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
“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”: Broadway’s Most Hilarious and Horrible Hijinks This Season
The supremely entertaining new musical “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder” is one of the most exciting new shows this Broadway season. Halting the omnipresent influx of jukebox musicals and, more importantly, making murder hilarious, “Gentleman’s Guide” will likely be a main player at the Tony Awards this June. Despite its somewhat unseemly subject matter, it is an old-fashioned and very British show.
The dark comedy concerns a young man named Monty Navarro, who is finally told of his birthright: that he is related to the wealthy D’Ysquith clan, and ninth in line to inherit its dukedom. (The name is pronounced like ‘dies quick’. So funny.) Monty, who seems like a well-mannered, kindhearted gentleman, begins a journey to become part of the family that quickly morphs into a killing spree.
The dark comedy concerns a young man named Monty Navarro, who is finally told of his birthright: that he is related to the wealthy D’Ysquith clan, and ninth in line to inherit its dukedom. (The name is pronounced like ‘dies quick’. So funny.) Monty, who seems like a well-mannered, kindhearted gentleman, begins a journey to become part of the family that quickly morphs into a killing spree.
Monty initially reaches out to the D’Ysquiths to bond in normal ways, but the posh elitists rebuff him. After such terrible treatment, Monty sets out to methodically, and humorously, murder each of the 8 relatives ahead of him in succession.
This surprising turn of events works because Monty is so charming, and the actor playing him, Bryce Pinkham, manipulates the pacing so well. But the real star of the show, and its biggest selling point, and the main reason to see it, is Jefferson Mays. The well respected Tony-winning actor (for 2003’s “I Am My Own Wife”) plays all eight of the doomed D’Ysquith family members, men and women, young and old. He quickly switches from the old priest (whose death showcases my favorite ridiculous staging) to young bicurious student to middle-aged actress, and he sells each character just as eight individual actors could. As each death occurs, one gets nervous that soon Mays won’t be onstage anymore. That would be a shame. (Luckily, a clever end twist and a sort of cliffhanger ending make sure that this doesn’t happen.)
Mays is truly spectacular, particularly as the young, too trusting, slightly doofy Oxbridge student who takes a fast and overzealous liking to Monty. Sadly, Henry D’Ysquith has a weakness too obvious and too delicious for Monty to ignore: his penchant for beekeeping. It is probably also obvious that his death is one of the funniest.
The lovably silly character of Henry gives Mays and Pinkham their most enjoyable song and what I thought was the highlight of the show. The song “Better With A Man” has Monty being a little overly friendly to the very obviously receptive Henry. While they sing ostensibly about friendship, the choreography clearly says otherwise, and the number verges into pure slapstick. It’s so wrong, and so funny.
The other highlight musically is a pas de trois between Monty, his married lover Sibella, and his new cousin Phoebe, whom he plans to marry. As is customary in love triangles performed on stage, the scene finds Monty trying to hide both women from each other when they both visit his home. Impressive on all counts, the scene showcases the voices of the women and the timing of Pinkham better than any other.
However, aside from these two songs, the music is disappointing. What makes it seem very old-fashioned in the best ways also accounts for its old-fashioned sense musically. Most of the music is not the kind you’d want to listen to outside the Walter Kerr theatre. There are the boring choral bits, where the ensemble sings the same uninspired lines over and over. There are solos that don’t go anywhere and feel as if written as monologues and not as sung pieces. The music often does drive the show’s plot forward, as it should, but it doesn’t do it any better than the words unsung would, which defeats the purpose of making a show into a musical. It’s the kind of show where I would love to see it again, but no way would I ever listen to the cast recording.
Despite the majority of the music being disappointing, the show itself is gold. You feel terrible for laughing and for secretly rooting for Monty, because he doesn’t seem like a bad guy (despite everything to the contrary). I love that the show boasts so much new talent, and that it’s not like anything else recently on Broadway. If you have the chance to see it, you won’t regret it. I’m sure Mays will be a strong contender come Tony night, but all I hope is that the show’s Tony performance is “Better With A Man” (cross your fingers!).
