Emilia: A Powerful, Relevant Take on History and Todayby Randi / April 18, 2019I saw Pretty Woman: The Musical So You Don’t Have To
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Pretty Woman: The Musical, which is playing on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre.
You know how sometimes things are so bad and you wish a) that you could go back in time and Not Do Them and b) if you can’t go back in time at least Not Think About Them for maybe hey just a minute out of your day but instead you are constantly plagued by the harrowing memories that pop up at the most random times like when you are working or in the middle of the night you’ll just wake up and be like FORK ME THAT WAS BAD? Pretty Woman: The Musical is currently playing on Broadway. It opened what seems like an eternity ago but it is still the current season, and with Broadway’s award season officially begun, it’s time to talk about the show (because none of the nominators will heyooooo!). To quote another beloved movie the musical version of which would probably never live up to how great the movie is, gird your loins.
I understand the desire to capitalize on a known property, since having such a built-in fan base and incredible brand recognition makes it seem like a slam-dunk. But with those fans and that recognition comes, in this case, a movie that is so adored that the unavoidable comparisons between the two will always favor the first. With a movie as beloved as Pretty Woman, the odds of making a musical version that’s better – or even equally good – were (to quote another perfect beloved movie with a new, beyond disappointing musical adaptation) mmm slim to none.
Musicals like Mean Girls (I can’t believe I’m about to praise Mean Girls) took that likelihood and improved their odds by keeping a few aspects of the original that fans would expect (“She doesn’t even go here!”) but adding a ton of great new things (still laughing about “Je m’appelle Sasha Fierce”). Thanks to Tina Fey, the Mean Girls musical book is chock full of hilarious lines that are maybe even funnier than the movie’s. Though the musical isn’t great, it’s still enjoyable in its own right because of its updated book (and a smattering of good songs). There’s no way an adaptation can succeed without giving a strong reason for its existence by offering new, quality features.
There’s a line between these two needs, the need to give fans what they love about the original while offering something new and worthy that validates the musical’s existence. But? Guys? It’s not exactly a thin line. It’s pretty easy to land somewhere in the broad Venn diagram section of a finished product that includes two kinds of material: new and old. Yet despite having wide margins, the team over at Pretty Woman landed squarely outside the success zone – because they added nothing new. Well yes there are songs now – songs that sound like Bryan Adams rejects from the early ‘90s (and with Bryan Adams and his songwriting partner Jim Vallance responsible for the score, that makes sense (although you’d think a successful songwriting duo would have come up with at least one decent song here (which makes me think these literally were songs they wrote decades ago and were told weren’t good enough for radio play))). But the score does absolutely zilch to tell the story. Some of the songs had me scratching my head as to how someone thought that was appropriate for this character at this moment.
But the real problem is the book. They are literally regurgitating the movie word for word. My sister-in-law and I love the movie, and like any god-fearing American citizen we know most of it by heart. But if you also know the movie well enough to recognize all the lines, then you already know every line in the stage version. It’s literally a word-for-word retread of the script, and that’s its biggest flaw. How can you prove you deserve to exist, little musical, if you copy the movie and don’t offer anything in return? Even all of Vivian’s COSTUMES are the same – the iconic white suit and black hat (complete with the ‘big mistake, big, huge’ moment said verbatim), the iconic red gown worn to the opera (complete with Edward closing the jewelry box on Vivian’s hands all done verbatim). (One of the things I keep thinking about is why, amid all these copied costumes, they changed the color of her polka dot polo-match dress from brown to blue. WHY! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN! I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s the only thing they changed from the whole movie.)
With every line copied, you’re forced to remember how the original cast said their lines, so when you hear this cast trying to make things their own, it just sounds wrong. And that’s the entire show. The cast – this cast of amazing talent, including Samantha Barks, Orfeh, Eric Anderson, and ffs ANDY KARL – is given nothing new to make their own, just an old script full of lines that the audience is expecting to be said a certain way but they, being living breathing actors and not automatons, want to make their own, so the result is just cringey discomfort. Everything feels wrong. I wish someone had written a different script. Oh I forgot, the only difference is that when Stuckey tries to rape Vivian she beats him up. Which is great, but it doesn’t do anything for the story this way so why not just write a different scene? Why didn’t anyone write anything new?!
