion. I’m sure the set designers and production team will justify the distortion with some lofty statement about how reality is distorted when projected from screens too but that is also not enough of a reason to excuse such horrible visuals for nearly 3 hours.
After the unclear history lesson, things go haywire if you are familiar with the American stage version. The American and British books for ‘Chess’ are COMPLETELY different. Anatoly wins in one, Freddie the other. In one, the first match takes place in Italy, the second in Bangkok, but in the other, the whole show is just one match in Bangkok! The song orders are completely scrambled too. I don’t know HOW that happened. So the British version is what we are talking about here, obvs. Anatoly and Freddie arrive in Merano, Italy for their big world championship chess tournament, and the mayor and townspeople rejoice by singing the lamest song “Merano” that just does not fit the show. It’s a huge white chorus in laderhosen and braids because they are close to Switzerland I guess and they do dorky folk dances and it’s super awkward considering the modern pop taste of the rest of the score. After this seemingly photoshopped insert, Freddie and Anatoly are met with an enormous crowd of TV cameras and lots of shouting. Freddie responds with a song that I think was also about shouting (“Commie Newspapers”) as he fights with his assistant and yells at all the reporters. I would too though; most of them are awful. Here, the projections changed to be close-ups of the actors’ faces. I noticed two cameramen onstage who I believe were capturing the footage of the actors that was projected live, which like that’s cool that you figured that out to do it live but it is not attractive. Most of the projections – and remember, that is the entirety of the set and set design here – for the rest of the show were Tom Hooper-style close-ups of the actors’ faces. It was horrendous. Now this is the first full-fledged production of ‘Chess’ that I’ve seen, so this could be how the show is always supposed to be staged. It doesn’t mean it’s good. If the show was supposed to be on screen it would be on screen, and not in a live theatre. TV requires a completely different set of skills and tools, not just on the part of the actors, so to kind of force these performances to be both theatre and television at the same time made both a big mess. Remember during the Tony performance of ‘The Book of Mormon’ the camera focused on one ensemble member who was doing all his funny-face reaction shots for his track? You weren’t supposed to just be looking at him. Also, I did not want to stare at the giant projected faces of the characters the entire time; I wanted to watch the actual actors and maybe their interaction instead of counting their pores. That’s what theatre is for.
Using all my might to focus on the actors and not the atrocious projections, I followed the ridiculous story. Freddie yells at everyone, Anatoly kind of simmers with unpredictability – it could be either rage or boredom – and the world…watches? Their meeting in competition, broadcast all over the world, represents the larger conflict between the two countries they represent, so the entire world is on the edge of their seats watching. Not really though, because it’s chess. The first round of the match is about to begin and lights focus aaaaaand…then we have just two men sitting at a table playing chess quietly. It doesn’t exactly make for good theatre. Their playing sessions should have had them singing. Instead they just sat there and played and it was super boring. Then of course Freddie yells that Anatoly is cheating (because Freddie is losing) and he storms off like the brat he is and you’re like maybe the ‘action’ isn’t better than the boring chess match.
Freddie’s assistant and presumed lover, Florence Vassy (Cassidy Janson, who is pretty great), begs Freddie to have dinner with Anatoly to reconcile after the storming off, but Freddie gets sidetracked by Bangkok’s nightlife (“One Night in Bangkok”, which is more talk-sung that I remember and when you don’t have Adam Pascal’s incredible talk/scream-singing ability to make it pop it’s really just awkward) so Florence and Anatoly end up alone and they…fall in love? Dudes. Florence is a young attractive lady and Anatoly is MICHAEL BALL. Nothing against Mr. Ball (hehe ball) but he is like 60? And he’s not exactly a hot young guy of the sort that help Anatoly make any kind of narrative sense. Florence’s love for him comes out of nowhere and then is the emotional underpinning of the entire show and the trying-so-hard-to-be-dramatic-ending so if you aren’t invested in their love, or if you don’t believe even a bit of it, the whole piece fails and feels forced and empty.
Anatoly is married, by the way, and has a young son. We see him say goodbye to them in the weird Egyptian prologue. His wife Svetlana is played by Alexandra Burke, the one who won a season of The X Factor. She is NOT EVEN 30 YEARS OLD. She’s like a super hot young recording artist. She’s not married to Michael Ball ffs! And Cassidy is like 37 and beautiful and hot in Ireland (a ginger) and she is not falling in love at first sight with Michael Ball! This is NONSENSE. If you don’t buy right off the bat that all the young gorgeous women love them some Anatoly, then the show doesn’t work. After Anatoly affairs up with Florence, most of the drama has nothing to do with chess. It’s all about the two women dealing with their love for this troubled man. AIN’T BUYING IT.
