Woman in White

Just saw the first preview.

I haven’t seen the original Palace Theatre version, besides the clips that are/were floating on YouTube. I can reassure everyone that this is a projection/video free zone.

Thom Southerland made an introductory speech on how this is the first preview and how things might look strange at times because it’s a first performance, or just not work altogether. Luckily, the latter never happened, but there were instances when things did look half-cooked and not quite finished.

It’s a unit sit, just like the design miniature shows.. There’s a fireplace downstage, and in the middle of the stage, a wall structure that glides into the wings and back in various points on the stage while scene changes happen behind it. Though overused, it’s pretty well done and is put into dramatic use quite effectively. Otherwise, the actors shift furniture, book cases or doorways to change the scenery.

Carolyn Maitland gives it her all as Marianne, although I thought they didn’t do such a great job making her the less attractive homey sister. I also feel that she didn’t have the awkwardness or wallflower quality at the beginning, which would have been interesting for an audience to see her change into a stronger character throughout the piece because of the trauma and violence in her life. But she delivers her All For Laura pretty nicely, and that’s half the work. She struggled a lot with her costumes towards the beginning and needed to be zipped up on stage. Anna O’Brien (Laura) and Sophie Reeves (Anne) look nothing alike, so it wasn’t too believable that they’d be confused by anyone. Chris Peluso (Percival Glyde) is a boring villain, but Greg Castiglioni (Count Fosco) is a scene stealer. It’s funny how I never realized that You Can Get Away with Anything is an ode to La Donna è Mobile. No fat suit, and the mice are now replaced with cash.

The music is pretty much the star of the show given it’s Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the lyrics are quite witty and fun. I’ve always thought that Love Never Dies borrowed so many motifs from Woman in White, but sitting through tonight I just thought that Woman in White is the first draft of Love Never Dies altogether. Orchestrations were very good: I’d say a piano keyboard, a synth keyboard, a flute, a string or two or three, and drums/percussion. It sounds like the string quartets and arrangements they put together for shows at the Menier.

The scene where Marianne is snooping on Glyde and Fosco is very clunky and needs to be restaged. She’s standing on tables as though she’s listening from the outside while it’s raining. Didn’t work at all. The final scene

Spoiler – click to view
where Glyde is run over by the train felt like a fly-less Defying Gravity. Glyde just drops on the stage in spread-eagle and there’s a lot of smoke. I don’t know (but hope) that there was an effect in there that they weren’t quite able to pull off by this first performance.

I thought All For Laura was performed in the interior of the mansion, but once the song ended they talk about how Marianne is outside, but the staging did not look like it was set in the outdoors (though they’ve done the interior/exterior scenes quite clearly in other scenes), so that needs to be redone.

Poor attendance in this rather shabby theatre that is in desperate need of carpet replacement and paint. Surprisingly, the bathroom is in mint condition and looks new. There was absolutely no buzz despite it being a first preview, though from what I can see, serious Lloyd Webber fans sporting their Phantom t-shirts.

There are times that I dozed off and started thinking about work during some of the overdone recitatives, but it’s an overall good show if you like the music, the Lord, any of the cast, or if you just want to tick it off your list.

Goodnight and Thank you, Evita

Staging clumsy, set ugly, lighting tacky, costumes from a stock collection. But there’s great energy, determination and amplification that makes it very exciting and rather enjoyable. The only interesting directorial choice is Eva’s campaign to get Peron out of prison during A New Argentina. Rainbow High not too bad either. The lowering of Eva’s keys during the finale was especially triggering and not. okay.

Emma Hutton is an Elaine Paige clone and sounds especially like her during Goodnight and Thank You, but then turns her Elphaba button and sounds more contemporary. But, by the end of the second act, she hits all the emotional notes and I must say I was a bit chocked up at the end. Gian Marco Schiaretti as Che is boring, dull, charmless, vocally inapt and looks like an IDF soldier out of a gay porn film. The ensemble are uniformly young and generic, and look more like they’re from Surrey than Buenos Aires.

Other observations:
-Why is the little girl who is clearly lip synching Santa Evita mic’ed?
-There was a heart attack in the front row during the Act 1 finale.

Lifeless Big Fish

I’m rephrasing, but Hal Prince once said that in order to have a good musical, you need to have a musical you’d want to look at. To top that- one of the golden rules of musicals is to introduce your song as soon as possible, and not have to wait over 20 minutes for someone to sing. I suppose the singing is delayed to cram in as much “comedy” and material as possible for Kelsey Grammar. Luckily for him, the audience is on his side from the beginning and were happy to laugh along. When we finally get the number, it’s Mr. Grammar, one of the weakest singers in the cast, who gets the first jab at a singing a terrific score (the only thing going on about this production).

The entire piece is drab with no sense of excitement or theatre magic in the tales Edward Blooms shares. The entire set is a hospital room and emergency ward that is re-purposed to accommodate to Edward’s supposedly wild imagination, that only takes shape and form through Microsoft office screensaver. Not sure what the director did during development, because the entire thing was imagination free and with blocking that could be topped by high school productions. Some of the costumes were painful, especially the green ones that looked like Wicked’s Emerald City costumes.

