The Haystack at the Hampstead Theatre: What Modern Theatre Wants to Be

Musical theatre composers always say the test for what songs make the final score is rigorous and specific: They have to serve the story. The story comes first and the music needs to help tell it, whether by driving plot or developing characters. If the best song you’ve ever written doesn’t serve a purpose in the story, or just doesn’t fit the rest of the show, it needs to be cut. (That’s how we got the Hamilton Mixtape.) (Also how we got the incredible song “Come Down From That Tree” which we only know from Audra McDonald’s own recording of it because they wisely cut it from Once on this Island because it didn’t fit, even though it is a Best Song Ever.) I feel like most new musicals forget this test. Despite having so many productions in so many cities over the past four years, the London production of Amelie is full, packed, of songs that don’t pass the test. And the ones that do serve a purpose don’t fit the rest of the show, as the inconsistent tone only becomes more and more chaotic as the night goes on. It’s overall a poorly constructed show (funny since the actual physical construction/set design is the strongest part) with a confused purpose.

I don’t remember much about Amelie the movie, except that of course it was beyond whimsical and is probably responsible for the onslaught of manic-pixie-dreamgirls in the culture, or at least pale brunettes whose main personality trait is ‘quirky’. (PSA: Quirky/weird is not a personality.) A lot of my criticism of the ridiculous, messy story is likely taken straight from the movie. You might argue then that my problem is with the movie writers, not the creative team of the musical. And to that I’d say, what is this, Pretty Woman? Your job in adapting a film for the stage is not to copy and paste, failing to fix what needs to be fixed in order to work onstage. Whether this jumbled story worked in the film is completely irrelevant for stage purposes. They may have nailed the proper whimsical, eccentric tone in the movie, but trying the same things to achieve the same things in a different medium is bonkers and has resulted in an almost incoherent musical, with no discernible tone, objective, meaning, or intention.

With music by Daniel Messe (who wrote the music for the movie…and that score is excellent…so like…ah) and Nathan Tysen, and a book by Craig Lucas (who wrote one of my faves The Light in the Piazza which is also about a young girl who is, shall we say, not entirely there (so we were like…is that the only character he likes to write about because that’s problematic)), Amelie tells of a young French girl who lives through her imagination after a childhood of seclusion because her parents forking sucked. (Her mom gets killed by a man who jumps off Notre Dame, but he ALSO FIRST SHOOTS HIMSELF? Why? To make sure? What an asshole.) She decides to do a nice thing that makes someone else happy, so then she decides to do more nice things for other people and try to break out of her shell and maybe one day live in the real world. It sounds adorable! Except the things she does FORKING SUCK. Amelie the character is GODDAMN ASSHOLE. Is she supposed to be adorable? Is the whimsy supposed to make up for her assholiness? To quote Chidi-Janet: It does not. Makes it way worse.

The good deeds Amelie does include: finding a box under her floorboards and deciding to find its owner, which she does remarkably easily. To mark this occasion and her decision to do more good things, she…no, she doesn’t sing a song, her neighbor does, about being the old French man version of Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr Glass character.

Then, in the café where she works, there’s a really terrifying man stalking one of her coworkers because they went on a date a year ago. Instead of calling the police and filing for a restraining order, and maybe alerting the French version of the FBI that this is for sure a future incel/supremacist who is going to murder women, Amelie…sets him up with her other friend. For this there is no excuse.

Then there’s the mean old grocer who is mean to the boy who works for him because he…loves figs? This kid gets a little song about figs. Amelie doesn’t get a solo in the entirety of Act I. In Act II, she feeds the old man fig tart and it somehow makes him nice. I don’t know.

At some point, she bumps into a man named Nino, who spends his time going through public photo booths, like the kind where you get a strip of 4 photos in black and white. He collects the discarded ones; it’s his art. It’s love at first sight and Amelie sings about how striking this unexpected feeling is…no, Nino sings a song about the photo booth light. One day he loses his collection of photos, and Amelie finds it. Instead of returning it to him, she plays infuriating games with him and keeps his prized possession from him for literally weeks, but I guess he finds that adorable. I was fuming. Give people their shit back. One of the games she plays includes…going to the sex shop where he works, disguising herself as a nun, and then running away scared when she realizes he’s going to come out and see her?? WHAT DID SHE THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN? What is this white nonsense.

Amid all of this is a weird and tacky obsession with the death of Princess Diana. It’s in poor taste. I get that that’s a big thing in the movie but man alive it felt gross. Amelie imagines a big mega funeral for herself, with Elton John performing…and Act I ends with a HUGE rocking Elton John number that again, did not fit the show AT ALL.

I’m going to repeat that Elton John gets a big Act I number but in a musical named after her, Amelie does not have a solo in the entirety of the first act (except for a mini reprise). She doesn’t even seem like the main character at any point. The tone of the show is inconsistent and even contradictory, just all over the place, with big ridiculous silly numbers performed by giant garden gnomes and Elton Johns along with offbeat, artsy introspective songs. I guess with the contrast of styles they wanted to capture some whimsy? But it just feels like nonsense. There’s no magic. There’s one or two great songs in Act II, one with Amelie at the piano, that shows how good this show could have been with more work, and more editing. Or any editing.

Fortunately, along with the wonderful set design, the cast is doing a great job trying to keep this material afloat. Audrey Brisson’s Amelie looks exactly right and gives a great performance. The show takes a memo from the John Doyle playbook and has the actors doubling as the orchestra, which is impressive, and everyone is pretty uniformly good to great. With the solid cast and design, the production is definitely decent, but unlike the Guardian I can’t get past the material.