Literally the only great thing about the show was that Orfeh says ‘cockroaches’ like a real New Yorker. I think she and Natasha Lyonne are the only two broads in the biz who accurately and amazingly say ‘cocka-roaches’. So that made me happy. Hundos of dollars and 3 hours of my life and a wasted slot where I could have seen something else happy? Mmm (to quote another movie that should not get a musical version) how about no, Scott.
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The Inheritance Part 1: A Provocative, Poignant Epic for Modern Times
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Inheritance, Part 1, which has transferred from the Young Vic to the West End’s Noel Coward Theatre, playing there until January 19.
I have put off seeing The Inheritance for actual years now. It’s not that I didn’t want to see it, but Matthew Lopez’s two-part, sweeping look at today’s culture of gay men, and how they grapple with their position in life compared to the generation that came before them and paved the way, is…long. It’s really long. And it’s in two parts, so you have to go back to the theatre another night to finish the story. And I got things to do! So I put it off. If I’m going to sit through two plays at nearly four hours each, I said to myself, about gay men and AIDs and stuff, I’m going to see Angels in America. (It might sound pretty narrow-minded to compare to the two works, like ‘oh they’re both about gay men so you’re going to compare them, you bigot’ but please, tell me of another eight-hour play in two parts, I’ll wait.) Also, the hype was ludicrous. I assumed there was no way this is ‘the best play of the year, and of next year too, probably’, to quote a mainstream critic (one of those). But I finally decided to bite the bullet and start this epic journey into hours and hours of theatre, and you know what? It’s probably the best play of the year, and of next year too.
I have put off seeing The Inheritance for actual years now. It’s not that I didn’t want to see it, but Matthew Lopez’s two-part, sweeping look at today’s culture of gay men, and how they grapple with their position in life compared to the generation that came before them and paved the way, is…long. It’s really long. And it’s in two parts, so you have to go back to the theatre another night to finish the story. And I got things to do! So I put it off. If I’m going to sit through two plays at nearly four hours each, I said to myself, about gay men and AIDs and stuff, I’m going to see Angels in America. (It might sound pretty narrow-minded to compare to the two works, like ‘oh they’re both about gay men so you’re going to compare them, you bigot’ but please, tell me of another eight-hour play in two parts, I’ll wait.) Also, the hype was ludicrous. I assumed there was no way this is ‘the best play of the year, and of next year too, probably’, to quote a mainstream critic (one of those). But I finally decided to bite the bullet and start this epic journey into hours and hours of theatre, and you know what? It’s probably the best play of the year, and of next year too.
Granted, I have only seen Part 1 so far. You can see both parts in one day if you want, but ain’t nobody got time for that. (Or energy. How do the actors do it? are they spidermen?) I’m really glad I scheduled this extra time in between so I can sit with and think about Part 1 and give it the due it deserves. As a standalone play, Part 1 was sensational, and I’m honestly wowed. I really can’t believe that I would be willing to see it again. For the first time in my life, I bought the script of the play instead of the programme. It’s that good. I made a sort-of joke about Angels in America above, but The Inheritance is truly the clear successor to Angels, not just because they are about the same demographic, but – and gird your loins, people who hate tautologies – because it is a successor to Angels. That’s what it’s about – what gay men living today have inherited from the generation before and what they have to do to honor their memory and their sacrifice. So REALLY, it’s like a four-part 16 hour play. Just kidding. But it’s important to know where gay men of the previous generation have been in order to understand what these gay men of our generation are thinking about when they think about honoring those who came before them. Both plays bear crucial witness to the gay culture of their time.
