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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Hamlet at the Young Vic: What Can’t Cush Jumbo Do?
London’s latest take on the classic Billy Shakes stars a magnetic Cush Jumbo, the first woman I’ve seen in the role and possibly the most natural fit for it. She has stage presence coming out her invisible pores, babies. Hamlet, which I learned at Quizzo a few weeks ago is Shakespeare’s longest play, is about the grumpiest grumpo who ever grumped (well for dern good reason), but Cush gave us the opposite of cushlash and made this super-emo character captivating for the first time in a long time.
This Hamlet is a cool fella in luxurious leisurewear neutrals who is seething with rage at his new uncle-daddy and his uncle-daddy’s new sister-wife who is also our dude’s mommy-aunt. Turns out uncle-daddy killed daddy-brother so he could become king and marry his brother’s widow slash his sister-in-law. It’s a big old mess! Hamlet’s like ‘does no one else realize what has happened? are you all just cool with this? you guys are seeing this right?’ and just kind of goes whaaaat the fuuuuuck until he starts murdering out his revenge. He thought he got his piece of shit uncle first but turns out he actually killed that Polonius guy® and from then on things did not get better for him or anyone else. Polonius, fun fact, was played by Joseph Marcell, Geoffrey the butler from Fresh Prince, and I was very excited to see him and shouted exuberantly so it’s a good thing I was watching from home (see below).
In this version’s attempt at modernizing the tale, the clothes were modern streetwear and they used a lot of guns. I wish people would just do it straight. Sometimes it’s silly. I did absolutely adore the hilarious use of “It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right”; that was the funniest theatrical bit I’ve seen in weeks. But to balance it out, the modern techno music used for scene changes, and the weird music interlude with Ophelia dancing around, were big misfires. The staging and set were very stark and bare, which worked for me. I thought the casting was fairly strong all around. Ophelias usually fail to make an impression on me (or anyone?), but I enjoyed Norah Lopez Holden’s take that really showed the nuanced details of a yoot’s life. Ophelia’s primal screaming was so good I wish I could record that and play it on a loop in my neighbor’s window.
The play is all about its enthralling lead though, who put aside the usual intrigue about the title character’s mental health and made it clear that their thirst for vengeance was the only option. Some of Cush’s delivery was surprisingly musical, really leaning into the rhythmic possibilities and making the words fun to listen. I was reminded a few times of Daryl Mitchell doing Sonnet 141 in 10 Things I Hate About You. For some of her lines I was jiving in my head to his unparalleled take on “In faith I do not love thee WITH MINE EEEEEYES/for they in thee a thousand errors NOTE.” Hot take but that’s the best part of that excellent movie.
I recently read Maggie O’Farrell’s book Hamnet (decent but not as good as I was hyped to believe)(much better than her Instructions for a Heatwave though, woof) so I was eager to reexperience Hamlet and try to discern where the grief he was feeling for his son may have come into play. I’m not sure of specifics, but it definitely felt sadder. Whether that’s the book or the enchantment of Cush’s performance, who can say!
In positively thrilling news, the Young Vic has committed to making all of this season’s productions available to watch via livestream for those of us who don’t completely love being coughed on by maskless miscreants. They had four livestream performances through their ‘Best Seat in Your House’ program. I love that they offer several different camera angles to choose from, but the pre-show videos for testing out the different sight lines for each choice all looked the same so we went with Director’s Choice (which is probably the right move regardless?). Since it was streamed during a regular in-person performance, the cameras didn’t get all up in their grills like with the Almeida’s Macbeth but it came across well on the small screen nonetheless. (They also had six performances that were socially distanced instead of being sold at full capacity. A super bravo to little Victor!)
INFORMATION
Apparently time got away from me because this ends tomorrow! Go see it if you are in London!
The show began at 7pm, Act I ended at 8:50pm (thank god I was home that’s too long without a bathroom break), and the show ended at 10:10. The website says the run time is 3 hours 10 minutes, so that’s some muhfuhing commitment to accuracy and I APPRECIATE IT.
