Islander at the Southwark Playhouse: This Mystical Folk Musical is the Strongest in London Right Nowby Randi / October 21, 2019It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Our Lady of Kibeho, playing at London’s Stratford East theatre until Nov. 2, when I imagine the Virgin Mary will appear to burn it all down.
Like the Catholic Church doesn’t have enough bad PR going for it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Our Lady of Kibeho, the 2014 play written by Katori Hall, was a hit job to make sensible people hate the church’s reps even more vehemently. Faaack, those are some assholes on that stage! If you can get past how absolutely awful 98% of the characters are, you may enjoy Kibeho as it tells the true story (I mean as true a story as people seeing visions of the Virgin Mary can be, no offense but what) of the girls at Kibeho college in Rwanda who saw said visions of the virgin in 1981. Mary showed them predictions of the coming Rwandan genocide, which is incredibly harrowing and infuriating that no one believed them and did anything to stop it, but then again what could they have done to stop it? (Also, query whether it was a self-fulfilling prophesy? Dark.)
In Kibeho, Alphonsine (a very winning Taz Munya), whose father I assume is named Alphonso because otherwise why, but also even if that’s the reason oof, has seizure-inducing visions of the Virgin Mary (you don’t know this but in my head I’m saying it ‘wirgin’ because I just watched a video of a German man speaking). Of course, nobody believes her, because organized religion is largely composed of unbelievably shitty people (see, e.g., 98% of churches in America; the aforementioned Catholic church; &c.). The Father and Sister and Bishop of the school yell at her, which is some BULLSHIRT. Your entire thang is based on just believing what you’re supposed to believe because you, well, just BELIEVE (see, e.g. The Book of Mormon for this sentence put to music) and instead of believing her or really even asking if the girl who keeps having seizures is okay, ffs, you yell at her and sic the meanest mean girls in school on her instead? WHY ARE PEOPLE. Ugh I was so, so angry for most of this show, wanting to sprint up to that stage and punch Sister Evangelique (suchhh a Pose house name!) and Marie-Claire in the face and the Bishop man in their mean faces.
Luckily (?), another girl, Anathalie (I honestly kept thinking they were saying ‘ah, Natalie’ every time) starts having the visions too. They still get bullied and no one else believes them and the other mean girls beat them? and the Sister Pose torments them? I do not get how any of these people can make a claim to be close to god but alas, that’s organized religion. Anyway, luckily (?) Marie-Claire, the Regina George of Rwanda but meaner, starts seeing the visions too and seizuring all about that beeyatch, so the Vatican comes a-calling.
Now, holy shit, truly holy shit, is the Vatican rep the worst man ever. Katori Hall is SAYING SOME SHIT with this muhfucka. He literally stabs the girls during their visions because if they were really having religious visions, they wouldn’t feel pain or whatever. SURE SEEMS LEGIT. Must he, MUST he stab them in the chest for this test? Not the arm? Even the leg? But the chest? As exasperating as that question is (my heart was pounding louder than the show), I have another one for you – what kind of monsters tasked with being in charge of these girls (the sister, the father, the bishop, inter alia assorted fuckers) allows this to happen? UGH THIS IS HOW WE GOT HERE.
Anyway, aside from the fury raging like flames, flames, flames, on the side of my face, this show is pretty interesting. There are scenes, especially the ends of each act, where I was completely swept up in the onstage action, completely oblivious to my loud heart and the loud people around me. There are moments of brilliance, especially among the girls. However, the adults, especially the men, were uniformly weak, but more importantly oddly directed by James Dacre. Instead of sticking to what made sense for their characters (sure they can be total assholes, that’s normal in all plays, but make it make sense in the show), so many lines were delivered as cheap laugh grabs, when it made no sense for the story or the character. Sure, the audience loved it – audience love cheap laugh grabs; they do work – but it took me out of the story and made me into my favorite gif, the one of the little blonde toddler making a ‘what the hell?’ face. I was mimicking that amazing toddler for way too much of this show, at so many confusing, bizarre line deliveries, when it could have otherwise been pretty strong and cohesive, and of course unsettling and disturbing since we know what came next.
