Saoirse Ronan Loves Murder in Almeida's Macbethby Randi / November 10, 2021London’s latest take on the classic Billy Shakes stars a magnetic Cush Jumbo, the first woman I’ve seen in the role and possibly the most natural fit for it. She has stage presence coming out her invisible pores, babies. Hamlet, which I learned at Quizzo a few weeks ago is Shakespeare’s longest play, is about the grumpiest grumpo who ever grumped (well for dern good reason), but Cush gave us the opposite of cushlash and made this super-emo character captivating for the first time in a long time.
This Hamlet is a cool fella in luxurious leisurewear neutrals who is seething with rage at his new uncle-daddy and his uncle-daddy’s new sister-wife who is also our dude’s mommy-aunt. Turns out uncle-daddy killed daddy-brother so he could become king and marry his brother’s widow slash his sister-in-law. It’s a big old mess! Hamlet’s like ‘does no one else realize what has happened? are you all just cool with this? you guys are seeing this right?’ and just kind of goes whaaaat the fuuuuuck until he starts murdering out his revenge. He thought he got his piece of shit uncle first but turns out he actually killed that Polonius guy® and from then on things did not get better for him or anyone else. Polonius, fun fact, was played by Joseph Marcell, Geoffrey the butler from Fresh Prince, and I was very excited to see him and shouted exuberantly so it’s a good thing I was watching from home (see below).
In this version’s attempt at modernizing the tale, the clothes were modern streetwear and they used a lot of guns. I wish people would just do it straight. Sometimes it’s silly. I did absolutely adore the hilarious use of “It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right”; that was the funniest theatrical bit I’ve seen in weeks. But to balance it out, the modern techno music used for scene changes, and the weird music interlude with Ophelia dancing around, were big misfires. The staging and set were very stark and bare, which worked for me. I thought the casting was fairly strong all around. Ophelias usually fail to make an impression on me (or anyone?), but I enjoyed Norah Lopez Holden’s take that really showed the nuanced details of a yoot’s life. Ophelia’s primal screaming was so good I wish I could record that and play it on a loop in my neighbor’s window.
The play is all about its enthralling lead though, who put aside the usual intrigue about the title character’s mental health and made it clear that their thirst for vengeance was the only option. Some of Cush’s delivery was surprisingly musical, really leaning into the rhythmic possibilities and making the words fun to listen. I was reminded a few times of Daryl Mitchell doing Sonnet 141 in 10 Things I Hate About You. For some of her lines I was jiving in my head to his unparalleled take on “In faith I do not love thee WITH MINE EEEEEYES/for they in thee a thousand errors NOTE.” Hot take but that’s the best part of that excellent movie.
I recently read Maggie O’Farrell’s book Hamnet (decent but not as good as I was hyped to believe)(much better than her Instructions for a Heatwave though, woof) so I was eager to reexperience Hamlet and try to discern where the grief he was feeling for his son may have come into play. I’m not sure of specifics, but it definitely felt sadder. Whether that’s the book or the enchantment of Cush’s performance, who can say!
In positively thrilling news, the Young Vic has committed to making all of this season’s productions available to watch via livestream for those of us who don’t completely love being coughed on by maskless miscreants. They had four livestream performances through their ‘Best Seat in Your House’ program. I love that they offer several different camera angles to choose from, but the pre-show videos for testing out the different sight lines for each choice all looked the same so we went with Director’s Choice (which is probably the right move regardless?). Since it was streamed during a regular in-person performance, the cameras didn’t get all up in their grills like with the Almeida’s Macbeth but it came across well on the small screen nonetheless. (They also had six performances that were socially distanced instead of being sold at full capacity. A super bravo to little Victor!)
INFORMATION
Apparently time got away from me because this ends tomorrow! Go see it if you are in London!
The show began at 7pm, Act I ended at 8:50pm (thank god I was home that’s too long without a bathroom break), and the show ended at 10:10. The website says the run time is 3 hours 10 minutes, so that’s some muhfuhing commitment to accuracy and I APPRECIATE IT.
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Bridges at the Menier Chocolate Factory: A Disservice to the Music
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Bridges of Madison County at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Listen to the original cast album instead.
