The Prince of Egypt Hits London: That DreamWorks Money Though!by Randi / March 10, 2020It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is City of Angels, playing at London’s Garrick Theatre after a transfer from the Donmar Warehouse.
The 1989 musical City of Angels may feel just like a 1940s noir film, but the intrigue and twists are all in cheeky good fun. And the new production in London’s West End is definitely good fun. While the great Cy Coleman’s score is less than great, this well directed, inventive production betters even the less exciting parts. The cast seems to delight in Larry Gelbart’s funny, clever book, and it’s all around a great time – if you have the right seat, in a theatre where at least half the seats are garbage.
City of Angels tells the story of a LA writer named Stine (a fantastic Hadley Fraser my goodness) who is working on the film adaptation of his acclaimed novel. As he writes in real life and deals with a wife he cheats on but it’s NBD and a girl he has affairs with but it’s NBD and a Hollywood producer who’s an ass and it’s a BD, we also see the pages he’s writing come to life, with his characters acting out the plot as Stine works on it (with hilarious effect when he deletes and redoes something). Despite being in his imagination, the characters in his story feel real, and the barrier between real life and fiction break down when Stine interacts with his leading man, Stone (a great Theo James, yes that one, such stage presence, very wow), in the most fun parts of this show.
With this super clever, original premise comes tons of humor and creativity, and this production is probably the best we’ll see of this show. The direction is almost flawless (see below) and everything feels purposeful. I never really call out the lighting in a show, but the lighting design here is everything. Stine’s real Los Angeles life is lit in color, whereas the scenes from his script are mainly in black and white, an effect that was impressive as hell when both worlds would share the stage simultaneously, and extraordinary as Stone and Stine toy with the barrier between them. Those clashes between the two S men play out to pretty much the only big song in the show, “You’re Nothing Without Me”, overused a bit as it closes both acts but when it’s the main theme as well as the only strong song for our leading men – and lets Fraser do his main job in this show, which is belting and holding big final notes to impress you and distract you and it works because man alive he is some shit – you can’t fault that use too much.
And yes, while the clever book mostly delights, the score somewhat pales in comparison. There are some strong songs in addition to the aforementioned, like Stine’s wife’s “It Needs Work”, a clever almost patter sort of song that Rosalie Craig does brilliantly. (Craig only plays characters named Bobbi I guess now, and this underwritten one is as satisfying as the previous. (That sounds like a huge compliment since everyone and their mother loved the famous gender-flipped Company but recall that I did not.)) It shows off her acting ability fantastically, but like a lot of the score (save for Hadley’s big belted notes) it doesn’t allow for showing off vocal ability. The only real chance for that comes from Rebecca Trehearn’s “You Can Always Count on Me”. Accustomed to stealing shows, Trehearn’s performance is a highlight.
But there are also some duds that fail the ‘does-this-need-to-be-a-song-and-if-not-is-it-at-least-worth-it’ test. I don’t even recall the underused Vanessa Williams (yes, that Vanessa Williams) singing, which is odd for someone who famously can sing well, but I know she did. (She also gets a cringeworthy line about ‘saving the best for last’. I cannot imagine that was in the original script, so the addition is so corny. But if it original, I will eat my words – but if it WAS is that why they cast her??? Honestly that would make me love everything about this production even more, that’s some baller move for one stupid joke, and I respect that.) For a character as vibrant as Stine’s producer, Jimmy Powers (a good Jonathan Slinger in a JK Simmons role) really should have stronger songs. And Bobbie’s cabaret sections just seem awkward.
Some of the performances left me cold as well. Nicola Roberts, from the pop group Girls Aloud, is not well suited to her one big song, which sounded like when our Kim McAfee in high school started rehearsal without warming up. And the Angel City 4, the ensemble that kind of narrates sometimes, and acts as a Greek chorus sometimes, and serves as the producer Jimmy Powers’ backup singers sometimes, sounded insanely off key all the times. I was literally making Chrissy-Tiegen-at-the-Globes gif face whenever they sang, which is super rude, but I couldn’t help it because holy wow those were some wrong ass notes! Fortunately, they don’t ruin another strong number, Munoz’s (Marc Elliott’s) fun “All Ya Have to Do is Wait”, although I don’t think there was any Hispanic representation in this show which is bad when there are some real yikesy slurs used.