Lots of nonsense happens after this, like Anatoly defects from the Soviet Union (in Soviet Union, they defect you) and seeks asylum with Florence in Britain; Svetlana teams up with a TV station to confront her husband Jerry Springer-style on live TV (??? AIN’T BUYING IT); and there’s more quiet games of chess in a freaking musical. The book is so strange, the set design is as I said the devil’s work, and yet the score is overall so great. You have Svetlana’s big soul-searching “Someone Else’s Story”, a lovely song that deserves to be about more than this hot woman’s old cheating Rusky husband. Alexandra does a nice job as Svetlana considering she isn’t an actress but a recording artist. Her acting leaves something to be desired but in this production it’s fine. You have Florence’s big angry “Nobody’s Side” which absolutely rocks out as a song but deserves to be about more than a fight she had with her asshole boss. (Florence’s songs seem tailor-made for Idina Menzel, who played the role in a concert version years back. They’re written in a way that lets Cassidy kind of sound like Idina sometimes too, which is cool but just makes you wish you were seeing Idina. (Josh Groban played Anatoly in that version, with Idina. Don’t get me started on how badly I wish I could have seen that version. That’s the goddamn great version.)) Then you have the big duet between the two women, “I Know Him So Well”, the highlight of the show but again, it deserves to be about something better than two women being sad about an inadequate man. I wish these songs had a better book to hold them up in the pantheon of musical theatre but alas.
I know I’m being quite mean to the men in this show, but it’s not their fault. Everyone behind the scenes is responsible for what doesn’t work here, not the actors. Michael Ball is like the greatest British musical theatre actor but he is not right for this part. He sings his songs beautifully but (sadly) this isn’t a concert version. Casting matters! I’ve railed enough about the set design but the sound design was bad too! And this is the freaking English National Opera building. It takes effort to destroy the acoustics. But often, with the fast-paced songs (a lot of them in this poppy score), the lyrics would come through the speakers just as sort of an indecipherable hum or growl. I honestly can’t believe they let that kind of issue stand.
Luckily, the music is so good and generally so well sung that “Chess” is still a decent time at the theatre. This production really should have been a concert version though. Or they should have cast men who better matched with the women they cast, or vice versa. Or they really should have just gotten Josh Groban to reprise his role. I wouldn’t even be writing this complainy complainerson review if that were the case; I’d still be there watching every single performance. Big mistake, men*. Big. Huge!
INFORMATION
Never, and I mean NEVER, sit anywhere at the ENO except for the stalls/orchestra. There’s only one staircase to the upper levels and the crowd is uniformly old so it takes literal hours to get out from upstairs. It’s an infuriating fire hazard for one thing and a real pain in my ass for another.
They do have water pitchers at the bar though.
STAGE DOOR
I saw it on my birthday so I didn’t stage door. I had cake to eat.
*I looked at the production and the creative team and except for the costume designer all the people are men.
Related Posts
“Oh, Hello”: Oh, Goodbye to the Funniest Show On Br’dway
Last night, a show that defied all odds closed on Broadway, or really we should pronounce it “Br’dway”, as I and others lucky enough to see this show will forever do. “Oh, Hello”, a ‘play’ that makes you laugh even if you just repeat the title like an old kvetcher and fry that last syllable, should never had gone to Br’dway, should never have been the recommended pick of the most esteemed critics, and should never have been one of the funniest things its audiences ever saw. But it was! I still don’t know how to explain this show to people who didn’t see it, because it’s impossible. So I guess it’s kind of stupid that that’s exactly what I’m going to do now. Mostly I just want to document the jokes I remember for posterity, while bidding farewell to some of the most glorious hours I’ve experienced in the theatre, and in 2016 in general. It was a bright spot on an otherwise dark and gloomy year. Or, as we say now, “brit spot”.
My uncontrollable laughter started from outside the theatre, because the jovial and game man checking tickets at the door greeted everyone by saying – you guessed it – “Oh, hello!” Adorable! The actual show begins (long interjection: it did close yesterday and so I should be talking about it in the past tense, but there is news that a recent performance was taped and will be br’dcast for a televisorial viewing!! Unlike with “Falsettos”, I’m beyond thrilled that I can see it again and don’t mind that I paid a godforsaken amount of money for our Christmas-week tickets when I can see it again for free) with Gil and George introducing themselves in front of the drawn red curtain, looking like a regular stand-up special except with two old geezers instead of the typically young white male comedians who dominate standup. (Of course, they are two youngish white male comedians underneath all that makeup and old-man hair and costumes of the insane, but they are so immersed in these beloved characters of theirs that I quickly forgot). Immediately we learn their schtick. Gil and George are goofy, they clip the first syllable of most of their words and stress the second one (“Br’dway”), which doesn’t seem like anything but it keeps getting funnier and funnier somehow, and they walk funny like old men. There’s not much more to it than that. Like Luke though, I was all in from the start. I’m obsessed with John Mulaney’s flawless standup (two on Netflix you must watch) and if Amy Poehler can love Nick Kroll, so can and do I, so I was primed to enjoy myself. But it was so much better than I thought it would be.
