Seeing "FRIEND: The One with Gunther" after losing Guntherby Randi / November 16, 2021Indecent Proposal at the Southwark is a must-see I can’t stop yelling about
I know you won’t believe me because no one ever believes me (“should I use my invisibility to fight crime, or for evil?”) but the new musical adaptation of ‘Indecent Proposal’, now at the Southwark Playhouse, is one of the strongest original works London theatre has seen since ‘Six’ ended a decade-long drought. I know that is A QUITE THE STATEMENT, but I always have suggestions (demands?) and at least two full songs to cut after every show I see, because I want them to make it the best it can possibly be, but this time? I’m like Connie the hormone monster after Jessie first screams at her mother:
Michael Conley and Dylan Schlosberg, the writer and composer respectively, have clearly worked to edit this show into a tight and riveting work. Can I just say, it is a TREAT to see something that doesn’t feel like a first draft. ‘Indecent Proposal’ passed all the criteria on my checklist that few shows concern themselves with, including: Does it seem like more than one set of eyes edited the book, and did they care if it passed the smell test? (I would honestly volunteer to edit books for free, this is how much the usual obvious lack of editing kills me.) Is the humor a race to the bottom or does it respect its audience? And crucially: was any of the storytelling actually improved by it being a musical or would it have been the same as a play? (Shockingly few musicals actually bother to address the baseline test for being a musical.) Luckily, this one passed them all. The engaging music is used well, and Shakespeare would get a big old British boner for all this drama.
What we get is an intimate, well-constructed musical adaptation of the 1988 book by Jack Engelhard (who am I kidding, we’re all thinking only of the 1993 Demi Moore movie) telling the story of Rebecca and Jonny, a down-on-their-luck-but-up-on-their-love couple living in Atlantic City back when it was seedy and decaying and full of unglamorous people (so, anytime) (but no it’s clearly still set in the late ’80s, from the fashun). They seem like decent people who need, and deserve, a bit of luck in the financial department. When Famous Rich Man Larry offers them a million dollars if he can spend the night with Rebecca, everything goes to shit.
And the shit gets interesting. The drama is more than whether they will accept or not, whether they could survive it, whether they have the footing to decline — although that is all handled with care and attention. It’s not obvious that ‘of course they should just punch the guy and call it a day!’, as a lot of us would shout. People who brush off their dilemma are fortunate enough to have never been so desperate. But surely empathetic people can feel for those at the end of their rope. You start to understand why these poor poor people would even consider it, no matter how awful it is. The interesting and nuanced drama comes from how their interactions subtly but markedly change, especially in their now-stilted communication, what they’re not saying and what they’re waiting for the other to say. Charlotte Westenra’s direction of Lizzy Connolly and Norman Bowman in their unraveling relationship is so sharp, and I adored how it seemed we were catching them in emotional moments that we weren’t supposed to see, and how often they would be powerfully Acting with their expressions even though only a tiny portion of the audience could see. I mean at one point I saw Jonny whisper “I’m sorry” into Rebecca’s ear even though I don’t anyone else could or did notice that. That is COMMITMENT TO THE PART and we love to see it. Lizzy stood out to me in that incredible revival of Sweet Charity, and her talent and presence shine here. Norman Bowman is new to me (I know I’m sorry) and even though his forking forearm veins are their own separate character (jealous) I’m obsessed with his performance. He gives this great scrappy chaos energy, kind of like Billy Crudup in ‘The Morning Show’ (he is by far the best part of that show ps) but wiry and desperate, it’s so good. (He’d be perfect to star in ‘Memphis’ given what I remember of the original star who shant be named.) These actors are giving such deep and fine-tuned performances, so inhabiting the characters that it feels intrusive to be watching this couple instead of sending them to therapy stat. Instead of being about shock value of the main concept, they help make the show this intriguing portrait of a formerly annoyingly happy couple who are now doomed, no matter what.
