Review - The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream

Purely by chance, I got two comps to last night's performance of The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream.  I had heard nearly nothing about this show - I saw the marquee and didn't really think anything of it.  It said Fifteen Performances Only, so it slipped my mind.  The name The Rascals meant nothing to me (sorry!), but hey, free tickets are never to be sneezed at.  Free tickets in the fifth row center are great, (almost) regardless of the show!  And, I have to say, after last night, I'm now a big fan of The Rascals!

 

Apparently, Steven Van Zandt, of the E Street Band (who I HAVE heard of, thank you very much) grew up a huge fan of The Rascals and it has been his dream to reunite them.  It took this hybrid concert/Broadway show concept to get them together, or so I've read.  The show features projections by Marc Brickman, who has worked with Pink Floyd in the past.  Not only were there psychadelic projections, but there was also archival footage of the band, video testimonies from the band members about their story, and re-enactments by actors portraying the band in their youth.  It was an interesting mix, though, to be honest, sometimes the video segments just got in the way of the best part of the concert - the live performances by the original band.  Steven Van Zandt did the pre-show announcement, telling us to leave our phones ON, to take pictures, video, post on Facebook or Twitter, and to do 'whatever the f*ck we wanted.'  Well, OK THEN!  You don't have to tell me twice to take photos during a show!  Enjoy some of the shots I got throughout. 

 

My handsome friend and I were clearly the youngest people in the room.  We were surrounded by baby boomers who were SO excited to see The Rascals again!  The gal to my right told me, "The last time I saw them, 40 years ago, I was so stoned, I don't remember the concert!  I can't believe I get to see them again!"  She was a VERY enthusiastic audience member and was, I believe, the first person to rock out on her feet, her cane be damned.  If she had been in the front row, her panties would've been thrown, I just know it.  This photo was taken by my handsome friend - his perspective was much better (he also got the "Good Lovin'" photo further down the page). 

 

It does not matter in the least that these guys are in their late 60s/early 70s.  They were ROCKING!  The Rascals had a lot of hit songs in the 1960s - "Good Lovin'," "Groovin'," "People Everywhere Just Got To Be Free," "Beautiful Mornin'," and, the very haunting "How Can I Be Sure," which I have now downloaded from iTunes.  I knew a lot of the songs, but didn't know they were by The Rascals.  It was interesting to hear their story, in their own words, and it was fun to see how jazzed they were in concert.  Guitarist Gene Cornish was flirting with all the ladies and throwing guitar picks into the crowd; Felix Cavaliere was on keyboards and did most of the main vocals - he sounded powerful and passionate throughout; Dino Danelli was on drums and was so focused and fierce (though, he looked strangely like someone who just took off their drag persona and sat down at the drums); and vocalist/tambourine master Eddie Briagti was out front and prancing as fast as his feet would take him.  There were also three excellent backup singers and couple of extra musicians.  Fifth row center may have been a tad close for my tastes, though the sound was mixed very well, but it was great to see their interactions with the crowd.

 

The show is two hours of rock and roll, no intermission, and the audience was going crazy throughout.  The theater was packed - I told my handsome friend that this is the way I behave at a Barry Manilow concert, but not really.  I'm a tad more sedate than these people.  But not much.  I guess when you love a band, you LOVE A BAND!  Gals were screaming "We love you, Eddie!" and he was eating it up.  There were a couple of spontaneous standing ovations throughout the show (the uber-fan on my right started at least one of them).  I've read that The Rascals now plan to do a tour of this show around the country - if it comes to your area, go see it!  It's a lot of fun!  I wish I had been more aware of it before it opened - it closes this Sunday, so there aren't many more chances to catch them in the beautiful Richard Rodgers Theater.  I took a ton of photos, so I'll put more at the bottom.  I also got one sound clip, so I'll try to attach it as well.  Fingers crossed I can make it work [updated update, I think the soundclip WORKS!  woo hoo!]

