"Best of Enemies" at the Young Vic Uneven but Entertainingby Randi / February 3, 2022It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the return of Jimmy Mac in Cyrano de Bergerac, which was hiatused for the pandemic.
You know in season 2 of The Good Place (spoiler alert) when Eleanor is seated at a jazz club and her ‘soulmate’ Sebastian announces to her, his ‘sweet dewdrop’, that he has written her a three-hour spoken word jazz opera and Eleanor stands up and goes “okay no….no version of heaven for anyone would ever include three hours of this…we’re in the bad place, aren’t we?” I thought of that scene 11 times during this production of Cyrano de Bergerac. Except the glimpse we got of Sebastian’s jazz opera, like him scatting “my dewdrop/cream of the crop/top to the bop to the bop to the top” was super entertaining, while this play was not. It was a real trip for biscuits and now we’re all wet, daddy-o.
This version of the classic play is rewritten (by Martin Crimp; sorry Martin but it does seem that I’m alone in hating this, so, no worries for you) to be entirely in hard-rhyming ‘modern rap’, which could be cool but unfortunately it is incredibly cringeworthy. It is an interesting idea, I will give it that, and there are a good 15 minutes or so, but overall it is…annoying. While the first act does have some wonderful lines, mainly delivered by James McAvoy in the title role, the script largely loses its focus, cramming in endless words that don’t accomplish anything (and unnecessary beatboxing, omg, so unnecessary), and feels forking exhausting. James is fine, great even at times (especially in his accent work/impression of Christian, lolz), but underserved by the script. There’s a lot of heavy-handed emphasis of simple rhymes, geared in a way that clearly wanted to impress but wasn’t impressive, like assuming that the fact that it’s rapped or rhyming is enough in and of itself, when of course that cannot be the case. So so much of the endless hours in this theatre reminded me, actually, heavily, 100%, of Inigo and Fezzik’s whole schtick: “probably he means no…HARM’; ‘he’s very very short on…CHARM!” Except not adorable and funny. The skillful lines, few and far between, are entirely in McAvoy’s hands in the first section of the play. He performs them well, but it was not enough to lift the heavy fog sense of being tortured.
In addition, Roxanne is the worst. Not the actress, who from my nosebleed seat and bad eyes looked like Zendaya and is also fine. But how the character is written and presented. She makes a big fucking to do about how she needs her men to write her long love letters that prove their eloquence and elegance with words and she’s like ‘no, make it longer! more WORDS! GREAT WORDS! 18 PAGES, FRONT AND BACK’ but then when she speaks, she makes no sense. The writer uses her to shoehorn in bits about progressive issues like gender neutrality and womens rights when they have absolutely no shoring up, just like they wanted to tick the boxes of ‘oh did we mention this? let’s just mention it here’. It feels cheap that way, and completely undercuts a character who professes to care deeply about intelligence. Like when she enters the war camp and everyone is like ‘what tf are you doing here omg leave!’ and she is like ‘oh how dare you say that I shouldn’t be here because I’m a woman, and how dare you question how I made it here because I’m a woman’ and it’s like, jfc, they’re questioning you being there and getting in there because it’s A WAR ZONE. Her words continually fail any sensible character development. The most egregious example is at the end, when she has clearly been miserable for 15 years and pining over her husband and adrift, but in talking about him to Cyrano she says detached vulgarities about ‘fucking’ and stuff like ‘we didn’t even fuck!’ which was so jarring to hear in a scene that was supposed to be emotional, and so impossible to buy from this character at this point in her life. An absolute mess of writing. I do not understand the intent of using such ill-fitting language to try to represent a mourning, broken woman. It instead made her seem a still immature young person with no depth, not a woman 15 years later who has suffered so much. Again, this made NO SENSE.
