All the Movies You Need to Know this Awards Seasonby Randi / February 18, 2019Come From Away Comes to London: Continuing its Global Takeover Even Though it’s Just Okay
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Come From Away, which officially opened in London this week.
You know how Oslo won the Tony for Best Play? And we were like…how? It’s because people loved the story it told, about the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the PLO. It is riveting subject matter that reminds you of an important time in history. You’re moved by the memories and by realizing that all of this actually happened, and so you feel a connection with the humanity of the history. And so audiences leapt to their feet quicker than you can say ‘she’s from Haifa’, even though the play itself was actually mediocre. People couldn’t separate the true story from how the play told it. Well I never thought I’d say this, truly never, but, same for Come From Away. Well, not exactly same – Come From Away is much better. The true story it tells about Canadian kindness during 9/11 is incredible and moving. But the actual show, the actual portrayal of it, is just okay. The magic comes entirely from knowing it’s a true story.
And yes, there is magic. When telling this story, about how the sleepy town of Gander, Newfoundland, welcomed thousands of stranded passengers on 9/11 when U.S. airspace closed, it would be impossible not to provide moments of real emotion. But those emotions come as a result of simply telling this story, even if someone were standing onstage simply reading news bulletins. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good show. It’s an entirely enjoyable theatrical experience. Yet from all the raves, you’d think it was great. But a great show takes a good story and then also presents it well, in an interesting, artistic way. This show has found such success because it took such a good story, but there’s no interesting or artistic creativity that lifts the material, at least not in any other aspect than the precise, impressive direction of a hard-working ensemble. Since it’s telling an excellent story, it doesn’t seem to matter how it’s presented, just that it is being presented. There’s not enough art being made.
One big problem for me is the score. Most of the music fails to fulfill the main requirements of a musical score: to move the story and/or the character development forward in a way that couldn’t be achieved in the same way without music. It all feels very perfunctory. Music has the ability to add emotional depth to words and story, but this score fails to augment the action most of the time. And almost none of it is used to delve into characters. Since the versatile ensemble constantly shifts so everyone plays multiple characters, it ends up feeling like a nondescript mass of people instead of individuals we’re supposed to care about. The one song in the whole show that is entirely intended for character depth – the best song in the show, “Me & The Sky” – consequently feels out of place. When the singer, Captain Beverly Bass (the fantastic Rachel Tucker), begins by sharing her childhood memories, it feels like it was lifted from a different show. This song, superb as it is, has the same problem as the best song from the musical Catch Me If You Can, “Fly Fly Away”: it’s the strongest melody overall, so clearly that’s why it couldn’t have been cut, but it is out of place. It doesn’t go with the rest of the score. No other character gets a solo that shares their entire life story or reveals profoundly what they’re thinking and feeling at this moment, other than the fear they directly tell us they’re feeling.
That’s my other issue, that the story is primarily told directly to the audience, with the characters telling us what happened, what they did, what they thought and felt. Unlike most shows, where we are watching other people live the story, and learning about them through action and dialogue with each other, their dialogue is with us. That’s a valid structure, sure, but subverting the usual mantra of ‘show, don’t tell’ lowers the ability to achieve real character development and relationships between the characters if we don’t get to really see them interact with each other. And what is Come From Away if not a show about the relationships and connections that form between these real people? It loses the chance to show us this most important and compelling part of the story and instead merely tells us that they connected. The best characters, Nick and Diane, who meet and fall in love in Gander, come off the best but that’s mainly because I knew that they ended up together (which like, give them an entire show, you know? Incredible story). It would have been lovely if not breathtaking to see them fall in love by talking to each other more instead of narrating it to us.
Audiences were going to adore this story no matter what was done with it, and they continue to do so. But it’s a shame that such a story will never get the stronger bones it deserves in terms of book and score. And even though they had a slam dunk on their hands, the creators still added cheap laughs. Too often, when creators don’t trust their material to stand on its own, or just to hedge their bets, they insert unnecessary ‘jokes’ or sight gags to get a random guaranteed laugh from the audience. It’s clearly appealing to the lowest common denominator and betting on an unsophisticated audience for cheap laughs. Come From Away does this, for one example, with the Spanish teacher who flamencos into the scene in full costume and says some naughty things in a bad accent. Why? It’s like a race to the bottom but for musical theatre.
