Thoughts on: Murder Ballad, Off-Broadwayby Randi / August 28, 2013
The Barrow Street Theatre’s production of Buyer & Cellar, starring the adorable and talented Michael Urie, honestly had me laughing harder than I did at The Book of Mormon (possibly (definitely) because I already had the BoM score memorized by the time I saw it so I knew all the jokes, but whatever). What a wonderful, low-key gem of a show, with a most impressive star.
I knew beforehand that the show was about a man working as the sole employee in Barbra Streisand’s basement mall, underneath her much-publicized Malibu mansion. Yes, that part is true – BS wrote a design book a few years back chronicling the building of her dream house, which does indeed have a shopping mall in the basement, holding all of BS’s memorabilia in various shoppes. (We know they are ‘shoppes’ and not ‘shops’ because Urie’s character adorably pronounces them ‘shopp-ees’ and jokes that one of the ‘shopp-ees’ is probably a purveyor of excess p’s and e’s.)
What I didn’t know was that this simple, cute concept could be taken to such entertaining heights in this pleasant little show.
I knew beforehand that the show was about a man working as the sole employee in Barbra Streisand’s basement mall, underneath her much-publicized Malibu mansion. Yes, that part is true – BS wrote a design book a few years back chronicling the building of her dream house, which does indeed have a shopping mall in the basement, holding all of BS’s memorabilia in various shoppes. (We know they are ‘shoppes’ and not ‘shops’ because Urie’s character adorably pronounces them ‘shopp-ees’ and jokes that one of the ‘shopp-ees’ is probably a purveyor of excess p’s and e’s.)
What I didn’t know was that this simple, cute concept could be taken to such entertaining heights in this pleasant little show.
Buyer & Cellar is the fictional tale of the employee tasked to work long days in this basement mall/shrine. The character, Alex, waits and waits for his one potential customer – of course, Babs herself – whose only potential purchases are, of course, her own possessions. This premise works because the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing – that Barbra would have a private basement mall housing all of her memorabilia – is actually the true part! The rest kind of fills itself in naturally: If the mall already exists, why wouldn’t someone work down there? Why wouldn’t a woman who is enough of a character to build this thing and write a book about it also hire someone to treat her like any strange customer in any regular mall and try to sell her things?
Jonathan Tolins’ laugh-out-loud script could probably stand on its own with any number of talented actors in the one-man role, but Michael Urie clearly was born to knock it out of the park. As Alex More, Urie projects a sincere warmth and goodness through his often snarky reminiscences of his encounters with his diva employer. I liked Urie fine on Ugly Betty, recognizing his comedic talents as one must when you watch him, but I wasn’t a huge fan. (Maybe because he was so mean to Betty! And to that boyfriend I liked! The really nice but shlubby one! I loved him.) Aaanyway, that character might have colored my perception of Urie, but man alive if I don’t love him now.
In an endearing preface, Urie as himself discusses Barbra’s actual 2010 design book with the audience to familiarize us. The facts about the book are hilarious. Barbra’s writing, for instance, assumes that the reader knows that Winterthur, the inspiration for the basement mall, is a decorative arts and antiques museum in Delaware. Sure sure.
Urie also explains that he doesn’t do an impersonation of Barbra when he acts out her side of dialogue. However, the little aspects of Barbra’s demeanor that he does evoke are so effective that by the middle you are sold on this choice. The slumped shoulders, the seemingly endless and loose fingers, it works.
One-person shows require truly great writing and acting to succeed at all. Often the most telling test for a show that features encounters between various characters is when the audience forgets that all of these characters are only played by one person. Buyer & Cellar absolutely passes this test: Urie really made me feel the presence of several people up on that tiny stage. At times, I was seized with concern for Barbra, wanting to yell to her that Alex probably meant to say more or less or that she could eat as much froyo as she wanted. And then I’d realize, not only is this fiction, but there is no actress up there even playing Barbra. Equally compelling were Alex’s memories of encounters with his boyfriend Barry, who in the beginning was more excited about Alex’s job working for perhaps the greatest gay icon, but as time progressed turned quickly against Babs, partly from the jealousy of Alex’s developing a relationship that he could have no part of, partly from that omnipresent glee we plebeians derive from hating on celebrities whose privilege we mock with derision yet of course envy. (I think 80% of all internet comments exemplify the latter.) That Alex, Barry, Barbra, Babs’s chief of staff, James Brolin hilariously, and even a French bubble-blowing automaton named Fifi all seemed to share the stage equally and fully is a testament to Urie’s talents.
