Dinner at Vegan Hotel Saorsa 1875by Randi / November 4, 2022The Doctor on the West End: Has a Show Ever Made Me So Angry? Let’s Find Out!
It’s Theatre Thursday! This is a rant y’all! The Doctor closes at the Duke of York’s Theatre this Sunday. BYEEEEE.
The Doctor was more frustrating than waiting all night in A&E to get four minutes of face time, because at least at the hospital you know the NHS is doing their best with limited resources and you can blame Tories for that, but who can we blame here? Society? The writer? Tories? Tories it is.
This show was an exercise in trying to remain calm, and seated. I think I’m extra frustrated because it so could have been something powerful…or at least said something coherent and not just spit chaos at a stage. There are lots of issues I’m going to point out with this play about a doctor who follows hospital policy and then gets cancelled by the whole world for it, but there are two main ones I’ll focus all thoughts around.
Number 1: What the fuck.
The plot of The Doctor focuses on Juliet Stevenson’s character (I’m gonna call her Juliet) who is a cold but brilliant doctor. So maybe her bedside manner sucks, but she is always going to make the right call medically, which, I don’t know about you, but is what I want from a doctor. She knows her shit, and some dialogue in the first few minutes makes clear she’s a better doctor than her esteemed colleagues. When a teenage girl is dying on Juliet’s shift, a priest appears and insists on going into her hospital room to give her the last rites. The Doctor says, well, first of all I don’t know who you actually are, stranger off the street; b) I haven’t heard from her parents to give this permission/instruction which I would follow if they said so; and also the girl is very out of it but peaceful and I think it’s best for her to die peacefully and not panicking if she finds out she is dying. (And lo, she was right, because we find out later that some dick-faced intern asks the girl if she wants the last rites while the priest is making his ruckus, and so the girl does panic and does die panicking. you f-ed it, you piece of shit intern.)
So, back to my main issue: what the fuck.
I don’t understand why this isn’t a two minute discussion. She followed hospital policy and chose NOT TO ALLOW A STRANGER INTO A DYING MINOR’S ROOM. A stranger off the street who just shows up and says he is a priest, says that the parents called him and asked him to come – but the parents didn’t call the hospital to tell them to let him in. Is that just a cool thing to do in this country? I know you don’t have as many regulations on things like this as the USA does but really? I can just walk into a dying child’s hospital room even if the staff is like, hey now wait? that’s fine? So you’re saying she SHOULD have let a stranger into a child’s room to upset her when she was dying, without hearing from any guardian and even though her decision was supported by hospital policy.
Given the sense I just made at you, I thought maybe this play was going to be about how society has forgotten what common sense is, and the hubbub caused by this event would be shown for the insane circus that it was. Like, we were supposed to be this angry with how irrational all of this is, that was the intention. I assumed that the conflict would be portrayed as the whole world against Juliet when it was clear that Juliet was right, a case of someone being ‘cancelled’ unfairly (even though that sentiment is overblown since people simply don’t understand what words or consequences are but I digress). However, it seemed the opposite, and people approve of her facing professional consequences for her character unrelated to her job. People that are actually allowed to dress themselves in the morning (slash write the ‘real’ reviews for the Guardian et al) apparently think she was wrong – which okay, you might have made the opposite decision since both were allowed. You might have thought she should have let the stranger into the dying child’s hospital room with no proof that he was who he says he was. But was she wrong enough to get fired? To be publicly shamed, to be threatened, to be the subject of this shitstorm, to have bricks thrown through her window, to be yelled at by irrelevant activists on TV? no no no, bless your heart. But it seems the vast majority of people think this was all warranted.
Another wtf: where on earth were the hospital’s lawyers at all these subsequent board meetings? I worked in medical law for a few years and this is a big old piece of unrealistic nonsense that at no point in the first five seconds of the debacle did the lawyers show up and say “so, she followed hospital policy…that’s all there is to it. That’ll be 3000 pounds please.” It’s kind of laughable that this wasn’t a legal drama, as it would have been in real life. I know you love your chat shows but solving a regulatory question on one is some soft-ass shit.
Speaking of those irrelevant people on the TV panel: if we were supposed to be angry and frustrated as we see these various irrelevant voices losing the plot, then great, that worked. But it honestly seemed like we were supposed to care? what various academics and scholars and action group workers thought about this situation where a doctor followed hospital policy? Are you out of your gottam mind? How is any of this at all relevant or worth considering? How did it become about her character unrelated to being a doctor and — this is the problem– how was that not presented or interpreted as unreasonable?
The worst thing about that panel show, besides everything, was that one of those irrelevant people had the gall to make her apologize for the harm her ancestors have done to other people. I mean. She’s Jewish, by the way, if there were ever doubt about the antisemitism in London theatre that I go on and on about. Again, if the audience was supposed to grasp that this was all awful and insane to be doing to her, then I’m down, but the way it was presented and definitely received was more like ‘yeah this is good she needs to apologize for the way her ancestors have…been persecuted for thousands of years.’ I am so angry that the show put forward these tropes about Jews not to show that they are tropes or subvert them, but to present them as valid. The antisemitism in this show could have been framed to show why she faced unreasonable consequences, but instead it felt like it was a reason supporting the backlash that we were supposed to accept. Is that a problem with the direction, or the writing? Or, did they just want Jewishness to be part of the alleged villainy?
