“How to Succeed” in London: Make An Old Show Absolutely Ridiculously Hystericalby Randi / April 20, 2017
I knowww, I can’t believe it has taken me this long to see “An American in Paris” either! It came out on Broadway right when I moved across ye olde Atlantic, and it kept just coming short of nabbing a slot on my ever-shrinking Broadway to-do list because a) I figured it would last a long time, unlike other shows that took short-NYC-visit precedence and b) there were rumors of a London production. Luckily that London production has finally arrived, and with better news than I could have hoped – with the two original amazing stars, Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope! I know! It’s as beautiful a production as I expected, and Robbie (can I call him that okay great) and Leanne are as wonderful as I imagined. There are some sluggish and/or unnecessary parts that scream for editing, but overall it’s a truly splendid time. Also I’m obviously joking in the headline. I mean not 100% but mostly.
Based on the 1951 Oscar-winning Gene Kelly film that – gasp – I don’t think I’ve ever seen omg gasp, “An American in Paris” (AAIP) (my fingers really want to type AARP) tells the story of an American soldier named Jerry who is sooooo charming (F-O-X) who decides to stay in immediately-post-war Paris and ‘work on his art’, otherwise known as try to find the mysterious, beautiful girl he saw just randomly in the streets of Paris and obvs fell in love with instantly as happens in all the classic love stories. We meet an interesting array of white people who all have dreams and goals and desires and they sing along to Gershwin songs that kind of sort of relate to those desires but unlike other jukebox musicals the disconnect between story and old popular song is not as offensive as it usually is (cough ‘Mamma Mia’). Maybe it’s because the Gershwin force-around was a part of the original movie, so you can’t blame the stage version for juking. And importantly, a lot of the ballet is danced to purely orchestral pieces (like ‘An American in Paris’) and stuff, so it’s not like the most dramatic dance of the show is to ‘I Got Rhythm’ or something dreadful like that.
Before talking more in depth about the show, I feel the need to point out YET AGAIN that despite all the millions of dollars available to pay for original art, the main promotional art for “La La Land” was, shall we say, quite similar to the preexisting Broadway show art for AAIP, which thankfully they are still using because it is so beautiful.
The show begins with David Seadon-Young, who plays supporting male character Adam, sitting at a piano on an otherwise empty stage and telling us that oh boy does he have a story for us, or something like that, and isn’t war terrible but ain’t love grand. I don’t remember because I was immediately stunned by a little bit of stage magic – a huge tarp-like French flag is lifted up by ensemblists and brought down a second later to reveal an empty stage –they vanished the piano! I’m sure that’s a simple trapdoor kind of thing under the stage or something but I literally gasped and everyone laughed at me probably but it was the best day.
The story starts in Paris as American GIs are saying goodbye to their French loves and French soldiers are coming home (or not) to their anguished families, all amid a lovely tableau of ballet-dancing French civilians. We see our tiny leading lady Lise (Leanne Cope), dark and mysterious (while still being properly English pale), help a Nazi lady out of a pickle (was being attacked by some civilians) and you’re like oh I guess we’re supposed to think Lise is a lovely kind person…because…she’s…helping…a nazi….This action does turn out to say an awful lot about how kind she is indeed, in a way that I guess her helping an innocent child who fell or something wouldn’t, but still, no one gets points for helping Nazis. Well, unless the points are from Jerry, who sees this encounter and is like wow that beautiful little paledark flutterbug is so selfless, I MUST HAVE HER.
The crowds ebb and flow and Jerry loses sight of his new love interest. Jerry (or as Lise will say, “Zherreeeee” and it sounds like ‘cherie’ which just a nice little play on it get it because she love him) wanders into a bar and meets Adam (wounded veteran, maybe he knew him before I don’t remember) and Henri (rich French guy, played by Haydn Oakley) and is like hay let’s be bros also I need a place to live and a job and they’re like great stay and work here, new best friend. Things are great in musicals. Adam is a composer and pianist, while Henri works in his parents’ business but hides his secret life as a song-and-dance man (not a singer or dancer; a song-and-dance man) from them as they are serious people who would seriously disapprove. Henri also has a girlfriend and the boys are like you should totes propose to her! Oh silly boys, you have no idea.
