Everywoman at London’s Bunker Theatre: You’re GD Right This is Universalby Randi / February 19, 2020It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are (finally) looking at two works in progress I saw at MTFest a week or so ago and hoping that creatives make the necessary fixes as needed.
Let me first state for the record that MTFestUK is a phenomenal project, a weeks-long showcase of new musical theatre works and works in progress. In a city where new musical theatre talent and ideas can easily take a backseat to big shiny commercial ventures at the expense of artistry, this platform gives a much-needed boost, hopefully towards a full-fledged production, to creativity and originality. London needs to nurture more original and innovative musical theatre and more undersung talent, so this festival rocks.
I had time to see two shows during this festival, The Assassination of Katie Hopkins (AKH) and Soapdish. I had low expectations for the former, as it’s a new-to-me creative team and it sounded either silly or too much and I just didn’t know about it. I had high expectations for the latter since it came from Stiles & Drewe and had a cast of super recognizable names. As they say about expectations or assumptions or what have you, the results were the exact opposite: AKH (I wish it abbreviated sensibly to ASS because that’s what she is) was incredibly impressive and has stuck with me, where Soapdish was almost offensive to me as a human person and is the latest entry in my How to Fix Your Show series. Let’s start with the good.
The Assassination of Katie Hopkins
Extremely relevant politically and socially, ASS AKH shows the aftermath of the imagined murder of Katie Hopkins, notorious far-right political commentator, English Trumpian, racist, bigot, stupidhead, and all around c-word. On the first consideration of this fictional event you’re like ‘eh all in a day’ but you know, it’s still a murder, and that’s bad. The show follows several threads of narrative post-event, with interweaving lyrics and melodies to show the connectedness of ‘different sides’ and all of our lives. There’s young intern Kayleigh (Bethzienna Williams), tasked with researching Hopkins for a human rights charity and finding herself somehow propelled to the spotlight as she sort of takes up Hopkins’ mantle. The path of this young lost person getting swept up in right-wing fanaticism in order to find her foothold in our society seemed so authentic, and it was cool (I mean not cool but you know cool) to see the radicalization of a girl for a change.
Other storytelling threads involve the increase in harassment for people of color who had nothing to do with the murder, as is the sad but super predictable result, like post 9/11 bullshit. One such target is Shayma (Maimuna Memon (who we LOVED in Ghost Quartet, put her in everything)), a paralegal at a big law firm who expects better from people but feels like she’s the only one recognizing so much of the tragedy happening constantly. Shayma has a history of being ‘problematic’ at her firm, because she was sexually harassed by a bigwig and got him fired, so she’s on thin ice because that’s how that works. (The firing is the only hard to believe part of this show, since big law firms love to just pay the victims hush money so they don’t have to discipline ‘important men’. Happens super frequently it’s astounding. FUN WORLD.) She serves as the voice of most conscience-having people, wondering if we are taking crazy pills as the rest of the world seems to move on from enormous tragic events after a single breath. The whole show gives a good voice to the idea of empathy exhaustion, an aspect I found quite moving.
I hope that in the full show, Kayleigh’s journey to the right-wing spotlight is shown as more of a progression rather than a jump, since that journey is really believable and important to discuss. I hope Shayma is given more to do (I mean just let her sing the whole time) to show the interplay of her story with the rest, because as it stands, her song about slaying dragons after a tube incident could be cut, as it didn’t flow with the rest of the show as I saw, but if it’s woven more fully into the narrative it would be great because that song was forking fire. A lot of the music (by Matt Winkworth and Chris Bush) is wonderful, actually, and a lot of it is haunting. There was one point when Shayma was singing the list of names from one horrific tragedy and she said ‘Victor’ at the same time someone was singing the word ‘victim’ and I almost gasped, it was gorgeous. I cannot wait to see this show as a full-fledged production; I think it has the potential to be incredible.
Soapdish
Boy oh boy, you big man, you boy. Based on the 1991 Sally Field movie, Soapdish is about soap opera darling Celeste Talbert who is America’s sweetheart onscreen and a real b word offscreen. Her younger costar schemes to knock her off her perch and become the star. And there’s a secret love child involved. So this all sounds super fun and should be ripe for the romcom musical treatment, but so far, this show felt way too amateur. I wouldn’t be so blunt about these sorts of progress report showcases but given the talent involved, I expected much more refined work. They need to chuck the score out the window and start over (but keep the two instances of good rhymes – future with suture and Brecht with expect; those were good). It was like rough draft of Mean Girls songs (and that’s saying something since the final version of Mean Girls has like one good song). No song passed the smell test.
