January 19, 2023
Event at 10 Cable Street: Phenomenal Tasting Menu by Acorn Restaurantby Randi / June 30, 2019It’s Theatre Tuesday! Remember that’s a thing we’ve added to Theatre Thursday because of ALL THE THEATRE. Today’s show is Tootsie, currently playing at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre (the one in the hotel).
Man alive, I did NOT expect to love Tootsie as much as I did. I went in with low expectations because I heard that David Yazbek’s score wasn’t great (considering his previous effort, the genius The Band’s Visit, won the Tony (all the Tonys) last year, the bar was high) and because there is so much (undeserved) controversy around it (we will get there). But, because of the great performances across the board, the very decent score (low expectations really work!), and the forking HILARIOUS book by Robert Horn, we really enjoyed this gem of a show.
If you aren’t familiar with the movie Tootsie, it’s a 1982 Columbia Pictures film starring Dustin Hoffman – as it actually says on the musical’s actual official billing in the Playbill. How much shit did Hoffman’s lawyers stir up with the musical’s creative team to get them to add that to the Playbill?! In the movie, Hoffman plays an actor named Michael Dorsey who has burned all his show biz bridges because he’s an asshole, and so to get away from that bad reputation and keep working in the biz, he dresses up like a woman (with the too-close name Dorothy Michaels, like why not just pick JANE MILLER or something) and gets a starring role on a soap opera! What a great idea! It’s so much easier for women to get jobs! No, that’s not the take; it’s just that an asshole of a man wasn’t going to get hired (lol FARCE).
In the musical, Santino Fontana is now the asshole actor Michael Dorsey, but he’s a modern New York theatre actor asshole instead of soaps. Santino is SO GOOD at playing grumpy jerky guys that you still absolutely adore (see, e.g., Greg Serrano on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”). When his friend Sandy (and ex-girlfriend, sooo toxic GET AWAY from him girl, live your best life) (played flawlessly by the superb Sarah Stiles) mentions she has an audition coming up for a new musical, Michael decides, ‘hey you know what? I’m going to dress up as a woman, go to this audition instead of one of the hundreds of others happening at the same time in this city, I’m gonna be amazing, win over the producer who is played by the great Julie Halston who as usual is FREAKING HILARIOUS, and get that part and fork over poor Sandy who can’t get a g-d break even though Sarah Stiles is the funniest character actress to be seen on Broadway in literally years and entire masters of arts theses should be written about her performance of “Something’s Gonna Happen”?’
So Michael puts on his best dress, his best country accent, and his worst wig and becomes Dorothy Michaels. I understand using the same names as the movie, but using the same Dorothy lewk as the movie is probably my least favorite part of all of it. It should have been updated for modern times! Dustin Hoffman’s Dorothy looked maybe okay for the 1980s but if someone saw this Dorothy in NYC today they would send her to the Queer Eye guys so fast her head would spin and OFF her wig would fly and everything would be over before it began. That wig is like Mississippi matriarch making pancakes in her apron on a Sunday mixed with Ronald McDonald. Santino deserves a better quality wig, is all I’m saying.
Once Michael/Dorothy gets the part, the ensuing story is a delight. I know I said in my Tony’s roundup that a musical’s book shouldn’t win a Tony just for being funny, but I was SO wrong to think that Robert Horn shouldn’t have been the winner 100%. It’s not just that it’s funny, it’s RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY. And it’s structured well too. The show-within-the-show being a garbage fire of a sequel to Romeo & Juliet is such a silly opportunity for even more laughs.
As everything goes to shit for Michael, it could not be better or more humorously expressed than by Michael’s roommate Jeff (the fantastic Andy Grotelueschen) in his Act II opener, “Jeff Sums it Up”. You know I complain about Act II openers being weak all the time, because they usually are. They have such a big job to do, to bring the audience back into the show after intermission and prove that it was worth coming back for, and they so often fail to deliver. This one was probably one of my favorites. The two men’s comic timing is perfect in this scene, and as Jeff uproariously sings to his friend how “you fucked it up” over and over, you can’t help but cackle. Similar dying of laughter happens in all Jeff’s scenes, especially his Act II scene with Sandy, when the two actors broke. I don’t know if this is a planned break (sometimes that happens!) or if they actually broke character at our performance but either way it was beyond entertaining.
