Traveling While Vegan in: Mexico City (Part 1: Hipodromo, La Condesa, Roma)by Randi / October 15, 2019The Son: An Effective, Infuriating, Tragic Look at Awful Parenting
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Son, playing at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre until Nov. 2.
As my girl Tahani says in Season One of The Best Show, “As the Brits say, do your best to hide your sadness.” I thought this was supposed to be a joke, but I’ve seen the British parenting styles of the ‘chin-up’ and the ‘be brave and soldier on’ and the ‘keep calm and carry on’ varieties practiced too often in UK culture to brush it off. These terrible ways to parent are on full, stunning display in the play The Son. Sure, it’s a French play by Florian Zeller but I guess the French are like that too (I know I know #notallFrench/#notallBrits), and Christopher Hampton’s translation is a gripping, excruciatingly frustrating and effective teardown of these types of horrible parents and the inexcusable disservice they do their children.
It’s also so, so British in the characters’ ignorance of mental illness, both in not understanding it and in flat out ignoring it; we get both fun treatments of the serious problem. In The Son, Pierre and Anna are recently divorced, and their teenage son Nicolas is not doing well. Sure, a lot of his unhappiness is from the divorce, and the fact that Pierre moved in with the other woman, Sofia, and their new baby. That’s rough for anyone. But Nicolas’s problems are not just teenage angst or misery at the disintegration of his family. His issues are deeper rooted, not an inability to handle the divorce but an inability to handle life (and he says that! repeatedly!), one that is so obviously a serious mental illness.
It’s understandable that Pierre and Anna would want to assume the best and try to help their son be happy in breezy ways. But their ease in ignoring an enormous problem is unforgivable. When someone skips school for a few weeks, even a month, you yell at them. When someone skips school for three months and has nervous breakdowns at the thought of going back, or doing really anything, you need a professional. When you can’t even count the scars, healing and newly bleeding, on your son’s arm because there are just too many, you don’t yell at him that he needs to stop that. Well, Pierre does, because he’s a bad father. If there ever existed a clearer sign that you need to take your son to a doctor, I don’t know what it is. The fact that only one parent mentions professional help literally MONTHS into his serious depression is the most shocking part of this show, which, if you’ve seen it, says a lot. And that paltry attempt went something like this: Pierre (yelling): “Well if you won’t talk to me about it, do you want to talk to…someone else?” (HE MEANS A DOCTOR! YAYYY FINALLY, I THOUGHT!) Nicolas: “No.” Pierre: “Okay.” I LITERALLY ALMOST STORMED THE STAGE. And these are well-to-do people; it’s not that they couldn’t afford or ‘don’t do’ doctors. If you have a huge grand piano in your shiny white flat, you can afford a consultation.
Pierre’s not the only shittastic adult onstage. Anna, this poor kid’s mother, is completely unaware of what’s needed as well. At one point, after moving in with his father, Nicolas thinks maybe he should move back in with mom. He shyly asks his own mother if that would be okay. And instead of shouting ‘yes of course!’ or giving her clearly suffering son a hug, Anna responds with “Oh I thought you were getting on well at your father’s?” and “what happened to make you want to move?” SHITTASTIC. And Sofia might be the worst of all (I mean she’s not but they all are?), worrying about what Nicolas’s moving in with her new fam means for her upcoming holiday to Italy. And, of course, never saying that he needs a g-d doctor. You know it’s going to be tragic because of their stupidity, and the entire ending + Next to Normal-like coda was all so wrenching I could hear my heart beating. I may have been furious the entire show, but that’s not boring, and this was some effective theatre.
Saying they were oblivious and saying his need for real help was obvious feels so insufficient to describe this situation. It was like an elephant was on that stage sitting on top of Nicolas and we’re all sitting there pointing to it and shouting ‘there’s an elephant!’ and Nicolas is like ‘I feel like there’s an elephant on me’ and the adults are telling Nicolas he should really sit up straighter.
And Nicolas, hoo boy. Laurie Kynaston’s performance is gutting. I felt tormented watching this poor boy go through this experience with no real lifelines available to him. He full inhabits this character and I never once considered him outside the character.
