January 19, 2023
Touching the Void: Please Don’t Ever Make Me Ice Climbby Randi / November 28, 2019I wanted to say something about how & Juliet may be the ‘jukebox musical to end all jukebox musicals’, but that’s incredibly mistaken considering how instantly beloved it is and how it is guaranteed to usher in a whole new wave of cringey shows using songs that make the audience repeatedly shout “I LOVE THIS SONG!” and sing along. & Juliet takes the clichéd formulation of “what if Romeo & Juliet ended differentlyyyuhhh” (that’s my best Lola Skumpy voice) and tells what would have happened if Juliet took her two besties (that she doesn’t seem to know anything about) and the HOTTEST turn-of-the-century (that’s this current century, dear) chart toppers on a little spree and just belted her face off in the closest thing to a huge arena pop concert that a musical has ever been.
& Juliet is hundo p a musical for millennials – and unlike when baby boomers say millennials and actually mean Gen Z (they hate YOOTS), I actually mean millennials because the audience has to be READY to relive the HEYDAY of boy bands and Britney Spears. This musical feeds on the slightly tipsy 30-year-old remembering what it was like when you’d be at a middle school dance and Britney’s “Overprotected” would come on and you’d be like YASSSSS and don’t even get me STARTED on “I Want it That Way” and “It’s Gonna Be Me”, two pillars of the boy band takeover courtesy of Backstreet Boys and NSYNC that of course are PIVOTAL to this show’s story.
The surprising part is, it’s a lot more fun that it ought to be. & Juliet, with a book by David West Read and music by every pop sensation you’d expect in a show like this (but mostly Britney Spears; it could really be called the Britney Spears musical because it’s like half her catalogue), forces the biggest pop hits of the late ‘90s/early 2000s (for the most part) to tell the story of Juliet if she was like I’m not killing myself just because this boy I’ve known for 4 days did it first; I’ma flee to France and dance and party and start fresh/get immediately engaged to another boy I barely know. Everything about this show is simultaneously fun and beyond cringe-worthy, a mixture that meant my eyes didn’t know what to do between all the rolling and the widening and the smiling. The framing device has Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife (and yes, of COURSE there are cringey jokes about how that’s her real name and she’s not the only one HAR HAR, guys this is England everyone knows that’s his wife’s name), confront her husband about the depressing and not exactly empowering ending to his new play. She offers to help rewrite the ending and the couple bicker…by singing “I Want it That Way” to each other. Literally, Will is like “but I want it that way” and Anne is like “tell me why?” and then all the blondes go AIN’T NOTHING BUT A HEARTACHE and I felt my stomach eat itself because a groan wasn’t enough and yet I was smiling???
So Will and Anne are like okay well let’s see what it looks like with the new material and we see Juliet (Miriam-Teak Lee) pull a Sofia from The Color Purple when she sees the dead Romeo and go ‘hellllll noooooo’ and get up and keep living her life instead of ending it at 14 (the age issue provides some hilarious material). She flees to Paris to PARTY, bringing along her gender-queer friend May (which is great for representation but having them sing “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” may have been the most forced part uhh (although Arun Blair-Mangat was like, jfc it sounded like they were playing a recording that’s how flawless)) and of course…her friend…Anne…Anne Hathaway, who wants to be in the play?? It’s awkward storytelling but they wanted the supremely talented Cassidy Janson to sang throughout the show so what are you gonna do (although the suuuuper delaaaaayed final lines of Celine Dion’s “That’s the Way It Is” (yes that is in here too), done so she can show off even more, are way toooo over the top). Between her and Lee it is the belt-your-face-off competition of the year in there. Impressive performances abound, for sure (though I worry for Lee’s vocal health doing this show long-term), but when it’s this much belting, it’s like belted song after belted song and it’s supposed to impress you with all their belting but after all this belting you’re just like ‘yes this is still this show.’ The Act II power ballads in any of the many 11 o’clock moments don’t have as much dramatic heft because it’s just more at the same level of volume and intensity.