The entire cast was equally funny, though, and what a cast. Throughout most of the show, I kept thinking, “Damn, Tony-winner Michael McGrath is criminally underused as the agent”, but then OUT HE CAME in Act II for a slam dunk of a comedic scene, as Michael (Dorsey, the character, not McGrath) does a Mrs. Doubtfire-at-Bridges-Restaurant style back-and-forth quick-change. After talking to Jeff about his “play writing” and his client, Michael (McGrath, the agent whose name isn’t necessary to know…except literally right now to avoid this Michael confusion) eventually has this amazing turn:
Agent McGrath: (to Michael Dorsey) “Fuck you!” (to Jeff) “And you! Send me your play!”
Jeff: “There is no play.”
Agent McGrath: “Then fuck you too!”
WAS THE BEST.
Honestly, the biggest problem in the show is that Michael doesn’t actually get any of the good songs. Santino absolutely deserved his recent Tony Award for this performance and that’s without really even getting a chance to shine vocally as much as he can, showing off what kind of GODDAMN MAGIC happens when that voice and that acting ability are given a melody to match. The lyrics are generally great – Yazbek can be a lyrical wizard when he wants – but the melodies are rarely their equal. Lilli Cooper as Michael’s love interest also gets a sort-of bad deal, not really getting a chance to shine at all. She’s great, but they had to shoehorn in a show-offy song by having her character perform at a nightclub, which is cheating. But her scenes with Santino are still moving, especially the end. (I LOVE that a musical had the balls to end the show Pippin-style (original version), with an emotional book scene instead of a big song. LOVES IT! Sure they then had the enormous curtain call fiesta but still, it counts.)
My favorite song goes to Sandy, her aforementioned “Something’s Gonna Happen”, which her manic, fragile, crazy character reprises several times to great effect. My favorite line, to give a small example of how great this super-rapid-fire song is:
And everybody smiles
They’ll say it’s good to see ya
But all I’ll see is judges
And they’ll all look like Scalia.
Yazbek’s lyrics in this are a wonder, as is Stiles’s ability to actually remember all the words (so many words) and perform it so incredibly. She is a standout, stealing the show from a whole cast of veritable scene-stealers.
So about that controversy. Tootsie has come under fire for being transphobic, which is a horrible thing to be in a time where trans people are routinely harassed, persecuted, and murdered. But this show has nothing to do with trans issues. It’s a gender-conforming man lying by dressing up as a woman, and being consistently told throughout by level-headed characters that he’s doing a bad thing. It’s always clear that what he is doing is wrong and he’s an asshole for it, especially, as they bring up, when women have a hard enough time getting jobs. Some trans people told me it’s actually offensive to them to even bring up transphobia or gender identity issues because this show has nothing to do with those serious issues, and thinking that a man dressing up as a woman is automatically an LGBTQ issue is ignorant. Also, although we’re laughing throughout this show, the laughs are never coming just because a man is wearing woman’s clothes, like they are sometimes during Mrs. Doubtfire (which, btw, is coming to Broadway soon in musical form too, so I wonder if the backlash to that still-beloved movie will be the same as here). Sure sometimes things happen that are humorous like Michael leaving his Dorothy earrings on, but it’s only funny BECAUSE Michael is a gender-conforming man. If his character was non-gender conforming or trans, then having Dorothy’s earrings on wouldn’t be funny; it wouldn’t be anything. Never in this show is queerness mocked. Even when Cooper’s character thinks she must be also attracted to women since she has feelings for Dorothy, it’s not supposed to be funny; it just shows how much Michael is screwing up by playing with real people’s emotions in this way and lying to everyone about his identity. If anything, the show’s message is that lying about who you really are is wrong. And if you are trans or non-conforming, the whole struggle is being able to be truthful about who you really are!
Suffice it to say, this show is adorable and funny and should be celebrated, not condemned. The cast is doing amazing work and they especially shouldn’t be blamed for any insensitive aspects.
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The Summer Season at Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Yes I am aware summer is over, I’m cold.
This past summer we at Ldeezhy had the pleasure of seeing three shows at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre, a lovely (and recently refurbished) venue that all tourists and residents of Perthshire, Scotland should visit when they visit the most beautiful part of the UK (hopefully not for long! Not that other places will take that crown, I mean because it won’t be part of the UK anymore, sink that ship yourselves Tories). We started with Noises Off, followed by Little Women, and ended with Private Lives. Some pretty classic shiz up in here! Getting through this backlog of posts y’all!
The PFT is a repertory theatre, with a resident company, so you see the same actors regularly. Rep theatres are so interesting, because someone will be amazing in one show and then completely miscast in another, but I guess it makes sense here because the pool is smaller? It kind of reminds me of high school drama club in that way. Well and also because they’re doing Noises Off, which we all did right! Okay my school is the only one that didn’t but I know yours did. My best friend was the stage manager! So let’s start with that beloved comedy classic!
