The Humans: Broadway Transfer Retains its Splendor in Londonby Randi / September 13, 2018
Like most everything in our world right now, the Emmy Awards are trash. I don’t know what the voters have been smoking, probably weed with Elon since they are also mostly rich white men who can get away with it, but their annual nonsense is upon us again. The problem with the Emmys is that voters take too long to catch up to what is actually good, and when they do, it’s too late and the thing is no longer the best but they’re too lazy and proud of themselves to change their voting habits for another four years. They get stuck in ruts, they have old-fashioned taste, and most of all they don’t actually watch everything so they JUST DON’T KNOW. Honestly make me an Emmy voter, I know what’s up, and I’m going to share with you what should be winning this worthless award that I care so much about on Monday night.
First of all, putting the nominees aside, let’s talk about the trashiness of this year’s actual ceremony. Wait there are two aspects of trash (trashspects?) about the ceremony! First of this first of all, the hosts are two regular old straight guys. Yep, in a world where Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are still alive and working and I bet happy to join forces and demolish all memory of prior award show hosting, this year’s Emmys – this year, the year of MeToo – is going with two bros. BRO, WTF? What about all the amazing female comedians in the game right now that need exposure more than the hosts of Weekend Update do? What about someone like Tiffany Haddish, who has a movie coming out right now? What about any of the women from Ghostbusters? What about any of the women Louis CK yackled in front of instead of yet another couple of dudes with viewpoints that are questionable at best and downright disgusting (like defending aforementioned yackler Louis CK) in truth? YAWN SLASH RAGE.
Second of the first of all, these forking awards are on a MONDAY this year, instead of a Sunday. To quote one of the most snubbed should-be-nominees on our list, WHAT….MAN….DID THIS. Sunday is award show day. Sunday is the day you can spend sleeping in to prepare yourself for the excitement and the stress, making theme foods (my initial plan was: (veggie) shrampies with white chocolate sauce, clam chowder, frozen yogurt (can you tell what show I’m going to be talking about the most yet?)), and getting your tweeting fingers ready. More importantly, Sunday is the day I could have watched this forking show! Readers probably know I live in London, but I’m writing this from the USA. When I booked this visit, I was looking at dates and remembered thinking, ‘oh that weekend is the Emmys! I’ll fly back to London Monday night then so I can watch them on Sunday night with my family! What an auspicious turn of events! I get to watch live for the first time in years instead of cobbling together shitty youtube videos that random people took of their own TVs!’ But NOOOOOOPE. Now instead of getting to live tweet I’m going to have to stick to day-after tweeting, which NO ONE cares about but I’m STILL going to do OBVIOUSLY because my takes are hot.
The show I’m going to be talking most about
Speaking of schedule changes that I did not approve of, the Creative Arts Emmys, which are usually the Saturday night before the Sunday telecast, were LAST WEEK. You’re killing me Smalls!! As you may know, the Creative Arts Emmys are the ones that most of the public don’t care about, sadly: the technical awards (lighting, cinematography, makeup, editing, sound), the reality TV ones (RuPaul all day), and artsy ones (choreography, music), and whatever else isn’t Best Comedy, Drama, Actor, and Actress, pretty much. There are two things I want to complain heavily about from the Creatives, and it’s not about who won – it’s about who wasn’t nominated. (That’s what all of this is really going to be about, naturally.)
First: The most infuriating abomination of a category this year is Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics, which means Best Song. And not to belittle any of the nominees, but they’re bullshit compared to literally any song from ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’, the CW’s musical dramedy about mental illness. It is one of the greatest shows ever to exist, and 80% of that is because of the songs. Each episode has 2-3 original songs that brilliantly evoke musical theatre standards, pop genres, and/or famous bands. The songs are written by Adam Schlesinger, who you may know either as the guy from Fountains of Wayne or as the guy who wrote the one-hit-wonder’s hit song from ‘That Thing You Do!’ If you have any doubt in my opinion that his Crazy Ex songs should be the pictures next to the dictionary definition of Emmy-winning songs if audio could be captured as pictures, then just think for a second about how movie producers were like ‘hey we are making a movie that ENTIRELY REVOLVES around a song being so great that it catapults all the action forward and we need you to just like, go write that song and have it all be believable’ AND HE DID.