The audience, clearly full of Barbra fans, was completely won over. The show mocks Barbra while somehow remaining kindhearted. It vilifies her well-known insecurities as superficial interview fodder yet conveys her vulnerability. And still it remains a light, delicious, and hilarious hour and a half that I whole-heartedly recommend experiencing. The producers recently, wisely, decided to extend its limited run indefinitely. My only regret was not waiting afterward to get a pictures with Urie, but I feared in my newfound fangirl state I would start “shopping for throw pillows” on him as Barbra once did. You just must see it!
Jonathan Tolins’ laugh-out-loud script could probably stand on its own with any number of talented actors in the one-man role, but Michael Urie clearly was born to knock it out of the park. As Alex More, Urie projects a sincere warmth and goodness through his often snarky reminiscences of his encounters with his diva employer. I liked Urie fine on Ugly Betty, recognizing his comedic talents as one must when you watch him, but I wasn’t a huge fan. (Maybe because he was so mean to Betty! And to that boyfriend I liked! The really nice but shlubby one! I loved him.) Aaanyway, that character might have colored my perception of Urie, but man alive if I don’t love him now.
In an endearing preface, Urie as himself discusses Barbra’s actual 2010 design book with the audience to familiarize us. The facts about the book are hilarious. Barbra’s writing, for instance, assumes that the reader knows that Winterthur, the inspiration for the basement mall, is a decorative arts and antiques museum in Delaware. Sure sure.
Urie also explains that he doesn’t do an impersonation of Barbra when he acts out her side of dialogue. However, the little aspects of Barbra’s demeanor that he does evoke are so effective that by the middle you are sold on this choice. The slumped shoulders, the seemingly endless and loose fingers, it works.
One-person shows require truly great writing and acting to succeed at all. Often the most telling test for a show that features encounters between various characters is when the audience forgets that all of these characters are only played by one person. Buyer & Cellar absolutely passes this test: Urie really made me feel the presence of several people up on that tiny stage. At times, I was seized with concern for Barbra, wanting to yell to her that Alex probably meant to say more or less or that she could eat as much froyo as she wanted. And then I’d realize, not only is this fiction, but there is no actress up there even playing Barbra. Equally compelling were Alex’s memories of encounters with his boyfriend Barry, who in the beginning was more excited about Alex’s job working for perhaps the greatest gay icon, but as time progressed turned quickly against Babs, partly from the jealousy of Alex’s developing a relationship that he could have no part of, partly from that omnipresent glee we plebeians derive from hating on celebrities whose privilege we mock with derision yet of course envy. (I think 80% of all internet comments exemplify the latter.) That Alex, Barry, Barbra, Babs’s chief of staff, James Brolin hilariously, and even a French bubble-blowing automaton named Fifi all seemed to share the stage equally and fully is a testament to Urie’s talents.
The audience, clearly full of Barbra fans, was completely won over. The show mocks Barbra while somehow remaining kindhearted. It vilifies her well-known insecurities as superficial interview fodder yet conveys her vulnerability. And still it remains a light, delicious, and hilarious hour and a half that I whole-heartedly recommend experiencing. The producers recently, wisely, decided to extend its limited run indefinitely. My only regret was not waiting afterward to get a pictures with Urie, but I feared in my newfound fangirl state I would start “shopping for throw pillows” on him as Barbra once did. You just must see it!
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London’s “42nd Street”: Come and Meet Those Dancing Feet and the Appalling Sexists Attached to Said Feet…And Peggy
Hey remember how my last few reviews have covered really stellar shows and I mentioned that it’s much more fun to write about not-so-stellar shows? Wheee!
