London's Production of "The Birthday Party" Could Actually Make Someone a Fan of Pinterby Randi / March 15, 2018
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we’re talking “Pippin”, at the Southwark Playhouse in London until Saturday.
“Pippin” is one of my best known, and best loved, shows. It lends itself so well to grandiose ridiculous spectacle, like in the most recent Broadway production, while still having a beating heart, an eternally provocative book, and one of the best all-around scores in musical theatre. So I was intrigued to see what a little almost-black-box of a theatre like Southwark Playhouse could do with the material. It’s been a long time since I saw a production of Pips that wasn’t full-out Cirque du Soleil treats – in fact, the last time was in high school, when I was indeed in a non-circus non-world-class-acrobat version. I couldn’t help but wonder (just a little call out to Miranda running for governor treats!), how strong are the bones of the show? Will it still produce the thrills and astonishment I remember even without all the flying through the air with the greatest of ease? And the answer is, those bones must have read The China Study and learned about how milk really isn’t the answer to osteoporosis and instead they’re eating vegetables and doing resistance training because hell yes, they are strong.
Not that I’m surprised, because it’s such a great show. But it really does lend itself so well to spectacle, so it’s nice to remember that even without mind-blowing choreography and amazement, it’s still solid and enjoyable. Losing the circus tent of Broadway and all the splendor and magic that came inside of it was a bit of a let-down, I’ll be honest, because that production featured some of the most insane stuff I’ve ever seen humans do, and that augmented the show rather than overwhelm it, so naturally I’m gonna prefer that version all other things being equal. But seeing the bare bones of ‘Pippin’ was a great opportunity to revisit what makes it so special, and to remember that it is so special as is. And that even with an average cast, the music shines and the story resonates.
That story is the really not historical tale of Pippin, the son of King Charlemagne, and his coming of age as he tries to figure out what to do with his life in order to find fulfillment. He’s your typical young white male character, having literally all the resources and opportunities in the world open to him but feeling discontented and unsatisfied with this or that. He tries this or that, to continued exasperating dissatisfaction, because he believes himself to be destined for something extraordinary. I mean wow did they nail today’s white male youth or what. So Pippin’s story is told by a traveling troupe of performers, led by the Leading Player, and this performance that we are seeing is the very first with this particular actor playing Pippin. So every now and then we’ll get him doing something different from usual or a different ensemblist messing up, requiring the Leading Player to say something to remind us of that show-within-a-show frame. This is important, because the actor playing Pippin is having the same existential crisis as his character, and he’s subject to the same delusions of grandeur that Pippin is.
That story is the really not historical tale of Pippin, the son of King Charlemagne, and his coming of age as he tries to figure out what to do with his life in order to find fulfillment. He’s your typical young white male character, having literally all the resources and opportunities in the world open to him but feeling discontented and unsatisfied with this or that. He tries this or that, to continued exasperating dissatisfaction, because he believes himself to be destined for something extraordinary. I mean wow did they nail today’s white male youth or what. So Pippin’s story is told by a traveling troupe of performers, led by the Leading Player, and this performance that we are seeing is the very first with this particular actor playing Pippin. So every now and then we’ll get him doing something different from usual or a different ensemblist messing up, requiring the Leading Player to say something to remind us of that show-within-a-show frame. This is important, because the actor playing Pippin is having the same existential crisis as his character, and he’s subject to the same delusions of grandeur that Pippin is.
The Southwark Playhouse always does stellar work, in such a tiny space with pretty much nothing in terms of resources or special effects, or sets, really, so it’s entirely up to the cast and creatives to make magic. I was prepared to be blown away as I usually am here, with this theatre, effectively Off West-End, doing work that often is stronger than the proper West End shows (especially right now, when the favorite British musical winning over unsound audiences is, well, you know I don’t want to talk about that anymore). And while this was the most enjoyable musical I’ve seen in London in 2018 so far, it was heavily due to the material and not really this production in particular. The production was solid, don’t get me wrong, but not as great as I expected. And a few things rubbed me the wrong way. Like, the cast is entirely white, except maybe one ensemblist who might not be. I’m sorry to be making generalizations about her race but I’m trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that this show isn’t 100% white despite being performed in one of the most diverse cities in the entire freaking world, and even so it’s still a real let-down in terms of diversity. It’s weird, it’s obvious, and it’s just not right.