Also, the lead character of Celeste (Louise Dearman) needs to be reconsidered. The whole thing is that she’s an awful monster in real life – at least that’s what the preshow introduction said – but she didn’t seem like a bitch at all; she just seemed sad and pathetic knowing that her days were numbered as she gets older. So after the score, my second big problem is that there is no consistency to the lead character. Why should we be interested in her younger costar’s attempt at a coup except to say that like, it’s kind of sad?
And that brings me to the biggest problem. This younger costar Montana (Laura Pitt-Pulford) uses the promise of sex to get the producer, David (Richard Dempsey), to go along with her shenanigans. I get that this was the movie plot, in 1991, but that is no excuse for having such a grossly sexist storyline. (See, e.g. Pretty Woman the Musical and how copying the movie is not an excuse to be shit.) Everything about this felt super icky and suuuper obvious that it was an all-male creative team. Look people, there’s a way to do old-fashioned storylines, and even sexist storylines, without actually having your show feel sexist. It was infuriating, this whole thing, even though LPP says the name ‘David’ hilariously – but like most good jokes they repeat it ad infinitum and thus run it into the ground, destroying the fun of it. Actually the ruining of a great bit of comedy might be the most upsetting part. And of course the fact that London audiences will eat this shit up, and did.
The only person who comes out on top is young Alice Croft, who has a voice like baby Laura Osnes and honestly I cannot wait to hear her sing full (improved) scores.
Related Posts
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.
Race Like You’re a Contestant on ‘Race to Bachelor Island’ to See the Hilarious ‘Tootsie’
It’s Theatre Tuesday! Remember that’s a thing we’ve added to Theatre Thursday because of ALL THE THEATRE. Today’s show is Tootsie, currently playing at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre (the one in the hotel).
Man alive, I did NOT expect to love Tootsie as much as I did. I went in with low expectations because I heard that David Yazbek’s score wasn’t great (considering his previous effort, the genius The Band’s Visit, won the Tony (all the Tonys) last year, the bar was high) and because there is so much (undeserved) controversy around it (we will get there). But, because of the great performances across the board, the very decent score (low expectations really work!), and the forking HILARIOUS book by Robert Horn, we really enjoyed this gem of a show.
If you aren’t familiar with the movie Tootsie, it’s a 1982 Columbia Pictures film starring Dustin Hoffman – as it actually says on the musical’s actual official billing in the Playbill. How much shit did Hoffman’s lawyers stir up with the musical’s creative team to get them to add that to the Playbill?! In the movie, Hoffman plays an actor named Michael Dorsey who has burned all his show biz bridges because he’s an asshole, and so to get away from that bad reputation and keep working in the biz, he dresses up like a woman (with the too-close name Dorothy Michaels, like why not just pick JANE MILLER or something) and gets a starring role on a soap opera! What a great idea! It’s so much easier for women to get jobs! No, that’s not the take; it’s just that an asshole of a man wasn’t going to get hired (lol FARCE).
In the musical, Santino Fontana is now the asshole actor Michael Dorsey, but he’s a modern New York theatre actor asshole instead of soaps. Santino is SO GOOD at playing grumpy jerky guys that you still absolutely adore (see, e.g., Greg Serrano on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”). When his friend Sandy (and ex-girlfriend, sooo toxic GET AWAY from him girl, live your best life) (played flawlessly by the superb Sarah Stiles) mentions she has an audition coming up for a new musical, Michael decides, ‘hey you know what? I’m going to dress up as a woman, go to this audition instead of one of the hundreds of others happening at the same time in this city, I’m gonna be amazing, win over the producer who is played by the great Julie Halston who as usual is FREAKING HILARIOUS, and get that part and fork over poor Sandy who can’t get a g-d break even though Sarah Stiles is the funniest character actress to be seen on Broadway in literally years and entire masters of arts theses should be written about her performance of “Something’s Gonna Happen”?’
So Michael puts on his best dress, his best country accent, and his worst wig and becomes Dorothy Michaels. I understand using the same names as the movie, but using the same Dorothy lewk as the movie is probably my least favorite part of all of it. It should have been updated for modern times! Dustin Hoffman’s Dorothy looked maybe okay for the 1980s but if someone saw this Dorothy in NYC today they would send her to the Queer Eye guys so fast her head would spin and OFF her wig would fly and everything would be over before it began. That wig is like Mississippi matriarch making pancakes in her apron on a Sunday mixed with Ronald McDonald. Santino deserves a better quality wig, is all I’m saying.
Once Michael/Dorothy gets the part, the ensuing story is a delight. I know I said in my Tony’s roundup that a musical’s book shouldn’t win a Tony just for being funny, but I was SO wrong to think that Robert Horn shouldn’t have been the winner 100%. It’s not just that it’s funny, it’s RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY. And it’s structured well too. The show-within-the-show being a garbage fire of a sequel to Romeo & Juliet is such a silly opportunity for even more laughs.