A few days ago, I saw the revival of “42nd Street” on the West End. P.S., I still don’t know if it’s ‘on’ the West End or ‘in’ the West End, and this is an example of the type of thing I was distractedly thinking about during this positively ludicrous musical. At several moments during the show, I was struck by the thought that Jane the Virgin’s season 2 feminist killjoy of a thesis advisor would have stopped the show and JUMPED onto the stage to stop the atrocities of sexism from continuing. Every few minutes I could see Professor Donaldson shaking her head, then dropping her jaw, and then refusing to be a party to it any longer and marching onstage to shout “NO NO NO!!” And sure I have an overactive confrontation-imagination but I was as livid as the professor was. Enraged by both the rampant sexism in the show and the fellow audience members on their phones, confused by the lack of plot and the fellow audience members who wouldn’t stop talking, I tried to calm myself down by thinking over and over “this show is from almost 100 years ago, it’s okay, it was a product of its time, everyone knows that this sexist crap wouldn’t fly today, at least the dancing is great.” But it didn’t work because I think the majority of people (helloooo Trump voters) don’t actually know that misogyny belongs in the bygone era, and what was being presented onstage was very problematic to be tapping our feet along to.
Okay, so the musical is only from 1980, but it’s based on a 1933 movie about the time right after the Depression, so I was effectively right and there is cause for concern as to why the production team in 1980 thought this story was okay as is. The story from the movie is pretty much the same as the show, as is the music: the film score by the composing team of Dubin and Warren was used in the musical, along with a few of their songs from other works. I’m sure it’s pretty clear that I didn’t know much about this show going in, other than that it was a classic, super old (not that old but still) musical with tap dancing about a theatre company putting on a musical. Despite not knowing too much about the story, I knew a few famous songs going in that I was excited to hear – “I Only Have Eyes for You”, “We’re in the Money”, and especially “Lullaby of Broadway” – and one famous song that isn’t actually in the show but I could have sworn was – “Too Darn Hot”. It’s really from “Kiss Me Kate” which I KNEW but Christine Ebersole sang it in concert once and I really thought she intro’ed it by saying this was from the show she won a Tony for and it sure as hell wasn’t in “Grey Gardens” so I kept thinking it would be in the show but then it was curtain call and I was like ohhhh riiiight.
Another thing I didn’t know? That Sheena Easton was the star! I usually know if there’s anyone famous in the show I’m about to see but for this I literally sat down in my seat, opened the programme that I just bought that wouldn’t fit in my purse because it’s one of those unnecessarily giant ones, and then said ‘Oh…what.” Sheena Easton is a pretty famous recording artist from the ‘80s and ‘90s who won some Grammy awards and sang one of the Bond themes, “For Your Eyes Only”, which I can’t remember but I can tell you is better than the Bond theme that won an Oscar last year because everything is. I knew her because of her song with Kenny Rogers “We’ve Got Tonight” (who needs tomorrowwww) (you should watch a 1983 concert performance of that song pretty much JUST FOR HER INSANE OUTFIT WHAT IS SHE WEARING) and because I have a foggy memory of Danny Tanner mentioning her on “Full House”.
I know I said ‘lack of plot’ before but the show is of course roughly ‘about’ something. It starts absolutely stunningly, which is almost worse because my high hopes for finally seeing this show performed were lifted even higher and I was like whoaaa ahhhhhhhhh and then it all came crashing down. But not yet! The heavy red velvet curtain slowly rose to reveal 50 pairs of feet tap-a-tap-a-tapping like their lives depended on it, and as it continued going up we see oh yes their lives do indeed depend on it – it’s an audition. The dozens and dozens of gorgeous dancers flail about in perfect unison as a musical director shouts stuff and demos stuff and they just keep going and it was glorious!! I really love watching incredible dancing, and this show had tons of it. This classic opening is one of the good bits. So the music and dance directors pick their chorus girls and boys and the audition is over but then eeeeee! in storms a little spitfire of a dancer named Peggy Sawyer (Clare Halse) who is late and dressed like a lavender sailor but still wants to try out. She tells everyone she just got off the train from Allentown, Pennsylvania, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t that far, dear, you were one state away. The musical director, having just seen 50 great dancers, has no need for her, but the young male star of the show, Billy Lawlor (Stuart Neal), is like ‘Oh hey you are a non-ugly non-old female person I am going to touch you inappropriately and not let go of your arm as I flirt obnoxiously with you and tell you how we are going to end up just swell lovers so I will help you get their attention and audition even though there’s no reason to allow this to happen.’ So Billy and Peggy sing a song in front of everyone about how they are young and healthy so they might as well hook up I’m not joking, but like I said the show was cast and the dance director tells Peggy to ‘amscray, toots!’ which is clearly another of the good bits, and she runs off and barrels right into Julian Marsh, the hot-shot big-time director (Tom Lister), who is like whoooo is this football player tackling me but hey I kind of liked it. He really says that, it is gross. Peggy is mortified as she should be and runs out, forgetting her purse. What a lucky coincidence because of course she has to come back for her purse later! What mature story-telling devices! So Peggy comes back another day, but she is wearing the same lavender sailor suit and by now I just feel bad for the girl. She wears it most of the show, btw. But it has to be another day because everyone is there for a legit rehearsal, and rehearsals never start immediately after auditions that would be crazy. But so is this outfit. Anyway, songwriter Maggie Jones (Jasna Ivir) and a few of the more prominent chorus girls invite Peggy to eat lunch with them, where they don’t actually eat but have a DANCE OFF. This is another very sophisticated way to let the story tell us that Peggy is the best dancer of the lot, it is not forced at all no sir. So this scene is ridonkulous as a book scene, but it is amazing as a dance scene because Clare Halse really is the best tap dancer like ever. It might have a lot to do with the very difficult things they were making her do but her dance-off tapping ranks up there with “Shuffle Along” in terms of how worried I was that dancers’ legs were going to fall off.
In YET ANOTHER oh so clever and not at all eye-rolly twist, the show is suddenly short a girl so the curbside dance-off in the middle of Times Square pays off because Julian the director sees Peggy and is like ‘you’ll do!’ It’s not clear, though, whether they really are short a girl or whether Julian is just a gross old man who likes what he sees. Well no, the latter is very clear, it’s just a question of whether the former is true also. It doesn’t matter thought because all of a sudden Sailor Moon is in a new musical’s cast because she was late, assaulted the director, absentmindedly left behind her belongings, and then danced like nobody was watching when the director was watching. Well I’m inspired. By the way Julian refers to her sometimes as ‘Allentown’ which is cute once and then very annoying the rest of the time.
The show that Peggy is now in is a big new risky expensive musical called “Pretty Lady”, starring the legendary Dorothy Brock (Easton), who is a difficult and stubborn diva who refuses to do things like sing for the creatives when she doesn’t feel like it. Although she is talented, Brock is not a dancer, so they have the ensemble just dance around her while she sings. The team needed to hire her because she brings the financial backing – her old rich southern sugar daddy is putting up the money to produce the show. Why a woman of such renown and seemingly money of her own would spend time with a man purely for his money is unclear, but it is presented as ordinary in the show because women are terrible and do dumb things. Brock has a boyfriend, Pat Denning (Norman Bowman), who sneaks around to see her, but Julian Marsh, the director, doesn’t want him distracting his leading lady or complicating things with old moneybags so he hires ‘goons’ to beat him up. Totally normal. Oh it’s important to note here that I started to get the sense we were supposed to see Julian Marsh as a romantic leading man. I mean. No. But then every interaction with Peggy confirmed this, because he flirted with her a lot yet was cruel and a textbook abuser. It was very strange. We will return to this later.
The show leaves for its out-of-town pre-Broadway tryout, which is moved from Atlantic City to Philadelphia for reasons I don’t remember because I was too busy shouting ‘woooooo Phillayyyyy!’ At a party one night, Peggy overhears Julian ordering the goons to come again to teach a lesson to Pat Denning, who won’t leave the woman he loves alone. Peggy rushes to warn Pat that his life is in danger, but she is interrupted by that intolerable Billy Lawlor, who is not her boyfriend or even her friend, but still feels that he is entitled to control Peggy because he is a man. He asked her hey pretty lady where you off to, and she is frantically like ‘I have to warn a friend his life is in danger!’ or something and Billy chooses the wrong thing to focus on and says, ‘what…a male friend?’ and walks away dejected and it took all my might not to yell down to the stage ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT. This little prick has seriously had one previous conversation with Peggy and he’s mad at her for trying to save someone’s life? Fragile white masculinity is THE WORST. This is the type of man who punches a woman on the dance floor after she politely turns down his invitation to dance. (This happens often by the way. Men are A MESS and I blame ‘30s-era musical comedy for a lot of it no I’m just joking obviously but all this kind of crap presented as normal makes it normal!)
