Christmas Romcoms: Sorting the trash from the stinkier, wet trashby Randi / December 23, 2022SPOILER WARNING! This one is very much not for those of you who are yet to see it. This one’s for those who have seen it or never will get to. Or, really, more for my own memory’s sake.
Liz Kingsman’s one-woman-show-parodying one woman show, called One Woman Show, is by far the funniest event happening in London right now, even funnier than my commentary through the walls to my loud neighbors asking how they smuggled elephants into a no-pets-allowed building. Her post-Fleabag scathing send-up of that type of overdramatic, confessional-style, sexually-bold-just-to-say-it-is show is at least in my opinion (and what else are we doing here) more laugh-out-loud hilarious and more interesting than any of the predecessors she’s sending up. She’s an unfairly funny person, clever with her words as much as she is with audio and visual gags that are still making me laugh.
The lines between truth and fiction are completely blurred, starting when you enter the theatre. There are notices on the bathroom doors, the walls, the stairs, alerting audience members that ‘Tonight’s performance of Wildfowl is being filmed’. I was so stupid I literally almost asked an usher if these signs were from another show, because wtf is Wildfowl? Thank goodness I didn’t, because it’s part of the show. One Woman Show has Liz playing a fictitious/exaggerated character Liz who is working on her one woman show Wildfowl about her insane shenanigans and it’s being filmed that night. Throughout, Liz asks the production manager for cues or to check on aspects of the recording process and it’s hard to know what’s real or not, it’s so well done. The show began at least 15 minutes late, and it seemed to be explained by the whole setup for the filming, but it becomes clear (to different people at different times) that the filming facade is just part of the scripted show, so I have no idea whether the delay is actually part of the show every night?? My brain hurts trying to keep it all straight! Don’t think about it too hard too too hard.
We meet Liz, the character, as she wakes up in a strange apartment after a wild night. Where am I, she wonders. Who is this guy? How do I get to work from here? When she sees a picture of herself on the fridge, she freaks out – how does he have this? I don’t even remember taking this photo in a beer garden where I clearly am having such a good time that I don’t realize anyone is taking my photo! Then she realizes it’s her own house. Writer Liz has analyzed what worked for Fleabag &c, and what has gotten copied ad nauseum, and mirrors those details while simultaneously skewering them. She later gets hit by a bridge, but mostly shakes it off.
From here, I could keep going on about how funny it is, even though the word funny feels incredibly ill-suited to just how funny it is, and this would be supes boring to read, so I’m going to share my favorite parts instead, mostly so I remember them later:
When Liz asks a new, secretive lover when he will be getting back from Africa, he responds: “When does anyone get back from Africa?” Husbo and I immediately made mental notes to say that nonstop for the next few weeks (side note we are going to Africa next week).
When Liz’s Australian boss Dana, who Liz imitates by standing like a flamingo, delivers her super insightful monologues that skewer the whole genre going beyond simple retorts and instead present Liz’s entire theses in unedited, hilarious form, like when she directly states to Liz, “You’re not a mess; you just want to be seen as one.” I MEAN. THAT’S THE WHOLE THING OF THESE SHOWS.
When the lighting changed for a scene and a bit of a Grammarly commercial started playing, like we were in a mfing YouTube video. I think that’s what made me laugh the hardest the entire night.
When the production manager says repeatedly that the next segment in the script has the cue PAUL and you think it’ll be about another man she slept with but instead it’s about the chain of French bakery coffeeshops we have here, PAUL.
The reveal of Phil not being a new coworker but a POTTED PLANT (so stupid) buoyed by the audio recap of everything she had previously said about him (amazing).
When she is responsible for the demise of an entire species of bird, but sees that there are so many more birds out in nature, and says dreamily “maybe I am enough.” It’s too brilliant it hurts.
Sight gags in order of amazingness:
- The moat reveal for the stalls. (We really had no idea there was a moat.)