That all the adults were so inept, so oblivious to what was needed, was frustrating, yes, beyond belief, but also so effective in showing how society (and specific anti-mental-health cultural norms) continuously fails victims. The only problem I have is…I don’t know if all this was Zeller’s aim, to show that the parents failed here. I hope it was, because it’s obvious. But if his goal was for this play to simply remark on how difficult mental illness is and how ‘we don’t know where it comes from’, then I’m lost, because the whole point of understanding mental illness is that it doesn’t ‘come from’ an easy excuse, it’s a medical condition with scientific and not social roots and needs a doctor just as cancer does. I’m going to believe Zeller intended to give his audiences credit for knowing this and that we’re all on the same page, but given that the people in my audience were likely parents of the styles mentioned at the start, I worry that they didn’t learn the right lesson.
INFORMATION
The show is 1 hour 45 minutes with no interval. It feels like a lifetime but not in a bad way. Just bring water because you will dehydrate from sweating out all the anxiety.
The Duke of York’s Theatre (I hate the apostrophe) has the Royal Circle (the mezzanine) at street level; the stalls are downstairs. The circle is pretty small, maybe 8 rows? The ladies room is right outside the House Right circle door.
TodayTix has rush tickets for £15, which is an insane value for this very good play, especially if measured in cardiovascular activity.
Related Posts
Come From Away Comes to London: Continuing its Global Takeover Even Though it’s Just Okay
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Come From Away, which officially opened in London this week.
You know how Oslo won the Tony for Best Play? And we were like…how? It’s because people loved the story it told, about the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the PLO. It is riveting subject matter that reminds you of an important time in history. You’re moved by the memories and by realizing that all of this actually happened, and so you feel a connection with the humanity of the history. And so audiences leapt to their feet quicker than you can say ‘she’s from Haifa’, even though the play itself was actually mediocre. People couldn’t separate the true story from how the play told it. Well I never thought I’d say this, truly never, but, same for Come From Away. Well, not exactly same – Come From Away is much better. The true story it tells about Canadian kindness during 9/11 is incredible and moving. But the actual show, the actual portrayal of it, is just okay. The magic comes entirely from knowing it’s a true story.
And yes, there is magic. When telling this story, about how the sleepy town of Gander, Newfoundland, welcomed thousands of stranded passengers on 9/11 when U.S. airspace closed, it would be impossible not to provide moments of real emotion. But those emotions come as a result of simply telling this story, even if someone were standing onstage simply reading news bulletins. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good show. It’s an entirely enjoyable theatrical experience. Yet from all the raves, you’d think it was great. But a great show takes a good story and then also presents it well, in an interesting, artistic way. This show has found such success because it took such a good story, but there’s no interesting or artistic creativity that lifts the material, at least not in any other aspect than the precise, impressive direction of a hard-working ensemble. Since it’s telling an excellent story, it doesn’t seem to matter how it’s presented, just that it is being presented. There’s not enough art being made.
One big problem for me is the score. Most of the music fails to fulfill the main requirements of a musical score: to move the story and/or the character development forward in a way that couldn’t be achieved in the same way without music. It all feels very perfunctory. Music has the ability to add emotional depth to words and story, but this score fails to augment the action most of the time. And almost none of it is used to delve into characters. Since the versatile ensemble constantly shifts so everyone plays multiple characters, it ends up feeling like a nondescript mass of people instead of individuals we’re supposed to care about. The one song in the whole show that is entirely intended for character depth – the best song in the show, “Me & The Sky” – consequently feels out of place. When the singer, Captain Beverly Bass (the fantastic Rachel Tucker), begins by sharing her childhood memories, it feels like it was lifted from a different show. This song, superb as it is, has the same problem as the best song from the musical Catch Me If You Can, “Fly Fly Away”: it’s the strongest melody overall, so clearly that’s why it couldn’t have been cut, but it is out of place. It doesn’t go with the rest of the score. No other character gets a solo that shares their entire life story or reveals profoundly what they’re thinking and feeling at this moment, other than the fear they directly tell us they’re feeling.
That’s my other issue, that the story is primarily told directly to the audience, with the characters telling us what happened, what they did, what they thought and felt. Unlike most shows, where we are watching other people live the story, and learning about them through action and dialogue with each other, their dialogue is with us. That’s a valid structure, sure, but subverting the usual mantra of ‘show, don’t tell’ lowers the ability to achieve real character development and relationships between the characters if we don’t get to really see them interact with each other. And what is Come From Away if not a show about the relationships and connections that form between these real people? It loses the chance to show us this most important and compelling part of the story and instead merely tells us that they connected. The best characters, Nick and Diane, who meet and fall in love in Gander, come off the best but that’s mainly because I knew that they ended up together (which like, give them an entire show, you know? Incredible story). It would have been lovely if not breathtaking to see them fall in love by talking to each other more instead of narrating it to us.