First, the two men introduce themselves to the audience in front of the closed curtain in a prologue of sorts. Nick Kroll plays Gil Faizon, “charmed I’m sure”, a down on his luck actor who didn’t book an important gig as the CBS mascot, and John Mulaney is George St. Geegland, a writer of tenuous ability who wrote the play within a play that the two will perform later in the show – about two old men who live together on the Upper West side, named George and Gil. The ‘real’ George and Gil are, of course, also Upper West Siders – “the coffee breath of neighborhoods.” George introduces himself by saying “for someone who is so frequently mistaken for a Jew and a woman, I am neither.” George and Gil traipse about the front of the stage just as you would imagine two elderly men with shoddy hips would. They proclaim their love for the theatre and their intentions to pay “homepage” to the great theatrical traditions. George mentions that it will be a treat “for anyone familiar with our oeuvre, which means ‘egg.’” They go on to boast about their Br’dway home, the Lyceum theatre, which has housed works by such greats as Tennessee Williams and his sister, Serena.
As they move about the stage, you notice more detail about their costumes. George goes for a musty professor look, with corduroys, a turtleneck, an old man sweater vest, and a heavy tweed jacket from which you can almost smell the mothballs and b.o. no doubt emanating. Gil is more casual in dark green pants of unknown origin, a brown leather jacket that looks older than he is, a pink shirt that screams Miami circa 1982 coming through the zipper of his pants, and sandals with white socks. I would have been hysterical even if they were silent. Every single movement Nick Kroll made was perfection. Just the way his resting face would subtly resemble a main drooler in a nursing home was fantastic. Mulaney was less developed in all the depth of detail that Kroll had, but still great. If this wasn’t a ridiculous comedy spoof Kroll’s character preparation would be award-worthy. So unnecessary.
Then the curtain rises to reveal an intricate set, with an exterior of an apartment building on one side of the stage and the detailed interior of an apartment on the other, plus a salon in the back. Gil notes to the audibly surprised audience, not expecting such a set for such a show, “This is the first time an audience’s expectations were exceeded by having a set.” They explain that they retrieved all the various set pieces from past shows that had been on Br’dway. Some came from an August Wilson play that they can’t remember the name of; that’s why the picture of ‘their family’ hanging on the wall is of a black family. The salon was courtesy of Steel Magnolias, of course, with its chairs with the hair dryer helmets attached and the wall of products. The trapdoor, from the Diary of Anne Frank. (There’s a lot of humor that is awful like that so you have to be along for the ride.) The geezers get the audience used to the serious theatre they’re about to throw at us (not) by going over some of their favorite theatrical traditions. George talks about how obvious it is when someone is going to die by the end of a play because they’ll cough in their handkerchief and then open it very conspicuously and it’ll have red blood on it. True! He of course demonstrates how this plays out, and as the dying cougher he holds up a blood-stained handkerchief for all to see. Gil demonstrates another way overused theatre trick, and one of my favorite parts of the show, the ‘one-sided phone call’, or as he says it, “the win-sided phin call.” Asking their (unseen/not real) Indian lighting intern Ravi, “one of those new kinds of Indians”, for melodramatic lighting, Gil performs this theatrical ploy of repeating information from an offstage source so the audience knows what you’re learning. First, you get a phone that no one would ever have; Gil produces an old-fashioned rotary phone. Then, you fiddle with it way too much ‘to show the audience that you’ve been working with it all week’. Then the conversation occurs as such:
*Ring ring*
Gil: Oh, hello.
*Pause*
Gil: Charmed I’m sure.
*Pause*
Gil: The police?
*Pause*
Gil: Oh, you’re the police.
I’m still laughing at that. It’s so stupid! Yet it was hilarious! That’s what most of the show is like, really. They share a lot of their backstory as friends and roommates and all their misfortunes and misadventures, and then they perform George’s play for us. It’s hard to tell where the play ends and the play-within-the-play begins, because nothing really changes. It’s still the two of them being preposterous. They talk about past successes and failures, and they give us a rundown of their goings-on from various decades, all of which seemed to involve Steely Dan music and, their favorite thing in the world, “c’caine.” They talk about c’caine a lot, and against all odds their repeated pronunciation of that word gets funnier and funnier.
The play versions of George and Gil resurrect a radio show they once had called “Too Much Tuna”, where they chat with celebrities at a dirty local diner where even the coffee is gray, and feed them freaking enormous tunafish sandwiches. At least I think that was in the play; like I said, it’s hard to discern what was written by George and what was the main show, especially because the gimmick of that radio show – on station WOLO (say it out loud) – is exactly what they performed for real every day. George and Gil sit down at their diner table and start their radio show, and glory over the greatness of tunafish. “It really is the queen of the sandwich meats,” they say. SANDWICH MEATS. Then they bring out their special guest for the show, to the audience’s delight. So every performance, a random person from the audience or, more commonly, the biggest celebrity in the audience would be brought up on stage to try to make sense of what was going on and what George and Gil are saying and try not to just sit there laughing hysterically while they ask if you do cuhcaine. At my show, our celebrity guest was Hank Azaria, which was a fantastic surprise. He talked about how he part-owns a horse, a ridiculous fact that George and Gil brought up later in the show. Hank also talked about how his brother was once asked to join the Ramones, when they were first starting. Gil responded, “I was asked to join Simon and Garfunkel, because I was equal parts Simon and Garfunkel.” The improv throughout the show but particularly at this segment is beyond impressive.
