Review - Himself and Nora

I've sort of wrestled with myself today over whether or not I should do a review of Himself and Nora, the new musical I saw last night at the Minetta Lane Theatre.  I was very fortunate to receive a free ticket to the show, and I don't want to seem ungrateful, so I feel as if I really shouldn't say anything negative about it (which I guess tells you how I mostly felt about the show).  I mean, I appreciate receiving the ticket and I think I was a good audience member, but free tickets don't make me lose my opinion, right?  So I guess I will just jot a few thoughts down.  Then you can make your own decision about whether or not you want to see it.

Himself and Nora tells the story of James Joyce and his lady, Nora Barnacle, with whom he lived for years but didn't marry until nearly the end of his life.  Set up as a memory/flashback musical (ugh, I think I'm tired of this format), we hear the lamenting of Nora over Joyce's dead body, then he springs back up and we see how his life played out.  Ish.  We rather 'hear' about how his life played out.  There's a lot of 'telling' in Himself and Nora, which doesn't leave much room for 'showing' plot.  The script is very oddly put together, in my opinion. The songs are mostly all filler and we get plot points shoved into a few lines of dialogue. It didn't really make sense to me.

I guess I wonder why the author thought this needed to be a musical.  There doesn't seem to be a feel of Joyce in either the book or the lyrics, the music doesn't sound particularly Irish (though there is one song that's repeated about Ireland and there is some Irish step dancing in the minimal choreography). The pop-ish score is pleasant enough, but it's not dramatic and it's not theatrical.  I actually found the lyrics rather smutty, just for smutty's sake, which I found off-putting, as if because Joyce's work had been considered obscene, the lyrics needed to be dirty.  I don't know.  They didn't work for me. Now that I think more on it, it's almost as if all of the moments that needed songs got a tired book scene instead and vice-versa.   In my humble, non-educated opinion, of course.  

photo credit: Matthew Murphy

The performers did what they could.  They were attractive and sang nicely and tried to make characters out of practically nothing.  I think the women were more successful than the men.  The size of the stage and the set pieces made choreography rather uncomfortable to watch (everyone was looking at the floor to make sure they didn't fall, I guess), but otherwise the staging was fine for such a small space. The set was ok, but the lighting didn't make a lot of sense to me at times.  The costumes were well-done, too, I guess, but I did find myself obsessing over Joyce's eyeglasses that had one eye darkened for his eye condition, but then occasionally he wore an eye patch over his other eye (instead of his glasses).  A dumb thing to obsess over.

I should point out here that the rest of the audience really enjoyed themselves. They laughed heartily at the jokes and applauded loudly after each song.  So maybe I was the only dissatisfied customer.  Seat neighbor-wise, it was a strange crowd: actually, let's start with the restroom.  As is my custom, I arrived at the theater early so I could stop at the restroom. I was the only gal in there, surprisingly. Trying not to be too TMI about it, as I was washing my hands and getting ready to leave the ladies room, a man started screaming, "JUNE!  JUNE!"  I said, "uh, there's no one in here."  He screamed back "What's going on in there?!"  I said, "there is no one in here but me!"  Then he screamed "Well, where did she go?!"  I was at a loss after that.  I was happy June finally found him and got him away from the ladies room entrance.  I was afraid he was going to come in and demand to know what I had done to poor June!  It was a little unsettling.  Once inside the theater (I can't remember the last time I was at the Minetta Lane, but it seems as if it has been nicely refurbished), I was seated in the very-full third row.  Oddly, the third and fourth rows were the only rows that were completely full, all the others had scattered seats.  I thought about moving, but didn't.  Anyway, nearly everyone in the first or second row was highly upset about being so close and wanted to move back.  One woman said, quite loudly, "I am an avid theatergoer and this is much too close for someone like me!" OK, then.  Avid theatergoer = seats farther back.  Somehow, I don't think this plays out in the same fashion in other theaters...

To sum up, I didn't really enjoy Himself and Nora all that much, but I will say that I was tempted to buy one of their t-shirts, and after the show I immediately got onto Wikipedia to read more about James Joyce, so is there value in that?  Probably not. But I throw it out there anyway, just to play fair.  As it were.  :)