 

 

 

 sound clip from The Rascals

 

Pre-Tony nomination thoughts

So, the Tony nominations come out Tuesday.   There’s still so much I haven’t seen!  I guess my living at the Signature Theatre has curtailed my Broadway viewing, though I appreciate all the generous Tony nominator/voter friends who have taken me to see some stuff this season.  So, here are my hopes for what we might hear when those nominations are read (not that I think we will hear all of these names, but typing them makes me feel better):

BEST PLAY

The Assembled Parties, Richard Greenberg

The Other Place, Sharr White
The Testament of Mary, Colm Toibin
[I haven’t seen most of the plays being mentioned as contenders, darn it]

BEST MUSICAL

Bring It On

A Christmas Story
Hands on a Hardbody
[again, I haven’t seen the supposed real contenders.  But I love the creators of these three musicals, AND I actually saw them…so there]

BEST ACTOR IN A PLAY

Alan Cumming, Macbeth

Douglas Hodge, Cyrano
Tracy Letts, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Jim Parsons, Harvey
Michael Shannon, Grace

BEST ACTRESS IN A PLAY

Jessica Hecht, The Assembled Parties

Laurie Metcalf, The Other Place
Amy Morton, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Fiona Shaw, The Testament of Mary
Holland Taylor, Ann

BEST FEATURED ACTOR IN A PLAY

Mark Blum, The Assembled Parties [I love him.  Sue me.]

Madison Dirks, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Charles Kimbrough, Harvey
David Strathairn, The Heiress
Tony Shalhoub, Golden Boy

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS IN A PLAY

Ellen Burstyn, Picnic

Carrie Coon, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Judith Ivey, The Heiress
Judith Light, The Assembled Parties
Elizabeth Marvel, Picnic
 
MUSICAL PERFORMERS

[yeah, no clue.  I have hopes for John Bolton and Johnny Rabe from A Christmas Story, and for the divine Chita in Drood.  Otherwise, I just couldn’t say]

BEST SCORE

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, A Christmas Story

[oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please]

BEST BOOK

[if Berry Gordy gets nominated here, I may have to reconsider my career path.]

 

GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!!!!

Review - Macbeth (and some other thoughts)

I believe I've already mentioned that Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of my very favorite plays (top five, probably), and that I try to see as many versions of it as possible.  Favorites include a touring Kabuki version I saw in Detroit, and a version done with marionettes.  The less said about Naked Macbeth, the better.  I did a production in college and can still replicate some of the adorable line readings that occurred.  I was sad to have missed Alan Cumming's version that played here last summer and was thrilled when it was announced for a Broadway limited run.  I actually purchased a real ticket for this one.

The house was pretty full, but not completely.  The gals on one side of me were arguing, up and down, who was worse - Patrick Stewart or Alan Cumming.  And this was BEFORE the show started.  Sigh.  The gals on the other side of me were talking (in their outdoor voices) about how bad the reviews had been for this one.  Double sigh.  Am I the ONLY person in NY who observes the five-block rule (not to mention keeping myself from dissing a show before it even begins)?  Apparently so.  The gal on my left leaned towards me before the show started; I pulled away.  She said, sorry, I may have to do this during the show to be able to see better.  I said, oh, ok, thanks for warning me.  Thankfully, she didn't have to lean.  Though she did pull out her binoculars for a better look every time Alan Cumming removed an article of clothing.  As you can imagine, the binoculars stayed out for quite some time during the scenes near/inside the bathtub.

 

Anyway, after all that, I have to say I really enjoyed the show, though I can see how it might have been confusing for people who aren't as familiar with Macbeth.  I thought Alan Cumming presented the text beautifully and was always crystal-clear in his acting and in his storytelling.  I am a stickler for clearly telling the story.  But, then, I always knew what character he was playing.  If you don't know the play, it may be too much to constantly try to figure out who is talking when.