But what am I talking about, they don’t really care about dramatic effect and storytelling, this is ABOUT FUN. And everyone else is having a g-d ball at this show. It doesn’t matter that the side plot about Juliet’s nurse and her lover (I was like that actor kind of looks like David Bedella but there’s no way; guess what, it’s him) falls flat because they are supposed to be the comedic effect but the entire SHOW is comedic effect so that kind of thing doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter that the unnecessary marriage drama between Anne and Will is so ill-fitting for a show like this – you can’t all of a sudden have a woman cry over her crumbling marriage when the show is a ROMP of BOY BAND HITS. It doesn’t matter that everyone is miked to within an inch of their lives and it’s virtually a pop concert with a forced story that makes you groan louder than you thought humanly possible, because it’s fun. Everyone is enjoying themselves; this is one of those shows that’s beyond critique.
My favorite part was when they represented Paris by parading little landmarks across the stage, like the Eiffel Tower and then…and then the Moulin Rouge windmill, reminding me with a shudder that we haven’t seen the last of these forced pop-score storytelling shows this YEAR. I can’t wait to see if that behemoth of a show can top this one, either in terms of enjoyability or how many times I groan.
INFORMATION
& Juliet is playing at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, probably forever. Despite being an ENORMOUS theatre, there aren’t any bad seats. I was in the back of the circle (supes cheap) and it was a great view. There’s a good ladies bathroom in the circle (like literally…inside the theatre) but the rest of the bathrooms are old and gross and small.
If you buy directly from the theatre, they charge an extra £1.50 to pick up ticket at the box office, which should be THE DEFAULT option. Such bullshirt. You can print at home for free. BULLSHIRT.
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Glengarry Glen Ross on the West End: Salesmen Can Be Pathetic and Also Monsters
It’s Theatre Thursday y’all! Today we are talking about Glengarry Glen Ross at London’s Playhouse Theatre, which runs until February 3.
I don’t really like David Mamet. Don’t get me wrong, I like him more than I like Pinter, but still, he’s not my cup of playwright tea. (I don’t really like any tea!). But I went to see the new London production of his eminent work “Glengarry Glen Ross” because Christian Slater was in it. I mean also because I like to see all the theatre but mainly because Christian Slater was in it and I thought if I got to meet him then I could be friends with Cher Horowitz in both of their primes. Also he’s a good actor. I am familiar with the movie, and I don’t love it but I understand that it’s important and worthy of others’ adoration. I was skeptical of how such an American play would do with British audiences, but fun fact, “Glengarry Glen Ross” (GGGR) had its world premiere in London! Who knew! (Another fun fact, Mamet dedicated the play to Pinter, because he helped make that OG production happen. What a small world of playwrights I don’t enjoy!)
I don’t really like David Mamet. Don’t get me wrong, I like him more than I like Pinter, but still, he’s not my cup of playwright tea. (I don’t really like any tea!). But I went to see the new London production of his eminent work “Glengarry Glen Ross” because Christian Slater was in it. I mean also because I like to see all the theatre but mainly because Christian Slater was in it and I thought if I got to meet him then I could be friends with Cher Horowitz in both of their primes. Also he’s a good actor. I am familiar with the movie, and I don’t love it but I understand that it’s important and worthy of others’ adoration. I was skeptical of how such an American play would do with British audiences, but fun fact, “Glengarry Glen Ross” (GGGR) had its world premiere in London! Who knew! (Another fun fact, Mamet dedicated the play to Pinter, because he helped make that OG production happen. What a small world of playwrights I don’t enjoy!)
