Broadway's "Dear Evan Hansen": Why Dehydration from Crying is Possible but Worth Itby Randi / May 9, 2017
In my long, extensive history of theatre obsession, I’ve never been as surprised by a show as I was by “Bandstand”. Well at least in the upward direction; I’ve been downward surprised many a time. Considering how few Tony nominations (THEY MEAN NOTHING) it got, how little chatter there was on my online Broadway forums, and how easily I picked up a few rush tickets one afternoon, I didn’t expect much from the new musical. I wanted to see it because I like Laura Osnes, the star, and because I wanted a solid musical to take my sister-in-law to that I hadn’t already seen. Well. Color me thrilled (and badd) because I was sitting there slack-jawed buggy-eyed and wanting SO bad to shout down to the stage “Ohh my god oh my god you guys, this is REALLY GOOD did you know??” I didn’t obviously because I am of sound mind but guys it really was.
“Bandstand”, which has nothing to do with the old Philly-based show “American Bandstand” no matter how badly my parents want it to, tells the story of World War II veterans who return home to Cleveland and form a rocking swing band in order to win a radio competition. That’s the short version I knew going in. What the ads aren’t selling, and what they should be selling, is that the story deals heavily, primarily really, with the PTSD and severe depression the vets are suffering with upon return. And the guilt. So much guilt. It’s so heavy and difficult, watching them struggle to get through each day, singing about how things will be just like they were before but knowing that nothing could ever be like it was before. This group of veterans forms the band not only to win a competition but because it’s the only thing that helps them wake up and get through the day, and playing music is the only time they aren’t completely incapacitated by their demons. The show deals so directly with these serious issues facing veterans, issues that need to be addressed directly in real life but still aren’t, and the show really should be commended for not sugar-coating it at all. In lots of other art it’s like ‘Oh Johnny drinks every night so he can fall asleep without thinking of all he saw over there’ and that’s all that’s said. In this, it’s that plus stories for every character plus visuals like a platoon of dead soldiers crawling over the piano as our lead tries to play, showing how every moment of his new life is weighed down by his experience.Okay so that sounds like a really sad and unenjoyable show, but it’s not. The severity of what they’re dealing with helps connect the audience to the characters really quickly, and from there we are totally with them on the journey as they find something worth living for. And the music is rollicking and fun and really helps lift everyone’s spirits and provide a sense of joy and hope for the characters. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the swing music considering the last time I listened to it was begrudgingly at school dances in the ‘90s when it was somehow popular at that sort of thing. I mean it’s not wise to compare Broadway musicians to that f-ing horrendous “Zoot Suit Riot” song but still. I’m super impressed by composers Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor considering I don’t know their previous work.
Right at the start of the show, we are somewhere in the Pacific Ocean with Corey Cott and a group of soldiers in trenches, just when some really bad things are about to happen (we know from lights flashing and then darkness). In another section of the stage, Laura Osnes is at home being a homemaker (we know because she’s wearing an apron) when a man in uniform rings her doorbell to bring her some awful news, and we deduce that her husband was just killed in that attack when she opens the door, sees who it is, and crumples to the ground sobbing. So all of this is happening with just the orchestra playing, no words or anything, and despite the fact that you haven’t met anyone yet and despite being maybe 30 seconds long it’s so well done that you will 100% cry. Osnes is a TRAYSURE, as Emily Gilmore would say.
Then the war is over and Corey Cott’s Donny Novitski made it back home to Cleveland. As the ensemble sings about getting back to normal, we see that Donny clearly is too haunted by his experience to know what normal is. He hears about a radio competition looking for the next big swing band, and he thinks it would sure be swell if the winners were a group of just-returned veterans. He sets about finding amazing musicians who have suitably served enough so that they are all broken (maybe not intentional). Meeting the 6 band members is so much fun. Despite not having tons of lines each, they are all given enough time and room to develop individual characters and really make you understand who they are and what they’re going through. Brandon J. Ellis, as big fun Irishman Davy on bass, is the funniest one, making ridiculous jokes and providing some much needed comic relief, although he’s clearly using humor to mask his pain like he does with alcohol. Most of his jokes were new to me, but I loved when the audience roared at one I knew: “A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel on his pants. The bartender says ‘hey, you’ve got a steering wheel on your pants.’ ‘Arghh’, the pirate says, ‘and it’s driving me nuts.’” Oh my god it’s so dumb I love it. Davy is full of jokes like this throughout the show, which is much appreciated. At one point, Davy tells the others guys, “I’ve survived mustard gas and pepper spray. I’m really a seasoned vet.” Grooooaaaan/love it.
Another standout of the band was Joe Carroll as Johnny on drums. His short-term memory and ability to socialize normally is shot because he suffered serious brain damage, as he tells you over and over, when his jeep flipped three times during an attack. His story is heartbreaking, but he uses humor well to get through it, and seems so good-hearted that you just want to give him a hug. At one particularly moving moment, he admits that despite his brain damage, he’s the lucky one of the group because he has fewer memories disturbing his mind all day. And the man providing most of my agita was Geoff Packard as Wayne on trombone, who had the most trouble reacclimating and pretending that normal life was normal at all. Part of his morning ritual was cleaning his gun in the bathroom, and I was 100% sure that meant he was going to kill himself by the time the show was over, especially since he seemed to be the most unable to return to everyday life. Thank god it was the one time when Chekhov’s gun was wrong, because his struggle to get to a point where life was bearable, thanks to this group, was one of the most emotional. Alex Bender as Nick on trumpet and a wonderful James Nathan Hopkins as Jimmy on sax round out the really impressive group of musicians, and although we get a lot of expected conflict between the troubled men, watching them struggle through their issues and try to create great music together was wonderful. And in case you think it’s a total feel good story where music solves all their troubles and they end the show super happy and smiley, that’s not the case at all. It just helps them get out of bed, one day at a time. The fight is shown as constant, not one that you can win in one battle but one that you fight on a continuous basis.
