Dinner at the new fully vegan Alter Londonby Randi / August 11, 2021It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of South Pacific, which we watched via livestream.
The current Chichester production of one of the best classic Golden Age musicals is overall enjoyable, thanks to its solid cast and, you know, the show itself being nearly foolproof. But there were a few ideas that didn’t pan out.
South Pacific is one of my all-time faves. A fave Rodgers & Hammerstein joint, a fave score, a fave Polynesian beach treat. I’ve see an exorbitant number of productions in my time, and it’s best done traditionally with the team fully invested in its potential for exuberance as well as emotional depth. People like to complain that it’s problematic because of its racist plot points. Guys, those plot points were meant to be racist. You know that right? Like Nellie and Cable fretting over being in love with people of color is supposed to show that they are racist. It’s not supposed to be, like, excused, not at all. That’s the point. The song “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” is not a lesson plan for parents — it is speaking with disdain about how racism is passed onto children. DISDAIN. NOT APPROVAL.
But modern productions like to make a few tweaks here and there to even the racial imbalance — and apart from the above thoughts, I won’t argue that the representation of Polynesian people isn’t stereotypical and thin (and entirely encompassed by really one character, Bloody Mary). Here, I think they were trying to address the imbalance by framing the show with Liat. At the start, I got worried because they cut the gorgeous overture. Instead, Liat did a little dance to the “Younger than Springtime” instrumentals. I like the idea of trying to give Liat more to do, to show how the troops’ presence affected her maybe, but this didn’t do that. Liat is the quintessential empty character, sadly, and having her dance a little bit more doesn’t solve that, and it doesn’t start a show very well.
The first real song in the show is my favorite (everything’s my favorite! smiling’s my favorite!), when Nellie Forbush sings “Cockeyed Optimist”. Nellie here is Gina Beck, who I have LOVED in past West End performances. She’s so talented. She’s also supes pregs, which was funny to see in our beloved Ensign, and so she shares the role with another actress. Gina is wonderful, but she is overdoing the Arkansas accent. It’s distracting. The director should have realized that it’s better to focus on the character and the whole singing well thing instead of overdoing a southern accent. Unfortunately, that persisted throughout the show (along with unflattering wigs), and instead of reveling every time Nellie opens her mouth, which I usually do, I just kind of cringed at the overexaggerated accent and how awful it made the songs sound. And I have a Mare of Easttown accent! I know from horrible accents!
Luckily, Julian Ovenden’s French accent is not as bad, and his…omg I’m drawing a blank…Rene Charle? Paolo Szot??? EMILE DE BECQUE JESUS FORKING CHRIST WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY BRAIN…anyway, his Emile is wonderful. For Luther Billis, I feel like that’s one of those roles like Ogie in Waitress where no matter what, it’s gonna be great. I liked Keir Charles’s performance, although he was rougher around the edges and little cruder than my boy Danny Burstein’s more ‘aw shucks’ version, which I find winning. Rob Houchen’s Lootellen Cable was fine; he always sings well, but he was a little stiff, especially in the beginning. I was like ‘hey that guy who is the bad Terminator in Terminator 2 just came out.’ But the only person I felt was kind of miscast was Bloody Mary, a shame because when done well she can be incredibly heartbreaking, taking all the claims of superficial writing and destroying them to become the most affecting part of the show. I think the problem was, Joanna Ampil, super talented though she is, is just too young for the part. Bloodies Mary I’ve seen have always been older than the seabees, but Joanna is like, relatively young and attractive so the seabees’ attention wasn’t believable as joking around verging on mockery. It was more like, yeah she’s your age, why wouldn’t she be the girl you love? Just kind of off. Also, in my opinion, the drama works best when parts like “Happy Talk” turn out to be devastating in contradiction of its lyrics. Here, it was a little too slow and dark but without showing the desperation underneath.
But maybe I’m just mad because this production didn’t use “My Girl Back Home” (the original didn’t either, but it was reinstated in prods of the last few decades), which always makes me giddy. In this song, Nellie and Cable talk about the homes and the loves they left behind in America, Nellie in Little Rock, and Cable in muhfuking PHILADELPHIA. He even repeatedly sings Ardmore, PA!!! I mean I never even care that he can’t decide whether he’s from Princeton or Philly or Ardmore but a bitch don’t care!