Audiences were going to adore this story no matter what was done with it, and they continue to do so. But it’s a shame that such a story will never get the stronger bones it deserves in terms of book and score. And even though they had a slam dunk on their hands, the creators still added cheap laughs. Too often, when creators don’t trust their material to stand on its own, or just to hedge their bets, they insert unnecessary ‘jokes’ or sight gags to get a random guaranteed laugh from the audience. It’s clearly appealing to the lowest common denominator and betting on an unsophisticated audience for cheap laughs. Come From Away does this, for one example, with the Spanish teacher who flamencos into the scene in full costume and says some naughty things in a bad accent. Why? It’s like a race to the bottom but for musical theatre.
Obviously Come From Away is not a bad show, it’s very decent. But for a musical that is guaranteed to sweep the Oliviers this season, it should be better. The story is amazing, and it’s hard not to focus on that in order to see that the bones of the show aren’t as strong as its subject matter. You have to recognize that a play is more than just the story it tells. The art form is the telling of that story. And while the story here is astonishing, the telling is merely good.
INFORMATION
Come From Away is at London’s Phoenix Theatre, probably forever.
It runs 100 minutes with no interval.
The Phoenix Theatre needs a refurb.
Programmes are £5 and are enormous.
“How to Succeed” in London: Make An Old Show Absolutely Ridiculously Hysterical
“How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” is one of those old Broadway musicals from just after the Golden Age (1961) that I always forget I like. Fun fact: I saw Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway in the 2011 revival of “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” (a ‘Birdman’ long title which I will from here on out refer to as H2$) TWICE. I mean I liked Harry Potter fine but I wasn’t a fangirl of Big D until this show. I really can’t believe I saw it twice lol. He was GREAT. That’s not important right now. Funner fact: When Husband learned that the venue around the corner from our flat was doing a small production of H2$, of course we went, considering it is around the corner from our flat, but I completely forgot that I knew the show and that I kind of loved it and that I had seen it enough times for me to memorize pretty much all the lyrics. I just thought, hey sounds fun, I like seeing theatre and we should support the smaller productions in London too. All I remembered really was that there was some hefty ‘60s-era misogyny that we should take with a grain of salt because of when it was written, or as I explained to my friend who came along, “It’s really sexist but in kind of a lovely way.”
We walked the ten seconds to Wilton’s Music Hall and the show began and I literally slapped myself in the face with the metaphorical hand of memory and was like OH YEAH I LOVE THIS SHOW. Wilton’s production is obviously smaller than the Broadway one (and I could move my chair! like on Alitalia), with less exciting dancing, but what’s there is hilarious and so well done. They successfully mine the book and score for every single sarcastic, cutting drop of humor that I think it’s the funniest production of H2$ I’ve seen. I laughed so hard throughout, especially at every slight movement Matthew Whitby made. It was an extraordinarily self-aware production, like they realized the material was sexist and lily white and stuff and so presented it as mocking itself a little. I think a lot of this is in the original book anyway – you can’t have a song called “A Secretary is Not a Toy” (omg I accidentally typed Tory first hahaha I hope none of your secretaries are Tories (I hope none of you are Tories) (please don’t let them win)) and not have the sardonic bite built into the actual show – but I never really noticed it until this production. And I never knew it won the Pulitzer Prize, and sexist things can’t win prizes (or positions of power?) so of course it had to be tongue-in-cheek right?
So what is the actual show about? As I explained to Husband beforehand, “It’s like this guy, and he like charms his way up a company ladder, and it’s like ocean colors?” I remembered that from the 2011 set, what can I say. Also apparently I say like a lot in real life. So what is it really about now that my brain is working? J. Pierrepont Finch, a charming young man who works as a window washer, realizes ‘hey, I can’t be a window washer with this name, not that there’s anything wrong with being one, but my name was clearly made to be attached to a man of great stature at a Fortune 500 company, otherwise what a waste, also it would help matters along if I were British because who else has a name like that, but I can’t change that now, so we’ll try to get a corporate job and because I’m American I’ll just go by Ponty because Americans could never abide a first-initial-legit-ridiculous-middle-name combo on anyone but S. Epatha.’ Okay that’s my thought process not his, but the gist is there. (Oh my god I never until now wondered what the J is for. Any guesses??) Ponty wants a big time corporate job like most white men do (and how!) so he goes into the office building for the World Wide Wickets Company (hilarious made-up business that has the side effect of reminding you of the bar exam (so many widgets/wickets questions)) and just straight up starts charming people into a job and up the ladder consistently and swiftly. It’s a good lesson that it doesn’t matter what your skills are as long as people like you.