By now you’re probably like um where is Laura Osnes in all this besides reigning over everyone like the queen she is? Laura plays Julia Trojan, a name choice I haven’t yet decided how I feel about because it offers a few funny bits but like is it too forced? not sure. Actually it does lead to a stellar display of Laura’s acting in one conversation about it so maybe I’m for it, although the same conversation could have happened with any odd name. Anyway. Donny, as we saw in the opening, was with Julia’s husband when he died. It turns out they had become best friends, and her husband made Donny promise to look after Julia if he died. Later in the show, more comes out about her husband and his death that I could not have seen coming, and through my horror I was more and more impressed at how much this show kept surprising me without sacrificing substance or form. Donny sees Julia sing in church and is blown away like we all are because she can sang, and he asks Julia to sing with him in the band. I’ve seen Corey and Laura before, but their vocals in this show are astounding. You’ve never heard Laura, usually very angelic and sweet-voiced, belt as insanely as she does here, and Corey’s vocal strength constantly wows too. And he’s playing the piano the entire show, which is so impressive. (Or at the very least he’s really convincingly pretending to play the piano.) He needs to be Broadway’s next sure-thang leading man because hot damn, Corey Cott. Hot damn.
In the first act, the show blends the more serious moments with the band’s performances around town as it tries to build up its repertoire and name. These gigs are upbeat and tons of fun, in large part due to the eye-popping choreography. This is when Andy Blankenbuehler, director and choreographer who won the Tony for choreographing “Hamilton” (and “In the Heights”), gets to shine with his crazy (and I mean CAH RAZY) lifts and throws and super frenetic and energetic dancing in the ensemble. Morgan Marcell (who was also in “Hamilton”) fully distracted me from the band’s performing and Laura’s singing during these scenes as she was like doing figure skating spins and throws but like not on ice. I am in awe. Remember the amazing spin Aaron Tveit and Julianne Hough did on “Grease: Live!” during the Hand Jive (should play that exact moment)? The dancing in these gig scenes was like that but more intense and for the entire time. dammmmn. I don’t like spoiling but here is one little sneak peak.
Another thing that helps lift the spirits from super depression is the performance of Beth Leavel as Julia’s mother, who now lives with her widowed daughter. Beth Leavel is pretty big deal in musical theatre, so at first I was kind of like “ughhh we’re at the point where Beth Leavel is getting jobs as the ingénue’s mother onstage for like five minutes?” But, as I should have expected, Beth turns her small-ish role into a hilarious at times, lovely at other times portrayal and really makes her time onstage meaningful. She gets a touching, beautiful song called “Everything Happens”, about how not everything happens for a reason, but it just happens and we have to get through it somehow, and it’s wonderful. A rare occurrence of that sort of honest sentiment. And she gets to be hilarious as promised during a dinner scene, entering silently with a plate of deviled eggs so red that I was struck and distracted by the color from my balcony seat. I just thought oh that’s a weird move by the prop department. But then Julia and Donny stop talking, look to the eggs and then to Beth and she says, “The lid came off the paprika.” Her delivery was so deadpan and amazing that the audience actually broke into applause. So funny.
Despite being a relatively long show (the first act alone is an hour and a half), it felt shorter than most because of how engaging everything was. We’re there every step of the way as the band tries to make it, and more importantly as the guys try to stay in control of their mental states enough to get through a performance. It’s brilliant to see them decide to stop pretending like everything is fine, and that if they are going to sell themselves as a band of vets then they should be singing about real issues vets face. The band’s big song in the radio competition, “Love Will Come and Find Me Again”, is flipping amazing and I cannot wait to get the cast album oh my god they better make a cast album. The melody and the lyrics aren’t revolutionary, but the character’s sharing is, and the song is perfectly catchy and solid and the performance is so exhilarating and gorgeous that you can’t believe any other competitors came close. And their big climactic performance of their very risky song “Welcome Home” is like if anxiety were set to music, kind of hard to listen to but completely on purpose, and so riveting that you’re scared to blink or breathe lest it affect the magic being created. And also you can’t breathe because if you do the breath will catch in your throat and you will sob.
So the music is so much fun and often incredibly moving, the dancing is awesome, the book is more sophisticated and smarter than most, and the performances are wonderful across the board. At first I thought maybe the direction was overdone, because Andy loves him some busy choreo to the point where it’s sometimes distracting (like in Hamilton) but there are so many moments of brilliance. Andy is a stronger choreographer than director, given his background, and at times there probably should have been another voice tempering the movement. What works with his choreography in ensemble numbers is that it’s busy and frenzied and always interesting to watch. In non-dancing moments, that kind of thinking could be too busy, but here it often works, especially with the ghosts of their service haunting the men constantly. It’s a lot, sometimes too much to know what to focus on, but for this particular show it’s effective. Once, during Donny’s big first song, Andy’s signature kinds of movement were obvious (standing with his legs tightly pressed together with bent knees swinging left and right, a little hunched in the back. I feel like that’s how Andy himself is always moving). It was a little distracting because I remember thinking “Oh that looks like Andy!” not exactly the character. There were little moments like that peppered throughout where the movement didn’t match the action or characters. But for the most part, it was nearly flawless staging.
I really can’t get over how impressed I was with it. Even expected tropes like the inevitable budding romance between our two leads as they help each other work through their shared grief is done in a way that keeps it from being predictable. First of all, Laura and Corey’s chemistry is off the charts. It really was remarkable, so strong that when I remembered Laura is married in real life I was like aw. Second of all, it’s not a clear-cut romance in the least. Their big song together, once they’ve grown closer and everyone else knows they have feelings for each other, is not a love song. Instead it’s them admitting that because of who they are and what they’ve gone through, nothing can happen between them. It was so well done and made their story more realistic and emotional.
This is a pretty stellar Broadway season and, even with a lot of good work happening, this ranks up there as one of my top shows of the year. I know, I can’t believe it either. But aside from Act II getting a little loose in the cage, it’s an endlessly enjoyable, thought-provoking, moving, harrowing, and ultimately uplifting show that hits all the marks necessary to make you cry, laugh, and smile a lot. A lot a lot. Now that “Dear Evan Hansen” is sold out for probably as long as the earth has left, this is the show I’m most hoping succeeds. Go buy tickets, everyone, so it doesn’t close because I kind of want to see it again and I can’t go back to NYC until the fall!
