A Taste of Honey at Trafalgar Studios: Slice of Really, Really, Really Crappy Lifeby Randi / January 23, 2020Sugar, Butter, Fl-uck This Show is Amazing: Sara Bareilles Joins Waitress in London
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Waitress, again, because it’s the best but also because composer Sara Bareilles is playing Jenna until March 7! We went to her opening night and it’s time to rave.
OH, IT IS ON. One of the best musicals ever (I mean it; I know all the musicals and I will fight you on this) is now even more special. Grammy-winner (that’s right babies!) Sara Bareilles has joined the London production of Waitress, the musical she wrote, playing forlorn but super talented pie-making waitress Jenna, singing the songs how she meant them to be sung and being like ‘oh WHAT yeah that’s right’. And Sara, praise the lord, brought Broadway’s favorite boyfriend/lovable goof Gavin Creel over with her to play Jenna’s inappropes/super adorbs gynecologist Dr. Pomatter, to the delight of everyone who is conscious. Waitress is a strong show that’s absolute joyous heartbreaking and heartbuilding perfection no matter what, but having Bareilles herself play Jenna Hunterson is one of those Experiences that despite sky-high expectations more than lived up to them.
We’ve talked about Waitress before on this site, and if we know each other in real life you have definitely heard me preach about how wonderful this show is and how anyone who disagrees just like DOESN’T GET IT or DOESN’T HAVE THE RIGHT SET OF EMOTION RECEPTORS or WAS ON THEIR PHONE DESPITE SARA’S WONDERFUL PRE-SHOW SHUT-YOUR-PHONE-OFF SONG or anything else that lets me shout at people who disagree with me like a true g-d American. But to recap, Waitress is based on Adrienne Shelley’s 2007 movie about a Russian spy (no) who makes amazing pies but is les miserables. Jenna, our waitress, is stuck in a loveless and abusive marriage and then she gets pregnant and doesn’t want the baby and instead of calling me for help (just like last week’s show) she decides to begrudgingly have the baby and she has a pretty rocking affair with her super fantastic gyno and then she has the baby and it all works out (unlike last week’s show) and it’s beautiful and amazing and the score is sensational and the book (by Jessie Nelson) is hilarious and poignant and I LOVE IT.
We were front and center (well, side; aisles baby you know) for Sara’s official London debut, scared that her stans might be annoyingly vocal when they shouldn’t be but too excited to care much (and for the record the audience was surprisingly well behaved for London) (although I did tell one man to put his phone away when he was taking photos and he was like shocked that someone didn’t want a phone sticking up during a show, so). Every time this show begins and I hear the motif of ‘sugar, butter, flour’ start, I get chills. To hear it from SB herself made the chills more like convulsions. Her Jenna is everything you hope for. Her quiet moments in the gorgeous opener and in “Soft Place to Land” are moving and lovely, while the belted notes that everyone expects and discusses like it’s some kind of sport now were there and were incredible, but they were also there for a reason. You absolutely felt the emotion and meaning behind them. Her acting is pretty impressive too. In the first scene, there were a few moments that reminded you that she isn’t a trained actress, but as she got her footing she only improved, and there were even some line deliveries that absolutely slayed more than they have in the past (her perfectly timed ‘she could be gay’, omg).
And yes, there was an immediate standing ovation after her flawless “She Used to Be Mine”, that extraordinary song. Sometimes that sort of thing feels like pandering or like the standers just want to be able to say they were a part of that, and it’s not based in truth. But here, it felt like a show of hospitality and thanks, the perfect way to welcome Sara to the West End and recognize what she has created. If it happens every performance it might seem forced, but given how special and how rare it is to see a writer perform a role they composed, it’ll still be meaningful.
Now about that boy. Gavin Creel is one of the best, like ever, and he makes the not-too-big part of Dr. Pomatter feel like the meatiest musical theatre role. He is the reason for the word ‘adorkable’, not Zooey Deschanel, and his Pomatter was so goshdarn adorkable and charming that I felt like that gif of the little squeeing girl, you know with her little fists by her cheeks? That was me the whole time. He makes so much out of every moment and gesture and my god, it’s just a nonstop ball of endless awkwardness and goofiness and charm and that forking voice. I was nervous because Gavin and Sara are good friends and sometimes it’s hard for friends in real life to have romantic chemistry onstage (which I know because in a college show I had to pretend to be in love with my best friend’s boyfriend (now husband) and we were so uncomfortable that we won 3rd Most Awkward Onstage Couple that season) but they were quite convincing.