If you haven’t seen the movie or weren’t in NYC in the ‘80s to see the Broadway production (which oddly won the Pulitzer Prize but lost the Tony Award, which happens a lot but still come on that’s like winning the Oscar and not winning the Golden Globe (I know I just compared my fave Tonys to the ridiculous Globes and that is heresy but even I can admit that awards mean nothing (except the Pulitzer, you want to believe that that means something))) (also omg the 1984 Tonys were LUDICROUS; GGGR lost Best Play to Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, which I don’t know too well, but I’m sure it was deserved, but more importantly Ian McKellen was nominated for a show literally called “Ian McKellen Acting Shakespeare” which like okay I know I wasn’t born yet but how did I miss that?? and worst part omg Mandy Patinkin lost for Sunday in the Park with George, which Sondheim didn’t win best score for? how is that possible? I know “I Am What I Am” is a seminal wonderful song but so is “Finishing the Hat” and omg “Move On” come onnnn and it lost Best Musical to La Cage Aux Folles too and I don’t know how I feel about that because La Cage is a great show too and it was probably super meaningful at that time to honor a story about gay men and I really could talk about that for a while but I will try to get back on topic), GGGR is about desperate real estate men in Chicago who want so badly to sell shitty real estate to support their meaningless, humdrum lives that they are willing to do terrible things to make it happen. The ones who aren’t willing to burgle and steal are still willing to lie to and cheat buyers and commit all sorts of shenanigans that prove their lack of moral compass. So, none of them are very sympathetic characters, and it’s hard to connect fully when that’s the case, and it’s even harder when it’s yet another story about how hard regular men’s lives are in America I mean I know it’s from the ‘80s but I’m tired of it. Ain’t you tired Miss Hilly?
The play opens with two characters sitting in a Chinese restaurant. The whole first act (an incredibly short 35 minutes, I mean what) takes place in the Chinese restaurant, which really made me want fried tofu but I’m not sure if that was the intention. First we see poor sad sack Shelley Levine (Jack Lemmon in the movie, who really can’t be beat he was the best) begging the office manager John Williamson for better leads (the Glengarry leads) so he can actually make a good sale. He’s older than the other salesmen and past his prime and you do feel a bit bad for him. Williamson, on the other hand, is cold and unfeeling but as played by Kris Marshall, kind of bland instead. You’ll know Kris as the British idiot who went to America to find girls in “Love Actually” and sang ditties about his knob and somehow managed to find hot girls because of his accent. That accent is missing here as he tries to do an American accent, which is fine, but it seemed like all his focus was on the accent instead of acting so he was very stiff and wooden.
The focus on keeping up their fake American accents was apparent with the rest of the British cast too. Scene two of the Chinese restaurant duos featured Dave Moss, the brash and aggressive jerk who plans to rob the office of its best leads and sell them to a competitor. He tries to convince George Aaronow, the least memorable character in this production, to join him, and threatens to incriminate him if he doesn’t. Playing George, Don Warrington was fine but I don’t know if the accent was tripping him up or if he just wasn’t good with stuttered interjections. His character has a lot of repeated words like ‘I – I – I’ that get interrupted, but it was clear he was waiting to be interrupted and that threw everything off kilter a little. It always bothers me when actors don’t have more planned in case their costars wait a half second too long to interrupt. You gotta keep going or else it’s so obvious that the timing is off. I remember in “Once Upon a Mattress”, which we did in middle school and it was horrible because you need more sophisticated actors to make that show not terrible, there’s a line the princess says: “But that’s my huckle—“ and then the queen or something interrupts her. Okay people, it’s clear she’s going to say huckleberry so just make like you’re going to say huckleberry and let her actually interrupt you. Don’t say huckle and then let there be open air. You get what I’m saying. Don didn’t have his berry ready.
So all of this was kind of boring and hard to get into because most of the characters sucked so far, but then in Scene 3, Christian finally shows up, as Ricky Roma, and it’s the first (maybe only?) truly enjoyable, spirited bit of the play. Everyone perked up not just because he’s more electrifying to watch, but because his character is much more fun. An ass, but fun. He’s talking in the restaurant booth to maybe a good friend – you assume from the conversation – and he’s just going on and on about his life and women and sex and it’s kind of wacky but entertaining, and then after this monologue he pauses, and asks his companion what his name is. It’s the one great laugh in the show and it really effectively establishes Roma’s character. Great scene, Mamet.
