Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Review - The Hypocrites' The Pirates of Penzance at the A.R.T.

What's that, my friend? You say that you love Gilbert & Sullivan, but you don't have the...er... patience to sit through an entire Savoy Opera?

You're not alone. I mean, I love me some G&S, but some of those shows just seem to go on and on and on, especially in inexperienced hands. There's nothing more tedious than sitting through an amateur production of The Gondoliers or H.M.S. Pinafore. (Pacing, my friends. It's all about pacing. If it can't be good, dear God, make it short.)

Well, have no fear. The Hypocrites are here, with a fresh and zippy 80-minute production of The Pirates of Penzance, which recently opened at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. Call it Gilbert & Sullivan for modern attention spans. The Hypocrites is a Chicago-based theater troupe known for its distinctive re-imagining of classic works. The recent acclaimed production of Our Town, directed by David Cromer, originated with The Hypocrites in Chicago.

Here, the troupe has taken The Pirates of Penzance, cut it down (the adaptation is by Sean Graney and Kevin O'Donnell), and whipped up a frothy atmospheric production complete with beach balls, picnic tables, and plastic wading pools. The atmosphere is true to the playful spirit of the original show, while adding some lovingly ridiculous elements of the group's own devising.

In truth, "adaptation" here means little more than a significantly truncated version of the original with a few modern references and sight gags thrown in. The result is short, sweet, and relentlessly silly.

The real fun here comes from the spirited and arch direction by Sean Graney, and the lovingly over-the-top performances from a cast of Hypocrites regulars. Particularly strong among the hard-working crew of ten were a lovingly mock heroic Zeke Sulkes as the pirate apprentice Frederick, a delightfully dotty Christine Stulik as both Ruth and Mabel, and an amusingly imperious Matt Kahler as the famed Major General.

The cast members, who also serve as the show's on-stage band, mill about convivially among the audience members, many of whom are seated on the stage and on benches surrounding the playing area. I'm not one to automatically respond to immersive theater such as this, but thankfully the A.R.T. staff saw fit to provide regular seating away from the on-stage antics. (I crouch, squat, and scurry for no show.)

This particular production of The Pirates of Penzance is certainly not for G&S purists. As I said, the show and the score have been cut down rather severely, but this in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. G&S have a strong tendency to repeat refrains almost incessantly, most of which the production at hand has dispensed with, as well as turning much of the recitative into spoken text.

The score has been rearranged and modernized for guitar, banjo, flute, spoons, and the occasional woodwind. The musicianship, both sung and played, was for the most part serviceable, although the apostrophic "Hail, Poetry" was simply stunning, thanks to both the sotto voce singing and sensitive lighting.

On a final note, I have to say that I'm genuinely torn over the fact that this admitted crowd-pleaser comes to us under the auspices of the A.R.T. As you may know, the A.R.T. has come under fire for its overtly commercial bent under the helm of artistic director Diane Paulus. And this production of Pirates certainly ranks among the theater's more mainstream-friendly offerings. I mean, there's a certain amount of theatrical invention involved here, but it's certainly nothing you would call challenging or deep. At least it's not pretentious like Pippin, by which I mean a pretense of meaning. Pirates doesn't try to be anything beyond what it is, which is a rollicking good time.

But is that what a major non-profit, operating within one of the most august learning institutions in the world, should be doing?

Review - Jekyll and Hyde Revival on Broadway

In his review of the current Broadway revival of Jekyll & Hyde, New York Times critic Charles Isherwood referred to Frank Wildhorn musicals as "the crab grass of Broadway." Some people thought that was unprofessional or unnecessarily harsh of him. I think he was being kind.

I like to think that Isherwood, in an earlier draft of the review, referred to Wildhorn musicals as a certain other unfortunate item that one tends to find on suburban lawns, particularly in neighborhoods that have lots of dogs and not-so-considerate neighbors.

Jekyll & Hyde is an affront to musical theater, and has been since the first commercial recording came out 23 years ago. After lurking around in regional theaters, the show finally opened on Broadway in 1997, ran for an astounding 1,543 performances, and yet still managed to close without earning back its investment. (I'm pretty sure that makes Jekyll & Hyde the longest-running musical flop in Broadway history.)

The only thing that Jekyll & Hyde has ever had going for it is Frank Wildhorn's not entirely unpleasant melodies, even if the songs are generic and their style bears no relation whatsoever to the time and place of the piece. Why, then, the powers that be involved in the current Broadway production of Jekyll & Hyde thought it was a good idea to recast the songs with harsh, steam-punk orchestrations is a mystery. Yeah, take the show's only asset and render it moot beneath a crush of heavy-metal sound and ear-splitting amplification. Sounds like a plan.

I'm not really sure what the reasoning was behind bringing this production to Broadway at all, except perhaps to take advantage of any residual audience for the fading luster of two supposed singing stars: Constantine Maroulis and Deborah Cox. (The show was supposed to play through the end of June, but has since announced that it will be closing this coming weekend.) Maroulis was actually kind of charming in Rock of Ages, but here he's an unfocused mess, all surface emoting and showboating vocalizations. (Oh, and, Constantine, about that accent. Are we talking England here? Wales? Scotland? Japan?) As for Cox, well, she sounded fine (thanks in part to a whole lotta reverb), but she didn't really command the stage in a way that the part of Lucy would seem to demand.

