The Autumn of Dave Malloy Continues with London’s Ghost Quartetby Randi / December 5, 2019Musical theatre composers always say the test for what songs make the final score is rigorous and specific: They have to serve the story. The story comes first and the music needs to help tell it, whether by driving plot or developing characters. If the best song you’ve ever written doesn’t serve a purpose in the story, or just doesn’t fit the rest of the show, it needs to be cut. (That’s how we got the Hamilton Mixtape.) (Also how we got the incredible song “Come Down From That Tree” which we only know from Audra McDonald’s own recording of it because they wisely cut it from Once on this Island because it didn’t fit, even though it is a Best Song Ever.) I feel like most new musicals forget this test. Despite having so many productions in so many cities over the past four years, the London production of Amelie is full, packed, of songs that don’t pass the test. And the ones that do serve a purpose don’t fit the rest of the show, as the inconsistent tone only becomes more and more chaotic as the night goes on. It’s overall a poorly constructed show (funny since the actual physical construction/set design is the strongest part) with a confused purpose.
I don’t remember much about Amelie the movie, except that of course it was beyond whimsical and is probably responsible for the onslaught of manic-pixie-dreamgirls in the culture, or at least pale brunettes whose main personality trait is ‘quirky’. (PSA: Quirky/weird is not a personality.) A lot of my criticism of the ridiculous, messy story is likely taken straight from the movie. You might argue then that my problem is with the movie writers, not the creative team of the musical. And to that I’d say, what is this, Pretty Woman? Your job in adapting a film for the stage is not to copy and paste, failing to fix what needs to be fixed in order to work onstage. Whether this jumbled story worked in the film is completely irrelevant for stage purposes. They may have nailed the proper whimsical, eccentric tone in the movie, but trying the same things to achieve the same things in a different medium is bonkers and has resulted in an almost incoherent musical, with no discernible tone, objective, meaning, or intention.
With music by Daniel Messe (who wrote the music for the movie…and that score is excellent…so like…ah) and Nathan Tysen, and a book by Craig Lucas (who wrote one of my faves The Light in the Piazza which is also about a young girl who is, shall we say, not entirely there (so we were like…is that the only character he likes to write about because that’s problematic)), Amelie tells of a young French girl who lives through her imagination after a childhood of seclusion because her parents forking sucked. (Her mom gets killed by a man who jumps off Notre Dame, but he ALSO FIRST SHOOTS HIMSELF? Why? To make sure? What an asshole.) She decides to do a nice thing that makes someone else happy, so then she decides to do more nice things for other people and try to break out of her shell and maybe one day live in the real world. It sounds adorable! Except the things she does FORKING SUCK. Amelie the character is GODDAMN ASSHOLE. Is she supposed to be adorable? Is the whimsy supposed to make up for her assholiness? To quote Chidi-Janet: It does not. Makes it way worse.
The good deeds Amelie does include: finding a box under her floorboards and deciding to find its owner, which she does remarkably easily. To mark this occasion and her decision to do more good things, she…no, she doesn’t sing a song, her neighbor does, about being the old French man version of Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr Glass character.
Then, in the café where she works, there’s a really terrifying man stalking one of her coworkers because they went on a date a year ago. Instead of calling the police and filing for a restraining order, and maybe alerting the French version of the FBI that this is for sure a future incel/supremacist who is going to murder women, Amelie…sets him up with her other friend. For this there is no excuse.
Then there’s the mean old grocer who is mean to the boy who works for him because he…loves figs? This kid gets a little song about figs. Amelie doesn’t get a solo in the entirety of Act I. In Act II, she feeds the old man fig tart and it somehow makes him nice. I don’t know.
At some point, she bumps into a man named Nino, who spends his time going through public photo booths, like the kind where you get a strip of 4 photos in black and white. He collects the discarded ones; it’s his art. It’s love at first sight and Amelie sings about how striking this unexpected feeling is…no, Nino sings a song about the photo booth light. One day he loses his collection of photos, and Amelie finds it. Instead of returning it to him, she plays infuriating games with him and keeps his prized possession from him for literally weeks, but I guess he finds that adorable. I was fuming. Give people their shit back. One of the games she plays includes…going to the sex shop where he works, disguising herself as a nun, and then running away scared when she realizes he’s going to come out and see her?? WHAT DID SHE THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN? What is this white nonsense.
Amid all of this is a weird and tacky obsession with the death of Princess Diana. It’s in poor taste. I get that that’s a big thing in the movie but man alive it felt gross. Amelie imagines a big mega funeral for herself, with Elton John performing…and Act I ends with a HUGE rocking Elton John number that again, did not fit the show AT ALL.