As everything goes to shit for Michael, it could not be better or more humorously expressed than by Michael’s roommate Jeff (the fantastic Andy Grotelueschen) in his Act II opener, “Jeff Sums it Up”. You know I complain about Act II openers being weak all the time, because they usually are. They have such a big job to do, to bring the audience back into the show after intermission and prove that it was worth coming back for, and they so often fail to deliver. This one was probably one of my favorites. The two men’s comic timing is perfect in this scene, and as Jeff uproariously sings to his friend how “you fucked it up” over and over, you can’t help but cackle. Similar dying of laughter happens in all Jeff’s scenes, especially his Act II scene with Sandy, when the two actors broke. I don’t know if this is a planned break (sometimes that happens!) or if they actually broke character at our performance but either way it was beyond entertaining.
The entire cast was equally funny, though, and what a cast. Throughout most of the show, I kept thinking, “Damn, Tony-winner Michael McGrath is criminally underused as the agent”, but then OUT HE CAME in Act II for a slam dunk of a comedic scene, as Michael (Dorsey, the character, not McGrath) does a Mrs. Doubtfire-at-Bridges-Restaurant style back-and-forth quick-change. After talking to Jeff about his “play writing” and his client, Michael (McGrath, the agent whose name isn’t necessary to know…except literally right now to avoid this Michael confusion) eventually has this amazing turn:
Agent McGrath: (to Michael Dorsey) “Fuck you!” (to Jeff) “And you! Send me your play!”
Jeff: “There is no play.”
Agent McGrath: “Then fuck you too!”
WAS THE BEST.
Honestly, the biggest problem in the show is that Michael doesn’t actually get any of the good songs. Santino absolutely deserved his recent Tony Award for this performance and that’s without really even getting a chance to shine vocally as much as he can, showing off what kind of GODDAMN MAGIC happens when that voice and that acting ability are given a melody to match. The lyrics are generally great – Yazbek can be a lyrical wizard when he wants – but the melodies are rarely their equal. Lilli Cooper as Michael’s love interest also gets a sort-of bad deal, not really getting a chance to shine at all. She’s great, but they had to shoehorn in a show-offy song by having her character perform at a nightclub, which is cheating. But her scenes with Santino are still moving, especially the end. (I LOVE that a musical had the balls to end the show Pippin-style (original version), with an emotional book scene instead of a big song. LOVES IT! Sure they then had the enormous curtain call fiesta but still, it counts.)
My favorite song goes to Sandy, her aforementioned “Something’s Gonna Happen”, which her manic, fragile, crazy character reprises several times to great effect. My favorite line, to give a small example of how great this super-rapid-fire song is:
And everybody smiles
They’ll say it’s good to see ya
But all I’ll see is judges
And they’ll all look like Scalia.
Yazbek’s lyrics in this are a wonder, as is Stiles’s ability to actually remember all the words (so many words) and perform it so incredibly. She is a standout, stealing the show from a whole cast of veritable scene-stealers.
So about that controversy. Tootsie has come under fire for being transphobic, which is a horrible thing to be in a time where trans people are routinely harassed, persecuted, and murdered. But this show has nothing to do with trans issues. It’s a gender-conforming man lying by dressing up as a woman, and being consistently told throughout by level-headed characters that he’s doing a bad thing. It’s always clear that what he is doing is wrong and he’s an asshole for it, especially, as they bring up, when women have a hard enough time getting jobs. Some trans people told me it’s actually offensive to them to even bring up transphobia or gender identity issues because this show has nothing to do with those serious issues, and thinking that a man dressing up as a woman is automatically an LGBTQ issue is ignorant. Also, although we’re laughing throughout this show, the laughs are never coming just because a man is wearing woman’s clothes, like they are sometimes during Mrs. Doubtfire (which, btw, is coming to Broadway soon in musical form too, so I wonder if the backlash to that still-beloved movie will be the same as here). Sure sometimes things happen that are humorous like Michael leaving his Dorothy earrings on, but it’s only funny BECAUSE Michael is a gender-conforming man. If his character was non-gender conforming or trans, then having Dorothy’s earrings on wouldn’t be funny; it wouldn’t be anything. Never in this show is queerness mocked. Even when Cooper’s character thinks she must be also attracted to women since she has feelings for Dorothy, it’s not supposed to be funny; it just shows how much Michael is screwing up by playing with real people’s emotions in this way and lying to everyone about his identity. If anything, the show’s message is that lying about who you really are is wrong. And if you are trans or non-conforming, the whole struggle is being able to be truthful about who you really are!
Suffice it to say, this show is adorable and funny and should be celebrated, not condemned. The cast is doing amazing work and they especially shouldn’t be blamed for any insensitive aspects.