Noises Off
Noises Off is one of the few shows that I don’t think I can get sick of. We recently saw the latest West End revival in…my god it was 2019, I guess not so recent, JFC. But that was sensational, because a) Matthew Morrison was sitting behind me (THAT’S EXCITING!) and b) it was directed by Jeremy Herrin, who directed the 2016 Broadway revival that cannot scientifically ever be topped, it was 104% perfection even before accounting for Megan Hilty’s performance in a role no one knew could actually be that funny. Having seen Herrin’s precise, flawless direction on the big stages TWICE, I was thus spoiled for civilian work. The PFT’s production was hilarious, tons of fun, but the direction proved a bit sloppy. In that third act, when there’s very little dialogue but tons of chaotic action and stuff falling and people arguing but with their body language only, it needs to be directed and executed precisely so that the audience has a clue what’s going on. It was a bit too messy. If I didn’t know what was going on, I would have been a little mad that it was so unclear. But not actually mad, because even with the wee messiness, it’s impossible not to keep smiling so hard it hurts your damn face through any production of this show. Also this ensem confirmed that possibly my favorite line in all of theatre is “If it wasn’t attached to my neck I’d forget what day it was.” I mean, I’ve heard that line a lot, but I COULD NOT STOP laughing this time. The best! I also adored that there were two little kids up front who could not possibly have understood all the jokes but they were having the time of their lives.
Little Women
I hate to give her even more power over me, but Greta Gerwig has spoiled me for all versions of Little Women that aren’t hers. Her framing of what Jo was probably forced to include in her book vs. what was probably/definitely true of its author is simply too brilliant to ever deviate from again. When Jo all of a sudden finds love that isn’t Laurie, you just KNOW it’s Louisa being like ‘ugh you bastards want her to find a man, here you go, half-assed plot!’ So to see it portrayed straightforwardly feels wrong, and always has, but especially after seeing Saoirse’s wee smirk at us for even thinking for a second that it could have been true for Jo, or Louisa, whatever/whoever/both. But aside from that, this play verzh was very pleasant, though the whole repertory theatre company thing means that some parts were muhmuhmuhmiscast. I’m okay saying that and not feeling mean because the worst cast person in this, so wooden and strange that we were literally like what what what is happening, was good in a different show, so it’s very much not a talent thing. Minor faults in an otherwise fun time. Also shout out for making us realize how f-ing hilarious (unintentionally) some lines are, like when Jo exclaims to fake-professor man about how much ‘boys just love to go around nutting!’ We nudge each other a lot in shows (no talking!) but this might have been the pinnacle.
Private Lives
This was my first time seeing this Noel Coward classic live! What fun what ho! Noel has a cheeky good time with a terrible couple who makes terrible decisions. At the start of the play, the couple isn’t a couple. They have gotten divorced, and they’re each on their honeymoon with new people – and they somehow ended up with hotel rooms next to each other (with balconies, apparently, that don’t have any barrier between them??? security risk security risk! I would have to move hundo p). Their new spouses are nice plot devices, but you know from the get-go that the two terriburs are meant to destroy these new marriages and end up together again, even though they can’t go five minutes without fighting. What a lark! The cast of four? no five! there’s a housekeeper! does a great job of painting terrible people you can’t stand in different ways. The central couple nails the whole shibang, but my favorite performance was that from Nalan Burgess as the terrible man’s new wife for a hot second (I am too tired to go look up names of characters) who does some of the best theatrical over-the-top wailing I’ve ever heard. I was HYSTERICAL, her crying was so good and so big and it kept getting bigger and funnier the longer it went on. Just excellent work. Overall, it was a strong production, possibly the tightest of the 3? I mean Noel Coward is always a good time, it’s not like it’s Pinter.
INFORMATION
The Pitlochry Festival Theatre is an enormous space that I don’t think could ever be filled even if everyone in town during the height of tourist season came, so there’s usually room to move around away from people, which is the greatest thing you could ever ask for when out in public. The theatre went through a recent refurb and it shows, except for the bathrooms which didn’t get the memo, which is a shame but there’s never really a line. The bar has vegan treats (but not ice cream) and little water fountain spouts. All in all a fantastic theatre. Stay tuned for another (actually recent) show coming later this week!
“Forbidden Broadway” Just As Funny In London
One of the funniest shows in London this fall was not “Urinetown” or “The Book Of Mormon” or, god forbid, “Miss Saigon”, but the show that mocked them all. It was “Forbidden Broadway”, a revue that hilariously, terribly ridicules many of the shows currently playing the West End and had its audiences crying with laughter. Including me. Sadly, it closed yesterday, but its successful and critically beloved run promises the return of future incarnations here.