Meanwhile, Lise auditions for the Paris ballet, for which Adam is the pianist, and he falls in love with her because she treats him like a human being despite his slight limp. Then the guys realize that Lise is the woman Henri is planning to marry, and of course we know Jerry is in love with her too so early on you’re thinking of Heath Ledger in “Ten Things I Hate About You” asking in his special way why everyone’s obsessed with Alex Mack. Lise is a beautiful dancer, and she makes the company now that it’s benefiting from a new wave of money from American philanthropist Milo Davenport (Zoe Rainey). Milo is one of those brash and assertive women who are annoying for really no better reason than that they’re confident. Milo sees Jerry and is like “I like!” but pretends she likes his art and gets him hired as the ballet’s chief, um, art maker. This lets him spend more time with Lise, but then when it’s revealed that she’s Henri’s pretty much fiancée, Jerry starts sort of dating Milo/letting her buy him things and you’re like ahhh figure your shit out your shit is a mess, characters! Milo is a thankless role, really, because she’s rich and loud and wears bright colors and isn’t the one Jerry’s supposed to be with so you hate her but I bet the story from her perspective would be amazing but we aren’t here for her so shut it. Zoe Rainey does a decent enough job, but it’s hard to make the character more than two-dimensional, or make her likeable, so Milo stays the former and isn’t the latter.
Despite all the unwanted relaysh drama in the book, the show really is a series of interactions between Lise and Zherreeeee, where they dance by the river and it’s s’wonderful. Leanne Cope was a principal in the Royal Ballet, and Robbie in the NYC Ballet, so they are two of the best in the world. Even though the show was generally well constructed and there are some gorgeous extended ballet sequences, I wanted the show to be 100x more them doing ballet, I don’t care if it would have been too much for some. It’s GORGEOUS. (And don’t just tell me to go see a ballet because I did that recently and it was soo boring and ACTUALLY, there still wasn’t enough dancing! Mostly people were standing and doing the presentation wave and lookie here moves with their arms. Also the story was creepy af I mean an army of teenage ghost brides who capture living men in the woods what the actual sexist nonsense.) When they dance together, it says more about what they are feeling and what we’re supposed to be feeling than any dialogue could (or does). It’s magical and it almost excuses the weak parts of the show. You see that despite Zherry’s dalliance with Milo and despite Lise’s expected engagement, they love each other and are supposed to end up together. Although they clearly know that, they are both conflicted by their feelings of obligation to their respective others, Zherry in terms of financial support/sugarmama and his entry into the legitimate Parisian art world, and Lise, we learn, because Henri’s family saved her from the Nazis. You can’t walk out on someone who hid your little Jewish behind from the Nazis!
My favorite scene, I think, is their adorable dance to the song “Liza”, when Jerry tells Lise he’s going to call her Liza when they have their secret meetings by the Seine, so they can pretend to be other people without all the baggage they’re lugging and enjoy carefree moments in each other’s company without worrying about what in means outside their love bubble and also so they could shoehorn some storyline around this particular Gershwin song. I don’t mind the Mamma Mia-ing here, because their dance is so playful and lovely. Jerry moves Lise around their park bench in a mischievous manner, carrying and tossing and lifting her this way and that as she reluctantly-at-first-but-then-wholeheartedly joins in the fun. Robbie really shows off here that he is the reincarnation of Gene Kelly, because not only is he the world’s best dancer, but he can sing too. And to sing well while dancing like that? and lifting a human? And being sooo charming? He is amazing. I’m still glad Michael Cerveris won the Tony for “Fun Home” but can we just throw all kinds of other awards at Robbie so he never leaves musical theatre? Like a Pulitzer or a Nobel or something I don’t care just make sure he stays.
Oh no my real favorite scene is when Jerry gets Lise fired (ish) from her job at the Galeries Lafayette, where I bought two of my favorite shirts that I never wear. He pesters her while she’s working as a salesgirl so obviously she’s the one that gets blamed for the ruckus he causes but it’s okay because of the aforementioned charm. I forget what song it is to because jukebox musical so it doesn’t really matter for the plot and they and all the shoppers do this incredible dance with colorful umbrellas and Jerry glides around the jewelry counters and you’re just like this guy is Gene Kelly hot damn. It’s impossible not to smile like a fool like a FOOL.