More than ever before (i.e. more than when I saw the movie as a literal baby), I realized that that’s the interesting drama at play: not that this jackwagon has the AUDACITY, or what’s going to happen to the couple we root for, but that Famous Rich Man’s power goes beyond the money he offers. His power is in his shameless gall in offering it in the first place. Because as soon as he opens his mouth, the damage is done. It doesn’t matter what they do next. They will suffer for what he had the impunity to suggest, because it’s just another game to him, despite it having the power to ruin normal lives. He doesn’t care. Honeybadger don’t care.
As the rich man Larry, Ako Mitchell is a decent villain, but most importantly he sounds better than I’ve ever heard him. His first song has a humorous turnaround, as he’s performing in-universe and starts off nervous, but then he’s like ‘OH GUESS WHAT, I’M AWESOME.’ I really wanted to shout ‘oh shit Ako COME THROUGH’ when he belted those velvet notes but did not, which is good, because then I would have had to kick my own ass. I’m usually against the idea of relying on diegetic songs in musicals because it often feels like a half-assed way of giving characters something to do (see, e.g., all poor Lilli Cooper had to do in Tootsie), but that’s not the case here. It works given the setting, and even without that, the structure of the musical numbers feels thoughtfully done, since the diegesis of the songs pays off in Act II when they aren’t anymore. And that long climax scene in Act II as the couple fights, with it’s motherforking STAGING as they shared inner monologues? It’s genius.
The music is pretty good, never feeling out of place or out of character. And the writer has to be from the area because I have never witnessed such attention to detail. I literally almost gasped when they said something about how it’s almost 7pm so Jeopardy! would be starting soon! Who knows that but locals! And someone was wearing a Phillies shirt! And there was a Jets shirt because I guess they knew people in New Jersey are split between the two cities’ teams. If anyone had said ‘wooder’ I would have fainted.
A lot of the ‘professional’ critics who need to get a life and/or the stick out of their butts said they were aghast (clutch them pearls!) at the idea of offering money to sleep with someone’s wife, oh my lord farquaad. They were like, ‘oh this is a horrid, horrid show, pish posh, it’s simply positively indecent.’ IT’S IN THE TITLE, NUMBNUTS. Did they have no idea going in? Or did they actively choose to be offended and make a fuss even though I thought British people HATED making a fuss. They also said Larry was too bad a guy or too unlikeable for making this offer. Is…that…not…the….POINT? Honestly, in addition to the marital strife, what grabbed me by the shoulders and shook hard was how much of this show made me scream TAX THE RICH! internally. Did they not see the part where he doesn’t pay the poor dying woman for his beer? Where he gives a homeless person a measly $2 and probably feels that’s enough charity for the year? The constant thread of noticing how easily Larry could save people’s lives was fascinating. He instead chooses to fuck with these two. He chooses VIOLENCE. He has such power and he uses it to put a disaster in motion with his words, how is that not interesting drama? There are all these poor, decent people who just need some help, like Jonny and Rebecca, and poor Annie (Jacqeline Dankworth, lovely) who needs a gd hysterectomy, and this guy could help them all and chooses not to. This show was a motherfucking ONION with its layers.
This show has accomplished something really difficult in showing a very convincing and genuine-feeling intimate portrayal of this couple and what can happen when love is not enough to survive on. That a musical version of this kind of insane story told in this climate managed to provide such a compelling marital drama is what shocked me and why I’m so effusive in my praise for it. Noah Baumbach could never.
ALSO. The accents were good. I KNOW!
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“Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” in London’s West End: Why Tho?
It’s important to have queer stories, but I don’t think you should get points just for ticking a box — they actually have to be good. With “Moonlight”, a film about not only gay characters but black characters winning the Oscar last year (despite the Academy being old white men) (and despite the incredible initial mixup), and with “Call Me By Your Name” up for awards this weekend, our entertainment culture has maybe? hopefully? finally reached the point where it’s not enough to have token minority characters or storylines; they also have to be interesting, imaginative, and worthwhile too. And done with respect. I don’t think any form of inclusivity that seems done just for brownie points should be lauded as the pinnacle of inclusivity. In London right now, however, you still get the points for a paint-by-numbers queer story even if it’s super thin and amateur. Because everybody is indeed talking about “Jamie”, the new London musical, and Brits are loving it, but it is…how do I say…not very good.