For the people who disagree: how is this not simply a case of “this doctor, who is a good doctor and did not do anything wrong medically or in terms of her hospital’s rules and regs, is not a very warm person and people really don’t like her and even though she didn’t do anything ‘wrong’, she made an unfeeling but permissible call on something completely unrelated to being an actual doctor, which I don’t like, but understand”? You can think that and accept that, but to then force all these insane consequences as a result of not liking a largely sensible choice she made is, well, absolutely insane.
I’m so frustrated because yes, it was about how this simple question, of whether or not the doctor made an appropriate call, became a question of whether or not she was a good person. But instead of saying ‘yeah and isn’t that irrelevant to what’s happening, that that’s what the societal conversation morphed into? isn’t that awful?’ the play seems to be saying that it’s VALID! It is NOT! And it wasn’t framing it as a ‘isn’t this complicated’ question either! It is NOT supposed to be complicated.
Another wtf as a palate cleanser from the bigger issues: the time with her teenager friend didn’t pay off. We learned a little more about her but nothing to explain why we listened to her talk for 15 minutes about having sex in high school. Was this a test.
Issue number 2: The play presents abortion pills as dangerous.
The part that has really stuck with me and made my blood boil is that this show vilifies abortion pills in an ignorant, dangerous way. FYI abortion pills are very safe, and effective the majority of the time. They are able to be ordered online in many countries because this has been proved, as long as you take them as directed. The teenage girl in question died after ordering and taking them in secret — the play repeats this in a way that presents the pills as the killer, full stop, no context. Abortion pills killed her. But if you listen closely, you learn she was way farther along (I think I remember she was 4 months pregnant?) than you can be to take the pills. THAT is why she had a fatal reaction. You can only take the pills if you are under 10 weeks along. With reproductive rights under attack it’s easy to see audiences largely accept from this story that abortion pills are dangerous, and thus susceptible to Tory swaying that they should be outlawed, or less easily available. If there was any line where a character clearly explained that they are usually safe and shouldn’t be vilified, it was drowned out in the onslaught of clear but false messaging that they are dangerous and fatal. This is absolute bullshit, and so much of the dialogue around the pills reminded me of Republican propaganda. I truly cannot believe that anyone who cares about reproductive freedom could sit there and accept what was being fed to mostly older white audiences, the demographic that loves to vote these rights away.
OH I ALMOST FORGOT MY BIGGEST ISSUE: People were all ‘she made such a meanie decision to not let the priest in BECAUSE SHE’S JEWISHHHHH! that’s why! she hates Catholics!!’ (And the play doesn’t really do anything to contradict that unbelievably offensive bs). And aside from all the other good reasons for her decision, she says she didn’t know if the girl was really a devout Catholic, since she wasn’t lucid and her parents weren’t around. The villagers with pitchforks argue “but she had a cross necklace!”, and Juliet says “well a lot of young people wear them it’s trendy” — TRUE. What my biggest issue is: at no point does anyone say the very valid argument that, it’s well within reason for the doctor to have questioned whether the girl was a devout Catholic SINCE SHE HAD HAD AN ABORTION! THAT’S LIKE THEIR ONLY RULE!!!!! jfc.
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“Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway: Bette Midler is a Ham & You’ll Eat It Up
It’s Theatre Thursday y’all! Woot! Today’s review is of the Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly”, starring Bette Midler until January 14 (when Bernadette Peters takes over).
Today happens to be Thanksgiving (#govegan), so it’s fitting to dedicate this Theatre Thursday to a show I’m incredibly thankful (and surprised!) that I got to see: “Hello, Dolly” starring Bette Midler. Everything you’ve heard about this lavish, hilarious production is probably true. Bette has the audience in the palm of her hand and is the biggest ham I’ve ever seen, to everyone’s delight. It’s pure beautiful joy up on that stage, with every actor looking like they’re having the time of their lives – especially Bette. Well Bette tied with the guy in the right mezzanine box who shouted ‘YASS QUEEEEEN!’ every time Bette did something funny, which was a lot. He was definitely having the time of his life and he definitely helped the rest of us to laugh the entire time, but it was mostly due to Bette, a true star having a ball up on that stage.
I had written off seeing this show last year, when ticket sales broke Broadway records and nearly sold out Bette’s run completely – nearly, because some ultra-premium single seats were still available here and there for $675 or even $998! NAH THANKS. I like seeing everything but come on, that’s ridonk. (And those are face value prices, from the box office – not from scalpers!) But luckily, a kindly fellow Broadway nut told me the big secret: those unsold scattered premium seats are cut down to regular price the day or so before the performance. I KNOW! So if you’re patient and flexible (and only looking for one ticket) and able to keep checking Telecharge, you could snag a fantastic premium seat for the price of a regular Broadway show! I don’t know if I’m patient but I can check the other boxes, and at 8am on a recent Wednesday, I got a seat in the second row center of the mezzanine (insane seats) for the cost of a show not starring Bette Midler, for that same day’s matinee. We so excited!