Aside from some of the song shoehorning, the weak spots come from giving supporting characters too much to do. It doesn’t really add anything to the story to give Milo her own songs. The purpose of that in any other show would be to flesh out her character and explain her actions, but since this is a jukebox show, and the songs were not written for this character, they don’t do anything for her, so it’s just kind of a waste of time. Same for Adam, who is a beloved character because he’s so nice and is another secret (not so secret?) Jew, but he still could have been edited a bit. Having so much of him being sad starts to give off that icky vibe that oh maybe we are supposed to be rooting for him instead because ‘he’s so nice’ and then you have the whole ‘nice guy’s entitlement’ problem creeping in that shouldn’t in any way be connected to this decent character because we will start to turn on him and no one wants that. That’s a very minor quibble though, because I do like Adam a lot. Most egregiously, though, is what they do with Henri. Haydn is a great actor, and it’s great for him to show off in a big showstopping musical number…but not in this show. His big long dream sequence “I’ll Build a Stairway To Paradise” is by far the most expensive-looking scene in the show, with shiny sets and sparkly showgirl costumes. And it is one of the longest songs (at least it seems it), yet it does nothing for the plot. I still cannot believe it didn’t get cut in previews on Broadway or really previews at the Chatelet in Paris, their pre-Broadway tryout (I love that they did it there). Every Broadway producer says that the rigorous vetting process for each and every musical number ensures that songs that are included in final versions advance the plot, or are necessary for character development. I can’t think of one good reason for this number to still be in the show, except that the casts always have a strong male non-Jerry singer they want to show off. That’s not a good reason.
Luckily, that ridiculousness (sorry Haydn you did a good job at it though) is followed by the most exquisite extended ballet, and one of the best dance scenes I’ve seen (up there with Sutton’s “Anything Goes”). Lise, in her big debut, is dancing and only gets through her performance by imagining Zherry up there with her. They do this surealist-art inspired ballet that from the costumes to the set to the sometimes-jerky-but-still-beautiful-movement looks like a Miro painting. It’s exquisite and weird and you never want it to end. To have this big dramatic moment expressed only through movement (this is the part that uses the AAIP music with that da da da, da da da da da daaaaaa you get it) is something very special and rare to see in musical theatre. I would totally second-act this show every week if that were a thing respectable people could do just to keep watching that scene.
Robbie and Leanne are so perfect together, I can’t imagine anyone else up there (despite the fact that Robbie has an alternate for one show per week, who I’m sure is wonderful, but man alive). They truly are finds, especially Robbie who really is the reincarnation of Gene Kelly. I hope more musicals that feature ballet get made so he and Leanne stay in the theatre for a long time. It was just announced that Robbie is going to be in a concert version of “Brigadoon” in November with two of my all-times, Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale (erma erma erma) (I must go), but I don’t think it’s a very balletic show or role; I hope I’m wrong. I know his character is part of a big dance but like with swords? I think he also dies, spoiler. Anyway, I’m off track as per uzh. AAIP was so beautiful and is really just a great time. If you are in London, you must see it.
THEATRE
The programs are gorgeous (again, see above), but they only sell the large souvenir-style ones that are twice as expensive as the normal ones. They are really big and won’t fit in any bag allowed inside a theatre. :/ But they are cool. But so expensive. but cool.
It’s a really big theatre and seems a lot more modern in terms of facilities than most West End theatres. Like normal sized humans can fit in the seats. As usual there aren’t enough ladies toilets but what can you do besides oh yeah build more.
OH someone front row center was filming so at intermission I told the house manager and like every usher and pointed out the offender. They told her to stop filming. Like, come on people, where is your sense of JUSTICE? KICK. FILMERS. OUT. ON. THEIR. NO. GOOD. BUTTS. I feel like my entire bucket list now is just to see a theatre have the balls to deal with offenders properly, i.e. kicking them out. THAT’S ALL I WANT. that’s not all i want.
STAGE DOOR
They all came out and were super friendly wheeee!!!
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It’s a Mad Mad Mad “Mad House” with Bill Pullman and David Harbour
One of the most infuriating shows I’ve ever seen ends this weekend, so be sure to catch it but take your anti-anxiety pills first! Or just walk open-mouthed first through Goodman Fields; it’s basically a fishbowl!