In Act two, we lose the Chinese restaurant for their burgled office, all grey and mediocre with crap and papers everywhere. A cop is there questioning everyone separately. This whole act mainly just featured a lot of yelling and cursing and I wasn’t really invested. Then our only likable character, Roma, proves that he is also a terrible lying liar when his new client from the night before comes by and says he has to cancel the deal, he can’t afford it. Roma tells him that his check hasn’t been sent to the bank yet so there is still time for him to think it over. But then the office manager comes out and says stiffly and woodenly that the check was deposited at the bank. He was misreading the conversation, but I hang on to the very improbably hope that maybe he was trying to help this poor sad sack cancel it with the authorities before the allotted time ran out and he lost all his money, so maybe there would be one decent person in this office, or at least one person who does one decent thing. Roma, clearly a dick, is so pissed that Williamson ruined his deal and, ya know, saved that poor man’s life with his accidental reveal, and you’re just like, dude, you are doing fine, you’re the best salesman in the office and pretty soon you will only have to share the business with one other guy, chill the f and realize how much of a dick you are to be mad that that guy won’t become destitute because of your lies!
This is the point at which I was checked out. Bunch of dicks on that stage trying to keep demonstrating how dickish they are or something? I understand that it’s like such an honest look at desperation in the middle class and men feeling bad about their small penii but I am so done with white male stories. I think we’ve passed this kind of thing as a society. At least I have. The acting, aside from the accent focus, was fine, and if you like the play and/or the movie it’s worth seeing. While it’s a decent play I guess, that is decently performed, it’s not very compelling, and I’ll admit that this is one case where the movie is just better. Also, I can’t help but think how much better it would be to have new exciting diverse stories being told in this theatre.
INFORMATION
The lobby at the Playhouse is the worst and you will be crammed in like sardines waiting for the house to open. I had to stand in front of a mirror and then I forgot and someone was looking in it and I was like DUDE what are you doing and she was like what, it’s a mirror.
AUDIENCE
I’m not going to talk specifics about what happened with our super awful audience, but I will implore you, everyone, to stop using your phone in the theatre. Even just to peek at. At the movie theatre too. Any dark space with other people, turn off your f-ing phone. There is no valid reason to use it in the theatre. Truly, there isn’t. I dare you to think of one. Please, by all means, comment below with anything you think is a valid reason and I will tell you why it’s not. If you are a doctor on call, you shouldn’t be at the theatre. If you have little kids and you don’t trust whoever is watching them, you should not be at the theatre and you should never leave children with people you don’t trust to take care of them I mean wtf is wrong with humans are we worth saving??
STAGE DOOR
This was THE BEST stage door experience ever. Every actor came out very quickly, like within minutes, and signed and took pictures if requested. It was so efficient and quick and lovely.
The play opens with two characters sitting in a Chinese restaurant. The whole first act (an incredibly short 35 minutes, I mean what) takes place in the Chinese restaurant, which really made me want fried tofu but I’m not sure if that was the intention. First we see poor sad sack Shelley Levine (Jack Lemmon in the movie, who really can’t be beat he was the best) begging the office manager John Williamson for better leads (the Glengarry leads) so he can actually make a good sale. He’s older than the other salesmen and past his prime and you do feel a bit bad for him. Williamson, on the other hand, is cold and unfeeling but as played by Kris Marshall, kind of bland instead. You’ll know Kris as the British idiot who went to America to find girls in “Love Actually” and sang ditties about his knob and somehow managed to find hot girls because of his accent. That accent is missing here as he tries to do an American accent, which is fine, but it seemed like all his focus was on the accent instead of acting so he was very stiff and wooden.