I was a little confused by the portrayal of the famously good-looking Christian, who I thought was usually nice but dumb (Phoebe voice: “oh I’m sorry that’s ‘pretty dumb'”) but he was a full-on ass in most of this. Because Cyrano promised Roxanne he’d protect Christian for her, Cyrano responds to his assery like ‘hey you’re brave being a total shithead to me, let’s be best friends’ which I guess shows Cyrano can be the bigger person but whew. No thx. Other reviews liked to point out the homoeroticism in this version, which is a really generous interpretation of 5 seconds worth of play at the end when — the two men kiss, a shocking addition to this story but one that did NOTHING. By all means explore that relationship, please, that could be so interesting. But don’t just have them kiss for the hell of it (another box to tick off??) once and do nothing else with it. It was so random and was forgotten as quickly as it began. It’s such an unsophisticated way to do something different without actually committing to it having meaning.
The whole thing was so bloated, at least an hour too long. Act II is entirely long pauses. In fact, the second act is only one hour, but it felt like days. DAYS. So much indulgent and ineffective quiet and delay and I really almost screamed. Also, the blackouts – how is it legal to also blackout the emergency exit signs??? does this country have laws?
At times I truly thought I would scream. I almost left several times but I didn’t want husbo to worry/come after me if he wanted to stay (turns out: he was also flabbergasted). I mean, in theory this is an interesting idea for a modern rapping adaptation, but in execution and writing it was such a cringey disaster to such an extent that I would definitely believe you if y’all dropped the facade and some all-powerful being confirmed that I was indeed being tortured and my skin melted off without my noticing. Could you even believe that? Watch this: I BELIEVE IT.
INFORMATION
It runs 2 hours 50 minutes as stated on the website, but it feels longer, like maybe 9 hours and also you’re on fire.
There are signs asking audience members to wear masks but honestly, this was the worst showing YET for mask-wearing. Truly for shame. (At least they do check vaccine passports on entry.) Additionally, there were several groups of people talking throughout the show, and I don’t mean whispering. Honestly the worst audience I’ve experienced in a long time on all counts, which seems to be an upsetting trend.
The bar didn’t have pitchers of water out; you have to wait in the long line and ask for a cup of water, which is crap.
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Sondheim’s “Assassins” at the Menier: Creepy, Provocative, & Flawless
“Someone tell the story, someone sing the song. Every now and then the country goes a little wrong. Every now and then a madman’s bound to come along! Doesn’t stop the story – story’s pretty strong. Doesn’t change the song.” Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant, dark, and often funny look at what drives certain people to commit atrocities, “Assassins” is an exceptional and provocative show. Its current production at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory is one of the most well-done shows I have yet seen in London. If you are a frequent reader, you may be thinking, well that doesn’t say much. However, I could say right now that I found not a single fault with it…but then you’d have little reason to keep reading, so I won’t.
These above-quoted opening lines of the show (the true opening of the story, after a crazy sort-of prologue) reflect what our main characters seek: for their story to be added to history, to become part of the main story, be sung of. To gain fame as part of history’s need to always mention them in the same breath as the great men they assassinated. And that’s what this story brilliantly tells – how Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Reagan, Ford, all these important presidents, were killed or almost killed, but by barely mentioning their names. The names that matter here are the assassins – Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz, Hinckley, Fromme – as we see things from their perspectives. To make things even more twisted and frightening, this is staged in a sort of abandoned carnival, with each assassination attempt treated as a carnival game and lit-up “Hit!” or “Miss!” signs accompanying each gunshot. Like carnivals weren’t scary before.
First, the central character: “Johnny Booth was a handsome devil!” These lyrics are hella true in this production. Broadway’s Aaron Tveit is adoooorable. More importantly, he handles the vital role of John Wilkes Booth sublimely, being a charming and debonair Southerner who clearly conveys a base desire for ill-gained notoriety. Although his main action (killing Abraham Lincoln, obviously) is done early on, he hangs around to support the others, because, as the Balladeer sings early on, “Damn you, Johnny! You paved the way for other madmen to make us pay!” Booth pretty much started a trend in America, and so his presence is required throughout the show.
First, the central character: “Johnny Booth was a handsome devil!” These lyrics are hella true in this production. Broadway’s Aaron Tveit is adoooorable. More importantly, he handles the vital role of John Wilkes Booth sublimely, being a charming and debonair Southerner who clearly conveys a base desire for ill-gained notoriety. Although his main action (killing Abraham Lincoln, obviously) is done early on, he hangs around to support the others, because, as the Balladeer sings early on, “Damn you, Johnny! You paved the way for other madmen to make us pay!” Booth pretty much started a trend in America, and so his presence is required throughout the show.