I’m going to repeat that Elton John gets a big Act I number but in a musical named after her, Amelie does not have a solo in the entirety of the first act (except for a mini reprise). She doesn’t even seem like the main character at any point. The tone of the show is inconsistent and even contradictory, just all over the place, with big ridiculous silly numbers performed by giant garden gnomes and Elton Johns along with offbeat, artsy introspective songs. I guess with the contrast of styles they wanted to capture some whimsy? But it just feels like nonsense. There’s no magic. There’s one or two great songs in Act II, one with Amelie at the piano, that shows how good this show could have been with more work, and more editing. Or any editing.
Fortunately, along with the wonderful set design, the cast is doing a great job trying to keep this material afloat. Audrey Brisson’s Amelie looks exactly right and gives a great performance. The show takes a memo from the John Doyle playbook and has the actors doubling as the orchestra, which is impressive, and everyone is pretty uniformly good to great. With the solid cast and design, the production is definitely decent, but unlike the Guardian I can’t get past the material.
INFORMATION
Amelie is playing at The Other Palace in London until February 1.
This theatre has one of those horrible no-center-aisle situations so be sure to book seats on or near the aisles if you want to avoid being the last person out. Bathrooms are outside in the bar area but ALSO down in the secrets bowels of the building, accessed via a door directly at the bottom of the stage on the house left side. It took me several visits to learn about these secret and much better bathrooms down in the hallways between the main house and the studio that no one would usually get to explore. So now I like to sit on the house left/stage right aisle.
There is a lot of unnecessary smoking, and whatever herbal cigarettes they are using almost made me pass out. I get that ‘it’s Paris’, but you’ve shown that in myriad other ways. I dare anyone involved in theatre to defend well the use of cigarettes in a show. It’s never really necessary and instead is a health hazard to all and I don’t understand how it’s legal.
There’s also a super loud gunshot that shocked the shirt out of me. There was a small sign with all the trigger warnings on the door to the theatre but the ticket takers were blocking it when we entered, so, great work.
The first act ended at 20:43 and the show ended at 22:15. I felt every minute of it.
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“No Man’s Land”: Being In The Same Room As Ian McKellen & Patrick Stewart Makes Up For Whack Play
Like most people, I would pay crazy amounts of money to see those fine two knights, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, just talk to each other and be adorable, as they are. I’d be happy pay to hear them go over their grocery lists with each other. I’d be happy to see them perform nonsense that I don’t really understand or even like. So I guess you can say I’m happy, because I saw them perform nonsense that I didn’t really understand or even like.
The Two Sirs recently delighted Broadway audiences by performing together in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot” and Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” in repertory. Performing shows in repertory seemed to be a hot trend this season (with the amazing Shakespeare’s Globe productions of “Richard III” and “Twelfth Night”). And the chance to see the Two Sirs, the cutest old-man-BFFs ever to exist, onstage together was too good to pass up. But “No Man’s Land” is legit the strangest play.
The Two Sirs recently delighted Broadway audiences by performing together in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot” and Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” in repertory. Performing shows in repertory seemed to be a hot trend this season (with the amazing Shakespeare’s Globe productions of “Richard III” and “Twelfth Night”). And the chance to see the Two Sirs, the cutest old-man-BFFs ever to exist, onstage together was too good to pass up. But “No Man’s Land” is legit the strangest play.
I think that no matter how hard I try I just am not a Pinter fan. (If you want to persuade me otherwise, please feel free to make suggestions and/or offer critical analyses to assist in my literary edification.) “No Man’s Land” opens with McKellen, seemingly a rambunctious, slightly offputting sort-of-scallywag of an Englishman, in the well-appointed (or we are meant to think it’s nice, but the set is sparse) home of Patrick Stewart’s character, a wealthier man who says very little and seems kind of out of it before he gets reeeally out of it and starts falling and crawling. For the first oh, twenty minutes, the two men pretty much just drink, toast to each others’ health, sit in silence, then drink more after more toasts.
When they did actually say words, I had trouble understanding what they were saying (was is the pretend drunkenness or the terrible acoustics?), so when Billy Crudup and Schuyler Hensley entered as Stewart’s henchmen/assistants, I was excited. But then poor Billy opened his mouth. I don’t know what kind of ‘English’ accent he was doing, but it sounded like the dog from ‘Up’ with the broken voice collar after having done crystal meth in Courtney Love’s bathroom and then drinking lemon juice. Like what in the everlasting tuck. How did the director, or anyone on set before opening night, fail to address the issue of this accent? It threw me off at first, but then it just pissed me off. Billy is so much better than that.