The focus on keeping up their fake American accents was apparent with the rest of the British cast too. Scene two of the Chinese restaurant duos featured Dave Moss, the brash and aggressive jerk who plans to rob the office of its best leads and sell them to a competitor. He tries to convince George Aaronow, the least memorable character in this production, to join him, and threatens to incriminate him if he doesn’t. Playing George, Don Warrington was fine but I don’t know if the accent was tripping him up or if he just wasn’t good with stuttered interjections. His character has a lot of repeated words like ‘I – I – I’ that get interrupted, but it was clear he was waiting to be interrupted and that threw everything off kilter a little. It always bothers me when actors don’t have more planned in case their costars wait a half second too long to interrupt. You gotta keep going or else it’s so obvious that the timing is off. I remember in “Once Upon a Mattress”, which we did in middle school and it was horrible because you need more sophisticated actors to make that show not terrible, there’s a line the princess says: “But that’s my huckle—“ and then the queen or something interrupts her. Okay people, it’s clear she’s going to say huckleberry so just make like you’re going to say huckleberry and let her actually interrupt you. Don’t say huckle and then let there be open air. You get what I’m saying. Don didn’t have his berry ready.
So all of this was kind of boring and hard to get into because most of the characters sucked so far, but then in Scene 3, Christian finally shows up, as Ricky Roma, and it’s the first (maybe only?) truly enjoyable, spirited bit of the play. Everyone perked up not just because he’s more electrifying to watch, but because his character is much more fun. An ass, but fun. He’s talking in the restaurant booth to maybe a good friend – you assume from the conversation – and he’s just going on and on about his life and women and sex and it’s kind of wacky but entertaining, and then after this monologue he pauses, and asks his companion what his name is. It’s the one great laugh in the show and it really effectively establishes Roma’s character. Great scene, Mamet.
In Act two, we lose the Chinese restaurant for their burgled office, all grey and mediocre with crap and papers everywhere. A cop is there questioning everyone separately. This whole act mainly just featured a lot of yelling and cursing and I wasn’t really invested. Then our only likable character, Roma, proves that he is also a terrible lying liar when his new client from the night before comes by and says he has to cancel the deal, he can’t afford it. Roma tells him that his check hasn’t been sent to the bank yet so there is still time for him to think it over. But then the office manager comes out and says stiffly and woodenly that the check was deposited at the bank. He was misreading the conversation, but I hang on to the very improbably hope that maybe he was trying to help this poor sad sack cancel it with the authorities before the allotted time ran out and he lost all his money, so maybe there would be one decent person in this office, or at least one person who does one decent thing. Roma, clearly a dick, is so pissed that Williamson ruined his deal and, ya know, saved that poor man’s life with his accidental reveal, and you’re just like, dude, you are doing fine, you’re the best salesman in the office and pretty soon you will only have to share the business with one other guy, chill the f and realize how much of a dick you are to be mad that that guy won’t become destitute because of your lies!
This is the point at which I was checked out. Bunch of dicks on that stage trying to keep demonstrating how dickish they are or something? I understand that it’s like such an honest look at desperation in the middle class and men feeling bad about their small penii but I am so done with white male stories. I think we’ve passed this kind of thing as a society. At least I have. The acting, aside from the accent focus, was fine, and if you like the play and/or the movie it’s worth seeing. While it’s a decent play I guess, that is decently performed, it’s not very compelling, and I’ll admit that this is one case where the movie is just better. Also, I can’t help but think how much better it would be to have new exciting diverse stories being told in this theatre.
INFORMATION
The lobby at the Playhouse is the worst and you will be crammed in like sardines waiting for the house to open. I had to stand in front of a mirror and then I forgot and someone was looking in it and I was like DUDE what are you doing and she was like what, it’s a mirror.