Set in a psychiatric hospital, this Macbeth is torn from the disturbed mind of one patient, though there are two other actors who appear (and briefly speak) from time to time.  I thought the cutting of the text was done very well, and the pacing of the piece was excellent.  The show begins with Alan Cumming, clearly a patient who is checking into this facility, going through a routine with the two hospital employees.  After all is put in order, as the employees leave the room, Cumming asks "When shall we three meet again?" and our descent into Macbeth's madness begins.

 

Boiled down, Macbeth is essentially a play about guilt, and Cumming beautifully portrays a man filled with guilt acting out a play riddled with guilt.  There are subtle, and not-so-subtle, indicators that an act of violence caused Cumming to be placed in this hospital, and seeing how his portrayal of all these characters mirror his own (presumed) actions and consequences, is quite ingenious. 

 

The show was wonderfully directed by John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg.  I'm sure it was quite a delicate dance to put this together and make sure it didn't become one big vanity project bore.  There were some directorial choices I found amazingly inventive and some I found pretty cliched, but, on the whole, the construct of the piece was first-rate.  I thought the video was used perfectly and the music underscored things very well.  The very first light cue caused someone in the audience to scream, so there's that...

 

I thought Alan Cumming's performance was fantastic - it must be quite an endurance test for him to perform such a high-octane, solo wire act every night (though, I believe I've read he doesn't do matinees to maintain his energy).  Unsurprisingly, his abundant personal charm twinkles through now and then, most especially in his interpretations of Duncan and Banquo, but he also is deadly serious throughout and proves himself to be an expert interpreter of Shakespeare.  I've heard Macbeth dozens of times, and yet I heard some of the lines anew, which caused my ear to wake up and think 'aha!'  I love when that happens - when something so familiar is heard freshly.  Hurrah.

 

The other two performers were also terrific and used very well.  I could talk about things that especially stuck with me, but I hate to spoil.  I will say I was devastated by a sweater and was genuinely worried at one point for an actor's safety.  I was amazed and intrigued by a sex scene.  But I will also say that if we were truly in a psychiatric hospital, I'm guessing this patient would've been a little more closely monitored.

 

Like in The Testament of Mary, there were random pieces of theatricality that bordered a bit on "too much," but the end result was completely worth it to me.  I give this production a huge thumbs up, again with the caveat that I just may be the perfect target audience for the piece.  Though the gal with the binoculars seemed quite happy with her theatrical experience as well. I should've asked her afterward if she ever understood what was going on.  :)

 

Speaking of The Testament of Mary, I returned for a second visit to see Fiona Shaw and be amazed by her.  Which I was.  In fact, I may have liked the play even better the second time.  This time, I did the pre-show walk-through of the set and found it a very exciting complement to the play as a whole.   To see Mary as the world generally sees her, serene and in a 'box,' and then to have the play unfold and she confounds our expectations is ingenious.  And although I knew the ending, Shaw's performance still made my heart race.  My hands were even shaking afterwards - that's how moving Fiona Shaw was.  I sat much closer and could see everything play across that beautifully expressive face.  I'm ever so glad I saw the show again.  I will say, however, that the Wednesday matinee crowd only gave her one curtain call, whereas the audience last Saturday cheered for three or four.  Maybe more people had to get back to the office, just like we did.  But Fiona Shaw is worth every hoot, holler and huzzah out there.  I'm hoping the Tony nominators think so, too. 

Review - The Assembled Parties

Last night, I finally made it to the Samuel Freidman Theatre to see Richard Greenberg's new play, The Assembled Parties.  I'm a big fan of Greenberg's Three Days of Rain, and the cast of this production is to die for.  I was very happy to get there last night.  I was very sad to see that the theater wasn't terribly full, though.  The play got excellent reviews, so I wonder why it's not really selling.  Maybe last night was an anomaly.  Or maybe things will pick up after the inevitable Tony nominations...

I should say, however, that I didn't feel as rapturously about the play as many of the critics did.  I appreciated it, I enjoyed it, I was even moved by a couple of speeches at the end, but I didn't LOVE it.  Too bad for me, I guess, but I just felt like there were so many unanswered questions.  Should there really be so much left for me to figure out?  Should so many things we believed from the first act really fly out the window in the second?  I don't know.  But these are the types of things that kept me from all-out loving this play.