Everyone in that theatre was buzzing with excitement. I mean 99% of the audience members bought their tickets a year ago and have been counting the days. I didn’t brag to anyone near me about how I paid hundreds less than they did and only had to count the hours but I was tempted. I also refrained from bragging to the people around me that unlike them I was not swimming in old lady perfume, but unfortunately my prize for showing that restraint was NOT to be free from the stench of said old lady perfume. Par for the course when seeing a show like “Hello, Dolly”.
A show, by the way, that…I didn’t really know. I knew it was an old classic from 1964 written by Jerry Herman (boyoyoy), originally starring Carol Channing in her most renowned role. I of course knew the famous songs “Before the Parade Passes By” and “Put On Your Sunday Clothes”, as well as the title song, but that’s about it for the score. I knew Bette would be freaking hilarious and amazing but I knew that I mainly wanted to see it because Gavin Creel was in it. This is all I knew. Nothing about the plot or the other characters. I love seeing shows without knowing too much but it’s hard to do that for shows that have been around this long! Luckily, there’s not much to it. There’s a cute little plot with cute little side plots but none of it really matters; it’s all set dressing for the central performance. Bette could have improvised all of her lines with no regard to the story and the audience would have eaten it up with the same amount of enjoyment. It’s written for a star giving a star turn and that’s what she’s doing.
But what is it really about? Dolly Levi is a famous ‘meddler’ in New York and its environs. Whether matchmaking or instructing in literally every pastime one could think of, she meddles. She’s the original New York yenta and talking faster than anyone who has come before. Her current matchmaking assignment is for the widowered Horace Vandergelder of Yonkers, a famous ‘half-millionaire’ played by David Hyde Pierce in ridiculous farmer accent matched with too long facial hair straight out of the Civil War. He’s a disheveled dorky mess, yet despite Dolly’s promise to set him up with the lovely hat-making widow Irene Molloy (the glorious Kate Baldwin), she confides to us that she’s going to marry him herself. Maybe it’s just for the half million, but it doesn’t really matter. Nothing really matters it’s all just incredibly fun.
Like her first big song says, Dolly really does have her hand in every matter. On the same day that Dolly is going to take Horace to meet Irene Molloy in her adorable hat shop in the city, she convinces Horace’s niece Ermengarde (ermagerd) and her boyfriend who Horace disapproves of to enter a polka competition in NYC at a fancy restaurant where Horace and his match – whether it ends up being Irene or another socialite named Ernestina Money (omg) – will be eating dinner at that night because what fancy restaurant doesn’t have a polka contest and what grumpy old man wouldn’t be swayed to approve of a young man by watching him dance polka? Like I said, plot is nonsense and it doesn’t matter. Even better, Horace’s two clerks in his Yonkers Hay & Feed shop(pe), Cornelius and Barnaby (erma with these names), decide that this is the day, the one day, where they won’t work and will instead close the store while the boss is gone and will go have a grand old time in New York City for the first time in their lives. There’s a lot going on in this one day! Cornelius, the head clerk (Head Boy), is played with utter glee by my fave Gavin Creel. I had really high expectations for him since a) he’s the best and b) he won the Tony over my pick, Lucas Steele in “The Great Comet”. While I think I would have still voted for Lucas, Gavin proved he was completely worthy of the win with his excellent and beyond delightful performance.
There are so many ‘best parts’ of this show, and my first best part ever is when Cornelius and Barnaby embark upon their journey into the city. They board the train with all the other fancy people going into the city (only fancy people go to New York City!) along with Dolly, Ermagerd, and her floppy haired artist boyfriend who looks like he’s late for a regional production of “Hair”. These five venture cityward with socialites and rich people and how-de-do’s (I don’t know) to “Put On Your Sunday Clothes”, which most people know from “Wall-E” and that’s such a great movie that I don’t even mind and I also don’t mind because when you are watching this flawless scene, nothing can bother you at all, not that you have to pee or that you’re breathing in terrible perfume or even that a jackwagon is checking their phone in the row in front of you (which are the house seats, ps, so 9/10 chance that they know someone involved with the production what a jackwagon). This musical number is pure joy, with bright, colorful, elaborate costumes, flawless choreography, the moving trains I LOVE TRAINS. Everything comes together so exhilaratingly perfectly. I had a huge smile on my face the entire time I watched this show but during this number is when it got so big it hurt.
And that pain only increased with another first act piece of perfection that I grinned like an idiot during. For some reason Cornelius and Barnaby end up at Irene Molloy’s hat shop(pe) right before Horace and Dolly do. Of course they do, it’s like a great big farce and everything has to be comical and ‘coincidental’ (hey that’s ‘joincidence’ with a ‘c’) and even though it’s contrived, this scene is the embodiment of the 100 emoji, even more than Gina Linnetti is. First of all, Kate Baldwin’s Irene sings the beautiful song “Ribbons Down My Back” in her beautiful ginger voice to her young kind of goofy shop girl Minnie Fay, who is played by the amazing Beanie Feldstein (I know her real name is even better than her ridic show name). Both of these ladies are incredible, Kate for her lovely voice and overall loveliness, Beanie for her unmatched hilarity and also for having the most Jewish name in all of NYC and all of history too. Then Cornelius and Barnaby enter the shoppe pretending to be rich men, which is hilarious in itself, but then they see Horace and Dolly approaching the shoppe and all hell breaks loose. C & B have to hide in the closets, under tables, in plain sight wearing ornate hats, to avoid Horace catching them playing hooky from work. This scene is a masterpiece of comic timing and direction and was worth the ticket price in itself. In a show that is pure hilarity and pure fun, this scene was like the most hilarious and fun. This is when I was like ‘okay it was worth paying so much for this show’ (unclear if the people who paid premium prices (or scalper prices in the thousands jfc!) thought the same but that’s not my concern). This is also when I decided I want to be bff with Beanie.