Luckily, Peggy reaches Pat and Dorothy in time, but the inane misogyny is far from over. When Peggy rushes into their private room to warn Pat, Dorothy immediately assumes that they are having an affair. I MEAN. I know things were different in the ‘30s but were men and women just not allowed to speak to each other unless they were a couple? My goodness. Then Dorothy goes down the party all upset and decides this is the perfect moment to tell her southern sugar daddy that it’s over and that she doesn’t love him at all, and he of course threatens to pull his money from the show. The creatives are terrified, so to distract him from ruining their show, they throw chorus girls at him. One prominent girl, Annie, had to flaunt her boobs like 10 different times in the show, and four times in this party scene alone to distract and calm down various old men. It was very bad. But it worked because he left his money in the show. And then he got together with the songwriter Jones, which was expected because she was overweight and these types of ‘comedies’ always throw the few non-perfect non-young bodies together.
Okay so this is all act one, and I know it seems like a lot of plot even though I said there was no plot. It is not a lot of plot though. I am devoting many, many more words to all the action I just described than the actual show’s book does. All of what I just described takes maybe five minutes to work out onstage. The show is mostly big dance numbers from the show within the show and I don’t get how this is a show or how I could say show more times in one sentence. It is 99% the ensemble practicing the musical numbers in “Pretty Lady”. Seriously. It’s dance scene after dance scene, all taken from this new musical “Pretty Lady” that also has no plot and even less of a story, so it seems from what we see, and the drama going on with the cast happens very briefly around these big dance numbers. I’ve never seen a show with more big dance numbers. Every one of them pretended to be the showstopper, but then another one was right behind it. And they were all wonderful. Even though I am harping on the story here and will continue to do so because it is abominable and gets worse, the dancing and the performances were all incredible. But, there’s a reason no other show has as many showstopping dance-heavy musical numbers – when they have nothing to do with the plot, it gets boring. It’s like being at an advanced tap recital and yes they are all insanely amazing but the dances have nothing to do with anything and nothing to do with the other dances we’re seeing. It’s just a mess of great dancing but just like too much of anything it starts to get intolerable. I had a bad headache.
In one of the early big dance numbers, Billy sings a song called “Dames”. It’s about how as long as there are beautiful dames around, nothing else matters. This is a very meta song, telling the audience just to enjoy the beautiful girls dancing all around the whole time and not to worry about the very thin book and very offensive dialogue. I felt like Billy was singing to me being like ‘stop complaining said the farmer who told you a calf to be just enjoy yourself!’ You might think I’m overreacting but look at these lyrics:
Who writes the words and music
For all the girly shows?
No one cares and no one knows.
Who is the handsome hero
Some villain always frames?
But who cares if there’s a plot or not
When they’ve got a lot of dames!
What do you go for
Go see a show for?
Tell the truth
You go to see those beautiful dames!
My god. I mean they are flat out telling us that this whole show is really just an excuse to stare at pretty women. They have no remorse.
Just when you thought that was enough, “Dames” ends and the cast has to rehearse the next song in “Pretty Lady” called “Keep Young and Beautiful”. YOU HEARD RIGHT. It’s an ensemble number with all the girls dressed in skin colored, very bare, lingerie-like costumes and they are told to KEEP YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL. Lyrics from this winner:
Keep young and beautiful
It’s your duty to be beautiful
Keep young and beautiful
If you want to be loved.
If you’re wise, exercise all the fat off
Take it off, off of here, off of there…
Take care of all those charms
And you’ll always be in someone’s arms.
Keep young and beautiful
If you want to be loved.
F-ING CHRIST ON A CRACKER. I thought I was being pranked and not the good too much tuna kind of pranking. This is a new level of sexist nonsense in theatre to me, on par with if not surpassing “Funny Girl”.