Like I said, literally everyone else adores it. And it has a lot of the kind of fun that mass crowds love in things like “Mamma Mia!” – you know, the bright, loud, danceable shows. No one is bothered if the dialogue is cringey or the songs are uninspired if everyone is bopping in their seat. But I am, because I am always waiting for a great British score and, well, I’m still waiting. With the exception of Tim Minchin’s scores (the superb “Matilda”, “Groundhog Day”), British musical theatre has been in trouble since, well, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s heyday. That’s a long time to go with nothing of true substance to show for it. Oh I’m sorry, I forgot that in that time frame of literal decades of dreck was Elton John’s “Billy Elliot” score. Okay so Tim Minchin, Webs, and Elton John. I guess all the promising writers went to Broadway. And to think people are surprised when I explain that Broadway is on a whole nother playing field to the West End when it comes to musical theatre. I know it sounds mean but tell me what British-born original musical of the last decade or two has been of the high quality you would expect from one of the greatest theatre cities in the entire world. Because of this draught, I was so pumped for “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” because all I saw were rave reviews and I REALLY wanted London to have a great original musical finally that wasn’t a Broadway transfer. I wanted to fall in love with a brand-new score and listen to it until I memorized it and wait eagerly for it to go to Broadway. But this score is not that.
While it is outwardly fun — like there are bright colors and happy tunes and people dancing so the masses will be more than satisfied — and it is great to have the representation like this on such a stage and scale, I was just so unimpressed with the actual bones of the show. I wish I loved it, because it’s such a great story and it’s so important to show to people, especially young boys who identify with Jamie. I just wish such a great opportunity for representation came with quality writing.
It’s impossible not to compare this show to “Kinky Boots”. “Jamie”, to me, is about a production team that saw the enormous success of “Kinky Boots” all over the world and thought, ‘Hey, it seems that people really love stories about boys that don’t fit the traditional mold of masculinity, and the psychology that informs their decisions and how it affects the NOPE WAIT IT’S JUST ABOUT BOYS DRESSING UP AS GIRLS THAT’S IT WE WILL DO THAT!’ There was such potential in developing stories inspired by such departures from traditional male roles, but instead they seemed to mine the most asinine humor from it with a sort of baseline effort.
“Jamie” is about a teenage boy named Jamie who is living in a small English town where the accents are such that everyone pronounces his name ‘Jeh-meh’ and he is wayyy toooo faaaabulous for it. He wants to be a drag queen, and his loving but one-dimensional mother supports him, and his classmates and friends seem to find it cool, except for one of the typical asshole boys who thinks he is macho but is really obviously fragile in his masculinity. And his absentee father doesn’t approve but he was never really in his life or wanting to be. Okay, cool, Jamie, go be a drag queen, you are beautiful so you will be great at it. This is all clear in the first five minutes, though, and it’s very formulaic. Even formulaic setups could make great shows if they are handled well, but the remaining hours of the show feel just like filler, and on an amateur level. They fill it with the local drag shop (I’m sorry, what towns in rural England have entire shops for drag queens?) run by a great drag queen from the past named Loco Chanelle, a really low-effort drag name, who sings a very, VERY unnecessary and cringe-worthy song about his past and how he killed his lover maybe??, and it gets a goddamn REPRISE??? They fill it with a stern, annoying teacher who has a serious problem with Jamie’s breaking out of the straight lines she wants boys and girls to stay inside. Her outdated beliefs are only a tiny bit easier to believe than the fact that a school teacher in a tiny town has Christian Louboutin heels, another thing that is mentioned ostensibly to help the writers reach their word limit. And they fill it with bad music.