This surprising turn of events works because Monty is so charming, and the actor playing him, Bryce Pinkham, manipulates the pacing so well. But the real star of the show, and its biggest selling point, and the main reason to see it, is Jefferson Mays. The well respected Tony-winning actor (for 2003’s “I Am My Own Wife”) plays all eight of the doomed D’Ysquith family members, men and women, young and old. He quickly switches from the old priest (whose death showcases my favorite ridiculous staging) to young bicurious student to middle-aged actress, and he sells each character just as eight individual actors could. As each death occurs, one gets nervous that soon Mays won’t be onstage anymore. That would be a shame. (Luckily, a clever end twist and a sort of cliffhanger ending make sure that this doesn’t happen.)
Mays is truly spectacular, particularly as the young, too trusting, slightly doofy Oxbridge student who takes a fast and overzealous liking to Monty. Sadly, Henry D’Ysquith has a weakness too obvious and too delicious for Monty to ignore: his penchant for beekeeping. It is probably also obvious that his death is one of the funniest.
The lovably silly character of Henry gives Mays and Pinkham their most enjoyable song and what I thought was the highlight of the show. The song “Better With A Man” has Monty being a little overly friendly to the very obviously receptive Henry. While they sing ostensibly about friendship, the choreography clearly says otherwise, and the number verges into pure slapstick. It’s so wrong, and so funny.
The other highlight musically is a pas de trois between Monty, his married lover Sibella, and his new cousin Phoebe, whom he plans to marry. As is customary in love triangles performed on stage, the scene finds Monty trying to hide both women from each other when they both visit his home. Impressive on all counts, the scene showcases the voices of the women and the timing of Pinkham better than any other.
However, aside from these two songs, the music is disappointing. What makes it seem very old-fashioned in the best ways also accounts for its old-fashioned sense musically. Most of the music is not the kind you’d want to listen to outside the Walter Kerr theatre. There are the boring choral bits, where the ensemble sings the same uninspired lines over and over. There are solos that don’t go anywhere and feel as if written as monologues and not as sung pieces. The music often does drive the show’s plot forward, as it should, but it doesn’t do it any better than the words unsung would, which defeats the purpose of making a show into a musical. It’s the kind of show where I would love to see it again, but no way would I ever listen to the cast recording.
Despite the majority of the music being disappointing, the show itself is gold. You feel terrible for laughing and for secretly rooting for Monty, because he doesn’t seem like a bad guy (despite everything to the contrary). I love that the show boasts so much new talent, and that it’s not like anything else recently on Broadway. If you have the chance to see it, you won’t regret it. I’m sure Mays will be a strong contender come Tony night, but all I hope is that the show’s Tony performance is “Better With A Man” (cross your fingers!).
“Bring It On” in London: Can’t Go Wrong with This Much Fun
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about “Bring it On: The Musical”, currently at London’s Southwark Playhouse until September 1.
As if anyone would be surprised that yet another Lin-Manuel Miranda musical is brightening up London, his collaborative 2011 musical “Bring it On” provides a much-needed jolt of silly fun to this theatre scene. Inspired by that beloved Kirsten Dunst movie with that incredible performance-based ending topped only by that of “Center Stage” in all of cinematic history, “Bring it On” looks into the world of competitive high school cheerleading while trying to tackle racism, bullies, friendship, teenage romance, accepting yourself, growing up, and fitting in. Does it succeed in doing all that? God no! Is this show insanely enjoyable and entertaining and will you have a huge smile on your face (most of the time) even though it’s overreaching with the sentimentality? Hell yes!