INFORMATION
The show is playing at Stratford East, east of London by the Olympic Park, until November 2. There are 4 stalls in the ladies toilet. The stalls are single rows (no center aisle) so if you get claustro get lower-numbered seats (those are nearer the side by the exit. I had an aisle seat of course but on the wrong side, oops).
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Indecent Proposal at the Southwark is a must-see I can’t stop yelling about
I know you won’t believe me because no one ever believes me (“should I use my invisibility to fight crime, or for evil?”) but the new musical adaptation of ‘Indecent Proposal’, now at the Southwark Playhouse, is one of the strongest original works London theatre has seen since ‘Six’ ended a decade-long drought. I know that is A QUITE THE STATEMENT, but I always have suggestions (demands?) and at least two full songs to cut after every show I see, because I want them to make it the best it can possibly be, but this time? I’m like Connie the hormone monster after Jessie first screams at her mother:
Michael Conley and Dylan Schlosberg, the writer and composer respectively, have clearly worked to edit this show into a tight and riveting work. Can I just say, it is a TREAT to see something that doesn’t feel like a first draft. ‘Indecent Proposal’ passed all the criteria on my checklist that few shows concern themselves with, including: Does it seem like more than one set of eyes edited the book, and did they care if it passed the smell test? (I would honestly volunteer to edit books for free, this is how much the usual obvious lack of editing kills me.) Is the humor a race to the bottom or does it respect its audience? And crucially: was any of the storytelling actually improved by it being a musical or would it have been the same as a play? (Shockingly few musicals actually bother to address the baseline test for being a musical.) Luckily, this one passed them all. The engaging music is used well, and Shakespeare would get a big old British boner for all this drama.
What we get is an intimate, well-constructed musical adaptation of the 1988 book by Jack Engelhard (who am I kidding, we’re all thinking only of the 1993 Demi Moore movie) telling the story of Rebecca and Jonny, a down-on-their-luck-but-up-on-their-love couple living in Atlantic City back when it was seedy and decaying and full of unglamorous people (so, anytime) (but no it’s clearly still set in the late ’80s, from the fashun). They seem like decent people who need, and deserve, a bit of luck in the financial department. When Famous Rich Man Larry offers them a million dollars if he can spend the night with Rebecca, everything goes to shit.
And the shit gets interesting. The drama is more than whether they will accept or not, whether they could survive it, whether they have the footing to decline — although that is all handled with care and attention. It’s not obvious that ‘of course they should just punch the guy and call it a day!’, as a lot of us would shout. People who brush off their dilemma are fortunate enough to have never been so desperate. But surely empathetic people can feel for those at the end of their rope. You start to understand why these poor poor people would even consider it, no matter how awful it is. The interesting and nuanced drama comes from how their interactions subtly but markedly change, especially in their now-stilted communication, what they’re not saying and what they’re waiting for the other to say. Charlotte Westenra’s direction of Lizzy Connolly and Norman Bowman in their unraveling relationship is so sharp, and I adored how it seemed we were catching them in emotional moments that we weren’t supposed to see, and how often they would be powerfully Acting with their expressions even though only a tiny portion of the audience could see. I mean at one point I saw Jonny whisper “I’m sorry” into Rebecca’s ear even though I don’t anyone else could or did notice that. That is COMMITMENT TO THE PART and we love to see it. Lizzy stood out to me in that incredible revival of Sweet Charity, and her talent and presence shine here. Norman Bowman is new to me (I know I’m sorry) and even though his forking forearm veins are their own separate character (jealous) I’m obsessed with his performance. He gives this great scrappy chaos energy, kind of like Billy Crudup in ‘The Morning Show’ (he is by far the best part of that show ps) but wiry and desperate, it’s so good. (He’d be perfect to star in ‘Memphis’ given what I remember of the original star who shant be named.) These actors are giving such deep and fine-tuned performances, so inhabiting the characters that it feels intrusive to be watching this couple instead of sending them to therapy stat. Instead of being about shock value of the main concept, they help make the show this intriguing portrait of a formerly annoyingly happy couple who are now doomed, no matter what.
