A week in New York (just about)

[DeNada]

Posted: 4/5/14 at 11:50pm

I THINK I'm probably theatred-out at this point but I have one day left to go tomorrow - I might crack and pay full price to see BEAUTIFUL as I'd love to see Jessie Mueller live. For a first trip to New York I think I've done okay with a show every night as well as lots of other touristy-things (rather embarrassingly, I based much of my visit to Central Park around sights that are mentioned in "The Next Ten Minutes" in THE LAST FIVE YEARS... I have been inside the museum and seen the dinosaurs!)

Anyway, as seems to be traditional round here, thought I'd offer my thoughts on what I've seen...

Tuesday - BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY

An extraordinary score and two extraordinary voices to sing it (plus a host of very good ones!); it's almost a shame it's such an "ordinary" story. A beautiful cello refrain plays as Kelli O'Hara steps out on to the stage at the top of the show and immediately she captures your undivided attention - my favourite female performance I've seen this week, and Steven Pasquale is hardly a slouch either (although, as befits the material, he is essentially a housewife's fantasy). Yes, the attempts at expanding the story don't all work, and the show will never make any money as it has no mass appeal and isn't quite good enough to overcome that, but I cannot recommend buying the cast album enough whether you're a JRB fan or not, the score is that good.

(I did also very much like the "concept" for the show, with its frames and posts suggesting at a set and the ever-present townsfolk or figures from the past appearing and watching/judging - simple and elegant, much more my kind of thing than some of the stuff I saw...)

Expect to see this at Southwark or, if you're lucky, the St James at some point.

Wednesday - IF/THEN

What this show needs IMO, more than any clarification of its fairly obvious high-concept plot, is some warmer actors in its lead roles. While Idina Menzel can certainly sing, I'm not a fan of her slightly nervous stage presence - her (frankly) dire performance in Chess In Concert put paid to that some years ago - and although the writing brings her some warmth through affection in one of the timelines this show follows the other makes her seem sad and cold, which isn't helped by playing opposite Anthony Rapp, who although talented has a particularly whiny voice (sorry!) that makes the Nice Guy aspects of his character even creepier than they should already be. On the flip side, LaChanze has charisma to spare and is a shoe-in for a Best Supporting Actress nomination, even if her subplot isn't very interesting.

As a piece unsurprisingly it lacks the heightened melodramatic power of NEXT TO NORMAL and its unwavering New York-centricness is a little off-putting at times. There's also too much superfluous choreography to give the ensemble something to do (harmonies are nice in the score!). Lovely set design, I have to say, and beautifully lit.

This'll be a Southwark Playhouse or similar production down the line, although I don't think it'll be an easy one to stage due to the concept.

THURSDAY - VIOLET

A slightly lacklustre production of a show that shouldn't really be blown up to this size. Lovely to see Sutton Foster live, of course - and she and the other actors give great performances, if currently a little lost in the sound design - but despite the best attempts of a highly stereotypical gospel number to fill the space or Joshua Henry riffing to the rafters, it's the smaller, more folksy moments that actually make VIOLET worth paying attention to. A nice evening, to be sure, but not an incredible one.

Have we just had a production that I've forgotten about? This'll be another Union production or similar.

Friday - A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER

I didn't realise this actually [i]is[/i] a musical version of KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS - I just thought it was remarkably similar in premise! Anyway, this is utterly disposable fluff - well staged, well hammed-up by the actors and well-written, but nothing to linger in the mind at all (beyond some of the longeurs of Bryce Pinkham's British accent - with that said he gives an excellent performance, particularly given that he's on stage virtually the entire time and seemingly drenched in sweat throughout!). Jefferson Mays does sterling work in the Alec Guinness role, even if he is giving the broadest, muggiest performances in the world as he does so. The (very gently) black comedy keeps the show from ever devolving into saccharine nonsense a la LEND ME A TENOR.

Nice to Lisa O'Hare in something again, too, having not seen her since MARY POPPINS back in the day!

This is the kind of show that will have an excellent life in am dram - and I mean that in a positive way!

SATURDAY - ROCKY

To me this felt like the worst excesses of British/European megamusicals salvaged by some of the best direction I can think of. Clearly truckloads of money have been thrown at this - and the coup de theatre is a good one, if rather forced (and the ending fairly disappointing if I'm honest) - but the physical production is thuddingly non-theatrical, with giant uber-realistic sets rolling round nearly non-stop and incongruously modern video projections everywhere. Andy Karl owns the role (if not necessarily the stage, perhaps thanks to the fairly pedestrian if likeable score) but anything that works here is really thanks to Alex Timbers thinking of ways to keep things interesting where he can - although it didn't work so much for me.

Perhaps these comments sound very negative - the only show I didn't enjoy that much actually was ROCKY, and even that had several good things to say about it that I haven't really mentioned.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 4/6/14 at 4:30pm

Thank you DeNada. I always appreciate your perspective on shows.