All my endless raving about how well designed and directed this show is does actually have an end, though, and it’s now: This show is staged for 40% of the audience. The Garrick has notoriously horrible sightlines from too many seats, and pillars blocking the view for many of the rest. Add in a narrower-seeming stalls and stage than most, a mezzanine overhang that seems to start at the stage, and a chaotic wackiness to the seating plan, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. That knowledge should make the director and crew more careful with what they are doing, but instead, here, they seemed to go ‘you know what, fuck it, let’s stage everything in that one top stage right corner even when it’s completely unnecessary, just to be dicks about it.’ There is so much happening at that spot that literally no one around us could see, and we had good seats. Given the overhang and sightlines, I am sure no one behind row M could see a good portion of the action, which is bullshit. If you’re lucky enough to be in that 40%, you’re going to have a phenomenal time. Otherwise, your resentment is going to color your experience, which is unfair both to you and this great production.
INFORMATION
For a 7:30 curtain, Act I ended at 9pm and the show ended at 10:28, which is about 15 minutes longer than it should be; there were issues at front of house before starting. Yes I really had to pee.
The Garrick Theatre is another stalls-in-the-basement one, so if you want to be at street level, sit in the circle. Also, the ladies bathrooms for the house left side of the stalls are upstairs anyway.
It is one of the smokiest shows in London right now, which is saying something since creators really love to keep those with respiratory problems and asthma away. Even for a 1940s noir show, smoking added nothing to the ambience they created with lights, performances, costumes, and sets. I am still waiting for someone to defend the use of smoking in the theatre to me.
The show is running until September 5, but the cast is changing several times (names this starry don’t do long runs anymore I guess).
STAGEDOOR
Everyone but Trehearn ran or snuck out a different entrance (as is their right yes but darn). The setup is nonexistent, so expect a mosh pit on the busiest sidewalk in London and a guard who doesn’t receive any information.
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Operation Mincemeat at the Southwark: Best Show in Two Years!
It’s Theatre Thursday! like…for real! About a live show! in an indoor theatre! I can’t believe it either.
Last weekend, we finally saw the Southwark Playhouse’s production of the new musical Operation Mincemeat. It has had a few runs in the past few years as the creative team continues to polish it, and we were supposed to see it hmmm a VERY long time ago and it’s finally back and we finally saw and the UK will finally have another great new homegrown musical for maybe the fifth time in 20 years. Yes, we went inside a theatre to see this week’s show. Thank goodness it was so good. If I had risked Delta for a piece of shit I would be so mad.
Operation Mincemeat is not a new telling of Sweeney Todd but is instead about the secret deception mission during World War II of that name. The not-well-known-enough-but-hopefully-this-show-will-make-everyone-know-more-about-it-and-also-maybe-other-things-about-this-war-like-the-Holocaust-because-rising-numbers-don’t-know-about-it-and-that’s-insane mission involved, from what I learned in this show: a pretentious posho with impeccable comic timing, a very sweaty detail-oriented nerd, a few secretaries of varying abilities of making you sob, Ian Fleming, a dead body, a movie screenplay, Spanish doctors who aren’t vets so I don’t follow them on instagram, and a plot that just had to work.
This British mission was a plot of misinformation directed at the nazis, a fake mission they created to steer them off course and attack where they weren’t expecting it. Quite cheeky for Brits, love to see them stop being polite and start getting real. The plot required finding a dead body, creating a false identity for it as a British pilot, ‘crashing’ him off the coast of Spain, and hoping that Hitler reads all the secret documents the corpse was carrying and then changes his plans to match the (fake) plans in the docs, leading to an Allied forces party in Sicily (sounds legit). The musical tells this story so well, thanks to an incredibly fun book, some truly wonderful music, and a game cast that repeatedly impressed me with their skill. Everyone was tops, with standouts for me being Natasha Hodgson with her gutbustingly funny manner as Ewen Montagu, and Jak Malone, who was amazing in several smaller parts but had most of the audience literally weeping with his big Act II love letter song in his role as the head secretary. It was like the opposite of a man-playing-woman role as Edna in Hairspray – completely nuanced and subtle and gentle and gorgeous. Like. WTF. That whole scene and song and performance was too good.