THEATRE INFO
Toilets are in the basement, and only in the basement! Luckily there is only one mezzanine level, but still, that means at intermish you are running down two flights of stairs. It moves okay though.
Rush tickets ($30) are generally easy to get. No one is camping out at 4am like for other shows. After those sell out, the box office offers ‘secondary rush’ at $49. These seats actually have a better view than the first wave of rush, so it’s worth the extra money to wait.
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NBC’s “The Wiz Live!”: Finally, a Great (and Powerful) One
Okay, gonna say this right off the bat: this review won’t be as enjoyable as last year’s, because this production was infinitely more enjoyable than last year’s (it’s an inverse correlation thing)! Heck, “The Wiz” in any form is usually more enjoyable than “Peter Pan” in any form, except maybe in the “Once Upon A Time” version of Peter Pan because evil baby Peter as Rumplestiltskin’s father (what the HELL) was hilariously awesome and I’m getting sick sick sick of Zelena. Anyway.
Queen Latifah’s preshow pretaped message was a good move, because since she is Queen of all Queens, I was already hooked and in Theatre Mode. Phone off, shut your face or I’ll punch you, put that candy away, &c. Hot damn I love me some Latifs.
The show itself started with the 3 wise men/Dorothy’s Oz friends/Dorothy’s farmhands in their regular lives before they become the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man. Not ‘before they are dreamt of as those 3’ but before they become them, because one of my biggest problems with “The Wizard of Oz” is that we’re supposed to believe everything was a dream, which is bullshit. BULL. SHIT. I was very happy to see one of my favorite performers, Elijah Kelley, here as the Scarecrow, because even though we’ve only ever seen him in the newest “Hairspray” movie, that’s enough because a) that movie is perfect (if I were on an iPhone I’d use that red 100 emoji) and b) the year it came out the whole cast premiered songs from it live at ShoWest and I was fangirling at the front of the stage because I was the only non-old-white-old-man in the room so it was like ALL FOR ME and I was like ‘Angelica, ELIJAH!’ that whole time.
Dorothy, played by total newcomer Shanice Williams, begins by being such a teenager all huffy about how this farm isn’t her home and she wants to go home and are you too good for your home, but then Auntie Em, played by Stephanie Mills – as in, Stephanie Mills the original Dorothy in the original “The Wiz” Broadway production! – sings the first song about how like, your parents died in that accident and I hope soon you are back to your normal self because I don’t know how to make you feel better about being an orphan, no one does because that’s f-ing terrible. Starting a show with a ballad instead of a rousing company-wide upbeat number is my Theatre No-no #1, well aside from Not Sucking, because such songs immediately bring energy levels down – so when you are just starting, you’re at level 0 energy, and then it brings you into negatives, and most of America doesn’t get how negatives even work because public education is in shambles, so it’s just not the best way to begin. However, Mills is pretty great considering it’s a super-cold open and she’s a ledge. But then things get going with the COOLEST FREAKING TORNADO I’ve ever seen. Damn! I think my only point of reference might be ‘Twister’, and the news, but this used some wonderful special effects both in the form of projections and, much cooler, in the form of lots of chorus boys spinning around all crazy like. I very much enjoyed this tornado and hope I am never in a real one.
The camera starts to go fuzzayyyy and then it focuses on Dorothy, her broke ass house, and shiny towers of Oz!! Wheee! Munchkins come out and they are wearing adorable costumes and are NOT midgets being exploited! Huzzah! They’re acting all serious and adorable and mad about how the house killed someone wearing silver heels hella difficult to walk in (maybe that’s what killed her), but then they’re like NO WE’RE SO HAPPY YOU KILLED A STRANGER LET’S HAVE A PARTY INSTEAD OF EXPLAINING IT ADEQUATELY TO YOU SO YOU AREN’T SCARRED FOR LIFE! and then freaking Amber Riley, wasted for years on “Glee” until we almost forgot what a talent she really is, comes out and shouts “Hey girl, I’m Glinda, oh wait just kidding, I’m ‘Addaperle, the feel-good girl’; there’s another good witch in this version named Glinda, she’s really cool too.” I CAN’T WAIT!
We hear some dumb lines in this updated book by Harvey Fierstein, whom I absolutely adoooore, but he wasn’t the right choice for this show. I mean. Old Jewish white boy, traditionally black and urban hip hop musical….There’s a bleh line about having sushi for lunch and something else I immediately put out of mind, and then Amber lets loose on “He’s the Wiz” and it’s pretty amazing, stupid Ryan Murphy kept her on lockdown for so many years. She does a sort of “And I Am Telling You” ending to a whatever song, with Shanice getting her first sung lines, well a few ‘ahh’s. Sounded great! Why has Dorothy still not had a song??!!
Yay here she goes! For Shanice’s first song, “Soon as I Get Home”, she needed a minute or two to shake out the nerves, but she proved how impressive she is. Great job! It’s still a super R&B slow-jam song though. And yes, this show is famously R&B, but so far it’s all the same kind of sound. We need something more energetic to cut all these power ballads!
We cut to that unfairly incredible commercial with Taraji, Kerry, and Mary J., and I’m like, damn, why am I not cooking and dancing with those ladies rn? What do I have to do to be in that commercial with them but in real life?
We come back to the show and see, on the scarecrow’s pole, that weird and scary guy Cillian Murphy played in “Batman Begins” with that burlap sack mask. Or it’s Elijah Kelley wearing that same weird and scary mask, covering up his pretty little face. He’s surrounded by really scary mean crow-men, who he says have been filling his head with all manner of nonsense. I think the crows represent the republican presidential candidates and OMG, I’m right, they just began the ‘Crow Commandments’, really called “You Can’t Win”, but I like my title better. It’s such a fun, upbeat (yay finally!) song considering how dire the message is – you can’t win, you can’t get out of the game, you are screwed forever, just give up. It must be hard to sing in your best voice when there is a pole stuck up your butt and you’re just hanging there with no breath support, but he does a decent job. I know there’s better from him to come though. His spoken lines are hilarious with his fast timing: “Do you know what?” “I know nothing!”