Theresa Rebeck REALLY knows how to get my blood pressure up! With those annoying English major vibes in ‘Seminar’, those darn stamps in ‘Mauritius’, that insane idea that Katharine McPhee would ever be a serious contender to play Marilyn Monroe in ‘Smash’, boy oh boy is she the master of making me feel like Larry David! In ‘Mad House’, it’s her biggest success yet, at least according to my vitals. And, amazingly, the anxiety I suffered was not just because leading-man-in-movies-I-grew-up-on Bill Pullman is now playing the FATHER of men who are OLDER THAN ME. Time, what is it!
Bill Pullman plays the piece of shite father of David Harbour, a man who I always assumed was about the same age as Bill but I guess ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ was longer ago than I thought. Bill as this father is a really really bad man, so you aren’t too sad that the action is about how he’s dying. He’s ungrateful to his son who is only trying to care for him as he dies, his son who feels things too strongly and has suffered with mental illness and forced treatments in the past for, ostensibly, seeing the world as it really is. Literally David’s entire life is caring for his father, as he has nothing else going on, but his father and siblings just brush him aside for being crazy and worthless and it’s INFURIATING.
As we meet David and Bill (character names here would just confuse you, right), a new home nurse for Bill is arriving. Her name is Lillian, and she is Black, so you know your anxiety is probably going to rise even more because it’s obvious that most of this Pennsylvania family is the reason the commonwealth isn’t safely blue. Lillian is so good, played by Akiya Henry, a necessary relief of a calming presence without getting too close to the (very popular lately especially for therapist characters!) trope of the Black woman magically there to solve the lead white characters’ problems. Her too tragic backstory made her easy to connect with and care for, which this show needed since everyone else makes you want to scream.
That ‘everyone else’ being David’s rich prick of a brother Nedward and his beyond monstrous sister Pam. They show up to determine who gets the big house when Bill dies, and like, they are very obvious about it. Bill knows that’s why they’re there, David knows, everyone knows and these two bellends are just fighting about how to make sure David doesn’t get anything, because he’s crazy (he’s not) (really) and they are so unbelievably greedy and unfeeling that it’s often hard to reconcile them with any semblance of real human beings. They talk openly about how to finagle things so they can get David committed again, like they did before, and my god, the impotent frustration of having other people able to do such things and decide you’re insane to the point that you don’t have agency over your own life or ability to show emotions is SO UNFAIR, the system is really so broken.
David’s deceased mother’s assessment of him – that he’s full of anger because he sees how the world really is – REALLY RESONATED with me, especially as we see more and more that his siblings, mainly his sister, have zero zero zeroooo redeeming qualities. Pam, in particular, has no arc, she is just a straight line that falls off a cliff at the end (in terms of visualizing the line being graphed; she doesn’t actually fall off a cliff, though I would happily eagerly excitedly push her off one). She is honestly the worst human I’ve ever seen depicted onstage. I feel like even Mitch McConnell has more redeeming qualities, which is saying a lot since he is the devil’s stomach cancer. Like he might poke his little turtle head out of his little shit-stained turtle shell and watch this play and be like, ‘fuck this bitch SUCKS’. She really does.
Nedward, the brother, is potentially? maybe? is this true? even worse because he’s a coward who seems to sometimes know the difference between right and wrong and care about that difference (unlike his sister), but he won’t stand up and do anything about it. And isn’t KNOWING BETTER but not ACTING BETTER even though you are ABLE TO the worst of all? Ned is Switzerland (and no, Switzerland wasn’t ‘neutral’ and if you still believe those lies you probably need to take a grown-up history class).
Bill, in the end, thankfully shows tiny little hamster-ball-sized (I just rewatched ‘The Heat’) signs of redemption at the end, unlike his POS daughter, which you’re like ‘thank f-ing GOD’ about because it’s hard to just hate and hate and hate so many people, it’s EXHAUSTING, please VOTE IN NOVEMBER. He was very convincing, and good I guess, but I just cannot accept that we are at the stage in this timeline where BILL PULLMAN is playing the father of a man older than I am. I mean, Bill Pullman. our romcom lovable doof! Sleepless! While You Were Sleeping! His being allergic to everything aged him (no they made him act and look suuuupes older than he actually is (I think/hope) so at least we have that to relieve our anxiety).