In the play-within-the play, or maybe in real life, Gil had a problem with raccoons. (Rickoons.) He somehow always found himself having relationships with them, and was currently embroiled in a tumultuous affair with a r’ccoon named Lisa (who runs the Twitter for the show’s surprise guests, for real). Somehow this led to them talking about Shakespeare in the Park – maybe that’s where they met, I can’t remember the logic of this show, I was crying the entire time. “Did you ever go to Sh’kspeare in the Park?”, they ask. They discuss “Sh’kspeare” and how overrated he is. “Sh’kspeare is such a hack. Romeo sees the girl and just does a quick take – ‘Oh, ya dead? I’m not gonna check if you’re just sleeping I’ll just kill myself.’ Hack.”
Who on earth knows or remembers how, but the performance of George’s play leads into another unexpected yet familiar theatre trope – the nightmare ballet. As crazy as it sounds, it looked even crazier. There was all kinds of crap happening with the lights and ghosts and set pieces and all of it was like an LSD-trip — which they touched on at one point, referring to an “LSD cult now known as SoulCycle”. They wake up from this insanity laying down on the floor, unable to move after what they’ve just been through given their advanced age. Prostrate (a word I imagine they would love saying and confusing with something close to it), they take turns yelling up to Ravi, the lighting intern, for help. It’s one of those jokes that is funny but somehow gets funnier the longer it goes on, once it reaches and then passes the point at which you go, annoyed, ‘oh it has to stop now, right?’ noooope. “RAVI! IT’S GEORGE. FROM THE FLOOR.” “RAVI! It’s Gil. Charmed I’m sure.”
I have a vague memory of “Too Much Tuna” getting picked up for more episodes and so they celebrate their success with new outfits. Mulaney comes out in a very slimly tailored beige belted expedition ensemble which he perfectly terms “Pussy Safari”. Gil shares that all he aspires to own one day is a ‘thundercoat.’ “A what?”, George asks. “A thundercoat,” Gil responds. “For a dog. When there’s a thunderstorm, and they get scared…it helps them not be scared….Well they still get scared.”
This show had no right being as hysterical as it was. I’ll remember things every so often, like how Gil found himself out in the audience at one point and saw a young boy sitting on the aisle, and asked him in his normal voice, “Are you enjoying ANY of this?” Or how Gil once worked as a stand-in for mashed potatoes ‘so they could get the lighting right for photo shoots’. How do they think of this stuff?! I can’t wait to see the taped performance (details for the airing have not yet been announced) and I hope all of you watch it too, but really there was nothing like seeing this absurdity live onstage. Whatever’s in the Lyceum next has, somehow, astonishingly, inexplicably, big shoes to fill.
Theatre:
The Lyceum Theatre gets my vote for Br’dway theatre most in need of a serious refurbishment. The only bathroom is down a staircase only reached from inside the orchestra, which is insane to begin with. But there are maybe 4 really old stalls in a bathroom lingering from the 1970s. Because of this, the theatre boasts the longest bathroom lines of any theatre. Be warned. You’d think the Shuberts could afford a little upgrade. Eye roll emoji.
Show Boat on the West End: Top-Notch Production of a Classic Show
Lol I used the phrase ‘top-notch’ that proves that this is a) a really old show I’m gonna talk about and b) in England.
Here’s a confession for you. I didn’t really know “Show Boat” before I saw this production in London. Of course I knew it was an old classic show; this is my jam after all. And of course I knew the song “Bill” was from it, because I have everything Audra McDonald ever sang in my DNA (it’s on her album How Glory Goes). And of course I knew it was about an acting troupe on a boat and they put on shows because I read the title. But really, I never saw it before, and never listened to non-Audra recordings of the music. I’m sure I knew at one point that both “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” and “Old Man River”, super famous songs that I’m sure all of you are familiar with, are also in this show; I guess I just forgot. What an idiot! Such great songs!
Here’s a confession for you. I didn’t really know “Show Boat” before I saw this production in London. Of course I knew it was an old classic show; this is my jam after all. And of course I knew the song “Bill” was from it, because I have everything Audra McDonald ever sang in my DNA (it’s on her album How Glory Goes). And of course I knew it was about an acting troupe on a boat and they put on shows because I read the title. But really, I never saw it before, and never listened to non-Audra recordings of the music. I’m sure I knew at one point that both “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” and “Old Man River”, super famous songs that I’m sure all of you are familiar with, are also in this show; I guess I just forgot. What an idiot! Such great songs!
“Show Boat” is a very good show, a fantastic show if you account for the fact that it first opened on Broadway in 1927 and still plays well. NOT A TYPO. 1927. That is insanely long ago, so the fact that this show keeps playing today and drawing loving audiences is a huge achievement and testament to its quality. However, yeah, it is 90 years old and so I have some big issues with the book, mostly because women are painted as just needing a man. But like that’s still common in art today, like 90% of it is about that, so really, I guess “Show Boat” was 90 years ahead of its time.