That whiteness means that the Leading Player, the lead role, is played by a white lady, which is JUST WEIRD. Now that was okay to do in my high school because my little suburb barely had Asian kids in drama club let alone black kids, but (Joey’s voice) in LONDON? The Leading Player is historically black, originated by the legendary Ben Vereen and then in the revival by the great Patina Miller, and a white lady just made it I don’t know, it made it like school. She was kind of a school marm. Genevive Nicole, talented as she is, was simply completely miscast, and only in part due to her race. She didn’t have the terrifying, exciting, mysterious, sexual, electrifying qualities that the Leading Player needs. And because her casting fell way short, for the first time, it really seemed like Pippin’s show. Despite being the title role, Pippin has always played second fiddle to the spell-binding Leading Player, whose actors have started illustrious careers on the magic they made in this incredibly meaty role. No matter how great Matthew James Thomas was in the 2013 revival – and he was REALLY great – it was still Patina’s show. I wasn’t lucky enough to see Ben Vereen in the original production, but come on, it’s freaking Ben Vereen. I think we can agree that he made the show. And that’s how it always is – the Leading Player lives up to the name, and Pippin is right up there with her but a little less extraordinarily, which is ironic because of the song he sings. But here, because the LP was weak and the actor playing Pippin (Jonathan Carlton) was actually the strongest one in the cast, the usual dynamic was flipped on its head and it became truly Pippin’s show. I was riveted more than usual in his plight and his growth as a character. The beauty of his songs stood out more. Meanwhile, the Leading Player became like a side character to me, just another of the ensemble except with more lines. She vanished completely into the shadows for me, and not in the good way that you expect the LP to be living in the shadows. It was incredibly interesting to witness this change, unintentional as I’m sure it was.
I was also surprised at the decision to have one actress (Mairi Barclary) play both Berthe and Fastrada. Pippin’s hilarious grandmother Berthe usually steals the show with her comedic bit, while Pippin’s conniving step-mother usually has a thankless song unless performed and directed perfectly. It makes some sense to double up on the roles, when you have a small cast, since they each have one big number and that’s pretty much it. But focusing on such different characters meant that a little was sacrificed from both. While a talented performer, Mairi made weird choices that didn’t work for me. Her Berthe got off easy, because the audience will eat up everything that character throws at you and be sublimely happy doing so, so that’s a hard one to mess up. Kind of like Charles/Charlemagne, it’s written to be adored and hysterical. It was just a little too goofy for me; when all the humor you need is written into the part there’s little need for bared teeth gags. But Fastrada was a mess. Her “Spread a Little Sunshine” is really hard to get anything out of, and it’s thankless unless she makes it obvious that she’s lying about spreading happiness and joy because her main goal is shrewd manipulation. None of that came across here, mainly because the actress was doing a heavy Scottish accent. And I mean heavy. Like worse than Mike Myers in “So I Married an Axe Murderer” when he plays his own grandfather and shouts “HEEEAD. MOVE. NOW!” It made no sense for the woman who is supposed to be gorgeous and sexy, so much so that the king is blinded to her scheming, to instead be kind of vulgar, calling herself a ‘hoosewife’ and letting the heavy accent get in the way of her subtle lines. I mean the whole “I’m just an ordinary housewife and mother, just like all your ordinary housewives and mothers out there” line is only funny because Fastrada clearly isn’t ordinary, and for damn sure isn’t a housewife. But here, yeah for sure she was just a dowdy housewife…so…. It didn’t work at all.
I did enjoy our Charles/Charlemagne, Rhidian Marc, who did a fine job. Like Berthe, that part is written to win over audiences with almost no effort, so any effort the actor puts in just makes it all the better. I particularly enjoyed his famous line, given in a little confidential bit to the audience after his wife asks for more money, when he says “You know, sometimes I wonder if all the fornicating I’m getting is worth all the fornicating I’m getting.” The audience dies every time, for good reason, but this time I was also crying laughing because I remember – someone from high school correct me if I’m wrong but I remember – that our HS production did NOT cut that line. Is that possible?!