 

It will be hard to talk about the play without using spoilers, so read at your own risk, I guess.  I'll do my best, though.  Set at two Christmas Day dinners, twenty years apart, The Assembled Parties deals with a dysfunctional, privileged, uber-intellectual Jewish American family, who inevitably discover that life doesn't always turn out the way you want it to.  In this family, naturally, there are many secrets and lies.  Some of the secrets and lies are interesting and make sense; some of the secrets and lies seem like they're just put in the play to gild the lily.  The dialogue is witty, though sometimes (perhaps) deliberately off-puttingly pretentious.  I may be a bit of a reverse snob, but I consider myself to have a relatively large vocabulary - when a script has a family toss in dozens of words that I have no clue what they mean, I sometimes find it hard to dig back in to the story.  Again, that could just be me. 

 

Jessica Hecht and Judith Light are the matriarchs of the family and they are both terrific.  These ladies have been written with many dimensions.  I frequently have a problem with Jessica Hecht and her vocal mannerisms, but they fit in with this character wonderfully well, so I was totally on board with what she was doing.  She has a lovely monologue in the second act about her late mother, where the affectations are dropped and it's just character and emotion.  I liked that.  And Judith Light was just on fire as the more down-to-earth sister-in-law.  The way their interactions in the first act reflected on what was happening in the second act was quite moving.  Oh, and Lauren Blumenfeld, as Judith Light's daughter, didn't have much to do but she made the most of her stage time.

 

The male characters were written a little more sketchily, but they were finely acted nonetheless.  I always enjoy Mark Blum, who played Judith Light's husband (yes, I have a bit of a crush).  It was hard at first to deal with the fact that his character was less-than-sympathetic, but he's always so detailed and real, he cuts right to the marrow.  And then to find out he was sort of a hero all along was quite touching.  Although there wasn't much payoff for him that it turns out that way.  Jonathan Walker, who I've previously seen and enjoyed in several Charles Busch plays, was also good, but had a harder time filling in the spaces in his character.  Jake Silberman, who played a different son in each act, was a little more successful in the second act than the first.  Again, I think it was more a fault of the script than the actor.  And Jeremy Shamos was excellent as the perpetual outsider/third-wheel, who could actually save them all.

 

The physical production was outstanding.  The apartment, beautifully designed by Santo Loquasto, was another character in the piece.  And the way the design was differently utilized in both acts was terrific.  Jane Greenwood's costumes were excellently on-point.  Her 'vintage' costumes for Jessica Hecht, whose mother was a designer of women's couture, were gorgeous and just the right set-up for some interesting ideas about what you take from your mother.  Peter Kaczorowski's lights were subtle and elegant, and Obadiah Eaves' music was never intrusive, but always evocative.  Director Lynne Meadow put together a fantastic team and guided her actors very well.

 

It's hard not to talk about this play without putting in plot points that could ruin your enjoyment if you know them in advance.  So I suppose I should stop.  I guess the play could be telling us to appreciate life as you're living it, even the unexpectedness, but a lot of the time, there didn't really seem to be any throughline going on.  It just seemed like two slices-of-life with no real plotting.  Well, no, there was a lot of PLOT, but not a lot of action.  If that even makes sense.  But wondering what was going to happen to these women generally kept me engaged.  I just feel frustrated now, thinking back on the evening, about all of the threads that seem to still dangle.  And I'm not sure I should still have so many questions.  But perhaps that's the way Richard Greenberg wanted it - no answers, all questions...

 

Review - The Testament of Mary

Although I may be seeing this show again later this week with a Tony pal, when a handsome chum told me he had an extra free ticket to The Testament of Mary on Saturday afternoon, I jumped at the chance.  One, I love seeing shows with handsome chums.  Two, I love Fiona Shaw.  Three, why not see shows more than once, I always say.  Well, unless we're talking about Motown.  Then...not so much.