So Ian and Pat were drinking, acting aloof, saying random ass things to each other, and Billy and Schuyler were alternating between hospitably tending to the guest and threatening to beat him and throw him out. There was little to no pattern evident in the attitude changes. But then in the second act, Pat opened up and shared his life story, and we learn that these two characters are not strangers as it appeared in the first act. No, they went to school together, had the same group of friends, and Pat even had an affair with Ian’s wife, which he was not in the least bit ashamed of talking freely about. It was totally awk. And then Pat talked about how he was all afraid of this dream he has where he’s by the lake or something and that place he nightmares about is his no man’s land or some weird shit like that. I was just worried the whole time that someone was going to beat up Ian McKellen and he would actually get hurt because he’s old but no one would realize that he wasn’t faking his injuries.
The second act’s change in dynamics didn’t really help move the story. There really wasn’t a story. In fact, I could not tell you want the show was about, more than I have above, even for a million dollars. I mean it’s more about the existential dwellings and commiserations and reminiscences about the two old men who once upon a time were acquaintances. It’s not really about things happening.
The one thing that struck me was that it was just like the Bunuel movie mentioned in “Midnight in Paris” where the characters are unable to leave the room, no matter how much they want to. I love how in “Midnight”, Bunuel himself is like “That’s the worst idea for a movie ever; why couldn’t they just leave? Why couldn’t they just leave!!!” So that’s what Ian’s role and the play in general made me think of. I was ready to scream after 4 minutes in, “Ian! My dear! Why don’t you just leeeave!!! Ian! Go! Get out of there!” But frustratingly not only does he not leave, he ends up begging to stay indefinitely! INDEFINITELY. Whaaat kind of masochist! Oh Pinter. I just don’t get you!
Despite my complaints, this production was amazing. Why? Because I got to see Stewart and McKellen on stage together, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. This show was worth seeing and paying full price five times over for, because this pairing will likely never happen again outside of X-Men movies. I would have loved spending a few hours in the Cort Theatre even if the Two Sirs just read the phone book. Which actually would have made more sense than this play. Oh Pinter. Someone explain him to me.
“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”: Broadway’s Most Hilarious and Horrible Hijinks This Season
The supremely entertaining new musical “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder” is one of the most exciting new shows this Broadway season. Halting the omnipresent influx of jukebox musicals and, more importantly, making murder hilarious, “Gentleman’s Guide” will likely be a main player at the Tony Awards this June. Despite its somewhat unseemly subject matter, it is an old-fashioned and very British show.
The dark comedy concerns a young man named Monty Navarro, who is finally told of his birthright: that he is related to the wealthy D’Ysquith clan, and ninth in line to inherit its dukedom. (The name is pronounced like ‘dies quick’. So funny.) Monty, who seems like a well-mannered, kindhearted gentleman, begins a journey to become part of the family that quickly morphs into a killing spree.
The dark comedy concerns a young man named Monty Navarro, who is finally told of his birthright: that he is related to the wealthy D’Ysquith clan, and ninth in line to inherit its dukedom. (The name is pronounced like ‘dies quick’. So funny.) Monty, who seems like a well-mannered, kindhearted gentleman, begins a journey to become part of the family that quickly morphs into a killing spree.
Monty initially reaches out to the D’Ysquiths to bond in normal ways, but the posh elitists rebuff him. After such terrible treatment, Monty sets out to methodically, and humorously, murder each of the 8 relatives ahead of him in succession.
This surprising turn of events works because Monty is so charming, and the actor playing him, Bryce Pinkham, manipulates the pacing so well. But the real star of the show, and its biggest selling point, and the main reason to see it, is Jefferson Mays. The well respected Tony-winning actor (for 2003’s “I Am My Own Wife”) plays all eight of the doomed D’Ysquith family members, men and women, young and old. He quickly switches from the old priest (whose death showcases my favorite ridiculous staging) to young bicurious student to middle-aged actress, and he sells each character just as eight individual actors could. As each death occurs, one gets nervous that soon Mays won’t be onstage anymore. That would be a shame. (Luckily, a clever end twist and a sort of cliffhanger ending make sure that this doesn’t happen.)
Mays is truly spectacular, particularly as the young, too trusting, slightly doofy Oxbridge student who takes a fast and overzealous liking to Monty. Sadly, Henry D’Ysquith has a weakness too obvious and too delicious for Monty to ignore: his penchant for beekeeping. It is probably also obvious that his death is one of the funniest.