The production is directed and choreographed by Jeff Calhoun, and it's hard to think of him as the same Jeff Calhoun who made Newsies into such a rousing success. The staging here is lifeless, particularly for Lucy's introductory number, "Bring on the Men." Calhoun uses the notion of Spider's Web, which is the name of the club where Lucy works (which I believe was called The Red Hat in previous versions), and includes a number of bungee-cord ropes to ensnare the men in attendance, but then he doesn't really do anything interesting with the ropes. The number just kinda sits there, much like the rest of the production.

One of the many things that made the original Broadway production of Jekyll & Hyde so laughable was the infamous sequence called "The Confrontation," in which the poor actor playing Jekyll (at various times in the run, Robert Cuccioli, Sebastian Bach, Jack Wagner, David Hasselhoff, and other unfortunate souls) sang a duet with himself a while indicating the change from Jekyll to Hyde and back by whipping his hair back and forth. (Willow Smith, eat your heart out.) The results, trust me, were hysterical. (Click though the link in the title above and see for yourself.) For the current production, we have another kind of unintentional joke, with Jekyll confronting a prerecorded Hyde in the form of a risible series of projections on the back wall. The results look not unlike a 1980s MTV video from a very bad hair band.

Of course, Calhoun is hampered here by a piece that is simply atrocious from the get-go, and most of the blame for that lands at feet of Leslie Bricusse, who wrote the book and lyrics. The sad thing is that Bricusse used to have talent, at least as evidenced in his collaborations with Anthony Newley (Stop the World - I Want to Get Off, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) and a number of solo efforts (including the movie musical Scrooge with Albert Finney). But Bricusse's book for Jekyll & Hyde is leaden and plodding. The setups for the songs are clumsy, when they even exist. The power ballad "This Is the Moment" has no setup at all. Supposedly, Jekyll has just made a big decision about how to proceed with his experiment, and he launches into the song. Only later do we learn that he has decided to use himself as a guinea pig. Belt first, ask questions later.

What's worse, one of the central plot elements in the show - the relationship between Jekyll and the prostitute Lucy - seems to come out of nowhere and is then taken pretty much as a given, without the benefit of on-stage development. Jekyll gives Lucy his card after meeting her at her place of employ, and then she shows up one night at the good doctor's home with an undisclosed injury. He basically cleans the wound and puts on a bandage, and then we're supposed to accept that she's now in love with him, and that, even more ridiculous, he reciprocates her feelings. Which would be fine if we saw the relationship develop from there, but we don't. The only other times Lucy is on-stage is to sing two more power ballads ("In His Eyes" and "A New Life"), and at both times, Jekyll isn't with her. Power ballads apparently justify themselves in Frank Wildhorn's world.

If Bricusse's book is bad, his lyrics are actually worse. If you were to listen to any of the cast recordings, you would have no idea what's going on in the show. I know this, because that's what happened to me when I first listened to the concept recording in 1990. The power ballads in particular are virtually interchangeable. When Bricusse's rhymes aren't puerile ("strife/life") they're either painfully awkward ("Murder, murder/Once there's one done/Can't be undone") or virtually meaningless ("When the momentum and the moment are in rhyme").

So, bad production, bad show. The night I attended was a press performances, and the audience was largely composed of voters from the various award processes for New York theater (Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, etc.) I could tell that the folks seated around me were having the same visceral reaction I was to the proceedings. Toward the end of the show, the character John, Jekyll's friend, confronts Jekyll with a sword to prevent Jekyll from harming the members of the wedding party. "Please," Jekyll says, seemingly inviting John to run him through. "Set us all free." The section of the audience where I was sitting, as if on cue, erupted into laughter.

"Yes, please," we seemed to say. "Put us all out of our misery."

Review - The Last Five Years at the Second Stage Theatre

There are some musicals that achieve cult status, despite - or perhaps because of - relatively short runs in their initial incarnations. Often these musicals live on through their cast recordings, as well as the occasional production by ambitious regional and college theater productions.  

Anyone Can Whistle comes to mind, as do Mack and Mabel and Merrily We Roll Along. Upon closer inspection, these particular shows do indeed have fascinating scores, while the shows themselves simply don't work in performance, despite numerous attempts at revision.

A particular sub-category of this cult-musical niche is the Off-Broadway succès d'estime, such as Floyd Collins, Violet, and The Wild Party (Lippa). For some reason, this sub-genre has a significantly higher quality-to-dreck ratio, although I'm not really much a fan of The Wild Party (either version). I think the reason there are more artistically solid Off-Broadway cult shows is that some strong musicals never make it to Broadway, and probably shouldn't even try. But that kind of leaves them with one foot in obscurity, almost from the start.

Which brings us to The Last Five Years, by Jason Robert Brown, a show that I had previously only been acquainted with through its excellent cast recording, which features Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott. The show played a two-month run at the Minetta Lane Theater in 2002, and then went on to become beloved by musical-theater mavens the world over, mostly because of Brown's rich and characterful songs, and the emotional pull of the story itself.