After Horace angrily leaves the shoppe, not knowing that his clerks were there but knowing that some men were hiding in there (don’t ask it doesn’t matter just enjoy it), Dolly teaches Cornelius and Barnaby how to dance with the ladies so that they can take them out to dinner that evening in the fancypants Harmonia Gardens, where Horace and Dolly will be dining with Horace’s match – not Irene, since he’s mad about the whole men hiding thing (and because Dolly hinted (falsely) that Irene killed her husband (remember Dolly is trying to keep Horace to herself so she has to taint all his potential matches)) but probably the outlandish clown Ernestina Money. Why the boys would agree to go to a dinner that a) they can’t afford to pay for and b) their boss will be at too, the boss they’ve been trying to hide from all day so he doesn’t fire them, is…unclear, and yes, their vision has been clouded by love for these girls they just met so maybe that can explain it and no, it doesn’t matter. Just smile and enjoy them learning to dance and going from tripping over their feet to gliding across the floor in literally 15 seconds.
As everyone goes to watch the 14th Street Parade (yes there’s a big parade happening it doesn’t matter), Dolly decides that she needs to move on and says goodbye to the spirit of her late husband Ephraim whom she talks to quite often. She does this by bringing the house down in “Before the Parade Passes By”, and even though she has to put the hamming on pause for her one serious moment, Bette shines just as brightly as she does in the other comic moments. She’s incredible, she really is, and she’s giving every moment her all when she could easily not work as hard and still delight the audience. She could phone it in and people would still shout brava every minute (which it seemed like they did). That she’s so devoted to making this role and this show the best they could be makes it all even better.
As act one ends, so too does any interest in the subplots and other characters. Act two is about revering Dolly(/Bette) and letting her go absolutely wild with comic madness. Everyone is heading to the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, and when Dolly enters, in the famous red gown with red feather headdress, the entire restaurant staff (the huge ensemble) sings “Hello, Dolly!” in appreciation of her long-awaited return to the place and to the NYC scene in general, but really it’s just so everyone can thank Bette for coming back to Broadway in such a classic (and PERFECT FOR HER) role and so everyone can rejoice in watching her dazzle and delight. The audience is enraptured during this, as it’s mostly a meta way to thank Bette for thrilling us with her presence. It doesn’t matter that waitstaff would never be so ecstatic to see an old patron return – actually, most of the waitstaff who worked during Dolly’s prime wouldn’t still be there – but nothing in the plot matters. It’s all about Bette just hamming it up and being admired.
The hamming it up continues. At one table, Horace is on a short-lived, excruciatingly painful date with Ernestina Money – played by the hilarious Jennifer Simard in clownish makeup and a dress resembling a chicken costume – who mainly shrieks and whines in a terrible voice. Simard is a freaking hilarious performer (see: “Disaster!”) but this is a waste of a role for her. It’s so unnecessary to have an over-the-top side character like this when the lead character is an over-the-top comic genius. But remember none of it really matters. Horace is flustered with all his potential matches failing and when he hails a waiter, Barnaby does so at the same time, and they both drop their wallets and accidentally pick up the others. HA HA FARCE. Barnaby and Cornelius are excited to be able to pay for dinner for their dates (whom they now like, love or something whatever) and Horace, of course, is in despair at having barely a dollar.
Then the polka competition begins.
I know, this show. ermagerd.
Speaking of, Horace’s niece Ermagerd and her artist boy dance among the crowd and because Ermagerd is played by Melanie Moore of “So You Think You Can Dance” fame, you know they are going to win, and they do, and because polka is the measuring stick by which all potential husbands of heiresses are measured, they think Horace will give his blessing (side note where are her parents) and she shrieks again but this time in happiness instead of annoying sadness (Ermengarde’s entire role, besides polka dancing, is to shriek and wail in sadness it gets old but the old biddies loved it). But then Horace sees her and the guy and his clerks and Irene and Dolly and he’s like what’s happening and you’re like I don’t really know BUT, look at Dolly –
This whole time, this whole Harmonia Gardens scene, Dolly is eating an entire turkey plus sides. The entire f-ing platter, and it looks like real food. Despite all the ‘plot’ happening with the others, the audience is fully fixated on watching Bette devour what could feed a family of four today (thanksgiving remember so thankful hashtag blessed) and ROARING with laughter. Yes she eats the whole thing, down to every last drop in the gravy boat, but she makes it even funnier with her mannerisms, chewing on the bones like a squirrel or something, what chews on bones. Anyway the meal is made with some kind of rapidly disintegrating business like cotton candy, so she’s not really eating an entire turkey, but it looks real and the audience mainly thinks it’s real and Bette is SELLING it and it’s HYSTERICAL.