INFORMATION

Amelie is playing at The Other Palace in London until February 1.

This theatre has one of those horrible no-center-aisle situations so be sure to book seats on or near the aisles if you want to avoid being the last person out. Bathrooms are outside in the bar area but ALSO down in the secrets bowels of the building, accessed via a door directly at the bottom of the stage on the house left side. It took me several visits to learn about these secret and much better bathrooms down in the hallways between the main house and the studio that no one would usually get to explore. So now I like to sit on the house left/stage right aisle.

There is a lot of unnecessary smoking, and whatever herbal cigarettes they are using almost made me pass out. I get that ‘it’s Paris’, but you’ve shown that in myriad other ways. I dare anyone involved in theatre to defend well the use of cigarettes in a show. It’s never really necessary and instead is a health hazard to all and I don’t understand how it’s legal.

There’s also a super loud gunshot that shocked the shirt out of me. There was a small sign with all the trigger warnings on the door to the theatre but the ticket takers were blocking it when we entered, so, great work.

The first act ended at 20:43 and the show ended at 22:15. I felt every minute of it.

It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the new production of Ain’t Misbehavin’ playing at London’s Southwark Playhouse until June 1.

The sheer exuberance resounding at the Southwark Playhouse these days is enough to bring anyone a little bit of joy (and almost enough to erase the memories of the last time we were there). With the new production of Ain’t Misbehavin’, the musical revue of Fats Waller songs, there’s so much sensory overload from the loudly impressive vocals, the energetic dancing, and the glittering (and very cool) set that there’s barely a moment suitable for reflection. When those rare moments arise, and you reflect “wait a minute…there’s absolutely zero story here…this is just a revue isn’t it” (if you didn’t know beforehand, as I did not), you’re just about to go “hmm” but then another lively song sung by a bubbly performer swings under way and you forget to go “hmm” because it’s all so fun.

Fats Waller was one of the biggest names in jazz music in the early 20^th century, responsible for some of the most recognizable standards from that era. In less than 40 years, he wrote hundreds upon hundreds of songs, 400 of which he copyrighted (I hope he got a frequent user discount from the Copyright Office). His many memorable hits include the title song “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, as well as my title’s song “This Joint is Jumpin’” (god all these triple quotes ahhh), both of which provide high points in this show that’s operating almost nonstop at full throttle. An enthusiastic audience did its part to keep the whole experience as close to max enjoyment as possible, despite the shortcomings of the show itself.

And despite enjoying the heck out of this (literally) sparkling show and its high-spirited talented cast, there are some shortcomings. Mainly that it’s just a straightforward revue of Fats Waller’s songs. This guy was a key player in one of the most important musical scenes in history. His Harlem style piano is responsible for modern jazz piano, and he achieved international success when that was still really hard to do, and at such a young age too. (Fats died super young of pneumonia while on a cross-country train, which, like, not to make everything about me but that doesn’t exactly make me feel better about all the long train journeys I take. Poor Fats.) Yet you don’t learn anything about him from this show. Sure, you get general hints from the actual music, but no facts. I get that the creators were trying to let the music speak for itself, but while each song conveys a certain sentiment, it doesn’t share actual information, when it so easily could have. At one point late in the second act, one of the cast members introduced a song saying a quick word about what happened when Fats brought his music to Harlem. Why weren’t more songs framed with a historical anecdote or fact from Waller’s life? It was so simple and so effective. It’s a shame (and super random) it happened just once.

Now, this is an old(ish) established show, so it’s unfair to call out these issues with the bones when discussing Southwark’s production in particular. With what they had, however, the Southwark is doing a fantastic job just blowing the roof off the place. The cast never stops working, and they’re working hard as hell. The five cast members all belt their lungs out and dance their asses off, and they try their damnedest to play characters where there are none. (And there are none – they even call each other by their real names.) A standout for me was Carly Mercedes Dyer, who in the first act mainly shows off her incredible dancing while playing a lot of silly characters who goofily appear to not sing too well. And then in an early second act solo she pretty much goes “oh surprise, bitches, I’m the most talented person here” and belts her forking face off.

Aside from the book issues (the lack thereof), there were only a few slow moments, like a few clunkers to begin Act II and the just unwinnable song “Jitterbug Waltz”, with the constantly cascading melody that sounds super flat no matter who is singing it. But the slow moments are few and far between when you are barely given a second to breathe before the frenetic cast picks back up with an insane dance and a thrilling group number, or with a movingly belted solo (so much belting), or with another beloved classic like “’T Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do” (last okay use of that first word) and, my favorite, “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter” (from You’ve Got Mail, obvs). And the humor! Even without a book this cast filled the show with hilarious moments. It’s almost (/very) embarrassing how hard I was laughing during the RIDICULOUS song “Your Feet’s Too Big”. This song, this amazing, incredible song that I somehow never knew but now adore, has a man literally going “Your feet’s too big/don’t want ya cause your feet’s too big/mad at you cause your feet’s too big/I hate you cause your feet’s too big”. I mean book or no book, nothing gets better than that. And book or no book, there’s too much to enjoy about this wildly entertaining show.

INFORMATION

The show is in two acts of 45 minutes each, with a 20 minute interval. Since there’s no story, it would have made more sense to have it as a longer one-act, but the cast probably needs that break. Don’t sit in the front few rows if you have sensitivity to light, as the stronger lights bounce off the gold floor (yep there’s a shiny gold floor) and it can get a little uncomfortable.