London Has a New Restaurant Called 'Bubala' and Obvs I Love Itby Randi / February 17, 2020The riveting new work Everywoman finally offers a worthy counterpart to the classic 15th century morality play Everyman. Well, not ‘counterpart’ so much as ‘play that actually reflects the human condition and not just male whining’ (see e.g. Philip Roth). This short, powerful one-woman show runs the gamut of emotions, possibilities, and traumas around procreating, from abortion to miscarriage to loss to whether to bear and/or raise children at all. As Everyman’s author is ‘anonymous’, so too has the real writer behind this new work remained anonymous, so that it can be considered everyone’s story. And although it’s woman-driven storytelling, and radically so, I can’t think of one kind of person who wouldn’t feel seen by this. Sure the only full-fledged production of Everyman I’ve seen was the weird modernized take that took place mainly in a night club and infuriated me, but this Everywoman is the one that deserves the ‘universal’ status, despite the failure of the powers that be to ever attribute that to women’s work.
Obviously, there are content warnings to this show like never before. Take Dear Evan Hansen’s suicide content warning but for everything related to pregnancy and children and multiply that level by a solid thousand. The show follows the child-facing decisions of its sole performer, a captivating Jade Williams, at various points in her life when she has been pregnant, or wanted to be pregnant, or didn’t want to be, and how she felt during all of it. It also has a great deal of what I consider Next to Normal backstory about potential child loss, which was very well done and stressful and harrowing. I don’t know if anyone who has faced this sort of unspeakable loss would be able to make it through this section. The tiny room, the sole performer right there, baring her soul, it all creates such an intimacy that was breathtaking and so powerful that it was often distressing.
Despite repeatedly saying “I am Jade Williams and…” (a few too many times, perhaps, at least in the last section), this isn’t actually our fine performer’s story, and what of it actually happened to the actual writer is unclear too – but what’s the ‘truth’ is not relevant. It’s all truth, it’s all experiences that have happened to so many people and that’s what matters, not determining which parts were autobiographical on the anonymous writer’s part. Kind of missing the point chief!
The first section, with its frequent blackouts separating short, often funny statements, is cleverly done, setting a sarcastic and humorous tone but announcing how dark and real things would get. The second section, or chapter, as we learn more about this ‘Jade’ and her relationship and experiences, is a sharp contrast but equally brilliant in its ruthless openness. With sensitive and elegant direction by Amelia Sears, the tiny show accomplishes so much with effective minimal staging – a bathtub, buckets of water (that seemed to stay hot?? how!), candles (my god the candles). The final section, as Jade explains that it’s not exactly her actual life she’s been recounting, feels unnecessary since this is all about being universal tales, and so lost the tiniest bit of the magic. But overall, something this real and candid and, yes, universal is a triumph of honest storytelling.
INFORMATION
Hey yo Ev (what husbo p and I call Everyman because of that godawful Chiwetel production so I guess it’s what we’ll call Everywoman too) plays at the Bunker Theatre until Saturday Feb 22. The show is just under an hour (at press night was about 57 minutes). After a ten minute break, there is an approximately 20-minute confession by a different writer/performer every night. These confessions are private and not up for review, so I’ll simply say that I am still blown away by the clever writing and ingenuity of the one I was lucky enough to hear.
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Jukebox Musical “& Juliet” Tailor Made for London’s Tipsy Millennials
I wanted to say something about how & Juliet may be the ‘jukebox musical to end all jukebox musicals’, but that’s incredibly mistaken considering how instantly beloved it is and how it is guaranteed to usher in a whole new wave of cringey shows using songs that make the audience repeatedly shout “I LOVE THIS SONG!” and sing along. & Juliet takes the clichéd formulation of “what if Romeo & Juliet ended differentlyyyuhhh” (that’s my best Lola Skumpy voice) and tells what would have happened if Juliet took her two besties (that she doesn’t seem to know anything about) and the HOTTEST turn-of-the-century (that’s this current century, dear) chart toppers on a little spree and just belted her face off in the closest thing to a huge arena pop concert that a musical has ever been.
& Juliet is hundo p a musical for millennials – and unlike when baby boomers say millennials and actually mean Gen Z (they hate YOOTS), I actually mean millennials because the audience has to be READY to relive the HEYDAY of boy bands and Britney Spears. This musical feeds on the slightly tipsy 30-year-old remembering what it was like when you’d be at a middle school dance and Britney’s “Overprotected” would come on and you’d be like YASSSSS and don’t even get me STARTED on “I Want it That Way” and “It’s Gonna Be Me”, two pillars of the boy band takeover courtesy of Backstreet Boys and NSYNC that of course are PIVOTAL to this show’s story.