When she’s done and almost in a food coma, Horace sees the others and everything erupts into chaos and NATURALLY, they all go to NIGHT COURT. Dolly convinces the judge to let the boys go (what was their crime…) because they are just fools in love and Cornelius sings a lovely song about how he loves Irene and it’s all well and good but like they’re in Night Court I was cracking up. Unforch, the judge doesn’t let Horace go like he does the others, and makes Horace pay damages. Dolly says to Horace that he should marry her and Horace is like what is this day, no.
The next day at the Hay & Feed store (so romantic), Cornelius and Irene, Barnaby and Minnie, and Ermagerd and Hairboy are all happy and coupled and it’s unclear why exactly they’re all in the Hay & Feed store but whatever, NOTHING MATTERS. Then Dolly shows up again I don’t know why because Horace had turned her down the night before but now he pleads with her to marry him because she would make his boring humdrum life so much better (first order of business: trim your beard) and she’s like DAMN RIGHT and her late husband Ephraim (how she always refers to him it’s great) sends her a sign and so she says yes and they decide to get married so now there are four couples (OG four weddings & a funeral) but none of this matters because Bette Midler just dazzled you for more than two hours and it was splendid and we liked it and we loved it. the end.
INFORMATION
I gave you some pretty stellar ticket-acquiring advice back in the beginning; I expect you to try now.
Scott Rudin is the producer, and he’s a big ole jerk. For all his productions, there is no late seating like for other shows. If you arrive a second after the show starts, you’re shit out of luck until intermission. So harsh okay but that’s not why he’s a jerk; I actually like that rule because nothing ruins a show like latecomers. Except phones okay and then latecomers is second. No he’s a jerk because he makes the bagcheckers at the door confiscate water bottles. It doesn’t matter if they’re empty; they claim it’s because of the ‘noise they make’ if you crinkle them but then a) they would care that the biddies were still eating cellophane wrapped candies like their lives depended on it, wouldn’t they? and b) they wouldn’t care if the water was in hard reusable bottles now would they? GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT, RUDIN. Luckily I knew about this from past shows and I had an empty plastic bottle (I’m traveling I’m sorrryyyyy) on top of my bag to distract the doorman who confiscated it from the FULL PLASTIC BOTTLE AT THE BOTTOM OF MY BAG HEYOOOO.
STAGEDOOR
Unfortunately, my new BFF Beanie didn’t come out, but it was a matinee on a two-show day so I actually didn’t expect anyone to come out (unlike the rest of the crowd who SIGHED with SUCH SADNESS when the security guard announced that Bette wouldn’t be coming out like come on people did you REALLY think Bette would stagedoor? Even disregarding that it was a matinee? What are you, new??). Luckily, Melanie Moore and Kate Baldwin both came out and signed. I want to say that both took selfies too but I didn’t even ask Kate because I was so distracted by her gingery goodness that I just took a picture of her instead of with her. No ensemble members signed which was a shame if they were assuming that no one cared because I CARE, but not a shame if they just didn’t want to stagedoor.
Broadway’s ‘Great Comet’: Natasha, Pierre, & the Pretty Fun Show of 2017
I don’t think any show has seemed more mysterious and fascinating to me than “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812”, a musical that was on my radar when it was still a dinner theatre production in a giant tent a few years ago. I didn’t get to see it off-Broadway or in Boston, but I was always enamored with how cool it seemed. What doesn’t sound amazing about watching an immersive musical in a giant circus tent and being served Russian food while people sing and dance around you? Well the Russian food I guess but still, so fun. Consequently, I had really high hopes for finally seeing this show, buoyed by the incredible hype borne from the spectacle and novelty of it. I barely even knew what it was about, except that it was an interpretation of “War & Peace” (hence the Natasha and Pierre in the title). And instead of getting to see original star Phillipa Soo, I would get to see the Broadway cast’s star Josh Groban (different role). Change approved!
“The Great Comet” relays a tiny little slice of War & Peace with a rabidly exuberant ensemble that takes over the entire theatre – from the back of the orchestra to the top of the top balcony – and dares you to try looking away. What’s great about this show is pretty much everything sensory, and overload of it. Dave Malloy presents a weird, tinny score that screams old-school Russia from the very first accordion note. Sounding unlike anything on Broadway that I can recall, it forces you to breathe through some of the uglier bits and just lean in Sandberg-style to the dissonance, sometimes glorious, sometimes anguished. The manic dancers seem to cover every inch of the building as the action of the plot happens all over the theatre, converting the aisles and the balconies into stage. And this, the staging, is the most spectacular, in the truest meaning of the word, part of the show. The Imperial Theatre, maybe chosen for the name, underwent an extensive overhaul in preparation for The Great Comet’s residency. The orchestra and stage was ripped out to make banquettes and cocktail bar tables where you’d normally find a stage, with stadium seating (Rocky the Musical style) behind that. Then, throughout the rest of the orchestra and the balconies, new rows of seats were installed with little tables between them, with dimly lit lamps atop to further the intimate club vibe. You might be stuck on that whole ‘tables where the stage should be thing’ – yeah, there is no stage. The cast maneuvers through aisles and paths around the tables, traipsing down the stairs where some idiot’s purse is sticking out, stealing a chair from a premium-ticket-holding patron and singing to his wife. The band sits in the middle of everything, in an open pit that houses the piano and conductor, the few other instruments and musicians, and Josh Groban’s Pierre. He spends most of his time in the pit straight chilling.