As Finch (I can’t say Ponty too much or my stomach starts to hurt), Marc Pickering played the character differently from both Radcliffe and Matthew Broderick (back when he was appealing onstage and not a wooden statue but I digress). His Finch was a smooth charmer of course, but in a much subtler way, and with a more devious, scheming vibe. Finch is always scheming, but other portrayals have had him be a little more cheerful and pleased when his scheming pays off, like in every single scene when he gets promoted over someone else or orchestrates someone else’s firing because of something he knew or did. Others’ reactions have been like ‘cheeky smile – ah ha!’ Marc was more like ‘side eye half smile- YEAH BITCH I DID THAT YOU DARE MESS??’. He was charming but also aloof. And a little scary. It all worked. He looked just like a young Pee Wee Herman who could also have been a Newsie when he was little and I don’t mean that at all in a mean way.
The show starts with Ponty weasling his way into an entry-level position by alluding to the head of HR that he knows the boss. That’s a really good real-world tip. The opening number “How To Succeed” with those weird intervals sounded a lot nicer than I remembered, so bravo. In the five seconds it takes for Finch to land this job, a secretary named Rosemary falls for him because why not/’60s and sings the song I had been singing in jest to my husband the whole week prior, “Happy To Keep His Dinner Warm”. My god I still can’t get over how funny it is that there is a song called this, literally about how a lady would be content to make her husband’s dinner and then keep it warm when he works late. It’s amazing. If you take it with a grain of salt. Hannah Grover’s Rosemary is lovely and manages to get to through the song without breaking and screaming about how we have to topple the patriarchy, as I would have done. More impressively, her mic was having a fit throughout her big song, which is such a shame (that I hope the tech people have sorted by now), but she didn’t even flinch, whereas I would have probably screamed ‘WTF IS GOING ON’ and ruined everyone’s night, so brava.
As usual, the comic song “Coffee Break” goes on way too long, as all jokey songs/jokey anythings tend to, but the choreography was pretty funny. Luckily, before I could worry, it leads into my favorite song that, again, I completely forgot was in this show, “The Company Way”. Finch, in the mailroom, gets to know the head of the mailroom (Richard Emerson, who plays all the older man parts aside from the boss and is hilarious in all of them), who describes how he has lasted this long in the company by always playing it safe and toeing the company line. It’s a delightful, catchy song that I haven’t been able to get out of my head all week, and the delivery of all Emerson’s little lines was spot on. I love this scene. We also meet our villain, as all adorable preppy blond boys are, Bud Frump, the boss JB Biggley’s nephew who uses nepotism to try to advance his career. Okay, I know you are rolling your eyes – Frump? F-ing BIGGLEY? But take a deep breath because I’m about to blow your mind. These character names were not made up for this production in response to the current ruin of America. These are the real names from the original 1961 production. I KNOW!!! I think 90% of the audience, tittering when they heard these names like I am tittering at the word tittering, thought they were added for this. See musical theatre is always relevant!
As Bud Frump, Daniel Graham is wonderfully exasperating and annoying as he is supposed to be, and it’s almost hard to hate such a cute person in such cool glasses (he looked exactly like Christopher Hanke to me, from the 2011 revival). It was extra hard to remember that the names were not changed for this production when Bud continuously whines about how he should get what he wants because his uncle is the boss and who cares if he’s qualified if he wants something. So on point. As for the other fair-haired adoraboys in the cast, I don’t even remember Mr Bratt in the H2$ Bway revival but the aforementioned Matthew Whitby f-ing SLAYED me. How he managed he make such a nothing character into the funniest performance ever boggles my mind. He did a lot of amazing side glances and had hysterical comic timing. But more than that, it was his footwork. He seemed to be in a ballet that the rest of the cast didn’t always know about, step-ball-changing and pirouetting around the stage. I was dying. We all were. When he came in to do a scene change dressed as a maid for no good reason, my god. Whose idea was this? So ridiculous and so funny. All the choreography was great, actually. There were no really big booming dance numbers, but all the movement had a clear purpose and was very effective. And so much of it was really funny. I would not be surprised if the choreographer was really a comedian.