I didn't know very much about The Testament of Mary before I saw it.  I knew it was a solo show, and that it dealt with the mother of Jesus, but that's about it.  When passing out the Playbills, the ushers also passed out a flyer from the author of the novel the play is based on.  I didn't read the flyer until this morning (though I did look at the photos before the show - I love photos of Michelangelo's Pieta).  We had excellent seats in the front row of the mezzanine and from our vantage point, we could see the pre-show activity on the stage, where audience members could walk around and look at the set pieces and a large glass box, where Fiona Shaw, as Mary, was sitting.  It was kind of amazing how waxy and unreal she looked while she was sitting in that exhibit case.  When the glass case was lifted, and Fiona Shaw got ready for the start of the production, it was a bit of a shock to see her turn into flesh and blood.  She truly is amazing.  [I snuck the photo at right from the front of the mezzanine.  Since they were allowing audience members to take photos while they were milling about onstage, I figured it was ok to snap this one.] 

Directed by Fiona Shaw's frequent collaborator, Deborah Warner, The Testament of Mary is relentlessly theatrical.  I mean this as a huge positive and a bit of a negative.  Personally, I could listen to Fiona Shaw sit and talk for 90 minutes about whatever the heck she wanted to talk about, but to make this a unique theatrical experience, Warner and Shaw have really pulled out all the stops.  There were times when I wished the theatrical busyness would stop; I was most personally affected during moments of stillness and quietness, but, still, all of the effects were intruiging and striking and added up to something unlike anything I'd seen before.  Afterwards, I guess you could think, 'well, they didn't need to do this or that,' but during the performance, I was completely entranced by what was going on.  I found myself gripping my handbag so tightly, the circulation stopped moving in my hands.  That's how engaged I found myself.

I'm not particularly religious, though I guess I do believe in God and Jesus and the Bible, which has some cracking good stories in it.  But I also find issues of faith and faithlessness intriguing.  To hear from a woman who is so deified speak as a human, instead of as a religious icon, was so interesting to me.  We hear from Mary speaking as a mother - a mother who struggles with what her son did and how (and why) her son died.  I just found it so moving - I was holding my breath at certain points and in tears at other points.  The retelling of the story of Lazarus was compelling - honestly, I had never considered what happened AFTER Lazarus was raised from the dead before.  And the retelling of the Crucifixion was heartbreaking.  I guess, after a season of uber-realistic work, I was just completely taken by this seemingly simple (but oh-so-complex) story being delivered in such a heightened manner.  The music was wonderful, the lighting and set piece effects were terrific, and some of the directorial choices were shocking, in a good way.  The last moments took my breath away.  Maybe, now and then, the constant movement was a little much (the ladder was a particular conundrum to me), but I could make it work for myself dramatically.  Here is a woman in constant motion, who, if she sits still for too long, gets lost in thoughts she'd rather not get lost in.  So, she's always on the move.  If that constant movement segued into fussiness a time or two, oh well. 

Fiona Shaw was riveting, magical, injecting just the right amount of humor into a deeply serious piece.  Thumbs way up for her, both during the show, and again while greeting her fans so happily afterwards.  She seemed quite moved by and appreciative of the rapturous curtain call we all gave her (and if she was acting, again, thumbs up).  I'm hoping audiences will find their way to The Testament of Mary.  Even though there are a lot of tricks happening, the end result is so striking, it's definitely worth the visit.  I hope I get to go back and see it from a different vantage point - I may even try the pre-show walkthrough!  Why not?!  Pieces like this are definitely worthy of more than one look...

Review - Motown

The theater season is coming to a rapid conclusion.  My friend the Tony nominator (who is seeing something like ten shows in seven days) invited me to join him at yesterday's matinee of Motown.  Since my boss was also going, I figured sure, why not?  I like Motown music.  How bad can it be?

Wow.  Well, it wasn't good.  I always feel badly about saying such things, because I know how much hard work goes into putting on a musical, but...it's the truth.  Or, my truth, at least.  We did stay for the second act - out of respect for the Tony nominator seats and also because I wanted to see the Jackson Five.  Silly reason, I know, but my brain has no rhyme or reason. 