More than ever before (i.e. more than when I saw the movie as a literal baby), I realized that that’s the interesting drama at play: not that this jackwagon has the AUDACITY, or what’s going to happen to the couple we root for, but that Famous Rich Man’s power goes beyond the money he offers. His power is in his shameless gall in offering it in the first place. Because as soon as he opens his mouth, the damage is done. It doesn’t matter what they do next. They will suffer for what he had the impunity to suggest, because it’s just another game to him, despite it having the power to ruin normal lives. He doesn’t care. Honeybadger don’t care.
As the rich man Larry, Ako Mitchell is a decent villain, but most importantly he sounds better than I’ve ever heard him. His first song has a humorous turnaround, as he’s performing in-universe and starts off nervous, but then he’s like ‘OH GUESS WHAT, I’M AWESOME.’ I really wanted to shout ‘oh shit Ako COME THROUGH’ when he belted those velvet notes but did not, which is good, because then I would have had to kick my own ass. I’m usually against the idea of relying on diegetic songs in musicals because it often feels like a half-assed way of giving characters something to do (see, e.g., all poor Lilli Cooper had to do in Tootsie), but that’s not the case here. It works given the setting, and even without that, the structure of the musical numbers feels thoughtfully done, since the diegesis of the songs pays off in Act II when they aren’t anymore. And that long climax scene in Act II as the couple fights, with it’s motherforking STAGING as they shared inner monologues? It’s genius.
The music is pretty good, never feeling out of place or out of character. And the writer has to be from the area because I have never witnessed such attention to detail. I literally almost gasped when they said something about how it’s almost 7pm so Jeopardy! would be starting soon! Who knows that but locals! And someone was wearing a Phillies shirt! And there was a Jets shirt because I guess they knew people in New Jersey are split between the two cities’ teams. If anyone had said ‘wooder’ I would have fainted.
A lot of the ‘professional’ critics who need to get a life and/or the stick out of their butts said they were aghast (clutch them pearls!) at the idea of offering money to sleep with someone’s wife, oh my lord farquaad. They were like, ‘oh this is a horrid, horrid show, pish posh, it’s simply positively indecent.’ IT’S IN THE TITLE, NUMBNUTS. Did they have no idea going in? Or did they actively choose to be offended and make a fuss even though I thought British people HATED making a fuss. They also said Larry was too bad a guy or too unlikeable for making this offer. Is…that…not…the….POINT? Honestly, in addition to the marital strife, what grabbed me by the shoulders and shook hard was how much of this show made me scream TAX THE RICH! internally. Did they not see the part where he doesn’t pay the poor dying woman for his beer? Where he gives a homeless person a measly $2 and probably feels that’s enough charity for the year? The constant thread of noticing how easily Larry could save people’s lives was fascinating. He instead chooses to fuck with these two. He chooses VIOLENCE. He has such power and he uses it to put a disaster in motion with his words, how is that not interesting drama? There are all these poor, decent people who just need some help, like Jonny and Rebecca, and poor Annie (Jacqeline Dankworth, lovely) who needs a gd hysterectomy, and this guy could help them all and chooses not to. This show was a motherfucking ONION with its layers.
This show has accomplished something really difficult in showing a very convincing and genuine-feeling intimate portrayal of this couple and what can happen when love is not enough to survive on. That a musical version of this kind of insane story told in this climate managed to provide such a compelling marital drama is what shocked me and why I’m so effusive in my praise for it. Noah Baumbach could never.
ALSO. The accents were good. I KNOW!
“Oslo” on the West End: The Emperor’s New Clothes But For Theatre
Wooot! It’s Theatre Thursday y’all! Today we talk about “Oslo” which is now at the Harold Pinter Theatre on London’s West End. I wish I left at intermission.