Well, for once, I find myself siding with the faithful on this one, because The Last Five Years in performance is simply stunning, at least as evidenced by the fine revival currently enjoying an acclaimed at extended run at the Second Stage Theatre in New York. Jason Robert Brown is also the director for this production, and based on this show I'm hoping he does more directing. His staging work here is simple but very effective. Brown creates a wonderful sense of connection and loss between the characters, and crafts transitions between scenes that enhance that larger story arc without distracting at all from the meaning of the songs themselves.

The Last Five Years is sort of a direct descendant of Merrily We Roll Along, which famously has a plot that travels backwards in time. The Last Five Years goes both forward and backward: the story for the male character, Jamie, goes in chronological order, while the story for the female, Cathy, goes in reverse. The story is essentially about how the characters meet, marry, and separate over a five-year period, and having Cathy's story run in reverse creates a touching sense of dramatic irony: we start the show by witnessing the painful end of the relationship, then we switch to Jamie's point of view at the beginning and see the sense of adventure and promise.

What's marvelous about The Last Five Years is that we never feel lost as to where we are in time because Brown has done such an effective job of showing us where and when we are, every step of the way. Also marvelous is the sense of balance we experience as to who is responsible for the difficulties that the characters experience along the way. The show's plot is apparently based on based Brown's first marriage, and to his credit, Brown paints a complex picture of the relationship. Cathy and Jamie are multifaceted as characters: sympathetic, flawed, idealistic, deluded, appealing, unnerving, and most of all real.

It's remarkable how real the characters are, and how clear the temporal progressions are, since the show is almost entirely sung-through. So Brown is conveying all of this through songs, and mostly solo songs at that. Cathy and Jamie only appear in a song together when the chronologies meet in the middle of the show. (Perhaps all of these pop dilettantes who think that writing hit songs automatically qualifies them to write the show to a Broadway show should be forced to listen to The Last Five Years as an object lesson on how to convey character and story through song.) Even more remarkable, the songs themselves work extremely well out of context, as many a cabaret artist and auditioning actor has demonstrated over the last 11 years.

Brown's score reveals a songwriter equally comfortable with both searing ballads ("Still Hurting") and comic character numbers ("A Summer in Ohio"). The score is rife with appealing melodies, such as the haunting waltz leitmotif that recurs throughout the show. Brown also shows a knack for crafting lyrics with deceptively simple turns of phrase, from "Jamie is over and where can I turn? Covered in scars I did nothing to earn" to "I will not fail to keep you comfortable. I will not lose because you can't win." And yet, at least in this score, Brown never calls conscious attention to the craft of the lyricist, allowing the erudition to appear to emerge from the characters themselves. 

The Second Stage production of The Last Five Years is blessed with two wonderfully animated yet subtle performances from Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe. Kantor has a slight tendency to channel Norbert Leo Butz (although in truth that may be written into the fabric of the show), but he finds many ways to make the part his own, particularly during "Moving Too Fast," one of the many highlights of the show. And Wolfe reinforces what she demonstrated earlier this season in The Mystery of Edwin Drood: that she's a lot more that just a pretty young woman with a lovely voice. She's also a hell of an actress, both in the somber moments of the show and in Cathy's neurotic character numbers.

If you can't make it to the Second Stage between now and May 18th to see The Last Five Years in person, have no fear. A film adaptation of the show, scheduled to star Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan, is apparently in the works. And the new cast recording for the show is scheduled to come out later this year. I know I'm eagerly anticipating both.

The 2013 Tony Nominations - My Take

Regular readers will know that I have a love/hate relationship with the Tony Awards, with all awards, in fact. On the one hand, I'm as interested and fascinated as the next showtune queen when the Tony nominations come out, which happened for this year's awards on Tuesday. Like you, I'm sure, I'm gratified when the shows and performances that I liked get nods, and I'm disappointed when they don't.

But I also know there's a tremendous futility in the act of setting performer against performer, show against show. The awards process is flawed, as the Tonys have demonstrated time and time again over the years. I mean, according to the Tony voters, The Music Man is better than West Side Story. Fiorello and The Sound of Music are both better than Gypsy. The Lion King is better than Ragtime.

Nome sane?

And yet, each year I get a thrill poring over the list of nominees. I think I mostly do it to be reminded of what was good about the immediate past season. Once I've made my way through the list once, I go through again with an eye toward who might have been left out, rightly or wrongly.

Below is my annual take on a select sample of the Tony nominations, with an eye toward what's right, what's wrong, who's going to win, and who deserves to win. I'm only going to comment on the awards that I actually care about, or have personal knowledge about. Since this blog is about musicals, and I didn't see many of the plays, I will only be commenting on awards that are musicals-related. And lighting, sound, and orchestrations are beyond my skill set. 

Click on the links in the show names below to read my original reviews. 

Best Musical

• Bring It On
• A Christmas Story
• Kinky Boots
• Matilda

Missing: Chaplin, Hands on a Hardbody, Motown, Scandalous
Deserves to Win: Matilda
Will Win: Matilda 
My Take: I can't help thinking of this as a deliberate slap in the face to both Hands on a Hardbody and Motown, although IMHO neither show really deserved the nomination. Then again, I don't think A Christmas Story did either. But I'm pretty happy with Matilda and Bring It On, both of which I enjoyed immensely. Kinky Boots didn't really rock my world. I'm thinking this year is going to be a Matilda sweep. At least I hope so.