Despite his inherent evil, Booth seems the most stable of all the characters, and probably is. The most unstable is also my favorite. “Look on the bright side, not on the sad side…I am going to the Lordy”, sings Charles J. Guiteau, the most weirdly likable character in this production, probably because the actor, Andy Nyman, is so damn good in this role, petrifying but kind of lovable. Guiteau was executed for killing President Garfield, after being denied the ambassadorship to France, which he had long assumed would be given him when he requested it. Some of the lyrics to his big song actually came from the poem he wrote the day of his execution and recited on the gallows as he laughed and danced, before hanging. The poem was called “I am going to the Lordy”. Sondheim turned this into the most catchy, horrifyingly optimistic song that captures Guiteau’s, well, gallows humor and clear insanity. Here, Guiteau also sings and dances on the gallows, performing a cakewalk and an ever-intensifying song before swinging from the noose in front of us. It’s so disturbing and so powerful. Also, Nyman does the best American accent by a Brit that I’ve heard so far in London theatre.
Before deciding to kill the president, Guiteau writes books that don’t sell and he convinces himself and others that he’s the future Ambassador to France. By seeing our characters’ failures and blown ambitions, you start to feel for them. You think, this poor guy couldn’t catch a break, and yes obviously needs mental healthcare that no one is going to provide. The music and the stories lead you on a path to almost commiseration, and then hopefully you snap out of it and realize how f-ed up you have to be to consider making this turn. But that’s the genius of “Assassins”, showing history from their perspectives and forcing you to recognize their humanity.
Personal failures as well as professional failures take blame for coaxing some down this path. “I am unworthy of your love” is a duet between two strangers, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Carly Bawden) and John Hinckley Jr. (Harry Morrison), the failed assassins of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, respectively. The memorable and pretty lovely song shows how some are led towards awful deeds in trying to impress others. The show’s Hinckley is an odd man who can’t find love, in the all-too-familiar sense of men like the Santa Barbara killer who get angry and frustrated when women, whom they were told their whole lives that they as men were entitled to, rebuffed them. Our society’s continued view of women as playthings and pretty things that men should have a say over is creepily reflected in this character, as he decides to kill a president in order to impress a movie star enough that she’d actually know he existed (as opposed to, say, the modern version of men killing the women who threaten their world view).
Fromme, on the other hand, tries to assassinate Ford in order to impress her lover, Charles Manson, whom she believed was Jesus reincarnated. And if Jesus wishes for you to kill the president, you do that! (No, seriously, don’t, even if it’s really Jesus.) Luckily, she and Hinckley failed. In this production, Fromme’s failure is shown as mostly due to her ridiculosity of a partner in crime, played by British favorite Catherine Tate as Sara Jane Moore. It’s a smallish role but she’s hilarious. A lot of people think Tate plays it too over the top, but I found her antics necessary to brighten up all the dark psychology of the show. (Except when she accidentally shoots her dog. Not funny. Luckily a stuffed dog was used, so sort of funny.) Her best bits include her shooting practice on a bucket of KFC, after which she eats the chicken. But nothing is funnier than when Moore and Squeaky botch their assassination attempt so freaking badly that, in their mad rush to complete it in a crazy moving crowd, they are unable to reload and instead throw bullets at Ford while shouting ‘Bang!’ Amaaaazing.
The real brilliance of the show is demonstrating how a person’s disappointment in living a small life can lead to such a path, just to make some kind of name for himself. And we know this so well. Mental instability of all sorts leads many to commit mass atrocities because, as we know, our media will make perpetrators famous. Whenever the awful story of a school shooting or of President Lincoln’s final days is told, so too will the name of the murderers, or of Booth.