Obviously Come From Away is not a bad show, it’s very decent. But for a musical that is guaranteed to sweep the Oliviers this season, it should be better. The story is amazing, and it’s hard not to focus on that in order to see that the bones of the show aren’t as strong as its subject matter. You have to recognize that a play is more than just the story it tells. The art form is the telling of that story. And while the story here is astonishing, the telling is merely good.
INFORMATION
Come From Away is at London’s Phoenix Theatre, probably forever.
It runs 100 minutes with no interval.
The Phoenix Theatre needs a refurb.
Programmes are £5 and are enormous.
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Jukebox Musical “& Juliet” Tailor Made for London’s Tipsy Millennials
I wanted to say something about how & Juliet may be the ‘jukebox musical to end all jukebox musicals’, but that’s incredibly mistaken considering how instantly beloved it is and how it is guaranteed to usher in a whole new wave of cringey shows using songs that make the audience repeatedly shout “I LOVE THIS SONG!” and sing along. & Juliet takes the clichéd formulation of “what if Romeo & Juliet ended differentlyyyuhhh” (that’s my best Lola Skumpy voice) and tells what would have happened if Juliet took her two besties (that she doesn’t seem to know anything about) and the HOTTEST turn-of-the-century (that’s this current century, dear) chart toppers on a little spree and just belted her face off in the closest thing to a huge arena pop concert that a musical has ever been.
& Juliet is hundo p a musical for millennials – and unlike when baby boomers say millennials and actually mean Gen Z (they hate YOOTS), I actually mean millennials because the audience has to be READY to relive the HEYDAY of boy bands and Britney Spears. This musical feeds on the slightly tipsy 30-year-old remembering what it was like when you’d be at a middle school dance and Britney’s “Overprotected” would come on and you’d be like YASSSSS and don’t even get me STARTED on “I Want it That Way” and “It’s Gonna Be Me”, two pillars of the boy band takeover courtesy of Backstreet Boys and NSYNC that of course are PIVOTAL to this show’s story.
The surprising part is, it’s a lot more fun that it ought to be. & Juliet, with a book by David West Read and music by every pop sensation you’d expect in a show like this (but mostly Britney Spears; it could really be called the Britney Spears musical because it’s like half her catalogue), forces the biggest pop hits of the late ‘90s/early 2000s (for the most part) to tell the story of Juliet if she was like I’m not killing myself just because this boy I’ve known for 4 days did it first; I’ma flee to France and dance and party and start fresh/get immediately engaged to another boy I barely know. Everything about this show is simultaneously fun and beyond cringe-worthy, a mixture that meant my eyes didn’t know what to do between all the rolling and the widening and the smiling. The framing device has Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife (and yes, of COURSE there are cringey jokes about how that’s her real name and she’s not the only one HAR HAR, guys this is England everyone knows that’s his wife’s name), confront her husband about the depressing and not exactly empowering ending to his new play. She offers to help rewrite the ending and the couple bicker…by singing “I Want it That Way” to each other. Literally, Will is like “but I want it that way” and Anne is like “tell me why?” and then all the blondes go AIN’T NOTHING BUT A HEARTACHE and I felt my stomach eat itself because a groan wasn’t enough and yet I was smiling???
So Will and Anne are like okay well let’s see what it looks like with the new material and we see Juliet (Miriam-Teak Lee) pull a Sofia from The Color Purple when she sees the dead Romeo and go ‘hellllll noooooo’ and get up and keep living her life instead of ending it at 14 (the age issue provides some hilarious material). She flees to Paris to PARTY, bringing along her gender-queer friend May (which is great for representation but having them sing “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” may have been the most forced part uhh (although Arun Blair-Mangat was like, jfc it sounded like they were playing a recording that’s how flawless)) and of course…her friend…Anne…Anne Hathaway, who wants to be in the play?? It’s awkward storytelling but they wanted the supremely talented Cassidy Janson to sang throughout the show so what are you gonna do (although the suuuuper delaaaaayed final lines of Celine Dion’s “That’s the Way It Is” (yes that is in here too), done so she can show off even more, are way toooo over the top). Between her and Lee it is the belt-your-face-off competition of the year in there. Impressive performances abound, for sure (though I worry for Lee’s vocal health doing this show long-term), but when it’s this much belting, it’s like belted song after belted song and it’s supposed to impress you with all their belting but after all this belting you’re just like ‘yes this is still this show.’ The Act II power ballads in any of the many 11 o’clock moments don’t have as much dramatic heft because it’s just more at the same level of volume and intensity.