HERE WE GO! Next comes the most famous song of the whole ‘70s, “Ease on Down the Road”. I dare you, no, I double dog triple cat dare you, not to sing along whenever you hear this song. This is one powerful instant mood lifter, oh man. The pace seems to be picking up, along with the energy, and we quickly meet the Tin-Man, played by Ne-Yo, yes, that Ne-Yo. He sounds incredible, singing his big song “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, oh I’m sorry, that’s “Slide Some Oil To Me”. Same same. It has a super chill not-at-all-awkward chorus that goes “so slide some oil to me, girl, and we can lubricate my miiiind”. Totally normal. Anyway, Ne-Yo is some great casting. I really like this version of the Tin Man compared to the Wizard of Oz. It’s much closer to his backstory in “Wicked”, having the bad witch turn him into a Tin Man and leaving him heartless, saying if she couldn’t have his heart, no one could. And also, Ne-Yo is legit fabulous in this role.
We get a quick “Ease on Down” reprise before Mr. David Alan Grier pops out roaring as the Cowardly Lion, looking to sell some happy dust to Audra McDonald if only Dr. Jesus will help him out while singing “I’m a Mean Ole Lion”. He’s pretty great, complaining about failed therapy and what not. I love it. And he looks wonderful. It’s hard to get a lion costume down, but the costumes for this show are so far wonderful. Except Dorothy’s. And now another “Ease on Down” reprise!
Then ‘The Wiz’ gets hella dark and kind of close to a line that shouldn’t be crossed – the wicked witch’s monkeys, or other evil spirits, or some terrible dark force, conjure up the image of Dorothy’s deceased mother, to have her/it lure Dorothy into almost giving up the silver slippers, because how can this young kid realize that it’s not the mother she wishes more than anything to see again and that it’s just the most evil thing possible? Damn. Luckily the Tin Man stops her from giving the slipper and then they fight some red-eyed cyclops flying monkeys who can dance and fall so gracefully. Then Dorothy sings a song to the Lion just like Em sang to her at the beginning. “Be A Lion” sounds like a really difficult song to sing, and it doesn’t really have a worthwhile pay off until DAG joins in at the end.
AND THEN COME THE POPPIES! It’s like remembrance day in England all over again! The poppy set was super beautiful; I love how they produced this scene. Another red 100 emoji for you guys. I started to get super nervous about the Lion being all pervy to the flowers but then he showed he was impervious (WORDPLAY) to the poppies and tied them up.
And then all of a sudden they were in the Emerald City! Common as the Bouncer to Emerald City, which is apparently just a cool night club, was kind of painful, and I love Common. Like more than Serena did. Luckily, Dot mentioned how she killed one of the wicked witches and has her slippers, so Common lets them into the Capital for a dance party before the reaping, so it seems. After they do some weird new version of the robot, we meet the Wiz! It’s Latifah! She sings a song that is way too low for her. Why wouldn’t they have changed the key? In every big production, a man played the Wiz, but it actually sounds like they didn’t transpose the song for Latifs. Why on earth would that be the case? SO FING DUMB.
Harvey gives Ne-Yo some amazing lines in this interaction with the Wiz: “Whatchu looking for, a can opener?” Ne-Yo: “Ohh you clever! You scary as hell, but you clever!” I love it! It’s followed by a really lame Spice Girls reference. Oh Harvey.
But then Ne-Yo sings “What Would I Do if I Could Feel” and saves the moment by bringing the house down. How amazing would he be as Aaron Burr in “Hamilton”??? Make it so! In the London production! It could happen.
Latifah made some more awkward acting things, Dorothy said a forced line about her squad (#ohharvey), and then the star foursome of Dorothy and her three wise men sang a showstopping rendition of “We Got It’, which with just a little more choreography on their part would be ready for the Broadway revival. Speaking of, I really hope these four are in it.
The high energy and production value continued as we finally meet Evillene, the Wicked Witch we knew as green but is now freaking R&B royalty, dressed from the closet of Regina on Once Upon A Time, with those huge skirts over interesting pants. Did people in the fairy tale times really wear such things? If you are going to wear a skirt, it’s so you don’t have to wear pants, right? So why if you are going to wear a cool skirt would you ALSO wear pants? What’s the damn point? It’s like if you get up early for school but then find out it’s a snow day and you DON’T go back to sleep! What’s wrong with you! We don’t get snow in London.
Mary J. Blige’s Evillene is amazing, oh my goodness. Can she do anything wrong? She gets one bum line accusing her funnyman henchman of being ‘an Eddie Murphy or something’? because he’s funny? #ohharvey. But then she gets some great lines proving that Dorothy kind of sucks, in the “Wicked” perspective at least. Like, she stole Evillene’s sister’s shoes…after she KILLED her. Wicked witch allowed to be mad about that, and those facts do make Dorothy seem like the wicked one. But apparently Evillene’s talk about throwing shade made Dorothy upset that she missed the latest podcast while in Oz so she picked up her mopping bucket and threw the dirty water on the witch to melt her, because water can kill. (We learned that in fifth grade. It was a riddle my teacher gave us: What is necessary for life but can also kill you. Fifth grade. Riddle. In school. Not weird.) So Dorothy laments ‘Oh no, I did it again”, which is weird because that’s WHY she went to Evillene’s lair in the first place, under the Wiz’s orders, to kill Evillene. Did she forget her mission? Never forget the mission Dot! An even stranger reaction is that Evillene’s indentured servants slowly start stripping as soon as they realize their master is gone. Like, no verbal reaction, just slow stripping. We see that underneath their super-cool goth-punk dark pink and black robes are yellow booty shorts, happier clothes that they weren’t allowed to wear, and only when they are free of the dark clothes can their moods match the joy of the yellow clothes. Or something. “Everybody Rejoice/Brand New Day” is joyous and fun, and the foursome sound wonderful, like they know they made it through the brunt of the show and can relax. Ensemble members get a few solo sung lines, which is nice. Hi Capathia!
Big running question: Why do they have Dorothy in a too short miniskirt this whole time? She’s like 13 in the show, right? Every number that requires her to dance shows her underwear, which is weird for a 13 year old.