So it tells the story of a troupe of performers on a riverboat down south called the Cotton Blossom, which is an absolutely smashing name for a boat down south. The captain of the boat, the jovial Santa of a man Captain Andy (Malcolm Sinclair, great), runs everything – the boat, the show, the troupe – with his domineering stern wife Parthy Ann (oof with that name) (oy with the poodles). Actually I think it has to be Cap’n Andy. Their daughter Magnolia (Gina Beck) yearns to be an actress but is not allowed because she is too innocent and lovely and young to be in acting, said while fanning themselves. Her best friend in the whole world is Julie La Verne (Rebecca Trehearn), the leading lady in the troupe, whose husband is the leading man. You know that Julie has a past and a disreputable character because Magnolia’s parents don’t like her spending time with Julie, scared she’ll become ruined or get her clothes dirty or something. The rest of the acting troupe is solid, with the cheeky blonde comedienne (I hate that gendered word but it is appropriate here because she was totally old-fashioned ‘20s-style ‘comedienne’, and she’s told many, many times that that is what she was) Ellie May and her nimble suitor Frank (Danny Collins, a dead ringer for Ethan Embry in that graduation party movie) making me like them more than I expected. Alex Young’s Ellie seemed over the top at first but she quickly grew on me and like, that’s how the character is. While the troupe troupes it up onboard, the black dock workers do literally backbreaking work, never resting, getting underpaid to say the least. With Queenie, the cook, and Joe, her husband and one of the workers, the cast is pretty large and full of interesting characters who could each have a show about them. We don’t know much about Joe, but he is the one who sings “Old Man River”, which was a truly magical moment, hearing that in the theatre. I was really eager to see Emmanuel Kojo as Joe, but he was out (as was Sandra Marvin as Queenie), so I was disappointed at first. But both of those understudies were fabulous, and I really can’t imagine Old Man River being more moving. Pretty great actors all around, which you know I rarely say.
While docked in Southern Town, a mysterious stranger approaches the deck while Magnolia is like standing around or something in the moonlight. Naturally they fall in love because Magnolia is like ‘oh boy there’s a boy on my deck!’ and this super shadowy but intriguing figure is like ‘oh my there’s a girl who is young and pretty’ and they sing lovely soaring songs about how much they love each other before he has to go. I am pretty sure they don’t say his name yet? That’s love. Magnolia goes into the kitchen to hang with her friends, Julie and the black servants, and they have a gay old time singing “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” and it was swonderful. Truly.
Then, in the middle of a rehearsal, the sheriff or some other fake drunk-with-power armed law enforcement comes into the room and shouts about how there’s rumors of illegal miscegenation floating around and hoo boy we can’t have that. The alleged criminal is Julie La Verne herself, the leading lady and ostensibly white lady married to a white man. It’s a pretty brutal scene with everyone crying as Julie admits that she is actually mixed, but then her husband says that he is too, so it’s fine. He’s obviously not, but everyone in the company lies for him/them and the sheriff lets them go if they leave town, which sucks but beats being shot. The scene is distressing for everyone, especially America, and especially for Julie and Magnolia, whose sisterly bond was one of the few things the other had to count on. Luckily for Magnolia, mysterious stranger shows up to be the new leading man! and Magnolia is going to take Julie’s place since she already knows all the lines, so it’s like a tragedy became a fairy tale for her! No more tears because the handsome stranger you have a crush on is here, so who cares about your old friend and institutionalized racism! I mean she is a teenager, Magnolia, so you expect flightiness but freal, there are 5 seconds between her crying and her flirting. Oh child.
So Julie’s gone pretty early, and then we see her for ONE SONG in the second act. Granted, it’s the best song, but – I’m gonna state it – Julie la Verne is the most wasted great character in musical theatre. She has the two best songs in the show, she has such an interesting backstory and regular story, and yet those two songs are pretty much all she does. We don’t see her in Act II except for “Bill”. Don’t get me wrong, her “Bill” is a reason to see this show, most critics say the main reason because it is that good. But without a story to go with her current situation, I wasn’t all the way involved. Granted, I always thought this song was sung about a person named Bill in the show that the character was actually in love with, and not a forced ‘rehearsal for the cabaret tonight’ shoehorning into the plot. But still, it’s clear enough that the song is applicable to her current situation, we just don’t see any of it and it’s a shame because she’s so darn interesting. Did anyone write a spinoff show about her? Because I would see that.
Anyway, back in main plotland, the two lovebirds learn each other’s names and unfortunately his happens to be Gaylord Ravenal. I know. They wisely mainly refer to him as just Ravenal. They fall in love and get married like the next day or some such, and then they move to Chicago and have a baby. Sounds like a smart plan that you fully thought through.