With Nellie’s accent keeping me from fully melting into the love story, I was able to look at it with a more discerning eye. It is HELLA forked up that Emile has two kids, but doesn’t give a shit about them. When Nellie momentarily forsakes him, Cable and the officers are like, well shit Emile, now that you have nothing to live for you should go with Cable on this super dangerous mission. Nothing to live for because his girlfriend is mad at him??? HE HAS TWO F-ING KIDS! Seriously so insane. What a weird show that I love with my whole being.
I admit that I could easily be overly harsh on every little aspect of every production of this show, because I was spoiled for life by the 2008 Broadway revival. (It was so perfect, 104% perfect, that it could in itself be what heaven is.) (Also, not to belabor the point, but Kelli O’Hara is literally FROM Oklahoma (same as ARK) and her southern accent was barely noticeable.) But overall, this one was a fun time, as it’s hard to tarnish this classic.
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Broadway’s “Fiddler on the Roof”: It Might Be Over But Nope It’s Never Over
“Fiddler on the Roof” is an important show for so many reasons. It’s a golden age classic with a memorable score that has held up today. It’s up there with other classics like “The Sound of Music” and “Singin’ in the Rain” in terms of how important they were to my upbringing and development. But most significantly, Fiddler is a consistent reminder to a people who apparently need consistent reminding that the fight against racism and fascism is a serious one, a terrible one, and an apparently never-ending one. “Fiddler” has never been as relevant in my lifetime as it is today, as we grapple with the shock and terror of the government discriminating against an entire religion again. Despite this fantastic revival closing over a month ago on Broadway, I’m still thinking about it regularly, about how fantastic this cast and production were, how moved I was at moments that I never really cared for before, how yet again theatre exactly reflects the struggles of humans today. I don’t usually write about things I’ve seen that have long since closed, but I have been thinking about it constantly and about how important it is to keep talking about the issues raised by this beautiful show and to add to the chorus of sane people who don’t think religious persecution is okay.
If you aren’t familiar with “Fiddler on the Roof”, a) I don’t know how you put pants on and b) you really should rent the movie at the very least. IT IS A MARVELOUS CLASSIC. It’s about a poor milkman named Tevye who lives with his wife Golde in Anatevka, a small village in Russia in the early 1900s, right about when the violent pogroms of that decade (not to be confused with violent pogroms of other decades) were happening. Tevye’s favorite thing to kvetch about is that he has five daughters. “Five?” “Five!” he always answers in a way that conveys how hard it is and also how proud he is. Tzeitel is the oldest, and she is in love with her best friend, the tailor Motel Kamzoil, in an era when marriages were arranged. Hodel is the next oldest, followed by Chava. We follow these three as they fall in love and deal with the ramifications of their choices, when they aren’t supposed to be making any choices. We also have Shprintze and Bielke, the little ones who don’t do much but for damn sure will be the names of two of my future dogs.
If you’ve only seen the movie with Topol, then you still know how great the show and the score are and Topol is on your list of Top Five Mosts. Or maybe you have seen footage of original Tevye, Zero Mostel, or at least have the original Broadway cast recording and love Zero. Topol and Zero set the bar for most Tevyes to be somewhat comical and often over-the-top, as well as establishing the unwritten rule that actors playing Tevye have ridiculous names. But Danny Burstein turned all of that on its head, surprisingly, but beautifully. First of all, his name is Danny. Second of all, his Tevye was more grounded, warmer, and unbelievably charming. His humor – and there was so much of it – came not from the usual comic broadness but more from a place of warmth, sincerity, and Elmo-levels of adorableness. In fact, I would not have been surprised if his Tevye had been given an extra song called “The Letter of the Day” (p.s. my favorite song). He does get angry and mean at times, of course, but it’s more believable and moving because he built up that earnest and loving foundation. He’s a much more rounded and authentic character because of it.