The surprising part is, it’s a lot more fun that it ought to be. & Juliet, with a book by David West Read and music by every pop sensation you’d expect in a show like this (but mostly Britney Spears; it could really be called the Britney Spears musical because it’s like half her catalogue), forces the biggest pop hits of the late ‘90s/early 2000s (for the most part) to tell the story of Juliet if she was like I’m not killing myself just because this boy I’ve known for 4 days did it first; I’ma flee to France and dance and party and start fresh/get immediately engaged to another boy I barely know. Everything about this show is simultaneously fun and beyond cringe-worthy, a mixture that meant my eyes didn’t know what to do between all the rolling and the widening and the smiling. The framing device has Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife (and yes, of COURSE there are cringey jokes about how that’s her real name and she’s not the only one HAR HAR, guys this is England everyone knows that’s his wife’s name), confront her husband about the depressing and not exactly empowering ending to his new play. She offers to help rewrite the ending and the couple bicker…by singing “I Want it That Way” to each other. Literally, Will is like “but I want it that way” and Anne is like “tell me why?” and then all the blondes go AIN’T NOTHING BUT A HEARTACHE and I felt my stomach eat itself because a groan wasn’t enough and yet I was smiling???
So Will and Anne are like okay well let’s see what it looks like with the new material and we see Juliet (Miriam-Teak Lee) pull a Sofia from The Color Purple when she sees the dead Romeo and go ‘hellllll noooooo’ and get up and keep living her life instead of ending it at 14 (the age issue provides some hilarious material). She flees to Paris to PARTY, bringing along her gender-queer friend May (which is great for representation but having them sing “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” may have been the most forced part uhh (although Arun Blair-Mangat was like, jfc it sounded like they were playing a recording that’s how flawless)) and of course…her friend…Anne…Anne Hathaway, who wants to be in the play?? It’s awkward storytelling but they wanted the supremely talented Cassidy Janson to sang throughout the show so what are you gonna do (although the suuuuper delaaaaayed final lines of Celine Dion’s “That’s the Way It Is” (yes that is in here too), done so she can show off even more, are way toooo over the top). Between her and Lee it is the belt-your-face-off competition of the year in there. Impressive performances abound, for sure (though I worry for Lee’s vocal health doing this show long-term), but when it’s this much belting, it’s like belted song after belted song and it’s supposed to impress you with all their belting but after all this belting you’re just like ‘yes this is still this show.’ The Act II power ballads in any of the many 11 o’clock moments don’t have as much dramatic heft because it’s just more at the same level of volume and intensity.
But what am I talking about, they don’t really care about dramatic effect and storytelling, this is ABOUT FUN. And everyone else is having a g-d ball at this show. It doesn’t matter that the side plot about Juliet’s nurse and her lover (I was like that actor kind of looks like David Bedella but there’s no way; guess what, it’s him) falls flat because they are supposed to be the comedic effect but the entire SHOW is comedic effect so that kind of thing doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter that the unnecessary marriage drama between Anne and Will is so ill-fitting for a show like this – you can’t all of a sudden have a woman cry over her crumbling marriage when the show is a ROMP of BOY BAND HITS. It doesn’t matter that everyone is miked to within an inch of their lives and it’s virtually a pop concert with a forced story that makes you groan louder than you thought humanly possible, because it’s fun. Everyone is enjoying themselves; this is one of those shows that’s beyond critique.
My favorite part was when they represented Paris by parading little landmarks across the stage, like the Eiffel Tower and then…and then the Moulin Rouge windmill, reminding me with a shudder that we haven’t seen the last of these forced pop-score storytelling shows this YEAR. I can’t wait to see if that behemoth of a show can top this one, either in terms of enjoyability or how many times I groan.
INFORMATION
& Juliet is playing at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, probably forever. Despite being an ENORMOUS theatre, there aren’t any bad seats. I was in the back of the circle (supes cheap) and it was a great view. There’s a good ladies bathroom in the circle (like literally…inside the theatre) but the rest of the bathrooms are old and gross and small.
If you buy directly from the theatre, they charge an extra £1.50 to pick up ticket at the box office, which should be THE DEFAULT option. Such bullshirt. You can print at home for free. BULLSHIRT.
The Light in the Piazza: My Fave Show is SUPES Problematic
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about the debut London production of The Light in the Piazza, which ended its run last weekend AND which was announced by a staffer at Southbank Centre as “The Light in the Pizza will begin in 3 minutes” I kid you not.