Another awkward as ass Common scene! And then another awkward Latifah scene when they pull back the curtain and find that she’s a fraud and a WOMAN! I didn’t think that was a secret? They did call her ‘sir’ a lot when they first met her but I didn’t think anything of it. But there are some dumb lines when Ne-Yo’s like “oh she’s a woman!” and Dorothy’s like “and WHAT’S wrong with that? nothing. You have no manners” which is just like unnecessary here. Also it reminds me of what Sarah Silverman said about little girls: don’t tell little girls they can be whatever they want because that is what puts the idea in their head that someone says they can’t.
Anyway, they convince the Wiz to go back home to Omaha, which didn’t take a lot of effort considering they were like, ‘you can eat at Modern Love’, so she’s like yeah aight let’s bounce. Queenie lets down her hair and looks f-ing amazing in her final number “Y’all Got It”, and she also sounds a lot better. She gets in the hot air balloon and calls for Dorothy to join her, and in the original Wizard of Oz, Dot is too busy hugging her friends and tripping on her own feet and stuff and misses the flight in an oh shoot oh no manner. I love that here, Dorothy decides that going to Omaha is not right for her. Granted, she could have GONE to Omaha with the Wiz and then caught the freaking bus back to Auntie Em…because Omaha is closer to Kansas than a freaking OTHER REALM is, but she is only 13 and so her brain is only halfway developed. Her heart was in the right place, I guess. Kids are dumb.
But luckily Glinda arrives! We haven’t met Glinda yet and it’s almost over. Luckily Uzo Aduba is worth waiting for, because her Glinda has a touch of Crazy Eyes in her and it’s a great combination. Her song “Believe In Yourself” has some strong moments, a few rough patches, but overall I enjoyed it. Mostly because I was watching Crazy Eyes all dressed up and I never got to see her in “Godspell”. Uzoooo!
Finally/finale, we realize that Shanice Williams was saving everything she had for her big number, which so unfairly (to the star) is the finale of “The Wiz”. Aside from “Ease on Down the Road”, “Home” is the most recognizable song from the show, if not more so, considering Stephanie Mills released it as a single and Diana Ross sang it on the movie soundtrack. It’s kind of a big deal. I can’t express how proud I am of this little stranger Shanice for how perfectly she performed her big song. I mean. Watching this show back, she must be completely and totally thrilled with how faultless it was. I hope she’s as proud as everyone in the world is of her. My favorite thing, besides watching a newcomer shining in her big moment, was how everyone in the Broadway community erupted on Twitter proclaiming that the country just witnessed a star being born. I love the camaraderie! Everyone seemed so proud of her! I love it!
Overall, this was such a strong show and definitely the best of the televised live shows thus far. I am going to make an advance bet that it’s also better than Fox’s upcoming “Grease!” live because “Grease” sucks and they should have chosen “Grease 2: Back in the Habit” to do instead. For “The Wiz”, NBC and Neil Meron & Craig Zadan seemed to hear all the criticism of the previous two shows – iron out that camerawork in tech more, and hire actors who can actually do the job, not just Be Famous – and actually worked on fixing those issues. The cast here was hella famous, but they were actually incredible, obviously, because instead of like “oh let’s get Christopher Walken to do impressions of a stick being tossed by a light wind”, they got people famous for being great singers. That is smart. They also went for strong famous actors who have already been tested in musical theatre – Uzo Aduba was on Broadway before “OITNB” came out; David Alan Grier got a Tony nom early in his career, and he was in “Dreamgirls” on Broadway, and he was in freaking “Porgy & Bess” with Audra McDonald, FFS; Stephanie Mills, &c. I hope a lot of this cast continues with the upcoming Broadway production, especially Shanice (she deserves it), Elijah Kelley (he needs to break into Broadway and stay there), and DAG. And Mary J. Blige and Ne-Yo, though they’d probably never do it. And Stephanie Mills, because that would be almost as cool as when Kelli O’Hara someday plays Margaret in “The Light in the Piazza”. Suffice it to say, I am really excited to see who I’m going to see in the stage production. Almost as excited as I am to watch this again right now.
The show itself started with the 3 wise men/Dorothy’s Oz friends/Dorothy’s farmhands in their regular lives before they become the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man. Not ‘before they are dreamt of as those 3’ but before they become them, because one of my biggest problems with “The Wizard of Oz” is that we’re supposed to believe everything was a dream, which is bullshit. BULL. SHIT. I was very happy to see one of my favorite performers, Elijah Kelley, here as the Scarecrow, because even though we’ve only ever seen him in the newest “Hairspray” movie, that’s enough because a) that movie is perfect (if I were on an iPhone I’d use that red 100 emoji) and b) the year it came out the whole cast premiered songs from it live at ShoWest and I was fangirling at the front of the stage because I was the only non-old-white-old-man in the room so it was like ALL FOR ME and I was like ‘Angelica, ELIJAH!’ that whole time.
Dorothy, played by total newcomer Shanice Williams, begins by being such a teenager all huffy about how this farm isn’t her home and she wants to go home and are you too good for your home, but then Auntie Em, played by Stephanie Mills – as in, Stephanie Mills the original Dorothy in the original “The Wiz” Broadway production! – sings the first song about how like, your parents died in that accident and I hope soon you are back to your normal self because I don’t know how to make you feel better about being an orphan, no one does because that’s f-ing terrible. Starting a show with a ballad instead of a rousing company-wide upbeat number is my Theatre No-no #1, well aside from Not Sucking, because such songs immediately bring energy levels down – so when you are just starting, you’re at level 0 energy, and then it brings you into negatives, and most of America doesn’t get how negatives even work because public education is in shambles, so it’s just not the best way to begin. However, Mills is pretty great considering it’s a super-cold open and she’s a ledge. But then things get going with the COOLEST FREAKING TORNADO I’ve ever seen. Damn! I think my only point of reference might be ‘Twister’, and the news, but this used some wonderful special effects both in the form of projections and, much cooler, in the form of lots of chorus boys spinning around all crazy like. I very much enjoyed this tornado and hope I am never in a real one.