But what am I talking about, they don’t really care about dramatic effect and storytelling, this is ABOUT FUN. And everyone else is having a g-d ball at this show. It doesn’t matter that the side plot about Juliet’s nurse and her lover (I was like that actor kind of looks like David Bedella but there’s no way; guess what, it’s him) falls flat because they are supposed to be the comedic effect but the entire SHOW is comedic effect so that kind of thing doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter that the unnecessary marriage drama between Anne and Will is so ill-fitting for a show like this – you can’t all of a sudden have a woman cry over her crumbling marriage when the show is a ROMP of BOY BAND HITS. It doesn’t matter that everyone is miked to within an inch of their lives and it’s virtually a pop concert with a forced story that makes you groan louder than you thought humanly possible, because it’s fun. Everyone is enjoying themselves; this is one of those shows that’s beyond critique.
My favorite part was when they represented Paris by parading little landmarks across the stage, like the Eiffel Tower and then…and then the Moulin Rouge windmill, reminding me with a shudder that we haven’t seen the last of these forced pop-score storytelling shows this YEAR. I can’t wait to see if that behemoth of a show can top this one, either in terms of enjoyability or how many times I groan.
INFORMATION
& Juliet is playing at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, probably forever. Despite being an ENORMOUS theatre, there aren’t any bad seats. I was in the back of the circle (supes cheap) and it was a great view. There’s a good ladies bathroom in the circle (like literally…inside the theatre) but the rest of the bathrooms are old and gross and small.
If you buy directly from the theatre, they charge an extra £1.50 to pick up ticket at the box office, which should be THE DEFAULT option. Such bullshirt. You can print at home for free. BULLSHIRT.
“Shakespeare in Love” on the West End: It’s A Mystery Why It’s Not A Musical But It’s Still Worth Seeing
I never thought I would miss or even appreciate Gwyneth Paltrow. Sure, she was never hocking $200 white t-shirts and fair-trade moccasin shavings in her movies, but her Gooping activity has infiltrated most people’s memories of her acting history. Her film career is clouded with the smoke emanating from her custom glass gilded barbecue for macrobiotic mushrooms and meat from animals she petted with Mario Batali. But she was a pretty good actress, remember? And her Viola de Lesseps in “Shakespeare in Love” was fantastic, Oscar-worthy and Oscar-winning stuff.
So why did I all of a sudden recall Gwynnie’s ‘90s-era acting ability with such fondness? It’s kind of mean, but it’s because I just saw the new play version of “Shakespeare in Love” on the West End. It’s a lovely, fun show that you’ll enjoy, especially if you liked the movie. But if, like me, you loved the movie, so much so that you confront the 90% of the populace that still likes to argue that it shouldn’t have won Best Picture over “Saving Private Ryan”, then you will also, like me, find various quibbles with this show’s lack of editing, its pushing of easy physical laughs, and…the crazy voice of its Viola. (I mean, you don’t have to have even seen the movie to agree with the latter.)
Now listen. The actress playing Viola, Lucy Briggs-Owen, is wonderful. Especially in the second act, she absolutely won me over and made me cry and stuff. But I still just cannot get over her voice. She has the raspy, gravelly voice of a 2-packs a day night-shift trucker who counts Marge Simpson and Harvey Fierstein as close relatives. During Act 1, I was wide-eyed with disbelief that a character whose entire purpose rests on the gloriousness of her speaking voice was cast so surprisingly. It’s actually hilarious. The story will hook you nonetheless, as the producers perhaps try to prove that one’s voice doesn’t matter as long as you are beautiful, or something? I doubt that was their aim.
Anyway, yes, so the story is indeed centered on Viola’s voice, or what she does with it: act. She is a noble lady promised to marry a truly awful man named Wessex, but she just wants to be an actor, especially in Shakespeare’s plays, because she has an enormous literary crush on him and yearns for her life to be filled with poetry, as all young girls do. Fortunately for her, she’s actually a superb actor. Viola calls up all her courage and auditions for a new play disguised as a man, meeting the bard himself during her ‘amazing’ audition. This is when I started to roll my eyes a little. At this point, Will Shakespeare is super down in the dumps, dirty-haired, shirt-unbuttoned, totally out of sorts and depressed that he’ll never be able to find a star for his new play “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter”. We see awful no good actor after awful no good actor butcher auditions as Will sinks deeper. But then Viola, disguised as Thomas Kent, enters and begins her monologue from “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, and it’s supposed to rouse Will from the darkness, give him hope in his play, and make him fall in a sort of awe-inspired love. But…but…but…her voice! I didn’t believe that the anti-smoking ad that Viola seemed to make out of “What light be light if Sylvia be not seen” would have changed Will’s life so. Well, but it did, so I’ll stop mocking the poor girl’s voice. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a fantastic actress; I just didn’t get her for this part where the purity and beauty of the voice is so important! The best is in the famous canoe scene, when Will is describing to ‘Thomas’ his feelings for Viola, and she’s like “tell me about her beauty; what’s her hair like?” and Will’s like “long and blonde so nice” and Viola’s like “and her lips” and Will’s like “erma, such lips” and then Viola’s like “and her voice?” and I cackled.