The first solid hour of the show is so strong, it renewed my faith in British musical theatre, it made me almost glad to be out of my house, it cleared my skin. It’s not perfect — there is way too much obvious Hamilton ‘inspiration’ (and some obvious Six), amid a sea of recent works that are clearly trying to hard to capture its magic. But it’s the least embarrassing Hamspiration yet, at least, which says a lot for it considering it’s still wypipo performing the big rapping sections. I would love to see a few bits after that first hour reworked; if they kept up that momentum and quality, it would be sensational. The Act II closer was well considered, with the team’s celebration in the club juxtaposed with the the submarine’s mission. But the direction becomes overly frenetic, and the “let me die in velvet” lyrics to the club song seemed too random to be anything but a wasted opportunity. The finale’s too many moving parts had a similar chaotic energy from trying to do too much (it’s nice to talk about e.g. postwar women’s rights but that’s nothing if not a shoehorned epilogue), although I really loved reprising Act I’s sea shanty (I forking love a good sea shanty).
My only big problem was with the Act II opener. You know from, well, 600 of my previous theatre ramblings that I’m a shill for big bouncy exciting Act II openers that quickly bring the audience back into the show’s universe. This opener was big and bouncy, but it made us feel sick. It has the cast dressed in nazi uniforms doing a ‘fun’ K-pop-ish dance club-ish LET’S ALL PARTAYYYYY number, and the audience. forking. loved it. They cheered, they danced, they put their hands in the air, and we sat there. It felt so messed up, to be sitting among a packed room of people having fun WITH the nazis. It wasn’t subversive or nuanced, it was just a party. Given the very very disturbing reactions of UK audiences to anything relating to Jews or Jewish culture (which I have written about extensively, unfortunately) (and the rise of fascism, and the rise of nazis, and the quadrupling in antisemitism in London…&c) it wasn’t surprising, just upsetting. A member of the creative team reached out and said that they are still working on making that song hit the right notes instead of what it’s doing in its current form, and I really hope they figure that out. But even if the audience does stop whooping it up with and cheering for the nazis long enough to acknowledge that they are the bad guys, it still wouldn’t serve the plot. I don’t know how to turn this song around so that it’s somehow necessary while also achieving the very difficult task of making the audience have fun with the nazis and then making them feel bad about it. I don’t think enough people in the world feel bad about it anyway so this is a big ask.
But if anyone could make it work, it’s probably this team. It’s such a fun, creative show and could really be spectacular. I can’t wait to see a future iteration of it, once I’m okay with leaving my house again.
AUDIENCE
Just like old times! I think everyone will be relieved to know that audiences are back to normal behavior and all of our old favorites are back – the phone-users; the nonstop talkers; the wrapper crinklers; the person who sits behind me and kicks my seat or, with the Southwark seats, really really wants to put his feet on the seat of my chair. Plus, now we have new favorites, like not wearing a mask and coughing. Unfortunately, these new faves were a little too difficult for me to tolerate (am I supposed to?) so it’ll be another while till I try again.
INFORMATION
The Southwark seems to want everyone to wear a mask, but believes they have no power to enforce a mandate because the government lifted its mandate. I was under the impression that private businesses can make their own rules but what do I know. At least a third of the audience was unmasked, and others when drinking. The Playhouse also said in an email that ventilation has been increased, like 8 liters more air circ per person or something that sounded very promising. However, this seemed like the least ventilated room I’ve ever been in – it was insanely hot and sticky (and tightly packed) and the air was seriously nearly suffocating.
Operation Mincemeat runs at the Southwark Playhouse until September 18.
Our Lady of Kibeho at Stratford East: Super Interesting Story, Super Uneven Tone
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Our Lady of Kibeho, playing at London’s Stratford East theatre until Nov. 2, when I imagine the Virgin Mary will appear to burn it all down.