No one explains this better than Booth himself, who uses it as a selling point when trying to persuade our narrator, the Balladeer, whose identity becomes a beyond genius twist (that was added in the revival, and I can’t see the musical being as poignant without it). In the recording I know best, my balladeer was Neil Patrick Harris, so my favorite songs had a pop-star clarity and zest to them. Here, the Balladeer is sung like a twangy country singer by Jamie Parker, but it totally works and won me over. So the Balladeer has been on the sidelines all night, telling the tales of others most judgmentally – in the above-quoted “Ballad of Booth”, he reinforces that those madmen who have made us pay “have had their say, but only for a day….Angry men don’t write the rules and guns don’t right the wrongs. Hurts a while but soon the country’s back where it belongs.” But as things come to an end, the Balladeer is not so convinced that the country bounces back so easily, if ever, and he’s more open to discussion about leaving his moral high ground, not wanting to end things as a simple narrator strumming his guitar, but as someone who, like his subjects, will live forever in infamy as long as his target lives forever in fame. Booth tells him that their names will always go hand in hand, that just as Lincoln’s great life and deeds will never be studied without Booth’s being studied and remembered as well, so too will the next great Assassin in this way share the triumphs of his victim. It’s incredibly disturbing and true, that a killer can so easily usurp the greatness of his victim. (I wish so strongly for the media should stop reporting the names of people who commit mass shootings and the like, somehow, if it would make sense. Gaining such immediate fame is often the only goal, and I wish there was a way to not give these awful people the satisfaction of being remembered. (It would also be great if we had legit mental healthcare systems but that’s maybe more farfetched.))
All of this is demonstrated pretty remarkably by The Proprietor, the gun salesman and carnival runner, played hauntingly by Simon Lipkin, who represents a sort of universal id. He lures our characters into the darkness by reminding them of the show’s eerie twisted theme, that “Everybody’s got the right to be happy”. He opens the show with lines like, “Hey kid, failed your test? Dream girl unimpressed? Show her you’re the best – if you can shoot a president”, chillingly blunt lyrics that immediately set the disturbing and blackly humorous tone for the show.
That Sondheim makes you think all of this, makes you laugh and feel heartbroken at the world, all in a 100 or so minute musical is a testament to his genius. That this extremely difficult show is such a rousing success is a testament to the Menier, to this spectacular cast, and to this faultless production, which is now completely sold out, and rightly so. With any luck, it’ll transfer to mainstem West End so more people can appreciate how freaking great this show is.
How is London’s “School of Rock” Holding Up Two Years Later?
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are looking at London’s production of “School of Rock”, now playing at the Gillian Lynne Theatre on Drury Lane.
With the recent news that Broadway’s production of “School of Rock: The Musical” will close in January, I wanted to see how the West End production is doing almost two years since it opened. It’s easy for a long run to get sloppy (and by easy I mean expected), but with a show like this I knew it would still be a fun time. On this (sweltering hot) summer weekday matinee, I went in fully expecting crowds of kids on their summer break, loud and raucous and annoying, but they were actually fine and as usual it was their parents who didn’t know how to behave. But I put on my blinders and focused on the stage, and I enjoyed myself immensely. The performers are giving it their all, and although they do indeed need a refresher from the director on a few points, it was overall a solid production.
With the recent news that Broadway’s production of “School of Rock: The Musical” will close in January, I wanted to see how the West End production is doing almost two years since it opened. It’s easy for a long run to get sloppy (and by easy I mean expected), but with a show like this I knew it would still be a fun time. On this (sweltering hot) summer weekday matinee, I went in fully expecting crowds of kids on their summer break, loud and raucous and annoying, but they were actually fine and as usual it was their parents who didn’t know how to behave. But I put on my blinders and focused on the stage, and I enjoyed myself immensely. The performers are giving it their all, and although they do indeed need a refresher from the director on a few points, it was overall a solid production.
When you have a great movie like “School of Rock”, with Jack Black’s hilarious, unmatchable star turn, it’s hard to argue that a musical version is necessary. This is true for most movie-to-musical adaptations, like “Frozen”, “Big Fish”, “Mean Girls”, the recent “Pretty Woman”, man I could go on forever with shows where the movie is simply a better version of the story. And early word about the new “Moulin Rouge!” tryout in Boston is also that, while it’s fun, it’s not nearly as affecting and spellbinding and special as the movie. (Can you tell I love that movie?). Triumphs like “The Band’s Visit” show that a stage version’s improving upon a film is definitely the exception to the rule. To win me over, you really have to show that a stage version is worthwhile and not just a money-grab on a familiar property (although of course everything is a money-grab).