Here are the nominees:
- (WINNER) SNL: “Come Back Barack” – a very funny song and great moment on the show but not better than the actual best topical song of the year, “Let’s Generalize About Men“. I dare you to watch this and not squeal with glee at every moment.
- Big Mouth: “Am I Gay?” Again, fun song on an absolutely incredible show, but not better than the HILARIOUS and perfect ABBA-inspired “The First Penis I Saw“!
- A Christmas Story Live: “In the Market for a Miracle” Haven’t Pasek & Paul won enough in literally like a 15 month span?? CHILL BOYS. Also, if we’re talking Christmas miracles, what about “Maybe She’s Not Such a Heinous Bitch After All”?? I mean hello, talk about perfectly capturing an era of music.
- The Good Fight: “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” I’m not even going to talk about how RUDE it is to nominate a song from the drama about lawyers and not the MUSICAL COMEDY about lawyers, but I’ll say what about the Fosse-inspired “Strip Away My Conscience”?? I mean, you wanna talk clever writing, talk about what they rhymed with ‘luridness’ and still got approval from the censors. Man alive.
- Steve Martin & Martin Short’s special: “The Buddy Song” JFC. I love these guys so much but puh lease. How about the Gene Kelly-evoking “Head in the Clouds”? This song is considered one of the WEAKEST of the season and listen to how great it is.
- If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast: “Just Getting Started” I don’t know what this documentary?? is, but how about the amazing song “End of the Movie”? They actually got JOSH GROBAN to sing a song! And it was incredible! Man alive if this category were a table full of glasses I would knock it over.
Also, I was a little sad that Kelli O’Hara, my queen, lost for Actress in a Web Series (even though I didn’t watch it, she wasn’t singing right?), as did her co-nominee Megan Amram, who is becoming another one of my queens for her work on my favorite show (The Good Place). But they lost to Christina Pickles! Who is amazing! I’m just going to pretend she won for her work as Judy Gellar, especially when she tells Monica and Ross that “that was a lot of information to receive in 30 seconds” and then tells Rachel “no, you weren’t supposed to put beef in the trifle.” So we’re okay. Kelli’s going to win the Olivier this year though, right??
Let’s get to tonight’s nominees already.
OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES
- Atlanta (FX)
- Barry (HBO)
- Black-ish (ABC)
- Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
- GLOW (Netflix)
- The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)
- Silicon Valley (HBO)
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)
EIGHT? FORKING EIGHT NOMINEES and they still don’t get it right??? Ughhhhh. I haven’t finished ‘Atlanta’ so I can’t comment. I know it is genius but from what I’ve seen it is a drama. ‘Barry’ was great but was also FORKING HARROWING and made me terrified and anxious more than it made me laugh. And that ending?? And it’s a comedy? Fuck no! But it is great. GLOW I really like but it’s not best of the year! A few of the episodes this season were stellar but it took a while to get going. This is one of the shows that got really lucky with voters deciding to adopt it as one of its faves and nominating it across categories at every event even though it’s not the best. Maisel is the one show on this list that is actually outstanding, perfect in almost every way (the almost courtesy of the Jane Lynch storyline) and deserves to win. It is THE BEST. Maisel is absolutely pitch perfect from the writing to the music to the performances. And it has Tony Shalhoub! SHALHOUB! ‘Silicon Valley’ is an example of the voters’ rut they like to get stuck in, and more than that they should have gotten a year off after the TJ Miller bullshit. Now, as for our pal Kimmy. You know I am a long-term Kimmy Schmidt apologist. Despite its pitfalls, its had some of the funniest lines, and it introduced classic characters to us, mainly Kimmy and the unmatched Titus. I’ve even tried to excuse the Jane Krakowski storylines because of her incredible quips. But this season was NOT. GOOD. I honestly can’t believe it got nominated. Aside from the one part where a guy introduced himself to Kimmy and said “Hi I’m whatever” and she responded “Not me, I’m Kimmy”, nothing was really great about it. Give Titus and the writers a backdated Emmy for his viral interview scene in season 1, and get rid of this nonsense.
Now what should be up there? ‘Maisel’ should be fighting neck and neck with the most brilliant, hilarious, and surprisingly sincere comedy in existence, “The Good Place”. I honestly cannot get over how wonderful this show is. Every inch of the writing, the production (those special effects, my god), and the acting is across the board magnificent. It has an extremely clever premise that keeps getting twisted and turned onto itself, with storylines you just seem to get a handle on blowing up with equal chance of im- or exploding. And they’ve made a generation of tv-watchers interested in moral philosophy and being better people. It’s also beloved by critics. I love this show so much. Its absence is kind of hilarious, proving yet again that awards mean nothing.