As for the rest of the cast, they were great. I believe this was also the first performance for Evelyn Hoskins’ Dawn, and she was super winning and the audience was fully behind her, and she will surely only grow and improve as she learns to control her projection while dealing with that adrenaline. Marisha Wallace is back in the production after a break from playing Becky, and thank goodness because her Becky, man, dayum. Her book scenes were much different this go round, much quieter and almost deadpan sometimes, which is not what you get from the usually ‘sassy’ Becky (it seemed like a purposeful approach to avoid that word). I don’t know if I like it better but it was interesting, and her “I Didn’t Plan It” was as mind-blowing as ever. I always get chills (I mean just the whole show, really) on the line “to open your eyes and look around/and seeee the skyyyy when you’re underground” and she forking nailed it.
The supporting men were great too. Joel Montague’s Ogie was new to me, and although he doesn’t have the comedic brilliance that Mr. Kenneth Ellen Parcell did last year, he has a much better voice (not hard to), and that part is so well written and constructed that I don’t think it’s possible to be performed poorly. And my goodness, I think Andrew Boyer’s Joe might be my favorite Joe yet, yeah even more than Headmaster Charleston (I know)! He was super grouchy but his grouchiness was so clearly underwritten with loneliness and heart that it really moved me. His crotchety interplay with Sara was so realistic and so spirited (they may have had the best acting chemistry on that stage) and their last moment shocked me with how striking and simple it was (more nuanced acting from Sara).
There were some noticeable differences with the show too. Earl (Tamlyn Henderson/Will Forte) seemed much more obviously abusive and horrible (though a good performance), almost like they are making it too easy to paint him as the villain. He’s definitely bad news but when he’s less physically abusive I think it makes for a more interesting dynamic and more educational for people who might not even realize how bad emotional abuse is. Also, everything felt slower than than before. This isn’t necessarily bad, since I love to be enveloped by the world of this show for as long as possible, but it was noticeably slower pacing. I also recognized the simple and lovely choreography more than usual and enjoyed it, especially the truly riveting moment where Jenna packs up a suitcase, puts her jacket on, and the cast takes her jacket off, all in the span of about 6 seconds of her imagining a new pie and running away. That was the most incredible moment of the night for me, proving that while brilliant star power and fabulous performances are welcome, this show is beautiful and strong no matter who’s in it.
INFORMATION
Sara and Gavin will be in the show until March 7.
After a 7:36 ish start, Act I ended at 8:45 and the show ended at 10:06. A few minutes longer than it should be, possibly due to the extended applause breaks and also the aforementioned pacing.
If you sit on house right/stage left, there’s a sign for LADIES at around row H or so, but that bathroom only has 3 stalls. It DOES NOT lead you to the giant main bathroom downstairs – for that, go past that Ladies sign and enter the house right doors that say BAR and then you’ll find it there and you’ll beat everyone else who exits the house and goes from the lobby YOU’RE WELCOME.
I did not even attempt stage dooring are you crazy I’m sure it’s a madhouse.
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“The King and I” Transfers to London: More like The Queen and I
It’s Theatre Thursday! We’re talking about “The King and I”, which is now playing in the West End after transferring from Broadway!
Seeing “The King and I” at Lincoln Center Theatre three years ago (I remember because it was my birthday) was a magical theatrical experience, one that felt majestic and classic, as well as classy. From the opening scene with that enormous boat gliding into the orchestra, to the last moving moments, I was enraptured with its perfect direction and flawless performances. With that Broadway production’s transfer to London, complete with its top two stars, Kelli O’Hara finally gets to show the West End what incredible talent looks/sounds like and Ken Watanabe keeps getting to make audiences laugh. But the production feels like the final moments of “Pippin” when compared to the Broadway incarnation – like when everything is stripped away to show what the stage would be like without magic. Sure the lights and costumes and music are all there, but it feels like the magic is missing. The lackluster feel is partly due to the theatre it’s in (the Palladium), partly due to a West End cast that just isn’t as top notch, and partly due to the wackiness of the source material being exposed in this new light.
Don’t get me (too) wrong: it’s still one of the better productions currently on the West End, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Broadway version. Something feels off, and the audience reaction (weird audience, btw) made me realize what it was: England is treating this show as if it were a pantomime. If you aren’t familiar, a panto is a beast native to England, a musical comedy extravaganza that is for families (i.e. little kids). Different from a musical that happens to be a comedy, a panto is more like commedia dell’arte (another thing I can’t stand) – silly and slapstick, with sight gags and over the top performances. And a big part of it is audience reaction – they cheer, they boo the bad guys, they hiss, they oooh at romance, they shout “he’s behind you!”. I avoid pantos because they are super annoying and I don’t want to explode at children. God just thinking about pantos is giving me a skin rash all of a sudden. My blood boils at the thought that someone might make me go to one. So you can see it’s a big problem with interpretation that London audiences are treating “The King and I”, this golden age classic, even a little bit like they treat pantos.