I hate writing this, because I do like liking things, and I want to love everything musical theatre so badly. Even with a lackluster book, if a show has fun or lovely or even just original music, that’s a win. But this score is complete cringe. The trite, derivative lyrics stick in your head, so it has that going for it. There’s the title song, where everyone jumps around like they’re at a rave and yells “Everybody’s talking about Jamie! Everybody’s talking about Jamie! Everybody’s talking about Jamie!” The melody is exactly how you are imagining it. I don’t even know if that song had other lyrics. The opening number, the one that has to set the tone for the whole show, is called, “And You Don’t Even Know It”, and it just says a phrase and then repeats “And you don’t even know it” over and over and over. “You’re a star! And you don’t even know it! Mini bar! And you don’t even know it!” Okay I made that last lyric up but you get the picture. I LOVE loved (sarcasm) the big ‘I Want’ number of the show, called “Spotlight”, where Jamie’s classmates sang of him “Out of the darkness, into the spotlight, out of the darkness, into the spotlight.” In that one was the part when I realized ‘ohhh this is going to be terrrrible’ — when the female classmates were sitting at a table doing the cups thing from ‘Pitch Perfect’ to the melody, the stupid thing you learn at summer camp when you’re little and somehow Anna Kendrick made cool? Anyway, the girls were doing that as accompaniment and my eyes got stuck in the back of my head. Then, ohh man, my favorite, the big runway catwalk number called “Work of Art” where everyone sang of Jamie (I’m sensing a redundant theme) about how he’s a work of art: “Mona Lisa isn’t she sir, work of art” was one lyric that I almost screamed at. I just…listen, not everything has to have Sondheim-level lyrics, but at least some effort would be appreciated.
Oh my real favorite part was when the mother had one of her hackneyed ballads about how she would do things differently if she met herself again (title of song: “If I Met Myself Again” picture 1000 eye roll emojis) and I SHIT YOU NOT, two dancers were BREAKDANCING during it. DURING A SAD BALLAD. It wasn’t ballet-like emotional dancing to the slow music; it was literally breakdancing to a nonexistent rhythm as though someone somewhere were scratching a record and Jason Mendoza was patiently waiting for the beat to drop but it never would. I looked around me in the darkness for the Punk’d cameras. I have never been so flabbergasted at direction choices. Man alive.
The only real conflict is for Jamie to get enough nerve to go onstage in his dress and not let the stupidest kid in school or the father that abandoned him get to him. That this super-confident, quick-witted boy would waste a moment thinking about what the mean boy in school thought of him was hard to believe, but okay, everyone has bullies in high school and it’s hard to deal with. But is this so-tiny-it’s-hard-to-even-call-him-a-minor-character really the only source of external conflict? To make up for that, Jamie fights with his mother for no good reason, and his mother sings a song about how he’s her boy (called “He’s My Boy”) and the audience was supposed to cry but it was forcing drama onto a cotton candy cloud that vanished into thin air as soon as pressure was applied to it.
Almost every character was stereotyped and lacking any semblance of nuance. I couldn’t believe that this show got this far without people editing it to bring it into the best shape possible. Or at least shape enough to run around the block. Only one character wasn’t completely clichéd and stereotyped, because it is one of the first appearances of such a character in musical theatre. Jamie’s best friend is a Muslim girl named Pritti (played by Lucie Shorthouse) who wears a hijab. As far as I know this is new, and this is minority representation this show deserves to be commended for. Lucie is the only character that gets to shine, aside from Jamie. She gets the one song in the show that didn’t make me want to tear my hair out, called “It Means Beautiful”, about the Arabic equivalent of the name Jamie. It’s not a great melody and the lyrics don’t live up to the nice sentiment that gives rise to the song (i.e., Pritti telling Jamie that he is indeed beautiful and look Arabic proves it), but still, it was decent. Lucie unfortunately does annoying popstar styling with her voice throughout the song, where she kind of catches the sound during held notes (something the director, if he exists, should have stopped) but she is really talented.
And Jamie himself shines bright. John McCrea has real star quality shining through even this pile. He stands out physically, a lithe, otherworldly-blonde, pale young man who regularly shows off how incredibly flexible he is. He manages to imbue the dullness with pops of vigor here and there, usually by doing an impossibly high kick in heels. He delivers one of the only lines that made me laugh – a bit where he’s trying to climb out the bathroom window and the mean teacher asks what he thinks he’s doing and he says “…Parkour??” That actually cracked me up. I hope that John gets a role in the future that is actually worthy of his talent.