Luckily, although I wouldn’t go as far as saying that the musical of “School of Rock” is better than the film, I think that it’s equally enjoyable, although in different ways. Where the movie is tight and well edited (my favorite attribute of anything, which is ironic and fun for you because this site is First Drafts Only haha), the show is a little loose in the cage at times and needed some more cleaning up (and cutting of boring songs). But seeing this story get the stage magic treatment, and especially seeing these kids performing these instruments live, is so special and it makes the musical a winner in my book. And yes, the kids are really performing live, which Andrew Lloyd Webber himself tells you in the opening (recorded) audience greeting.
Why AL Dubs, you ask? Well one of my favorite things about “School of Rock: The Musical” – and the thing that most people don’t realize – is that ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER wrote the music. I don’t think I will ever get over how funny that is. And while it seems like a mismatched composer-to-property pairing, Dubs can ROCK OUT WITH HIS well I’m not going to finish that because he’s a Sir but damn, the man has got some killer rocker vibes. Of course his distinguished works include tons of rocking anthems; I guess I doubted that he still had it in him which was wrong. With ALDubs on the music, we have Glenn Slater on the lyrics, of “The Little Mermaid” (Broadway version, yelch), “Sister Act: The Musical” (decent but unmemorable), and “Leap of Faith” (blahhhh whaaaat) fame, and as you can tell by my parentheticals, I had low expectations for him given his track record. However, most of his lyrics were pretty darn clever, and crammed in so tight that they deserve a re-listen so I can catch all the humor. Well done (finally). The mostly clever lyrics were matched by a mostly clever, often very funny book by – you will never guess this one – Julian Fellowes, as in the creator and sole writer of Downton Abbey. I KNOW. If you had me watch this show without knowing the creative team, and then gave me a list of every single writer in the world and had me put them in order of ‘Who I Think Wrote This’, the guy who wrote Downton Abbey would be all the way at the bottom and the only entry below him would be ‘me but I forgot.’
Speaking of that ‘unmatchable’ performance by Jack Black, the musical Dewey has to be different enough to avoid comparisons. With more immaturity but also maybe more of an obvious heart, this Dewey is a lovable clown. Played now by Stephen Leask, he easily won over the audience even though he shows his sweaty belly a whole lot. Or maybe because he shows his sweaty belly a whole lot, I don’t know, but the man is constantly onstage, constantly jumping on desks and doing backflips???, and constantly belting his lungs out while playing impressive guitar. It’s quite a role. His song “When I Climb to the Top of Mount Rock” was so energetic and baller that I was totally won over by the performer, and I immediately thought ‘oh THIS is why Dewey has a regular alternate’. It took the Broadway production way too long to give the original Dewey, Alex Brightman, an alternate, and instead they pretty much exhausted him for months beyond what should ever be expected of someone (like with Ethan Slater and “Spongebob” this year. JUST GIVE THESE GUYS REGULAR ALTERNATES (AND TELL THE AUDIENCE WHEN THEY WILL BE ON)). Leask is really giving every ounce of everything he has and it’s amazing to see, especially when too many actors in many shows seem to be phoning it in.
The best parts of the show are of course when the incredible kids perform with Leask’s maniacal ball of energy, posing as their substitute teacher but he’s really a bum pretending to be his teacher-best friend. (I’m going to assume you know the story because if you haven’t seen the movie, ya basic. That’s the worst insult. You’re devastated right now.) Three kids rotate in each of the child roles, including Summer, the high-strung perfectionist; Zack, the amazing guitarist whose father is an asshole; Lawrence, the geeky keyboard player who is so sweet; and Sophie, the bassist who literally does duck-face the entire time. My favorite was Freddy, the drummer, a role that is actually shared by two boys and one girl, so I guess the production happily realized that most roles are universal. Luckily, I saw the girl drummer, Annabel Gracey, and she was a badass standout of the whole show. Her command of the stage stood out compared to the other kids, and she tore those drum solos apart. Amazing. Finding kids who can play instruments at this level was a challenge, I’m sure, and finding ones who can also sing and decently act too? They’re not the best singers, and they’re not the best actors, but these kids are impressive, especially when they just get to play. The show really comes alive with such magical energy when they do their big performance numbers. The kids’ straight dramatic line readings need some pace work (too long pauses) and they need to stop looking directly at the conductor for cues, but their talent is undeniable and it’s exciting to watch them perform.
