Reviews and a little extra

Hi, all!  I saw two musicals last week.  Two musicals that probably run the spectrum of good vs evil, agony and ecstasy, sublime and ridiculous.  Have you guessed?  Yes, I saw Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and Follies.  J

A dear grad school chum sent me an e-mail telling me he had Tony tickets to Spider-Man and would I be interested?  Heck, yeah, I’m interested!  Most of the buzz and negative press have died down, so I figured we could just go, watch the show, and hopefully have a really fun time.  Well, I’m here to tell you THAT didn’t happen.  I did not have a really fun time (though it’s always fun to spend time with my grad school chum).  I just kept wondering how such a loud, expensive show could be so painfully dull.

Simply, the book is sorta not good; the score has some nice melody here and there, but it all starts to sound like one long B side of a U2 single after awhile; who knows if the lyrics were any good since I couldn’t understand one bloody word they were saying/singing; the acting was committed and mostly well-done (there’s a special place in heaven for all the hard work Patrick Page does); and some of the stagecraft was spectacular.  I think I could tell the stuff of Julie Taymor’s that remained, because it was the most visually striking.  When Arachne first appears, and her minions are singing a very dissonant melody while swinging out into the audience on peach-colored ribbons and sort of making a web, the vision is gorgeous.  Arachne herself has a nice quality to her singing voice, but I’m telling you, putting lyrics across is not her cup of tea.  NO CLUE what she was saying.  Another Arachne scene that is gorgeous is when she comes to Peter Parker in a dream and she levitates towards him and he levitates up to her and they sing yet another unintelligible song while seemingly floating together (this was, I think, the only instance where the rigging was not apparent).  The scene with Peter and his visions of dozens of Spidermen, with moving mirrored panels, was also stunning, as was the bit where the Chrysler Building sort of came up out of the stage floor and we got the perspective as if we were looking down from the top.  That was pretty cool, I have to admit.

The flying was basically fun, though the huge rigging the actors wore was a bit off-putting at first.  I didn’t really enjoy, though, the climactic fight scene which was done right over our heads.  The first few seconds I thought, “Oh, that’s cool, they’re flying right over me.”  Then I thought, “Wait, are they just going to stay hanging over me while they’re fighting,” and then I started thinking, “Oh my god, I’m so uncomfortable, please make it stop!!”  It just creeped me out the longer it went.

I guess I could trash the show some more, but it doesn’t really matter.  The rest of the sold-out audience seemed to enjoy it and flew to their feet at the end.  I certainly see where all the money went, but unfortunately, it didn’t go into the story.  I think the best place for this production to run is at Universal Studios theme park.  It just doesn’t seem like a Broadway musical to me.  But, then again, I can be a snob.  J

I bought my Follies ticket quite a while ago, and I was so excited the wonderful day had finally arrived!  After having a fun dinner with some pals (well, they had dinner, I had tea, you know my rule…), we wandered over to the Marquis to settle in for a marvelous show.  Unfortunately, I did not have a marvelous time.  NOT because of the show, but because of my seat neighbor.  God love him, he took up all my personal space and made me very physically uncomfortable, and his infrared hearing device was turned up so loudly, all I could hear was the delayed dialogue and music coming from his device and not from the stage.  I tried plugging up my right ear to drown it out and listen to the show with my left ear, but it just didn’t work.  I was miserable in the extreme through the first act and just couldn’t concentrate enough to be engaged.  I found individual moments lovely, Jayne Houdyshell kicked a** and took no prisoners with “Broadway Baby” and Mary Beth Piel was terrific as Solange, when I could hear them without the interference from the guy next to me, but I just kept wishing I could move.

I asked the house manager to move me for the second act, and he very kindly let me sit in a box on the upper right side of the house.  Even though the box smelled overwhelmingly of mold, it was much better to be able to hear what was going on, while it was going on, and not filtered through a hearing device.  Plus, I was much closer to the beauty that was Bernadette Peters’ performance.  She’s so specific and so real, it’s heartbreaking.  For the first time ever, I thought to myself, she looks old.  And I know it was the acting and not the actress, who is ever youthful.   She’s really wonderful in the role.

Jan Maxwell is, of course, sublime.  Stunning, smart, icy, vulnerable—she’s got it all.  And she broke my heart when ‘looking’ at her younger self and realizing she had sold herself short and didn’t need to change so much for Ben.  Ron Raines sang magnificently, but could’ve mined a few more layers as Ben.  I’ve never really taken to Danny Burstein before, but I really got into his performance as Buddy.  Plus, he and the kid playing Young Buddy were so symbiotic, it was great.  All of the performers were terrific.  Terri White and “Who’s That Woman” rocked the house.  “One More Kiss” was stunning.  The gals playing the spectral showgirls were really walking a tightrope of stealing focus or phoning it in, and they played just the right feel throughout.

I did feel that the direction was a bit leisurely for my taste—although I enjoyed seeing such good actors really dig into and get their hands dirty during the scenework, I thought some of it took a little too long and slowed the inevitable pace that I was looking for.  The show didn’t ‘drive’ enough for me, and I think I place that at the director’s feet.  But I also enjoyed many directorial choices.

I just feel as if I didn’t really ‘see’ the show because of all the problems I had as an audience member.  I’m guessing I’m just going to have to get a night job and buy another bloody ticket.  Oh well.  Hearing that show more than once is no hardship, believe you me.   

I also saw the Steppenwolf production of Clybourne Park when I was in Chicago last week.  I wish I had seen the Playwrights Horizons production last year, but I’m happy to hear the show may come back to New York in the spring.  I very much enjoyed the production at Steppenwolf and thought the play was quite thought-provoking and funny.  I’ll admit that my expectations were probably sky high and maybe the play didn’t fulfill them, but I'm pretty sure that’s my problem and not the play’s.  The gent playing the father in the first act was fantastic, but the entire acting ensemble was very good.  If the performances were a little too stylized for my tastes, I think it’s inherent in the play, since the NY Times review mentioned this quality in the PH production as well.  And I think I quibble with the necessity of the coda, but again that’s probably me and not the play.  But I had a great time seeing the show with some friends—we had a lively discussion about it all the way back to Evanston, which is always fun fun fun!

The little extra:  yesterday was the Broadway Flea Market.  We've been manning a table at the Flea Market for the last six years (well, we skipped last year due to circumstances beyond anyone's control)--it's always a lot of fun and we clean out the closets, too.  We have some regulars who stop by every year to see which writer is signing autographs and to pick up copies of our magazine.  I was afraid it was going to rain all day, but, thankfully, the weather cooperated and it was a humid, long, tiring, but very fun day.  Our table doesn't generally make a lot of money, since we're mainly selling things for $1 or $5, but we did pretty well considering.  We made our third highest total, so...yay!  I've just got to convince more writers to join us--they're where the money is!  Enjoy the photos.