The idea of honoring the past without getting trapped by it runs through all the multiple layers and character arcs in this play. Not only are there so many vibrant layers to the story that all seem compelling in their own right, there’s also an homage to the novel Howards End woven into the frame of the show. It begins with a group of male writing students bouncing ideas off of each other, guided by their teacher Morgan, a representation of Howards End author E.M. Forster (the M was for Morgan), who hid his homosexuality from the public (his famous works about homosexual themes were published after his death). Morgan and the students brainstorm ways to start the story, eventually focusing on one student’s idea and snowballing. As an opening gimmick, this kind of annoyed me at first, but it really does pay off. We delve into the story and just when you forget that it’s anything but real, it returns to Morgan leading the writing process.
The story being written tells of Eric Glass (Kyle Soller, wonderful) and Toby Darling (Andrew Burnap, my choice for a supporting actor Olivier), a gay couple living in New York in Eric’s Holocaust-surviving grandparents’ great apartment. If you take that central idea and think of it like a small glass sphere, the play is like taking a hammer to that glass and watching all the thousands of shards shower away from it. There is so much happening and it all is part of the same whole, all kinds of side stories you think maybe should have been cut for time, until you realize they are all necessary to add to this realistic, vivid world they’re creating onstage. Eric is an actually decent guy, the kind you root for even without knowing him too well. He’s a better person than he believes himself to be, a sensitive, thoughtful soul. Toby is vivacious, hilarious, and altogether Too Much. He’s written a well-known book that is getting transformed into a Broadway play, because his head needs to get bigger. A chance meeting with a younger gay man, Adam (Samuel Levine, responsible for the ‘male nudity’ warning), throws a wrench into Eric and Toby’s happy life together, especially when Adam is cast in Toby’s play.
While Adam and Toby workshop the play out of town, Eric befriends Walter, an older gay man who was previously an acquaintance but becomes one of the most important people in Eric’s life. Walter lived through the ‘80s AIDs epidemic and tells Eric, in probably the longest (and most moving) monologue in theatre history, what it was like. And not just ‘what it was like’ like ‘oh, it was awful,’ but opening up and really showing the history to Eric like it’s a tangible thing you can hold and show someone. In a brilliant move, Walter is played by the same actor as Morgan (Paul Hilton), guiding the young men and helping them as much as he can. At the end of Act 1, Walter explains to Eric that his partner, the billionaire Henry Wilcox (John Benjamin Hickey, one of my faves), wanted to run away from the city during the epidemic and ignore it, along with their friends. But Walter in his kindness and empathy couldn’t, and so while Henry traveled, Walter opened up their country house to let their friends, and friends of friends and whoever needed to, have a serene place to die.
Walter’s friendship, guidance, and memories clearly make Eric even more thoughtful and considerate of (to quote another of this year’s ‘best of’(TV Edition)) what we owe to each other, and what we owe to the past and to the future. The inheritance of the title is that recognition of the importance of memory and respect in the culture. In a whole new layer to the story, it also refers to a Howards-End inspired deathbed bequeathment of important property that, like in its source material, gets infuriatingly disregarded. And as part of that property, it refers to the responsibility that these young gay men have inherited from the previous generation, the responsibility that every demographic or culture or race owes to their forebears: to recognize their struggles and understand what they went through so that you can live the life you’re living and make things better for the next group.
I know, it sounds like a lot of heavy material. And it is, and you’ll forking SOB, especially at the final scene of Part 1. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll save your hardest cries for what’s supposed to be a kind of funny moment – Eric’s friends’ 2016 Election Returns Watch Party (sigh (too real)). But you also laugh a whole lot, especially at Toby’s lines and his incredible physicality. It’s like he’s dancing through his character’s lines while fully becoming him and it is incredible. The ensemble is wonderful, and even though most have not much to say in Part 1, the cast remains onstage the entire time. Stephen Daldry’s direction has truly never been cleverer or sharper. It’s his best work yet. There is absolutely no set, other than a raised platform in the middle. No painted backdrops, no nothing. There are barely any props (save for the frequent wine glasses, the odd chair, the Hillary balloon). Yet the stage pulsates with life. The ensemble sits around the platform and watches the action, sometimes chiming in with suggestions to the author (reminding you of the framing device, which I still don’t know how I feel about). Most importantly, the ensemble moves with the story in a way I have never seen before. When you react internally to a line reading, the ensemble will react physically in a way that makes complete sense. They seem to be constantly moving but not in a distracting way, rather in a totally natural, necessary way that adds to the import of every scene. It’s like a reminder of something, maybe that your actions affect lives around you, or that you’re never alone.