“Amadeus” at London’s National Theatre: Toxic Masculinity at its Finest
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about the revival of “Amadeus” at London’s National Theatre,
The best theatre, in my opinion, comments on society or humanity in a smart or clever or meaningful way. Sometimes it makes you feel things, and sometimes the thing it makes you feel is anger. I haven’t felt truly angry from a play in a long time, but “Amadeus”, a fascinating, provocative, wonderfully staged revival of the Peter Shaffer classic at the National Theatre, made me so angry I couldn’t talk for hours afterwards. Granted I was angry about other things too (hellooooo cops are terrorists and a traitorous turd cheeto runs America and will any lads EVER care that drinking is illegal on the tube?? Ugh my stomach hurts all the time like Chidi) but this show definitely added to my seething yet impotent rage. And overall I’m glad for it, because theatre should do things like that. The depths of evil that man can sink to are well known today, especially in the political and business realms, but it was nice to see that evil men exist in music too! Evil men everywhere!
“Amadeus” tells the tale of Antonio Salieri, once considered the best musician in Austria, and if you were the best in Austria in the 1700s, you were the best in the world. He’s throwing back champagne and high-kicking it at parties with royals and the best of society in Vienna and eating all the mascarpone cream he can get, and he’s enjoying a considerable amount of power in the court as Kapellmeister, which my computer recognizes as a word yet it has underlined both turd and cheeto so wow bravo to all involved. Soon though, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart arrives on the scene to challenge Salieri’s place as numero uno in music. It’s not really a challenge because Mozart is, well, Mozart and there’s room for everyone in music and their relationship in real life was a lot more amiable than the play depicts. But facts are not what this play cares about, and though it makes me angry how many people might think that it’s a factual retelling of history and thus consider both figures to be sickening in certain ways, it does make for a more interesting play to pit them against each other as lethal rivals. Well, in one direction only.
This play, called “Amadeus” as you can see because that’s Mozart’s middle name and a play called “Wolfgang” would probably draw the wrong crowd (though I’d be there for that play too) (omg it could be an absolutely terrifying crime drama or just about pups) (please let it be about pups), instead of taking notes from history completely rewrites history, so know that before going in or seeing the movie. The characters as depicted are fictionalized entirely except for names and like jobs and things they wrote. Got it? It begins with Salieri as an old man bemoaning his lot in life and how his God betrayed him by making Mozart so talented and also he kind of admits to poisoning Mozart and being responsible for his death and his entire downfall so you’re like hmm this guy is a piece of shit, right? He is, good observation. Old Man Salieri clearly has lost his marbles and is scared of meeting his God that he had denounced and failed by being such a shitty person. Salieri, played by Lucian Msamati, is captivating throughout the play, but it’s a difficult jump into his performance in the beginning. It opens with him talking, and talking, and talking, and you really have to listen and it was kind of exhausting because it’s the most tedious part of the show. And it takes a minute to get used to his enunciation. My mind wandered a little in those first few minutes and I had to remind myself to pay attention, which is not a good sign but it is a result of how this is written. It’s a very big ask to dive straight into endless monologuing. Anyway I got over it in five minutes like Doug Dorsey (omg remind me to check if “The Cutting Edge” is on Netflix prayers up) and then I was in it.
After Salieri’s deathbed confessional/droning, we flashback to his heyday in the Viennese court, as he impresses everyone with his simplistic compositions and stays true to his god. Everything looks peachy keen for him but then he hears about young upstart named Mozart. He goes to a party to hear him play and is riveted, stricken with the realization that the person he is listening to play is beyond earthly talents and gifts. But when he sees that the person bequeathed by god with such gifts is an infantile, idiotic fool of a man, Salieri is disgusted and angry with his god. Salieri is very self-involved, you see. He believes that his god, whom he has been so devoted to his entire life, has betrayed him personally by giving such musical gifts to such a fool. So, naturally, Salieri denounces his god and commits his life to destroying Mozart’s. And destroy it he does, all while making Mozart believe that he’s his friend, which is as cruel and deceptive as you get.
Lucian Msamati’s performance is remarkable and very powerful. However, I was most taken with Adam Gillen’s as Mozart. It’s a bizarre, kind of wacky, unbelievably physical portrayal and a very divisive one. I heard old British farts afterwards talking about how good the show was but how Mozart was just ‘altogether too much,’ with too much going on that it was distracting. But I am HERE for it. or WAS THERE for it. I thought Gillen’s rambunctious physicality and strange mannerisms and truly nutty line readings made for an extraordinary performance. It was overwrought but clearly carefully considered and it worked to convey Mozart’s peculiar, immature, zany, and truly crazy character. (Remember he wasn’t actually an absurd fool.) I’m surprised too because usually I’d be like ENOUGH ALREADY I GET IT YOU ARE KOOKY but he was quite effective. It helps that his role is significantly smaller than Salieri’s; I’m sure that if he were onstage the whole time it would be as exhausting for the audience as it no doubt is for the actor. But as is, it was a great performance, and through all the folly, he really connected emotionally with the audience in Act II so much as to be heart-breaking, which is no small feat.