Anywayyyyy, so Will’s like erma p. gerd, I found my Romeo, and at about the same time, he sees the undisguised Viola at a ball he crashed, and is like, erma p., I found my muse and my love because I loves me some long blonde hair and influenza-ridden smoker voice. I’m sorry now I’m done. So Will Shakespeare, this beyond brilliant best playwright of all time, OF ALL TIME, doesn’t realize that they’re the same person even though all his plays feature gender-bending disguises. I guess all those plot-twists come after this point in time, inspired by Viola. Cute.
Oh besides the voice, the craziest change from the movie is how stupid Will seems before he meets Viola/Thomas. The play starts with him trying to write Sonnet #18, “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day”, with the whole company watching. It’s kind of funny, how he can’t finish the first line, but then it gets tiresome when we hear the sonnet for the 9th time in one act. Also, Christopher Marlowe helps him write it, or really writes most of it for him. He also gives Will most of the groundwork for the main conflict of “Romeo & Juliet”, plus the name Juliet. In the play, it’s completely different from the not-so-good-natured playwright rivalry of the movie. Instead, the play shows them as pretty much BFFs, with Marlowe being the brains of the operation and Will being brilliant only when inspired by love. Marlowe’s death is that much sadder, and I loved their boyish friendship. But I didn’t like how the entire first act made Will sort of a buffoon. It is very easy and effective to show writer’s block as the movie did – somewhat subtly and realistically. It doesn’t need to be over the top. Who doesn’t know what writer’s block is! It’s unnecessary to show writer’s block by having the writer seem stupid. Now that’s just offensive to all writers. I did, however, really like the actor playing Marlowe, and I am glad they made the part so much bigger and meatier for the play for his sake, so let’s call it a draw.
The rest of Shakespeare’s acting troupe included a mustachioed yet winning pirate with long greasy hair playing the Ben Affleck role, a young pretty-faced boy who plays the girl parts while he can, and a tailor given the prologue whose stutter we’re supposed to laugh at?? In the film, the stutterer was someone you rooted for and cheered with when he conquered it with performing. But in the show, it felt more like the stutter was on display for the audience to ridicule. Not a good change. Please, if you see this or any other show ever, you’re probably a douche if you laugh at disability on display.
Queen Elizabeth, the role Judi Dench won an Oscar for despite only having like 4 lines and being onscreen for a shorter time than it takes me to tie my shoes, is played more humorous than regal here, which is somewhat off-putting. I don’t know Lizzie the I like I know Lizzie the II, but I’m pretty sure neither of them would be humorous in front of the general public. In front of family and friends, sure, but not in front of poor people. This Queen was written, directed, and acted just a little too familiarly. I want my queens bitchy, stern, and formal, thanks.
My favorite minor character I didn’t even realize was my favorite until the program verified it afterwards. Paul Chahidi, who was the glorious maid in Twelfth Night on Broadway last season (with Mark Rylance, originally at the Globe), played the Geoffrey Rush producer part of Henslowe. Paul Chahidi is superb and I want to see him as the humorous sidekick in pretty much every single play, even those without humorous sidekicks. Rush gave the movie its major memorable line, as he said at various points, to explain how things sort of work themselves out, “It’s a mystery!” and it was adorable, and we liked it, and we loved it. Chahidi’s Henslowe says it once early on and I smiled…but then in Act Two, he started saying it more and more. In the final 20 minutes, I think he said it 4 times. That is too many. That’s the writer’s fault, not Chahidi’s (Paul’s likeability is what saves us from groaning) but that’s something that should have been caught. That overuse and the 9 times we have to listen to Sonnet #18 should have been addressed by editors.