Going into Part 2, I’m eager to see more of John Benjamin Hickey’s Wilcox, who was only in Part 1 for a portion of the time, and of course I’m excited for the ‘cameo’ by Vanessa Redgrave. But even more than seeing these stars, I can’t wait to get back into this world. I’m honestly still shook by the story and anxious about where things left off. This play felt like a long book that becomes important to you as you read along, the kind where you feel it in your soul and worry about the story and the characters for life, even though you know it’s not real. That the Inheritance Part 1 accomplished that is a testament to the genius of Matthew Lopez, as well as the pitch-perfect direction and the great acting that brought me fully into their world.
INFORMATION
The Inheritance ends its run at the Noel Coward Theatre on January 19 so hurry, or wait to see it on Broadway because it is definitely going.
Tickets are pretty easy to get, especially using TodayTix (which runs their rush ticket system). I got a £15 ticket (talk about value for money) in the Royal Circle, fifth row in and on the right side of center, and it was a perfect view. Too far to the extreme sides will be okay but a little restricted. The audience was pretty good, but actually the staff was awful. I could hear them talking in the lobby really loudly, proving my opinion that Delfont Mackintosh theatres and staff have to undergo a whole rehaul.
The idea of honoring the past without getting trapped by it runs through all the multiple layers and character arcs in this play. Not only are there so many vibrant layers to the story that all seem compelling in their own right, there’s also an homage to the novel Howards End woven into the frame of the show. It begins with a group of male writing students bouncing ideas off of each other, guided by their teacher Morgan, a representation of Howards End author E.M. Forster (the M was for Morgan), who hid his homosexuality from the public (his famous works about homosexual themes were published after his death). Morgan and the students brainstorm ways to start the story, eventually focusing on one student’s idea and snowballing. As an opening gimmick, this kind of annoyed me at first, but it really does pay off. We delve into the story and just when you forget that it’s anything but real, it returns to Morgan leading the writing process.
The story being written tells of Eric Glass (Kyle Soller, wonderful) and Toby Darling (Andrew Burnap, my choice for a supporting actor Olivier), a gay couple living in New York in Eric’s Holocaust-surviving grandparents’ great apartment. If you take that central idea and think of it like a small glass sphere, the play is like taking a hammer to that glass and watching all the thousands of shards shower away from it. There is so much happening and it all is part of the same whole, all kinds of side stories you think maybe should have been cut for time, until you realize they are all necessary to add to this realistic, vivid world they’re creating onstage. Eric is an actually decent guy, the kind you root for even without knowing him too well. He’s a better person than he believes himself to be, a sensitive, thoughtful soul. Toby is vivacious, hilarious, and altogether Too Much. He’s written a well-known book that is getting transformed into a Broadway play, because his head needs to get bigger. A chance meeting with a younger gay man, Adam (Samuel Levine, responsible for the ‘male nudity’ warning), throws a wrench into Eric and Toby’s happy life together, especially when Adam is cast in Toby’s play.
While Adam and Toby workshop the play out of town, Eric befriends Walter, an older gay man who was previously an acquaintance but becomes one of the most important people in Eric’s life. Walter lived through the ‘80s AIDs epidemic and tells Eric, in probably the longest (and most moving) monologue in theatre history, what it was like. And not just ‘what it was like’ like ‘oh, it was awful,’ but opening up and really showing the history to Eric like it’s a tangible thing you can hold and show someone. In a brilliant move, Walter is played by the same actor as Morgan (Paul Hilton), guiding the young men and helping them as much as he can. At the end of Act 1, Walter explains to Eric that his partner, the billionaire Henry Wilcox (John Benjamin Hickey, one of my faves), wanted to run away from the city during the epidemic and ignore it, along with their friends. But Walter in his kindness and empathy couldn’t, and so while Henry traveled, Walter opened up their country house to let their friends, and friends of friends and whoever needed to, have a serene place to die.