Remember how mad I got at Birdman? Because it was so artsy fartsy without really saying anything worthwhile and I seemed to be the only person who didn’t think it was Jesus in movie form? It’s absolutely nothing compared to my anger at “Oslo”. I would vote for Birdman right now for this year’s Oscars ffs. At least Birdman had objectively good acting and objectively impressive cinematography. “Oslo” has none of that. It is a mess of terrible writing (terrible!), awful overacting (awful!), and obvious lack of any editing (obvious!). But worst of all, it wastes the opportunity of writing great art based on this subject matter, AND, because it is important subject matter, it seems to have tricked everyone into assuming that it is indeed great art. The greatest trick the devil ever played is convincing everyone in theatre that “Oslo” is quality.
Remember how mad I got at Birdman? Because it was so artsy fartsy without really saying anything worthwhile and I seemed to be the only person who didn’t think it was Jesus in movie form? It’s absolutely nothing compared to my anger at “Oslo”. I would vote for Birdman right now for this year’s Oscars ffs. At least Birdman had objectively good acting and objectively impressive cinematography. “Oslo” has none of that. It is a mess of terrible writing (terrible!), awful overacting (awful!), and obvious lack of any editing (obvious!). But worst of all, it wastes the opportunity of writing great art based on this subject matter, AND, because it is important subject matter, it seems to have tricked everyone into assuming that it is indeed great art. The greatest trick the devil ever played is convincing everyone in theatre that “Oslo” is quality.
This seriously revered (and mind-bogglingly so) play by J.T. Rogers tells the behind-the-scenes drama of the secret meetings in the development of the Oslo Peace Accords, between representatives of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Pretty important subject matter, right? and rife with dramatic potential. “Oslo” premiered in New York a few years ago, transferred to Broadway, and won the Tony for Best New Play. The importance of the subject matter apparently blinded audiences into thinking the play itself was good, and because they were just like oh this is good I’m having fun, the potential was squandered because no one will ever write a play about this again. This amazingly interesting idea for a play will never get to be fully realized into the strong work it deserves because the shit that was churned out first won the Tony and who on earth is going to write a new version when the old one won a Tony! Grahhhh. We all lose when audiences aren’t critical.
But of course we had no idea that “Oslo” was going to be the theatre equivalent of a chicken in a magician’s hat and everyone including the chicken is like ‘what, no’ when we excitedly bought tickets and when we excitedly went to the theatre and when we excitedly pranced about the lobby before the show started. I had heard such good things and hellooo it won the Tony! How many times am I going to say that, I hear you asking? I get it, it won the Tony! Well I just still can’t believe it. I’ve been against some Tony wins in the past – David Hyde Pierce for “Curtains” over Raul Esparza for “Company”, anyone at all over Rachel Bay Jones for “Pippin” – but those winners were still deserving as hell, they just weren’t my vote. But “Oslo” winning anything but a Razzie is like when Joe Fox’s child-aunt sings “Tomorrow” while his new temporary stepmother makes a pass at him. JUST A LOT OF NO.
Anyway so there we were all hyped up for some Middle East peace process goodness preshow when I realized that the Harold Pinter Theatre in London was CHOCKABLOCK full of every Jew in Europe, squashed into the poorly designed too-small lobby like sardines, which old Jews love. Oh my goodness I don’t think I saw that many Israelis when I was IN Israel. I was happy at first because I like to force a camaraderie with my fellows when Nazis are back in power but then the whole theatre started smelling like Yom Kippur breath and that’s hard to get past.