The year before I studied abroad in Florence (“in Firenze in Firenze in Firenze in Firenze the painting of the world! it started then and there, and here we are!” if you don’t know all the words to this show you got some work to do), I saw the new Broadway musical The Light in the Piazza, and I was blown away by how gorgeous it was. I screamed and danced in my seat (in my head! not a monster) at the golden age-adjacent score, the poignancy of the emotional beats, and the breakout performance from the person who would become my ATQ (all-time queen), Kelli O’Hara. I loved the show so much I saw it again and I screamed in my seat “YUP DEFINITELY STUDYING IN FIRENZE AND DEFINITELY GONNA FIND FABRIZIO AND BE LIKE SELL TOO MANY TIES FOR ME FABBY!” (but in my head). So when they announced that the show was finally coming to London (only took 14 years) and not only that, but starring RENEE FORKING FLEMING?? Again, screaming in the seat, in my head. If ever I was overexcited for a show, boy howdy was this one it (it’s okay to talk like that because the characters are southern). And if ever I was going to be disappointed…well, dammit.
The problem is, well there are several. Overall, the book is problematic as all get-out, and the perfection of the Broadway production distracted me from noticing OH SHIT THIS IS MR. F GOES TO ITALY. (If you don’t get that joke you should watch “Arrested Development”.) This was also Z’s very first exposure to the show, so being cognizant of that meant I was thinking of how this production of this show worked as a representative for the material, and it wasn’t great. This show is PROBlematic as fuuuuuuck! (Z’s the one that pointed out the Mr. F thing.) (He was pretty much Lindy West for Love Actually about this show.)
So why is this show so cringey? Let’s share the plot. (NB the show is based on a 1960 novella and subsequent 1962 film so we can’t blame book writer Craig Lucas for everything.) The Light in the Piazza takes place in the 1950s, when a well-to-do southern belle named Margaret Johnson takes her daughter Clara to Italy. Clara is carefree and child-like, but looks to be in her 20s – except not in this production, because as played by Dove Cameron (which is a great name for a very Italian show, because it’s like ‘where is Cameron?’), Clara looks 14 AT MOST, which makes everything much worse. Clara meets a young man named Fabrizio (“Fabriiiiiiizioooooo”) and they fall in love and want to get married, even though they literally have had half of one conversation total because Clara does not speak Italian and Fabrizio only speaks THE MOST ADORABLE VERSION OF BROKEN ENGLISH EVER DOCUMENTED IN AN ART. He sings to her about her milky-white skin (“milky-hwite…milky-hwite…” that’s from A League of their Own not this) without knowing the word for ‘skin’ so he keeps saying milk and it’s the best part when done right and so ANYWAY, the kids want to get married even though they just met and don’t know each other and Margaret is like ‘that’s a bad idea, no’ even though Fabby’s family is like ‘This is great idea! Everyone marry now! we eatah the pasta!’ Clara meets Fabrizio’s family which includes his (hilarious) brother and the brother’s wife Franca who is the GODDAMN WORST. Franca is mad at her husband because he cheated on her (which is painted over as not a big deal by everyone but especially by the Italian mother who is like ‘you have no real romance or love if there is no deception and suspicion!’ weird take) so instead of having a conversation with her husband, she flirts with Fabrizio and keeps trying to kiss him, which rightly drives Clara into a fury, and instead of everyone being like Clara is forking right, they make her apologize for getting angry which made ME fly into a fury. And all the meanwhile Franca is this devil whispering bad things into Clara’s ear and it’s very troubling and wrong and Franca sucks.
You’d think a mother not wanting her young dumb daughter to marry literally a STRANGER in a foreign country would be enough of a reason, but this is the 1950s when all you want for a girl is to marry her off so Margaret needs a better, bigger reason to not want to SELL HER DAUGHTER PERMANENTLY TO ITALIANS. And boy howdy, she has one. Margaret keeps hinting and hinting at Clara being not what she seems and this is my favorite part of this experience, because at intermission Z said to me excitedly “I think I know what the secret is! Clara has been lobotomized! It’s like your other favorite show Next to Normal! It’s Next to the Piazza!” Even though Next to the Piazza is the best thing ever and I’m definitely going to write that mashup, I had to warn him that the real reason was not as interesting as that. No, we find out that Clara not only looks 12 but she acts 12 as well for good reason: because at age 12 she was kicked in the head by a pony and stopped developing mentally. She is mentally and cognitively disabled and so her mother, rightly so, doesn’t want to leave her in a foreign country for the rest of her life with strangers who a) don’t know that and b) don’t know how to take care of her.
Oh but she does! They get married! Happy ending! Such romance!
And this brings us to the most annoying parts of this show. For Problem A) HOLY FORKING SHIRT that should be an easy fix: Forking TELL FABRIZIO. This is not a secret you can or should hide! This is supposed to be her husband! What the fork is wrong with you people! Ughhhh. Isn’t this a CRIME?! Like can she legally consent? We need more information on that front and her future husband um DEFINITELY needs more information. And for Problem B), this makes me sad, because in the original production it was made clearer that the bond between Fabrizio and Clara was special, so special that Fabby instinctively knew how to take care of her. It’s shown through all his little actions, but only spoken of once. In this production, that one spoken moment was all we got, so it seemed insufficient. Rob Houchen as Fabrizio was absolutely the high point of this production, but I think the direction failed him in this regard because the whole show should have been constantly showing how perfectly matched they were so that this disturbing story was ameliorated the tiniest bit.