And he wasn’t the only stunningly authentic aspect of this revival. More than any other production of Fiddler, this revival felt real, like it was happening in real life. I mean maybe that’s because it is, actually, happening in some form, and in America no less. But the family and the townspeople came across as people I felt like I knew, whose struggles I cared about sincerely. The sparse set of the farm and the effective lighting helped Danny tell his story in a way that made me forget I was in a theatre. (Well, until the grown ass adults who don’t know how to behave in the theatre needed to be shushed behind me.)
As soon as it began, this production distinguished itself from all others. Bartlett Sher, one of the greatest directors today of golden age musicals, used a very controversial framing device to open and close the show. At the start, Burstein walked onto the stage in modern clothes, wearing a red ski jacket, bare-headed, and he looked around Anatevka while holding a book – the book that Fiddler was originally based on, Tevye And His Daughters, by Sholem-Aleichem (pen name obvs). He said the famous opening line of the show – regarding the precarious perch of a fiddler on the roof, “sounds crazy, no?” – in this outfit. Then he slowly took off the jacket and put on his Tevye cap and prayer shawl and transformed into Tevye, like he was a modern man exploring his ancestors’ history, going to Anatevka both in person and in the abstract. I’d heard a lot of debate about people loving or hating this tiny update, and I expected to hate such a change to a revered classic, but I thought it was very effective in its message. More on that at the end.
That was the only noticeable difference, and in less than a minute we were off to a rollicking start with “Tradition”. The medium-sized chorus on that cavernous empty stage seemed a little wrong at first but the joy of the song and the enthusiasm of the cast improved it. We then saw a little interaction between Tevye, his wife Golde – one of those great early stereotypes of a shrew who always gives her husband a hard time – and the matchmaker Yente. In her small role, Yente is usually worth her comic weight in gold, and although at first I was resistant to Alix Korey’s more restrained Yente (compared to the usual), she quickly won me over with her hilarious, sarcastic line readings.
As we went into “Matchmaker” I remembered that nearly every song of this score is beloved and memorable. I got even more excited but then kind of disappointed, as “Matchmaker” was the one part I was annoyed with. “Matchmaker” should be a bouncy, energetic song. Yet most of this rendition was slow, thudding along sadly despite the song screaming for liveliness. Also, this is one of Tzeitel’s only real moments to shine, yet I thought the usually-great Alexandra Silber was lackluster. Between her substandard vocals and the too-slow tempo, it was the one low point of the production.
Luckily, the next Top 10 hit on the schedule was “If I Were A Rich Man”. If I were a rich man, I would have made a tie in last year’s Tony Awards so that Danny Burstein could have won a much deserved award despite the existence of Hamilton. He was everything. I am still in awe of his performance. He made this ridiculous song feel important and touching and he was so lovable. His little celebratory shimmy that he did throughout “Rich Man” will stand throughout eternity as one of the Top 3 Shimmies, up there with Hillary Clinton’s Debate Shimmy and John Mulaney’s Realtor Trying to Pressure Him into Having a Baby Shimmy.
Tevye’s relationship with his wife was, as was the trend, also more understandable and moving than I’ve ever seen. This is probably because Danny was amazing and Judy Kuhn, as Golde, was his equal. I was kind of upset not to have caught the original Golde of this production, Jessica Hecht, with her kicky beret. (Hecht was Susan, Ross’s ex-wife’s lesbian lover, throughout the entire run of ‘Friends’. You know her.) But not really, because Judy Kuhn was the most exciting replacement they could have possibly announced. She is always dependable and guaranteed to move you to tears even when she only has one song (one insane killer song) like in “Fun Home”. I loved their bickering and Danny was at his funniest when responding to her. And Judy made Golde, who is usually played harsh in her shrewishness, seem like the grounded reasonable one in the family, more pleasant than ever.
