All the Best Things about Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of)by Randi / December 17, 2021It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Flying Over Sunset, playing at my fave Vivian Beaumont Theatre in NYC’s Lincoln Center until January 16.
Last week I had the privilege of seeing the completely original new Broadway musical Flying Over Sunset, which just this week announced a premature closing. The early end to its run is not surprising, but it’s still a bummer. Even though this show could have used a few more swipes of the red pen, I am very grateful that it made it to Broadway and that I got to see it, since it’s rare that a musical with a brand new score that isn’t based on any known entity makes it this far, and that is worth celebrating.
Of course, we could be celebrating more and for longer if it had an out-of-town tryout to work out its shortcomings (like answering the main question of ‘why though’), but what’s an out-of-town tryout to the big names involved in this! A new score from Tommy Kitt and Michael Korie?? Motherforking James Lapine writing the book and directing?! Who was going to clear their throat at that meeting to say ‘um…it needs a little more work’? NO ONE. When this show was first announced, I was all in like Luke on his first date with Lorelai. (His not realizing at that point how much of a shit-show her parents and Christopher (*ptoi ptoi*) would cause in his life = my not realizing before seeing FOS that other people’s trips are hard for an audience to enjoy.) The names of the lead characters the story would focus on — Cary Grant, Aldous Huxley, and Clare Boothe Luce — were almost as amazing as the names of the actors portraying them — Tony Yazbeck, Harry Hadden-Paton (HHP), and Carmen Cusack. I MEAN! Modern Broadway royalty. For my recent trip home for the holidays, I think I secured my tickets to this (LincTix for the everlasting win!) before my flight. FFS, Tony Yazbeck as Cary Grant is some galaxy brain thinking casting right there. WHEW I WAS IN. Oh…what’s that??? The story is a fictitious account of those three real people taking LSD together…??? It sounds amazing.
And while it could have been, and while parts are great, the dramatic question is lacking. Stuff is happening, but without a reason or intention driving it forward. Another problem is, as fun and amazing and original and crazy as that concept sounds, it’s hard to make someone else’s acid trip compelling. If any medium can do it, it’s the Broadway musical, and parts of this show soared. The opening number, which has the cast shuffling gracefully around the gigantic stage keeping the changing rhythm with their coordinated footfalls, created a classic sense of theatrical magic that filled my heart with joy and my eyes with tears. It was gorgeous, this most compelling and most promising opening I’ve seen in years.
From there, Act I stayed somewhat steadily at an enjoyable level as it focused on introducing the three characters one at a time, letting us learn who they are, what their story is, and why they’re taking LSD. It has the strongest musical numbers, with some beauties from Kitt and Korie. And all three of the lead performances are glorious to watch, as these three actors always are. HHP’s pharmacy-set scene of his first trip is a load of fun, as he imagines Botticelli masterpieces coming to life in a goofy-yet-semi-highbrow form of a trip. HHP is wonderful back on the Beaumont stage (petition for him to star in everything Lincoln Center does) as Aldous Huxley, nailing the desired portrayal of him as brainy but buoyant. Then, the show’s highlight apart from the opening number is Yazbeck’s intro scene, when his Cary Grant asks his wife’s psychiatrist to give him what he’s been giving her. (It’s not a promise to comply with HIPAA, that’s for sure.) His first use of LSD in the doctor’s office takes him back to his childhood in a tap-dancing extravaganza with Atticus Ware as his younger self (when his name was still Archibald Leach (fun fact: I just watched ‘His Girl Friday’ and Cary Grant’s character makes a reference to a guy named Archie Leach)) as he once performed for money on the English streets. Anytime Tony taps it’s a treat, and this is his moment to shine in this show. It should have happened more often, because HOT DAMN. The emotionally charged tapping and whirling of these two dancers is spellbinding, a true telling of story through movement. Yazbeck should be acknowledged as the Cary Grant of our time, not just on stage, because, again, HOT DAMN, just as Robbie Fairchild should be internationally recognized as the Gene Kelly of our time.
In Carmen’s solo scene, she gets a beautiful song to sing, as well as a LSD-induced orgasm to perform onstage, so that’s something you don’t see every day. Cusack is such a gorgeous MT performer that you sometimes look past the fact that Clare Boothe Luce kind of seems like a shitty republican who would still be a republican today. Her drug-induced visions of her deceased mother and daughter are heartbreaking emotional moments that cut clear across the theatre.