- The water bottles during the ‘break’ as they discuss what’s going on with the filming: the small bottle of water she sips from stage right…then the bigger liter of water she takes from stage left…then the gigantic water cooler replacement she takes from backstage. TOO DYING.
- Best one: At the end, when she says her performance isn’t as vulnerable and honest as she hopes unless she gets truly naked, so she goes to take off her clothes, her random unflattering big tee shirt and overalls, only to reveal she’s wearing the SAME EXACT OUTFIT underneath. Whatever anyone was expecting her to have underneath, this was funnier.
Lightning round mentions:
- Meeting at The Old Queen’s Leg, RIDICULOUSLY perfect pisstake of British pub names
- Having drinks at Las Iguas/Lassy Guas (Las Iguanas). I was hysterical it’s so stupid.
- “He walked me from Notting Hill to Bank Station.”
- Her friend with the Northern Irish brogue who funnily enough “doesn’t speak in any of my memories”.
- What made this audience laugh hardest: When she has random sex at a club and the guy is behind her and she says “this is my favorite position, because I can still narrate.”
I mean, this isn’t even half of it. I do think that line that her boss gives, the ‘You’re not a mess, you just want to be seen as one’, is sensational in how effectively and efficiently it describes this type of confessional, supposedly honest-to-a-fault genre that was saturating the market for a bit. Its hard-hittingness stands out a bit from the rest of the show’s humor but it’s the part that showed me how well Liz understood her assignment and how far her submission went above and beyond the rest.
INFORMATION
Playing at the Ambassadors Theatre, which might have the worst and oldest toilet situation in the country.
It is meant to run 1 hour 10 minutes but it started at least 15 minutes late as I said so we got out at like 10:45. Oh we went to the 9:15 show, there’s an early and a late show which I’m sure is really hard for the performer but really fun for me.
Jon Snow and ginger wife were there.
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Dear Evan Hansen in London: Hot Damn I Love this Show
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Dear Evan Hansen, now playing in London at the Noel Coward Theatre until the end of time if there’s justice.
Man alive does it feel good to see a flawless show in this old town! You know from my review of past productions of Dear Evan Hansen (off-Broadway and Broadway here) that I love this show. However, there were concerns among some (myself included) that the show might rely on the talents of original star Ben Platt to succeed as much as it did. His is a singular talent that seems born for this role, and the role tailor-made for him, so it seemed valid to wonder if his incredible performance was what made the show great. While Benny boy is definitely the definitive Evan, and no one can match his vocal ability in this role – in particular his ability to sing and emote through snot-dripping tears – it’s safe to say the success of this phenomenal musical does not rely on him, and the West End is doing it proud.
Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of – you guessed it – Evan Hansen, a high school outcast with no friends, a single parent working overtime to pay the bills, and a broken arm. When a fellow student commits suicide, there’s A Misunderstanding that the deceased and Evan were friends, and the grieving family is so overjoyed at the thought of their son having had a friend that Evan goes along – and builds – the lie instead of coming clean. He benefits in many ways from prolonging his lie, but of course he can’t continue lying forever and in different ways to the family, his mom, and his friends. And this means it all goes to shit, which is when Platt did his aforementioned incredible snot-faced singing. Although Sam Tutty, our British Evan, doesn’t fall to as many wet pieces, his Evan is great (and we found ourselves weirdly feeling proud of him). He makes the journey so believable and real, and his timing and inflection may be even more impressive than his vocals. DEH is EMOSH and stunning in its mature handling of the subject matter while also managing to be hysterically funny at times. The emotional beats, the fun songs, the heartbreaking songs, the nuances that build these characters so fully – the creators did everything they could to establish a watertight show, and this cast and production team take it and run with it.