The theatre redesign was so cool I broke my #1 rule
So, that’s the staging, and it stands out as the most entertaining and fun aspect of the show because it allows for full immersion most of the time. You cannot be bored when you don’t even feel like an audience member. Sometimes it feels terrible when actors make eye contact with you or stand on your armrest, but because that’s happening throughout this show you quickly get used to it and hopefully are all in for it. Someone tell Mallory Ortberg not to see this; that is her nightmare. The chorus members begin the experience by talking to each section of seats about how interactive and immersive shit’s gonna get and how we better not use the pathways that are only for the actors. I wish I knew the name of the ensemblist who spoke to my section because he was hilarious. He also gave my husband a box of pierogi, which all the cast was throwing around to whoever raised their hand for one. Seriously. Apparently really good pierogi too. This trend continues throughout the show as the ensemble gets the audiences involved after lulls of story. I was given a shaky sand egg, what are they called, egg shakers I guess, to play during a particularly high-spirited song. I never got to play an instrument on Broadway before. Twas fun.
So that’s the spectacle, what about the actual show? The slice of War & Peace it’s based on is literally the least War & Peace-y part, in that it is just like any modern romantic comedy/tragedy storyline you’d find in a modern movie starring someone named Kate. I guess that is a strong case for why they chose it, but it just seemed like a missed opportunity to take something even more out of the box from such a creative premise, instead of taking that creative premise and finding the most humdrum employment of it possible. Natasha, our heroine (played by Denee Benton), is beautiful and young and privileged, and kind of annoying because of it. She arrives on the Moscow scene right before Napoleon’s invasion and subsequent burning of the city. Her fiancé, the handsome Andrey, is off at war and she is like so sad cuz she luvs him. That’s how I imagine she would express her feelings if she typed them; she’s that sort of young and ‘in love’. And flighty. She and her cousin/best friend Sonya are hosted by Marya, Natasha’s godmother, a big deal socialite in Moscow. On the scene (pretty much just the opera, where else did they go back then (also NO ONE actually watched the opera they all just gabbed and socialized how awful)), Natasha meets Anatole, a huge player if there ever was one. He’s blonde and dreamy, so we are told, and he declares he must have her. Natasha falls super in lust with him and, with the push from Anatole’s conniving evil sister Helene, they make a plan to run away together, even though she’s engaged. Luckily, meek lil Sonya finds out the plan to elope and does everything she can to stop it, since it would mean absolute ruin for her cousin and her entire future. Meanwhile, Pierre just kind of watches the world happen around him, as he drinks and jumps into the story every once in a while. And also has a duel with Anatole’s friend Dolokhov but it’s not very significant, at least in this telling. It ranks 4th in importance and drama among duels currently happening on Broadway.
You might be thinking right now, wow that’s a lot of characters and relationships to get a handle on. Don’t worry, the entire opening number is introducing you to the characters and wisely repeating the most important ones the most. I adore this opener. It’s one of the best songs in the score as far as examples of what Malloy was trying to accomplish go. We start by having Pierre, on his accordion, tell us that there’s a war going on and Andrey is there, at war, and so he’s not ‘here’ in Moscow with this crowd. Then we meet each of the characters by having them introduce themselves with their most distinguishable trait. Natasha, whose defining characteristic is that she’s young, goes first. Sonya, her ‘good’ cousin (I’d have gone with meek), goes next, and then we repeat back to Natasha. Then ‘old-school’ Marya, then Sonya repeats her phrase, then Natasha repeats hers. Et cetera, et cetera, so that the main characters repeat theirs the most so you remember more who they are, as opposed to the rickshaw driver who goes last or Andrey’s crazy old father Bolkonsky or plain religious sister Mary who don’t really matter much to the plot. It’s a wonderful opening that does a great job establishing the fun, kind of meta, kind of snarky tone of the show, plus introducing all the characters, with one of the most enjoyable overall songs of the show. It’s rousing and joyous and moves really fast and kind of breathlessly, and you cannot help but grin throughout it. I cannot get out of my head “Anatole is hot, Marya is old-school, Sonya’s good, Natasha’s young and Andrey isn’t heeeere…..Helene is a slut, Anatole is hot, Marya is old-school, Sonya’s good, Natasha’s young and Andrey isn’t heeeere.” There’s also a character diagram in the playbill to help you remember who is related to who and who loves who and blah blah I think it’s unnecessary if you have basic comprehension skills but hey that’s not most people, we know now.
The joy of the opening is consolidated by seamlessly moving into Pierre’s introductory number, which comes after the Prologue ends by asking where the heck he is and what he’s up to. Whereas the Prologue has the rest of the big cast roaming around the theatre causing a ruckus amid the bright house lights, left on, and getting the entire audience pumped, Pierre’s song immediately shifts into an intimate spotlight, just on him playing the piano, just on his tiny spot in the middle of the theatre. It’s as drastic a change you can make from the sensory overload of the opener, and the gloriousness of it all is solidified when Grobester sings his first few lines. It’s a dark, brooding song and he sounded insane on it. Most of the thrill of seeing this show, at least for me and people who have ears, is that we’re seeing Josh Groban perform live. He is as good as you can imagine except better, both in live singing and his acting. And his lil fat suit he’s wearing. The best part of the whole show (maybe true maybe an exaggeration but just a little) is (to paraphrase) when one character says Pierre is staying at home tonight and they show Josh in the pit saying something like “and I’m totally fine with that” and he pumps his fist in the air to weakly prove his point and it’s so hilarious.