And you can’t really blame the audiences for reacting like they’re at one (well you can, and I will, but it’s a little understandable) because the show itself is kind of weird. I never noticed it before, and I’m not sure why it was so glaring now, especially since the director (Barlett Sher) is the same as on Broadway. Maybe it takes a familiarity with the source material to finally get to that point where you can focus on just how strange it is. But the starkness with how this is presented – with none of the glitz or grandeur or sumptuousness of the previous production – exposes the problems of the book.
“The King and I” tells the story of Anna Leonowens, real life English lady who traveled to Siam to serve as a schoolteacher to the children of King Mongkut in the 1860s. One of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most beloved works, the show includes familiar song after familiar song, and is so well known for a reason. The score is gorgeous and for the most part sounds great here. But the book falls flat. Okay so Anna and her son (will he ever not be annoying?) arrive in Siam and ask the King’s men where her house is. They tell her she is to stay at the palace. But the King had promised her her own house! She needs privacy! No one argues with the King (not YET), so she stays in the palace while she waits to talk to him about his promise. Um then in the next line we learn that more than a YEAR has gone by, and she’s still waiting but she loves the kids and loves teaching them and so you’re like well fun I guess I don’t mind too much that we made a huge time jump and wow we’re going to keep on making them. Discussion about her house seems to be like most of the first act. I get that it’s one aspect chosen to be representative of the communication barriers and the fact that independent women were foreign to this culture, but it seems like a lame thing to focus on. The King is always frustrated with this woman who keeps combating him at every turn, and Ken wins the audience over with his song “Puzzlement” even though you can’t really understand what he’s saying when it’s sooo fast. It’s honestly more difficult to understand than it was before but eh he’s such a good actor and he’s so winning in most of his book scenes.
Then we watch the two lovers, Lun Tha (Dean-John Wilson, in freaking everything it seems) and Tuptim (Na-Young Jeon) sing about how much they love each other but how they can only meet in the shadows because, well, Lun Tha brought Tuptim over from Burma as a gift to the King, so she is like one of his slave-wives now. Why they didn’t just flee before he presented her as a gift to the king is beyond me. Also what is he still doing in town years after delivering her? They both sing the roles decently, although both cracked a few times. Their voices might not be 100% fitted to these parts. I think Jeon’s upper register is still a little too weak for 8 shows a week and not to be mean but I missed Ashley Park’s incredible voice.
Anna’s relationship with the King stresses you out most of the time, because she isn’t afraid to speak her mind but he’s the King and is like no one fights with me! Et cetera! Et cetera! Oh so in the beginning Anna uses the phrase ‘et cetera’ and the King is like WHAT IS THIS YOU SAY and she explains what it means and so then EVERY SINGLE FUCKING LINE from then on the King uses it and for the first few times it’s funny but then at the 10th time it is infuriating and by the 90th time he says it you are literally breathing fire. It is so annoying Hammerstein! Literally my least favorite decision Hams has ever made.
Anna also has a very tense relationship with his Wife #1, Lady Thiang (Naoko Mori) and strives to win her over even though Lady Thiang is intermittently jealous and encouraging Anna and the King to become closer. It’s never comprehensible why she would want that. Mori is fine as Thiang, but she doesn’t bring anything more to the role than how it is written. Which is fine – no one ever really can bring more to what’s written simply by using their acting and singing skills. No one except Ruthie Ann Miles, that is, the Lady Thiang from Broadway who won the Tony for her performance. She was supposed to be in this production – and the production itself refuses to say that she isn’t in it even though, well, she’s not (she’s still in the programme and the website and everything but she isn’t in it) – but she had to take time to herself due to her personal tragedy. It was an honor to see her performance on Broadway, and seeing this show again made me realize just how astonishing she is, turning what is usually just a whatever role into a fully fleshed out character whose motivations were clear and understandable for the first time.
So the big drama of Act II is that an English diplomat is going to visit from Singapore and bring other hoity Englishmen, and the Siamese have to use this visit to convince them how great they are SO THE ENGLISH DON’T TAKE THEM OVER. Yeah so England was threatening to take over Siam as a protectorate, and everyone, literally everyone, just accepts that the burden is on the Siamese to prove that they aren’t barbarians and so the British, um, shouldn’t take them over. It’s so f-ing weird, and no one even mentions the thought that decent people first have, which is, why is it on them to convince the whites that they are decent people so the whites don’t steal their land? If you were unfamiliar with the show, you would surely expect that Anna’s whole purpose as an intermediary between the two parties would be to take the opportunity to say ‘hey wait a minute old British friends. These people shouldn’t have to prove to you that they are worthy of KEEPING THEIR COUNTRY AND FREEDOM! And isn’t it patently obvious that the people threatening to takeover another land and their inhabitants would be the real barbarians?’ No, no one says any of this. They have to prove that they are western-friendly, and that’s that. I get that it’s old-fashioned but surely people have always been able to see that taking over other lands is wrong? no?