Regardless of these quibbles, the play is overall enjoyable and should make you laugh and cry and laugh and cry some more if you are not a robot. They really should have taken the opportunity to make this a musical and try to elevate it above and beyond the movie, rather than aiming to equal it, but I’ll leave that development to future artists. The story is strong enough without music, I guess. Will and Viola fall in love, Will is totally inspired and writes the genius “Romeo & Juliet” (it’s genius, even if you’re still sick of it from middle school), and Viola has to follow the queen’s and her father’s orders and marry Wessex. This oh this was also much worse than the movie. Wessex is a total shit in both, just a horrible awful man, but at least in the movie he looked like Colin Firth so you didn’t feel toooo badly for Viola. Here he’s just a normal so it’s real sad. Also, her father (whom I don’t think we see in the movie) is an even worse shit. So at least she gets away from him. The maid, the best part of the movie because it’s Imelda Stanton, is just okay here. She kind of milks her “It is a new day!” line to get laughs from the audience when really it should only be the set-up for Viola’s “It is a new world” reply, which is instead tossed aside.
Tom Bateman as Will works unbelievably hard, so hard that the sweat literally pours off of him throughout the show. His hair was soaking wet the entire time, even at stage door. I was like, “I don’t know how you are going to do a second show tonight” and he said “I don’t know either!” which is funny and self-deprecating but then he lit a cigarette and I was like, oh so you want to struggle to keep up, I get it.
So, anyway, no matter how you felt about the movie, this show is worth seeing. It’s not perfect, and like 99% of shows (/movies/television/books/anything), I wish I was able to edit it before it was considered set and finished, but alas, it has a few flaws. Luckily, these flaws won’t keep you from enjoying the show, and at least in the case of Viola’s uncharacteristically husky voice, some of them will help you enjoy it more. Okay now I’m done making fun.
Anyway, yes, so the story is indeed centered on Viola’s voice, or what she does with it: act. She is a noble lady promised to marry a truly awful man named Wessex, but she just wants to be an actor, especially in Shakespeare’s plays, because she has an enormous literary crush on him and yearns for her life to be filled with poetry, as all young girls do. Fortunately for her, she’s actually a superb actor. Viola calls up all her courage and auditions for a new play disguised as a man, meeting the bard himself during her ‘amazing’ audition. This is when I started to roll my eyes a little. At this point, Will Shakespeare is super down in the dumps, dirty-haired, shirt-unbuttoned, totally out of sorts and depressed that he’ll never be able to find a star for his new play “Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter”. We see awful no good actor after awful no good actor butcher auditions as Will sinks deeper. But then Viola, disguised as Thomas Kent, enters and begins her monologue from “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, and it’s supposed to rouse Will from the darkness, give him hope in his play, and make him fall in a sort of awe-inspired love. But…but…but…her voice! I didn’t believe that the anti-smoking ad that Viola seemed to make out of “What light be light if Sylvia be not seen” would have changed Will’s life so. Well, but it did, so I’ll stop mocking the poor girl’s voice. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a fantastic actress; I just didn’t get her for this part where the purity and beauty of the voice is so important! The best is in the famous canoe scene, when Will is describing to ‘Thomas’ his feelings for Viola, and she’s like “tell me about her beauty; what’s her hair like?” and Will’s like “long and blonde so nice” and Viola’s like “and her lips” and Will’s like “erma, such lips” and then Viola’s like “and her voice?” and I cackled.
Anywayyyyy, so Will’s like erma p. gerd, I found my Romeo, and at about the same time, he sees the undisguised Viola at a ball he crashed, and is like, erma p., I found my muse and my love because I loves me some long blonde hair and influenza-ridden smoker voice. I’m sorry now I’m done. So Will Shakespeare, this beyond brilliant best playwright of all time, OF ALL TIME, doesn’t realize that they’re the same person even though all his plays feature gender-bending disguises. I guess all those plot-twists come after this point in time, inspired by Viola. Cute.