Best Revival of a Musical

• Annie
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Pippin
• Cinderella

Missing: Jekyll & Hyde 
Deserves to Win: The Mystery of Edwin Drood 
Will Win: Pippin 
My Take: I saw Pippin at the ART in the fall, and I'll be seeing it again on Broadway tomorrow night. I didn't like it in Cambridge, but I'm open to the possibility that I might change my mind. I mean, the reaction to Pippin has been pretty off the charts, both from the critics and the public, although Ben Brantley was less than impressed. But I thought Drood was a terrific production of a show that admittedly isn't all that great.

Best Book of a Musical

• Joseph Robinette, A Christmas Story
• Harvey Fierstein, Kinky Boots
• Dennis Kelly, Matilda
  
• Douglas Carter Beane, Cinderella

Missing: Bring It On, Chaplin, Hands on a Hardbody, Motown, Scandalous
Deserves to Win: Matilda
Will Win: Matilda   
My Take: This one's tough, because the Tonys love Harvey, but I'm thinking this is gonna be a Matilda sweep. Both Fierstein and Beane turned out efforts this season that were heavy on jokes but short on real characterizations. So, Matilda FTW.

Best Original Score

• Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, A Christmas Story
• Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green, Hands on a Hardbody
• Cyndi Lauper, Kinky Boots
• Tim Minchin, Matilda
  

Missing: Bring It On, Chaplin, Hands on a Hardbody, Scandalous
Deserves to Win: Matilda
Will Win: Matilda
My Take: I have tremendous reservations with Tim Minchin's use of slant ryhme and poor scansion, but none of the other scores even comes close to the melodic invention and sheer sense of joy present in Matilda. As for A Christmas Story, I was much more impressed by the score Pasek and Paul turned out for Dogfight. I look forward to their future work, but I don't think this is their year.

Best Actor in a Musical

• Bertie Carvel, Matilda
  
• Santino Fontana, Cinderella
• Rob McClure, Chaplin
• Billy Porter, Kinky Boots
• Stark Sands, Kinky Boots

Missing: Anthony Warlow, Annie; Hunter Foster, Hands on a Hardbody; Brandon Victor Dixon, Motown; Matthew James Thomas, Pippin
Deserves to Win: Bertie Carvel
Will Win: Bertie Carvel
My Take: It's gonna be close between Carvel and Porter, but I'm thinking Carvel will benefit from the Matilda momentum. Stark Sands was dull in an underwritten role. Fontana was wonderfully sympathetic and warm as the Prince. And I'm thrilled that McClure got the nod for a dynamic performances that was really one of the only things that made Chaplin worth seeing. 

Best Actress in a Musical

• Stephanie J. Block, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Carolee Carmello, Scandalous
• Valisia LeKae, Motown
  
• Patina Miller, Pippin
• Laura Osnes, Cinderella

Missing: Lilla Crawford, Annie; Chita Rivera, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Deserves to Win: Laura Osnes
Will Win: Patina Miller
My Take: This one's tough, but I'm going to say Laura Osnes derserves it, but Miller will win. The Leading Player is a much flashier part than Cinderella, and the buzz this year is all about Pippin. LeKae is simply delightful as Diana Ross, but it's more an impersonation than a performance. I love me some SJB and some Carolee, but both shows have closed and Tony voters have short memories. (Oh, and how about that "special award" for the Matilda girls: Sophia Gennusa, Oona Laurence, Bailey Ryon and Milly Shapiro. Apparently the Tony nominating committee was trying to avoid another Billy Elliot debacle. "Oh, how could we choose one over the others? How could we break their itty-bitty hearts?" Also, how can voters really vote when in all probability they only saw one of these girls perform? Ergo, the end run around the voting process, saving everyone the tsouris.) 

Best Featured Actor in a Musical

• Charl Brown, Motown
  
• Keith Carradine, Hands on a Hardbody
• Will Chase, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Gabriel Ebert, Matilda
  
• Terrence Mann, Pippin

Missing: Gregory Haney, Bring It On; George Hearn, Scandalous; Bryan Terrell Clark, Motown; Jim Norton, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Deserves to Win: Will Chase
Will Win: Gabriel Ebert
My Take: Will Chase was as good as I've ever seen him as Jasper. A deliciously evil and mannered performance. But I'm going with momentum this year, and the two shows with momentum are Matilda and Pippin. Terrance Mann is sort of an institution in Broadway circles, so it's possible this could swing his way, but Ebert has a much more prominent and memorable role.

Best Featured Actress in a Musical

• Annaleigh Ashford, Kinky Boots
• Victoria Clark, Cinderella
• Andrea Martin, Pippin
• Keala Settle, Hands on a Hardbody
• Lauren Ward, Matilda
  

Missing: Katie Finneran, Annie; Lesli Margherita, Matilda; Jessie Mueller, The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Rachel Bay Jones, Pippin
Deserves to Win: Annaleigh Ashford
Will Win: Andrea Martin
My Take: This category may be the closest we have this year to a lock. I've always been a big fan of Annaleigh Ashford (particularly in Rent and Dogfight), but I really think it's Martin all the way. She's terrific (for the 10 minutes total that she's on stage), and the buzz has been completely in her favor even before the show played its first New York performance. Martin and Rachel Bay Jones were what really made Pippin worth watching, and I'm kind of bummed and surprised that Jones didn't get a nod. Honestly, I'd be fine with any of these fine performers winning this year. It was a great season for featured actresses.

