On the Horizon...

Here's some theatre that's on my radar:

• King King:  This looks the sort of thing that develop legs but: if you're going to Melborne, Australia.  And you thought that the Lion King had puppets!
  
  
  
• Big Fish:  Coming to Broadway this year with Kate Baldwin (who did Charlotte in A Little Night Music at Center Stage in Baltimore a couple of years back not to mention a bang up Finian's Rainbow on Broadway with Cheyenne Jackson) and Norbert Leo Butz.  Why YES, I did meet her at Curt Decker's party as well as the stagedoor!  She had me and Steve Schwartzman's total attention until Cheyenne came out.
  
• Always Patsy Cline:  Saw this at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts ages ago with Cathy Wortman and discovered Patsy.  Good to see a Broadway run is coming.
  
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:  Can London Dahlighting strike twice?

Matilda

Matilda the Musical
 Shubert Theatre
225 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036

This show was the second of two shows that I saw on Saturday, May 4, 2013 and which motivated me to start this blog. Slow to get posted but here it is.

Matilda is a simple story:  a young girl has terrible parents and a horrible life at school but her "special powers" protect her in the end.  It's kind of like Stephen King's "Carrie" for children except Matilda is no victim. She is the author of her life and the theme of the show is simply:  if you are struck in a horrible story, write yourself a new ending.  Needless to say:  bibliophiles and librarians are gonna love this one. Not to mention optimists.

Let me start by saying this is an outstanding production that exceeds in every category:  performances, set design, lighting, score, etc. etc.  But. I think that a backlash is brewing for a couple of reasons but most of which have to do with the fact that the musical doesn't stoop to any levels. It doesn't want to be innocent enough to be for children.  It's not cynical enough for adults.  It's not happy enough for a musical.  It's too fun to be dark.  Kind of like Roald Dahl. My suggestion for most children:  don't avoid them just because it is too dark.  That is exactly the reason that Dahl's books are still popular with kids and nothing helps a kid to learn that they are safe better than to be in a dark place and to come through it safely.  They are smarter than you think and any kid old enough to sit still for 2.5 hours probably also can deduce that the stage is as safe as a TV. They are surrounded by others who are not screeching and they'll probably follow suit (Note:  I'm REALLY sorry if you follow this advice and it doesn't turn out that way but I'm not a child psychologist so what do I know?!)

But, come Tony time, the backlash could be real and the probably lesser (I haven't seen it)  but happier and less atonal Kinky Boots may beat out Matilida.  Billy Porter may even sashay away with a Tony over Bertie Carvel because he glitters.  His drag is pretty and, suffice it to say that Truchbull is many things but "pretty" is not one of them.  That is not to say that the message of Kinky Boots is any less lovely or poignant but it may be more palatable to American audiences because it is served up straight like Bruce's chocolate cake rather than the salty sweet ice cream with balamic vinegar (thanks Tim Holland!) confection that is the more thinking and complicated Matilda. And who doesn't love Cyndi Lauper and Bruce Vilanch.  I mean Harvey Fierstein.

A recommendation:  check out the cast album before attending since the lyrics are a great part of the fun and are hard to catch in real time with a Cockney pitch.  Tim Michin's a genius and he also doesn't stoop. Snarky and smart.  If you haven't ever heard his nine-minute rant/jazz/poem "Storm" about new age mysticism versus science then you need to.

Pippin

Pippin

Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036

This show was one of two shows that I saw on Saturday, May 4, 2013 and which motivated me to start this blog. The joy of seeing both Pippin and Matilda in one day did a serious job of boasting my levels of Showqueenosterone into the stratosphere. It reconnected me with a sleeping (but not non-existent) love of swelling orchestrations, squinting lights, too much make up, and human joy. They metaphorically slapped me upside the head with the better side of people-kind.

It might not be fair to expect myself to be objective about a revival of Pippin.  It was one of the first "Broadway" shows that I saw in my youth (albeit a road company of the Broadway production with Michael Rupert at the Morris Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore) and the Fosse pheromones and my adolescent quest for self-discovery was so overwhelming in 1978 that I became infatuated with the show and the music. It didn't matter to me at this wasn't Rubinstein, Vereen, Ryan, Clayburgh, et. al:  I had seen a REAL production of Pippin with Fosse choreography and there was nothing amateur about it. Other than a nice regional tour of the show starring Mickey Dolenz as Charlemagne that passed through Philadelphia in 1997, I've only had that memory to keep me warm.