Also, ‘Crazy Ex Girlfriend’ should be on this list. Its latest season was riveting, dark, and risky. They took chances that no other show would take, and kept a story, one that could have gone out of control, together with a steady hand.
And what about ‘Brooklyn 99’, after how much it was in the news after being cancelled (and picked up again)?? We love that damn show! I mean even my beloved ‘Jane the Virgin’ is better than some of the stuff on this list. And ‘Big Mouth’ in its debut season was flawless! Where is that? Ugh Emmy voters. Also, enough with these expanded categories. It’s clearly not helping to refuse to narrow it down, so keep it to 5. I hate treating this like participation trophies. When the best of the year aren’t competing, the winner isn’t really going to be the best, is it. When Federer or Serena decline to play in a slam it’s not like the eventual winner is the best if they didn’t play the best.
OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
- The Americans (FX)
- The Crown (Netflix)
- Game of Thrones (HBO)
- The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)
- Stranger Things (Netflix)
- This Is Us (NBC)
- Westworld (HBO)
Ugh miss me with these extra long nominee lists, guys. It’s such nonsense. Nominations are supposed to mean something, not just be a slapdash list of all the shows an old man could remember at that given moment.
I’m so tired, like sooo tired, of ‘Game of Thrones’. Is it really still on? Still treating women like objects and what not? Hates it. I did love this season of ‘Stranger Things’, but not in like an ’emmy-winning’ way. They’re all FINE, I guess, but if anything but ‘The Americans’, in its perfect final season’, sweeps tonight, it’ll be wrong. ‘The Americans’ played the long game over 6 seasons, drawing subtle, nuanced storylines with outstanding performances and writing that came together in its depressing, unavoidable, great ending. It should absolutely win.
PERFORMANCES
I don’t have time to go into every category of acting nominees; I got a plane to catch. But I’ll say a few things. Ted Danson MUST win for TGP. He is American’s national treasure for a reason. If you thought his laugh in Season 1 episode 13 was iconic, wait till you see his relieved “Oh you guys!” from this season. I could cry just thinking about that and about when he solved the trolley problem. Tell me any of the other nominees deserve to win. I’ll wait. And then I’ll tell you why you’re wrong.
As for lead actress in a comedy, it doesn’t even really matter. Rachel Brosnahan on ‘Maisel’ is the clear best option, and even if a properly done category should probably win. But all her competitors should be different. This hundo p should have been Rachel for ‘Maisel’, Kristen Bell for ‘The Good Place’ (absolute BRILLIANCE), Rachel Bloom for ‘Crazy Ex Girlfriend’ (if you aren’t jumping up and down in agreement, you haven’t watched her), Tracee Ellis Ross for ‘black-ish’ I guess, and Gina Rodriguez for ‘Jane the Virgin’. No matter what you think about that show, how telenovela it is (ps it’s a telenovela), Gina is sensational. And yeah, that’s five. FIVE NOMINEES PEOPLE. IN EVERY AWARD SHOW, IN EVERY CATEGORY. DO IT.
As for lead actors in drama, if anyone but Philip and Elizabeth, our beloved Russian spies, win, it’s wrong. WRONG.
What else is wrong?
Supporting actress, comedy: How D’Arcy Carden wasn’t nominated for ‘The Good Place’, I’ll never know. She’s a critical darling, like everything about that show, and created an entire KIND Of character. I also would have voted in Donna Lee Champlin for ‘Crazy Ex’. She’s remarkable. I don’t even want to talk about how many people are in this category (too many) and how many make no sense. But lets please give it to Alex Borstein for being incredible on ‘Maisel’.
Supporting actor, drama: Does a category that doesn’t include Noah Emmerich in ‘The Americans’ even count? No, no it doesn’t. Stanny Beems will always have a place in viewers’ hearts, and no one else on this list can come close to what he did.
Ok I am going to stop ranting about awards that DO NOT MATTER and finish taking this out of my suitcase (it’s too heavy (as always)). Watch tonight and let me know your thoughts in the comments; I’ll be on a plane so keep me informed. And if you haven’t watched the shows on this list that I’ve said are amazing, what are you waiting for???