The big performance songs from the movie were kept for the show (including the one that goes “Well you’re not hardcore” I can’t tell from the program what it’s called, and “School of Rock”, their big Battle number), which was a smart decision considering new songs for those big moments would have probably been disappointing to the audience. And they are total bangers so why not keep them?! They’re matched by exciting new songs like the aforementioned “Mount Rock”, “You’re in the Band”, and “Stick It to the Man”, bangers all. There’s a nice “When I Grow Up”- inspired number where the kids feel sad about how shitty their parents are, which is even better in its slightly changed reprise directed to Dewey.
But the adult scenes are hella boring, and sometimes infuriating. The former includes the introduction to the prep school by the principal Ms. Mullins (Rosanna Hyland), which seems to be reprised 100x. Honestly we just don’t need that much time devoted to the other teachers; it adds nothing. The latter includes the scene where Dewey first sees the kids playing (classical) music. Ms. Mullins is running the class, and as they play, she sings the Queen of the Night aria from “The Magic Flute” (you know the aria). I was sitting there just like…is this shit for real? Hyland is a fantastic vocalist but it is so inappropriate and unnecessary for this show. It’s so infuriating because it seemed clearly shoved in there for Sierra Boggess (Broadway’s original Ms. Mullins), an incredible singer (though often very dull), to have something more to do in this thankless role. I guess the creators were thinking, ‘how will we get Boggess to do this non-lead role with just one decent (though again too long and unnecessary) Act II song, oh I know, we will give her a Mozart aria…? OH AND THEN LET’S HAVE HER SING IT AGAIN AT CURTAIN CALL. GIVE US TONYS PLEASE.’ I mean this is really the dumbest part of the whole show and I can’t believe it’s still happening. Her Mullins is kind of directed poorly I think too, all strict and boring with no nuance, so her transformation at the end comes out of nowhere, whereas Joan Cusack in the movie was mature but you could tell she was kind of adorable and very curious about Dewey. The only role more thankless than this one is that of Patti, played by Sarah Silverman in the movie. This Patti is a total shrew and all she does is yell, so much so that when Ned finally tells her off at the end, the audience cheers. I really hate everything about the character, because I really don’t want a packed room to cheer when a man berates his girlfriend and tells her to shut up, but I also wanted her to shut up.
I was also weirded out by the gay jokes. As you know from the movie, there is a little boy who is gay, and his personality is a flamboyant stereotype. Even though the movie was from another era when it comes to representations of gay characters, and so you’d expect the representation today to be more normalized and less played for laughs, the musical dials it up 500%. I was shocked. It doesn’t help that British people are still apparently not comfortable with homosexuality (in a tiny move that I loved, one kids’ parents are two men. When the teacher greets them as “Mr. & Mr. Stephens” or whatever, just simply greeting them, the audience treated that like it was a laugh line. Horrifying), but using this boy to get big laughs just because he says “Barbra Streisand” or likes glitter felt way outdated and offensive. His character can be fun and super funny without being insulting.
So how is “School of Rock” doing? They do need to clean up a few things – the pacing at many points was off, especially on the kids’ deliveries but also with the adults, who also need to work on their accents. I wish they could still make edits (like cutting most of the grown-ups’ songs and scenes), but alas this show has been frozen for years now. Even so, it’s overall a wonderful time at the theatre and you can’t help but enjoy yourself. Watching the band perform live is exciting and the vibe is so happy and exuberant. And while the movie may better, this is a worthwhile adaptation and a guaranteed good time.
Luckily, although I wouldn’t go as far as saying that the musical of “School of Rock” is better than the film, I think that it’s equally enjoyable, although in different ways. Where the movie is tight and well edited (my favorite attribute of anything, which is ironic and fun for you because this site is First Drafts Only haha), the show is a little loose in the cage at times and needed some more cleaning up (and cutting of boring songs). But seeing this story get the stage magic treatment, and especially seeing these kids performing these instruments live, is so special and it makes the musical a winner in my book. And yes, the kids are really performing live, which Andrew Lloyd Webber himself tells you in the opening (recorded) audience greeting.