Best Scenic Design of a Musical

• Rob Howell, Matilda
  
• Anna Louizos, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Scott Pask, Pippin
• David Rockwell, Kinky Boots

Missing: Chaplin, Motown, Jekyll & Hyde, A Christmas Story, Scandalous, Annie
Deserves to Win: Matilda
Will Win: Matilda
My Take: The Matilda set is stunning. Just stunning. And the Tony voters love stunning. The set for Drood was impressive but conventional. The Pippin set wasn't nearly as ingenious as the Tony Walton original. And the Kinky Boots set is hideous. Hid. E. Ous. So add another to the Matilda sweep. 

Best Costume Design of a Musical

• Gregg Barnes, Kinky Boots
• Rob Howell, Matilda
  
• Dominique Lemieux, Pippin
• William Ivey Long, Cinderella

Missing: Hands on a Hardbody, Bring It On, A Christmas Story, Chaplin, Scandalous, Annie, Motown, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Jekyll & Hyde 
Deserves to Win: Matilda
Will Win: Kinky Boots
My Take: Here's one I'm willing to accede for Kinky Boots. The drag was fierce. But I'd rather Matilda got it, if only for the wonderfully creepy costume for Bertie Carvel's Miss Truchbull. Cinderella looked great but it was standard fairy tale fare. And the Pippin costumes were, from what I can recall, Tony Walton hand-me-downs.

Best Direction of a Musical

• Scott Ellis, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Jerry Mitchell, Kinky Boots
• Diane Paulus, Pippin
• Matthew Warchus, Matilda

Missing: Hands on a Hardbody, Bring It On, A Christmas Story, Chaplin, Scandalous, Annie, Motown, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Jekyll & Hyde
Deserves to Win: Matthew Warchus
Will Win: Matthew Warchus
My Take: Jerry Mitchell didn't direct Kinky Boots; he serves as traffic warden, and not a very good one. Paulus's new circus concept for Pippin was uninspired. Ellis took the dross of Drood and made it into a lively joy. But I think that, after the disaster that was Ghost, the Tony voters are glad to have the wonderful Matthew Warchus back in such fine form.

Best Choreography

• Andy Blankenbuehler, Bring It On
• Peter Darling, Matilda
• Jerry Mitchell, Kinky Boots
• Chet Walker, Pippin

Missing: Annie, Chaplin, A Christmas Story, Motown, Hands on a Hardbody, Scandalous, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Deserves to Win: Matilda
Will Win: Matilda
My Take: This one is genuinely a tough call. I think the momentum could either lead to Pippin or Matilda, but I'm going with Matilda. Bring It On is long gone, and Mitchell's work on Kinky Boots is lively but pedestrian.

Review - Motown the Musical on Broadway

So, Motown: The Musical. OK, let's do this.

Yes, it's bad. But we knew that was going to be true. But the genuinely surprising thing about Motown is that it's not entirely disastrous. Sure, the show is the ultimate Broadway vanity project: it's essentially a love letter from Motown founder Berry Gordy to the person he seems to love the most: himself. And the dialog heaps one tepid cliché on top of another.

Here's the thing, though: the show is actually kind of fun, at least at times. A show this lazily conceived and poorly wrought simply shouldn't be as intermittently infectious, as periodically joyous as Motown actually is.

Part of the resistible charm of Motown lies in its rich catalog of songs. I was born at the very end of the Baby Boom, and while most of these songs were a little before my time, there's something in me that gets all warm and runny when I hear the opening chords of "I Hear a Symphony" or "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." Yes, folks, even I am susceptible to nostalgia.

Motown is staged at breakneck speed by director Charles Randolph-Wright, and in truth there are stretches of time when the frenetic pace almost makes you forget the lame dialogue and predictable plot developments. The brisk, dynamic choreography by Patricia Wilcox and Warren Adams adds a great deal to the sensory appeal of the show. The relentless momentum sputters out at the start of act two, but picks up considerably with the entrance of the Jackson Five at about the 9:30 mark.

Another huge asset here is the game and professional cast, led by Brandon Victor Dixon as Mr. Gordy himself, and the marvelous Valisia LeKae as Diana Ross. Also compelling are Bryan Terrell Clark as Marvin Gaye, and Charl Brown as Smokey Robinson. (Oh, and a special shout-out to a former student of mine, Nicholas Christopher, making his Broadway bow in the ensemble. You da man, Nick.)

As for the book, Motown is mostly fine when nobody is speaking. The narrative is never muddled, but it's also never deep. The dialogue is of the "Mr. Berry Gordy, you built a legacy of love" variety. After a prologue in which Gordy petulantly bemoans how most of the singers and groups that he made famous wound up leaving him for greener pastures, Smokey Robinson confronts him to remind him of the "dream" he started "twenty five years ago." Gordy responds, "My dream started long before that," and we travel back to a precocious young Gordy just getting his start. I almost expected the stage lighting to mimic that age-old TV screen ripple to signify the passage of time, or perhaps Wayne Campbell and Garth to enter from the wings, wave their hands, and spout "Doodle-oot, doodle-oot."