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The Phantom of the Opera: Incredible New Cast, Fantastic Production, Weirdest Show Ever
Let’s talk about the Phantom of the Opera. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘masterpiece’ (I’m not disputing or agreeing with that; it’s just what it’s called) concerns a deformed prior circus freak who now hides behind a 3/5 mask (because some of his face is apparently still purdy and he wants to show it off to…no one) and becomes scarily obsessed with a pretty young chorus girl in the opera under which he lives in the darkness…darkness…darknesssss. This Phantom (who doesn’t have a name, but in the original novel and some subsequent adaptations was referred to as Erik, which is just the totally wrong name for a Phantom menace) teaches the girl, Christine Daae, to sing uhhh-mazingly, because wants her to somehow simultaneously be the prima donna of the opera house and be his lake dungeon bride, after which he will ostensibly kill her and use her pretty face as a new mask or something because he is hella creepy.
“The Phantom of the Opera” has been running on Broadway for 26 years now, can you even believe it? And this production is aging extremely well. The moving sets and the bits of stage magic don’t seem outdated at all, and the music is haunting and wonderful as always. But the real reason to see this show again, now, is because of the new cast members. Two of musical theatre’s best working actors have joined, with Norm Lewis – the first African-American phantom on Broadway – and Sierra Boggess, as Christine. Normy is my favorite. His “Music of the Night” is gorgeous, moving, and his acting makes you actually feel bad for the Phantom at the end of the show. Yet the biggest treat for me, surprisingly, was Boggess’s Christine. Sir Andrew has said that she’s the greatest Christine there ever was, and until now I had thought he was just saying that to be a dick to his ex-wife Sarah Brightman (the original Christine). But he was absolutely telling the truth. She’s incredible. I never gave Boggess enough credit, because the only big thing I saw her in was “The Little Mermaid” which was sad shit. (Crazy weird trivia: Norm played her father in that. Ewww.) She shines here and is positively astounding. They absolutely need to make a new cast recording with her and Norm. I will buy 9.
So back to the story, which in the years since I last saw it, I forgot the craziness of. While Christine is getting her voice lessons from what she thinks is the ‘Angel of Music’ that her now-deceased father had once promised he would send to her (creepy incestuous and patriarchal b.s. runs rampant), the opera is undergoing a change in management. Unfortunately, the new owners and managers can’t be bothered with the talk of this rumored ‘phantom of the opera’ who causes accidents if he isn’t happy, and they reeeally can’t be bothered with paying this ghost his usual salary: 20,000 of some currency per month. Holy crap, that’s some good money. But he lives in the freaking sewers or some such; what on earth does he do with that money? Burn it for warmth? Or is that how much his fog machine upkeep costs? And his wimpy flame thrower? Actually I think he spends it all on sequins. He like invented the Bedazzler, so it would seem. But then he’d have Bedazzler money too! Where does all the money go?! Can I have some??
The new bosses ignore his demands, which he communicates through many notes passed through Madame Giry, the severe dance mistress who generally knows what’s up with Phantom. (Giry also has a young daughter in the ballet who, whenever the Phantom pulls one of his shenanigans, leaps across the stage and sing-songs “the phantom of the opera!” in like no discernible key and it’s hilarrrious.) This upsets the Phantom because being ignored sucks, so he starts offing people! Like, hold up Webber! I don’t know why people refer to this as a family show, but this is totally dark and scary! I can’t do horror movies, so thank goodness there was incredible music here else I would have peed myself.
The Phantom is frustrated that people aren’t taking him seriously. He becomes murderous and destructive, crashing the famous chandelier (which is still a great piece of theatrical magic), and yet he thinks all of this will win Christine’s love? Not that he cares about reciprocation but it seems he is doing everything for her.