So they prepare for this important visit by dressing everyone in Western garb and singing the moooost racist song. But it works out because Tuptim reads her play based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin, called ‘Small House of Uncle Thomas’, and they do a TWENTY MINUTE BALLET ABOUT IT and honestly it’s the best most amazing thing to have in a big musical because WHAAAT. It’s so f-ing random and amazing and we’ve been singing “Tricky little Topsy!” all day err day. SO RANDOM. Well it’s not too random, the story at least, because Tuptim is a slave and she’s narrating a play directly at the King about how bad slavery is and how evil King Simon of Legree (the best) was to poor Eliza (run Eliza run! run Eliza run! erma it’s amazing). But having this crazy 20 minute ballet about it is pretty damn ballsy to put in the middle of a musical and it’s so good. I’m obsessed. I love the choreography of this ballet, with Eliza running away by hopping on one foot. Anyway Buddha saves Eliza and then the lovers meet again and discuss how Anna always helped them meet by going out in the courtyard or whatever with them and you’re like huh we never saw that, that’s weird to just mention like that instead of ever showing I mean we’ve had three hours to do so. They decide to run away. And then Anna and the King have a beautiful dance (“Shall We Dance”) and seem to be friends and there’s also a weird spark there and you’re like holy crap that’s powerful but that’s kind of not the show I want to see and then the guards bring in Tuptim who escaped and they’re like we’re gonna kill her now and Anna is like no you’re a barbarian and everyone cries and Anna decides to leave Siam for good (but the veg fest…) but then the King has heart sadness and is dying from Anna calling him a barbarian so Anna decides to stay. What. Et cetera.
The book is kind of frustrating, as you could tell from my repeated stabbing of the capslock key, and the pacing feels off. At least a good twenty minutes could have and should have been cut (but not my Uncle Tom ballet! Never!). I don’t remember this show ever feeling as long, and unnecessarily so. It is a satisfactory production, but it isn’t the magical splendor I remember. Well, except for the performance of our Anna Leonowens. As Miss Anna, O’Hara’s performance seems like it has been marinating for the past three years because it’s even more nuanced, touching, and gorgeous than it was before – and she deservedly won a Tony for it before. I am not surprised, because she is the best working soprano in musical theatre today, but I didn’t even realize how much more realized her performance could be. It’s a marvel and it’s worth sitting through the three hours of sometimes-nonsense to witness her thrilling performance. Her “Hello Young Lovers” is the best sung moment I’ve ever heard in this city. Yep I said it and I will fight you on that. Truly, as much as I’m complaining about this production, and as horrible as the audience was, I will absolutely be returning to watch Kelli perform. She’s a triumph.
INFORMATION
The Palladium Theatre is a real POS. The toilets are near the entrance, on the other side of the huge lobby and bar area. And even though there are so many hallways and rooms and corners, everything feels squashed together. It’s a real claustrophobic place, outside the actual auditorium. The auditorium is at least airier, but it’s the wrong theatre from this show. I think it benefits from a thrust stage and this kind of shirty proscenium stage does nothing for this production.
AUDIENCE
Just expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed. Well you will be disappointed, in humanity, but you won’t be surprised. Aside from the panto reactions (oh I forgot, they also enjoyed clapping along to the music), we also had parents and children just flat-out talking, loudly, to each other the whole time. One 10-year-old ish girl in our row was having the worst time, and she kept asking her mother if they could leave. Instead of taking her out, which she should have done, the mother kept fishing around her bags to give her kid more and more food – all wrapped in the noisiest plastic you could imagine. Literally without even a moment’s pause, this happened for three straight hours. Aside from that kid, this was a different situation in that most of the trouble came from older people, when usually people our age are the worst. There was one older lady who was playing with paper the whole time, like balling it up, and it was actually so loud and she had no idea because she couldn’t really hear anyway. Omg there’s that skin rash.
STAGE DOOR
Speaking of how much of a POS this theatre is, the security staff at stage door had NOOO idea what was happening. After everyone had lined up, the guards then brought out barriers and made everyone re-line up behind them. Why weren’t they out at the start of things, she asks not expecting anyone to ever have a good enough answer. Right away Ken came out, skipped the beginning of the line of course, where I was, signed a few programs, and left. Then the guards announced that that was it. They went through all that trouble just for Ken? Ughh I was so upset that no one else was coming out. The guards broke down the barriers and told everyone to go home. I waited a minute just to be sure, and literally one minute later the entire cast came out. What the actual fuck. These guards were SO DUMB. But I got to freak out Kelli again as I always do so that was fun/humiliating. Et cetera.