The other highlight of the production was how the entire thing was staged. Having never seen this show before, I can’t comment on how much is due to director Michael Longhurst’s vision but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t hurt to give him the credit. I loved how the orchestra was part of the show, with all of the musicians and all of their instruments on stage whenever music was playing. The musicians, all dressed in black, were the townspeople, the court, the citizens reacting to gossip about the two famous composers, all while playing the composers’ works. Not only did this staging effectively show how the populace played into the drama, but it was also simply nice to see the orchestra onstage instead of hidden underneath it. A great spark of life came from it.
And we do hear lots of Mozart’s work throughout the show, so even for a play there is still a good deal of music, which is my kind of play. We hear his operas as they are produced and performed for the first time, we hear them with Salieri and react in the same way – in total awe. Well maybe not the same amount of awe, for most of us have heard them before and in better ways but you get what I mean. We get a scene from The Marriage of Figaro and watch Salieri positively aghast at how ingenious it is. We get a snippet from Don Giovanni and are like howww did the rest of the populace not realize they were amongst a genius? We unfortunately get the most famous part of The Magic Flute – the Queen of the Night aria – and yes it’s the best part and yes it’s so famous that they had to do that part but it is also the hardest part to sing and let’s just say it’s not like the greatest opera singers in the world are spending their time doing plays where they have 10 minutes of stage time. Not to be mean not to be mean.
The music was used very effectively to match the drama, as Salieri realizes how great it is and how bad he is in comparison and the music grows along with his horror. At the end of the first act the music of the performance builds into a giant dramatic ‘boom’ of an ending as Salieri cowers in insignificance and I thought HOLY CRAP that is a KILLER way to end an act! It was that kind of act break that totally pumps you up with its drama and its success in making you feel all kinds of emotions and then…it wasn’t actually the act break. It should have been, but instead Salieri talks to the audience for 5 or 10 more minutes, putting words to what we just witnessed kind of unnecessarily. This monologue after what I thought was a great button to the entire act was like letting air out of a balloon. Just so unsatisfying when the most incredible alternative was so close within reach. Salieri talks about how Mozart is so good despite being a fool, and he’s so angry that his god has given such gifts to such a fool so now he will turn against god and destroy Mozart as a way to get back at god. And you’re like a) we kind of just saw that with your good acting show don’t tell and all that and b) you couldn’t have explained anything left unclear at the beginning of the next act? I just really loved that button that wasn’t meant to be.
The build-up of how Mozart’s unmatched musical genius destroys Salieri’s sense of self and sense of how he himself fits into the world occurs dramatically and believably, but the problem for me was that Salieri is such a piece of shit that there is no chance of feeling any empathy for him, and if you don’t feel empathy for the main character it’s kind of hard to care. All the caring, at least on my part, came for poor sad Mozart, unwittingly destroyed by another man’s jealousy. But Salieri made me furious because he was a monster, and I realized how that’s the most realistic part of the whole show – that some people really truly are horrible monsters with zero capacity for empathy themselves and so they give no reason for you to have any empathy for them. With two lead actors in the play (and one black even though it’s a white historical figure so yay because that’s just common now and that’s great) I couldn’t help but think of Hamilton, and how we have a historical villain and our hero. But Hamilton blurs the lines between good and bad, and although Burr makes some pretty significant mistakes, he ends the show aware of his failures and remorseful of his mistakes. He regrets thinking that because Hamilton was better than him at certain things that that meant he had to destroy him. Whereas Salieri is like shit this idiotic fool is better than me I must destroy him, and even on his deathbed he regrets nothing. Even then, he bellows about how his deplorable actions ensured that he will be remembered forever, because history will always remember Mozart and his incredible talent, but it otherwise would have forgotten about ordinary old Salieri, so by linking himself with Mozart’s destruction and death he will always be remembered too. He doesn’t care one bit that it will be in infamy; he’s glad for it lest it mean he would be forgotten. The comparison to Hamilton is clear, in that Burr is forever linked to Hamilton’s name, but at least in that fictionalized account of things he didn’t aim for that. Salieri thinks the desire to be remembered excuses his actions, and that is despicable and infuriating. And that’s what was so provocative about this play, the questions it raises about legacies and about being appreciated in your own time. It is never a question to me that it is better to be a good person and do good deeds in real life than worry about how history will treat you but I’m not a psychopath now am I.