Faring pretty well was Tessa Kadler as Catherine, more commonly the thankless role in “Pippin” unless you have someone who knows what they’re doing, and then it can be absolutely sublime. I never knew that Catherine could be the funniest and fullest role in the show until I saw Rachel Bay Jones in the Broadway revival, when she completely reinvented the role and all future interpretations were challenged to keep up. Unfortunately, few can really keep up with her, and even fewer have the comedic brilliance that’s required to make Catherine more than a well-meaning, pretty love interest. I could honestly talk about RBJ’s genius in that truly virtuosic performance for days on end. Needless to say, she ruined me for future performances that fail to mine the lines for all the brilliance they could possess. Tessa’s Catherine fared better than most, and she has a beautiful voice, but none of the nuance was there to make Catherine special. More importantly, it was not clear at all that the actors playing Catherine and Pippin in the show-within-the-show were falling in love, not at all. My husband, seeing “Pippin” for the first time, asked afterwards “wait why would she have left with him?” There was no reason for her to have joined Pippin at the end, at least as far as we saw.
And that ending is always so tricky to get right, because it is so unbelievably dark and sinister. The chorus sounded great on the Finale number, and it was creepy as hell as they tried to get Pippin to take part in the one final act that will make him extraordinary. It’s always fascinating to see how this comes across. Sometimes, the ending tells you that despite the grandest of dreams, a person will only be truly happy living an ordinary life that has real meaning instead of larger-scale meaning. Sometimes, it’s that you can’t expect too much of yourself or your life, and that doing so will probably have the opposite consequences than you intend, and sometimes it’s that you can’t give in to the basest desires that flood your subconscious. And sometimes you think um this is coming across as extra-pro suicide. Here, it definitely felt more along the lines of Pippin having to quiet the visions, the fantasies he always had that told him he was so special and so needed to do something obviously special. He needed to learn to ignore the dark places in his imagination and be content with a normal life, and only then, when he stopped expecting so much of himself, could he be happy. Overall, it worked, although again there was no foundation for having Catherine help ground him. It still was moving as ever, and because of the black box situation, I REALLY hoped we would get the original ending – when Pippin and Catherine just stand there in the dark in their underwear talking to each other, and it ends so abruptly and the audience is like, wait whatttttt? That can’t be the end?? That’s the ending we did in high school and it still makes me laugh so hard to imagine what on earth those poor audiences were thinking. But more recent shows have added a truly remarkable ending, in which the little boy playing Theo starts singing “Corner of the Sky”, and the Leading Player and the troupe come back in to encircle him, having found a new potential Pippin to finish their finale for them. It’s FREAKING DARK, and it works so well because it ends on music but still has the incredibly disturbing troubling mood. BUT, I think it really only works well when it’s a child playing Theo. Here it was just one of the regular ensemble members, adult-sized, playing Theo, so it didn’t pack the normal punch that that ending is good for. Also, when the players remove all the ‘theatre magic’ in a black box theatre, well there’s not much to differentiate it when they come back. There are no sets to begin with, so they kind of just made the lights dimmer. It didn’t work as well. It is the better ending though, so whatever it’s fine, but I just wanted to be able to witness an audience deal with the dissatisfaction of the original ending.
Overall, it was a well done production and definitely worth seeing, if it left me wanting to see a full mounted production again soon. And mostly, it reminded me of how great “Pippin” is, when even down to its bare bones, as here, it’s still enjoyable and poignant.
AUDIENCE
The audience was fine! Huzzah! It helps to be almost in the round in a small room, so everyone knows I’m watching them.
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The Visit at the National Theatre, Or This Old Broad is Crazy But She Ain’t Wrong
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Visit, which opens tonight and plays at the National Theatre (Olivier Theatre) until May 13.
Full confesh time: As soon as The Visit went on sale, I bought tickets to the first preview because I assumed it was the Kander & Ebb musical version that I never got to see on Broadway with Chita and I was like YESS I CAN FINALLY SEE THIS WEIRD AF SHOW THAT DID THE TONY AWARDS PERFORMANCE THAT MADE ME UNCOMFORTABLE! It is not the musical version. This is the latest adaptation of the classic 1956 German play, more faithful to the original than the musical (and the many other adaptations that have come before) and this time translated/written by Tony Kushner, if you can believe it. (“If I can believe it? Watch this – I believe it!”) The Visit, a classic play about humanity, revenge, and also the stain of capitalism (true), tells of the world’s richest lady, Claire Zachanassian, who returns to her poverty-stricken hometown and makes them an offer they should refuse but don’t. The questions it raises about morality and greed and wrath are the sort that stick with you and make you uneasy, a sign of effective theatre.