So Gaylord turns out to be a gambler, Magnolia quickly learns, soon after she learns his name and that oh he’s her husband. He disappears a great deal, losing their money so frequently that they have to rent their rooms out. Kim, their daughter, grows up with hero worship on her father even though she saw him maybe 5 times during her childhood in convent school (sounds fun). Gaylord finally disappears for good, leaving Magnolia via a LETTER that she gets while ELLIE MAY AND FRANK are WITH HER and they have become super successful Hollywood stars and it’s SO EMBARRASSING for poor Magnolia and hot damn, did she get the shit end of the stick. Ellie helps her get a job at a cabaret singing, which is where Julie is, but while Julie sees Magnolia, Julie doesn’t let Magnolia see her. It’s all very sad and, again, worthy of MORE ATTENTION. Anyway. No use in trying to change a book that is 90 years old. Stuck in its ways and all that.
I don’t usually talk in detail about endings (or do I) because I don’t want to spoil things but the ending of this was done so well that I have to. Also its spoiler warning period expired 85 years ago. Things happen because like, 20 or 30 years pass or some such craziness? and Magnolia and a now grown-up Kim are on the Cotton Blossom because Kim is performing. She’s a performer now too. As Magnolia stands atop the boat, looking down, Gaylord appears. Because he’s a man and it was (and is) allowed for men to be total shits, everyone is ecstatic welcoming him back. Magnolia is the only one who is reserved, silent, while Kim runs to her father with open arms. Everyone else is totally fine with him. I would have said fuck you and the horse you rode in on. And that would probably be the only time I ever said that when the person really likely would have actually been on a horse. I mean, okay, so it’s 90 years old but even so, a story where a man abandons his wife and daughter because he’s a gambler and a shit and then comes back to open arms after 30 years is bullshit. Ugh I was like TURN HIM AWAY, QUEENIE.
Gaylord Ravenal I believe was the inspiration for naming Ben Stiller’s character in the “Meet the Parents” movies because man alive was he a focker. I did not see it coming that he was gonna be such a gaylord focker, either, so I was like dayummm she shoulda never met this focker. Ravenal was excellently played by Chris Peluso, who the programme tells me just graduated from U Michigan…so he is an American (USA! USA!) but also a child. Oh and he’s from Pennsylvania so at least there’s one more person in London who knows what Groundhog Day is. More importantly, he was really quite good. He looked strikingly like the Stark boy from Game of Sexist Violence, what’s his name? Rob! He looks like Rob Stark, so much that I just kind of accepted that it was him, actually. I should have known then that things wouldn’t go well. I mean, not that they don’t go well for him, he’s the man causing all the trouble so he’s fine, happy ever after as per uzh, but he’s just a dick for everyone else’s lives. Mostly women’s, so who cares!
I’m not sure if we are supposed to revile him along with Magnolia or feel pity for her or agree with Kim and rejoice at his return for her sake. Luckily, Gina Beck is so flinging flanging incredible as Magnolia that she makes everything okay: Magnolia stands atop the scene the whole time, and when she makes eye contact with Gaylord, she tells him that she’s fine, that she doesn’t despise him any more, that it’s okay that he’s back but just for Kim’s sake. But she doesn’t say any of that with words. All she does is make a little nod of reluctant acceptance, standing at top of boat watching over them, the slightest movement. It was right before blackout and reminded me of Eliza’s gasp that ends “Hamilton” (sorry spoiler!) and was so powerful that I gasp-cried at how perfect it was. Gina Beck was f-ing phenomenal. It was the best leading lady performance I’ve seen in London in a really long time, and I was shocked. I’ve seen her quite a few times in other shows, but this was beyond anything I could have expected of her. Just absolutely the role she was born to play. Her voice was perfect on this score, and p.s., it was a weekday matinee. Sometimes people hold back a little on those to save their voice and energy for the big shows. Nopers. She gave it everything.
Damn I’m still feeling that ending. So good but so devastating. At least no one gets killed. I was mixing up the plot of Carousel and other southerny shows in my head so I kept waiting for someone nice to get killed, Julie or Joe or someone tragic. Yay it didn’t happen! Just abandonment of a family and institutional racism! Even with all that, “Show Boat” is one of the classics and it’s such a special experience to see live in a big production, with such a stellar cast. Everything was done well in this production.
Oh I learned afterwards that the song “I Have the Room Above Her”, which I know and love because of Mandy Patinkin’s album Oscar & Steve, wasn’t included in this revival. It’s not actually part of the original score, as it was written for the 1936 movie and not the 1927 theatre production, but come on it was still written by Kern & Hammerstein AND included in the last Broadway revival AND Mandy Patinkin sang it. I guess really I would have been disappointed that Mandy wasn’t singing it if they did include it here but still, such a lovely song.
The show is closing by the end of the month because people are stupid so SEE IT GODAMMIT SEE IT NOW.
AUDIENCE
The audience was fine from my vantage point, which is astounding considering it was 99% white hair, which usually means phones that don’t get turned off. Aside from awful perfume, it was actually a really good audience. One thing that bothered me though, about the New London theatre, is that the programmes were $6 instead of the usual $4. I’m already paying for my programme and now you’re gonna charge extra? BUH-LERGH.
STAGEDOOR
I didn’t! But people seemed to be coming out to meet their friends as I was walking home.