Walter’s friendship, guidance, and memories clearly make Eric even more thoughtful and considerate of (to quote another of this year’s ‘best of’(TV Edition)) what we owe to each other, and what we owe to the past and to the future. The inheritance of the title is that recognition of the importance of memory and respect in the culture. In a whole new layer to the story, it also refers to a Howards-End inspired deathbed bequeathment of important property that, like in its source material, gets infuriatingly disregarded. And as part of that property, it refers to the responsibility that these young gay men have inherited from the previous generation, the responsibility that every demographic or culture or race owes to their forebears: to recognize their struggles and understand what they went through so that you can live the life you’re living and make things better for the next group.
I know, it sounds like a lot of heavy material. And it is, and you’ll forking SOB, especially at the final scene of Part 1. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll save your hardest cries for what’s supposed to be a kind of funny moment – Eric’s friends’ 2016 Election Returns Watch Party (sigh (too real)). But you also laugh a whole lot, especially at Toby’s lines and his incredible physicality. It’s like he’s dancing through his character’s lines while fully becoming him and it is incredible. The ensemble is wonderful, and even though most have not much to say in Part 1, the cast remains onstage the entire time. Stephen Daldry’s direction has truly never been cleverer or sharper. It’s his best work yet. There is absolutely no set, other than a raised platform in the middle. No painted backdrops, no nothing. There are barely any props (save for the frequent wine glasses, the odd chair, the Hillary balloon). Yet the stage pulsates with life. The ensemble sits around the platform and watches the action, sometimes chiming in with suggestions to the author (reminding you of the framing device, which I still don’t know how I feel about). Most importantly, the ensemble moves with the story in a way I have never seen before. When you react internally to a line reading, the ensemble will react physically in a way that makes complete sense. They seem to be constantly moving but not in a distracting way, rather in a totally natural, necessary way that adds to the import of every scene. It’s like a reminder of something, maybe that your actions affect lives around you, or that you’re never alone.
Going into Part 2, I’m eager to see more of John Benjamin Hickey’s Wilcox, who was only in Part 1 for a portion of the time, and of course I’m excited for the ‘cameo’ by Vanessa Redgrave. But even more than seeing these stars, I can’t wait to get back into this world. I’m honestly still shook by the story and anxious about where things left off. This play felt like a long book that becomes important to you as you read along, the kind where you feel it in your soul and worry about the story and the characters for life, even though you know it’s not real. That the Inheritance Part 1 accomplished that is a testament to the genius of Matthew Lopez, as well as the pitch-perfect direction and the great acting that brought me fully into their world.
INFORMATION
The Inheritance ends its run at the Noel Coward Theatre on January 19 so hurry, or wait to see it on Broadway because it is definitely going.
Tickets are pretty easy to get, especially using TodayTix (which runs their rush ticket system). I got a £15 ticket (talk about value for money) in the Royal Circle, fifth row in and on the right side of center, and it was a perfect view. Too far to the extreme sides will be okay but a little restricted. The audience was pretty good, but actually the staff was awful. I could hear them talking in the lobby really loudly, proving my opinion that Delfont Mackintosh theatres and staff have to undergo a whole rehaul.
Waitress Finally Hits London: So Good I Could Cry (Again)
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Waitress, which opens today in London.
I feel like I’ve been bemoaning the sad state of musical theatre on the West End for years now. We’re getting too few new British works and too many lackluster disappointments. And while that’s all still true, Waitress has arrived, so I’m done complaining until the smile leaves my face, if that ever happens. Even though it’s an American transfer, this show is so FORKING wonderful that it is elevating the entirety of the West End. The Sara Bareilles musical, which opens officially today at the Adelphi Theatre, is exactly the show London needs right now: funny, heartbreaking, movingly acted, perfectly sung, and with an incredible score. It’s strange for me to give unqualified raves, but here I go, here I go, here I go again girls what’s my weakness? Um, musicals! pie? Dr. Pomatter?