The book of Pippin is often represented by critics as slight but, as a lost-little-gay boy, the theme of living your life "on show" versus simply "living your life" was huge and formative in my eyes and still seems that way today. This level of human questing is Jungian at its core and the pretext of using the son of Charlemagne to act out the drama is a brilliant ruse.  How WOULD the son of the then greatest man on the planet struggle to define his own role in the world and not have to feel a need to match or to eclipse his dad?

This framework is nothing more than a structure on which to hang Pippin's efforts to balance the importance of being extraordinary with the less exciting but more rewarding importance of being happy and the show within a show structure makes it clear: this is a parable and not a literal tale.  In this context, the show's apparent narrative weaknesses fall away because it is clear that this play is not about Pippin, the son of Charlemagne, but is about the act of men (in particular) maturing and putting away their childish notions.  Pippin's conundrums are situational metaphors and constitute the real story here.  The yearning that is evident in songs like "Corner of the Sky" and "Morning Glow" may stylistically evoke another musical era (I'm not convinced that they do) but the impact is still potent.

The conceit of telling this story about a young man living his life as if it needed to be the greatest show on earth literally within the environment of the "Greatest Show On Earth" is a brilliant precept and adding Fosse's razzle-dazzle choreography ensures that the theme of "extraordinary" versus "ordinary" is thoroughly realized.  The updated ending in this production emphasizes that this show is NOT about Pippin any more than it is about Theo as he begins to follow his call to fame and glory in the final seconds of the show. 

Links to Explore:

• Pippin montage
• The cast on Letterman ("The Manson Trio" and "Simple Joys")
• Listen to the cast record at EW
  

Goosebump moments:

• "Magic to Do."  The silhouette of Patina Miller calling the show to attention behind the curtain before literally ripping off the cover.  If the opening number of a show is meant to set the tone:  well done!  All that AND the ghost of the floating hands to overcome.

• "Corner of the Sky."  Adorable boy and with a really sweet voice singing longingly.   Sigh.

• Andrea Martin:  "Pull up a ball..." (and I'll knock your socks off!)

• Orion Griffith:  Yummy (to name but one of the tasties on the stage.)

• Chet Walker:  Damn!  He had a beard at the stage door so I missed getting his signature but his Fosse legacy is as important to this production as Anne Reinking's was to Chicago and Fosse(but presumably without the sleepovers prep.)  It should be Tony time for his insemination of the illegitimate love child of Bob Fosse and P.T. Barnum.

• Charlotte d'Ambrose:  Whispering sweet little nothings to the girl next to me in the front row during the finale to coherce her to come into the limelight.

• Rachel Bay Jones:  Slight whiff of Carol Kane lisp.  Loved it.

• PS:  Seats in the front row.  Rotten upstage views but who cares.  Awe. Some.

*Thankfully, I got to see an excellent Patina Miller in the production since she was  understudied by Stephanie Pope on the evening performance just the night before, but also stepped out of the role at the following performance after giving it the ol' college try on the first several numbers.  I stalked the cast at both Saturday performances to get a window card signed and got signatures all of the principals except for Patina.

My Virgin Post

I'm not sure what I'm doing here but I think that it could be fun anyway.  Turns out that I'm a bit of a theatre queen and I'm pretty sure that my friends are sick of hearing about it on my Facebook page so this is my attempt to offload some of that stuff.

A couple of rules to get out the way: 

• I can't spell or do grammar too good.  Get used to it I guess.

• I don't tend to have a lot of discipline so who knows how much I'll post here. 

• I love theatre and tend to gush about it and here's why:  everyday I go to my job and we have meetings about lots of things.  We talk about how to do things; why we do things; if we should do things; who does things well.  Blah, blah.  What we don't talk about is what a lot preoccupies a lot of people a lot of the time.  Emotions.  The human condition is a minefield of how people feel and the arts contain the most eloquent expression of emotions that our little planetary tribe can devise. 
  
  Theatre does that best for me because I'm lazy and then I don't have to imagine anything.  I can see and hear without having to stir a moribund imagination and nothing-Nothing-NOTHING taps my heart stings and makes my tear ducts ooze up like two people singing -frequently at the same time- as they glide eloquently (how do they DO that he thunks out loud?!!?) and every fiber of their being is pulling me into some emotion that I most likely remember from some other time in my life.  That's pretty awesome stuff for me and it helps me to connect to other hostile humanoids who otherwise look at each other like the stuff on the bottom of a old city shoe.

• I'm a librarian by trade and that may come into my conversations sometimes but this blog does not have anything to do with my job.  Consider this the whole disclaimer thing:  Michael Stevens is responsible for himself.  His job provides a comfortable living but has no place opining on this website.

• That's all the rules for now.  I'm sure that more will come later but my ADD has kicked in and that's all you're getting right now.