But, other parts, too many parts, do not soar, despite the characters’ getting so high they were like ‘oh she’s meeting Jesus? cool’ ‘oh I’m a giant rocket ship penis? cool’. The second act lagged, when somehow the magic that should have occurred when you brought the three of them together to experience their new fave drug was replaced by nonsense, head-scratching, and a disappointment at what could have been. In the early scenes, it was suggested that they were each facing an important moment in their lives, feeling that no one was listening, unsure of their footing at the next stage, dealing with frustration or stagnancy and needing an outlet. Despite their guide friend (Robert Sella) pointing out point blank “oh you all seem to be at a crossroads” in a kind of cringe-y blatant way, the story itself never capitalized on that tie binding them, when doing so could have been the grounding element the story needed. It needed something to defend the why of this story, to elevate it into a sum greater than the separate generally pleasant parts.
Without that dramatic element, the second act feels untethered, as song by song gets further away from a central feeling of importance en route to stoned nonsense. The song that has Tony’s Cary imagining dancing with his recent costar Sophia Loren is insanely unnecessary and something I can’t believe wasn’t cut. Same for Cary’s song about imagining himself as a giant penis rocketship in his delirious state. My reaction was very Mark-Evan-Jackson-as-Shaun-the-demon saying “You guys are seeing this, right?! I’m not crazy!” Nothing really comes of the three characters coming together for their trip (except the men almost drowning, which almost gave me a panic attack because oh my god you NEED SOMEONE SOBER WITH YOU IF YOU GO SWIMMING WHILE SUPER FUCKING HIGH JFC), which adds more questions of why to the story. I hate to say it but James Lapine, legend that he is, needed a collaborator to ensure that this story was in top shape before it got to Broadway. I’m still so glad it was made, but it could have and should have been stronger.
INFORMATION
Flying Over Sunset closes on January 16.
To attend a Broadway show, you must show proof of full vaccination. On the way inside, there are staff members checking your vaccination documentation. (I had the NHS barcodes in my virtual wallet as well as a PDF printout — both worked at different shows.) At all the shows I attended, the vax checking was swift, not causing a delay to entry. You must wear a mask at all times. The staff actually cares that you wear a mask, and properly. All bars are closed because Broadway staff realizes that if you are drinking, your mask would necessarily be off, and we don’t want that. THANK YOU BROADWAY.
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A Taste of Honey at Trafalgar Studios: Slice of Really, Really, Really Crappy Life
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is A Taste of Honey, currently playing at London’s Trafalgar Studios until February 29…which is a thing this year!
Okay not to be like controversial but this play is the reason I help people get abortions. WOOF. In A Taste of Honey, Shelagh Delaney’s 1958 that she famously wrote when she was 19, a mother and daughter in the north west of England are down on their luck and also are the most annoying people ever. This interpersonal drama throws a bunch of ideas at the stage – classism, homosexuality, interracial couples, teen pregnancy. Unfortunately, not much sticks, so there’s only a dusting of various would-be interesting topics and the only real story seems to be, at least to me, these people suck and it’s sad but they suck. It’s a ‘slice of life’ drama but reminded me too much of Phoebe’s take on a certain classic (see below). Strong performances and a solid production can’t completely fix the insufficiencies in this play, although it helps to remember it’s hella old.
Okay the ‘real story’ is that there’s a bad mother who had a child she probably didn’t want and definitely didn’t know what to do with and now her child has a child she probably doesn’t want and definitely doesn’t know what to do with. One thing that it has going for it is, despite being written 60 years ago, it still feels relevant, since sad awful people with sad lives still abound and enjoy making everyone else as sad and awful as they are. In A Taste of Honey, Helen, the mother, is a wild woman who enjoys finding men to sleep with and drinking, oh my so much drinking, didn’t she hear about Dry January, and she does not enjoy having a teenage daughter who cramps her style. The teenage daughter, Jo, enjoys yelling at her mother for rundown lodgings and abandoning her to have flings with gross ass men (valid), as well has skipping school and having her own thang with a black sailor…and of course, getting pregnant. Instead of CALLING ME FOR HELP, Jo fulfills the whole predestined full-circle thing that Amy Sherman Palladino wanted to achieve with the end of Gilmore Girls but didn’t, and becomes yet another young woman with a baby determining the rest of her life, just like her mother, and the cycle of being stuck in a such a way continues. It’s a powerful subject matter, for sure, but it’s presented as merely depressing and sad. It does show somewhat that they are victims of circumstances, but they also aren’t good people.