In Gordy's favor, there are some genuine attempts at making some of the Motown numbers at least somewhat contextual, for instance when Gordy and Diana Ross sing to each other "You're All I Need to Get By." In truth, the show is actually fine when it's just trying to be a catalog of hits. (I was, however, thankful that Motown didn't end with that most dreaded of modern jukebox-musical contrivances: the megamix.) It's when the book veers into facile social history that it becomes laughable. Need to represent the impact of the Vietnam War? How about a dance number to the Edwin Starr single "War"? The environmental activism of the '70s? Bring on Marvin Gaye and "Mercy Mercy Me."

Ultimately, though, the insurmountable obstacle here is Berry Gordy himself, who receives sole credit for the book, despite the presence of "script consultants" David Goldsmith and Dick Scanlan. I mean, is it even possible to write your own pre-mortem hagiography? The show doesn't really have much of a point of view, except "Here's what I built. Aren't I great?" Gordy unapologetically portrays himself as the misunderstood saint, the nice guy who only fights back when pushed. If Berry Gordy is guilty of anything, he seems to be saying, it's that he cared too much.

The unflagging devotion Berry feels for himself would be touching if it weren't so solipsistic. I'm no expert here, but I seem to recall that Gordy has a reputation for being rather ruthless and conniving as a businessman. As comedian John Mulaney says in his act, "You mean you're gonna give me a whole $100 for all of my songs? Where do I sign, Mr. Berry Gordy?" The only real attempt we get at balance is a scene in which Gordy first has sex with Diana Ross and he's unable to...rise to the challenge, shall we say?

It happens to the best of us, Berry.

 

Review - Here Lies Love at The Public Theater

Yeah, I don't get it.

I saw the new musical Here Lies Love recently at The Public Theater, and found it reasonably diverting, if shallow and repetitive. But the reviews were overwhelmingly positive, even ecstatic, and the show has been extended multiple times, most recently until June 30th.

Again, I don't get it.

I didn't have a chance to catch Here Lies Love last summer at its sold-out run at Mass MoCa, but I heard it was going to move to the Public, so I figured I'd wait until the New York run.

I had heard that the show had a score by David Byrne (formerly of The Talking Heads) and somebody named Fatboy Slim. (I figured with a name like that he would be a rapper, but it turns out he's a British DJ, musician, and producer. Go figure.) I had also heard that the show was about Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines, and that it was directed by one of the most in-demand directors today, Alex Timbers.

So, I was intrigued with, if not all that excited about, Here Lies Love. I had also heard that the show would feature immersive staging, in this case taking place in a Filipino dance club circa the 1970s. I'm not really a fan of immersive theater, so I was pleased to discover that there were a limited number of box seats, poised above the throng, one of which I was thankfully able to secure. I mean, I get the whole idea of setting it in a dance club: Imelda's life was to a great extent one big party, filled with celebrities, world leaders and the jet set from across the world. But that doesn't mean I have to spend 90 minutes bouncing up and down and being herded by a bunch of hired handlers. (My one regret here was not being able to hobnob with David Byrne, who was bopping around with the rest of crowd the night I saw the show.)

Here Lies Love really goes all out in providing what appears to be an authentic dance club experience, including multimedia projections, a spinning mirror ball, and a DJ spinning mad jams, or whatever, and the overall sensory experience is visceral and infectious. What the show fails to provide is a compelling narrative and believable characterizations. There are some genuinely stunning moments, particularly when the narrative progresses as far as the events surrounding Benigno Aquino and his tragic demise. But up to that point, it's mostly a by-the-numbers "simple country girl who has a dream" narrative that is far too reminiscent of Evita, and lacking in that show's compositional and storytelling flair.

The mostly sung-through show follows Imelda from her life as a young girl, through her beauty-pageant days, to her marriage to Ferdinand Marcos and years as First Lady. It makes for a fairly efficient history lesson, but it doesn't really give us a sense of who these people were, nor why they were motivated to do what they did. Apparently, Imelda dated Aquino when they were younger. When Aquino speaks out against the corruption and graft in the Marcos regime, he is thrown into prison. After he's been incarcerated for seven years, Imelda arranges for him to escape. Although we see bits of their earlier relationship, we don't really have a sense of why Imelda would allow this man to escape, especially when he is clearly either going to be dangerous to the regime or be killed in the process.

I wasn't really sure what to make of the Here Lies Love, mostly because the point of view wasn't clear. Is it meant to be satirical, or serious, or perhaps a bit of both? The show portrays some of Imelda's excesses, as well as hints of the human-rights abuses under Ferdinand and his autocratic rule, but I didn't come away knowing anything more than I did by watching the news in the 1980s, when the Marcoses were ousted from power.

The most effective part of the show, both in terms of the narrative flow and the immersive staging, was during and after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, in which the hall full of dancing audience members suddenly becomes a funeral procession and a nation in mourning for the fallen Filipino hero. Here the show reveals what it could have been: a poignant and visceral document of a fascinating woman and the people around her at a pivotal moment in one country's history.