The camera starts to go fuzzayyyy and then it focuses on Dorothy, her broke ass house, and shiny towers of Oz!! Wheee! Munchkins come out and they are wearing adorable costumes and are NOT midgets being exploited! Huzzah! They’re acting all serious and adorable and mad about how the house killed someone wearing silver heels hella difficult to walk in (maybe that’s what killed her), but then they’re like NO WE’RE SO HAPPY YOU KILLED A STRANGER LET’S HAVE A PARTY INSTEAD OF EXPLAINING IT ADEQUATELY TO YOU SO YOU AREN’T SCARRED FOR LIFE! and then freaking Amber Riley, wasted for years on “Glee” until we almost forgot what a talent she really is, comes out and shouts “Hey girl, I’m Glinda, oh wait just kidding, I’m ‘Addaperle, the feel-good girl’; there’s another good witch in this version named Glinda, she’s really cool too.” I CAN’T WAIT!
We hear some dumb lines in this updated book by Harvey Fierstein, whom I absolutely adoooore, but he wasn’t the right choice for this show. I mean. Old Jewish white boy, traditionally black and urban hip hop musical….There’s a bleh line about having sushi for lunch and something else I immediately put out of mind, and then Amber lets loose on “He’s the Wiz” and it’s pretty amazing, stupid Ryan Murphy kept her on lockdown for so many years. She does a sort of “And I Am Telling You” ending to a whatever song, with Shanice getting her first sung lines, well a few ‘ahh’s. Sounded great! Why has Dorothy still not had a song??!!
Yay here she goes! For Shanice’s first song, “Soon as I Get Home”, she needed a minute or two to shake out the nerves, but she proved how impressive she is. Great job! It’s still a super R&B slow-jam song though. And yes, this show is famously R&B, but so far it’s all the same kind of sound. We need something more energetic to cut all these power ballads!
We cut to that unfairly incredible commercial with Taraji, Kerry, and Mary J., and I’m like, damn, why am I not cooking and dancing with those ladies rn? What do I have to do to be in that commercial with them but in real life?
We come back to the show and see, on the scarecrow’s pole, that weird and scary guy Cillian Murphy played in “Batman Begins” with that burlap sack mask. Or it’s Elijah Kelley wearing that same weird and scary mask, covering up his pretty little face. He’s surrounded by really scary mean crow-men, who he says have been filling his head with all manner of nonsense. I think the crows represent the republican presidential candidates and OMG, I’m right, they just began the ‘Crow Commandments’, really called “You Can’t Win”, but I like my title better. It’s such a fun, upbeat (yay finally!) song considering how dire the message is – you can’t win, you can’t get out of the game, you are screwed forever, just give up. It must be hard to sing in your best voice when there is a pole stuck up your butt and you’re just hanging there with no breath support, but he does a decent job. I know there’s better from him to come though. His spoken lines are hilarious with his fast timing: “Do you know what?” “I know nothing!”
HERE WE GO! Next comes the most famous song of the whole ‘70s, “Ease on Down the Road”. I dare you, no, I double dog triple cat dare you, not to sing along whenever you hear this song. This is one powerful instant mood lifter, oh man. The pace seems to be picking up, along with the energy, and we quickly meet the Tin-Man, played by Ne-Yo, yes, that Ne-Yo. He sounds incredible, singing his big song “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, oh I’m sorry, that’s “Slide Some Oil To Me”. Same same. It has a super chill not-at-all-awkward chorus that goes “so slide some oil to me, girl, and we can lubricate my miiiind”. Totally normal. Anyway, Ne-Yo is some great casting. I really like this version of the Tin Man compared to the Wizard of Oz. It’s much closer to his backstory in “Wicked”, having the bad witch turn him into a Tin Man and leaving him heartless, saying if she couldn’t have his heart, no one could. And also, Ne-Yo is legit fabulous in this role.
We get a quick “Ease on Down” reprise before Mr. David Alan Grier pops out roaring as the Cowardly Lion, looking to sell some happy dust to Audra McDonald if only Dr. Jesus will help him out while singing “I’m a Mean Ole Lion”. He’s pretty great, complaining about failed therapy and what not. I love it. And he looks wonderful. It’s hard to get a lion costume down, but the costumes for this show are so far wonderful. Except Dorothy’s. And now another “Ease on Down” reprise!
Then ‘The Wiz’ gets hella dark and kind of close to a line that shouldn’t be crossed – the wicked witch’s monkeys, or other evil spirits, or some terrible dark force, conjure up the image of Dorothy’s deceased mother, to have her/it lure Dorothy into almost giving up the silver slippers, because how can this young kid realize that it’s not the mother she wishes more than anything to see again and that it’s just the most evil thing possible? Damn. Luckily the Tin Man stops her from giving the slipper and then they fight some red-eyed cyclops flying monkeys who can dance and fall so gracefully. Then Dorothy sings a song to the Lion just like Em sang to her at the beginning. “Be A Lion” sounds like a really difficult song to sing, and it doesn’t really have a worthwhile pay off until DAG joins in at the end.
AND THEN COME THE POPPIES! It’s like remembrance day in England all over again! The poppy set was super beautiful; I love how they produced this scene. Another red 100 emoji for you guys. I started to get super nervous about the Lion being all pervy to the flowers but then he showed he was impervious (WORDPLAY) to the poppies and tied them up.
And then all of a sudden they were in the Emerald City! Common as the Bouncer to Emerald City, which is apparently just a cool night club, was kind of painful, and I love Common. Like more than Serena did. Luckily, Dot mentioned how she killed one of the wicked witches and has her slippers, so Common lets them into the Capital for a dance party before the reaping, so it seems. After they do some weird new version of the robot, we meet the Wiz! It’s Latifah! She sings a song that is way too low for her. Why wouldn’t they have changed the key? In every big production, a man played the Wiz, but it actually sounds like they didn’t transpose the song for Latifs. Why on earth would that be the case? SO FING DUMB.
Harvey gives Ne-Yo some amazing lines in this interaction with the Wiz: “Whatchu looking for, a can opener?” Ne-Yo: “Ohh you clever! You scary as hell, but you clever!” I love it! It’s followed by a really lame Spice Girls reference. Oh Harvey.
But then Ne-Yo sings “What Would I Do if I Could Feel” and saves the moment by bringing the house down. How amazing would he be as Aaron Burr in “Hamilton”??? Make it so! In the London production! It could happen.
