January 19, 2023
Mrs. Doubtfire Musical is So Much Better than it has Any Right to Beby Randi / January 18, 2022It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the new production of Spring Awakening at London’s Almeida theatre, which runs until Jan. 29.
One of the best productions in London right now is Rupert Goold’s new take on Spring Awakening, Duncan Sheik & Steven Sater’s Tony-winning musical that originally starred Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff as wee naked babies. The show tells of a bunch of mad horny German teens coming of age as the adults and authority figures in their lives try to keep them ignorant and in line, and the tragic ramifications of trying to control children in such a way. It’s a sad song, it’s a tragedy, one that always felt relevant in Bible-thumping-abortion-hating America, and it has a bit of extra resonance in this climate of the supposed grown-ups failing the youths (and extra extra rez for these particular yoots, trying to build careers in theatre while the grown-ups are like ‘nah theatre isn’t important enough to us, you could try coding?, also we’re gonna tell audiences they don’t need to wear masks anymore so they cough all over you and your shows will probably continually get cancelled’).
Any dreadful outcomes you might imagine resulting from adults keeping truth from kids and holding them to impossible standards and not telling them about what their own bodies can do and being abusive &c happen in Spring Awakening, but the incredible music, story-building, and energy of a youthful cast keep it from feeling like on onslaught of depression porn. Even though there’s so much tragedy and frustration, it’s shown with emotional poignancy that prevents the feeling of utter darkness. There’s also lots of humor, as you’d expect from a show with several songs about masturbating. I particularly loved Hanschen’s (I think?) line to another boy about studying together and maybe ‘doing a little Achilles and Patroclus’, which I now better appreciate having just read “The Song of Achilles”.
I had high hopes for this production, as Spring Awakening is one of my all-time favorite shows and scores that I grew up on, and I saw the original cast an exorbitant number of times and I consider the 2015 Deaf West Broadway production to be one of the top five greatest productions of anything ever done anywhere throughout history, and I am not exaggerating, so yeah going in I was like show me what you got, fire that sucker up and throw it at my face. I wish they were still taking some tips, because my #1 thing is that these kids needed to be miked. There were so many brilliant parts of the score that felt too quiet or literally went unheard against the loud band (not that they were too loud, just the voices were not loud enough). The worst victim of this was “Touch Me”, which never rose with that incredible crescendo that is written into it, when Otto (I think?) belts the best belted line of all-time ‘WHERE I GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHEN I GO THERE/NO MORE SHADOWWWWWWWWWWW ANYMORE’ I mean, it was just a lil quiet baby lullaby and I wanted to shout ‘SING OUT LOUISE’, it’s THE BEST LINE.
But otherwise, the staging is what makes this production special. It’s a small intimate space, and the stage is entirely giant steps so the cast goes up and down the whole time building insane calves. I loved the use of all the projections on the steps, from their own scribblings to their graffiti to the gravestones. Some of the staging was a miss for me — the glass cage of emotion (husbo and I were telepathically imitating Ron Burgundy to each other, confirmed post-show), the excessive silent pauses in Act II, and I still wish that the audience found out about Wendla at the same time as Melchior (it packs more punch). But overall it was thoughtful and provocative, and there were moments of actual gasp-worthy brilliance — the beginning of “All That’s Known”, when all the schoolboys come up from below the stage in a vertical line of desks (I mean, the MOTHERFORKING TIMING on that one), and the entirety of “Mirror Blue Night”, which I’ve never seen staged to so perfectly capture the emotional turmoil of Melchior at that moment. That in particular made me think much differently about a scene I usually am a tiny bit whatever about.
The cast is good, with their high energy making up for a lack of high calibre vocal performances. The standout by far is Laurie Kynaston as Melchior Gabor, which works out because Melchior carries the show. We last saw him in Florian Zeller’s The Son, which ALSO went VERY badly for him, so fingers crossed he one day gets to star in a comedy or at least some sort of death-free romp. As for their direction, I was not a fan at how over-the-top evil they made the adult characters. They were presented in a clownish way for humor, but their evil and wrongdoing when played straight is so much more powerful.
Although you probably don’t care, I’ve buried the lead here with the part that stands out most to me that I honestly can’t stop shouting about: The bonus track from the original cast album, Duncan Sheik’s song ‘There Once Was a Pirate’, is included in this! Not only that, it OPENS ACT II. Not only that, IT GETS A REPRISE IN THE FINALE. This marked one of the top five moments I’ve almost screamed in a theatre. What a shock. The song worked so well, and the staging of it the first time was poetic. Its reprise as an intro to the finale was fine, but I was left wanting with the finale in general, because they have rewritten my favorite lines of what is one of my favorite songs ever, “The Song of Purple Summer”. The way the voices have always split into harmonies on “a swallow brings/a song too hard to follow/that no one else can sing” always gives me the feels something terrible and seals the show emotionally for me, making everything make sense and provide hope in a Pandora’s-Box-after-all-the-endless-shit kind of way, especially since the song is about how a new dawn has to be rising. So to have that line gone, along with many others, was aaaaquite the theatrical blueballing. Nonetheless, this is altogether a wonderful, powerful production of one of the great modern musicals.
AUDIENCE
Okay so we could not get over two things: First, that these two jamokes dead front and center were maskless and like BREATHING ON THE CAST. Second, that this complete jackwagon (also up front) absolutely living for “Totally Fucked” was rocking around in her seat and literally fist-pumping the air throughout the number. Look, I GET that it’s a forking banger and you’re definitely feeling it, but you’re still at the theatre and not a mosh pit. It was hilarious though how hard she committed to the part — this production has the kids silently staring at the audience at the end of the song RIGHT up close to us for a long time, powerfully implying ‘what the fuck have you done to us, we actually despise you, you ruined everything, you stupid bitch’, and this girl STILL KEPT FIST-PUMPING. IN AN EXTENDED AND HEAVY AND GROWING HEAVIER BY THE SECOND MOMENT OF SILENCE. Now that’s commitment to being a bellend, I’ll give her that.