As for the daughterssss the daughters, they were solid in general. As I said before, Silber’s Tzeitel was kind of disappointing considering that she is usually great, but she wasn’t bad. I loved Adam Kantor’s Motel (the tailor Motel Kamzoil, as you always have to say), mainly because he was a dead ringer for every boy who went to my camp. Real Main Line Jewish looking. I would have loved to see him as Jamie in “The Last Five Years”. His “Miracle of Miracles” was joyous and fun, although the blocking felt a little off. He and Tzeitel were far apart a lot, which is weird when they are celebrating their love and impending marriage. I also really enjoyed Samantha Massell’s Hodel. She had a gorgeous voice and her presence just felt right, very appropriate for the role. Melanie Moore’s Chava was very good too. I especially liked that she looked like Keri Russell with that signature pointy chinface and so it was like a small signal that she was going to fall for the Russian. Apparently, she was a winner on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, which is awesome, so although the little dancing she did was beautiful, I would have loved a lot more, considering.
One of the best scenes ermagerd came really early; I forget how chockfull of winners this show is. “To Life”, the one everyone knows (or is that every other song), was su-freaking-blime. Tevye’s classic miscommunication with Lazar Wolf, when Lazar wants to marry his daughter and Tevye thinks he wants to buy his cow, is as wonderfully chauvinistic as ever and just hilarious in the hands of these actors. Throughout this show, even though you know what’s coming at every step, it’s still so enjoyable. And this is where the choreography from Hofesh Shechter started to shine. This choreography was a big deal, because productions usually use the original choreography or stuff that looks like it. Hofesh, instead, created this energetic and kind of wild choreography that really jumped off the stage and brought new surges of celebration to “To Life” and new levels of meaning to the movement in other scenes, namely the wedding scene, which seemed to go on forever yet ended too soon. It was glorious dancing. Somehow in its frenetic movement, the ensemble looked like they were black charcoal drawings that came to life. So many horizontal lines thrashing about and it really looked like sketch art. It was enthralling and entirely unexpected. I made a big deal last year about how “Shuffle Along” should have won the Tony for Best Choreography over “Hamilton”, but I later changed my mind when I started really looking at the latter’s lyrical movement. However, I honestly think I would have voted for “Fiddler” now; it was that unexpected and impressive. I mean anytime you have Jews in suits doing those super-low quad-burning Russian squat kicks I am IN. But in “To Life” and especially the wedding scene and its ‘bottle dance’, I was blown away by how scrappy and kind of feral the movement seemed and how much I was reminded of etchings. It made me really understand the meaning in movement, as it was obvious that these men (it was mostly the men dancing like this) were dancing for their lives, trying to keep it jubilant but veering towards desperate, reflecting their struggle in their increasingly violently anti-Semitic society.
The scene I was most excited to see on Broadway was the big dream sequence, when Tevye fakes a visit from his grandmother beyond the grave in order to convince Golde to allow Tzeitel to break the engagement with Lazar. Grandma Tzeitel’s little old lady voice always kills me and here was no exception. Danny and Judy were wonderful on their little twin beds too. I was really surprised, however, at how Fruma Sarah, Lazar Wolf’s deceased wife, was done. I expected her to fly. Even in our high school production we had the girl flying around in the rafters like a real scary ghost would. Instead, Fruma Sarah was a giant demon in statue form, wheeling around the stage at maybe 20 feet tall. Really odd! It still worked okay, especially with the ghostface killah ensemble, but I remember thinking this is so weird! Like a giant statue. On wheels. And no flying! Whatevs.
At least one thing that went as expected was how moving “Sunrise, Sunset” would be. It was beautiful and perfect, although every time I hear that song, I can’t help but remember our high school production and how one night our Tevye began the song singing the second verse, and all the kids facing me, with their backs to the audience (so, the other main characters) were cracking up and shaking. Hilarious. This was not hilarious but it was lovely, and followed by the aforementioned impressive extended dance scene, including when the men danced with bottles balanced on their heads. I’m sure they were attached somehow but that didn’t matter. I didn’t want it to end. Well except it’s the last part of Act I and I really had to pee but you get what I’m saying.
The wedding scene is also where the real drama of Fiddler starts to boil over, when it’s no longer about family problems but about an entire people being persecuted. So, it’s when the decent people in the audience start shifting in their seats and going, oh shit, this is familiar. The Russian officers of the village break up the wedding and destroy everything and threaten all the Jews with continued violence. It was devastating to watch even without the real-life context, but with it, it was chilling.