Although I’m pretty sure he’s happy with this one. Everyone seems to be loving it.
Aside from the horrendous, actively bad score, the book is a mess as well. There is way too much of everything (so much attention to the drag queen, the teacher, the father, the friends) and yet not enough of those things to make it worthwhile, no real sense of understanding what they are trying to accomplish. And as if this storyline didn’t feel straight out of 1992 enough, there are outdated jokes peppering the book scenes, like talk of how all Kim Kardashian does is wear heels. It’s so low-effort.
OH so part of the nonexistent conflict is that the mean boy calls Jamie a ‘minger’ and Jamie is destroyed by it. So I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it was bad because it was basically the only real drama. Non-British people will likely not understand that part when they see it, but they are going to hate it anyway so whatever. So after the show I text my English friend “hey what does minga mean” because see I heard it with the accent, and she pretty much died laughing. She explained that it’s a very British way of calling someone skanky, like so skanky that no one would ever want to sleep with them. I thanked her for explaining it and then threw a glass at the wall in my fury over a musical basing all of its conflict over something so trivial as a boy calling another boy this word, as if Jamie, our unstoppable protagonist, would actually care that this idiot football player called him that.
Luckily the end sucked, with redemption of the white male asshole because who doesn’t love forgiveness that isn’t deserved. At least I guess we should try to redeem asshole children, who still have a chance to do some good, but I’m pretty sure that kid is going to remain a jerk forever. I’m angry that this disappointing show dragged (no pun intended) for almost three freaking hours. This isn’t “Les Mis”, people! And I’m angry and uncomfortable that a show that is professing to fill the niche of queer and inclusive art can still manage to be so sexist. There’s very often that unspoken but obvious thought that ‘we can’t be sexist towards women; we’re gay!’ and it’s definitely happening here. Its treatment of gender says while men like Jamie can cross gender lines and break down barriers, women shall remain in their supporting positions of the men around them. You may be thinking that there’s not a lot of good they can do for the women when this is a story about this one boy, but they manage to do a whole lot of bad, so. The girls in his school face a constant barrage of sexism from the male classmates, from being shown dicks they don’t want to see from dicks they don’t want to bother with, to being harassed with talk about how the boys will ‘drill’ them (they say ‘drilling’ a lot) whenever they want. And it’s a total Law & Order: SVU situation: The treatment is obviously bad, but it’s there not to serve as an example of bad behavior, but to serve as an example of what is considered normal. That pisses me off and it’s dangerous to include it in the show’s world as unnecessary examples of normalcy.
When the last musical assault on my ears and brain ended, the entire audience shot up to their feet quicker than I’ve ever seen. I guess when all the modern original musical work in your country is kind of on this level, you don’t expect, or get, any better.
AUDIENCE
The two old ladies in front of me were brushing their hair. One fumbled around her purse during the opening number, brought out a big brush, and brushed her hair, probably 100 strokes. Then she gave it to her friend. I can’t with people.
The best part of this show was the bubble tea I got next door afterwards.
“Bring It On” in London: Can’t Go Wrong with This Much Fun
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about “Bring it On: The Musical”, currently at London’s Southwark Playhouse until September 1.
As if anyone would be surprised that yet another Lin-Manuel Miranda musical is brightening up London, his collaborative 2011 musical “Bring it On” provides a much-needed jolt of silly fun to this theatre scene. Inspired by that beloved Kirsten Dunst movie with that incredible performance-based ending topped only by that of “Center Stage” in all of cinematic history, “Bring it On” looks into the world of competitive high school cheerleading while trying to tackle racism, bullies, friendship, teenage romance, accepting yourself, growing up, and fitting in. Does it succeed in doing all that? God no! Is this show insanely enjoyable and entertaining and will you have a huge smile on your face (most of the time) even though it’s overreaching with the sentimentality? Hell yes!
