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The View Upstairs at the Soho: Heartfelt Yet Uneven Tribute with Potential

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It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The View Upstairs, playing at London’s Soho Theatre until August 24.

The best kinds of theatre tell a story somehow relevant to today, regardless of the time period or subject matter of the show, and get the message across in nuanced, powerful ways. In The View Upstairs, Max Vernon’s 2017 musical about the LGBTQ+ community, they’re getting a lot right, but there’s room for improvement. They’ve got the emotion, the politics, the lofty goals of what they want the end product to do, and a game and talented cast, but the nuance and art of it need work to make the show as a whole sing. With all that emotional honesty at the ready, the show has the potential to be great with some focus on fixing the weak spots.

Going into this production, the European premiere of Vernon’s musical that played off-Broadway in 2017, I didn’t know what it was about. I didn’t even know it was a musical (best kind of surprise you could ever gift me, universe), and I definitely didn’t know it was about the 1973 New Orleans arson attack on a gay bar called the UpStairs, the biggest, deadliest attack on the queer community until Pulse. If you read that and thought ‘they made that horrible depressing story a musical?’ then you don’t know the power of musical theatre to tell any and every kind of story. The musical treatment feels right for this intimate, heartfelt play, with it becoming overall a lovely tribute to the victims. However, it wasn’t cohesive enough as a whole to be truly great theatre just yet. I feel like if they were willing to make some changes at this stage (preview period baby!), it can be.

Roughly, the story is about a 2019 fab-u-lous young influencer named Wes (a fabulous Tyrone Huntley, like wow you are a star and must be exhausted) who is trying to redefine and grow his brand by buying an abandoned building in New Orleans, the future home to his clothing line/influencing products I don’t know I don’t understand instagram. The realtor explains that some of the damage is the result of a fire, obviously the Chekhov’s gun of realtor comments even if you didn’t know what the show was about. I was like OH SHIT OH SHIT WE’RE GONNA SEE THE FIRE I HATE FIRE AHHH WHERE ARE THE EXITS. Wes sings the best song in the show, “#HouseholdName (I’m sorry the # is in the name I have to do it), does some drogas, and suddenly is in 1973, his building now (/then) a fun semi-secret gay bar filled with all sorts of characters. He’s a little confused – is he tripping? is he time-travelling? (Mantzoukas voice:) what’s going ON?! – but quickly rolls with whatever’s happening. His rolling with the punches/homies is uneven, because he doesn’t seem to ask any questions or do a ‘wait, what?’ moment, which is fine I guess, but then later in the show Wes begins a song with a lyric about how he’s been freaking out all night trying to figure out what’s happening and I was like, um no you haven’t? you were just kind of immediately cool with this?

The cast of characters Wes drops in on in 1973 are enjoying the UpStairs bar, a place where they can be themselves without worrying (too much) about the outside world. There’s Buddy (John Partridge), the lounge’s piano player (who reminded me so much of some old-timey musician but also of Jack Skellington), a closeted gay man with a wife and family whose resentment comes out to hurt everyone and not just himself, but for some reason no one seems to mind what an asshole he is. They mind that Dale (Declan Bennett), a clearly troubled man who needs help, is an asshole, but is he that much more of an asshole than Buddy? His song was really moving; I just wish it (and others) weren’t set up so clunkily.

The talented cast all get some moments to shine, some more than others, but some are miscast or mistreated. A standout for me was Cedric Neal’s Willie, who gets the perfect balanced role of making both funny and poignant comments while showing off his ridiculous voice. I loved Carly Mercedes Dyer as Henri, always reliable for belting her face off, but it was strange that she didn’t get a solo but Freddy’s mother had two?? I mean wtf. I loved Victoria Hamilton-Barritt in In the Heights, but her Puerto Rican accent did not work here, and the Ines character, mother of Freddy, has two too many songs. They bring the action to a screeching halt. Also, she looks at oldest in her early 30s, so casting her as the mother of someone who looks…also in his early 30s is beyond ridiculous. Yes yes actors should be able to play whoever and whatever they want (just ask ScarJo) but if you want to portray the emotional beats of a mother and son, they shouldn’t look like man + little sister who just came from church.

But the most disappointing part is how the pivotal role of Patrick is treated. Andy Mientus has come over from the great broad way to teach us how it’s done over here, and while he himself is fantastic as always, Patrick is not fleshed out as much as the role should be. First of all, Andy, one of the best musical theatre performers of his type right now, is given the two worst songs to sing. They do nothing to show off his voice; they kind of feel like first drafts. The second song was so close to being strong but it was clearly in the wrong key, and like, minor? Make it major and it would improve exponentially without hurting the song’s message. As for his character, Patrick seems like all the other ‘70s people, living their normal lives when Wes just drops in on them. But at the end, he acts like he’s been some sort of narrator or leader to Wes like forking Cuba Gooding Jr. in What Dreams May Come. But he wasn’t! But make him one! It would be so interesting (and really help with cohesiveness) if there was this constant thread of Patrick as narrator or guide. His talking to Wes at the end makes no sense (especially his big joke line about being ‘f-ing magical’, though funny) unless the character is retooled throughout the body of the show to actually be f-ing magical, some sort of guide through this memory.

Although I wanted to ignore any problems and focus on how important this story was, the problems are too obvious. The transitions between dialogue and songs feel very amateur and clunky, with a lot of spoken moments between characters that might as well have set up the next song like, “here, let me sing about what I mean.” It diminishes the flow of the story and the character development to set it up that way. It kind of felt like Working. It shouldn’t.

One more problem I had was the contrast they kept trying to force between the community in the ‘70s versus today. There are sooo many compelling differences to discuss, yet the focus seemed to be on how people today are vapid attention whores who just want influence online and strong branding, at the expense of real relationships and love, and that the gay community is purely and coldly transactional. That’s true for Wes, clearly, but I don’t see that as true for many people today. Yes, many spend lots of time forging internet presences, but most of them also have real lives, so that’s not a universal problem and shouldn’t be treated as one. I mean maybe the message of the importance of community is just meant for like YouTube stars who go to see it but I doubt that. It would be stronger if it focused more on Wes’s personal struggle instead of trying to blame an entire generation for the bad parts of the internet.

This feels like an opportune time to point out one of Laughfrodisiac’s favorite – and defining – movie quotes:

You think I'd go hoarse for a player with no potential?

I’ve shared a lot of not-nice thoughts about this new musical but only because it’s all there, all the groundwork, all the emotion, all the heart they need to make it magical. (Now I need to quote Cuba: ‘I’M ALL HEART MUFUCKA!’) With a bit of work it can be great.

INFORMATION

During early previews, the show ran 2 hours straight through, no interval. There were several moments were it would have been fine to break the show and have an interval, which is highly recommended so other people don’t get UTIs. Also, not worrying about keeping it to one act could let more transitions be fleshed out fully.

STAGE DOOR

The Soho doesn’t really allow for regular stage-dooring, so you just wait outside the main entrance (as of now) for actors who want to come out from the lobby bar to come out. Cedric Neal came out first and was incredibly lovely and amazing, followed by Mientus who was also really nice. I left before anyone else came out. I think they were all hanging in the bar so if you are cool and at ease in bars you could just stick around in there.

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