Still I couldn’t wait to be blown away by the intellect and the intrigue and the excellent writing I expected. The show began, I was so revved up to be smacked in the face with genius…and then the old lady next to me – NEXT TO ME – took out her tote bag, pulled out a plastic bag, and out of that pulled two very tightly wrapped sandwiches with some sort of mayo-based salad, probably chicken given the demographics. So those of you who know me know that I am not only Theatre Police, I’m regular Theatre Police’s worst nightmare. I grab phones out of hands, I get ushers to admonish talkers, I jump out of my seat to tell people to get in line or gtfo. Boorish behavior at the theatre drives me insane. I just want people to not behave like monsters; is that so much to ask? So the fact that this sandwich-eating monster who thinks it’s okay to whip out a plastic-wrapped sandwich and slowly unwrap it and then munch on it IN THE THEATRE was NEXT TO ME was like the universe getting drunk and seeing how crazy they could make me while it watches, cracking up while eating potato chips and laughing to universe friends going ‘LOOK AT ‘ER LOOK AT ‘ER SHE’S GONNA LOSE IT’. That’s how I pictured the universe at this moment. I honestly almost stood up and shouted “oh THIS is the bad place!” If Ted Dansen wanted to torture me for eternity this was the brilliant way to do it. I was frozen for a minute as I just sat horrified that someone was actually doing this not only in the theatre but next to me of all people, before I gathered my wits and whispered ‘omg stop’. She didn’t hear me, of course, what with her loud chewing blocking any sound from entering her ears. A kindred spirit in the row in front of us and a few seats down kept turning around in shock to stare at this brazenly bad behavior, making eye contact with me and we shook our heads in disbelief and disgust together. Friends! I tried again: ‘please put that away’. Old sandwich lady seemed completely shocked that anyone would have a problem with an audience member sitting in the fourth row center of the orchestra, right where the actors look most of the time, proudly eating a chicken salad sandwich in the middle of a drama about the motherfreaking Middle East. She stopped but still, the damage was done. She and her even older husband talked a lot during the show too. “WHAT DID HE SAY?” “HE SAID HE’S TIRED, RIGHT? TIRED.” I mean me too lady.
Amid all the old people conversations and the bursts of Yom Kippur breath hitting us like hot air darts from absolutely nowhere (it was horrid), we tried to focus on the play, and we really tried to love it even a smidgen as much as we had hoped to. It tells the story of two Norwegian diplomats, Mona Juul and Terje Rod-Larsen (obviously their names are properly spelled with some fun Scandinavian alphabet marks that I’m not going to bother to find and add in because this show isn’t worth the effort), who organize secret negotiations between representatives sent by Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yassir Arafat in 1993, keeping their experiment a secret from the rest of the world. Everything could have gone wrong, and a lot did, but the Norwegian couple risked everything to try to get people from both sides to talk to each other as fellow human beings, to find some common ground, and to reach agreements on important issues using Terje’s newfangled methods, which are never explained in the show but apparently work. We meet frumpy Jews, slick Matrix-wannabe Jews, friendly Arabs, scary stoic Arabs, all the various, passionate players in these backdoor dealings, all trying to behave somewhat peaceably and fairly while aiming for a win for their side.
It could have been so moving, so important and dramatic and educational.
Instead, it’s a total shitshow of immature writing, overacting, lack of edits, and stupid jokes aimed at super old uncritical audiences. It sounds so great but the stellar idea had its potential completely destroyed in the execution. It was like The Big Bang Theory of theatre, aimed at the lowest common denominator – incredibly basic and unsophisticated and barely shooting above the baseline but still capable of winning lots of awards (and viewers and money and acclaim). But the difference is that I sometimes laugh at Big Bang, It can be funny despite its uninspired attempts at easy humor (not to mention its sexism and racism). “Oslo” is worse than Big Bang in every way – writing, directing, acting, enjoyment. I know, I can’t believe I’m saying this either, that a Tony-winning play is so much worse than the most insipid show on TV in recent years. But it’s true.
A huge problem with “Oslo”, besides everything I already mentioned, is that despite the subject matter being such a selling point for it, it doesn’t have any faith in it. The writer and everyone in the creative team apparently didn’t believe that it could stand as an important show because they cram it full of the worst jokes you’ve ever heard, I guess to keep the older-skewing audience thinking they’re having fun. When the Israelis were talking about potential representatives to send, one would say “Oh he can’t handle it – he’s from HAIFA!” and the oldest, deafest Jews in the audience would roar with laughter while I sat there just jaw-dropped from disbelief at how bad these would be even for Borscht Belt comedy acts. Or when in the middle of talking about important issues, one guy would make a joke about how he loves gefilte fish and everyone would laugh simply because he said gefilte fish and old Jewish men think that’s the funniest thing to talk about. I cannot. There was also an extended bit when the Norwegian chef of Mona and Terje tell the guests how she makes her waffles. It was tortuous enough to put you off waffles for good, and I love waffles. I thought my husband’s head was going to explode during that part. He didn’t say anything – he knows me; even in the worst of shows you behave – but I could sense the heat coming off the whirring of his brain cells as they tried with all their might to keep the blood in the head.