As if anyone would be surprised that yet another Lin-Manuel Miranda musical is brightening up London, his collaborative 2011 musical “Bring it On” provides a much-needed jolt of silly fun to this theatre scene. Inspired by that beloved Kirsten Dunst movie with that incredible performance-based ending topped only by that of “Center Stage” in all of cinematic history, “Bring it On” looks into the world of competitive high school cheerleading while trying to tackle racism, bullies, friendship, teenage romance, accepting yourself, growing up, and fitting in. Does it succeed in doing all that? God no! Is this show insanely enjoyable and entertaining and will you have a huge smile on your face (most of the time) even though it’s overreaching with the sentimentality? Hell yes!
If you follow this site, you know that 60% of the time, the Southwark Playhouse’s productions are the best every time (you get that reference). The Southwark usually puts on a better show than most of the West End proper. This production is different from usual, however, because the production of “Bring it On” is a ‘youth production’ brought in by the British Theatre Academy, a training school and program for people under 23. While many in the cast have some theatrical experience (I googled them because the programme doesn’t list any of their experience. It lists their f-ing TWITTER handles, but no, seeing what work they’ve done is too much to ask from a programme you have to pay for) (and YES I realize how creepy it sounds that I googled children but I had to I am a PROFESSIONAL), they’re all relatively (or very) green, and so I won’t judge them as harshly as I would full-blown professionals who can legally drink alcohol (also Husbo P said not to be mean to children or that will make me the villain in fairytales and I am a nice witch). But despite their experience or lack thereof, there’s lots of potential on that stage, and lots of talent. Many of these young performers are doing strong work here and I think can be great.
So “Bring it On” has quite the creative team behind it – Lin-Manuel, Tom Kitt (‘Next to Normal’), Amanda Green (‘Hands on a Hardbody’ (shoutout to my bff Keala)) all worked on the score, while Jeff Whitty (‘Avenue Q’) wrote the book. Surprisingly, because it happens so rarely, I was delighted by Whitty’s book. My delight was mainly because I didn’t know how different it would be from the movie (the original movie, obviously; it’s apparently similar to one of the sequels but I don’t mess with no direct-to-video nonsense). Diverging from the familiar plot was a really smart move, leaving less to directly compare with the movie. Instead of Eliza Dushku taking a vampire-slaying break to rag on Kirsten Dunst about how bad her breath is while Gabrielle Union just like…is perfect, we have Campbell (Robyn McIntyre (lots of y’s you go girl)), the Dunst-like character – the white, rich, preppy head cheerleader – transferred from white, rich, preppy Truman High to the inner city school like the one repped by Union in the movie. At Jackson High, Campbell sticks out and has trouble finding her groove (probably because she’s white), especially since there is no cheerleading squad! Egads and oh no! The cool af black girl in the stage version is named Danielle (Chisara Agor), and instead of leading a rival, incredible cheerleading squad backed up by literally the three members of R&B girl group Blaque (true story), Danielle leads the school’s dance crew, which, by the looks of it, is just her and her two friends. Those friends are pretty cool though – one is named Nautica and is confident and badass, and the other is La Cienaga, which was Broadway’s first trans character (played by Gregory Haney in the og, and here by Matthew Brazier, and it’s awesome to have this, but I can’t wait for when trans characters are actually played by trans people).
Campbell tries to convince Danielle’s crew to become a cheerleading squad so they can beat her old school at Nationals. There was so much mention of Nationals and Regionals that sometimes it was like watching an episode of “Glee” (which was in the height(s) of its popularity when this was written, to be fair, and probably was a cheeky reference to it). The only other person transferred along with Campbell from Truman is Bridget, her Quirky Fat Friend™ who was Truman High’s poor pathetic mascot but who is suddenly considered cool at Jackson. Bridget might be written as that typical QFF™ whose main characteristics are Q and F, but as played by Kristine Kruse she is a hoot and gets some of the best material in the show. Campbell’s old friends at Truman fare well too, as the white rich Mean Girls-like trio of Skylar, Kylar (it’s explained), and Eva are all given a good chunk of material and humor to work with, and they’re super entertaining, although I wish we saw more of Eva’s future when she becomes Betsy Devos. As is common, the main characters are written generically in order to further the story, while the side characters get to have more personality.