 

It's the libretto that's a complete and utter failure.  Berry Gordy wrote the book and it's pretty much a love letter to himself.  There is no cliche left unsaid - nearly every piece of dialogue makes you cringe and/or roll your eyes.  Which is too bad, because the cast is talented and committed, the physical production is good and the choreography is pretty exciting.  It's just whenever they stop singing those glorious Motown songs (and sadly, many of the songs are truncated - they've shoehorned over 50 songs into this show!), the dialogue is so awful, you just want it to stop.

It was just so odd.  There was no shape to the book - of course, it's told in flashback and it's a 'then I did this' and 'then I did that' sort of thing, but it has no arc.  No emotional highs or lows.  And characters come and go with no specificity.  Sometimes, it was hard to tell who was who, because it was time to move on to something else.  I think the story tried to tell too much - you couldn't get the whole history of Motown into one musical AND include so many songs.  It's just not possible.  They should've chosen either to dramatize the story of Motown (and have somebody else write the book, clearly) or just do a concert version of all the wonderful songs.  This is just an awkward, unsuccessful merging of the two.  Oh, and it was completely tasteless to include a throwaway reference to Marvin Gaye's father.  Especially when Berry Gordy completely eliminated nearly all mention of his wives or children (though he did include a laughable scene about his impotence).  OH, and the audience participation section?  Yuck.  OK.  Moving on. 

 

Seeing a musical with actors playing so many famous singers is tricky - you have the iconic real-life performances in your brain, you can't help it.  And to see talented actors try to take on the iconic performances can be off-putting.  I started to feel as if they shouldn't have tried to dramatize Diana Ross.  The real Diana Ross has such an unquantifiable 'it' quality, that it almost seems unfair to criticize the actress playing her for not having it.  Not many people do!  And who knew that Smokey Robinson was a dimwitted lacky for Berry Gordy?  Did Smokey Robinson sign off on that?  It's almost like he's playing Lennie in Of Mice and Men to Berry Gordy's George.  The actor had some charm, but oh, that dialogue.  Then there's the poor actor playing Berry Gordy, he's just hamstrung by the horrific dialogue.  His songs are mainly new ones (also written by Berry Gordy) and they're really lackluster.  I just felt so sorry for him.  I know he's a wonderful performer, I've seen him in other shows.  This show did NOT show him off to any advantage at all.

 

The boy playing Michael Jackson, however, he has IT.  Not the same kind of otherworldly magic that the young Michael Jackson had, but still.  We're going to hear more from this kid, I know it.  When he came out in that fringed purple vest and purple hat, and grooved to "ABC," "I Want You Back" and "I'll Be There," there was a buzz in the audience about seeing a new star. 

 

Of course, there was a buzz in the audience through most of the show.  They ate it up.  Seriously ATE IT UP.  They were singing along and clapping and whooping and hollering.  So, apparently there's an audience for this show.  It just wasn't me.  Though, I will admit, when the concert sections happened, and we got the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Contours, Stevie Wonder, Martha and the Vandellas, and the Miracles, all singing their signature hits, I was almost sold.  If only they had just kept singing...

 

 

 

Review - The Last Five Years

I came late to The Last Five Years.  Although I had been a huge fan of Jason Robert Brown's Parade (I saw it several times at Lincoln Center), and I had also been blown away by Norbert Leo Butz in the truly bad Thou Shalt Not, I just don't remember hearing about the original Off-Broadway production of The Last Five Years.  And I didn't get the highly acclaimed CD until a couple of years ago.  I've enjoyed listening to the CD as a pleasant diversion, but it hasn't really made its way onto my regular playlist.  But when I saw that Second Stage was doing a revival of The Last Five Years, I knew I wanted to go.