In Act II, the next two daughters, Hodel and Chava, see their frowned-upon romances bloom as Tevye struggles to handle how everything he knew to be sure is falling apart, as the Russians take more control, more violence occurs, and the village hears more news of Jews in similar villages being forced to flee. Whereas before I would be upset with Tevye when his anger erupts at his wife or children, thinking why can’t he just let them be happy, it made a lot more sense to me through Danny’s performance. Everything he knew is changing against his will. All of his traditions are being destroyed, his family is separating in ways he never expected, and his entire way of life is threatened because of his religion. Each part separately would be a lot to handle, so expecting him to retain any semblance of self-control or compassion is expecting too much of one decent man.
As the threat of the Russian takeover builds, Hodel falls in love with the girls’ high-minded revolutionary tutor Perchik, a very political activist who I hope has been reborn today to help fight in this same fight again. Sure he gets sent to Siberia as punishment for his activism but at least he’s fighting injustice. Ben Rappaport did a fine job as our activist, and even though Perchik gets what I think is the ugliest song ever written for musical theatre, “Now I Have Everything”, he made it bearable. Seriously though, it’s such a bad song. It’s really hard to not sound terrible on, and then it ends on the wrong note, kind of like the end of Javert’s Soliloquy when all of a sudden you’re like oh what I was not expecting that note in that key to be where that phrase ended up, but at least for Javert the music swells and changes to make that weird ugly note make sense and it all resolves. Nothing resolves in “Now I Have Everything”, it just stays ugly like nails on a chalkboard as the final ‘wrong’ note just lingers. Yeesh. Hodel’s relationship with Perchik, though very briefly shown, felt believable, mostly because Samantha did a fantastic job with her heartbreaker of a song, “Far From the Home I Love”. These later scenes felt extra touching because the lighting changed with the mood of the show, as Tevye’s heart broke more and more.
Meanwhile, Chava develops a relationship with one of the very Russians destroying their lives, Fyedka. Sure he is one of the nice ones, but he’s still part of the group that is persecuting Tevye and his people. It’s more than Tevye can be asked to manage, and so he orders his daughter to stop seeing him, even though she loves him, because he is the enemy. I always hated Tevye when he disowns Chava after she elopes with Fyedka, but Danny made Tevye’s journey to that decision so convincing that even though it’s cruel I could understand why and how he could do that. It’s the only thing left for him to do in his efforts to keep a handle on what he knows to be true. And his fragile and heartbreaking “Chavelah” was too much for any of us to handle. Ugh it’s so sad.
Then of course there’s no time to mourn because the Russians are forcing all the Jews to flee their homes for who knows where because people are terrible and dogs should rule the planet and make things better. “Anatevka” is as sad as ever, more so because, like I said a hundred times, this is happening again and I don’t want to think about how many people in that audience helped make it happen and/or aren’t doing anything to fight it. We all know now that “Fiddler” is timeless, but who thought that 50 years on it would not only have such a lasting score and important message but that it would be so scarily relevant to what’s going on in our society? This is where the framing device used in this production really paid off. As the villagers wheeled their carts, stuffed with all the belongings they could fit, around the stage to signify their leaving during “Anatevka”, Tevye separated himself without really being noticed and Danny showed up in the modern clothing and the red coat again. As the villagers sang, he watched and then decided to join them, taking the handles of a cart from one of them, breaking through the division between his ancestors’ past and his present, the world he knows and the world whose history he was exploring to show that their fight was his fight and vice versa. He represented us, today, and how we are now facing that same choice of whether to join in that same fight that the people of Anatevka were fighting. It was so effective, and so frightening. It was a small, subtle way to lift this production to even higher levels of quality and emotional significance. I hope that this show, one of the most widely produced musicals ever, continues to be performed and continues to inspire and teach people about religious persecution. And that religious persecution is wrong; I feel the need to clarify nowadays. It’s wrong! Okay? Got it?! good.