As for the score, I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been listening to it during all of my runs this week. It is FIRE. Well, it is FIRE SOMETIMES. The big ensemble numbers, the up-tempo ones, are clearly the work of Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose signature Latin influenced urban flavor shines through, and at certain points I could hear suggestions of “It Won’t Be Long Now” and “Blackout” from “In the Heights”. However, it takes a bit for the score to hit its stride, mainly because there are too many ballads and none of them are memorable or really anything special. Things only really get moving when the action moves over to Jackson High with Campbell’s transfer, when Lin’s signature rhythm and hip-hop sensibilities could let loose. The introductory Jackson song, “Do Your Own Thing”, is the best song in the score and I challenge you to listen to it without getting severely pumped up. I cracked up in this song when Campbell is introduced and a boy goes, “Campbell like the soup? You lookin’ hot cream of mushroom!’ And I adore Bridget’s track in this number, when she counters the chorus of “Don’t follow me/do your own thing” with a super optimistic “Don’t follow anybody! Everyone here does their own thing”. I love it. Of course, my favorite sung lyric was clearly the work of Lin in “It’s All Happening”, when a boy says to his friends, “What, you think cheering is feminine? Then I’m a feminist swimming in women, gentlemen.” There’s so much humor in the score and book, and the cast hit all the comic points well.
I feel the need to temper all my excitement about this show, though, because, like, it’s not exactly a great show. It’s so much fun and has such good energy, but the bones of it have some osteo probs. Along with the mostly clichéd attempts to be introspective in the ballads (ugh so many), there were a few weak spots in the plot too, like how on earth a teenage girl could blackmail her mother but not elicit suspicion from the rest of the school board? And I hate to say it, but a school like this considering La Cienaga one of the most popular people in school? I wish that were realistic (and because of that I see the need to present it as such; it’s just not believable). The spirit stick/cheer camp bit in the beginning whooshed past us, and if I didn’t remember that they did such a thing in the movie I would have been as confused as Husbo at what exactly was happening. I didn’t buy the relationship between Campbell and her new boyf, Randall, at all, but that could be because their duet made me saaaad. And not because it tugged at my heartstrings or anything like that, but because it was baaaad. Not their singing, just the actual song is quite hackneyed, about how you have to enjoy high school for what it is because it goes by so fast. Guhhhh. If you cut that and a few other reprises of Campbell’s “I Want” song, it would be a much tighter show. (Not that Robyn doesn’t do a superb job essentially carrying this show on her tiny child shoulders; all these slow songs just don’t serve her character or the story.) But the biggest thing that needs work is why on earth Danielle et al. would forgive Campbell for lying to her. Their friendship before the rift is not solidified enough to explain why she would bother helping out this new girl again.
I hope they do get to make those changes, upon a transfer to the West End. With more work, a whole lot more money, and more exciting cheer routines, this could be phenomenal as a big production. I had to temper my expectations and hopes and dreams about their final cheer routines, considering this was not a huge-budget Broadway musical with professional gymnasts and acrobats in the cast (although there were clearly a few ringers in there doing most of the tumbling, which I appreciated). (And yes, I did watch the Broadway cast’s performance afterwards to scratch that itch) But even so, this small youth production is more entertaining that it should be, and is a must-see right now in London.
INFORMATION
Okay so the Southwark Playhouse is not air-conditioned, and you probably know that London has had a serious heat wave all summer. Everyone was literally dripping in sweat in that small black box theatre (including the cast), and so the fact that I still loved it and recommend it says a lot about how fun it is.
The ushers at my performance need some more training though. They were more distracting that any audience members (hey good job audience though). It was weird.
1 Comment
Bravo! Again what a review. I need to see this . I loved the movie maybe cause the villain was Robert Redford . Yes a lot of times love isn’t all you need.