And you can’t really blame the audiences for reacting like they’re at one (well you can, and I will, but it’s a little understandable) because the show itself is kind of weird. I never noticed it before, and I’m not sure why it was so glaring now, especially since the director (Barlett Sher) is the same as on Broadway. Maybe it takes a familiarity with the source material to finally get to that point where you can focus on just how strange it is. But the starkness with how this is presented – with none of the glitz or grandeur or sumptuousness of the previous production – exposes the problems of the book.
“The King and I” tells the story of Anna Leonowens, real life English lady who traveled to Siam to serve as a schoolteacher to the children of King Mongkut in the 1860s. One of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most beloved works, the show includes familiar song after familiar song, and is so well known for a reason. The score is gorgeous and for the most part sounds great here. But the book falls flat. Okay so Anna and her son (will he ever not be annoying?) arrive in Siam and ask the King’s men where her house is. They tell her she is to stay at the palace. But the King had promised her her own house! She needs privacy! No one argues with the King (not YET), so she stays in the palace while she waits to talk to him about his promise. Um then in the next line we learn that more than a YEAR has gone by, and she’s still waiting but she loves the kids and loves teaching them and so you’re like well fun I guess I don’t mind too much that we made a huge time jump and wow we’re going to keep on making them. Discussion about her house seems to be like most of the first act. I get that it’s one aspect chosen to be representative of the communication barriers and the fact that independent women were foreign to this culture, but it seems like a lame thing to focus on. The King is always frustrated with this woman who keeps combating him at every turn, and Ken wins the audience over with his song “Puzzlement” even though you can’t really understand what he’s saying when it’s sooo fast. It’s honestly more difficult to understand than it was before but eh he’s such a good actor and he’s so winning in most of his book scenes.
Then we watch the two lovers, Lun Tha (Dean-John Wilson, in freaking everything it seems) and Tuptim (Na-Young Jeon) sing about how much they love each other but how they can only meet in the shadows because, well, Lun Tha brought Tuptim over from Burma as a gift to the King, so she is like one of his slave-wives now. Why they didn’t just flee before he presented her as a gift to the king is beyond me. Also what is he still doing in town years after delivering her? They both sing the roles decently, although both cracked a few times. Their voices might not be 100% fitted to these parts. I think Jeon’s upper register is still a little too weak for 8 shows a week and not to be mean but I missed Ashley Park’s incredible voice.
Anna’s relationship with the King stresses you out most of the time, because she isn’t afraid to speak her mind but he’s the King and is like no one fights with me! Et cetera! Et cetera! Oh so in the beginning Anna uses the phrase ‘et cetera’ and the King is like WHAT IS THIS YOU SAY and she explains what it means and so then EVERY SINGLE FUCKING LINE from then on the King uses it and for the first few times it’s funny but then at the 10th time it is infuriating and by the 90th time he says it you are literally breathing fire. It is so annoying Hammerstein! Literally my least favorite decision Hams has ever made.
Anna also has a very tense relationship with his Wife #1, Lady Thiang (Naoko Mori) and strives to win her over even though Lady Thiang is intermittently jealous and encouraging Anna and the King to become closer. It’s never comprehensible why she would want that. Mori is fine as Thiang, but she doesn’t bring anything more to the role than how it is written. Which is fine – no one ever really can bring more to what’s written simply by using their acting and singing skills. No one except Ruthie Ann Miles, that is, the Lady Thiang from Broadway who won the Tony for her performance. She was supposed to be in this production – and the production itself refuses to say that she isn’t in it even though, well, she’s not (she’s still in the programme and the website and everything but she isn’t in it) – but she had to take time to herself due to her personal tragedy. It was an honor to see her performance on Broadway, and seeing this show again made me realize just how astonishing she is, turning what is usually just a whatever role into a fully fleshed out character whose motivations were clear and understandable for the first time.
So the big drama of Act II is that an English diplomat is going to visit from Singapore and bring other hoity Englishmen, and the Siamese have to use this visit to convince them how great they are SO THE ENGLISH DON’T TAKE THEM OVER. Yeah so England was threatening to take over Siam as a protectorate, and everyone, literally everyone, just accepts that the burden is on the Siamese to prove that they aren’t barbarians and so the British, um, shouldn’t take them over. It’s so f-ing weird, and no one even mentions the thought that decent people first have, which is, why is it on them to convince the whites that they are decent people so the whites don’t steal their land? If you were unfamiliar with the show, you would surely expect that Anna’s whole purpose as an intermediary between the two parties would be to take the opportunity to say ‘hey wait a minute old British friends. These people shouldn’t have to prove to you that they are worthy of KEEPING THEIR COUNTRY AND FREEDOM! And isn’t it patently obvious that the people threatening to takeover another land and their inhabitants would be the real barbarians?’ No, no one says any of this. They have to prove that they are western-friendly, and that’s that. I get that it’s old-fashioned but surely people have always been able to see that taking over other lands is wrong? no?
