Watch on the Rhine at the Donmar is the Best Play in London RN NL

It’s Theatre Thursday y’all! Today we are talking about the new production of “Big Fish” at London’s The Other Palace, which is playing until December 31. 
“Big Fish”, directed by Tim Burton and starring some faves of mine (Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Marion Cotillard, Danny DeVito (go back and watch it’s true)), was a great movie that screamed out to me for an amazing big spectacular Broadway musical. That story would be perfect for one, right? It would be hard to match the magic of the movie but I had faith that it could because theatre is the best. Unfortunately, the Broadway bow it got in 2013 wasn’t very good. It was hugely fun and entertaining and I enjoyed it, but not as good as it should have been with that source material. The book was messy and Andrew Lippa’s score was mostly unmemorable. After a few years and a lot of retooling, ‘Big Fish’ is back, now in London, new and improved. I think. I’m still not sure.

When The Other Palace in London announced that it would do a revised version of the musical, I didn’t have high hopes like I naively did for the Broadway production, since London is consistently less ‘spectacular’ with musicals than Broadway. There’s just an inherent spark and magic that is often missing. I was right – there was no way this small theatre was going to beat Broadway in terms of magic and spectacle. However, the revisions may have worked better on the whole. It’s not as much fun and it’s not as grand, but it’s moving in a more subdued nature that packs more of an emotional punch.
 
My eagerness to love the show back in 2013 may have been responsible for some of my enjoyment back then. It starred my favorite musical theatre actor, Norbert Leo Butz, so I was working as hard as I could while sitting in a seat in the dark to love it, and no one should have to work that hard to love a show. It was joyous but inconsistently, flawed and kind of flat a lot of the time. The music felt mostly uninspired, but a few songs were stellar. The book was a bit messy, but had enough good feeling and intention for the movie’s amazing story to make it okay. But most of all, Norbert put everything he had into his performance, so much energy and love and emotion, that that’s what you remembered and loved about the show. Norbert is so amazing, he blinds you from noticing anything lackluster or actually bad. So when the London revival/rehashing this fall announced that it would star Kelsey Grammer, I was extremely skeptical. How on earth could old Republican buffoon Kelsey Grammer do what Norbert in all his energy and youth did? How is he going to distract us from noticing that the show doesn’t live up to its potential and is kind of flat? Answer: He doesn’t – because the show is entirely redone and suits him better. John August, who wrote the movie and the book of the musical, clearly has been working hard on this. I missed Norbert’s energy (and voice) the whole time, but I think mayyyyybeeee it makes more sense this way.  It’s not as much fun, and it’s a smaller, more delicately emotional show, but I think – I’m pretty sure – it’s hard to say because Norbert – that it’s a smarter, better done show now.
 
I knew to expect changes with this production, but I thought maybe it would be a few lines here or there, maybe new and better songs. But I almost gasped when the very first song of the show was “Fight the Dragons”, in which Edward Bloom (Grammer) sings to his young son about why he lives such a fantastic fantasy life. I remembered this one because it’s the best song from the show and I listen to it regularly. So I remembered that on Broadway it came in the middle of the show. In this new version, it OPENS the show! I realized then just how different this was going to be, and I was shocked and scared and I wanted to break my #1 rule and TALK TO PEOPLE ABOUT IT but mostly I was intrigued. The new framing device was quickly evident: Instead of jumping back and forth between present day and past, showing Edward as a yoot as he embarks on all the fake-sounding adventures he tells his son about and having the same actor (Norbert) jump from old man to young teenager and in between Edward (he’s amazing) and do everything he could to sell it to you that he could be all these ages, Kelsey’s Edward just was the old man version. In his old, dying state, he shared his memories with the dream-ghost young version of his now-grown son, Will. So Kelsey would be like ‘oh hey little ghost boy version of my Will who now hates me, remember when I met that witch’ and then ANOTHER ACTOR played young Edward and met the witch and stuff. I know, serious changes, guys. But it is so much better because no one is going to believe Kelsey as an 18-year-old with a sparkle in his eye. His sparkle died long ago.
 
Despite my reluctance to admit that it worked to have a different actor play young Edward (or ‘Story Edward’ as they’re calling it), it was hard to stay mad at you bro because Story Edward was maybe the best performer on the stage. Jamie Muscato, who was great a few years ago in ‘Dogfight’ here at Southwark Playhouse (still one of the best productions of the hundos I’ve seen in London), sings wonderfully and charms as the young version of Edward, saving Kelsey from having to get up from his hospital bed. I was so worried that we’d have to listen to Kelsey’s passable but not fantastic singing voice for most of the score. Having people who could actually sing musically theatrey play important roles was a huge relief. I sound mean to Kelsey but he knows he is an actor who sings, not a singer who acts.
 