Despite the high bar met by the first 15 or so minutes, the score and the book fail to keep up the momentum. It’s hard to write this kind of weird music, objectively ugly at times, and the composer should be commended for doing something so unique. But some of it is not very good, mostly the parts that should have been straight book scenes. A lot of is it literally repeating lines from the novel and singing them repeatedly to an uninspired tune, kind of like the characters are reading their own stage directions. And that’s the main problem with this show: that it doesn’t really work well as a sung-through book (book like the musical narrative structure/libretto, not the novel). There’s no reason for it, when the recitative parts feel dull and the music for them, the plain book parts, doesn’t add anything to the telling of the story. In fact, it takes away from it. And the boring, sometimes bothersome lyrics used in these sung-through book scenes creep into the main songs. At first it’s kind of cute, like aw it’s from the real novel, but it gets annoying and just makes it feel kind of cheapened. This is well on display early when Natasha and Sonya first arrive to Marya’s care, with lyrics like “I will kiss you on the cheek, she said, gazing at Marya with kind, glittering eyes…” and lots of “I blush, happily”. Oof and when Sonya and Natasha fight and Sonya doubles over and sings “Bursting into tears!” and then I did. And in the big Opera scene, when Natasha is introduced to Moscow society, and meets Anatole, and there’s a whole lot of talk about Natasha’s bare arms. It’s weird. It’s using an unnecessary number of words to describe what we can see – like a book does, only a book has to. That’s a huge flaw in the conversion from page to stage. Like, it’s not necessary to have multiple verses describing Natasha’s bare arms and shoulders or Helene as “beautiful, barely clothed, plump bare shoulders, and much exposed neck, round which she wears a double string of pearls” WHEN WE CAN SEE THAT. It’s wasting the storytelling potential on visuals when it has no reason to, except to be a constant, blatant, unneeded reminder that it’s based on a book.
The music, as opposed to the lyrics, has more impressive moments, though the dissonance gets a little hard to enjoy. But the discord is never used to greater effect than when Natasha goes to meet her fiance’s family. Andrey’s father, old Prince Bolkonsky, refuses to even greet her, and his plain sister Mary is a religious nut who initially does not like her at all. Although the lyrics are a little more of the same way-too-direct nature (“And from the first glance, I do not like Natasha. Too fashionably dressed, frivolous and vain” “And he looked at her once, head to toe, and left muttering”), the notes that Natasha and Mary sing create perfect dissonance (an actual musical term though I don’t know if it’s perfect or imperfect for music purposes but it sounded perfect in the great sense) and they lean into it so hard that it’s a fantastic example of music conveying the story in itself. They clash, they don’t get along, and that clash is apparent from the too-close notes they are each singing, creating an aural nails on the chalkboard feeling. It’s so powerful that it makes me even madder that they ruined it by saying first that they didn’t like the other. Like, duh. Let the music do some of your work.
It’s really a shame, thinking about it now, that it’s a sung-through book, which is so hard to do well. Like, for example, “Hamilton” is a sung-through book. That shit works because it’s amazing. The book scenes here are not up to par and it would have been less of a let-down musically if I were only considering the strong main songs as the score, and not all the recitative lamity. (I made up that word. Long A.) As it stands, it’s not my best score of the season, but it might have put up a fight if it didn’t have the sung book scenes dragging it down. Some of the songs are really fantastic. I’m thinking of Pierre’s first song, even though it’s called “Pierre”. I had chills, and it wasn’t just because Grobester is the best. (Even though he is. He is as impressive in his Broadway debut as you could ever hope. He shows so much skill in acting that we never really knew he had, and I cannot wait to see what he does next. He better never leave theatre.) I’m thinking of the incredibly haunting and beautiful “No One Else”, when Natasha remembers when she first fell in love with Andrey and prophetically sings “I’ll never be this happy again” (true). Denee Benton was lovely but I couldn’t help but think of how wonderful Phillipa must have been in this role. (Listen to her sing this song on the original cast recording; it’s beautiful.) I’m thinking of possibly my favorite song (at least to belt in the shower) from the show, “Charming”, when evil, conniving Helene uses flattery to convince the naïve Natasha that it’s totes fine to dance and flirt with Anatole even though she’s engaged. The funniest part about this song is that Helene says the word for ‘charming’ in French – charmante – but says it wrong like ‘shante’ (sometimes you can hear the ‘arm’ but not really). So Dave Malloy apparently just remembered his high school French incorrectly and the rhythm of the song was already set so he kept it as is. It also really works for Helene to be so confident in her ignorance. Amber Gray, as Helene, is probably my favorite female in this cast. She is so seductive and terrible (“sexual and violent”) and she made this like Cruel Intentions if it were a three-minute song. Actually, that’s exactly what her character is like, Sarah Michelle Gellar in that movie, while sounding reminiscent of Daphne Ruben-Vega’s “I-have-vocal-damage-but-I-can-still-hit-all-the-notes” (to paraphrase Seth Rudetksy) rasping yet amazing voice. And I’m thinking of the fantastic group number “Letters”, which (finally) seemed to listen to my requirement for opening the second act of shows on a super strong note. In “Letters”, we’re told how Natasha and Andrey and Anatole and Pierre and really everyone has been discussing their feelings and relationships through written correspondence, which was something people used to do, as we’re told, “in 19th century Russia, we write letters we write letters. We put down in writing what is happening in our minds.” This is a great example of Malloy’s straightforward, 5th-grade-reading-level lyrics really working well when the music and melody and vision of the scene are all strong. I love at the end when the ensemble repeating ‘a love letter, a love letter’ over and over sounds like an army marching towards something ominous. It’s such an awesome song.