This is the extraordinary and rare show that has a fantastic score and equally strong (maybe even more gripping) book scenes, a feat rarely witnessed, all while capturing today’s yoots and their struggles in a way that’s relevant and modern without seeming condescending. Now that I know all the music so well, I could concentrate on the book scenes more and really appreciate how well written and well performed they were. And I am convinced even more that this is a flawless show. On this viewing, I was curious to see if I could find any merit to the complaints about Evan the character. Since DEH’s bow, we’ve had lots of fans arguing on message boards about how Evan deserves more punishment or how he’s an evil person or how he’s the villain in the story. I don’t know if it’s because they’re under 26 and their brains aren’t done yet but I cannot see how someone can watch this show and think anything close to that. It’s so obvious to see Evan’s struggle, with the part of him that knows he should tell the truth, with his desire to not cause the family any more pain, with his longing to belong, and wit his attempt to just make grieving people feel better. No, he’s not perfect, and his Act II spiral out of control as he takes down his first friends shows this, but it’s so obvious that his hostility is due to his lack of control in trying to do the right thing (also his baby teenage brain unable to handle all that is happening). People who think he’s evil clearly don’t watch The Good Place, where the most important thing is to try to be a good person. Evan is trying to do the right thing – he thinks what he has chosen is right because it makes the family feel better. And yeah he’s lying but he’s not a Kantian; he thinks that it’s for a good reason. It seems impossible to me not to empathize with his predicament, especially when you know what he’s been through himself.
Anyway, despite my incessant rantings about how British musical theatre does not compare to Broadway and how productions are just done better there because musicals are treated with more respect whereas here there’s this weird need for Brits to always assure the world that they value straight plays more AND the history of panto seems to bleed too much into their vision of musical theatre – well, that’s a long essay, apparently, for another day, so despite all that, this production is ace, as we Brits say. Tutty is giving the star turn of the year, and the supporting cast is equally good. Along with the absence of Platt, I was worried about the absence of Rachel Bay Jones as his mother, since her performance was pitch perfect and as usual she found more to the character than is written. While Rebecca McKinnis might not have uncovered as much between the lines or with her delivery as RBJ somehow magically did, she was no disappointment, and her ‘So Big/So Small’ was the most emotional part of the show, even more than Evan’s breakdown. It was perfect. If I did my own awards (should I do my own awards) they’d all be winners.
INFORMATION
The Noel Coward theatre is one of those ‘stalls is below ground’ theatres, so if you don’t like being below ground, sit in the circle. Also, the ladies bathroom is house right, right next to the circle entrance. If you go for stalls like we did (CRY ON US), there’s a ladies in the back of the theatre with 4 stalls??? Like good luck even getting back there at the interval. Or you can sit house right and run upstairs for the circle one. RENOVATE THESE THEATRES, GUYS.
Stagedoor: We waited for just under 10 minutes but it was too cold. If it’s too cold to wait, it’s too cold to make them talk to you.
Mr Burns: A Clever Dystopian Tale So Close to Being Great
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the recent streaming production of ‘Mr. Burns’ from the Guidhall School of Music & Drama. It was live-streamed in late May and then reshared for pick-your-own-time-with-the-ability-to-pause-it viewing (unbeatable) this past month.
Mr. Burns, Anne Washburn’s lauded (and somewhat divisive) 2012 play, analyzes how culture evolves over time, with the help of The Simpsons. In Washburn’s dystopian society, an apocalyptic event has wiped out most people and all the power — the proper stylized title is actually Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. Overall, the play is fascinating in how it weaves details of a single episode of TV into markers of cultural importance over distinct time periods, in a fun (for Simpsons fans, not that the downer of a play is any fun) clever way of contemplating how history and culture are formed.
In this newest incarnation, I think it was hinted at that a virus did the people wiping part (gotta make shit relevant and more terrifying!), and the lack of sufficient people to attend to places like nuclear power plants did the rest. We meet a scraggly bunch of survivors around a campfire, where the zigzagging conversation intertwines stories of cities they’ve traveled to and what they found there, with a discussion about The Simpsons. The group tries to collectively share the play-by-play of the episode from memory – of course, as that’s all they have. It helps to be familiar with The Simpsons, especially the crucial episode Cape Feare – crucial for Simpsons fans, I believe (and musical theatre fans), and for appreciating this play.