So they prepare for this important visit by dressing everyone in Western garb and singing the moooost racist song. But it works out because Tuptim reads her play based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin, called ‘Small House of Uncle Thomas’, and they do a TWENTY MINUTE BALLET ABOUT IT and honestly it’s the best most amazing thing to have in a big musical because WHAAAT. It’s so f-ing random and amazing and we’ve been singing “Tricky little Topsy!” all day err day. SO RANDOM. Well it’s not too random, the story at least, because Tuptim is a slave and she’s narrating a play directly at the King about how bad slavery is and how evil King Simon of Legree (the best) was to poor Eliza (run Eliza run! run Eliza run! erma it’s amazing). But having this crazy 20 minute ballet about it is pretty damn ballsy to put in the middle of a musical and it’s so good. I’m obsessed. I love the choreography of this ballet, with Eliza running away by hopping on one foot. Anyway Buddha saves Eliza and then the lovers meet again and discuss how Anna always helped them meet by going out in the courtyard or whatever with them and you’re like huh we never saw that, that’s weird to just mention like that instead of ever showing I mean we’ve had three hours to do so. They decide to run away. And then Anna and the King have a beautiful dance (“Shall We Dance”) and seem to be friends and there’s also a weird spark there and you’re like holy crap that’s powerful but that’s kind of not the show I want to see and then the guards bring in Tuptim who escaped and they’re like we’re gonna kill her now and Anna is like no you’re a barbarian and everyone cries and Anna decides to leave Siam for good (but the veg fest…) but then the King has heart sadness and is dying from Anna calling him a barbarian so Anna decides to stay. What. Et cetera.
The book is kind of frustrating, as you could tell from my repeated stabbing of the capslock key, and the pacing feels off. At least a good twenty minutes could have and should have been cut (but not my Uncle Tom ballet! Never!). I don’t remember this show ever feeling as long, and unnecessarily so. It is a satisfactory production, but it isn’t the magical splendor I remember. Well, except for the performance of our Anna Leonowens. As Miss Anna, O’Hara’s performance seems like it has been marinating for the past three years because it’s even more nuanced, touching, and gorgeous than it was before – and she deservedly won a Tony for it before. I am not surprised, because she is the best working soprano in musical theatre today, but I didn’t even realize how much more realized her performance could be. It’s a marvel and it’s worth sitting through the three hours of sometimes-nonsense to witness her thrilling performance. Her “Hello Young Lovers” is the best sung moment I’ve ever heard in this city. Yep I said it and I will fight you on that. Truly, as much as I’m complaining about this production, and as horrible as the audience was, I will absolutely be returning to watch Kelli perform. She’s a triumph.
INFORMATION
The Palladium Theatre is a real POS. The toilets are near the entrance, on the other side of the huge lobby and bar area. And even though there are so many hallways and rooms and corners, everything feels squashed together. It’s a real claustrophobic place, outside the actual auditorium. The auditorium is at least airier, but it’s the wrong theatre from this show. I think it benefits from a thrust stage and this kind of shirty proscenium stage does nothing for this production.
AUDIENCE
Just expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed. Well you will be disappointed, in humanity, but you won’t be surprised. Aside from the panto reactions (oh I forgot, they also enjoyed clapping along to the music), we also had parents and children just flat-out talking, loudly, to each other the whole time. One 10-year-old ish girl in our row was having the worst time, and she kept asking her mother if they could leave. Instead of taking her out, which she should have done, the mother kept fishing around her bags to give her kid more and more food – all wrapped in the noisiest plastic you could imagine. Literally without even a moment’s pause, this happened for three straight hours. Aside from that kid, this was a different situation in that most of the trouble came from older people, when usually people our age are the worst. There was one older lady who was playing with paper the whole time, like balling it up, and it was actually so loud and she had no idea because she couldn’t really hear anyway. Omg there’s that skin rash.
STAGE DOOR
Speaking of how much of a POS this theatre is, the security staff at stage door had NOOO idea what was happening. After everyone had lined up, the guards then brought out barriers and made everyone re-line up behind them. Why weren’t they out at the start of things, she asks not expecting anyone to ever have a good enough answer. Right away Ken came out, skipped the beginning of the line of course, where I was, signed a few programs, and left. Then the guards announced that that was it. They went through all that trouble just for Ken? Ughh I was so upset that no one else was coming out. The guards broke down the barriers and told everyone to go home. I waited a minute just to be sure, and literally one minute later the entire cast came out. What the actual fuck. These guards were SO DUMB. But I got to freak out Kelli again as I always do so that was fun/humiliating. Et cetera.