The direction failed in a lot of ways, actually, which made the book problems strikingly obvious instead of something I previously could semi-dismiss. There’s a big climactic scene when Fabrizio’s father announces the wedding is off because he sees Clara’s handwritten form. Margaret thinks it’s because the father thinks her handwriting is too childish (which is not a good reason?), but it’s because he finally saw her age and she’s too old for his son – she’s 26 and he’s 20. (I could have sworn that in the original production she was 29 but whatever.) Margaret’s reaction here was of relief: he didn’t find out our secret! That’s a TERRIBLE reaction – it shouldn’t BE A SECRET IF THEY ARE GETTING MARRIED. She laughs it off in her relief and the audience laughs and it made me angry again because it wasn’t funny and shouldn’t have been brushed aside. On Broadway it was still tense and more sophisticatedly handled; here it was like ‘oh it’s just that you think she’s too old haha! No she is mentally 12 is that better for you?’
Anyway they get married and Margaret reprises the most moving line to me, the title of the show. When Clara sings it first, she’s talking about the light being her love, for Fabrizio. At the end, on Broadway, it was the incandescent Victoria Clark watching her daughter get married and sharing that she, Clara, is her light. And it’s forking heartbreaking and wonderful (even though you are like BUT WAIT A SECOND MARGARET you still handled this situation like a real Mr. F). But here, Renee’s Margaret was like…trying to get Clara to actually look at the actual light in the piazza during the wedding ceremony? It was so awkward and not emotional. I mean I still cried because it’s the BEST SHOW but still.
Renee Forking Fleming (official middle name) may be the best soprano in the world, like literally that’s what the world calls her, but her foray into musical theatre has been less than tops for me. I mean, her track record so far is this and last season’s Carousel on Broadway, which is ALSO INCREDIBLY PROBLEMATIC. And with a classic gorgeous AF score! Why is Renee’s jam doing beautiful musicals with forked up books?? Why can’t her jam be feminist musicals, modern works, or strawberry??!! It’s always a treat to see her live, because yes ‘best soprano in the world’, but she kind of goes into Kermit-mode when she’s not at the Met so maybe it’s best she sticks to operaaa I know I’m literally melting into my desk chair saying this because SACRILEGE but it wasn’t…the…best. The rest of the cast was strong, especially Houchen and Dove Cameron as Clara, but I’m let down by Margaret’s storyline. She ‘s the lead role, Clara is featured. But it seemed like the opposite here, and that’s a directional problem. At least the gorgeous, classic, epic, romantic score still sounded pretty darn great. I love that they gave the score the full orchestra (courtesy of Opera North) it deserved — even though everything sounded a full beat too slow. (Fabrizio’s “Love to Me” was a goddamn dirge. Again, director (plus conductor.))
Regardless of how forked up I realized this show is, I still love it so much and it’s still one of my favorites so what are we even doing here, go listen to the original Broadway cast album and enjoy.
INFORMATION
Even though this production closed last week, I have to discuss how badly the Southbank Centre is managed. First of all, whoever was in charge of pricing this show royally forked up, because it was way too expensive and thus criminally undersold. We bought cheap seats in the balcony boxes (‘cheap’ compared to how much they were gouging for even super rear stalls, which in this enormous barn of a theatre is too far back to pay so much for). Because the show was so undersold, they moved us from the balcony to those overpriced stalls. Win for us! But, they didn’t tell us till we went to go to our seats about 10 minutes before showtime. We had LITERALLY JUST picked up our tickets at the main floor box office, but they didn’t say anything there. Why didn’t they say anything there? But the lady waiting at the door upstairs was the one with the info? SO STUPID. Then, when we went to the stalls, the show started probably 10 minutes late because we noticed at least half the patrons were being turned away and told to exchange their computer print-outs for Southbank-issued tickets downstairs. Everyone was saying that the ticket agency they bought their tickets from (likely discounted) said these print-outs were their tickets! So why didn’t Southbank communicate with the agencies to tell their customers this info?? Infuriating incompetence. But that’s all on management; the actual staffers working the doors here were incredible (and just the messengers). Southbank needs to get its shit together! And more importantly, it needs to fire or not work with whoever priced this show – it was the final weekend and I don’t even think the mezzanine was open. Regardless of how fucked up the book is (SEE ABOVE), that’s a huge shame for such a big gorgeous show and for this cast and orchestra. FOR SHAME! SHAAAAAME.