(One finale note, albeit a trivial one: a musical about Imelda Marcos and not a word about shoes? Clearly there were no gay men involved.)

Review - Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella on Broadway

I don't often get the chance to see Broadway shows twice. By the end of the season, I'm lucky if I have time to see things once. But I recently had the opportunity to see the current Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella very early in previews and again after it opened. This gave me a chance to see how much the show had changed during the preview process. (More on this later. In short, the changes were fairly significant.)

Why, of all shows, would I want to see Cinderella twice? In all honesty, I've never been a huge fan of the various versions of the R&H Cinderella. To me, they all seemed rather thin (e.g. the Julie Andrews and Leslie Ann Warren versions) or bloated (the Brandy/Whitney Houston version), but never particularly enchanting. The original songs, of course, are lovely, but the TV treatments have usually left me feeling I would have been better off listening to the soundtracks.

I was in New York one weekend and was having dinner with my friend Geoff and he was telling me about the Broadway Cinderella, which he had seen at one of the very first previews. He made it sound like the show needed a lot of work, and I became intrigued. Not just rubbernecking intrigued, but that was certainly part of it. I knew I would eventually be invited to see the show as a member of the Outer Critics Circle, but I had a rare night when I was in New York and didn't already have a show to see, so I sidled over to the Cinderella box office.

It turned out that the show was indeed in need of a good deal of work, particularly in pruning a rather bloated and busy second act, with disparate story elements struggling to come together. As you may know, the Broadway production sports a new book by Douglas Carter Beane, a man who's certainly proved himself as a playwright (The Little Dog Laughed, As Bees in Honey Drown), although his track record with musicals so far has been spotty (Xanadu = yay, Lysistrata Jones = boo).

I have heard many complaints about the liberties that Beane has taken with the story (making one of the stepsisters sympathetic, adding a subplot about a political upstart who wants to confront the Prince about the plight of the poor, eliminating the king and queen from the story, etc.). The changes didn't bother me. I mean, it's not as though the Cinderella story hasn't already changed considerably over time. The question is, does Beane do it well?

Well, sometimes. Beane manages to add some much-needed humor to the piece, although it sometimes crosses over into anachronistic snark. And, as I said, the show I saw in previews needed some paring down. The first time I saw it, the second act contained a significant subplot about an election for prime minister. Beane tried to weave this in with the whole trying-on-the-shoe thing, and the result was forced and confusing. The second act has since been cut to the point where the election is only really mentioned, not depicted.

The cuts were necessary, but the threads are showing. If you blink, you'll miss who actually wins the election. And the more expedient second act has apparently necessitated some lightning-fast costumes changes, as evidenced by the addition of some cheesy overlay costumes - Velcro numbers that barely conceal the costumes from the previous scene beneath - which many of the chorus members now wear during the finale.

What remains of the book is mostly workable, although there is some genuinely contrived business regarding a book that comes into Cinderella's possession during act one. In act two, the Fairy Godmother makes a big deal out of making sure Cinderella takes the book with her on her second trip to the palace. (Oh, yes, a book. That's exactly what an incipient princess needs to bring with her to a royal banquet. A book.) Upon Cinderella's arrival at the palace, there's some more forced business about the Prince suddenly remembering a chapter from the book that might just save the day. "Of course!" he cries. "Chapter two!" We never find out what's actually in chapter two, nor what the entire book is about for that matter, but I guess chapter two must have an election of some sort, because that's how the Prince suddenly gets the idea to hold the election.

To Beane's credit, he playfully points out some of the more ridiculous aspects of the original Cinderella story. At one point, Gabrielle asks Cinderella, "How did you ever dance in glass shoes?" I would love to have seen Beane more directly address the whole notion of the Prince insisting on trying the glass slipper on the foot of every young woman in the kingdom. I mean, why is it that the Prince isn't paying attention to something a bit more distinctive about these women, like, I don't know, their faces? Has he developed a sudden but temporary case of prosopagnosia?

The glorious Cinderella score has been supplemented here by some somewhat perfunctory R&H trunk songs. The first time I saw the show, there were six added numbers, including “I Have Loved and I've Learned” (a cut number from The Sound of Music, sung here by the stepmother and stepsisters) as well as “I Haven't Got a Worry in the World,” (a song R&H written for the short-lived play Happy Birthday, and sung here by the newly sympathetic stepsister, Gabrielle, and her activist beau Jean-Michel). These two numbers have since been cut from Cinderella, and rightly so.

Four additional trunk numbers have survived the preview cutting process. The Prince's first song is “Me, Who Am I?,” a number cut from Me and Juliet. The new Jean-Michel character sings the rabble-rousing “Now Is the Time,” a song cut from South Pacific. The Prince and Cinderella sing the plaintive “Loneliness of Evening,” also cut from South Pacific. And the Fairy Godmother sings “There's Music in You,” an R&H song from the movie "Main Street to Broadway." All these songs have a certain utility here, but none of them could be considered a newly discovered gem.