I’ve never identified more with a character than with David Harbour’s VERY angry, screamy, frustrated beyond belief with the state of humanity Michael (oh I guess I do remember his character’s name! a miracle), who he portrayed very well mainly by being David Harbour, who is just magnetic on the stage. Everyone thinks he’s insane because he gets loud and angry but he’s usually completely justified! Everyone around him is a piece of shit! His two siblings just want to lock him up so they can sell the house and split the profits in half instead of in thirds. They are literally garbage MONSTER people, so greedy and evil that they will commit someone to a (from the sounds of it, not fun uh TALL!) mental institution where he will continue to be gaslit. Sure he’s not perfect and he could use anger management classes but that’s not the same as needing to be involuntarily COMMITTED because he sees how f-ing horrible his family is! This f-ing sister kept his dying mother from seeing her favorite son one last time just because she was jealous that he was the favorite! OF COURSE SHE LOVED HIM MORE THAN YOU YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT YOU BLOOD-SUCKING MONSTER.
The evilness of the sister was so outrageous – and eventually so without any comeuppance or reprisal or remorse or any consequences or reckoning – that ultimately it was unsatisfying. Just too much frustration. I really actually thought/hoped that Michael might end up killing her. (There’s mention in the beginning of guns; Daniel says he suspects Michael has guns (it IS rural PA after all (also Ned at one point says Pennsylvan-eee-ya which is when I realized the actor wasn’t actually American (also dropped a ‘the’ before saying hospital) so otherwise he did a bang-up job (I think that is British for good), otherwise great accent work))) and Michael denies it, and I thought that that would come back in the end to show he actually DOES have guns, but he doesn’t and it didn’t, because as husband sadly said to me after, ‘the Chekhov play was LAST night.’
INFORMATION
As with most West End theatres, the facilities are a joke, with 3 ladies toilets for the upstairs (unsure of the downstairs sitch, wouldn’t be surprised if this was the only toilet for the whole theatre) and nooo room to stand anywhere on any level. L6, in the last row in house (the only circle) is IN THE AISLE so no one is in front of you and you have a clear runway to the bathroom, it’s just a splendid seat (although the people in the 5 person row with us had clearly only been to the panto before because they acted like this was the muhfucking children’s section – singing along when David sang Danny Boy???? saying “MMM HMMM” when the only black actor on the stage made a good point? total yikes, white boy.)
Also 6 pounds for programs. Y’all need Playbill over here yesterday.
The Light in the Piazza: My Fave Show is SUPES Problematic
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about the debut London production of The Light in the Piazza, which ended its run last weekend AND which was announced by a staffer at Southbank Centre as “The Light in the Pizza will begin in 3 minutes” I kid you not.
The year before I studied abroad in Florence (“in Firenze in Firenze in Firenze in Firenze the painting of the world! it started then and there, and here we are!” if you don’t know all the words to this show you got some work to do), I saw the new Broadway musical The Light in the Piazza, and I was blown away by how gorgeous it was. I screamed and danced in my seat (in my head! not a monster) at the golden age-adjacent score, the poignancy of the emotional beats, and the breakout performance from the person who would become my ATQ (all-time queen), Kelli O’Hara. I loved the show so much I saw it again and I screamed in my seat “YUP DEFINITELY STUDYING IN FIRENZE AND DEFINITELY GONNA FIND FABRIZIO AND BE LIKE SELL TOO MANY TIES FOR ME FABBY!” (but in my head). So when they announced that the show was finally coming to London (only took 14 years) and not only that, but starring RENEE FORKING FLEMING?? Again, screaming in the seat, in my head. If ever I was overexcited for a show, boy howdy was this one it (it’s okay to talk like that because the characters are southern). And if ever I was going to be disappointed…well, dammit.
The problem is, well there are several. Overall, the book is problematic as all get-out, and the perfection of the Broadway production distracted me from noticing OH SHIT THIS IS MR. F GOES TO ITALY. (If you don’t get that joke you should watch “Arrested Development”.) This was also Z’s very first exposure to the show, so being cognizant of that meant I was thinking of how this production of this show worked as a representative for the material, and it wasn’t great. This show is PROBlematic as fuuuuuuck! (Z’s the one that pointed out the Mr. F thing.) (He was pretty much Lindy West for Love Actually about this show.)