Although I have lots of problems with the third act and the overall success of the show, I enjoyed this production and recommend seeing it, if only for the strong star turns from the great Lesley Manville and Hugo Weaving (who I took a picture with at one of the Lord of the Rings premieres but it was before smartphones and I don’t know where that photo is dammit). Kushner’s adaptation updates the location of the action to New York state, namely the destitute town of Slurry, which is a terrible name (on purpose; the original German name was supposed to evoke manure). When the hot witch? seductive demon? sexy bionic elder lady Claire finally comes back for a visit (the visit) after leaving as a teen, the down-on-their-luck residents hope that she will be their savior. Maybe if she paid enough in taxes you wouldn’t have to rely on her feeling philanthropic! Claire indeed is willing to give the town lots of money, like the kind that starts with a ‘b’ and that no private citizen should have control of. This money would more than save the town; it would make every penniless resident rich. But there’s a condition, and it’s dark, which you guessed because she is a scary scary sexy lady (like the song from Crazy Ex Girlfriend): she will only give the money in exchange for what she considers ‘justice’. Her version of ‘justice’? The townspeople killing her ex-boyfriend Alfred. YEP.
So like, 40 maybe 50 years have passed since Claire and Alfred, who still lives in Slurry, had their little teenage romance, and despite 7 husbands and traveling all over the world and becoming the richest person on earth, Claire is still angry that Alfred broke up with her. Or so it seems at first. At first you’re like oh this bitch cray, no one in that town better think twice about telling her to shove her money. I mean you’re talking about MURDER. But despite initially laughing off her proposal and telling Alfred that they would never even consider it, the townspeople slowly start to realize how much their lives would change by sacrificing just one eensy person.
And as more details come out about their history, what Claire suffered through, and who exactly composes her entourage (this part straight f-ed me up), you understand Claire’s position better: Alfred didn’t just abandon her. What he did was pure evil. I completely get being furious about what he did for decades and wanting some kind of justice. But, murdering him isn’t justice. My biggest disappointment with this show is that at no point does anyone say that murdering a wrongdoer does not beget justice, and that enacting such revenge doesn’t help anyone. Every time someone said the word justice I thought to myself “you keep a-using that word. I don’t-a think you know what it means.” I had recently watched The Good Place finale, so the whole ‘he did a horrible deed 50 years ago and should be punished eternally for it’ thing was a stark contrast to that show’s message that everyone should at least have a chance at redemption. (I mean not that Alfred ever seemed interesting in apologizing for his actions, but I guess that would have changed things too much.)
The first act was quite gripping, despite a slow start due to some weird acting choices on the part of the townspeople (also in New York state there should not be southern accents, but that is the most common ‘American accent’ choice usually). Also in that first kind of rocky opening were some REALLY WEIRD lines about Jews? Like very very disturbing that would be okay if anything came of them or they were supposed to be important but it just felt like random slurs? I’m really surprised at Kushner here, who is a Jew, and what he was trying to achieve. I have noticed his other works having such weird anti-Jew lines almost seemingly for the hell of it, not doing anything with them to make it worthwhile (I wonder if he uses it as an easy way to show that certain characters are flawed/bad, not realizing how anti-Semitic London/UK/Europe is). It took me out of it for a bit as I tried to understand his purpose. Ugh I got Kushlash.
Then, the second act is truly superb, one of the best, most gripping pieces of theatre. It was only 45 minutes and every second of that was perfectly calibrated. As the townspeople grapple with their decision, the whole play felt like a slow creeping movement towards evil, almost like a secret of the ooze, and it’s reflected incredibly in the blocking, with excellent direction from Jeremy Herrin. If the first act’s dark comedy was a B, this second act’s riveting psychological thriller was an A+.