Damn I never realized just how creepy this show is. Seriously, it should come with all kinds of warnings, especially about how utterly misogynistic it is! Omg! Really, even more than Sierra, the biggest standout of seeing it again was realizing how patriarchal and anti-feminist the whole thing is. The premise is that this creepster, shadowy male figure wants to take this young naïve girl to his dark lair of darkness to be his child bride forever. And she misses her father and Cannot. Stop. Talking. About him. And she recalls how her father, on his deathbed, promised to send to her the Angel of Music. And she thinks the Phantom, the creepy sort of man that she should have been told to fear and stay away from, is this Angel of Music, so she keeps being nice to him even though he is KILLING PEOPLE. Because she thinks her father sent him to take care of her. So like, the Phantom is himself a father figure to Christine but he’s also obsessed with her and she is in turn kind of drawn to him because of the father figure stuff or maybe because he does magic. It’s all super creepy. So the Phantom is like, “I must have you, I don’t care what you might actually want, because ha ha that doesn’t matter, and I don’t care if you’re scared because women be scared allatimes, and oh wait, you’re already engaged to your childhood sweetheart Raoul? Well I’ll at least pay attention to that, because we all know the universal rule among men is that the only valid reason a woman wouldn’t want to be with a certain man or do what he says is if she already belongs to another man.” Seriously, this is how most men think, and the Phantom and Raoul exemplify that. So anyway the Phantom is like, “I guess I have to kill Raoul…orrrr I’ll kill the poor random guy who works the sets, and just shoot fireballs at Raoul.”
The best part is that Raoul, our Prince Charming/savior/supposedly decent guy, is exactly like the Phantom! Just better dressed and coiffed and less deformed. Seriously, right after the Phantom kills the set guy, Raoul sings to Christine, “Forget your wide-eyed fears, I’m here. Nothing can harm you.” I MEAN, he sings this to her after the Phantom LITERALLY just killed a guy in front of a packed audience! But Raoul’s a man, so he’s like, “Christine, baby, why are you scared? It’s just a crazy unstoppable murderer on the loose, NBD! I’M HERE, AND I HAVE A PENIS. WE’RE ALL GOOD.” How f-ing dumb is that! What can his blond hair and pinkie ring do to stop the violence? I bet you that whenever someone, anywhere in the universe, is struggling to open a jar, Raoul appears in the doorway and goes “Gimme, I got it. I got it. Gimme it.”
Raoul also mansplains to Christine that, since he didn’t see the Phantom’s lair, she is totes prob making it up, because poor small woman brain. Luckily, he gets captured by the Phantom in said lair when he is trying to rescue Christine, so he learns a little lesson. Also, while Christine decides whether to save Raoul and marry the Phantom or…not, Raoul is hanging in a noose and imitating Chiwetel in “12 Years A Slave”, trying to keep a toe on the ground. For like TEN MINUTES, while Phantom and Christine are discussing the options and singing and stuff. It was ridic.
Unfortunately, the fighting over who gets to keep Christine doesn’t end with her being like, “Both of you, begone! I have a career to focus on,” but with her kissing the Phantom to show him kindness (because he deserves it?) and then marrying Raoul. Yet despite the book’s crazy heavy misogyny and light-on-the-happy vibe, the music and the performances make this actually a must-see. If you are like the many, many people who watch Downton Abbey as a comedy, you’ll love all the crazy in this. Norm is fantastic, though aside from “Music of the Night” the music doesn’t let his voice shine as much as it can. It does seem perfectly written for Sierra, though, and her performance is a revelation. (Even though she doesn’t realize how cool it would be to be a prima donna in a great opera house without worrying about two not-so-great men fighting over her.) I didn’t see the sequel, “Love Never Dies”, but I like to imagine that it features Christine saying, “Listen guys, you need to stay at least 50 feet from me because I’m gonna be a great opera star, and you guys are trippin’.”
Obviously a must-see.
So back to the story, which in the years since I last saw it, I forgot the craziness of. While Christine is getting her voice lessons from what she thinks is the ‘Angel of Music’ that her now-deceased father had once promised he would send to her (creepy incestuous and patriarchal b.s. runs rampant), the opera is undergoing a change in management. Unfortunately, the new owners and managers can’t be bothered with the talk of this rumored ‘phantom of the opera’ who causes accidents if he isn’t happy, and they reeeally can’t be bothered with paying this ghost his usual salary: 20,000 of some currency per month. Holy crap, that’s some good money. But he lives in the freaking sewers or some such; what on earth does he do with that money? Burn it for warmth? Or is that how much his fog machine upkeep costs? And his wimpy flame thrower? Actually I think he spends it all on sequins. He like invented the Bedazzler, so it would seem. But then he’d have Bedazzler money too! Where does all the money go?! Can I have some??