So why is this show so cringey? Let’s share the plot. (NB the show is based on a 1960 novella and subsequent 1962 film so we can’t blame book writer Craig Lucas for everything.) The Light in the Piazza takes place in the 1950s, when a well-to-do southern belle named Margaret Johnson takes her daughter Clara to Italy. Clara is carefree and child-like, but looks to be in her 20s – except not in this production, because as played by Dove Cameron (which is a great name for a very Italian show, because it’s like ‘where is Cameron?’), Clara looks 14 AT MOST, which makes everything much worse. Clara meets a young man named Fabrizio (“Fabriiiiiiizioooooo”) and they fall in love and want to get married, even though they literally have had half of one conversation total because Clara does not speak Italian and Fabrizio only speaks THE MOST ADORABLE VERSION OF BROKEN ENGLISH EVER DOCUMENTED IN AN ART. He sings to her about her milky-white skin (“milky-hwite…milky-hwite…” that’s from A League of their Own not this) without knowing the word for ‘skin’ so he keeps saying milk and it’s the best part when done right and so ANYWAY, the kids want to get married even though they just met and don’t know each other and Margaret is like ‘that’s a bad idea, no’ even though Fabby’s family is like ‘This is great idea! Everyone marry now! we eatah the pasta!’ Clara meets Fabrizio’s family which includes his (hilarious) brother and the brother’s wife Franca who is the GODDAMN WORST. Franca is mad at her husband because he cheated on her (which is painted over as not a big deal by everyone but especially by the Italian mother who is like ‘you have no real romance or love if there is no deception and suspicion!’ weird take) so instead of having a conversation with her husband, she flirts with Fabrizio and keeps trying to kiss him, which rightly drives Clara into a fury, and instead of everyone being like Clara is forking right, they make her apologize for getting angry which made ME fly into a fury. And all the meanwhile Franca is this devil whispering bad things into Clara’s ear and it’s very troubling and wrong and Franca sucks.
You’d think a mother not wanting her young dumb daughter to marry literally a STRANGER in a foreign country would be enough of a reason, but this is the 1950s when all you want for a girl is to marry her off so Margaret needs a better, bigger reason to not want to SELL HER DAUGHTER PERMANENTLY TO ITALIANS. And boy howdy, she has one. Margaret keeps hinting and hinting at Clara being not what she seems and this is my favorite part of this experience, because at intermission Z said to me excitedly “I think I know what the secret is! Clara has been lobotomized! It’s like your other favorite show Next to Normal! It’s Next to the Piazza!” Even though Next to the Piazza is the best thing ever and I’m definitely going to write that mashup, I had to warn him that the real reason was not as interesting as that. No, we find out that Clara not only looks 12 but she acts 12 as well for good reason: because at age 12 she was kicked in the head by a pony and stopped developing mentally. She is mentally and cognitively disabled and so her mother, rightly so, doesn’t want to leave her in a foreign country for the rest of her life with strangers who a) don’t know that and b) don’t know how to take care of her.
Oh but she does! They get married! Happy ending! Such romance!
And this brings us to the most annoying parts of this show. For Problem A) HOLY FORKING SHIRT that should be an easy fix: Forking TELL FABRIZIO. This is not a secret you can or should hide! This is supposed to be her husband! What the fork is wrong with you people! Ughhhh. Isn’t this a CRIME?! Like can she legally consent? We need more information on that front and her future husband um DEFINITELY needs more information. And for Problem B), this makes me sad, because in the original production it was made clearer that the bond between Fabrizio and Clara was special, so special that Fabby instinctively knew how to take care of her. It’s shown through all his little actions, but only spoken of once. In this production, that one spoken moment was all we got, so it seemed insufficient. Rob Houchen as Fabrizio was absolutely the high point of this production, but I think the direction failed him in this regard because the whole show should have been constantly showing how perfectly matched they were so that this disturbing story was ameliorated the tiniest bit.
