Jukebox Musical “& Juliet” Tailor Made for London’s Tipsy Millennialsby Randi / December 3, 2019It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Ghost Quartet, playing at London’s new Boulevard Theatre until January 4.
About 10 seconds into our performance of Ghost Quartet, husbo and I smiled at each other giddily: It sounds like Dave. It is remarkable that a modern composer has so assuredly developed his own unique sound, that you immediately recognize as His (Dave’s not god’s) as soon as you hear it. There are maybe 4 working composers you can say that about. I am grateful for Dave Malloy’s weird and wacky and uncanny sound, what can I say.
As usual with his shows, Ghost Quartet is a challenging assortment of brilliant moments, beautiful music, and lovely abstract storytelling, plus some too-vague storytelling, songs that don’t fit, and moments that should have been cut. Going into a Malloy show, you know that the seeming lack of editing down to its best form is part of the package (common when one individual is writing the music, lyrics, and book (collaboration leads to tighter shows)) but that seems to be a key aspect: he forces you to reckon with what you might consider the fat. He mixes absolute gorgeousness with a lack of clarity, with ridiculous noise, sometimes boring bits, things that go on too long, &c. They sometimes feel like a dare, like he’s daring us to question what he decided to keep in order to understand the project more deeply. And sure I am again questioning what he decided to keep, but I almost kind of love the mixture of high and low, good and not so good.
Ghost Quartet in particular has an exceptionally vague ‘story’ being told through the song cycle sung by the four talented cast members, who announce the side and track number of this ‘album’ before each song. Okay so I just read the synopsis on Wikipedia and said ‘really? what?’ like 18 times. Like I said, the story is so unclear and is actually four interweaving stories told in chaotic order, which helps with the whole mystical tone but I did not get 90% of what the wiki says. It seems generally that there is a woman named Rose, who fell in love, but the guy chose her sister and Rose wanted to get revenge, and then Rose took a picture of her ghost, and then there was a young woman who bought a camera from a witchy lady who also had a sister named Rose who died and was this the camera that Rose used to take the ghost picture?? And then there was a family named Usher in the story (based on the Poe story apparently) and the woman lost her daughter, and then the daughter’s daughter too but I think that daughter was the one who became the starchild? and then the sister was also Rose’s lover in another incarnation and even though it seemed to take place a few 100 years ago someone got pushed on a train platform? When did trains start? ALSO at some point Rose meets The Bear, who wants to help her with her revenge maybe? So The Bear starts Rose (I think) off on a new scavenger hunt of four items to give the Into the Woods “the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, the slipper as pure as gold” list a run for its money: the bear requests 1) one pot of honey (naturally), 2) one piece of stardust (not suuure how to acquire that but okay) 3) one secret baptism (wat), and 4) a photo of a ghost (oh). It’s just the eensiest bit harder that Sondheim’s but you gotta hand it to the bear, that’s some f-ing list. (I remembered this because I loved its ridiculousness.) I actually cracked up at ‘one secret baptism’; I just wanted to shout ‘FUCK THAT IS SO DAVE. SO. DAVE.’
Oh and also there’s like a scene with Thelonius Monk, or maybe his ghost. Fork me I have no idea what was happening, but it doesn’t really matter what the details are, just that you feel the essence of it through the music, often haunting, sometimes fun, almost always interesting. And the cast of four definitely conveyed the desired eccentric, eerie, provoking essence beautifully. The two women, Carly Bawden and Maimuna Memon, carry the show with their incredible vocal talents and versatility, while the two men, Niccolo Curradi and Zubin Varla (the latter of whom is almost ready to join our list of Jenna Russell, Imelda Staunton, and Michael Ball for Actors Who Seem to be Cast in Everything (except he has actually been well cast whenever we’ve seen him)) provide strong support. All four have moments of brilliance and even hilarity, all while playing numerous instruments and ever-changing characters. They also hand out shaker eggs and serve several types of whiskey to most of the audience (though not to us; I don’t even drink and I was upset at not getting anything) and ask people to join them for the finale, which was cute but distracted from the power of it. The astonishingly gorgeous and moving a cappella quartet that I believe ends Side 3 should have been the finale.
So, whatever’s going on in this story is super confusing but that’s kind of the point; you shouldn’t have full clarity when talking about ghosts. It helped achieve the right vibe to be so nebulous, since the focus is and should be on what the music makes you feel. And they definitely succeed on that front.
INFORMATION
A pre-show informational email said the show was about 90 minutes with no interval but it was 100 minutes. Given that there were 4 ‘sides’ of the ‘album’ and not 2, this show really would have benefited from an interval. I realize it’s still short for an interval but it would really work here. Also it felt much longer, which is a disservice to the show. (ALSO – it should just be 3 sides. The audience expects there to be 2 sides, so much so that when they announced “Side 3, Track 1” there was a bit of a giggle. It totally flows with the whole Ghosty Weirdness to have 3 sides because that’s a little odd. The 4th side was so short anyway and like, too conventional since it completes the set. Don’t complete the set! Let it be weird!)