Waitress, the first Broadway musical with an all-female creative team (it premiered in 2016 and that’s a true thing, so forked), opened the same season as Hamilton (and also the best musical revival season anyone could ever dream of I mean it omg each of the four nominees was the best thing ever le sigh and this year we don’t even have enough for a Tony award??? anyway) and so, while everyone enjoyed it, it didn’t get the acclaim or attention it deserved. Luckily, London’s musical theatre scene is, shall we say, not 2016 Broadway so fingers crossed that it gets the proper amount of love, because it’s a pretty goshdarn flawless show. Based on the 2007 Adrienne Shelly movie starring Keri Russell, Waitress the musical tells that story of how a small-town pie-making waitress in an abusive marriage gets pregnant and falls for her new ob/gyn. I remember the movie being pretty depressing but the show – though still rife with sad moments – is funnier and overall uplifting and heartwarming. With a sensational score from Sara Bareilles in her first musical theatre venture (and hopefully not last) and superb direction from Diane Paulus, the musical takes us intimately into the life of Jenna Hunterson and her friends. Her abusive husband, her inability to leave him, her feeling of not recognizing herself or knowing what to do, it all comes across realistically and believably while maintaining the entertaining, energetic thrill of classic musical theatre.
Even though I trust that you’ll see Waitress as soon as you can – whether on Broadway, in London, or on tour – I’ma tell you a little about it because it’s my new fave thing and I just simply can’t stop won’t stop talking about it (or singing it in the shower). So Jenna, as played by the remarkable Katharine McPhee, sings about her three favorite ingredients for pie baking – “sugar, butter, flour” – and making pies and how that helps her deal with her shirty life, working in a diner and having a shirty slob of a jerk husband who takes all the money she earns and is mean to her friends. And her friends, Dawn (Laura Baldwin, hilarious and adorable) and Becky (Marisha Wallace, the fire emoji), are wonderful so only a real jerk ass jackwagon would be mean to them. Jenna accidentally slept with her husband who she haaaates so Dawn and Becky are like ‘hey Jenna let’s all chill in the bathroom and watch you pee on a stick and we will SING ABOUT IT!!!’ and Jenna is like ‘ughhh I don’t wanna know if I’m pregnant I’d rather just ignore any alien growth and then in 9 months be like those people on the old show ‘I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant’ and be like ‘maaaa there’s a baby in the terlet!!!!’ so just let me be’ and they’re like ‘no we have fun lyrics about drinking enough to make sure you have to pee’ (and I’m like, do some people really not need to pee all the time?) so Jenna pees on the stick and is like SHIT and then sings the greatest song ever extolling the virtues of what baking can do as she hopes it can save her from her current messy sitch. Then she makes a great pie for her gynecologist who unknowingly retired and you’re like jfc how bad is the American healthcare system if when she called to make an appointment with Dr. Oldlady they didn’t tell her ‘oh she RETIRED’?? what a mess. Anyway her gyno is now this cute adorkable awkward lanky blond guy which is suuuupes awks in a gyno fyi anyway he doesn’t eat sugar and she’s like what kind of dork doesn’t eat sugar?? and he tries her pie (not a euph) and is like ‘OH DIP’ and she’s such a good baker that they fall in love and it’s AMAZING and SAD and she dreams of getting away from the jerky husband but he thwarts her plans and then she sings another BEST SONG EVER about what a mess her life is and McPhee is like ‘do you think you’ve heard anyone with better vocal control, because hear this, mufuckaaa’ and she should have awards thrown at her and you’re like TAYLOR HICKS, REALLY GUYS???