London’s In the Height of the Storm: Jonathan Pryce & Eileen Atkins Break Your Hearts
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is In the Height of the Storm, which plays Wyndham’s Theatre in London until December 1.
Although a play about two old white married people and their mysterious behavior and all their emotions is like Play 101 material, Florian Zeller’s play In the Height of the Storm feels exciting and surprisingly original. This is because the characters are so specific and so fascinating while the truth about their lives (or deaths) is so perplexing. Ostensibly a family drama, this play feels more like a mystery, as things you accepted as fact quickly get turned on their heads, and, more critically, people you accepted as alive or dead seem the opposite.
Although a play about two old white married people and their mysterious behavior and all their emotions is like Play 101 material, Florian Zeller’s play In the Height of the Storm feels exciting and surprisingly original. This is because the characters are so specific and so fascinating while the truth about their lives (or deaths) is so perplexing. Ostensibly a family drama, this play feels more like a mystery, as things you accepted as fact quickly get turned on their heads, and, more critically, people you accepted as alive or dead seem the opposite.
I’m not going to lie – the main reason I saw this new play was to see if the world would explode when two actors with the same exact face do a play together. Seriously look at this picture:
I mean come on! I’m a fan of Jonathan Pryce (who isn’t? even though his playing the og Engineer is a hilarious case study in old-fashioned racism and ‘it was a product of the era!’ kinds of excuses (it’s true though)), but the first thing I proclaimed when I saw the announcement of this production was not “Hey I love Jonathan Pryce!” or “Hey I wanna see him onstage again!” but “WOW these two actors have THE SAME FACE. Is that what it’s about??” Reader, that is not what it’s about.
ITHOTS (omg it’s like a British baby trying to say ‘it hurts’ omg cutest), instead, is about a family in mourning. We meet the ordinary, average family early in the grieving process. There’s Andre (Pryce), the elderly patriarch who stares out the window for time on end as he loses a firm grip on his mind; there’s Madeleine (Dame Eileen Atkins I mean hello cast), his beloved wife who, in true British old lady form, is stern and austere but hilariously so (as long as she’s not your mum); and there’s the two grown daughters, Anne (Amanda Drew) the elder seemingly always forced by her sister’s immaturity (and her own comfort in the role) to be the more responsible one, and Elise (Anna Madeley), pregnant and single but completely unfussed about it.
The only problem is, we don’t know who they’re grieving, and neither does Andre. When we meet Andre and his one daughter, it’s clear that Andre’s beloved Madeleine has passed and the girls came in for the funeral. Friends are sending flowers constantly (so we hear – weird that there were none on set except the one bouquet we see delivered) and the pain and sadness is fresh. Except…a minute after the audience figures out who must have died, Madeleine herself waltzes in, strong and full of life, and changes the narrative we thought we figured out. Thank goodness, I guess? Andre and Madeleine seem fine and happy as they talk about lunch and share old stories.
Those stories are more than they initially seem, however. Names of old friends or people who were in the news come back later to add to the mystery of what’s real and what’s not. Or, considering Andre’s mental capacities, what’s real and what’s a product of his mind trying to deal with reality when it has trouble distinguishing between it and memory, and possibly fantasy. And considering how quickly we go from thinking “Oh it’s Madeleine who is dead…no wait both of these same-facers are alive?” to “no waiiiit, Andre is the one who died!”, we are quickly and effectively made to feel like Andre, or anyone suffering with loss of mental acuity. Efficiently, with just a few words or movements, the play flips existence as we know it on its head. The facts of the story remained incessantly vague and always changing, so that you couldn’t be sure of anything. But the feelings and emotions of the characters rang true, consistently clear.
Just as quickly as your guess as to who they’re mourning changes, so do actual characters sometimes. Andre’s confusion as to what’s going on becomes much more poignant when it seems as if he’s the one who’s died, and suddenly no one can hear him but us. And, when Madeleine meets a woman in the market who gives her condolences for Andre’s passing, the two meet for tea and discuss how this mysterious woman actually knew Andre, and how well. The conversation quickly turns from polite to disrespectful and almost vulgar. But then the same woman is having her tea with Andre and we’re mourning Madeleine, and her name is different, recalling one of the stories the couple had lightheartedly shared earlier. And just when you find it frustrating that you can’t get a handle on what’s real and what’s happening, one of the characters says something brilliant that breaks your heart, a musing on how sometimes you can’t tell the different between what’s really happening and what you are just remembering, or wanting to remember.