As if anyone would be surprised that yet another Lin-Manuel Miranda musical is brightening up London, his collaborative 2011 musical “Bring it On” provides a much-needed jolt of silly fun to this theatre scene. Inspired by that beloved Kirsten Dunst movie with that incredible performance-based ending topped only by that of “Center Stage” in all of cinematic history, “Bring it On” looks into the world of competitive high school cheerleading while trying to tackle racism, bullies, friendship, teenage romance, accepting yourself, growing up, and fitting in. Does it succeed in doing all that? God no! Is this show insanely enjoyable and entertaining and will you have a huge smile on your face (most of the time) even though it’s overreaching with the sentimentality? Hell yes!
If you follow this site, you know that 60% of the time, the Southwark Playhouse’s productions are the best every time (you get that reference). The Southwark usually puts on a better show than most of the West End proper. This production is different from usual, however, because the production of “Bring it On” is a ‘youth production’ brought in by the British Theatre Academy, a training school and program for people under 23. While many in the cast have some theatrical experience (I googled them because the programme doesn’t list any of their experience. It lists their f-ing TWITTER handles, but no, seeing what work they’ve done is too much to ask from a programme you have to pay for) (and YES I realize how creepy it sounds that I googled children but I had to I am a PROFESSIONAL), they’re all relatively (or very) green, and so I won’t judge them as harshly as I would full-blown professionals who can legally drink alcohol (also Husbo P said not to be mean to children or that will make me the villain in fairytales and I am a nice witch). But despite their experience or lack thereof, there’s lots of potential on that stage, and lots of talent. Many of these young performers are doing strong work here and I think can be great.
So “Bring it On” has quite the creative team behind it – Lin-Manuel, Tom Kitt (‘Next to Normal’), Amanda Green (‘Hands on a Hardbody’ (shoutout to my bff Keala)) all worked on the score, while Jeff Whitty (‘Avenue Q’) wrote the book. Surprisingly, because it happens so rarely, I was delighted by Whitty’s book. My delight was mainly because I didn’t know how different it would be from the movie (the original movie, obviously; it’s apparently similar to one of the sequels but I don’t mess with no direct-to-video nonsense). Diverging from the familiar plot was a really smart move, leaving less to directly compare with the movie. Instead of Eliza Dushku taking a vampire-slaying break to rag on Kirsten Dunst about how bad her breath is while Gabrielle Union just like…is perfect, we have Campbell (Robyn McIntyre (lots of y’s you go girl)), the Dunst-like character – the white, rich, preppy head cheerleader – transferred from white, rich, preppy Truman High to the inner city school like the one repped by Union in the movie. At Jackson High, Campbell sticks out and has trouble finding her groove (probably because she’s white), especially since there is no cheerleading squad! Egads and oh no! The cool af black girl in the stage version is named Danielle (Chisara Agor), and instead of leading a rival, incredible cheerleading squad backed up by literally the three members of R&B girl group Blaque (true story), Danielle leads the school’s dance crew, which, by the looks of it, is just her and her two friends. Those friends are pretty cool though – one is named Nautica and is confident and badass, and the other is La Cienaga, which was Broadway’s first trans character (played by Gregory Haney in the og, and here by Matthew Brazier, and it’s awesome to have this, but I can’t wait for when trans characters are actually played by trans people).
Campbell tries to convince Danielle’s crew to become a cheerleading squad so they can beat her old school at Nationals. There was so much mention of Nationals and Regionals that sometimes it was like watching an episode of “Glee” (which was in the height(s) of its popularity when this was written, to be fair, and probably was a cheeky reference to it). The only other person transferred along with Campbell from Truman is Bridget, her Quirky Fat Friend™ who was Truman High’s poor pathetic mascot but who is suddenly considered cool at Jackson. Bridget might be written as that typical QFF™ whose main characteristics are Q and F, but as played by Kristine Kruse she is a hoot and gets some of the best material in the show. Campbell’s old friends at Truman fare well too, as the white rich Mean Girls-like trio of Skylar, Kylar (it’s explained), and Eva are all given a good chunk of material and humor to work with, and they’re super entertaining, although I wish we saw more of Eva’s future when she becomes Betsy Devos. As is common, the main characters are written generically in order to further the story, while the side characters get to have more personality.