Meanwhile, the girls make our cute little Dawn try online dating because she is a sheltered lil bun who’s never dated and she matches on an app I’m assuming was Christian Mingle with a crazy guy in the form of JACK MCBRAYER, ladies and gentlemen, as Ogie and even though he sings a song that would be a giant red flag in real life about how he is virtually a stalker and even though Jack’s not the greatest singer and even though I wanted a friend of mine to get his part originally, Jack’s Ogie is REDONKULOUS AMAZING. His signature pure hearted dorky schtick is so perfect for Ogie and whoever thought to cast him deserves Olympic medals in casting. I honestly want to bake that person a pie. Jack makes every little movement and line of Ogie’s a laugh riot which is a phrase I don’t think I’ve ever used before but I need to use it now because it’s true and also dorky and pure enough of a phrase to fit this situation. The only thing I don’t get about this show is that Ogie gets the last named-character-bow when for male roles he really is second only to Dr. Pomatter and I don’t understand how he isn’t billed and bowed higher?? He gets more songs than almost anyone! Anyway it’s worth it to see him alone, yet everything else is just as great. Becky’s lil side story is amazingly moving too, as she’s in a difficult marriage for sad reasons and needs to get her groove back and does so with a SURPRISE man and she sings a fire emoji song about how ya know shit just happens sometimes and who are you to judge?? Her big song really was ugh so good. Even the old man diner owner gets amazing material that makes me cry, even though this actor wasn’t a great singer, because he gets my favorite poetic lyric at the end of his big song that just wrecks me and honestly everything in this show wrecks me so just forking see it so we can TALK ABOUT IT, okay?
The writing of this show, with a book from Jessie Nelson, is so strong that the show would be great still with just okay talent, so this stellar cast is lifting it to remarkable heights. Katharine McPhee’s Jenna is thoughtful and purposeful, finding the right line between vulnerability and inner strength. Fresh from the Broadway production, which was her first Broadway role, McPhee reminds you quickly of the douchebag director’s first words about her on “Smash”: “She may be green, but she’s certainly trained.” Her control over her voice is spell-binding, and her “She Used to be Mine” is the best vocal performance happening in London right now. David Hunter’s Pomatter is endearing and goofy yet also a believable leading man and a bit of a heartthrob. The scenes between the two of them feel like the end of the second season of a TV show when the two meant-for-each-other leads finally come to each other, and they accomplish that in less than an hour. It’s so important to get that emotional beat right, along with all the deeply personal revelations on display. Waitress is an unabashedly emotional show, the kind that could easily feel twee or seem amateur, but this show is anything but. The strong writing and the precisely directed performances keep it fresh and real. I fear that the old-white-male reviewers that make up London’s main critic pool will discount the female-centric story and emotional depth as cutesy or girly when really it’s surprisingly profound.
If nothing else, Bareilles has given us an extraordinary original score for the modern age, with nary a weak track in there, a rare accomplishment nowadays. With every other aspect of the show just as strong, with laugh out loud moments and truly wrenching emotion, the whole show is destined to be a favorite of many, if not a genuine classic.
INFORMATION
Waitress is playing at London’s Adelphi Theatre until at least the fall. They sell pie in the lobby and they pipe in freshly baked pie smell, which is lovely. They don’t have vegan pie though, which is b.s. The official merchandise stall in the lobby does not sell programmes – they are available from the podium by the entrance (so crowded, so dumb) and the pie man in the back. It’s a pretty terrible setup. The bathrooms are downstairs house right, so you have to like bolt out of the stalls to get all the way to the lobby and down. The staff left much to be desired. Also, during previews they had not yet set up barricades at stage door and it was a bonafide disaster of a mosh pit. According to my emails with the theatre, they’ve amended this situation, but I bet it is still a disaster. So the theatre staff and setup leaves much to be desired but the show is perfection.
4 Comments
Ew, I didn’t think about it costing hundreds of dollars to watch this travesty until the end of your post. That makes it extra bad.
Right?! Luckily it’s only one of a handful of times I’ve spent that much on tickets so it all evens out but still.
I’ll give that one a miss then 😂
They changed the brown and white dress to BLUE
That was the movie lol
Oy … thanks for your honesty
As they say in another movie: “I guess I’m walking”