Why AL Dubs, you ask? Well one of my favorite things about “School of Rock: The Musical” – and the thing that most people don’t realize – is that ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER wrote the music. I don’t think I will ever get over how funny that is. And while it seems like a mismatched composer-to-property pairing, Dubs can ROCK OUT WITH HIS well I’m not going to finish that because he’s a Sir but damn, the man has got some killer rocker vibes. Of course his distinguished works include tons of rocking anthems; I guess I doubted that he still had it in him which was wrong. With ALDubs on the music, we have Glenn Slater on the lyrics, of “The Little Mermaid” (Broadway version, yelch), “Sister Act: The Musical” (decent but unmemorable), and “Leap of Faith” (blahhhh whaaaat) fame, and as you can tell by my parentheticals, I had low expectations for him given his track record. However, most of his lyrics were pretty darn clever, and crammed in so tight that they deserve a re-listen so I can catch all the humor. Well done (finally). The mostly clever lyrics were matched by a mostly clever, often very funny book by – you will never guess this one – Julian Fellowes, as in the creator and sole writer of Downton Abbey. I KNOW. If you had me watch this show without knowing the creative team, and then gave me a list of every single writer in the world and had me put them in order of ‘Who I Think Wrote This’, the guy who wrote Downton Abbey would be all the way at the bottom and the only entry below him would be ‘me but I forgot.’
Speaking of that ‘unmatchable’ performance by Jack Black, the musical Dewey has to be different enough to avoid comparisons. With more immaturity but also maybe more of an obvious heart, this Dewey is a lovable clown. Played now by Stephen Leask, he easily won over the audience even though he shows his sweaty belly a whole lot. Or maybe because he shows his sweaty belly a whole lot, I don’t know, but the man is constantly onstage, constantly jumping on desks and doing backflips???, and constantly belting his lungs out while playing impressive guitar. It’s quite a role. His song “When I Climb to the Top of Mount Rock” was so energetic and baller that I was totally won over by the performer, and I immediately thought ‘oh THIS is why Dewey has a regular alternate’. It took the Broadway production way too long to give the original Dewey, Alex Brightman, an alternate, and instead they pretty much exhausted him for months beyond what should ever be expected of someone (like with Ethan Slater and “Spongebob” this year. JUST GIVE THESE GUYS REGULAR ALTERNATES (AND TELL THE AUDIENCE WHEN THEY WILL BE ON)). Leask is really giving every ounce of everything he has and it’s amazing to see, especially when too many actors in many shows seem to be phoning it in.
The best parts of the show are of course when the incredible kids perform with Leask’s maniacal ball of energy, posing as their substitute teacher but he’s really a bum pretending to be his teacher-best friend. (I’m going to assume you know the story because if you haven’t seen the movie, ya basic. That’s the worst insult. You’re devastated right now.) Three kids rotate in each of the child roles, including Summer, the high-strung perfectionist; Zack, the amazing guitarist whose father is an asshole; Lawrence, the geeky keyboard player who is so sweet; and Sophie, the bassist who literally does duck-face the entire time. My favorite was Freddy, the drummer, a role that is actually shared by two boys and one girl, so I guess the production happily realized that most roles are universal. Luckily, I saw the girl drummer, Annabel Gracey, and she was a badass standout of the whole show. Her command of the stage stood out compared to the other kids, and she tore those drum solos apart. Amazing. Finding kids who can play instruments at this level was a challenge, I’m sure, and finding ones who can also sing and decently act too? They’re not the best singers, and they’re not the best actors, but these kids are impressive, especially when they just get to play. The show really comes alive with such magical energy when they do their big performance numbers. The kids’ straight dramatic line readings need some pace work (too long pauses) and they need to stop looking directly at the conductor for cues, but their talent is undeniable and it’s exciting to watch them perform.