Aside from the very, very dumb jokes…no, none of it was any better. The negotiation scenes should have been strong, but the writing, oh god it was so weak. You know from reading my travel posts how much I love cursing, right? I do it a lot. I am not shy about it and I appreciate when cursing is used well. This play is the best case I’ve ever seen for outlawing cursing in all forms. It was so frustrating how poorly it used what could be a great tool. How do you ruin that? They would shoehorn the f word into almost every sentence, and it never made sense or sounded good or worked to increase drama. It just sounded stupid. “Let’s get these fucking talks going.” “I only have fucking until six o’clock.” “I’m fucking hungry let’s get the fucking dinner.” These aren’t exact quotes but they are decent examples of how poorly written this show was. How can you be so bad at cursing? And that wasn’t the only tool that was so overused that it became a shivering pile of ash that only hinted at once being metal. The actors shouted 98% of their lines. When everything is shouting, there’s nowhere to build, and so nothing stands out as being dramatic or important. You can’t start at 10 and then have nowhere to build when you are talking about the Middle East. The only result of all the shouting and screaming was that I tuned everything out, which I doubt was the intent.
Even more frustrating and tasteless was how the sole important woman was treated – and that the creators I doubt even realize how it came across. Every single time a man entered the room, they would comment on how great Mona was and how she was such a wonderful woman. Every single time, they would single out her as a the sole woman and point out how they wished she could be their wife. Always in a jovial, friendly manner, always so easygoing as to make most of the audience (and I’m guessing the playwright) assume that this was just men being friendly. But it came across to us, woke af millennials, as so despicably sexist, so demeaning to this woman who was A DIPLOMAT, equal in importance if not more so to her diplomat husband and colleagues, that it makes me fear that every man involved in the creation of this show is indeed a good ol’ boy type of sexist, not even realizing when they are being disgusting to women.
The saddest thing about this show, aside from the fact that the peace talks obviously didn’t really do much, was that it was artless. Theatre is art, and this clumsy, vulgar attempt was so completely devoid of any merit that it made me sad for this great love of mine. Well not completely devoid – Peter Polycarpou, always terrific, is the best part of this production. His acting as Ahmed from the PLO was somehow able to shine past the terrible writing he was given. But that’s really it. I cannot believe my beloved Barlett Sher directed this mess. He really needs to stick to golden age musicals starring Kelli O’Hara. It breaks my art that this show is so bad because it’s the worst kind of badness – the insidious kind, that no one else believes you about. Everyone – LITERALLY everyone else – thinks this show is amazing. The show SHOULD be amazing! I wanted it to be! I guess the silver lining is that we haven’t lost our critical sense yet?
The best part was when we both broke our rules. At the end, they do that awful ‘what happened next to every character?’ bit that is soooo annoying usually but you can give a pass when it’s about real-life people (and in Legally Blonde). But they had all the side characters do their what-I-did-next bits too! That is unnecessary. When one lady who had LITERALLY one line had her turn and said ‘I had a heart attack and I died’ we both suppressed (or tried to at least) guffaws and I kind of whispered ‘good’. This show is so bad it makes me awful. When the raucous applause finally died down, my husband and I looked at each other in disbelief. Husband had the best line we heard the entire night: “Oh that was so bad…oh I’m so unhappy!” And then we cracked up for like 10 minutes as we shook our heads at the rest of the world.
INFORMATION
The play is terrible, but at least it’s overly long!! The first act is an hour and 15 minutes. The second? AN HOUR AND 45 MINUTES. OH THISSS IS THE BAD PLACE!
STAGEDOOR
lol no.