So it tells the story of a troupe of performers on a riverboat down south called the Cotton Blossom, which is an absolutely smashing name for a boat down south. The captain of the boat, the jovial Santa of a man Captain Andy (Malcolm Sinclair, great), runs everything – the boat, the show, the troupe – with his domineering stern wife Parthy Ann (oof with that name) (oy with the poodles). Actually I think it has to be Cap’n Andy. Their daughter Magnolia (Gina Beck) yearns to be an actress but is not allowed because she is too innocent and lovely and young to be in acting, said while fanning themselves. Her best friend in the whole world is Julie La Verne (Rebecca Trehearn), the leading lady in the troupe, whose husband is the leading man. You know that Julie has a past and a disreputable character because Magnolia’s parents don’t like her spending time with Julie, scared she’ll become ruined or get her clothes dirty or something. The rest of the acting troupe is solid, with the cheeky blonde comedienne (I hate that gendered word but it is appropriate here because she was totally old-fashioned ‘20s-style ‘comedienne’, and she’s told many, many times that that is what she was) Ellie May and her nimble suitor Frank (Danny Collins, a dead ringer for Ethan Embry in that graduation party movie) making me like them more than I expected. Alex Young’s Ellie seemed over the top at first but she quickly grew on me and like, that’s how the character is. While the troupe troupes it up onboard, the black dock workers do literally backbreaking work, never resting, getting underpaid to say the least. With Queenie, the cook, and Joe, her husband and one of the workers, the cast is pretty large and full of interesting characters who could each have a show about them. We don’t know much about Joe, but he is the one who sings “Old Man River”, which was a truly magical moment, hearing that in the theatre. I was really eager to see Emmanuel Kojo as Joe, but he was out (as was Sandra Marvin as Queenie), so I was disappointed at first. But both of those understudies were fabulous, and I really can’t imagine Old Man River being more moving. Pretty great actors all around, which you know I rarely say.
While docked in Southern Town, a mysterious stranger approaches the deck while Magnolia is like standing around or something in the moonlight. Naturally they fall in love because Magnolia is like ‘oh boy there’s a boy on my deck!’ and this super shadowy but intriguing figure is like ‘oh my there’s a girl who is young and pretty’ and they sing lovely soaring songs about how much they love each other before he has to go. I am pretty sure they don’t say his name yet? That’s love. Magnolia goes into the kitchen to hang with her friends, Julie and the black servants, and they have a gay old time singing “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” and it was swonderful. Truly.
Then, in the middle of a rehearsal, the sheriff or some other fake drunk-with-power armed law enforcement comes into the room and shouts about how there’s rumors of illegal miscegenation floating around and hoo boy we can’t have that. The alleged criminal is Julie La Verne herself, the leading lady and ostensibly white lady married to a white man. It’s a pretty brutal scene with everyone crying as Julie admits that she is actually mixed, but then her husband says that he is too, so it’s fine. He’s obviously not, but everyone in the company lies for him/them and the sheriff lets them go if they leave town, which sucks but beats being shot. The scene is distressing for everyone, especially America, and especially for Julie and Magnolia, whose sisterly bond was one of the few things the other had to count on. Luckily for Magnolia, mysterious stranger shows up to be the new leading man! and Magnolia is going to take Julie’s place since she already knows all the lines, so it’s like a tragedy became a fairy tale for her! No more tears because the handsome stranger you have a crush on is here, so who cares about your old friend and institutionalized racism! I mean she is a teenager, Magnolia, so you expect flightiness but freal, there are 5 seconds between her crying and her flirting. Oh child.
So Julie’s gone pretty early, and then we see her for ONE SONG in the second act. Granted, it’s the best song, but – I’m gonna state it – Julie la Verne is the most wasted great character in musical theatre. She has the two best songs in the show, she has such an interesting backstory and regular story, and yet those two songs are pretty much all she does. We don’t see her in Act II except for “Bill”. Don’t get me wrong, her “Bill” is a reason to see this show, most critics say the main reason because it is that good. But without a story to go with her current situation, I wasn’t all the way involved. Granted, I always thought this song was sung about a person named Bill in the show that the character was actually in love with, and not a forced ‘rehearsal for the cabaret tonight’ shoehorning into the plot. But still, it’s clear enough that the song is applicable to her current situation, we just don’t see any of it and it’s a shame because she’s so darn interesting. Did anyone write a spinoff show about her? Because I would see that.
Anyway, back in main plotland, the two lovebirds learn each other’s names and unfortunately his happens to be Gaylord Ravenal. I know. They wisely mainly refer to him as just Ravenal. They fall in love and get married like the next day or some such, and then they move to Chicago and have a baby. Sounds like a smart plan that you fully thought through.