And then the third act was beyond disappointing. It didn’t effectively capitalize on the gripping psycho-drama proffered in Act II. So much happens that is indefensible from a dramaturg perspective: Why don’t Alfred’s wife and kids seem to care about what’s happening AT ALL? Why is Alfred letting the press take pictures of him and his family in his shop? Why is this townsperson pretending to stab Alfred for a photo – when the journalist asking for it has NO idea about the deal?? (That last one really bugs me to no end. Like wtaf.) That is nonsense. There’s also so much that needed to be cut: the entire car ride with Alfred’s family was a waste of time, as was the horrible annoying TV personalities doing their bits at the town meeting, and then, to add insult to injury, repeating everything because their feeds weren’t working or something. This was some real nonsense that almost had me screaming.
So this first preview was four hours (although it never really felt long at all; it was well paced aside from some bullshit in the third act). A few days later, I saw on the NT website that the run time had been amended to 3 hours 50 minutes, and then a few days later to 3 hours 40 minutes, and now it’s at 3 hours 30 minutes. I hope that’s all due to work on the third act, because if ONE SECOND of the second act was touched, that’s a real tragedy. (Apparently the Broadway musical version was 95 minutes, which is hilarious to me. What did Chita just show up and sing one song and then they all do a murder and you’re out before you even have to pee? I peed 5 times during this event.)
But the most disappointing thing (well the TV reporters bit was pretty terrible) was that there is no discussion of forgiveness, or redemption, or how by considering this offer the townspeople are just as bad or worse as teenage Alfred. While the play is overall pretty good, always interesting, and almost never boring, it’s still such a wasted opportunity for exploring these themes. There is so much fodder for how to deal with remorse and past sins as well as anger and desire for vengeance, and of course what actual justice is, but any real contemplation of all this happens offstage.
INFORMATION
There are two intervals so regardless of what the ever-changing run time is, that’s always good.
My favorite place to sit in the Olivier is the front row of the circle. I usually do stalls but the Olivier is such an enormous cavern of a place that you get a better view from the circle. Also the inner aisles are pretty central. Best of all, it’s formed so you only see the stage and none of the people in the stalls on their phones. Also people don’t seem to know that there are bathrooms on either side of the circle, inside the doors, and there are usually okay lines. What does have a line is the new water dispenser on the bar, which is a nice idea but now since there’s only one instead of a few pitchers that line is longer than the bar’s!
My best tip for the NT as always is to bring your small bag, not a big one. They make you check purses and backpacks &c that are bigger than like a piece of paper.
My Mixed Day at MTFest: The Assassination of Katie Hopkins & Soapdish
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are (finally) looking at two works in progress I saw at MTFest a week or so ago and hoping that creatives make the necessary fixes as needed.
Let me first state for the record that MTFestUK is a phenomenal project, a weeks-long showcase of new musical theatre works and works in progress. In a city where new musical theatre talent and ideas can easily take a backseat to big shiny commercial ventures at the expense of artistry, this platform gives a much-needed boost, hopefully towards a full-fledged production, to creativity and originality. London needs to nurture more original and innovative musical theatre and more undersung talent, so this festival rocks.
I had time to see two shows during this festival, The Assassination of Katie Hopkins (AKH) and Soapdish. I had low expectations for the former, as it’s a new-to-me creative team and it sounded either silly or too much and I just didn’t know about it. I had high expectations for the latter since it came from Stiles & Drewe and had a cast of super recognizable names. As they say about expectations or assumptions or what have you, the results were the exact opposite: AKH (I wish it abbreviated sensibly to ASS because that’s what she is) was incredibly impressive and has stuck with me, where Soapdish was almost offensive to me as a human person and is the latest entry in my How to Fix Your Show series. Let’s start with the good.
The Assassination of Katie Hopkins
Extremely relevant politically and socially, ASS AKH shows the aftermath of the imagined murder of Katie Hopkins, notorious far-right political commentator, English Trumpian, racist, bigot, stupidhead, and all around c-word. On the first consideration of this fictional event you’re like ‘eh all in a day’ but you know, it’s still a murder, and that’s bad. The show follows several threads of narrative post-event, with interweaving lyrics and melodies to show the connectedness of ‘different sides’ and all of our lives. There’s young intern Kayleigh (Bethzienna Williams), tasked with researching Hopkins for a human rights charity and finding herself somehow propelled to the spotlight as she sort of takes up Hopkins’ mantle. The path of this young lost person getting swept up in right-wing fanaticism in order to find her foothold in our society seemed so authentic, and it was cool (I mean not cool but you know cool) to see the radicalization of a girl for a change.