Latifah made some more awkward acting things, Dorothy said a forced line about her squad (#ohharvey), and then the star foursome of Dorothy and her three wise men sang a showstopping rendition of “We Got It’, which with just a little more choreography on their part would be ready for the Broadway revival. Speaking of, I really hope these four are in it.
The high energy and production value continued as we finally meet Evillene, the Wicked Witch we knew as green but is now freaking R&B royalty, dressed from the closet of Regina on Once Upon A Time, with those huge skirts over interesting pants. Did people in the fairy tale times really wear such things? If you are going to wear a skirt, it’s so you don’t have to wear pants, right? So why if you are going to wear a cool skirt would you ALSO wear pants? What’s the damn point? It’s like if you get up early for school but then find out it’s a snow day and you DON’T go back to sleep! What’s wrong with you! We don’t get snow in London.
Mary J. Blige’s Evillene is amazing, oh my goodness. Can she do anything wrong? She gets one bum line accusing her funnyman henchman of being ‘an Eddie Murphy or something’? because he’s funny? #ohharvey. But then she gets some great lines proving that Dorothy kind of sucks, in the “Wicked” perspective at least. Like, she stole Evillene’s sister’s shoes…after she KILLED her. Wicked witch allowed to be mad about that, and those facts do make Dorothy seem like the wicked one. But apparently Evillene’s talk about throwing shade made Dorothy upset that she missed the latest podcast while in Oz so she picked up her mopping bucket and threw the dirty water on the witch to melt her, because water can kill. (We learned that in fifth grade. It was a riddle my teacher gave us: What is necessary for life but can also kill you. Fifth grade. Riddle. In school. Not weird.) So Dorothy laments ‘Oh no, I did it again”, which is weird because that’s WHY she went to Evillene’s lair in the first place, under the Wiz’s orders, to kill Evillene. Did she forget her mission? Never forget the mission Dot! An even stranger reaction is that Evillene’s indentured servants slowly start stripping as soon as they realize their master is gone. Like, no verbal reaction, just slow stripping. We see that underneath their super-cool goth-punk dark pink and black robes are yellow booty shorts, happier clothes that they weren’t allowed to wear, and only when they are free of the dark clothes can their moods match the joy of the yellow clothes. Or something. “Everybody Rejoice/Brand New Day” is joyous and fun, and the foursome sound wonderful, like they know they made it through the brunt of the show and can relax. Ensemble members get a few solo sung lines, which is nice. Hi Capathia!
Big running question: Why do they have Dorothy in a too short miniskirt this whole time? She’s like 13 in the show, right? Every number that requires her to dance shows her underwear, which is weird for a 13 year old.
Another awkward as ass Common scene! And then another awkward Latifah scene when they pull back the curtain and find that she’s a fraud and a WOMAN! I didn’t think that was a secret? They did call her ‘sir’ a lot when they first met her but I didn’t think anything of it. But there are some dumb lines when Ne-Yo’s like “oh she’s a woman!” and Dorothy’s like “and WHAT’S wrong with that? nothing. You have no manners” which is just like unnecessary here. Also it reminds me of what Sarah Silverman said about little girls: don’t tell little girls they can be whatever they want because that is what puts the idea in their head that someone says they can’t.
Anyway, they convince the Wiz to go back home to Omaha, which didn’t take a lot of effort considering they were like, ‘you can eat at Modern Love’, so she’s like yeah aight let’s bounce. Queenie lets down her hair and looks f-ing amazing in her final number “Y’all Got It”, and she also sounds a lot better. She gets in the hot air balloon and calls for Dorothy to join her, and in the original Wizard of Oz, Dot is too busy hugging her friends and tripping on her own feet and stuff and misses the flight in an oh shoot oh no manner. I love that here, Dorothy decides that going to Omaha is not right for her. Granted, she could have GONE to Omaha with the Wiz and then caught the freaking bus back to Auntie Em…because Omaha is closer to Kansas than a freaking OTHER REALM is, but she is only 13 and so her brain is only halfway developed. Her heart was in the right place, I guess. Kids are dumb.
But luckily Glinda arrives! We haven’t met Glinda yet and it’s almost over. Luckily Uzo Aduba is worth waiting for, because her Glinda has a touch of Crazy Eyes in her and it’s a great combination. Her song “Believe In Yourself” has some strong moments, a few rough patches, but overall I enjoyed it. Mostly because I was watching Crazy Eyes all dressed up and I never got to see her in “Godspell”. Uzoooo!
Finally/finale, we realize that Shanice Williams was saving everything she had for her big number, which so unfairly (to the star) is the finale of “The Wiz”. Aside from “Ease on Down the Road”, “Home” is the most recognizable song from the show, if not more so, considering Stephanie Mills released it as a single and Diana Ross sang it on the movie soundtrack. It’s kind of a big deal. I can’t express how proud I am of this little stranger Shanice for how perfectly she performed her big song. I mean. Watching this show back, she must be completely and totally thrilled with how faultless it was. I hope she’s as proud as everyone in the world is of her. My favorite thing, besides watching a newcomer shining in her big moment, was how everyone in the Broadway community erupted on Twitter proclaiming that the country just witnessed a star being born. I love the camaraderie! Everyone seemed so proud of her! I love it!
Overall, this was such a strong show and definitely the best of the televised live shows thus far. I am going to make an advance bet that it’s also better than Fox’s upcoming “Grease!” live because “Grease” sucks and they should have chosen “Grease 2: Back in the Habit” to do instead. For “The Wiz”, NBC and Neil Meron & Craig Zadan seemed to hear all the criticism of the previous two shows – iron out that camerawork in tech more, and hire actors who can actually do the job, not just Be Famous – and actually worked on fixing those issues. The cast here was hella famous, but they were actually incredible, obviously, because instead of like “oh let’s get Christopher Walken to do impressions of a stick being tossed by a light wind”, they got people famous for being great singers. That is smart. They also went for strong famous actors who have already been tested in musical theatre – Uzo Aduba was on Broadway before “OITNB” came out; David Alan Grier got a Tony nom early in his career, and he was in “Dreamgirls” on Broadway, and he was in freaking “Porgy & Bess” with Audra McDonald, FFS; Stephanie Mills, &c. I hope a lot of this cast continues with the upcoming Broadway production, especially Shanice (she deserves it), Elijah Kelley (he needs to break into Broadway and stay there), and DAG. And Mary J. Blige and Ne-Yo, though they’d probably never do it. And Stephanie Mills, because that would be almost as cool as when Kelli O’Hara someday plays Margaret in “The Light in the Piazza”. Suffice it to say, I am really excited to see who I’m going to see in the stage production. Almost as excited as I am to watch this again right now.