Throughout these musical numbers, Peggy trips and falls and bumps into people at every turn. I don’t understand. She is supposed to be the best dancer they’ve ever seen, and according to folklore the audience is supposed to be rooting for her success the entire show. Um. She kept falling, though? Why would I want someone to become a big Broadway star if she fell into everyone every time she danced? That kind of nonsense is not covered by insurance. It’s very confusing, because Peggy is an amazing dancer – amazing. I was really stunned at how talented Clare Halse was. But how can you reconcile Peggy being the best dancer ever with her falling all over the place when she dances?! Is it just to continue the trend of women in this show being flighty and/or incompetent? All it does is show her to be unqualified to perform live, and I would have fired her after she bumped into her fellow performers the first time. Then, at the big first preview finale in Philly (the song “42nd Street” and our real Act I finale), Peggy knocks Dorothy Brock over and breaks her ankle. True, someone else knocked into Peggy, but she still was flying all over all the time. Peggy FINALLY gets fired, and we’re supposed to be upset for her because we’re supposed to be rooting for her, but why would we be rooting for someone who can’t dance without bumping into people? Ahhh!
Then in Act II, when they think they have to close the show because they don’t have a star (why Brock can’t still sing while doing the same stand-and-deliver planted method she was doing before, I don’t understand), the chorus girls convince Julian that Peggy could be the star. Peggy who he just fired. Julian, who is a very unkind, frightening man, IMMEDIATELY believes them that the mess of a dancer he just fired could certainly be his star, so he runs to the train station to stop her from going back to Allentown. They say Allentown SO many times. To continue the trend of nonsensical things happening, Peggy doesn’t WANT to go back to the show and doesn’t WANT to be the star. It is yet again hard to root for someone to become a big star when she doesn’t jump for joy at this invitation. So Julian, freshly convinced that she’s the best there is even though he has never heard her sing or act, has to persuade Peggy to come back. And he does this by singing one of the most beloved songs from early musicals, “Lullaby of Broadway”. The fact that this delightful song that is forever linked to the great Jerry Orbach is used in this show at this absurd scene makes me very upset. Why would this prominent director need to use everything’s he got to convince a chorus girl who ostensibly wanted to be a star to in fact be a star, I do not understand. Also, in this context and given how creepy Julian is, a lot of the lyrics became creepy. He calls her baby a lot and clearly thinks exactly like Billy Lawlor about her except worse because he is in a position of power over her. At least Tom Lister has a very strong voice and sounded great.
The rest of Act II features more big dance numbers that have nothing to do with anything, and Peggy trying to learn the entire show in 48 hours, because Julian, professional abusive man, decides to open cold in two days and cancel out-of-town tryouts AND previews FOR NO GOOD REASON. Ugh this man is the devil. We get a big dance scene from “Pretty Lady”, and then a glimpse of Julian forcing Peggy to insanity in nonstop rehearsal. Then we get another big dance from “Pretty Lady”, and then we see Julian hurting Peggy’s arms and not letting her rest or eat or sleep or stop dancing until the curtain rises on opening night. See that’s not the best way to get a great performance out of someone. She breaks down from exhaustion and stress, and Julian gives her an energy boost by KISSING HER. I really almost screamed ‘this is harassment at the very leeeeassssstttt he should be in jaaaaaiiiiillll.’ But because this was written by dirty old men, Peggy gets a new wave of energy and is just an adorable ball of joy again because she liked it, of course she did, he’s a powerful man and why wouldn’t she! UGHASDJF;ALKWEJ FAW.
One of the random dances we see from “Pretty Lady” is the song “We’re in the Money”. I bet you can’t guess how it is staged. So four orphan children (four dancers dressed up in sooty faces and clothing from ‘Annie’) are playing under a bridge and they find a dime in a grate! And then they sing ‘We’re in the Money’. I can’t make this shit up it was INSANE. After the orphans sing a verse, the rest of the enormous ensemble comes out dressed in shiny gold costumes dancing with GIANT DIMES and the set changes to a gilded one and the dancers hoist their giant dimes into the light and then they put them down and dance atop them and if you listen closely you will hear the sound of a girl who thinks she is going crazy whispering ‘just like what is happeninggggg’.
Then there is more abuse of Peggy from Julian but as long as he kisses her she is revived! It’s not abuse if he really likes you!