“Amadeus” obviously makes for a very in-depth discussion of various issues. I haven’t even talked about how mind-numbingly clichéd its treatment of women is but chances are I’ll have plenty more opportunities to broach that subject in the future. The real dramatic element here is yet again the toxic male ego and I can’t think of anything I’ve seen recently that does a better job at exploring that.
INFORMATION
Okay I just looked it up and it closed on Tuesday! I had NO IDEA we were seeing it on its final weekend! Eek sorry. It had a super short run (3 months) for such a huge production. I wonder why! Okay I looked it up again and apparently this was just a sweet little revival of the revival, which had its real run over a year ago! It was so beloved that they brought it back for a 3-month hey-thanks-for-loving-us farewell tour. Can’t believe I wasn’t aware of any of this ahhh.
AUDIENCE
The audience at the National skews older so they are usually more whispery than phone-y. Honestly whisperers are harder to deal with because you look like a jerk if you say omgggg stop whispering so much but you are a hero for reporting people who use their phones well at least that’s how I think of it. I report phone users ALL DAY ALL DAY.
NATIONAL THEATRE
If you guys are reading this, know that my fury after the show was like 40% from the questions raised by the play as intentioned and eleventy billion percent because of your incompetence. There was NO STAFF in the circle (the mezzanine, which is the only upper level in this theatre). There were no ushers or guards or anything during the interval or after the show ended. And there was zero personnel at the start except for ticket-takers, but they were not acting as ushers. No one told people to shut their phones off, and more glaringly no one told the people in the front row of the circle not to put their shit on the overhang. The ledge – where speakers are attached – was lined with drinks because British people can’t go an hour without alcohol. In every single theatre in the world, an usher would come down and remind those patrons that you cannot put anything on that rim, let alone liquid, because if it tips, it falls on people sitting below. Or into the speakers. But no one apparently works there and so the drinks stayed there. I wanted to report something at intermission but couldn’t find anyone to report it to. It’s a good thing it wasn’t a very serious problem but I guess this means that that National Theatre is a-ok with anything you might think of doing since there’s no need for ushers or managers up there. I talked to a representative about this on twitter and they basically said ‘eh we don’t really need anyone up there and after the show there was a security guard by the FRONT DOOR’ (meaning down 5 flights of stairs) so I guess that is blanket permission to take pictures and film whatever performances that you want to so have fun! (Theatres here must do better, in case you haven’t picked up on that yet.)
This play, called “Amadeus” as you can see because that’s Mozart’s middle name and a play called “Wolfgang” would probably draw the wrong crowd (though I’d be there for that play too) (omg it could be an absolutely terrifying crime drama or just about pups) (please let it be about pups), instead of taking notes from history completely rewrites history, so know that before going in or seeing the movie. The characters as depicted are fictionalized entirely except for names and like jobs and things they wrote. Got it? It begins with Salieri as an old man bemoaning his lot in life and how his God betrayed him by making Mozart so talented and also he kind of admits to poisoning Mozart and being responsible for his death and his entire downfall so you’re like hmm this guy is a piece of shit, right? He is, good observation. Old Man Salieri clearly has lost his marbles and is scared of meeting his God that he had denounced and failed by being such a shitty person. Salieri, played by Lucian Msamati, is captivating throughout the play, but it’s a difficult jump into his performance in the beginning. It opens with him talking, and talking, and talking, and you really have to listen and it was kind of exhausting because it’s the most tedious part of the show. And it takes a minute to get used to his enunciation. My mind wandered a little in those first few minutes and I had to remind myself to pay attention, which is not a good sign but it is a result of how this is written. It’s a very big ask to dive straight into endless monologuing. Anyway I got over it in five minutes like Doug Dorsey (omg remind me to check if “The Cutting Edge” is on Netflix prayers up) and then I was in it.