Anyone Can Whistle at the Southwark: A Star Turn, A Weird Show
Today’s show is Anyone Can Whistle, at the Southwark Playhouse in London until May 7, so hurry (or not)
It’s not often you get to see a new-to-you Sondheim show when you’re a Sondheim devotee! Or ever! But indeed the Southwark’s production of his insane musical Anyone Can Whistle, with book by noted goofball and apparent magic mushroom-lover Arthur Laurents (I’M JOKING) (am I), is my first full production of his lesser-known show. Sure I knew the score, especially those bangers “There Won’t Be Trumpets” (thanks to Mandy Patinkin) and “Everybody Says Don’t” (thanks to Sutton Foster). How could I have ever guessed that the fairly decent-to-great songs compose a show that would have us going ‘what’ ‘why’ ‘what’ ‘wait but why’ every few minutes?
Anyone Can Whistle tells the tale of a corrupt mayor (excuse me, ‘mayoress’) and her lackeys who need to get money into their very poor town, in which the only operating business of any sort seems to be the mental institution ridiculously named The Cookie Jar, with all patients (inmates) called cookies. (Is Paula’s nickname for Rebecca on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” Rachel Bloom’s little nod to Sondheim? I say yes.) They…they decide to pump a rock full of water? and have it be a miracle when much needed water comes shooting out of a rock. Pilgrims mfing FLOCK to see the magical water miracle. They’re all like (Lewis Black voice) ‘we gotta SEE the big fucking thing!’ Money pours in as the mayoral team sells tickets to see this water rock. I’m not saying I wouldn’t pay money to see a nice water feature but that’s just me I’m weird. As a town-saving gimmick, this shit’s A LONG SHOT. INTO THIS STORY SO FAR! KEEP UP THE NONSENSE IN A FUN WAY.
The nurse at the Cookie Jar (imagine going to nursing or medical school and being a professional healthcare worker and having to tell people your facility is called The Cookie Jar), Nurse Apple, wants to bring all her cookies to the miracle, either to prove it’s fake or just in case it’s legitimate, it’s unclear. This is where things started to get dicey and not in a ‘oh we’re all having fun!’ way. Apple’s only characterization from the book is that she’s skeptical and straight-laced, and I needed more/any further character development from the actress to make her make sense. She says she wants a hero to deliver the town from corruption, to save her cookies? And so she disguises herself as a French miracle inspector. It makes no sense if all we get is that this nurse is a no-fun-having idealist whose big idea is to dress like a French prostitute who just woke up to try to shut the miracle down. Could’ve done that in oodles of other ways that weren’t so nothing, Arthur. GETTING LESS INTO THIS STORY.
Meanwhile, a man named Hapgood shows up and the town is like ‘oh are you the new doctor for The Cookie Jar’ and he’s like OKAY SURE! and no one asks Dr Timothee Chalamet for like ID or anything, so immediately a thinking person would guess that he’s def NOT the doctor but he’s charismatic like a bright bone-free human version of the inflatable things outside car dealerships, and they tell him ‘okay you’re in charge of figuring out who’s crazy and who isn’t, just like, go through the town and tell us who gets locked up in the jar.’ NOT THE BEST SYSTEM. Then he and the disguised Nurse Apple meet and immeds try to seduce each other for very unclear reasons. From here, the last 10-15 mins of Act I (and then all their scenes in II) become tedious because it’s hard to know how to be onboard with whatever’s happening, because what is happening? Are they actually into each other? Did they have any clue who the other was? Why is she dressed like this? Is the abrupt change from the silly French joke song (which did have some funny lines) to the heartfelt title song supposed to be sincere?? How are we supposed to make that jump? It doesn’t have a payoff. And though they are both clearly talented actors, I felt they were both unforch miscast, at least when taken together. We need their chemistry to build support for the weak story, but they have no chemistry, so much so that it’s like a negative amount and made it hard to accept love at first sight (if that’s what we were supposed to take from it?). Like in a college play my best friend’s now-husband and I were voted Third Most Awkward Couple in the show but if this couple were in it we would have gotten Fourth, or even like Tenth because that’s how many places they would claim with their abundance of no-chemistry.
From here it gets confusing about what’s happening and honestly the wikipedia plot summary doesn’t seem to match what I saw, so maybe they updated things but it wasn’t clear. The miracle gets shown to be a fraud, yada yada yada, Hapgood is revealed to be a new cookie/patient, yada yada yada, Apple and Hapgood decide to be together. OFFICIALLY NOT A FAN OF THIS STORY.
So yeah it’s weird af and not in a fun ‘let’s ride this crazy train all the way to Kansas’ way, since the lack of strong character development made it hard to jump on board since you’re like ‘but where is the train, does this train know it’s a train’. But this production is entirely worth seeing for one reason: Alex Young as Mayor(ess) Cara Hoover Hooper. Even in her first performance with a sprained ankle and on crutches, she has the audience eating out of her hand, especially me, this supes old lady in the front row who was LIVING for her, and the young man in the front row who became one of the main characters. She has the comic timing and fully inhabited presence of an actor that understands the character she’s playing, which is rare. Every utterance and glance is hysterical and entertaining. I was giggling like a cookie at everything she did. She’s giving a masterclass in using the audience, too; everything she did with/to the aforementioned man was genius-level improv (even though drinking from his glass gave me the covid shivers, but no one cares about that anymore!). And while I think those two main characters were miscast, they and the rest of the cast overall were game and energetic.
MASK COUNT: 7
SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE PIZZA STATUS: STILL GREAT