“Forbidden Broadway” is an NYC off-Broadway institution that has been skewering Broadway shows since 1982. That is before I was even born! Gerard Alessandrini started the riotous, biting revue to mock his beloved musical theatre as only a true fan could do. It’s like how the Comedy Central roasters were so mean (and so funny) the closer they were to the person being roasted. I mean back when they were funny, not in recent years when they roasted like James Franco.
“Forbidden Broadway” is an NYC off-Broadway institution that has been skewering Broadway shows since 1982. That is before I was even born! Gerard Alessandrini started the riotous, biting revue to mock his beloved musical theatre as only a true fan could do. It’s like how the Comedy Central roasters were so mean (and so funny) the closer they were to the person being roasted. I mean back when they were funny, not in recent years when they roasted like James Franco.
The first version of “Forbidden Broadway” ran for thousands of performances, which is sick amazing, and then nearly every single season Gerard retooled the songs to attack current offerings on the Great White Way. He constantly and consistently worked, changing season after season, for more than twenty years! He picked up a Tony and some Drama Desk Awards for his outstanding hilarity as he went. There was a short break that occurred from 2009 to 2012, which is when I first saw it, I think. And recently it was in London for the first time ever! I really had doubts about how it would translate to London, because British people are not funny. Well they aren’t funny in the same way as us chosen people. But I haven’t seen an audience laugh this hysterically in a long time.
My main reason for going, besides my usual ‘I just have to see everything’ reason, is that Christina Bianco joined the cast. You may have seen Bianco on Ellen or in Time or taking over the internet with her impersonations of musical theatre and pop divas. She is astounding, nabbing everyone from Chenoweth to Idina to Bernadette to, my favorites, Julie Andrews and Celine Dion, with unbelievable precision. Luckily, most of her best impressions are featured in the show. She is like the musical and female Bill Hader who can sing like the best of them. So, nothing like Bill Hader. While the other cast members weren’t as successful in their interpretations (Mandy Patinkin and Liza Minelli sounded nothing like them), they were still as talented and as entertaining in their mockeries. Across the board, the comedic timing was near perfection, with the staging of some numbers even funnier than the lines being sung.
And oh my, the lines. The first main number that had me literally convulsing attacked “Matilda”, starting with “My mummy says I’m a triple threat” instead of the opening line of the show “My mummy says I’m a miracle”, and it’s sung by the big child stars of London – Billy Elliot, Gavroche from Les Mis, and, of course, Matilda. Bianco plays Matilda here, and it’s amazing because she not only is actually child-sized, but she also has the famous Matilda arm movements (hands on hips, then blowing her fists and other random and stilted movements) down pat. Then, instead of the rocking power song “We are revolting children”, the cast sings “We are exploited children living in exploiting times, we sing exhausting songs, using explicit rhymes.” It was perfect!
Bianco’s spot-on Matilda was only topped by her Kristin Chenoweth. It helps that she’s the same size, but she can do her exact voice. And not just the squeaky talking and chest-voice voice, but the opera-trained super-soprano that Cheno does as well, in shows like “Candide”, where her big song as Cunegonde is the famous “Glitter and be Gay”. (You should really watch this clip, starting at about minute 3). Well, here, it’s a send-up of Chenoweth herself, so it’s “Glitter and be Glib”. As Bianco talks one moment in Cheno’s recognizable voice about how great and famous she is, she jumps in the next moment and sings the insanely difficult opera parts about how glib she is – while also throwing in bits from “Popular” (from “Wicked”) and “My New Philosophy” (from Cheno’s Tony-winning role in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”). It’s one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in a long time, ending of course with a note higher than you expected that sent the (obvious) theatre students sitting next to me into spirals of self-doubt.
The funniest part, and the most hilariously offensive, was the “Miss Saigon” section. Oh my god. Bianco was dressed as Kim but in a red Chinese dress and long black wig, and Damian Humbley and Ben Lewis were Chris and John in their Army fatigues. “Sun and Moon”, between Kim and Chris, one of the most beautiful songs, turned from “You are sunlight and I moon” to something like “I’ll sing clichés and you’ll sing haikus”. So mean and so funny. When Kim pops out (literally) her child, Ben Lewis as John storms onstage and sings accusingly, “Is that Bui Doi??” in a send-up of John’s song about his charity for orphans of Vietnam. It’s AWFUL. It’s so funny.