This same device of course was used for Sandra, Edward’s wife, as Edward’s courtship of her constitutes a big chunk of the flashback/memory/story plot. Present day Sandra was played by Clare Burt, who was nice and fine, and Story Sandra was the spunky ginger Laura Baldwin, who looked like she grew up taking musical theatre classes, very textbook proficiency and skill. Good job ginger spice. You’d think this would mean Laura got to shine with big songs and stuff, but for some reason they gave the slowest most boringest most unnecessary song to Old Sandra, and it was bo-rang. Sorry Clare. You’re good and stuff this just should have been cut. The relationship between Edward and Sandra as oldies is believable because we see their backstory, so the attempt to shore up their current feelings instead of showing us more of what their love is based on failed for me dawg.
 
The weirdest thing that worked for me in this production was that Josephine, grown-up Will’s fiancé who I think had one line in the original production and could have easily been cut, was my favorite. I think it was really because the actress, Frances McNamee (omg that is so the last name you give when you want to give a fake name and can’t think of shit), was so wonderful and made a fully realized character with what little she is given. I so bought every single one of her reactions and facial expressions. She clearly deserves much bigger and better parts and I would totally go see a show if I knew she was in it. It was like obviously good acting which is very exciting to see every so often instead of like ‘oh hey look I’m in a play’ acting. You don’t know what I mean.
 
As grown-up Will, Matthew Seadon-Young was pretty decent. It’s kind of a thankless role because you’re like, hey dude your dad seems really FUN and yeah he wasn’t really there for you growing up but like, he has good stories and your mom did a good job so like take a chill pill. And then he finds out how good a person his dad was, just to other people, and you’re like see I told you you should have taken that stick out of your bum. I said bum! Hashtag so british. Anyway so it’s a little thankless but he did a good job making us feel for his predicament (wanting to still resent his absent father even though he’s dying) despite our instinct to shout ‘just be niceeeee he hella old.’ And Kelsey is so winning and likable and such a good actor that it made it hard to agree with Will that he sucked. 
 
So the family relationships and characters were pretty well done, which is why this production felt more based in emotion and not in the fun spectacle aspect of the movie. Both are important sides of the story to tell, and while Broadway sold the spectacle amazingly and some of the emotion, this production sold the family story and emotion and less so the spectacle. The spectacle, of course, being the crazy characters of Edward’s stories, the ones we don’t know whether to believe he actually knew. The giant, the witch, the mermaid, all the people in the circus he worked in. This is a difficult balance to achieve with this show, and I think that’s why no production has been able to really achieve it properly. Broadway leaned too heavily to one side; this one tried to make up for that but ended up overcompensating on the other side. The actors were all good – Landi Oshinowo (almost my name!) as the witch has a kickass voice erma erma, and Dean Nolan as the giant Karl was solid – but in the small space with no effects there’s really only so much you can leave to the imagination. And so the pendulum swung to the side of focusing on the family dynamics and stuck there. They made up for this in very clever ways, like having the witch’s costume and her forest made from hospital supplies – because that’s where Edward is recounting her tale – and I loved that, but it didn’t lead to that same level of impressive drama that you want. This was hardest for me in my favorite part from the Broadway show – when Norbert I mean Edward sings “Daffodils” as he proposes to Sandra. On Broadway, thousands of daffodils ‘grew’ from the stage and all around and it was pure magic. I remember gasping. Here, that couldn’t happen, and they made up for it by having lots of deliveries of daffodils to Edward’s hospital room happening. So, again, it was a clever choice and made it sweet, but I can’t say I didn’t miss the thrill of all those flowers growing out of a stage.
 
Honestly the best part of the show is Forbes Masson, and not just because of that name. He played a few comedic roles, first as Don, Edward’s high school nemesis and a blithering idiot who in a movie (a different movie) would be played by Randy Quaid, and then as Amos, the leader of the circus where young Edward works. He was flipping hilarious and it’s worth seeing the show just to laugh at his dumb jokes. The circus parts were more enjoyable because he was so ridiculously fun and honestly I will hold ‘The Greatest Showman’ and Hugh Jackman to a higher standard because of it. 
 