“Bobbie We’ve Been Trying to [Like] You”: I Saw the West End Revival of Company Again
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are taking a second look at the West End revival of Sondheim’s Company, which has extended its much-celebrated run and is eyeing Broadway.
Theatre followers will know that the current revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company is the most celebrated show in London right now, at least. It might be the most celebrated show in the world, given how reviewers are positively falling over themselves to exalt it more than everyone else, trying to get closer to it so some of its glory can rub off on them OR SOMETHING. I don’t know why they’re doing it, because I am literally the only reviewer not joining the overhype club. As we saw a few months ago, I thought this gender-switched revival of Company was…fine. Not life-changing, and certainly not revolutionary in the musical theatre realm as so many are claiming, as they’re distracted by the main character now being female and overlooking that, even with the switch, it remains an out-dated, old-fashioned, kind of sexist show. So why did I see it again?
Well, I wanted to see if I was wrong. I can be wrong! I gave it another chance to see if everyone else was right to be lauding this production more than any of the great theatre on right now (like Hadestown). Also, a good portion of my dislike of the show the first go-round was due to seeing the understudy for Bobbie. With lead Rosalie Craig getting unprecedented raves, and heavily favored to sweep awards, I had to actually catch her apparently jaw-dropping performance. Since she is always good, I got re-excited. I was super open and ready to fall in love with this show and admit that I was wrong.
Bitch I’m never wrong.
It’s fine, and yes it was a lot more enjoyable with Rosalie. She is so nuanced and likable in all her work, and she’s lovely here, and best in the book scenes. However, some of the music still falls flat without a big-voiced singer, and there doesn’t seem to be any emotional stakes for her. I didn’t feel anything during “Marry Me a Little”. “Being Alive” has always been one of my favorite musical theatre songs, yet this production has made me question that, because it’s performed kind of quietly and without power. Is this song only riveting when it’s sung to the rafters? The repeated, simple melody and its concise, moving lyrics require an obvious showing of growth and reflection and decision-making shown through dynamic, evolving, and emotional singing – otherwise, it’s stagnant and weak. And that’s what happens here. Her acting is great but it’s not coming across through the music as it should. Without the emotion that belting can help express, the song lost its power. And I’m not usually one to worship belting over acting, but for this song, it only fulfills its fullest emotional potential when the singer’s soul is laid bare, when they’re being completely vulnerable and opening up to the audience and getting everything they feel out there. It’s no longer a mesmerizing character moment when it’s “hmm I guess I do want to find love, as I already told you” versus “HOLY SHIT IF I DON’T FIND LOVE I AM GOING TO EXPLODE.” The latter way is gripping and powerful; the former is just meh.
That’s generally how I feel about the show overall. I still don’t find the gender switch all that interesting. Yes, it’s great to switch up classic roles so that it’s not just white men getting big parts, but I feel that others are forcing more meaning onto the switch than it actually has. It’s cool to see how the show works with a female Bobbie, but that’s really it. Having one doesn’t make this the definitive story of our times or anything. I said before that I found a female Bobbie less compelling than a male Bobby, because of two (potentially contradictory) reasons: 1) society has always bothered women about getting married up, so it’s not anything radical to have a woman thinking about the pressure versus the desire to marry; whereas for a man it did seem more unique; and 2) in this age, it’s bullshit to put that pressure to marry on women anymore.
As for #1, I guess I can understand people finding Bobbie’s situation compelling even if it’s absolutely run-of-the-mill, because maybe they identify with it as an everywoman kind of thing. I just didn’t feel any conflict in Bobbie’s own perspective of her situation, because she says throughout the show to her friends that she is ready for marriage and has indeed been trying. They don’t seem to bother her about being unmarried so much as they ask her a question and she eagerly tells them that she wants to get married. There’s no big change in her thought process or anything, nor is there pressure from the married friends. The people around Bobby in past productions seemed to be incessantly bothering him, with the staging effectively showing them crowding him and coming closer and closer into his personal space, while he needed to finally come to this conclusion himself. Here, it’s like Bobbie already knows and tells her friends from the start that she wants to get married and has been trying, so like…yeah, that’s that. So the big revelation of “Being Alive” actually feels ill-timed here, and overall ill-fitting, since Bobbie has already told us – repeatedly – the revelations she’s supposed to be having in the song.