INFO
Show is 2 1/2 hours.
The space only has one exit and there is no way to the House Right side of the rows (which have no center aisle btw, a nightmare) around the back, so if you are sitting in the right half of seats, you have to go through the front row and often step onto the first step of the stage, which, well, blows.
The Almeida needs a second set of toilets. Be ready for QUEUES, and the men’s was longer!!
Thanks for the water dispensers on the bar, loves it.
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“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.
Sharon D. Clarke is in Blues in the Night & That’s Probably All You Need to Know
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Blues in the Night, playing at London’s Kiln Theatre in Kilburn until September 7.
Before we get into specifics about this revue-style show, I need to share two things. First, Husbo & I went to a cheeky weekday matinee so we were ready for the old-white-people chatterboxing that comes with the territory. But the show opens with a single musician in spotlight playing the saxophone, and as soon as he blared out one strong note, an old lady not close to me said at full volume “oh you know I love the sax”. I mean. We were not ready for that. We were in for quite an experience. Old biddies LOVE THEM SOME TALKING.
The second thing is that whenever I say/think/type this title, my head goes “blues is in the niiiii-iii-ii-ii-ight, blues is in the niiiii-iii-ii-ii-ight” like “Groove is in the heart” you get it. Okay I guess I didn’t *need* to share that.
Blues in the Night is a 1980s revue of bluesy standards from well before then (mostly Bessie Smith, like at least half). It “takes place” in 1938 in a run-down Chicago hotel, and it’s “about” three down-on-their-luck women – one older, one middle I guess, and one younger – and one man. The previous phrases suggesting there’s a story are in quotes because this is a revue, like Ain’t Misbehavin, that does not have a story. But unlike the enjoyable Ain’t Misbehavin, in which they were cool just putting on a killer fun show and accepting that there was no story or characters, Blues does attempt to establish characters and a whisper-thin outline of a background story, but that makes it even more obvious that there is none and kind of awkwardly cringey when they do weird ‘character things’.
I looked on the wikipedia page for some info and it says Blues is actually about these three women and the one “snake of a man” who has screwed them all over. I did NOT get that. The one man, Clive Rowe, seemed more to just be filling a role of ‘man’ in each song when needed, not that he was actually the man involved with these three women. It doesn’t make sense to me that he would have a sexual history with the three of them because, I don’t know how to say this nicely but he doesn’t exactly scream ‘womanizer’. I think we can chalk him up to being miscast if that’s what they were trying to go for (his singing was fine), along with the youngest woman, Gemma Sutton, who I loved in The Rink but is wrong here since her character’s songs simply do not fit her voice.
As for the other half of the cast, they acquit themselves more successfully but are also given weird things to do to establish some semblance of a character instead of just being allowed to sing the damn songs. Debbie Kurup, who we last saw in Sweet Charity, plays the middle woman who apparently has a fancy past but is now struggling living in this hotel and sings various songs about her fancy past and current troubles, as they all do. But like, I think at one point she was in the background doing heroin??? I mean, why? There’s no story! That is very unnecessary! And then she sells her fur coat to a waiter? Just why.
And that brings us to the fourth member of this cast, the great Sharon D. Clarke, probably the greatest West End musical theatre actress right now. The show is worth seeing just to hear her sing a super long depressing version of Bessie Smith’s “Wasted Life Blues”, so incredibly moving and fantastic that I could easily have murdered the two old men whose obnoxious ringtones blasted out during it (one even got up from the front to take his call I CANNOT). While Clarke seems to be enjoying herself and is, as always, killing it, they also have her do some ridiculous,unnecessary ‘character-building’ stuff like singing an entire song with food-based double entendres (does it count as a double entendre if it’s as obvious and unsophisticated as repeatedly joking about a man’s sausage?) and fanning her hoo-ha that it made me uncomfortable to look directly at her. I wish this show was either an actual story or just a straightforward review of good songs instead of being in some weird nether region.
This show, awkward as it is, was actually nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical – but it was a weak year. I mean Cats won.
Although it was pretty slow at times and pretty heavy on the fremdschamen, Blues has some good musical moments, namely whenever Clarke gets a non-sausagey solo (that “Wasted Life Blues” deserves its own show, with a real story and a real character for her to play, it was that good) and whether the four cast members join together in a number, like in the exciting title song. Fun fact, that song, “Blues in the Night”, was nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar in 1942, along with “Chattanooga Choo Choo”. People expected one of those two to win, but Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammy Dos surprised everyone with a win for “The Last Time I Saw Paris”. Even funner fact, Kern was kinda pissed that he won an Oscar for a song that wasn’t written specifically for the movie it was in so he had the rules changed! He changed the Academy Award rules for original songs (they must be written specifically for the movie) because he was so mad he won one. I mean. That’s more interesting than anything in this show, I hate to say.
INFORMATION
Blues in the Night is playing at the Kiln Theatre until September 7. It’s a two-act, of 50 minutes each, 20 minute interval. I think there are enough clunkers that could be cut that it could be a one-act 80 minute show if they had the power to change it. Or just have a Sharon concert, really. But it’s worth catching her if you’re a fan before Broadway steals and keeps her.
AUDIENCE
I can’t even describe how much they were all talking and at full volume. Man alive they love to talk. One guy around us was humming along to the songs and man I get that these are your jams from childhood but the least you could do is hum in the right key.