But it didn’t even touch the final “Miss Saigon” part. Damian Humbley came onstage dressed as The Engineer, ostensibly to do his big and best number “The American Dream”. But no, he announces “My name is Cameron Mackintosh”, legendary, ridiculously successful producer of Saigon, Les Mis, etc. The opening notes of “American Dream” begin…and Damian-as-Cameron sings something along the lines of “When I transfer shows to New York…the Americans cream…” Oh my god people were CRYING. It hurt it was so funny. And it didn’t get less funny the more that line was repeated as Cameron shared his producing secrets: “All these bright lights and loud noise!…the Americans cream…” I still can’t believe this one. It was the best.
The “Les Miserables” section was almost as enjoyable, if a little long. While “God It’s High” (a play on “Bring Him Home” and how freaking high that song is written), a “Forbidden Broadway” standard, was here again, the new staging of the famous Les Mis turntable and some new songs like “On My Phone” made up for it. If you aren’t familiar with 99% of Les Mis productions, they use a turntable a lot of the time so the cast is often rotating. They spoof that here, first with the cast shuffling in circles, then with Javert and Eponine repeatedly missing the microphone and just getting bits of their solos out, then with other characters readying themselves to jump onto the turntable and joining in the shuffling, all while Jean Valjean shuffles by in the background every so often. It’s so freaking hilarious. It ends with the cast, dressed as various Les Mis characters, singing “Ten Years More”, about how Les Mis’s run will never end. The songs didn’t have the most creative lyrics, but the staging more than made up for it, sending the audience into hysterics. Also, Damian Humbley played Valjean, and it gave him the chance to really show off his impressive talents.
Actually, a lot of the stuff wasn’t new, sadly, but most of it was still enjoyable for me, and definitely for the rest of the uninitiated audience. “Into The Words” is a wonderful, somewhat intellectual, satire of how difficult Sondheim’s scores are to sing. In one of my favorite and easiest ways to get audiences on your side, we joined in a sing-along to see just how hard his stuff is: “Into The Woods” became “Into the words that trip your lip and fry your brain and sprain your tongue…” It nails everything wonderful and irritating about Sondheim classics, “the metaphors the synonyms the perfect scan”. This is one that has been on the recordings for years, but it still holds up.
Other classics that are rehashed here include the “Jersey Boys” parody “Walk Like A Man, Sing Like A Girl”, which you can’t not love, but the other “Jersey Boys” song, “Scary”, instead of “Sherry”, doesn’t really make you laugh. Also unwelcome was the “Wicked”/Idina Menzel spoof “Defying Subtlety”, which I hated 4 years ago and groaned when they began again here. I also did not appreciate sitting through “The Circle Of Mice”, about Disney’s takeover of theatre, for the like 9th time.
A different Idina standard, “Let It Go”, got much better treatment, mostly because of Bianco’s ridiculous impression of Menzel. The “Frozen” song became “Let It Blow”, about how loud and crazy Idina sings, and ends with “My nodes never bothered me anyway.” Kind of trite, but the impression sold it.
“Frozen” was one of the few new things in the second act that really worked. Sadly, the most lackluster part was “The Book of Mormon” spoof called “The Book of Morons”. It was Trey Parker and Matt Stone dressed in BOM costume and singing about how they made a masterpiece because theatre should be dirty and stuff. I guess it’s hard to really make fun of the funniest show currently running anywhere. Like how do you make good jokes about jokes? So yeah it was a wasted opportunity I guess. The “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory” number was a little better, with Ben Lewis perfectly costumed as Willy Wonka and singing “Come with me and you’ll see there’s a show with no imagination.” That opening line was the funniest part, but the rest wasn’t bad.
Really, the best part of this show, and of revues like it, is that if you are a true theatre fanatic, it rewards you for being one. You can enjoy the show if you are a theatre novice, but you can’t really appreciate all of the little genius jokes and asides and even some movements that are all inside jokes. All of these jokes and hilarious songs are only funny because you know the base material. You know that Bernadette Peters has a raspy and odd voice (impersonated to perfection again by Bianco begging her audience to “See Me On A Monday”, please). You know that Liza Minnelli moves about manically (though why Bianco didn’t do this impression I’ll never understand). You know how the opening moves to “A Chorus Line” get chanted “step kick kick leap kick touch! Again! Step kick kick leap kick touch!” and laugh when they are here changed to mock the upcoming production of “Cats”, to “lick scratch scratch purr lick scratch! Again!” Even though it’s pretty mean a lot of the time, “Forbidden Broadway” is really a love letter, albeit a sick one, to its current season and really all of musical theatre. And since most of the best songs get recycled every year, you can plan to catch it next time and enjoy pretty much the same stuff I did.