So Gaylord turns out to be a gambler, Magnolia quickly learns, soon after she learns his name and that oh he’s her husband. He disappears a great deal, losing their money so frequently that they have to rent their rooms out. Kim, their daughter, grows up with hero worship on her father even though she saw him maybe 5 times during her childhood in convent school (sounds fun). Gaylord finally disappears for good, leaving Magnolia via a LETTER that she gets while ELLIE MAY AND FRANK are WITH HER and they have become super successful Hollywood stars and it’s SO EMBARRASSING for poor Magnolia and hot damn, did she get the shit end of the stick. Ellie helps her get a job at a cabaret singing, which is where Julie is, but while Julie sees Magnolia, Julie doesn’t let Magnolia see her. It’s all very sad and, again, worthy of MORE ATTENTION. Anyway. No use in trying to change a book that is 90 years old. Stuck in its ways and all that.
I don’t usually talk in detail about endings (or do I) because I don’t want to spoil things but the ending of this was done so well that I have to. Also its spoiler warning period expired 85 years ago. Things happen because like, 20 or 30 years pass or some such craziness? and Magnolia and a now grown-up Kim are on the Cotton Blossom because Kim is performing. She’s a performer now too. As Magnolia stands atop the boat, looking down, Gaylord appears. Because he’s a man and it was (and is) allowed for men to be total shits, everyone is ecstatic welcoming him back. Magnolia is the only one who is reserved, silent, while Kim runs to her father with open arms. Everyone else is totally fine with him. I would have said fuck you and the horse you rode in on. And that would probably be the only time I ever said that when the person really likely would have actually been on a horse. I mean, okay, so it’s 90 years old but even so, a story where a man abandons his wife and daughter because he’s a gambler and a shit and then comes back to open arms after 30 years is bullshit. Ugh I was like TURN HIM AWAY, QUEENIE.
Gaylord Ravenal I believe was the inspiration for naming Ben Stiller’s character in the “Meet the Parents” movies because man alive was he a focker. I did not see it coming that he was gonna be such a gaylord focker, either, so I was like dayummm she shoulda never met this focker. Ravenal was excellently played by Chris Peluso, who the programme tells me just graduated from U Michigan…so he is an American (USA! USA!) but also a child. Oh and he’s from Pennsylvania so at least there’s one more person in London who knows what Groundhog Day is. More importantly, he was really quite good. He looked strikingly like the Stark boy from Game of Sexist Violence, what’s his name? Rob! He looks like Rob Stark, so much that I just kind of accepted that it was him, actually. I should have known then that things wouldn’t go well. I mean, not that they don’t go well for him, he’s the man causing all the trouble so he’s fine, happy ever after as per uzh, but he’s just a dick for everyone else’s lives. Mostly women’s, so who cares!
I’m not sure if we are supposed to revile him along with Magnolia or feel pity for her or agree with Kim and rejoice at his return for her sake. Luckily, Gina Beck is so flinging flanging incredible as Magnolia that she makes everything okay: Magnolia stands atop the scene the whole time, and when she makes eye contact with Gaylord, she tells him that she’s fine, that she doesn’t despise him any more, that it’s okay that he’s back but just for Kim’s sake. But she doesn’t say any of that with words. All she does is make a little nod of reluctant acceptance, standing at top of boat watching over them, the slightest movement. It was right before blackout and reminded me of Eliza’s gasp that ends “Hamilton” (sorry spoiler!) and was so powerful that I gasp-cried at how perfect it was. Gina Beck was f-ing phenomenal. It was the best leading lady performance I’ve seen in London in a really long time, and I was shocked. I’ve seen her quite a few times in other shows, but this was beyond anything I could have expected of her. Just absolutely the role she was born to play. Her voice was perfect on this score, and p.s., it was a weekday matinee. Sometimes people hold back a little on those to save their voice and energy for the big shows. Nopers. She gave it everything.
Damn I’m still feeling that ending. So good but so devastating. At least no one gets killed. I was mixing up the plot of Carousel and other southerny shows in my head so I kept waiting for someone nice to get killed, Julie or Joe or someone tragic. Yay it didn’t happen! Just abandonment of a family and institutional racism! Even with all that, “Show Boat” is one of the classics and it’s such a special experience to see live in a big production, with such a stellar cast. Everything was done well in this production.
Oh I learned afterwards that the song “I Have the Room Above Her”, which I know and love because of Mandy Patinkin’s album Oscar & Steve, wasn’t included in this revival. It’s not actually part of the original score, as it was written for the 1936 movie and not the 1927 theatre production, but come on it was still written by Kern & Hammerstein AND included in the last Broadway revival AND Mandy Patinkin sang it. I guess really I would have been disappointed that Mandy wasn’t singing it if they did include it here but still, such a lovely song.
The show is closing by the end of the month because people are stupid so SEE IT GODAMMIT SEE IT NOW.
AUDIENCE
The audience was fine from my vantage point, which is astounding considering it was 99% white hair, which usually means phones that don’t get turned off. Aside from awful perfume, it was actually a really good audience. One thing that bothered me though, about the New London theatre, is that the programmes were $6 instead of the usual $4. I’m already paying for my programme and now you’re gonna charge extra? BUH-LERGH.
STAGEDOOR
I didn’t! But people seemed to be coming out to meet their friends as I was walking home.