As for #2, in my first review, I shot this down from my perspective as a woman about Bobbie’s age: Since I don’t feel it or see it, I said this pressure isn’t a thing nowadays and no one cares about unmarried 30-somethings. And while this is my experience, I realize that’s not true for everyone. And, aligning my perspective with Bobbie’s since we’re the same demographic was ill-informed, because the character/s I should be identifying with are the married friends. Of course no one is bothering me about getting married since I am; and although I don’t see it with my single friends or with society at large, it’s not my place to say that it’s wrongly represented. But what I can say is that literally no younger married couples bother their single friends about getting married. We don’t give a shit as long as you’re happy. And if you do want to get married, no actual friends would nag about how you should really hurry up. That’s not a friend, then. In this production, there really isn’t any nagging anyway, not compared to others. Her married friends kind of say ‘eh you looking to marry soon’ and Bobbie’s like ‘YEAH LOVE TO’ and that’s that. There’s more of the couples hoping that she’s happy than anything, and telling her she’s lucky to be single. So the more I think about it, it’s not even that the pressure on the lead character wouldn’t be a thing today – the pressure doesn’t even seem to exist in the play universe. So what’s the conflict? Just that she’s putting the pressure on herself? She seems pretty content though, just aware that she wants to find the right person. WHERE IS THE PROBLEM.
Aside from the nonexistence of the central plot or emotional journey, the show is very entertaining. The supporting cast is great, although I was terrified from more recent word of mouth that the hamminess had upped to unbearable levels. Considering how much scenery Patti LuPone was chewing in previews, I was scared that none of the amazing set would be left. Luckily, everyone was still operating within optimal limits. While I still don’t think Patti’s/Joanne’s new book scenes around “Ladies Who Lunch” work at all, her performance of that song and of “The Little Things You Do Together” were stronger. Best of all, Jonathan Bailey is still stealing the show and making it all worthwhile with his “Getting Married Today”. His Jamie is manic hilarity without going to over-the-top annoying, and it’s the funniest scene, absolutely pitch perfect in every way, with credit to Daisy Maywood’s Priest and just impeccable staging. And I still love Gavin Spokes’s Harry (so heartfelt with is “Sorry/Grateful”) and Richard Fleeshman’s Andy. They’re wonderful.
I don’t often get to see shows in previews and again after opening, so I was shocked that a lot of changes actually did happen. For one, the entirety of the “Tick, Tock” sequence exists now. There was absolutely nothing of that when I saw it earlier, and now there’s at least a five-minute segment of Bobbie having a nightmare about her biological clock and seeing snippets of her potential lives (played by new company members – there are so many silent ensemble members now!) if she married this guy or that and had a baby or several. It’s pretty interesting although it’s unclear what her takeaway is.
Speaking of those new cast members, they’re also used to fill the subway carriages even more in the wholly substandard “Another Hundred People”. I said enough before about how bad it is, so suffice it to say it’s still bad, just with more people involved.
The other disappointing thing that I didn’t mind the first time was the production of “Side by Side/What Would We Do Without You”. The choreography – some of the only choreography in the show – is mostly fun complicated hand movements while the cast is seated, very “War is a Science”. It’s not dancing. Sometimes they play party games. Yet they felt the need to have the cast do exaggerated, vocalized ‘huffs’ no less than FOUR times during the song. Guys. Musical theatre usually requires dancing while singing; all of these performers have done and can do that easily. It’s weird to pretend the cast is so exhausted from their one bit of choreo, and it’s not funny to repeat the same ‘huff huff huff huff!’ four times. Man alive.
So, I tried again and while I am so happy I saw Rosalie, who is great, it’s still not a compelling take on the material. This version, which on paper seems like a no brainer, somehow lacks any reason for us to be interested in Bobbie’s situation. Whenever a higher-up takes a look at a movie script or an early novel draft, the first question they ask about the lead character is “Why do we care about them??” It’s important to be able to answer that.