Like the Catholic Church doesn’t have enough bad PR going for it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Our Lady of Kibeho, the 2014 play written by Katori Hall, was a hit job to make sensible people hate the church’s reps even more vehemently. Faaack, those are some assholes on that stage! If you can get past how absolutely awful 98% of the characters are, you may enjoy Kibeho as it tells the true story (I mean as true a story as people seeing visions of the Virgin Mary can be, no offense but what) of the girls at Kibeho college in Rwanda who saw said visions of the virgin in 1981. Mary showed them predictions of the coming Rwandan genocide, which is incredibly harrowing and infuriating that no one believed them and did anything to stop it, but then again what could they have done to stop it? (Also, query whether it was a self-fulfilling prophesy? Dark.)
In Kibeho, Alphonsine (a very winning Taz Munya), whose father I assume is named Alphonso because otherwise why, but also even if that’s the reason oof, has seizure-inducing visions of the Virgin Mary (you don’t know this but in my head I’m saying it ‘wirgin’ because I just watched a video of a German man speaking). Of course, nobody believes her, because organized religion is largely composed of unbelievably shitty people (see, e.g., 98% of churches in America; the aforementioned Catholic church; &c.). The Father and Sister and Bishop of the school yell at her, which is some BULLSHIRT. Your entire thang is based on just believing what you’re supposed to believe because you, well, just BELIEVE (see, e.g. The Book of Mormon for this sentence put to music) and instead of believing her or really even asking if the girl who keeps having seizures is okay, ffs, you yell at her and sic the meanest mean girls in school on her instead? WHY ARE PEOPLE. Ugh I was so, so angry for most of this show, wanting to sprint up to that stage and punch Sister Evangelique (suchhh a Pose house name!) and Marie-Claire in the face and the Bishop man in their mean faces.
Luckily (?), another girl, Anathalie (I honestly kept thinking they were saying ‘ah, Natalie’ every time) starts having the visions too. They still get bullied and no one else believes them and the other mean girls beat them? and the Sister Pose torments them? I do not get how any of these people can make a claim to be close to god but alas, that’s organized religion. Anyway, luckily (?) Marie-Claire, the Regina George of Rwanda but meaner, starts seeing the visions too and seizuring all about that beeyatch, so the Vatican comes a-calling.
Now, holy shit, truly holy shit, is the Vatican rep the worst man ever. Katori Hall is SAYING SOME SHIT with this muhfucka. He literally stabs the girls during their visions because if they were really having religious visions, they wouldn’t feel pain or whatever. SURE SEEMS LEGIT. Must he, MUST he stab them in the chest for this test? Not the arm? Even the leg? But the chest? As exasperating as that question is (my heart was pounding louder than the show), I have another one for you – what kind of monsters tasked with being in charge of these girls (the sister, the father, the bishop, inter alia assorted fuckers) allows this to happen? UGH THIS IS HOW WE GOT HERE.
Anyway, aside from the fury raging like flames, flames, flames, on the side of my face, this show is pretty interesting. There are scenes, especially the ends of each act, where I was completely swept up in the onstage action, completely oblivious to my loud heart and the loud people around me. There are moments of brilliance, especially among the girls. However, the adults, especially the men, were uniformly weak, but more importantly oddly directed by James Dacre. Instead of sticking to what made sense for their characters (sure they can be total assholes, that’s normal in all plays, but make it make sense in the show), so many lines were delivered as cheap laugh grabs, when it made no sense for the story or the character. Sure, the audience loved it – audience love cheap laugh grabs; they do work – but it took me out of the story and made me into my favorite gif, the one of the little blonde toddler making a ‘what the hell?’ face. I was mimicking that amazing toddler for way too much of this show, at so many confusing, bizarre line deliveries, when it could have otherwise been pretty strong and cohesive, and of course unsettling and disturbing since we know what came next.
INFORMATION
The show is playing at Stratford East, east of London by the Olympic Park, until November 2. There are 4 stalls in the ladies toilet. The stalls are single rows (no center aisle) so if you get claustro get lower-numbered seats (those are nearer the side by the exit. I had an aisle seat of course but on the wrong side, oops).