Sit in the front row if you want to be involved/get whiskey. Sit in our seats (B13 and B14) if you don’t want ANYTHING AT ALL. I’m not mad. (But I was hundo p that I had booked aisle seats, so I was shocked SHOCKED to find that our seats were smack dab in the center of a long row. Luckily, the ‘stalls’ in the round is only 3 rows, and there’s a big gap between B and C so I hopped over at the end to beat the rush to the bathroom because the toilets are FAR (downstairs and on the far side of the restaurant, which blows).
Aside from the toilet sitch, this new theatre is super lovely. I can’t wait to see more shows use this space in interesting ways. (Apparently the balcony section spins. INTO IT.)
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The 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.
“Pippin” On Broadway Does More Than Magic
If your first introduction to the classic musical “Pippin” was a high school production, as mine was, then you probably have no desire to see it again. I know that’s how most people who saw our subpar production felt, and it’s also how I felt for a while, before I listened to the recording and learned what a spellbinding and deep show this is. If you haven’t had your opinion changed yet, man alive you need to high-step it to Broadway ASAP and get your mind blown. Because the current revival of the Stephen Schwartz/Bob Fosse is truly producing magic far beyond what I could have hoped for. With Diane Paulus’s concise direction and inspired reimagination in a circus setting, the show is more enjoyable and more entertaining than ever.
“Pippin” is a weird show. Let’s just get that out right off the bat. Honestly, when I was IN it I had no idea what was happening. The show follows the post-academic trials and tribulations of the main character, Pippin (played by the adorable Matthew James Thomas), as he tries to find fulfillment upon entering the real world. That’s totally the shared human experience in the first world, right? Well, Pippin is also the son and heir of King Charlemagne. Yeah, it’s like the Middle Ages and these two characters are based on real people (at least in name). But historical accuracy is thankfully tossed aside. Our hero is led by the Leading Player (Tony-winner Patina Miller all Fosseed up) of a troupe through various shenanigans, both trifling and tragic, in his quest for happiness.
“Pippin” is a weird show. Let’s just get that out right off the bat. Honestly, when I was IN it I had no idea what was happening. The show follows the post-academic trials and tribulations of the main character, Pippin (played by the adorable Matthew James Thomas), as he tries to find fulfillment upon entering the real world. That’s totally the shared human experience in the first world, right? Well, Pippin is also the son and heir of King Charlemagne. Yeah, it’s like the Middle Ages and these two characters are based on real people (at least in name). But historical accuracy is thankfully tossed aside. Our hero is led by the Leading Player (Tony-winner Patina Miller all Fosseed up) of a troupe through various shenanigans, both trifling and tragic, in his quest for happiness.
As a high school student, I didn’t really give the plot much thought; I was too busy trying not to forget blocking and make a fool of myself. But the Broadway production clarifies all of the issues that we kind of glossed over. The troupe of players finally makes sense, because Pippin is an actor in the show as well, a member of the circus troupe presenting the story of Pippin for its audience. We learn in the beginning of the show that the actor playing the character Pippin in the production-within-the-show is playing the role for the very first time, allowing for some humorous and telling missteps and changes throughout the show. He has some trouble remembering cues and, more importantly, some trouble following the demands of the increasingly scary Leading Player. To help Pipster find his calling, she leads him to war, to sex, to murder, to the throne, and to a simple country life with a fine woman (Catherine, played by Rachel Bay Jones), which his script says he’s supposed to leave in order to achieve one final, blazing moment of glory, a suicidal idealization that the disturbing Leading Player and her minions crave. But the actress playing Catherine has trouble following the script as well, and the two actors thwart their troupe in favor of a semblance of happiness together. It’s a remarkably complex book that I never fully appreciated until this production.
Matthew James Thomas, Pippin
Matthew James Thomas is a lovely Pippin, and Patina Miller – fantastic, charming and yet totally frightening – is sensational as the Leading Player. But the supporting players steal every scene. Terrance Mann as Charlemagne is a riot, landing more jokes that a normal person would find within his lines and evoking the proper balance between powerful monster and witless kook. Mann’s real-life wife, Charlotte d’Amboise, plays Charlemagne’s conniving, evil wife Fastrada, determined to make her son Lewis the next king, even if it means manipulating her husband and her stepson (Pippin) into terrible deeds, including murder. Fastrada also has the most unbelievable costume changes I’ve seen since “Cinderella”, accomplished literally in seconds with no possible explanation (magic).