The new bosses ignore his demands, which he communicates through many notes passed through Madame Giry, the severe dance mistress who generally knows what’s up with Phantom. (Giry also has a young daughter in the ballet who, whenever the Phantom pulls one of his shenanigans, leaps across the stage and sing-songs “the phantom of the opera!” in like no discernible key and it’s hilarrrious.) This upsets the Phantom because being ignored sucks, so he starts offing people! Like, hold up Webber! I don’t know why people refer to this as a family show, but this is totally dark and scary! I can’t do horror movies, so thank goodness there was incredible music here else I would have peed myself.
The Phantom is frustrated that people aren’t taking him seriously. He becomes murderous and destructive, crashing the famous chandelier (which is still a great piece of theatrical magic), and yet he thinks all of this will win Christine’s love? Not that he cares about reciprocation but it seems he is doing everything for her.
Damn I never realized just how creepy this show is. Seriously, it should come with all kinds of warnings, especially about how utterly misogynistic it is! Omg! Really, even more than Sierra, the biggest standout of seeing it again was realizing how patriarchal and anti-feminist the whole thing is. The premise is that this creepster, shadowy male figure wants to take this young naïve girl to his dark lair of darkness to be his child bride forever. And she misses her father and Cannot. Stop. Talking. About him. And she recalls how her father, on his deathbed, promised to send to her the Angel of Music. And she thinks the Phantom, the creepy sort of man that she should have been told to fear and stay away from, is this Angel of Music, so she keeps being nice to him even though he is KILLING PEOPLE. Because she thinks her father sent him to take care of her. So like, the Phantom is himself a father figure to Christine but he’s also obsessed with her and she is in turn kind of drawn to him because of the father figure stuff or maybe because he does magic. It’s all super creepy. So the Phantom is like, “I must have you, I don’t care what you might actually want, because ha ha that doesn’t matter, and I don’t care if you’re scared because women be scared allatimes, and oh wait, you’re already engaged to your childhood sweetheart Raoul? Well I’ll at least pay attention to that, because we all know the universal rule among men is that the only valid reason a woman wouldn’t want to be with a certain man or do what he says is if she already belongs to another man.” Seriously, this is how most men think, and the Phantom and Raoul exemplify that. So anyway the Phantom is like, “I guess I have to kill Raoul…orrrr I’ll kill the poor random guy who works the sets, and just shoot fireballs at Raoul.”
The best part is that Raoul, our Prince Charming/savior/supposedly decent guy, is exactly like the Phantom! Just better dressed and coiffed and less deformed. Seriously, right after the Phantom kills the set guy, Raoul sings to Christine, “Forget your wide-eyed fears, I’m here. Nothing can harm you.” I MEAN, he sings this to her after the Phantom LITERALLY just killed a guy in front of a packed audience! But Raoul’s a man, so he’s like, “Christine, baby, why are you scared? It’s just a crazy unstoppable murderer on the loose, NBD! I’M HERE, AND I HAVE A PENIS. WE’RE ALL GOOD.” How f-ing dumb is that! What can his blond hair and pinkie ring do to stop the violence? I bet you that whenever someone, anywhere in the universe, is struggling to open a jar, Raoul appears in the doorway and goes “Gimme, I got it. I got it. Gimme it.”
Raoul also mansplains to Christine that, since he didn’t see the Phantom’s lair, she is totes prob making it up, because poor small woman brain. Luckily, he gets captured by the Phantom in said lair when he is trying to rescue Christine, so he learns a little lesson. Also, while Christine decides whether to save Raoul and marry the Phantom or…not, Raoul is hanging in a noose and imitating Chiwetel in “12 Years A Slave”, trying to keep a toe on the ground. For like TEN MINUTES, while Phantom and Christine are discussing the options and singing and stuff. It was ridic.
Unfortunately, the fighting over who gets to keep Christine doesn’t end with her being like, “Both of you, begone! I have a career to focus on,” but with her kissing the Phantom to show him kindness (because he deserves it?) and then marrying Raoul. Yet despite the book’s crazy heavy misogyny and light-on-the-happy vibe, the music and the performances make this actually a must-see. If you are like the many, many people who watch Downton Abbey as a comedy, you’ll love all the crazy in this. Norm is fantastic, though aside from “Music of the Night” the music doesn’t let his voice shine as much as it can. It does seem perfectly written for Sierra, though, and her performance is a revelation. (Even though she doesn’t realize how cool it would be to be a prima donna in a great opera house without worrying about two not-so-great men fighting over her.) I didn’t see the sequel, “Love Never Dies”, but I like to imagine that it features Christine saying, “Listen guys, you need to stay at least 50 feet from me because I’m gonna be a great opera star, and you guys are trippin’.”