The performances are pretty good, some great. Durone Stokes’ Jimmie the sailor boy is wonderful, a strong performer who somehow makes the guy who impregnates a teenage girl and then peaces out one of the more likable characters on the stage. Jodie Prenger as Helen starts off with a bang as they’ve incorporated musical numbers into the show, and damn she can fill a house with that powerful voice. It helps to be impressed with her singing before you want to scream at her (character). She is a bad bad mother. I’ve just binge-watched Spinning Out (please talk to me about it if you have, oh my god that ending) and it’s full of everyone calling January Jones a bad mother (which like, we knew, did you not watch Mad Men) but WOOF, she’s a saint compared to Helen. Prenger’s performance is strong, yet Helen is such an unlikable character that you can’t help but despise her, pity her a little for her circumstances, sure, but still despise her. Same for Jo (Gemma Dobson), whose youth and ignorance helps a little but she still sucks, especially in her treatment and dismissal of gay new best friend Geoff (a strong Stuart Thompson), who only ever tried to help and asked only for friendship in return and she was such a c word to him and she let her mother be the queen of all c words to him. Geoff was the only really decent person in the show and he was treated like dirt so like what am I supposed to learn except that I’m right in hating most people.
So my gripes are mostly with the play, which I guess is excused by its age and its being purposefully about people who suck and how they suffer systemically, yes, but also how they personally are not good. Regarding this production, my gripe is mainly the partial musicalization it underwent: If you are going make it musical (not A Musical but musical) and have an onstage band, then be consistent. The first act had some rousing numbers (that Prenger though) and used music well, but the second act had Geoff sing “Nature Boy” (with UGH annoying audience members whispering to their friends ‘OMG THE MOULIN ROUGE SONG’ like YEAH WE KNOW, THE TIME KNIFE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO SAY IT RIGHT NOW) and maybe one reprise but nothing else. The second act also dragged, so the lack of music to help out was obvious, so much so that the onstage musicians looked suuuuper bored despite all their effort not to, and I didn’t envy their having to sit through that dull second act every day with little to do.
Despite all my grievances, the heaviness of the play hit me where the characters and story didn’t. There’s something in there that sticks with you, a sadness about these people and subsequently all sad people like them. If you like wallowing in hopelessness about humanity, go nuts.
INFORMATION
The show runs 2 ½ hours with an interval. It’s playing in Trafalgar Studios Studio One until February 29. Trafalgar Studios is always an annoying theatre because if you are seated above row G, there’s nooowhere to wait/mill around, just one way too narrow hallway with the upstairs bathrooms, also way too narrow and small. If you can sit in the front 5-6 rows, it’s much better because your bathroom is through the bar, where you might actually grab a foot of space to yourself.
There is smoking. One day someone might successfully defend the use of smoking in the theatre but that day has not come yet.
A Return Trip to My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center Before It Leaves Us for No Good Reason
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is My Fair Lady on Broadway, closing on July 7 because of reasons, I guess.
Remember when I reviewed this new Broadway production of My Fair Lady last season (sure you do!) and I said I couldn’t stop thinking about how superb it was? Well, my brain recovered a tiny bit after about a year so I went back for another dose of INCREDIBLE THEATRE PERFECTION. I’ve been (hashtag) blessed to see some exquisite theatre, and the current Lincoln Center Theatre production of My Fair Lady is at the top of that list. I saw the Tony-nominated original cast when it opened last year, which included Lauren Ambrose and my main man Norbert “Norbie” Leo Butz, as Eliza Doolittle and her (checks notes) 10-years-older-than-her father, as well as Jordan Donica as a winning Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Brits love hyphenating to show status). I had to go back to see Broadway’s beloved Laura Benanti as Eliza, her dream role, and I ended up being even more devastated by this show’s brilliance this go-round.