A really cool aspect of the show is the out of the box casting. Every cast member seems to have been specifically chosen to be an important part of the show, instead of how it usually feels with cookie cutter dancers, and it gives us actors who don’t seem traditional for Broadway at all. I didn’t recognize any of the ensemble, and I liked how diverse they were in all ways. They seemed like real crazy Russian people at a rave about to start riots. I have to mention Lucas Steele as Anatole, who is so blond and so pale that he seems like a Superman villain but more handsome and with a really strong belt. Most notably out-of-the-box was Brittain Ashford as Sonya, who sings a beautifully aching song called “Sonya Alone”, with her Melissa Etheridge with a lisp while headlining at Lilith Fair with her lesbian life partner holding her hand and making her tea as naked women prance about with flowers in their hair and sway to the sitar music in the warm breeze as the sun sets over the mountains upon which a cow is giving painless birth to a calf blessed with freedom…um, voice. She sounds like an old-timey folk singer, is what I’m saying. I still don’t know if I liked or hated her voice, but I definitely like that she’s different.
The show was paced pretty well (until the end), and despite rolling my eyes a few times at the stage-direction lyrics, it managed to keep up the spectacle-aspect by throwing the ensemble back into the balconies every so often and rousing the audience. There’s also a really weird opera scene, when we see some of the opera the characters are watching, and it’s like the most fever dream dancing behind a blacklight you can imagine. Really weird. Once Natasha and Anatole have their plans thwarted, and Natasha is all ruined and stuff, it started to drag. There’s a lot of Natasha moping around with crazy bug eyes and not much for the chorus to do, so it gets a little slow, especially because the story is kind of lacking. Like, she’s ruined, we get it, but she’s not really. (If you know the novel and the 90% of plot that doesn’t happen onstage, it’s hard to feel too bad for her.) Luckily, the performances are great, so it’s still a wonderful experience. But there’s so much potential for the book and score to live up to the staging and showiness of it all that it’s a tad disappointing that it doesn’t. Still, it’s a solid B overall instead of the A+ I thought it was going to be. If you have no expectations, that’s a really good score. And if you don’t mind tinny clang-clang-clang-went-the-trolley music.
Audience
You’d think for a show that is well sold (read: tickets are super expensive) that people would be better behaved and try to pay attention but nope that doesn’t matter anymore we are in a society where lots of people only think of themselves and the world two inches around them and no one else affected by their behavior matters. (There were some really rude adults who wouldn’t stop talking.)
Stage Door
I MET JOSH GROBAN
EDITOR’S NOTE: ONE YEAR AFTER SEEING THIS SHOW (DEC 30 2017)
HOLY FORKING SHIRTBALLS I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO WRONG ABOUT A SHOW IN MY LIFE. Great Comet is now one of my favorite pieces of theatre OF ALL TIME OF ALL TIME. It’s FORKING GENIUS. Guys, I wrote the above lukewarm review after seeing the show once and NEVER listening to the cast recording, except for the opening number which I said in the review is a great example of what Malloy was trying to accomplish like a fool like a FOOL! He wrote that song kind of as a joke! There’s so much more that blows my mind repeatedly. Listening to the album approximately 10000x has learnt me how incredibly brilliant the score is, both as a whole and in terms of single songs that stand out as should-be classics of sooo many genres. I think that so much of the greatness is uncovered with repeated listens and viewings, and going into the show cold and not knowing what was going on and not having time or space to appreciate the score is what kept audiences from loving it like they should have. I always LOVE going into a show cold – I constantly say that’s the best way to experience it – but I think this is the one time when that was the wrong move. Knowing the score and then having that background knowledge as a foundation to let you enjoy the sensory overload and the amazing choreography and staging would have been a much better plan. But I didn’t know. Now I wish so badly that I could see this show again; I think I would be completely and utterly enraptured with the genius evident on all fronts. Dammit I am shaking my fist so hard at the things I said above! Listen, some of the songs are hard to get into the first time or the first 10 times, like “Moscow”. But freaking push through it, because, for example, “Moscow” is now one of my favorites. Push through and then a barrier breaks and now I am completely hypnotized by the gloriousness. BEST EVER THE END.
1 Comment
So ok after the initial prompt in italics I was going to remind you that Back to the Future the musical made you angry but mannnnn this was a whole other level, complete trash what the actual. Maybe let’s pretend it was very poorly presented satire played so straight you couldn’t tell?? I am sorry you sat through this dreck.