Then. Oh then. We finally see the full version of their big “Pretty Lady” finale, the song “42nd Street”, that was cut short before when Dorothy was injured. The song is atrociously rhymed and I was audibly groaning every time the chorus sang “Naughty, bawdy, gawdy, sporty, forty-second streeeet.” SPORTY!!!! WHAT! Thank god this is in England so the words kind of rhyme but what on earth did they do in New York with this song? Holy cow. Peggy and Billy dance in the grungy, dark, twisted Times Square, in a much more adult and serious style than all the other dancing. Various players fill the stage, including a man who looks like a mime, wearing red gloves. But oh no, it’s not a mime, it’s a mugger! Well maybe he is a mime and a mugger but anyway he steals a lady’s purse and two cops shoot him dead. While Peggy and Billy are dancing. As your jaw drops open and you wonder um HOW did “Pretty Lady” go from repeated drivel about how great attractive young girls are to a gritty scene in Times Square where SOMEONE GETS SHOT, the cops drag the mugger’s body offstage and Peggy and Billy begin to dance again. WHAT THE HELL IS PRETTY LADY ABOUT?!!??!!!
Well, we have to just guess, because that’s pretty much how “Pretty Lady” ends, and “42nd Street” ends shortly thereafter, when opening night ends and Peggy is a huge star who has a huge crush on her abusive director. I just. I’m very tired. Julian is a textbook abuser and it is revolting that he is considered a romantic part and that the whole Marsh/Peggy dynamic is a classic one in the musical theatre canon. Blechhh. I wish it ended with her punching him and being like now that I’m a star I’m going to make sure you never work in this town again. I need to do a revival that is really a rewrite but the estates would never sign off on it. Maybe it would be excused as fair use because it would really be a social commentary on the original. Hmm.
Anyway, you might be wondering why Sheena Easton is considered the star but all I really talked about was Peggy. Well, aside from singing a few songs (and Sheena did a fantastic job), Dorothy isn’t in it that much. She only has one short scene in ALL of Act II! But Dorothy Brock is considered the leading role and Peggy the featured, and Christine Ebersole won the Tony for Leading Actress for playing Brock. BUT THIS MAKES NO SENSE. The show is all about Peggy, and she is in it 10 times as much as Brock is! and 20 times as much as Julian is! Yet Dorothy and Julian get the final bow at curtain call! Whyyyyy oh this makes me so angry!
So I obviously have a few strong feelings about this drivel and you probably think that this was the most I’ve ever hated a show. But while I hate the story and the character interactions and everything it says about women, it was still a very enjoyable production because the performances and the dancing are so wonderful. If you plug your ears while characters talk and during a few garbage songs, and you just watch the dancing and listen to the singing, it’s a decent time at the theatre. It’s the pesky story and characters and yeah everything it says about women that foul it all up. So don’t think of it as a show. Try to convince yourself that it’s a cabaret performance, all unconnected dances and songs just for their own sake, and not telling any larger story, and then it is enjoyable. I mean it’s not telling any story anyway, really. Ugh what a shitshow.
HI HOW PROUD ARE YOU OF ME FOR NOT SAYING ‘AND PEGGY’ THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE THING
A German Life at the Bridge Theatre: Maggie Smith is a Treasure; This Show is Not
It’s Theatre Thursday! A German Life is playing at London’s Bridge Theatre until May 11.
First of all, let me be clear that Maggie Smith is one of a handful of global treasures (pronounced tray-sure, like fellow old-lady-treasure Emily Gilmore). If she wanted to be an honorary Golden Girl I’d allow it. She’s the best. I love her. I wish her decades more of life and health and work.
A German Life is one of the most painful theatrical events I’ve ever had the non-playsure of experiencing. And not in a good ‘oh that was dramatic and heavy in a necessary way’ kind of painful. I mean it was torture. It was almost two hours straight of wondering in agony whether Maggie Smith was losing her short-term memory and forgetting lines (the thought of which was heartbreaking), or whether this was a purposeful choice for her character. Either way, it was painful to watch. It was hundo p when you visit an older person in a nursing home and you listen to their rambling stories and how it takes them a year to get out one sentence, and once they get the sentence out, they repeat it three times so they can figure out where they wanted to go from there and you’re just like OH MY GOD SPIT IT OUT but you can’t because that’s a horrible thing to think and say (when you aren’t talking to a Nazi).