Jason Robert Brown’s nearly impeccable score for The Bridges of Madison County, one of the most gorgeous in musical theatre, begins with the riveting introduction “To Build a Home”, in which Francesca recounts leaving a war-torn Italy and building a life for the past few decades in farmland America with her U.S. soldier husband. As soon as this song began in the original production and redefined what the word ‘Iowa’ could be, you knew this show was going to be special. However, as soon as it begins in this particular production at the Menier Chocolate Factory, you know this show is going to be long. Francesca famously sings “This is Albany…this is Buffalo…this is Cleveland…this is South Bend…” as she travels deeper into the USA. I found myself rewriting these lyrics during the rest of the show: “This is tedious…this is terrible…this is wearisome…this is boring…” And I must remind you, this is one of my favorite musicals of all time.
Now, I’m a fan of Jenna Russell, a beloved fixture of London theatre (seriously though, it’s like the West End casts the same people over and over; where is the London Bernie Tesley when you need one?), but she and her costar Edward Baker-Duly (as the love interest Robert) are so miscast as to make you wonder if the casting directors were forking with everyone, or high. They’re definitely at least high, along with director Trevor Nunn. Yes, Nunn, the celebrated director who recently helmed a wonderful Fiddler at the Menier, is also the wrong fit for this show, making it longer (as you’d expect with him) but also mind-numbingly dull. In theory, the smaller theatre should work for this intimate show, but it just makes it easier to see what’s wrong.
If you don’t know Bridges, the whole point of this story is to watch two people fall in love when they shouldn’t, and to feel their chemistry and understand their deep love even though you know it shouldn’t exist and can’t last. Maybe you know the famous Meryl Streep-Crazy Old Man movie, maybe you know the book; if so, you know this is a paperbook romance kind of jawn and you gotta just lean in and love it. With the musical version, you feel their love through the music, this soaring, heartrending music that beautifully lets you understand their love and maybe think that it should exist after all. There’s not a lot of plot to that – the success of the musical relies entirely on watching the chemistry build between these two characters, which in turn relies entirely on expression through the music.
But when the score isn’t sung as it’s meant to be, then no emotion gets expressed, and no chemistry builds, and the whole foundation of the musical is lost, with nothing for anything else to build upon. The original stars, Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale, are supremely beautiful people, which helped their insane chemistry set that stage on fire. But they also have some of the most powerfully gorgeous voices in the world, and they were so skillful at expressing a gamut of emotion and thoughtfulness through this music that they set new benchmarks in musical theatre. Here, the leads can barely eke out the right notes, and when they hit them, they do not soar; they are barely audible. The actors are also markedly older, which the show semi-acknowledges by changing the ‘for 18 years’ line in the opening number to ‘for 20 years’, although that’s not really it chief. The age increase works on paper, to have Francesca’s loneliness and longing even more long-standing, but it’s still simply the wrong actors. There is no passion, and this show relies on passion. The two have a bit of chemistry, but not the required bucketloads, and it only extends to each other and not to the audience. The entire first act is literally watching these two wrestle with their emotions (while the second is watching them literally wrestle) as their attraction builds and builds. Here, with nothing simmering on the stage, there’s literally nothing happening, nothing to watch, nothing to experience, and the first act is like watching paint dry. And with no soaring vocals, there’s no story to tell, no characters to build. For example, the second act song “Almost Real”, one of the most brilliant character backstory songs written, helps you understand everything Francesca ever thought and felt and how she made her decisions that led her here – if done right. (I also didn’t enjoy Nunn’s addition of having Chiara, Francesca’s sister, say the relevant lines while Francesca sang them.) It’s honestly a shame above all that these exceptional songs aren’t given their due.
The supporting cast fares much better, though how much of that is a result of comparison is a good question. The much-loved Joni-Mitchell-esque song “Another Life” was a bit of a disappointment, with the actress playing Robert’s ex-wife never really capturing the emotion it requires (theme o’ the day), but she still sounded lovely. The comical neighbors Marge and Charlie were wonderful, with Gillian Kirkpatrick stealing every scene she could, and Paul F. Monaghan performing a lovely rendition of “When I’m Gone”, a soulful gospel-y song that without fail makes me cry at its simple but profound lyrics, although the too-long between-verse staging here was overblown. Even Bud (Dale Rapley), Francesca’s thick but well-meaning husband, came off amazingly, and I found myself eager for him to return to the stage even for his super depressing song, just because it meant the leads were off. When that’s the dynamic of Bridges, you know something is wrong. And when the godforsaken “State Road 21” is the best performed song in the show, you really know something is wrong.