The post-preview version of Cinderella, at least for my money, comes closest to working of any of the various versions to the R&H Cinderella, although even this version is a bit diffuse. Production highlights include a sumptuous visual style, with sets by Anna Louizos and costumes by William Ivey Long. Long provides some especially clever pieces for the various transformations. Chief among the production's assets is the near-perfect casting, led by the always appealing Laura Osnes as Ella herself, an offbeat yet charming Santino Fontana as the Prince, and Tony winner Victoria Clark as an alternately dotty and delightful Fairy Godmother. (Oh, and a special shout-out to chorus member Kendal Hartse, one of my very first students at the Boston Conservatory. BoCo, represent!)

I get the sense that this Cinderella is going to be around for a while. At the first performance I attended, the Playbill was black-and-white. By the second performance, the Playbill had gone to full-color. That's usually a sign that a show has some cash in the coffers.

Review - Matilda the Musical on Broadway

I don't know how my fellow critics feel about this, but I find it much harder to write a rave than to write a pan. I guess that says something about me as a person, but I think it's also sort of endemic to the critical process, at least for me. When things are going wrong with a show, I have a much firmer sense of what to write about: two-dimensional characterizations, inconsistent plot developments, poorly integrated songs, etc.

In my criticism course at the Boston Conservatory, I usually pass out my review of The Book of Mormon as an example of what not to do in a review. I basically talk about the show without really ever talking about the show. No specifics, very little support. On the plus side, you can definitely tell how I felt about the show: it was great, and you should go. But that's more along the lines of consumer advocacy than genuine criticism.

I get the feeling that I'm going to have the same problem with Matilda, a blissful joy of a show that recently opened on Broadway after a smashing London debut, under the auspices of The Royal Shakespeare Company. The show isn't perfect, as I'll enumerate below. But it's a tremendously fun and engaging ride that has stronger stagecraft, finer performances, a bigger heart, and heartier laughs than any other musical that opened on Broadway this season.

I actually saw Matilda twice, once during previews and once shortly after it opened. During my first visit, I was sort of unmoved by the first act, although the second act really turned me around. I think my lack of response to the first half may have been partly because I couldn't understand the lyrics to many of the songs, and also because my seat on the far right of the orchestra was situated such that I couldn't see a lot of what was happening upstage center, where quite a few significant events take place.

The lyrics remain a liability for the show: it's rather difficult to understand them fresh in the theater, and I had listened to the London cast recording quite a few times prior to my first visit. Although composer/lyricist Tim Minchin is relatively new to musical theater, I've been aware of his comedy work for years. He's quirky, clever, and hilarious is his numerous comedy recordings. But his lyrics for Matilda are often too dense for immediate comprehension, particularly in the opening number, "Miracle," and the act one closer, "Bruce." Both times I saw the show, the only words I could figure out during the latter song were "Bruce" and its numerous rhyming words. Minchin also exhibits unfortunate tendencies toward errant scansion ("go fi-GURE") and slant rhyme ("miracle/umbilical"). And those two examples are just from the opening number.

And yet, the show is a joy. The same things that would turn me against a different show I was able to overlook, especially during my second visit to the show. I still couldn't understand all the lyrics, and the slant rhyme and poor scansion certainly hadn't disappeared. But I found myself transported by the story (Dennis Kelly has written the book, based on the classic novel by Roald Dahl), as well as the smart and sensitive direction from Matthew Warchus (acquitting himself more than adequately after the abomination that was Ghost). Adding to the sheer bliss of the production are Peter Darling's sharp, angular choreography, as well as the stunning scenic and costume design by Rob Howell. 

I get the feeling that Matilda would still be a delight even without the present cast, and yet they added immeasurably to my enjoyment. As you may know, there are four different girls who share the title role. (Raising the valid speculation that the quartet will indeed receive a joint Tony nomination, a la Billy Elliot. Saints preserve us.)

As chance would have it, I saw Milly Shapiro as Matilda both times. At first, Shapiro would seem an unlikely Broadway waif, with a face that seems virtually expressionless during performance. (That's her on the far right in the photo.) And yet, her stoic countenance really seemed to work perfectly for the part: neglected and put upon yet endlessly resourceful. She's not your typical uber-animated little belter. Her otherwise passive expression made the moments when Matilda suddenly responds to the kindness of her schoolteacher all the more heartrending. When I saw that I was going to see Milly again during my second visit, I was actually pretty excited. There's something thoroughly real and disarming about this talented little girl. 

Of course, the performer who's getting the most attention, and deservedly so, is Bertie Carvel executing a deliciously malevolent turn as Miss Trunchbull, the evil school-mistress. Carvel more than lives up to the expectation that comes with the Olivier Award he received for the same role in the London production. He plays the kind of role that you, by design, instantly hate, and yet you can't wait for Carvel to come back on-stage because he's just so delightfully nuanced and idiosyncratic.

The supporting cast are no less strong, including the heartwarming Lauren Ward as Miss Honey, Matilda's sympathetic, and pathetic, school teacher. Giving performances that (almost) rival Carvel's for sheer scene-stealing and scenery-chewing vivacity are Gabriel Ebert and Lesli Margherita as Matilda's callous, obnoxious parents. Because, here's the thing: Matilda is so full of joy that even the villains are oozing with and old-fashioned kind of showbiz charm.

It will be interesting to see whether Matilda can amass the kind of momentum that The Book of Mormon has, or whether the initial fervor will peter out, as it did for Billy Elliot. Clearly, I'm hoping it's closer to the former than to the latter.