Oh besides the voice, the craziest change from the movie is how stupid Will seems before he meets Viola/Thomas. The play starts with him trying to write Sonnet #18, “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day”, with the whole company watching. It’s kind of funny, how he can’t finish the first line, but then it gets tiresome when we hear the sonnet for the 9th time in one act. Also, Christopher Marlowe helps him write it, or really writes most of it for him. He also gives Will most of the groundwork for the main conflict of “Romeo & Juliet”, plus the name Juliet. In the play, it’s completely different from the not-so-good-natured playwright rivalry of the movie. Instead, the play shows them as pretty much BFFs, with Marlowe being the brains of the operation and Will being brilliant only when inspired by love. Marlowe’s death is that much sadder, and I loved their boyish friendship. But I didn’t like how the entire first act made Will sort of a buffoon. It is very easy and effective to show writer’s block as the movie did – somewhat subtly and realistically. It doesn’t need to be over the top. Who doesn’t know what writer’s block is! It’s unnecessary to show writer’s block by having the writer seem stupid. Now that’s just offensive to all writers. I did, however, really like the actor playing Marlowe, and I am glad they made the part so much bigger and meatier for the play for his sake, so let’s call it a draw.
The rest of Shakespeare’s acting troupe included a mustachioed yet winning pirate with long greasy hair playing the Ben Affleck role, a young pretty-faced boy who plays the girl parts while he can, and a tailor given the prologue whose stutter we’re supposed to laugh at?? In the film, the stutterer was someone you rooted for and cheered with when he conquered it with performing. But in the show, it felt more like the stutter was on display for the audience to ridicule. Not a good change. Please, if you see this or any other show ever, you’re probably a douche if you laugh at disability on display.
Queen Elizabeth, the role Judi Dench won an Oscar for despite only having like 4 lines and being onscreen for a shorter time than it takes me to tie my shoes, is played more humorous than regal here, which is somewhat off-putting. I don’t know Lizzie the I like I know Lizzie the II, but I’m pretty sure neither of them would be humorous in front of the general public. In front of family and friends, sure, but not in front of poor people. This Queen was written, directed, and acted just a little too familiarly. I want my queens bitchy, stern, and formal, thanks.
My favorite minor character I didn’t even realize was my favorite until the program verified it afterwards. Paul Chahidi, who was the glorious maid in Twelfth Night on Broadway last season (with Mark Rylance, originally at the Globe), played the Geoffrey Rush producer part of Henslowe. Paul Chahidi is superb and I want to see him as the humorous sidekick in pretty much every single play, even those without humorous sidekicks. Rush gave the movie its major memorable line, as he said at various points, to explain how things sort of work themselves out, “It’s a mystery!” and it was adorable, and we liked it, and we loved it. Chahidi’s Henslowe says it once early on and I smiled…but then in Act Two, he started saying it more and more. In the final 20 minutes, I think he said it 4 times. That is too many. That’s the writer’s fault, not Chahidi’s (Paul’s likeability is what saves us from groaning) but that’s something that should have been caught. That overuse and the 9 times we have to listen to Sonnet #18 should have been addressed by editors.
Regardless of these quibbles, the play is overall enjoyable and should make you laugh and cry and laugh and cry some more if you are not a robot. They really should have taken the opportunity to make this a musical and try to elevate it above and beyond the movie, rather than aiming to equal it, but I’ll leave that development to future artists. The story is strong enough without music, I guess. Will and Viola fall in love, Will is totally inspired and writes the genius “Romeo & Juliet” (it’s genius, even if you’re still sick of it from middle school), and Viola has to follow the queen’s and her father’s orders and marry Wessex. This oh this was also much worse than the movie. Wessex is a total shit in both, just a horrible awful man, but at least in the movie he looked like Colin Firth so you didn’t feel toooo badly for Viola. Here he’s just a normal so it’s real sad. Also, her father (whom I don’t think we see in the movie) is an even worse shit. So at least she gets away from him. The maid, the best part of the movie because it’s Imelda Stanton, is just okay here. She kind of milks her “It is a new day!” line to get laughs from the audience when really it should only be the set-up for Viola’s “It is a new world” reply, which is instead tossed aside.
Tom Bateman as Will works unbelievably hard, so hard that the sweat literally pours off of him throughout the show. His hair was soaking wet the entire time, even at stage door. I was like, “I don’t know how you are going to do a second show tonight” and he said “I don’t know either!” which is funny and self-deprecating but then he lit a cigarette and I was like, oh so you want to struggle to keep up, I get it.
So, anyway, no matter how you felt about the movie, this show is worth seeing. It’s not perfect, and like 99% of shows (/movies/television/books/anything), I wish I was able to edit it before it was considered set and finished, but alas, it has a few flaws. Luckily, these flaws won’t keep you from enjoying the show, and at least in the case of Viola’s uncharacteristically husky voice, some of them will help you enjoy it more. Okay now I’m done making fun.
2 Comments
You need to watch this again. I do not agree with your review. The music wasn’t great but the show was.
LOL