A few things fell seriously flat. First of all, there was no mermaid. Edward makes a big deal about how he once met a mermaid, and they cut that scene. Sure he sees a girl in the hospital in a wheelchair and sees a flash of a mermaid tail on her, but if you blinked you missed it, and that doesn’t count. The other thing was that one of the ensemble girls playing one of his high school classmates held a box with a weird cat on it in all her scenes. In the programme she’s listed I shit you not as ‘girl with cat’. There is no reason for this. This was just a dumb sight gag that no one even realized was supposed to be funny, and I feel bad for the girl holding that dumb box. Whoever came to work the day that decision was approved was flying high like Mindy St. Claire.
 
But those are really the only bad things I can point to. The creators clearly worked really hard to improve this show, and although apparently this show requires a choice between family-based emotion and story-based spectacle, I think they made the right choice while still telling a complete tale. So overall, it was a lovely night at the theatre. Everyone in the audience seemed to be rooting for the show to succeed, and there was a bit of bawling at the end and not just on my part. However, this might be the one time where a piece is better on film than in the theatre. I know I can’t believe I said it but it has happened, and despite multiple attempts, the show really can’t match the movie. It’s a great time in the theatre, it really is, and it’s an enjoyable show and I recommend that you see it if you can, but the film is just better.

INFORMATION
The Other Palace, having been remodeled and rebranded by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, looks mostly the same except for one very important change – the backstage bathrooms are now actually signed so people sitting in the front section know about them. It’s cool to go through this hallway where the racks of costumes are stationed but even cooler to have a human-sized bathroom with no lines! Watch for the ice cream seller at intermission though who for some reason has to position his cart right in front of that door to the hallway eye roll eye roll eye roll.

STAGE DOOR
At this theatre, the actors just come out through the lobby so yay you can wait inside! It’s a little awkward because without fail, every time I’ve seen a show here, the actor’s friends or family members are waiting with you and you’re like oh I just want to be weird, sorry. But they’re usually all nice and everyone was happy to sign or take pictures. Kelsey did not come out though, which is dumb not because I care but because the staff made everyone waiting make a single file line for him, and I was like ‘but I just want the others’ and they were like ‘tough’ and then he didn’t even come out and we were in a line for no reason. 

Reviewing this show is a little difficult, because while it is a revival of Terrence McNally’s 1982 play, it’s chock-full of ‘culturally relevant’ updates. So which part is more responsible for the crappiness, the old stuff or the new? I guess both! Also, while I’m sure the original work was seen as cutting and important for the theatre scene, this revival feels so tired and lame and ugh too often painful. 

Okay, so it’s about an opening night party after the premiere of a new play as all the integral players wait for the reviews to come out. This premise forces all the action to happen in one room, specifically the bedroom of the producer, played by Megan Mullally. Bottling everyone claustrophobically inside this room as so much goes to shit and people start fighting and turning on each other and ugh just talking too much, it will make you want to shout from your seat “JUST LEAVE! JUST WALK OUT THE DOOR AND LEAVE WTF!” As I’m sure all audience members do, I felt like Bunuel in “Midnight in Paris” when Owen Wilson explains his future film to him, and Bunuel is like “But why don’t they just leave? I don’t understand.” This show. 

Megan Mullally (I’m not going to use character names because these actors were not able to escape their public personae) is the sole producer of a show for the first time, so she is nervous about the reviews, and thus spends the entire opening night party (which she’s having at her HOME, which is LUDICROUS) upstairs in her bedroom. Pseudo-friends start popping in and never leaving, including: 

1. Nathan Lane, a television actor who gave up the lead in this play for his now-cancelled series even though the playwright is his ‘best friend’;
2. the playwright Matthew Broderick, who is the most boring milquetoast man you have ever seen and I shudder to think of poor SJP; 
3. the director Rupert Grint, who is saddled with the worst costume and the worst bit (infra) and will have to deal with everyone saying how his Broadway debut did not measure up to Daniel Radcliffe’s but that’s not really his fault because this show; 
4. the theatre critic F. Murray Abraham, who somehow works his way into the inner circle despite, um, being a critic, and is just super miscast;
5. the lead of the Play, Stockard Channing, who is trying to overcome her serious drug addictions (haha so funny?) by doing many drugs onstage while wearing her ankle monitor (which she couldn’t remove during the play within the play);
6. and the best part of this show, Micah Stock, stealing all his scenes as the hopeful actor working this party as the coat-check guy. 

I mean. That’s a great cast. It’s just too bad the play isn’t better. But I guess that doesn’t matter, because their collective star power is allowing this pile of whatnot to break box office records left and right. Good job, producers, proving that our current society values celebrity over quality. It’s just true. Even I went to see all these actors even though I had already heard how dumb it was. I judge me too.