Other storytelling threads involve the increase in harassment for people of color who had nothing to do with the murder, as is the sad but super predictable result, like post 9/11 bullshit. One such target is Shayma (Maimuna Memon (who we LOVED in Ghost Quartet, put her in everything)), a paralegal at a big law firm who expects better from people but feels like she’s the only one recognizing so much of the tragedy happening constantly. Shayma has a history of being ‘problematic’ at her firm, because she was sexually harassed by a bigwig and got him fired, so she’s on thin ice because that’s how that works. (The firing is the only hard to believe part of this show, since big law firms love to just pay the victims hush money so they don’t have to discipline ‘important men’. Happens super frequently it’s astounding. FUN WORLD.) She serves as the voice of most conscience-having people, wondering if we are taking crazy pills as the rest of the world seems to move on from enormous tragic events after a single breath. The whole show gives a good voice to the idea of empathy exhaustion, an aspect I found quite moving.
I hope that in the full show, Kayleigh’s journey to the right-wing spotlight is shown as more of a progression rather than a jump, since that journey is really believable and important to discuss. I hope Shayma is given more to do (I mean just let her sing the whole time) to show the interplay of her story with the rest, because as it stands, her song about slaying dragons after a tube incident could be cut, as it didn’t flow with the rest of the show as I saw, but if it’s woven more fully into the narrative it would be great because that song was forking fire. A lot of the music (by Matt Winkworth and Chris Bush) is wonderful, actually, and a lot of it is haunting. There was one point when Shayma was singing the list of names from one horrific tragedy and she said ‘Victor’ at the same time someone was singing the word ‘victim’ and I almost gasped, it was gorgeous. I cannot wait to see this show as a full-fledged production; I think it has the potential to be incredible.
Soapdish
Boy oh boy, you big man, you boy. Based on the 1991 Sally Field movie, Soapdish is about soap opera darling Celeste Talbert who is America’s sweetheart onscreen and a real b word offscreen. Her younger costar schemes to knock her off her perch and become the star. And there’s a secret love child involved. So this all sounds super fun and should be ripe for the romcom musical treatment, but so far, this show felt way too amateur. I wouldn’t be so blunt about these sorts of progress report showcases but given the talent involved, I expected much more refined work. They need to chuck the score out the window and start over (but keep the two instances of good rhymes – future with suture and Brecht with expect; those were good). It was like rough draft of Mean Girls songs (and that’s saying something since the final version of Mean Girls has like one good song). No song passed the smell test.
Also, the lead character of Celeste (Louise Dearman) needs to be reconsidered. The whole thing is that she’s an awful monster in real life – at least that’s what the preshow introduction said – but she didn’t seem like a bitch at all; she just seemed sad and pathetic knowing that her days were numbered as she gets older. So after the score, my second big problem is that there is no consistency to the lead character. Why should we be interested in her younger costar’s attempt at a coup except to say that like, it’s kind of sad?
And that brings me to the biggest problem. This younger costar Montana (Laura Pitt-Pulford) uses the promise of sex to get the producer, David (Richard Dempsey), to go along with her shenanigans. I get that this was the movie plot, in 1991, but that is no excuse for having such a grossly sexist storyline. (See, e.g. Pretty Woman the Musical and how copying the movie is not an excuse to be shit.) Everything about this felt super icky and suuuper obvious that it was an all-male creative team. Look people, there’s a way to do old-fashioned storylines, and even sexist storylines, without actually having your show feel sexist. It was infuriating, this whole thing, even though LPP says the name ‘David’ hilariously – but like most good jokes they repeat it ad infinitum and thus run it into the ground, destroying the fun of it. Actually the ruining of a great bit of comedy might be the most upsetting part. And of course the fact that London audiences will eat this shit up, and did.
The only person who comes out on top is young Alice Croft, who has a voice like baby Laura Osnes and honestly I cannot wait to hear her sing full (improved) scores.