This first act is filled with frustration and sadness — at the lack of knowledge about what’s going on in other parts of the country and who else has survived, as well as at their inability to ever truly find out what parts of the episode they are forgetting or misremembering. In this strongest part of the play, the emotional roller coaster from the excitement as the characters finally remember a line of dialogue, from the terror when someone new happens upon their location, from the grief and misery when they deliver their memorized lists of names of people they’re looking for, it’s a lot but it all feels earned.
But it’s the ensuing acts that show the cleverness of the play’s central concept. It jumps to 7 years later, when groups of survivors have become like traveling theatre troupes who perform — episodes of The Simpsons, especially Cape Feare. The way the seemingly casual campfire conversation has become one of the most fundamental parts of the society they’re forming is so interesting. It’s something that most people remember watching at some point, but they’ve latched onto it and given it enhanced importance in this new world, seemingly just to share something they can believe is important. The details have gotten messier, the lines a little paraphrased, as memories have faded and altered. Strangely, the survivors have given the same reverence to the inclusion of commercials in their productions. While it’s interesting to see what kinds of things they think would be advertised, there is way too much time spent on showing us their commercials, and even more time spent on a non-Simpsons non-commercial musical performance. Details from this performance make it into the third act in compelling ways that support the central idea, but the same result is achieved with the Simpsons details alone.
And that third act is wild. It’s now 75 years later, and the society has developed what seems like a serious religion and candle-filled religious ritual based on what has lasted from this episode of The Simpsons. Mr. Burns, earning the title placement, is now a murderer trying to kill the entire Simpsons family, and, well, doing so. The entire act is this religious ritual, a music-filled performance of what’s now their sacred stories. The once remembered details now have obviously been completely transformed, mutated into something unrecognizable but still with familiar aspects – the character names, the boat, the singing, the Gilbert & Sullivan lyrics. It’s an insane ride. I loved how all of these sections show how culture and history adapt over time, as certain things are remembered, misremembered, and reconstructed in human societies. It’s a reminder that the history we know and study all depends on a human’s retelling of an event, and humans are imperfect, biased historians. The way certain details hold fast through all three time periods in the play, and the way others morph into unrecognizable and surprising new cultural tenets, are a fascinating reflection of culture and how tenuous it is.
However. This third act is too long and overindulgent. It takes the unnecessary and overly long musical number of the second act and forking runs with it. This section is so long and chaotic and disconnected from the emotional beats the previous two sections had managed to achieve that I actually got annoyed. I may have audibly sighed. It didn’t help that the singing wasn’t great (I won’t say any more about the actors, who were all fine, because I think they’re students and like, they’re not done training). But even so this act was overall Too Much, nearly negating all the clever goodwill from before.
Information:
Run & running time: Mr. Burns runs about 2 1/2 hours. (It should run about 2 hours 10 minutes.) Hopefully Guildhall will release the stream again, or a new production (that makes cuts) will come, because it is such an interesting play.
Technicals: The stream froze every 5 minutes. For the amount of streaming theatre we’ve watched in the past year (it’s a shittonne), we’ve really only had issues when the stream is set up to defend a higher quality image instead of reducing the picture quality when necessary and focusing on continuous play and sound. I don’t know how to describe it I’m not a computer. But that’s the issue most of the time. Always choose continuous play over the image quality mes babies.
Toilets & Audience: Watched at home baby!!
What antisemitic thing did I notice this time*: The programme describes the ragtag group of characters as ‘schlocky’, which is a Yiddish-derived word used to describe cheap, junky goods, so it was very much not used properly. [*A new question I will probably need to ask more going forward! (Obvs I am joking about it being offensive…just to my history as an editor.)]