Despite the first act being over an hour and a half long (I KNOW), it pretty much flew by with very few low points. I think the pacing could surely be improved a great deal (I do not remember any other production being this long) but there’s not much that’s noticeable. The song at the end of Act I “Rosemary” is too long for being literally just her name repeated ad infinitum, but that’s more OG problems. The scenes with Biggley (Andrew Wadsworth) and Hedy La Rue (Lizzii Hills why are there two i’s I’m genuinely curious) kind of dragged but that’s because those are two kind of thankless characters. I know everyone familiar with this show is aghast at what I just said and shouting ‘but they’re literally 2 of the like 4 main characters’ and I know but still, there’s not the ones we root for. They did a fine job of course and were enjoyable. But you spend the whole show actively rooting for Finch to trick Biggley at every turn, so it’s not like you invest in him or his own story (and the only thing that’s really his own is his affair with Hedy). And Hedy’s whole thing is that she prances about being an attractive bimbo who knows every man wants her, and so unless you are Tammy Blanchard waddling hysterically around the stage and making killer faces, it is a little thankless. Lliizzii did however manage to make us cry with laughter in her first scene, when she apologizes because “it was I whom was late”. Died. And Biggley’s big goofy number with Finch where they sing the Old Ivy fight song was hilarious too. Okay fine they were all great. The whole cast was. Geri Allen was an adorable Smitty. I always lose it when Smitty comes in during “Paris Original”, and Geri nailed how funny that moment should be. Maisey Bawden as Miss Jones was good too, although it seemed like she wasn’t miked at the end and it was hard for her big verse in “Brotherhood of Man” to be as show-stopping as I could tell up front that it could have been. And Nuwan Hugh Perera, who we last saw in the supes creepy “Side Show”, was solid all-around until the end when he was like shimmying in a corner of the stage and we were DYING. So f-ing funny. God everyone in this cast was hilarious and made this show so much fun. We were all seriously in stitches the entire time. That’s so rare and awesome.
And the score! How could I have forgotten how much fun this score is? Why was the song about keeping dinner warm the only one that stuck before? I so love “The Company Way” like I said, but every song is special in its own way. “A Secretary Is Not A Toy” I mean COME ON. I wonder if they know about this song over at Fox News. Someone should send them a recording. And I love “I Believe in You”, when Finch gears himself up for his big meeting and the rest of the company men dream of taking him down. This song was staged in the men’s bathroom, which is a preposterous and amazing idea. Finch is singing to himself in the mirror and using the urinal and stuff and then the rest of the men are watching him and also using the urinals like at least 4 times and singing about how they’re gonna stop him coooold and you’re like how do you already have to pee again you should see a doctor! So good. And nothing gets you as pumped up as “Brotherhood of Man”, even if you are a woman. It’s set up nicely in the scene, with all the company men coming to a face-off about who to blame for the problems Finch has caused. Emerson was hysterical here doing a crazy heavy ‘New York’ accent as the chairman of the board who also used to be a window washer. When he said ‘window washer’ it sounded like he had cotton in his mouth and we were crying. He really sounded just like my South Philly Italian uncle. So good. Finch gets out of the jam by pointing out their shared humanity – being men – which is so dumb and perfect. “Brotherhood of Man” is a joyous, satisfyingly big number that you can’t help but smile throughout. I can’t wait to sing it to my baby nephew when I teach him the responsibility of his white male privilege and all the perks he can look forward to, as the song teaches us.
Honestly, my expectations for this production were seriously low. I knew nothing about this production and thought it was going to be some tiny nothing at the nearby jazz hall. That it was so sublime and kept all of us grinning wildly for 3 hours is something I never would have predicted and am really grateful for. SO MUCH FUN. It ends its short run Saturday so if you are in London you should absolutely see it. Compared to the West End, tickets are cheap, yet the quality of the production is so high. It’s a guaranteed good time so you should definitely go and then I dare you not to sing all the songs all day long.
1 Comment
My heart is beating out of my chest right now. Some kids today have no chance with parents so oblivious as these fools. And these type of people should not have children.PERIOD
WONDERFUL REVIEW ALWAYS