Suddenly, everything mysterious and confusing about this play makes sense. You’re left in wonderment that almost nothing said on that stage was certain, we’re not sure what if anything was facts, yet what the characters were feeling was what was real and concrete. And it feels entirely accurate that the person whose mind was sharing all the action with us would be confusing reality and memory and maybe even false memories, or things they wanted to have happened but never would. Regardless of what facts were real, the heartbreak was real and undeniable. It’s a powerful play that lets you connect so whole-heartedly with characters and situations even when they are this obscured, because the simplest things, like love and pain, are the easiest to understand.
INFORMATION
In the Height of the Storm plays the Wyndham’s Theatre until December 1. The theatre royalty starring in the show is scheduled to play all performances.
The show runs 90 minutes with no interval.
$25 rush tickets are easy to obtain via the TodayTix app, and at least from my experience the rush tickets will be in the front row (front row dead center if you get the 4th-from-last ticket available).
ITHOTS (omg it’s like a British baby trying to say ‘it hurts’ omg cutest), instead, is about a family in mourning. We meet the ordinary, average family early in the grieving process. There’s Andre (Pryce), the elderly patriarch who stares out the window for time on end as he loses a firm grip on his mind; there’s Madeleine (Dame Eileen Atkins I mean hello cast), his beloved wife who, in true British old lady form, is stern and austere but hilariously so (as long as she’s not your mum); and there’s the two grown daughters, Anne (Amanda Drew) the elder seemingly always forced by her sister’s immaturity (and her own comfort in the role) to be the more responsible one, and Elise (Anna Madeley), pregnant and single but completely unfussed about it.
The only problem is, we don’t know who they’re grieving, and neither does Andre. When we meet Andre and his one daughter, it’s clear that Andre’s beloved Madeleine has passed and the girls came in for the funeral. Friends are sending flowers constantly (so we hear – weird that there were none on set except the one bouquet we see delivered) and the pain and sadness is fresh. Except…a minute after the audience figures out who must have died, Madeleine herself waltzes in, strong and full of life, and changes the narrative we thought we figured out. Thank goodness, I guess? Andre and Madeleine seem fine and happy as they talk about lunch and share old stories.
Those stories are more than they initially seem, however. Names of old friends or people who were in the news come back later to add to the mystery of what’s real and what’s not. Or, considering Andre’s mental capacities, what’s real and what’s a product of his mind trying to deal with reality when it has trouble distinguishing between it and memory, and possibly fantasy. And considering how quickly we go from thinking “Oh it’s Madeleine who is dead…no wait both of these same-facers are alive?” to “no waiiiit, Andre is the one who died!”, we are quickly and effectively made to feel like Andre, or anyone suffering with loss of mental acuity. Efficiently, with just a few words or movements, the play flips existence as we know it on its head. The facts of the story remained incessantly vague and always changing, so that you couldn’t be sure of anything. But the feelings and emotions of the characters rang true, consistently clear.
Just as quickly as your guess as to who they’re mourning changes, so do actual characters sometimes. Andre’s confusion as to what’s going on becomes much more poignant when it seems as if he’s the one who’s died, and suddenly no one can hear him but us. And, when Madeleine meets a woman in the market who gives her condolences for Andre’s passing, the two meet for tea and discuss how this mysterious woman actually knew Andre, and how well. The conversation quickly turns from polite to disrespectful and almost vulgar. But then the same woman is having her tea with Andre and we’re mourning Madeleine, and her name is different, recalling one of the stories the couple had lightheartedly shared earlier. And just when you find it frustrating that you can’t get a handle on what’s real and what’s happening, one of the characters says something brilliant that breaks your heart, a musing on how sometimes you can’t tell the different between what’s really happening and what you are just remembering, or wanting to remember.
Suddenly, everything mysterious and confusing about this play makes sense. You’re left in wonderment that almost nothing said on that stage was certain, we’re not sure what if anything was facts, yet what the characters were feeling was what was real and concrete. And it feels entirely accurate that the person whose mind was sharing all the action with us would be confusing reality and memory and maybe even false memories, or things they wanted to have happened but never would. Regardless of what facts were real, the heartbreak was real and undeniable. It’s a powerful play that lets you connect so whole-heartedly with characters and situations even when they are this obscured, because the simplest things, like love and pain, are the easiest to understand.
INFORMATION
In the Height of the Storm plays the Wyndham’s Theatre until December 1. The theatre royalty starring in the show is scheduled to play all performances.
The show runs 90 minutes with no interval.
$25 rush tickets are easy to obtain via the TodayTix app, and at least from my experience the rush tickets will be in the front row (front row dead center if you get the 4th-from-last ticket available).
1 Comment
Looks like I HAVE TO SEE THIS … thanks for a wonderful review… as always