As for the score, I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been listening to it during all of my runs this week. It is FIRE. Well, it is FIRE SOMETIMES. The big ensemble numbers, the up-tempo ones, are clearly the work of Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose signature Latin influenced urban flavor shines through, and at certain points I could hear suggestions of “It Won’t Be Long Now” and “Blackout” from “In the Heights”. However, it takes a bit for the score to hit its stride, mainly because there are too many ballads and none of them are memorable or really anything special. Things only really get moving when the action moves over to Jackson High with Campbell’s transfer, when Lin’s signature rhythm and hip-hop sensibilities could let loose. The introductory Jackson song, “Do Your Own Thing”, is the best song in the score and I challenge you to listen to it without getting severely pumped up. I cracked up in this song when Campbell is introduced and a boy goes, “Campbell like the soup? You lookin’ hot cream of mushroom!’ And I adore Bridget’s track in this number, when she counters the chorus of “Don’t follow me/do your own thing” with a super optimistic “Don’t follow anybody! Everyone here does their own thing”. I love it. Of course, my favorite sung lyric was clearly the work of Lin in “It’s All Happening”, when a boy says to his friends, “What, you think cheering is feminine? Then I’m a feminist swimming in women, gentlemen.” There’s so much humor in the score and book, and the cast hit all the comic points well.
I feel the need to temper all my excitement about this show, though, because, like, it’s not exactly a great show. It’s so much fun and has such good energy, but the bones of it have some osteo probs. Along with the mostly clichéd attempts to be introspective in the ballads (ugh so many), there were a few weak spots in the plot too, like how on earth a teenage girl could blackmail her mother but not elicit suspicion from the rest of the school board? And I hate to say it, but a school like this considering La Cienaga one of the most popular people in school? I wish that were realistic (and because of that I see the need to present it as such; it’s just not believable). The spirit stick/cheer camp bit in the beginning whooshed past us, and if I didn’t remember that they did such a thing in the movie I would have been as confused as Husbo at what exactly was happening. I didn’t buy the relationship between Campbell and her new boyf, Randall, at all, but that could be because their duet made me saaaad. And not because it tugged at my heartstrings or anything like that, but because it was baaaad. Not their singing, just the actual song is quite hackneyed, about how you have to enjoy high school for what it is because it goes by so fast. Guhhhh. If you cut that and a few other reprises of Campbell’s “I Want” song, it would be a much tighter show. (Not that Robyn doesn’t do a superb job essentially carrying this show on her tiny child shoulders; all these slow songs just don’t serve her character or the story.) But the biggest thing that needs work is why on earth Danielle et al. would forgive Campbell for lying to her. Their friendship before the rift is not solidified enough to explain why she would bother helping out this new girl again.
I hope they do get to make those changes, upon a transfer to the West End. With more work, a whole lot more money, and more exciting cheer routines, this could be phenomenal as a big production. I had to temper my expectations and hopes and dreams about their final cheer routines, considering this was not a huge-budget Broadway musical with professional gymnasts and acrobats in the cast (although there were clearly a few ringers in there doing most of the tumbling, which I appreciated). (And yes, I did watch the Broadway cast’s performance afterwards to scratch that itch) But even so, this small youth production is more entertaining that it should be, and is a must-see right now in London.
INFORMATION
Okay so the Southwark Playhouse is not air-conditioned, and you probably know that London has had a serious heat wave all summer. Everyone was literally dripping in sweat in that small black box theatre (including the cast), and so the fact that I still loved it and recommend it says a lot about how fun it is.
The ushers at my performance need some more training though. They were more distracting that any audience members (hey good job audience though). It was weird.
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