AUDIENCE
I’m not going to talk specifics about what happened with our super awful audience, but I will implore you, everyone, to stop using your phone in the theatre. Even just to peek at. At the movie theatre too. Any dark space with other people, turn off your f-ing phone. There is no valid reason to use it in the theatre. Truly, there isn’t. I dare you to think of one. Please, by all means, comment below with anything you think is a valid reason and I will tell you why it’s not. If you are a doctor on call, you shouldn’t be at the theatre. If you have little kids and you don’t trust whoever is watching them, you should not be at the theatre and you should never leave children with people you don’t trust to take care of them I mean wtf is wrong with humans are we worth saving??
STAGE DOOR
This was THE BEST stage door experience ever. Every actor came out very quickly, like within minutes, and signed and took pictures if requested. It was so efficient and quick and lovely.
Everywoman at London’s Bunker Theatre: You’re GD Right This is Universal
The riveting new work Everywoman finally offers a worthy counterpart to the classic 15th century morality play Everyman. Well, not ‘counterpart’ so much as ‘play that actually reflects the human condition and not just male whining’ (see e.g. Philip Roth). This short, powerful one-woman show runs the gamut of emotions, possibilities, and traumas around procreating, from abortion to miscarriage to loss to whether to bear and/or raise children at all. As Everyman’s author is ‘anonymous’, so too has the real writer behind this new work remained anonymous, so that it can be considered everyone’s story. And although it’s woman-driven storytelling, and radically so, I can’t think of one kind of person who wouldn’t feel seen by this. Sure the only full-fledged production of Everyman I’ve seen was the weird modernized take that took place mainly in a night club and infuriated me, but this Everywoman is the one that deserves the ‘universal’ status, despite the failure of the powers that be to ever attribute that to women’s work.
Obviously, there are content warnings to this show like never before. Take Dear Evan Hansen’s suicide content warning but for everything related to pregnancy and children and multiply that level by a solid thousand. The show follows the child-facing decisions of its sole performer, a captivating Jade Williams, at various points in her life when she has been pregnant, or wanted to be pregnant, or didn’t want to be, and how she felt during all of it. It also has a great deal of what I consider Next to Normal backstory about potential child loss, which was very well done and stressful and harrowing. I don’t know if anyone who has faced this sort of unspeakable loss would be able to make it through this section. The tiny room, the sole performer right there, baring her soul, it all creates such an intimacy that was breathtaking and so powerful that it was often distressing.
Despite repeatedly saying “I am Jade Williams and…” (a few too many times, perhaps, at least in the last section), this isn’t actually our fine performer’s story, and what of it actually happened to the actual writer is unclear too – but what’s the ‘truth’ is not relevant. It’s all truth, it’s all experiences that have happened to so many people and that’s what matters, not determining which parts were autobiographical on the anonymous writer’s part. Kind of missing the point chief!
The first section, with its frequent blackouts separating short, often funny statements, is cleverly done, setting a sarcastic and humorous tone but announcing how dark and real things would get. The second section, or chapter, as we learn more about this ‘Jade’ and her relationship and experiences, is a sharp contrast but equally brilliant in its ruthless openness. With sensitive and elegant direction by Amelia Sears, the tiny show accomplishes so much with effective minimal staging – a bathtub, buckets of water (that seemed to stay hot?? how!), candles (my god the candles). The final section, as Jade explains that it’s not exactly her actual life she’s been recounting, feels unnecessary since this is all about being universal tales, and so lost the tiniest bit of the magic. But overall, something this real and candid and, yes, universal is a triumph of honest storytelling.
INFORMATION
Hey yo Ev (what husbo p and I call Everyman because of that godawful Chiwetel production so I guess it’s what we’ll call Everywoman too) plays at the Bunker Theatre until Saturday Feb 22. The show is just under an hour (at press night was about 57 minutes). After a ten minute break, there is an approximately 20-minute confession by a different writer/performer every night. These confessions are private and not up for review, so I’ll simply say that I am still blown away by the clever writing and ingenuity of the one I was lucky enough to hear.