As Pippin’s hilariously inappropriate grandmother Berthe, Tovah Feldshuh gets tons of laughs, gasps, and people to sing along with her. I saw one of her first performances after taking over the role from Andrea Martin. She was wonderful, but I can’t help regretting that I didn’t see the much more vivacious comic Martin in her Tony-winning turn. Though Berthe’s onstage time is short, it’s an incredibly physically demanding role (in this high-flying production), especially for an older person, so Martin’s short stint is understood. And Feldshuh’s take is very impressive, especially her trapeze skills. You won’t believe what she is capable of at age 63, and it will probably make you feel bad about your inferior biceps.
As Pippin’s hilariously inappropriate grandmother Berthe, Tovah Feldshuh gets tons of laughs, gasps, and people to sing along with her. I saw one of her first performances after taking over the role from Andrea Martin. She was wonderful, but I can’t help regretting that I didn’t see the much more vivacious comic Martin in her Tony-winning turn. Though Berthe’s onstage time is short, it’s an incredibly physically demanding role (in this high-flying production), especially for an older person, so Martin’s short stint is understood. And Feldshuh’s take is very impressive, especially her trapeze skills. You won’t believe what she is capable of at age 63, and it will probably make you feel bad about your inferior biceps.
Rachel Bay Jones
But my favorite supporting player by far was Rachel Bay Jones as Catherine. This is usually such a thankless role, but she brought it to new life with exceedingly smart timing, varied but meaningful voices, and a heightened clarity with which she and Patina, as her character’s director, make their disagreements about the script known. She deepened Catherine into a complex player rather than the humdrum, nice lady usually seen. And she absolutely killllled every line. She was hysterical. I really was in shock at how funny she made the role, and how heartbreaking at the same time. I want to see it again primarily because of her.
Well, I also want to see it again in large part because of the acrobatics. They are ASTOUNDING. Coming to Broadway mostly from the French acrobatic troupe Les 7 Doigts De La Main, the acrobats in the ensemble are constantly performing the most incredible gymnastic acts left and right that will leave you breathless. I gasped several times, and the woman next to me often exclaimed “No!! Ahh!!” as she watched them do what human bodies should not be able to do. They are truly magical.
Speaking of magic, there’s a reason the opening number is called “Magic To Do”. Crazy illusions (not tricks; tricks are something whores do for money) pepper the entire show, from two-second costume changes to a magic box that several characters somehow emerge from to an Act I wonder involving Charlemagne’s body that I still cannot stop wondering about. How on earth did they accomplish these feats?!
“Pippin” in its current incarnation is one of the most magical productions I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen everything). The excellent score by Stephen Schwartz is sung to perfection. I only had a few issues with this show. Firstly, in the chorus of “Glory”, the ensemble sings “Shout it out, from the highest tower, shout it out, in the darkest hour”…but they whisper it most of the time! It’s like reading the word of a color in a different color. Like YELLOW. See? It messes with your mind! Shout it out! Also, for some reason “War is a Science”, Charlemagne’s big number, wasn’t as much fun as it should have been. Despite the increasingly fast pace (to the point where it’s so fast you can’t understand the words), it didn’t feel nearly as boisterous as it should have.
Honestly, those are the only gripes I had with this production. It was incredible, and if you have the chance to see it, SEE IT. And take me, because I need to see it as many times as possible. It’s that good.
Well, I also want to see it again in large part because of the acrobatics. They are ASTOUNDING. Coming to Broadway mostly from the French acrobatic troupe Les 7 Doigts De La Main, the acrobats in the ensemble are constantly performing the most incredible gymnastic acts left and right that will leave you breathless. I gasped several times, and the woman next to me often exclaimed “No!! Ahh!!” as she watched them do what human bodies should not be able to do. They are truly magical.
Speaking of magic, there’s a reason the opening number is called “Magic To Do”. Crazy illusions (not tricks; tricks are something whores do for money) pepper the entire show, from two-second costume changes to a magic box that several characters somehow emerge from to an Act I wonder involving Charlemagne’s body that I still cannot stop wondering about. How on earth did they accomplish these feats?!
“Pippin” in its current incarnation is one of the most magical productions I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen everything). The excellent score by Stephen Schwartz is sung to perfection. I only had a few issues with this show. Firstly, in the chorus of “Glory”, the ensemble sings “Shout it out, from the highest tower, shout it out, in the darkest hour”…but they whisper it most of the time! It’s like reading the word of a color in a different color. Like YELLOW. See? It messes with your mind! Shout it out! Also, for some reason “War is a Science”, Charlemagne’s big number, wasn’t as much fun as it should have been. Despite the increasingly fast pace (to the point where it’s so fast you can’t understand the words), it didn’t feel nearly as boisterous as it should have.
Honestly, those are the only gripes I had with this production. It was incredible, and if you have the chance to see it, SEE IT. And take me, because I need to see it as many times as possible. It’s that good.