I don’t want to be super mean; it’s not like this is the worst show ever or even right now. It’s just that it has so much freaking potential and that makes it even worse, (like “American Hustle”). As you know, it makes me angrier when something so easily could be better than when something just sucks. It reeks of laziness and negligence when a little more attention and effort could make something great. Hence why I’m so angry about this and I didn’t say anything about “Holler If Ya Hear Me”.  

Nathan Lane, bless his heart, tries so freaking hard in everything he does. You can almost see a cloud of smoke (not farts) following him around as his effort outweighs every single person ever inspired by any small engine that ever thought it could, combined. Even during my vote for #1 worst part of the show – when Nathan Lane’s character has to refer to ACTUAL PERSON NATHAN LANE/himself as a super-gay famous actor whom he would have understood being cast in something, without cursing out the entire production team for including this awful update and without throwing glass vases at all the laughing audience members who think this is somehow funny – Lane gives his all to deliver every line with all his acting prowess as though it’s the most important play ever. Bravo to him, seriously, because his giving 200% is surprisingly what lets him retain his dignity after this mess ends. 

So okay, plot. Oh wait, you got it. These characters wait for the reviews to come in. And not just any reviews, but most importantly the New York Times review from Ben Brantley. This is my vote for Worst Shit #1 (tied), because Ben Brantley is a real person who actually had to review this show. And despite it being terrible, he loved it and gave it a positive review – maybe…juuuuust maybe, because the show exalts him as the most important voice in all of theatre??? You think he liked that?

Breathe. So the characters assemble, and as they wait, they kind of fight, they bicker, they drop so many names. Nathan and Matthew have a big fight because Nathan admits that he didn’t take the part because the play sucks (real Nathan wishes he followed his character’s path?), and Broderick makes big lofty speeches about how commercialized the theatre has become. Listen, I saw this show in previews, so these speeches may have been mercifully cut by opening night (though as far as I can find, they haven’t been), but Broderick’s speeches stopped the show faster and more drastically than a ton of bricks falling from the ceiling could have. It was beyond boring. His delivery copied Ben Stein doing “Bueller…Bueller?”. The actual words mirrored Bob Balaban’s end monologue in “The Lady in the Water”, just replacing ‘movies’ with ‘theatre’. I wonder if M. Night has seen this yet and been alternately thrilled and pissed.  

F. Murray Abraham, that fantastic serious actor, plays a total jackwagon of a theatre critic who, despite being stuck in this room with these people, tells them how much they suck and how dumb they are. He also acts kind of like a clown, laughing maniacally and creepily, and you’re just like…how did they cast you, fearsome Dar Adal &c., in this role? I feel bad for him. 

Rupert Grint gets the shit end of the stick by far when he has to act out a confrontation with his father…in front of all his work colleagues (not to mention the audience)…with…wait for it…hand puppets. That he had in his pockets. I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was sad, and embarrassing.  

Stockard Channing is another Serious Actor whom I felt intense levels of fremdschamen for the entire time. Important note to producers if they find a time machine: Stockard and Mullally should have switched roles. Stockard mostly talks about drugs and drinking while doing drugs and drinking in front of us, and it’s supposed to be funny because haha addition, but it’s not funny because it’s freaking Stockard Channing and you’re like…hey…hey girl…what are ya doing? Meanwhile, Mullally found success and became super famous because of how good she is at making drugs and drinking somehow freaking hilarious. Why on earth was she playing the uber-wealthy producer instead of the crazy actress? Why? 

The saving grace of the entire shebang is Micah Stock, long-lost little brother of Billy Eichner. Micah’s coat-check guy comments on all the celebrities partying downstairs with absolutely no cynicism or really knowledge, just pure sincerity, and he’s hilarious and perfect. My favorite part of the show is when he comes up with coats and says a jumble of sounds that somehow you (if you are a theatre aficionado) know is supposed to be ‘Tovah Feldshuh’. Jokes about the Kardashians and Lady Gaga are less welcome, but he does his damnedest to make you laugh. His heavier presence in the beginning is what lets this show start off with a bang, but his diminished presence later on is what lets all the air out. 

Despite all this crap it’s kind of fun? I have a feeling people would compare this ‘it’s bad but you still want to watch it’ feeling to “Grease 2”, but G2 is amazing and that would be too high praise. It’s more like “Never Been Kissed”, I’d say. You cringe the entire time and you cover your eyes at most everything that comes out of Drew Barrymore’s mouth, but Michael Vartan is in it and you love him. So…see it? Maybe?