Obviously a must-see.
Wendell Pierce in Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic
It’s Theatre Tuesday! Today’s show is Death of a Salesman, playing at London’s Young Vic until July 13.
We’ve had quite the run of Arthur Miller plays lately. After this year’s decent The American Clock and meh All My Sons, it’s time for the most famous of them all, Death of a Salesman. DOAS was never my favorite play, maybe because I don’t like death, maybe because it’s so depressing, maybe because being forced to dissect it as a teenager and having my critique of ‘how can Arthur write all these plays and never once mention that he was married to Marilyn Monroe?’ dismissed was fairly annoying, but it is a classic. I guess I’m supposed to say ‘it’s a classic for a reason’, even though that’s such a clichéd line, but it’s true. More than Miller’s other plays, and more than most plays, DOAS pays attention to an ordinary man, Willy Loman, and thereby ‘the’ ordinary man, with all his frustratingly relatable problems and failures and bad luck. Willy’s wife Linda famously states at one point that her husband is not a great man or the finest character, but he’s a human being. And that’s why “attention must finally be paid to such a person.” Her line states the reason for this play’s longevity, and why it’s still worthwhile.
In this riveting and heartbreaking production from Marianne Elliott (responsible for the gender-swapped Company) and Miranda Cromwell, the Loman family is now black, which adds a deeper sense of suffering to the already sympathetic family’s troubles. Instead of seeing all of Willy’s tribulations and failures as the result of unfair, terrible luck, there’s the hint that it’s also the result of racist treatment, which today feels a lot more compelling than feeling sorry for yet another white man. But the universal nature of his collapse remains prominent, with this story of an average man’s average problems continuing to engross audiences. Few other plays more successfully show that you don’t need magical plots or far-fetched characters to achieve magic in the theatre, as the longevity of DOAS shows it’s enough to pay due attention to real life.
Those of you more familiar with the play are probably like “average problems, what?” and yes, he is losing his mind and he does die (spoiler) (in the title) because of this not-very-hum-drum problem, but that’s not the most striking aspect of Willy’s plight. His daily shortcomings and his ordinary mediocrity and his unremarkable disappointments are what have kept his story at the pinnacle of theatre for so many decades. And in Wendell Pierce’s shattering performance, that’s what hits hardest, how Willy is a pitiable but common man, one that everyone probably knows in real life. This is a huge feat from Pierce considering how impressive his portrayal of the mental breakdown was throughout the show. His ticks and losses of concentration build subtly, making you more and more uncomfortable and more and more anxious about this poor man. Pierce gives an incredible performance, the kind where you really can’t understand how he can put himself through all that 8 times a week.
Equally great is Sharon D. Clarke as his wife Linda, which is no surprise since Sharon D. Clarke is great in everything. Her delivery of the aforementioned famous summary of the play reverberated through the room with its significance. She made a relatively small role feel much larger, and any excuse to hear her sing or even hum, as she does a few times, is welcome. As for Biff and Happy, who usually bother me to no end, Arinze Kene and Martins Imhangbe made them come alive. The family’s story was best told through Willy’s flashbacks, shown brilliantly here with slideshow clicks and flashes to represent Willy’s memories taking over the forefront of his mind. This bit of directing was genius.
The only time the show fell really flat (an accomplishment in its 3 hour length) was in the Act II bar scene, when the Loman men meet a few women and flirt with them. Everything about this scene felt kind of amateur and off, mainly because there’s only so far that basic slinking around with an ‘ooh aren’t I gorgeous’ gaze can take you. Aside from that, the rest of the cast and really the rest of the show makes for probably the best production of this classic play you can see.
INFORMATION
The Young Vic run is sold-out, but you can try for rush tickets or cancellations. As is the annoying as all get-out Young Vic tradition, the shows start late as they fill all the empty seats with people from the cancellation line. Otherwise, the play is transferring to the Piccadilly Theatre (current home to The Lehman Trilogy) on October 24, 2019 until January 4, 2020 so you can buy tickets for that run, although I fear the power of the intimate, small theatre will be missed there.