If you don’t know the story of My Fair Lady – which, by the way, after an ENTIRE LIFE of knowing this musical, Z informed me for the first time ever that the title could be a joke on ‘Mayfair Lady’, like the area of London that the show generally takes place in, and it works even better because of Eliza’s original cockney accent because that’s how she’d say Mayfair and just like WHAT did everyone know this??? – it’s about a poor girl who sells flowers in Covent Garden (but not herself! She’s VERY ADAMANT about that, she’s a good girl she is!) and crosses paths with the arrogant and self-involved Professor Henry Higgins who makes a bet with his equally rich and equally linguistics-minded friend Colonel Pickering that he can transform this lowly flower girl into a lady just with elocution lessons (and a bath) and the men are like “yes do let’s” and Eliza’s like “eeeeayyyyy” but she wants to rise above her lot in life so she agrees and spends months and months living in Higgins’ GORGEOUS staffed-up house on Wimpole Street and their relationship gets complicated because feelings but also stubbornness and aforementioned arrogance and it’s all wonderful and heartbreaking and glorious. Meanwhile Eliza’s dad is a good-for-nothing who sings a 20-minute song about getting married.
I’m sure you love the movie and everything (and the original ending), but this production, I have shivers just thinking about it. Actual chill bumps. I wish it wasn’t closing; I would see it every year. Bartlett Sher’s impeccable direction and his grasp of Golden Age musicals have never been on more impressive display. Every inch of this show is perfectly orchestrated, including the lush orchestra playing these classic melodies. Every song is a highlight. I especially love the written-to-be-a-highlight “On the Street Where You Live”, now performed by Christian Dante White, the new Freddy, who has quickly proved himself to be Broadway’s new Kyle Dean Massey (i.e. a wonderful replacement). As Alfred Doolittle, Alexander Gemignani was out, but his understudy Joe Hart was wonderful (and actually looked older – Benanti and Gemignani are LITERALLY THE SAME AGE, smdh). And I love that if you choose one ensemble member to watch, you’ll get a whole other story from this person; they’re all doing nonstop character work that builds an entire world to house the story of Eliza and Higgins.
And Eliza and Higgins are so much more than I ever thought before seeing this production. Originally, with Lauren Ambrose, who brought so much acting precision to Eliza and made so much of the character, Eliza and Henry seemed to be on equal footing, in terms of whose story it was. I loved their interplay, and even though Eliza has some of the best and biggest songs in musical theatre, it was a treat to see deeply into this character with the help of an actress who is primarily an actress, not a singer. On the other hand, Benanti is an actress who is primarily an incredible singer (and was clearly sick and still went on and still sounded fabulous, though a little weaker than I know she can be, so deserves all the kudos). A Broadway staple for a remarkably long time considering how young she is, she was obviously great (though her English accent was…not), and looked amazing in the new costumes. But the subtle differences in portrayal showed a different relationship. With her Eliza, she was sassy and brave from the start, and you never doubted that she would always be able to take care of herself and put herself first when necessary. She was always going to be okay. With Ambrose, Eliza was much more delicate, much more in need of confidence and growth, making her decision at the end all the more emotional.
Although the ending is still beyond emotional (I cried like a BABY and might again right now thinking about it okay yep there we go), I felt it this time entirely from Henry’s perspective. Now, it’s clear that this is primarily a show about Henry Higgins, something I never realized before. Above all, this is a show about Henry’s personal failings, the ones that keep him from knowing true happiness. I never knew it, but My Fair Lady is honestly a tragedy, and it’s mainly a tragedy of toxic masculinity. I KNOW! WHO KNEW! All of this profound emotional impact is entirely due to the flawless and heartbreaking performance of Harry Hadden-Paton, a fully formed, fully feeling Higgins I cannot imagine ever being surpassed. Ever. I love me some Tony Shalhoub but it’s a crime that this performance didn’t win a Tony, I see this now. HP sauce shows Henry’s entire life and upbringing and habits and his discomfort in changing any of it, in each facial expression, each line delivery. It’s all incredible, and by the end it’s all heartbreaking. I honestly can’t believe how much he accomplished with this performance in creating what seemed like a real flawed person up on that stage. This production is one of the greatest of all time and I think it’s in large part because of his performance. I’m so glad I saw it again and so upset that HE COULDN’T JUST STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE AND BE HONEST AND BE HAPPY GODDAMMIT HERE WE GO AGAIN THE END.
INFORMATION
Since Lincoln Center is a nonprofit and they like stupid turnaround and crap like that I guess, the show is closing July 7, so if you are in NYC or like can feasibly get there in the next week, you REALLY G-D SHOULD.
