How did I spend the weekend of the first big heat wave of 2008? By escaping New York of course. Half-baked plan that it was though, I escaped to two cities that were just as hot as NYC - Princeton, NJ and Chester, CT. Luckily both those cities require air-conditioned train rides, and both are home to air-conditioned theatres. Because there is no air conditioning in NY? Okay, actually those two side trips were planned long before the weathermen started playing the song "Heat Wave" along with their weather reports (though disappointingly not the Ethel Merman version).
The Saturday trip was to the McCarter to see "Seagull in the Hamptons," Emily Mann's update of Chekhov's "The Seagull." I'd seen three productions of the play in the past two years or so (Royal Court, Royal Shakespeare Company, Classic Stage Company), so I already knew the play well enough before going in. And this production is basically just the same story, with random points updated for no apparent reason other than to make it "hip." So Arkadina (now Maria) is compared to Meryl Streep and they talk about "The Devil Wears Prada." And Konstantin (now Alex) doesn't just tear up his play in frustration - he says he tore it up and then he deleted it. And instead of him going to another room to play the piano, he plays old records. Stuff like that that just seemed really just completely random - and really for me only served the purpose of pulling me out of the play every time one of those changes happened and set my mind on a side track of why those things needed to be changed. I dunno - I sort of though the play was relevant enough as it was before it was dragged into 2008. And I don't think it would have been that much of a stretch to just do the play in modern dress, but still use a traditional translation. All that whining aside, Mann didn't manage to ruin the play - I still found it quite moving. Standouts for me were Maria Tucci's Arkadina/Maria and Stark Sands' Konstanin/Alex. I should note that my sister, who had never seen the play before, was not at all bothered by the updating, and loved the whole thing. I suppose now I'll have to drag her to see the Kristin Scott Thomas production that's supposed to be transferring to Broadway from the Royal Court (one of the productions I saw when I was in London - and it was well deserving of its rave reviews - though it was my first time ever seeing the play performed, so I guess I'll see how it holds up as compared to the other staging I've seen since).
In Chester, CT I went to see Jason Robert Brown's new (Broadway bound) musical, "13." The show is fine - it's probably best described as "cute," but my big problem with it is that the whole thing really felt like a middle school or high school musical. It's performed entirely by teenagers (even the excellent band is all teens), and I think that's the big problem for me. I mean it's a cute enough idea, but is anyone (other than friends and family of the cast) going to want to pay $120 to see a bunch of teenagers sing and dance for two hours. Might as well just go to your local high school and pay a couple of bucks for their production of "Once Upon A Mattress" or "Grease." Then again, I may have had less to complain about if the material was better. It's never "bad" or "boring," but as my "Disney's High School Musical" loving friend (I - for the record - have not been able to make it all the way through that movie) pointed out, there's nothing exciting about it. All of the songs are nice, but there weren't really any show stoppers that got the audience really excited. The best song is the cute little song that gives the sidekicks a chance to ham it up, and that's fun enough, but the show really needs more big high energy exciting dance numbers. As it is now, I don't really know that this is even a musical that will appeal to the teeny bopper crowd. It seems to me, based on the popularity of "High School Musical" and "Wicked" among them, that they really crave American Idol style crazy belting and radio-friendly sounding music. And that's not what Jason Robert Brown writes. His music is much more old fashioned musical theatre, with maybe a light pop sound. The hardest rocking the score gets is the title song which, as my friend pointed out, sounds just like the title song from "Footloose."
Well, enough of knocking the musical. It still has time to improve before Broadway comes along. As I said, it's not that I didn't like it, it just doesn't say big professional Broadway musical to me. But I'll certainly go and see it once it hits the Jacobs in the Fall, and I'm definitely curious to see how it runs. Of course, it's going to be running across the street from the fabulous "Billy Elliot" - a show that also has quite a few of the kiddies in the cast, and which most definitely knows how to get an audience excited and cheering for more - kiddies in the cast and all.
I've also finally gotten around to checking out some of the offerings at the Brits Off-Broadway festival. Last season I was there all the time, seeing every one of the "Intimate Exchanges" plays. This season, nothing sounded quite as exciting as that.
Friday, I went to see the festival's first musical - "The Hired Man." Despire a tall Starbucks iced coffee before the show, I fell asleep in the first act, and honestly that combined with too much of the text, for my taste, being sung (I know an odd complaint for a musical) I was almost totally lost. I had read in some of the reviews that there was a good tear jerker of a song in the second act, so I stayed. And act two takes place in the future, so sleeping through act one was not a problem. And indeed I did enjoy act two quite a bit, even if there was an awful lot of plot crammed in there - honestly they could have scrapped the first act, and fleshed out the second into a full length work and it would have been fine (probably even better). I found I quite liked the music - it's very melodic and pretty. The story is incredibly depressing. There is just absolutely nothing happy at all. On the same note, I'm not really sure why anyone felt this should be a musical in the first place. Because the story didn't really seem to be crying out for song. It's mostly about war and the horrors of working in mines. Maybe it's because I'm not British, so I didn't have any real connection to the history of the events (the material is based on a true story), but it just seemed sort of odd to me. Um, yeah... so despite all that whining I just did, I would actually recommend the show, because it is quite well done, and because the score is really quite fine. I'm almost tempted to see the show again, to see if I can stay awake this time. But it's so depressing, and it's so long (I think it ran two hours and fifty minutes - though it felt a bit longer), that I don't think I can do it. But I do think I'll try and find a copy of a cast recording.
The other, equally depressing, Brits Off-Broadway offering I've seen is "Vincent River." I was so disturbed by it, that at one point I was thinking to myself that if it went on at the same pace much longer, I was going to have to run to the toilet after the show was over and throw up. But you know, graphic descriptions of brutally mutilated dead bodies can do that to a person. The play is a two-hander - there's a mother and the boy who found her son's dead body some 18 weeks earlier. I was actually attracted to the play because of Deborah Findlay (who plays the mother) - having seen her in both "The Cut" and "John Gabriel Borkman" at the Donmar in London. Afterwards though, I was far more impressed by the performance of the boy (well, teenager), played by Mark Field. Not that Findlay was bad - it's more a case of being very good versus fantastic - but Field gave a much more polished and emotionally wrenching performance. Which is probably to be expected, because on some quick google-ing Field played the same role in the recent London production, while this was only Findlay's second performance in the play. And I'm sure she will dig deeper into the character as the (three week-ish) run progresses. The play was perhaps a bit slow at times, but armed with a grande Starbucks iced coffee this time, and the fact that I was put in the first row (always a great help in helping me concentrate... unless the stage is neck achingly high), and was honestly riveted almost the entire time. Based on the snorts (or chuckles?) coming from the guy sitting next to me each time some new plot twist was revealed, I think perhaps he was less moved by the action of the play. I know I was definitely satisfied by the experience anyway, thoguh it took my entire subway ride home for me to shake off the creepy feeling it gave me. Ben Brantley was in the audience tonight, so I'm definitely curious to see what his reaction to the play was. Not that I agree with him all that often.
Shoot. It's late. And I need to watch the season finale of "Top Chef" that I've Tivo-ed, because I won't be able to go to work or access the internet at all tomorrow without it being spoiled. So, ta ta now.