And yes, all this means that Maggie was entirely successful in her portrayal (it had to be an acting decision, right, because Maggie Smith is still IN HER PRIME) of a 105-year-old woman. I mean, it’s incredible that a 105-year-old woman managed to communicate all that she did. But realism and accuracy in the portrayal doesn’t automatically make for good theatre.
What also doesn’t make for good theatre is that the show gets its message across in about 10 minutes, and the rest of the time is just playing that same one note for longer. And the message…isn’t enough. In A German Life, Maggie plays Brunhilde Pomsel, former secretary to Joseph Goebbels during WWII. The real Pomsel broke her silence at age 105 when she spoke to a group of filmmakers about her life. This play, by Christopher Hampton, is based on that. Maggie sits in a chair as Brunhilde and talks to us about her life like we are filming her for the documentary. The significance of her testimony is that she was a Nazi, who worked in Goebbels’ propaganda wing, who doesn’t think she did anything wrong. In her recounting of wartime, she spends more time explaining her favorite suit she got from Mrs. Goebbels than sharing anything she knew about what was happening in the war. It’s an effective portrait of willful ignorance, I’ll give it that. We spend this time with a self-involved person who hasn’t learned any lesson still, and so we are supposed to reflect on what makes someone ignore such atrocity, and what we would have done differently, if anything.
What bothers me about this show is how frustrated I am that the subtle messaging is not going to reach some people. Instead of thinking how horrifying it is that this woman still doesn’t get it, still thinks she was a victim for what she faced post-war, some people are going to go ‘hmm that really makes you think, there could be very fine people on both sides.’ I’m all for subtle theatre, but our audience needed to be told more clearly that Nazis were bad. I’m not joking. As usual, this show was a prime example of the disturbing humor of London audiences. Without fail, whenever there’s a soul-shocking line that would make normal humans breathe in sharply or widen their eyes or gasp, we’re with an audience that laughs. The most alarming example in my experience previously was when, in Caroline, or Change, Caroline told the young Jewish boy in her care that his people go to hell. It’s a big gasp moment. OUR AUDIENCE LAUGHED. And not in a nervous laughter way that some people on Broadway did; this was in a ‘oh that’s funny because making fun of Jews is funny’ way. Well, the Bridge audience at A German Life matched that distress by laughing every single time Maggie’s character made fun of Jews, especially their appearance, their penny-pinching ways, and especially when she motioned slightly at her nose to comment about Jews’ big noses. The audience roared. This is why anti-Semitism is back; it’s by popular demand.
And that’s why this show didn’t work for me and mostly frustrates me. It’s extremely subtle in its message, because all we get is her story and her words. It only works for people who know that the Nazis were bad and that anti-Semitism was, is, wrong. So, today, when more and more people don’t realize that anti-Semitism is wrong, they laugh along with Brunhilde like it’s their granny and then come away thinking ‘maybe not all Nazis were bad! She seemed fine!’ It’s ridiculous that I have to say this, today, but apparently we as a society haven’t reached the point where subtlety in anti-Nazi messaging makes any headway. I know some of you are like ‘you’re assuming all of that just because people laughed at the wrong things?’ No, I’m assuming all of that because of the conversations I have had every single day since 2016 about what is or is not anti-Semitic, and how often I’ve been told that just because something is anti-Semitic doesn’t mean it’s bad. When we still have people who are like ‘eh but Jews’, a restrained portrait of a non-actively-evil Nazi isn’t going to get through to anyone who needs it.
INFORMATION
I’ve previously raved about the human-friendly, modern design of the Bridge, but that was when I sat in the stalls. Sitting in the weird nether-region of the Gallery 1, which is really just more stalls at the back walls of the theatre, separated from the regular stalls by a half-step and a banister. It felt much more cramped than the regular stalls and at a weird side angle. Definitely won’t be sitting there again.
Infuriatingly, the show started 10 minutes late, in order to seat all latecomers. This is because this show has a policy of no admission or readmission once the show begins – but they also publicized the policy of ‘no latecomers allowed in’. Get your story straight! Don’t hold the curtain for people who are 10 minutes late, man alive.