To top off all the distressing disappointment on display here, every single song was at least a full beat too slow, adding a good 15 minutes to the run time and making every song, already fucked from the poor casting and direction, sound like a dirge. They did this show dirty, and it deserves better.
INFORMATION
Bridges at the Menier (anyone else think ‘layches on the men-jay’ from I Love You, Man? No, just me?) runs about 2 hours 50 minutes and will play until September 14. If you want to look at your watch every two minutes to see if time is magically moving as quickly as you’d like, then by all means get tickets to this show – it won’t be hard; there were tons of empty seats on a Saturday night (which is a shame for any show, no matter how poorly I think of it). But if you want to appreciate one of the most gorgeous scores ever written for musical theatre as it should be experienced, then just watch this instead:
The Minutes on Broadway: You Wish Your Local Council Was This Bonkerballs (you really don’t)
It’s Theatre Thursday! We’re still doing those when we remember!
Okay yes The Minutes, Tracy Letts’ latest Broadway play, has recently closed, and I was just too busy to write about it in time for you to read the review and still be able to go ‘oh I want to see this, I will go to Telecharge.com right now and be able to magically use that shithole of a website from 1991 and actually successfully checkout before the show closes and/or I die from frustration.’ Sorry, but hey, what a weird show! If it was still open, I would have recommended checking it out but not paying too much.
The Minutes is a real-time-plus-flashback-also-in-real-time local council meeting (omg I’m forgetting what they are called in USA, what’s happened to me…borough meeting? it’s a small baby government of people who think they have a lot of power and honestly have more than they should) where the new guy is trying to play catch-up with WTAF is going on with this group. Noah Reid – Patrick from Schitt’s Creek – is beyond perfectly cast as the earnest newbie who you can tell makes dad jokes and is friendly, committed to doing his job well, and eager to correct people’s grammar (‘sometimes it’s who!!’).
Right from the start, you get a bad feeling about the council head Tracy Letts, who is just as incredible an actor as he is a writer. Even without the ominous thunderstorm, you’d know from his first scene where he’s kibbutzing politely over the refreshments with the new guy not to trust him, and when he asks the new guy what his baby daughter’s name is, you get the urge to yell “don’t tell him!!” It’s so subtle but he conveys that sinister sense that things aren’t what they seem.
Noah’s commitment to doing his job means not letting Tracy (we are screwing character names) and the rest of the council skirt past the whole ‘incident’ that happened the week before, the one that drove a fellow member to not show up tonight. Someone mentions it in passing, and Noah’s like ‘well what happened last week, remember, this is my first meeting?’ and everyone’s like ‘FORGET IT LA LA LA WE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING’. So Noah has Jessie Mueller (NOT SINGING AT ALL) read the minutes (drink!) of the meeting from the week before, which is his right. She reads them and when it gets to the key part, apparently there’s a transcript she made that’s attached as an appendix. Guys, there’s a whole lot of talk about the technicalities of minutes and appendices and transcripts that the Tony-winner likes to do just for completeness sake, and it sounds like it would be a long sigh of a boring mess, but it’s actually gripping. You’re like YES READ THE F-ING TRANSCRIPT, THE APPENDIX IS PART OF THE MINUTES, OF COURSE IT’S PART OF IT!
What comes to light about the conflict the week before focuses on the man who isn’t at the present meeting, the council member with the conscience. Turns out he wanted the council to officially recognize the town’s terrible racist history, the truth that everyone ignores, that’s the opposite of what’s in the popular founding mythology and the town song. The real story is, as we guessed, full of slaughter of the Native population. All of this sounds very believable and without a doubt is the same story for many American towns. But taking this play’s treatment of this subject beyond the recognizable and into the symbolic is the strength of the connection this town, and this council, has to their fake history. Their unwillingness to give up their fake history is treated more like a necessity, a powerful all-encompassing metaphorical spirit that goes beyond what you’d expect in real life, but reflects the strength these false histories have over us. People like this cling to them when letting go would mean also losing a sense of balance in the world, the world they/we created where we benefit from the lies.
So they WILL NOT let them go! The play ends super weird, like war paint and hooting weird, and it’s a little unbelievable that Noah would fold so easily, but maybe I’m projecting. And sure it’s not (hopefully) representative of what happens at your average council meeting, but the sentiment at play is pretty much what’s going on in every town in America. We love a Tracy Letts joint to make us feel bad about the world!