The lovably silly character of Henry gives Mays and Pinkham their most enjoyable song and what I thought was the highlight of the show. The song “Better With A Man” has Monty being a little overly friendly to the very obviously receptive Henry. While they sing ostensibly about friendship, the choreography clearly says otherwise, and the number verges into pure slapstick. It’s so wrong, and so funny.
The other highlight musically is a pas de trois between Monty, his married lover Sibella, and his new cousin Phoebe, whom he plans to marry. As is customary in love triangles performed on stage, the scene finds Monty trying to hide both women from each other when they both visit his home. Impressive on all counts, the scene showcases the voices of the women and the timing of Pinkham better than any other.
However, aside from these two songs, the music is disappointing. What makes it seem very old-fashioned in the best ways also accounts for its old-fashioned sense musically. Most of the music is not the kind you’d want to listen to outside the Walter Kerr theatre. There are the boring choral bits, where the ensemble sings the same uninspired lines over and over. There are solos that don’t go anywhere and feel as if written as monologues and not as sung pieces. The music often does drive the show’s plot forward, as it should, but it doesn’t do it any better than the words unsung would, which defeats the purpose of making a show into a musical. It’s the kind of show where I would love to see it again, but no way would I ever listen to the cast recording.
Despite the majority of the music being disappointing, the show itself is gold. You feel terrible for laughing and for secretly rooting for Monty, because he doesn’t seem like a bad guy (despite everything to the contrary). I love that the show boasts so much new talent, and that it’s not like anything else recently on Broadway. If you have the chance to see it, you won’t regret it. I’m sure Mays will be a strong contender come Tony night, but all I hope is that the show’s Tony performance is “Better With A Man” (cross your fingers!).
This surprising turn of events works because Monty is so charming, and the actor playing him, Bryce Pinkham, manipulates the pacing so well. But the real star of the show, and its biggest selling point, and the main reason to see it, is Jefferson Mays. The well respected Tony-winning actor (for 2003’s “I Am My Own Wife”) plays all eight of the doomed D’Ysquith family members, men and women, young and old. He quickly switches from the old priest (whose death showcases my favorite ridiculous staging) to young bicurious student to middle-aged actress, and he sells each character just as eight individual actors could. As each death occurs, one gets nervous that soon Mays won’t be onstage anymore. That would be a shame. (Luckily, a clever end twist and a sort of cliffhanger ending make sure that this doesn’t happen.)
Mays is truly spectacular, particularly as the young, too trusting, slightly doofy Oxbridge student who takes a fast and overzealous liking to Monty. Sadly, Henry D’Ysquith has a weakness too obvious and too delicious for Monty to ignore: his penchant for beekeeping. It is probably also obvious that his death is one of the funniest.
The lovably silly character of Henry gives Mays and Pinkham their most enjoyable song and what I thought was the highlight of the show. The song “Better With A Man” has Monty being a little overly friendly to the very obviously receptive Henry. While they sing ostensibly about friendship, the choreography clearly says otherwise, and the number verges into pure slapstick. It’s so wrong, and so funny.
The other highlight musically is a pas de trois between Monty, his married lover Sibella, and his new cousin Phoebe, whom he plans to marry. As is customary in love triangles performed on stage, the scene finds Monty trying to hide both women from each other when they both visit his home. Impressive on all counts, the scene showcases the voices of the women and the timing of Pinkham better than any other.
However, aside from these two songs, the music is disappointing. What makes it seem very old-fashioned in the best ways also accounts for its old-fashioned sense musically. Most of the music is not the kind you’d want to listen to outside the Walter Kerr theatre. There are the boring choral bits, where the ensemble sings the same uninspired lines over and over. There are solos that don’t go anywhere and feel as if written as monologues and not as sung pieces. The music often does drive the show’s plot forward, as it should, but it doesn’t do it any better than the words unsung would, which defeats the purpose of making a show into a musical. It’s the kind of show where I would love to see it again, but no way would I ever listen to the cast recording.
Despite the majority of the music being disappointing, the show itself is gold. You feel terrible for laughing and for secretly rooting for Monty, because he doesn’t seem like a bad guy (despite everything to the contrary). I love that the show boasts so much new talent, and that it’s not like anything else recently on Broadway. If you have the chance to see it, you won’t regret it. I’m sure Mays will be a strong contender come Tony night, but all I hope is that the show’s Tony performance is “Better With A Man” (cross your fingers!).