The big performance songs from the movie were kept for the show (including the one that goes “Well you’re not hardcore” I can’t tell from the program what it’s called, and “School of Rock”, their big Battle number), which was a smart decision considering new songs for those big moments would have probably been disappointing to the audience. And they are total bangers so why not keep them?! They’re matched by exciting new songs like the aforementioned “Mount Rock”, “You’re in the Band”, and “Stick It to the Man”, bangers all. There’s a nice “When I Grow Up”- inspired number where the kids feel sad about how shitty their parents are, which is even better in its slightly changed reprise directed to Dewey.
But the adult scenes are hella boring, and sometimes infuriating. The former includes the introduction to the prep school by the principal Ms. Mullins (Rosanna Hyland), which seems to be reprised 100x. Honestly we just don’t need that much time devoted to the other teachers; it adds nothing. The latter includes the scene where Dewey first sees the kids playing (classical) music. Ms. Mullins is running the class, and as they play, she sings the Queen of the Night aria from “The Magic Flute” (you know the aria). I was sitting there just like…is this shit for real? Hyland is a fantastic vocalist but it is so inappropriate and unnecessary for this show. It’s so infuriating because it seemed clearly shoved in there for Sierra Boggess (Broadway’s original Ms. Mullins), an incredible singer (though often very dull), to have something more to do in this thankless role. I guess the creators were thinking, ‘how will we get Boggess to do this non-lead role with just one decent (though again too long and unnecessary) Act II song, oh I know, we will give her a Mozart aria…? OH AND THEN LET’S HAVE HER SING IT AGAIN AT CURTAIN CALL. GIVE US TONYS PLEASE.’ I mean this is really the dumbest part of the whole show and I can’t believe it’s still happening. Her Mullins is kind of directed poorly I think too, all strict and boring with no nuance, so her transformation at the end comes out of nowhere, whereas Joan Cusack in the movie was mature but you could tell she was kind of adorable and very curious about Dewey. The only role more thankless than this one is that of Patti, played by Sarah Silverman in the movie. This Patti is a total shrew and all she does is yell, so much so that when Ned finally tells her off at the end, the audience cheers. I really hate everything about the character, because I really don’t want a packed room to cheer when a man berates his girlfriend and tells her to shut up, but I also wanted her to shut up.
I was also weirded out by the gay jokes. As you know from the movie, there is a little boy who is gay, and his personality is a flamboyant stereotype. Even though the movie was from another era when it comes to representations of gay characters, and so you’d expect the representation today to be more normalized and less played for laughs, the musical dials it up 500%. I was shocked. It doesn’t help that British people are still apparently not comfortable with homosexuality (in a tiny move that I loved, one kids’ parents are two men. When the teacher greets them as “Mr. & Mr. Stephens” or whatever, just simply greeting them, the audience treated that like it was a laugh line. Horrifying), but using this boy to get big laughs just because he says “Barbra Streisand” or likes glitter felt way outdated and offensive. His character can be fun and super funny without being insulting.
So how is “School of Rock” doing? They do need to clean up a few things – the pacing at many points was off, especially on the kids’ deliveries but also with the adults, who also need to work on their accents. I wish they could still make edits (like cutting most of the grown-ups’ songs and scenes), but alas this show has been frozen for years now. Even so, it’s overall a wonderful time at the theatre and you can’t help but enjoy yourself. Watching the band perform live is exciting and the vibe is so happy and exuberant. And while the movie may better, this is a worthwhile adaptation and a guaranteed good time.
INFORMATION
If you are going alone, may I suggest/demand that you get seat G30 in the stalls. For only $35 (that’s pounddollars), I had a ROW TO MYSELF. It was the best. The side stalls sections are roughly triangle shaped, with the widest part/longest rows at the stage and tapering backwards until you get to the one-seat row, and it was the best treat ever! No noisy neighbors! No elbow jabs! Honestly it was the best seat ever. You can see here what it looks like: Seating Chart http://www.theatremonkey.com/GILLIANLYNNEstalls.htm
ALW renamed this theatre after famed choreographer (of “Cats” and “Phantom” to name two of her endless achievements) earlier this summer, and then like right after Lynne passed away. She was 92 but I think the moral ‘don’t let ALW name theatres after you’ still stands.