The direction failed in a lot of ways, actually, which made the book problems strikingly obvious instead of something I previously could semi-dismiss. There’s a big climactic scene when Fabrizio’s father announces the wedding is off because he sees Clara’s handwritten form. Margaret thinks it’s because the father thinks her handwriting is too childish (which is not a good reason?), but it’s because he finally saw her age and she’s too old for his son – she’s 26 and he’s 20. (I could have sworn that in the original production she was 29 but whatever.) Margaret’s reaction here was of relief: he didn’t find out our secret! That’s a TERRIBLE reaction – it shouldn’t BE A SECRET IF THEY ARE GETTING MARRIED. She laughs it off in her relief and the audience laughs and it made me angry again because it wasn’t funny and shouldn’t have been brushed aside. On Broadway it was still tense and more sophisticatedly handled; here it was like ‘oh it’s just that you think she’s too old haha! No she is mentally 12 is that better for you?’
Anyway they get married and Margaret reprises the most moving line to me, the title of the show. When Clara sings it first, she’s talking about the light being her love, for Fabrizio. At the end, on Broadway, it was the incandescent Victoria Clark watching her daughter get married and sharing that she, Clara, is her light. And it’s forking heartbreaking and wonderful (even though you are like BUT WAIT A SECOND MARGARET you still handled this situation like a real Mr. F). But here, Renee’s Margaret was like…trying to get Clara to actually look at the actual light in the piazza during the wedding ceremony? It was so awkward and not emotional. I mean I still cried because it’s the BEST SHOW but still.
Renee Forking Fleming (official middle name) may be the best soprano in the world, like literally that’s what the world calls her, but her foray into musical theatre has been less than tops for me. I mean, her track record so far is this and last season’s Carousel on Broadway, which is ALSO INCREDIBLY PROBLEMATIC. And with a classic gorgeous AF score! Why is Renee’s jam doing beautiful musicals with forked up books?? Why can’t her jam be feminist musicals, modern works, or strawberry??!! It’s always a treat to see her live, because yes ‘best soprano in the world’, but she kind of goes into Kermit-mode when she’s not at the Met so maybe it’s best she sticks to operaaa I know I’m literally melting into my desk chair saying this because SACRILEGE but it wasn’t…the…best. The rest of the cast was strong, especially Houchen and Dove Cameron as Clara, but I’m let down by Margaret’s storyline. She ‘s the lead role, Clara is featured. But it seemed like the opposite here, and that’s a directional problem. At least the gorgeous, classic, epic, romantic score still sounded pretty darn great. I love that they gave the score the full orchestra (courtesy of Opera North) it deserved — even though everything sounded a full beat too slow. (Fabrizio’s “Love to Me” was a goddamn dirge. Again, director (plus conductor.))
Regardless of how forked up I realized this show is, I still love it so much and it’s still one of my favorites so what are we even doing here, go listen to the original Broadway cast album and enjoy.
INFORMATION
Even though this production closed last week, I have to discuss how badly the Southbank Centre is managed. First of all, whoever was in charge of pricing this show royally forked up, because it was way too expensive and thus criminally undersold. We bought cheap seats in the balcony boxes (‘cheap’ compared to how much they were gouging for even super rear stalls, which in this enormous barn of a theatre is too far back to pay so much for). Because the show was so undersold, they moved us from the balcony to those overpriced stalls. Win for us! But, they didn’t tell us till we went to go to our seats about 10 minutes before showtime. We had LITERALLY JUST picked up our tickets at the main floor box office, but they didn’t say anything there. Why didn’t they say anything there? But the lady waiting at the door upstairs was the one with the info? SO STUPID. Then, when we went to the stalls, the show started probably 10 minutes late because we noticed at least half the patrons were being turned away and told to exchange their computer print-outs for Southbank-issued tickets downstairs. Everyone was saying that the ticket agency they bought their tickets from (likely discounted) said these print-outs were their tickets! So why didn’t Southbank communicate with the agencies to tell their customers this info?? Infuriating incompetence. But that’s all on management; the actual staffers working the doors here were incredible (and just the messengers). Southbank needs to get its shit together! And more importantly, it needs to fire or not work with whoever priced this show – it was the final weekend and I don’t even think the mezzanine was open. Regardless of how fucked up the book is (SEE ABOVE), that’s a huge shame for such a big gorgeous show and for this cast and orchestra. FOR SHAME! SHAAAAAME.