After Salieri’s deathbed confessional/droning, we flashback to his heyday in the Viennese court, as he impresses everyone with his simplistic compositions and stays true to his god. Everything looks peachy keen for him but then he hears about young upstart named Mozart. He goes to a party to hear him play and is riveted, stricken with the realization that the person he is listening to play is beyond earthly talents and gifts. But when he sees that the person bequeathed by god with such gifts is an infantile, idiotic fool of a man, Salieri is disgusted and angry with his god. Salieri is very self-involved, you see. He believes that his god, whom he has been so devoted to his entire life, has betrayed him personally by giving such musical gifts to such a fool. So, naturally, Salieri denounces his god and commits his life to destroying Mozart’s. And destroy it he does, all while making Mozart believe that he’s his friend, which is as cruel and deceptive as you get.
Lucian Msamati’s performance is remarkable and very powerful. However, I was most taken with Adam Gillen’s as Mozart. It’s a bizarre, kind of wacky, unbelievably physical portrayal and a very divisive one. I heard old British farts afterwards talking about how good the show was but how Mozart was just ‘altogether too much,’ with too much going on that it was distracting. But I am HERE for it. or WAS THERE for it. I thought Gillen’s rambunctious physicality and strange mannerisms and truly nutty line readings made for an extraordinary performance. It was overwrought but clearly carefully considered and it worked to convey Mozart’s peculiar, immature, zany, and truly crazy character. (Remember he wasn’t actually an absurd fool.) I’m surprised too because usually I’d be like ENOUGH ALREADY I GET IT YOU ARE KOOKY but he was quite effective. It helps that his role is significantly smaller than Salieri’s; I’m sure that if he were onstage the whole time it would be as exhausting for the audience as it no doubt is for the actor. But as is, it was a great performance, and through all the folly, he really connected emotionally with the audience in Act II so much as to be heart-breaking, which is no small feat.
The other highlight of the production was how the entire thing was staged. Having never seen this show before, I can’t comment on how much is due to director Michael Longhurst’s vision but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t hurt to give him the credit. I loved how the orchestra was part of the show, with all of the musicians and all of their instruments on stage whenever music was playing. The musicians, all dressed in black, were the townspeople, the court, the citizens reacting to gossip about the two famous composers, all while playing the composers’ works. Not only did this staging effectively show how the populace played into the drama, but it was also simply nice to see the orchestra onstage instead of hidden underneath it. A great spark of life came from it.
And we do hear lots of Mozart’s work throughout the show, so even for a play there is still a good deal of music, which is my kind of play. We hear his operas as they are produced and performed for the first time, we hear them with Salieri and react in the same way – in total awe. Well maybe not the same amount of awe, for most of us have heard them before and in better ways but you get what I mean. We get a scene from The Marriage of Figaro and watch Salieri positively aghast at how ingenious it is. We get a snippet from Don Giovanni and are like howww did the rest of the populace not realize they were amongst a genius? We unfortunately get the most famous part of The Magic Flute – the Queen of the Night aria – and yes it’s the best part and yes it’s so famous that they had to do that part but it is also the hardest part to sing and let’s just say it’s not like the greatest opera singers in the world are spending their time doing plays where they have 10 minutes of stage time. Not to be mean not to be mean.
The music was used very effectively to match the drama, as Salieri realizes how great it is and how bad he is in comparison and the music grows along with his horror. At the end of the first act the music of the performance builds into a giant dramatic ‘boom’ of an ending as Salieri cowers in insignificance and I thought HOLY CRAP that is a KILLER way to end an act! It was that kind of act break that totally pumps you up with its drama and its success in making you feel all kinds of emotions and then…it wasn’t actually the act break. It should have been, but instead Salieri talks to the audience for 5 or 10 more minutes, putting words to what we just witnessed kind of unnecessarily. This monologue after what I thought was a great button to the entire act was like letting air out of a balloon. Just so unsatisfying when the most incredible alternative was so close within reach. Salieri talks about how Mozart is so good despite being a fool, and he’s so angry that his god has given such gifts to such a fool so now he will turn against god and destroy Mozart as a way to get back at god. And you’re like a) we kind of just saw that with your good acting show don’t tell and all that and b) you couldn’t have explained anything left unclear at the beginning of the next act? I just really loved that button that wasn’t meant to be.