The Last Five Years tells the story of a marriage - its 'twist' is that we see the wife's (Cathy) story played out backwards in time from the end of the marriage, and the husband's (Jamie) story is played forward from where they met.  I think this is the positive and the negative of the show.  In seeing the end of the story played out juxtaposed with the beginning, you can get real twinges of regret and recrimination, alongside joy and excitement.  But by the cast always being separate, performing 'he said/she said' musical solos, you lose any hint of chemistry or personal connections.  Being someone who adores a personal connection, I found the lack of it made the show hard to embrace as a whole. 

 

But, I did enjoy myself.  The score is really terrific, with many themes and motifs played throughout, and all of the songs are really grand character showpieces.  The melodies are lovely and the lyrics are smart and pointed. I enjoyed seeing clues being played out as the piece moved forward (or backward, as the case may be).  The performers, Betsy Wolfe and Adam Kantor, are both first-rate and the physical production is gorgeous.  I also adored the orchestra and the orchestrations - I can't imagine getting a better sound, musically, than I heard last night.  Finally, I think Jason Robert Brown, as the director, has directed smoothly and empathetically.  He also seems to have found a middle ground where you can identify with both characters.

 

At least, I empathized with both characters, though a lot of the reviews say the show skews heavily towards Jamie's point of view.  I guess I can see that, but, interestingly, I didn't feel that way.  I blamed, and felt sorry for, both characters relatively equally.  Though it seemed as if some of the character traits that Cathy sang about came through in Jamie's actions, but not all of the character traits Jamie mentioned were ever really seen.  Does that even make sense?  lol   But I thought both actors created completely real and sympathetic (yet not) characters.  And they knocked their songs out of the park.

 

I'll admit, though, that my mind wandered a bit throughout, because it can be tiring to hear musical monologue after musical monologue, no matter how well they're written and performed, but there were also occasions when my heartrate quickened and I could feel anticipation for what was coming.  I also got quite teary during "Nobody Needs to Know," which I completely didn't expect.  So thumbs up from me, even if I may have appreciated the production more than truly loved it, but that could be my personal prejudice of wanting to see more of a connection between the two characters.  Of course, then it would be a different show...

On the audience/seat neighbor front, I may have had the worst seat next-door neighbor ever.  Well, she didn't smell like sauerkraut, but still...The show started at 7 - the seat next to me was empty.  After the second number, the seat got filled by a person so annoying, I almost yelled at her at one point.  First, it took her almost one complete song to actually get into her seat (I pitied the gal behind her).  Then, it took her almost one more complete song to take off her coat.  Then she put her bag on the floor.  Then she picked it up.  Then she leaned it on my lap so she could dig around for her water bottle.  Then it took her almost a whole song to open her water bottle and drink from it.  She dropped her coat, she picked up her coat.  She kicked me.  She leaned forward, she leaned back, she leaned from side to side.  And I don't think she was moving out of boredom or out of rapture about the show.  She just had no sense of anyone else in her universe.  Truly, she didn't sit still for one solitary second and she drove me bananas.  I could tell when I was particularly engaged by the show, because I finally didn't notice her shenanigans.  I don't know if she was incapable of sitting still, but that doesn't negate the annoyingness of it.  Ugh, it was so frustrating.

 

Several other audience members had no concept of the 'five block rule,' and they started trashing the show immediately after.  I hate that.  Wait until you're outside, for pete's sake!!!  And as I was making my way out of the theater, I heard the gal behind me get on her cell phone to ask the person on the other end, 'so part of the show was backwards?  you wanted me to figure that out by myself?'  That takes breaking the 'five block rule' to a whole other level - calling someone, while you're still in the theater, to ask what the show was about.  Wow.  Though I did call a friend in the middle of the first Scream movie to find out who the killer was, because I couldn't stand to watch it one more minute.  But I did that in my own home, not in the theater.  Geez, people.

 

Deep breath.  OK, let's end on a happier note.  I can't wait to see what Jason Robert Brown brings us next!  I'm suspicious about The Bridges of Madison County, but the movie surprised me and I'm fully prepared (and ready) to be surprised again.