Kelsey Grammer was pretty good, though unnecessarily paired with the Jamie Muscato, who has a great voice and will get bigger and better roles in the future. I feel that the entire book was rewritten and split into old/story characters to accommodate to a star. Clare Burt is a fabulous actress, and her “I Don’t Need A Roof” was wonderfully performed, if not well sung. Keeping my eyes on Tanisha Spring (Young Jenny). She’s cute, got a voice, and killer abs. Forbes Masson was terrific and a standout comedian that made the most with the little he had to work with.

Missed opportunity.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Completely original, relevant, edgy and fully embracing diversity in all its rainbow colors.

A fantastic British musical written and produced by a young team who are in touch with the times. Kudos for representation and inclusion. The music was catchy, humorous and the book scenes were witty and full of Easter eggs.

Cast is superb. A star is born and his name is John McCrea. Josie Walker spares no tears or snot. Mina Anwar and Lucie Shorthouse are scene stealers as non conventional side kick and fag hag prototypes.

Directorially, I think it’s really there. A few pacing tweaks could make moments land better: actors can catch a breath and wait a moment before starting a song following a co-actor’s exit; the ending of act one could land better if the music is indicative of the scene’s conclusion. Currently the moment ended abruptly and the audience didn’t know what to do. I started applauding to end the awkwardness. Lighting design isn’t quite as sharp and the stage seems a bit too lit for the majority of the show without much room for lighting to be evocative or give a sense of the drama. Scene changes in the second can be quicker and smoother. The sound during chorus number isn’t crisp, ironically even in the pre-recorded numbers.

This show cannot compete with the spare no expense Sonia Friedman or Cam Mac musical that dominate London- not the finishing or promotional efforts, but my does it deserve the recognition and support. Go see it.

Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one: The Exorcist, 23 November 2017

There’s a scene where Uncle Burke (Tristan Wymark) who plays a director confesses to Father Damian (Adam Garcia) about how his cheap, trashy films are his sins and how he should be punished for them. Is it weird that I was thinking that this is a metaphor about Ben Kenwright?

I have a love hate relationship with horror movies, and have great interest in dark magic and the occult (though I don’t practice), but I find it extremely fascinating. I also love The Exorcist and think it’s one of the best horror movies ever made. So when this was announced for the stage, I said, “tickets please!”.

I wasn’t expecting high art here, but can’t say that I was bored. Overall, lighting and set were pretty damn good and atmospheric. Special effects could have been better. Uncle Burke was a bit too cartoonish as the joie de vivre gay with a British accent. Clare Louise Connolly was pretty damn good as Ragan, and very convincing as a 12 year old. Jenny Seagrove read a bit too old to be a mother of a 12 year old, and looked and sounded like she was channelling Elaine Stritch! Was it only me who was like, “ELAINE?”! But I suppose she was fine as the concerned mother. Adam Garcia..what happened? The acting was really below par, dude.

Overall a pretty okay production by Kenwright. I expected worse. Would be interesting to see how a smaller intimate venue like Southwark Playhouse or Menier would handle this.

 

Sure, I Came Out Here to Leicester

 

Timing and pacing is a big issue in this production, where key incidental music or scene transitions are eliminated.   Characters don’t pause for dramatic impact, the drama isn’t allowed to brew or audience to process the scene. The projections are effective, if not the best I’ve seen especially during scenic changes and car chases, but become completely unnecessary and distracting during With One Look and Salome. The jigsaw stairs and scenery is effective to keep the tour low cost and tour friendly, but does little to evoke the glamour and grandeur of ’50s Hollywood or the silent film era.

Ria Jones makes an angry, aggressive Norma whose acting is very surface. She’s an actress that makes a point by stressing and speaking keywords (With One LOOK!.. We’ll give the WORLD (!) new ways to dream). Her madness scene channels Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson and becomes laughable camp. Danny Mac is unqualified and green, lacking experience to communicate any of the text or drive the story forward and unable to convey Joe’s cynicism and self loathing. His speaking voice is thin without any sense of command, and his singing is either weak or mediocre in his finer singing moments. Adam Pearce as Max is an excellent singer, but far too young pegged against Jones and hard to be believed as Norma’s maker. Molly Lynch as Betty is invisible, and Dougie Carter as Artie (sticking out awkwardly as a Joe understudy) looks too much like Danny Mac (but with glasses) they might as well be those gay couples who look like each other.

The orchestra is very good, and sounds terrific mimicking the revival arrangements despite its size.

Lacking in depth, it doesn’t have scale and beauty of the Nunn version, or sophistication and simplicity of the Price version.

Other observations:
-Hog Eye is in his 20s and wears his baseball hat backwards.
-Joe’s agent is a woman (“there’s no spare sh*t at the moment”)
-Please stop dressing Joe in swimwear. I’ve had it up til here with horny middle aged women orgasming over a shirtless man.
-The arrangements are based on the revival, except for the Overture change that ALW made a fuss about but no one noticed.