The build-up of how Mozart’s unmatched musical genius destroys Salieri’s sense of self and sense of how he himself fits into the world occurs dramatically and believably, but the problem for me was that Salieri is such a piece of shit that there is no chance of feeling any empathy for him, and if you don’t feel empathy for the main character it’s kind of hard to care. All the caring, at least on my part, came for poor sad Mozart, unwittingly destroyed by another man’s jealousy. But Salieri made me furious because he was a monster, and I realized how that’s the most realistic part of the whole show – that some people really truly are horrible monsters with zero capacity for empathy themselves and so they give no reason for you to have any empathy for them. With two lead actors in the play (and one black even though it’s a white historical figure so yay because that’s just common now and that’s great) I couldn’t help but think of Hamilton, and how we have a historical villain and our hero. But Hamilton blurs the lines between good and bad, and although Burr makes some pretty significant mistakes, he ends the show aware of his failures and remorseful of his mistakes. He regrets thinking that because Hamilton was better than him at certain things that that meant he had to destroy him. Whereas Salieri is like shit this idiotic fool is better than me I must destroy him, and even on his deathbed he regrets nothing. Even then, he bellows about how his deplorable actions ensured that he will be remembered forever, because history will always remember Mozart and his incredible talent, but it otherwise would have forgotten about ordinary old Salieri, so by linking himself with Mozart’s destruction and death he will always be remembered too. He doesn’t care one bit that it will be in infamy; he’s glad for it lest it mean he would be forgotten. The comparison to Hamilton is clear, in that Burr is forever linked to Hamilton’s name, but at least in that fictionalized account of things he didn’t aim for that. Salieri thinks the desire to be remembered excuses his actions, and that is despicable and infuriating. And that’s what was so provocative about this play, the questions it raises about legacies and about being appreciated in your own time. It is never a question to me that it is better to be a good person and do good deeds in real life than worry about how history will treat you but I’m not a psychopath now am I.
“Amadeus” obviously makes for a very in-depth discussion of various issues. I haven’t even talked about how mind-numbingly clichéd its treatment of women is but chances are I’ll have plenty more opportunities to broach that subject in the future. The real dramatic element here is yet again the toxic male ego and I can’t think of anything I’ve seen recently that does a better job at exploring that.
INFORMATION
Okay I just looked it up and it closed on Tuesday! I had NO IDEA we were seeing it on its final weekend! Eek sorry. It had a super short run (3 months) for such a huge production. I wonder why! Okay I looked it up again and apparently this was just a sweet little revival of the revival, which had its real run over a year ago! It was so beloved that they brought it back for a 3-month hey-thanks-for-loving-us farewell tour. Can’t believe I wasn’t aware of any of this ahhh.
AUDIENCE
The audience at the National skews older so they are usually more whispery than phone-y. Honestly whisperers are harder to deal with because you look like a jerk if you say omgggg stop whispering so much but you are a hero for reporting people who use their phones well at least that’s how I think of it. I report phone users ALL DAY ALL DAY.
NATIONAL THEATRE
If you guys are reading this, know that my fury after the show was like 40% from the questions raised by the play as intentioned and eleventy billion percent because of your incompetence. There was NO STAFF in the circle (the mezzanine, which is the only upper level in this theatre). There were no ushers or guards or anything during the interval or after the show ended. And there was zero personnel at the start except for ticket-takers, but they were not acting as ushers. No one told people to shut their phones off, and more glaringly no one told the people in the front row of the circle not to put their shit on the overhang. The ledge – where speakers are attached – was lined with drinks because British people can’t go an hour without alcohol. In every single theatre in the world, an usher would come down and remind those patrons that you cannot put anything on that rim, let alone liquid, because if it tips, it falls on people sitting below. Or into the speakers. But no one apparently works there and so the drinks stayed there. I wanted to report something at intermission but couldn’t find anyone to report it to. It’s a good thing it wasn’t a very serious problem but I guess this means that that National Theatre is a-ok with anything you might think of doing since there’s no need for ushers or managers up there. I talked to a representative about this on twitter and they basically said ‘eh we don’t really need anyone up there and after the show there was a security guard by the FRONT DOOR’ (meaning down 5 flights of stairs) so I guess that is blanket permission to take pictures and film whatever performances that you want to so have fun! (Theatres here must do better, in case you haven’t picked up on that yet.)
1 Comment
Looks like I HAVE TO SEE THIS … thanks for a wonderful review… as always