Girl from the North Country (review)

 
Spoilers ahoy!

There is this thing called an "album show" in which the songs of a popular musical artist are woven together to create a musical.

Nothing wrong with that, of course.  But it does tend to carry the whiff of something fairly feel good, to the point of very little depth.

Not Girl from the North Country, based on the songs of Bob Dylan, starting of course with the title. I cannot call myself a big afficianado of Dylan, and I personally did not recognize most of the tunes within this full length drama.  But I found it all profoundly moving.

For now, let me note the music did not sound very much like Dylan, given it was re-arranged with a far more blues-style.  The story focuses on a boarding house in Duluth, Minnesota during the depths of the Great Depression.  Atop a cliff looming over Lake Superior, a collection of people in various degrees of desperation as well as hope gather against the cold.  Now and then, they break into song--but not to further the plot or say something to each other in a heightened fashion.  No, these songs more than anything give a poetic expression to how they feel and what situation they are experiencing right this moment.  Like Tori Amos, Dylan's lyrics are not so much about this one specific moment and its details.  Rather, they are about what it is like to be here, to feel this, and hear that, while wondering or hoping or fearing a dozen other things.

For example, when a certain character dies, and we learn this character is dead, suddenly they appear on stage to sing something akin to a spiritual, with the entire cast acting as backup.  Until the song ends, and we settle in to deal with devastating emotional aftermaths.

After the show, when I told someone working with the tour about my feelings, my real pleasure and fundamental reactions to what I'd just seen, they asked about my favorite moment or aspect.  She began asking about specific songs and tunes and lyrics.

But I didn't recognize which songs she meant.  My answer, after pondering for almost a full minute was "I found myself forgiving all the characters."

This is not a sentimental show.  It does not try to answer issues and terrors with platitudes.  It never dumbs itself down.  Neither does it pull its dramatic punches.

Yet I found myself forgiving all these foolish, dangerous, deceitful, hurting people trying so hard to be wise, kind, honest and happy. 

No small feat. 

Girl from the North Country has at the time of this writing closed at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles.  It will play however in Las Vegas NV June 4-9 at the Smith Center, Salt Lake City, UT June 11-16 at the Eccles Center, Portland, OR. June 18-23, 2024 at the Keller Auditorium,  Seattle, WA. June 25-30, at the Paramount Theatre, and an Francisco, CA. July 30 - August 18, at the Golden Gate Theatre, and so one through October 2024.  I highly recommend it.

Sweeney Todd 2024 (review)

Spoilers ahoy!  

This marks the sixth production I have seen of what is arguably Stephen Sondheim's most gothic work--an eerie, strangely funny, and nearly always very beautiful musical/operetta about a figure from the cheapest of Victorian literature forms--the "penny dreadful."

Based on an adaptation by Christopher Bond that gave a motive to the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street" Sweeney Todd allows productions to really go to down.  So many rich characters!  So many ways to make this weird almost steampunk nightmare can be brought on stage!

Yet, strangely, most productions seek to copy either the movie or some other already popular production.  One of the many, many reasons I loved A Noise Within's current version is how much they avoided that.  In fact, several times I was absolutely startled!  A slightly rare and often delightful event in seeing a show I know so well.

The basic plot is almost simple.  Todd (Geoff Elliott) arrives in early Victorian London with a sailor named Anthony (James Everts), but is filled with rage and loathing towards the city.  He goes and finds Mrs. Lovett (Cassandra Marie Murphy), who runs a meat pie shop under an old flat no one will rent because people say it is haunted.  It turns out something happened there years and years ago--when Todd was a happily married barber with a beautiful wife and infant daughter, transported to penal servitude for life by one Judge Turpin (Jeremy Robb) who lusted after Todd's wife.  His accomplice in all this was his Beadle (Harrison White).

Todd's frustrations lead to a solemn and insane declaration of how "WE  ALL DESERVE TO DIE!"  He becomes what we could call a serial killer, with Mrs. Lovett insisting they use his victims as a source of meat for her pies.  The last notion becomes one of the most iconic and funny songs in musical history.

Amid all of this Anthony becomes the love interest of Johanna (Joanna A. Jones), Todd's daughter and Judge Turpin's now-ward.  Another barber named Pirelli (Kasey Mahaffy), a street urchin named Toby (Josey Montana McCoy), and mad Beggar Woman (Amber Liekhus) all weave their way into this story, under the direction of Julia Rodriguez-Elliott.  It all makes for macabre comedy and tragedy at the same time, a little bit of grand guignol blended with Charles Dickens and sprinkled with some George Bernard Shaw.  

While it is not perfect--there are a few nuances that struck a wrong note for me, but in questioning other audience members no one else seemed bothered, so I'm not describing them is worthwhile.  I'd rather discuss what was new and delightfully different--like the sexual tension between Mrs. Lovett and Toby, the way Todd himself came across as a total psychopath (which to be honest took a little of the passion away from the tale), the chorus members feeling as if they are individuals in this dark world, the extraordinary staging of many set pieces (not least the murders as well as the oven).  

Performances of Sweeney Todd take place February 17 through March 17 on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays at 8 p.m.; Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; and Sundays at 2 p.m.  A Noise Within is located at 3352 E Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107

The Wild Party (review)

Spoilers ahoy! 

Almost three years ago, I was invited to see The Wild Party, the latest musical from the Morgan-Wixson Theatre in Santa Monica--and I so looked forward to it!  Then, Covid hit.  But, the folks running this theatre had their plans and they kept to them!

Andrew Lippa's musical, based a poem written in the 1920s, is really almost an operetta.  Like Evita for example it has very nearly no dialogue at all.  Instead we get one intense, entertaining, often startling, sometimes disturbing musical number after another, setting up the event of the title, and most especially our hosts--Queenie (Serenity Robb) and Burs (Hamilton Davis) a dysfunctional couple in the 1920s, a pair who came together like a pair of serpents and then tied each other into a series of emotional and sexual knots.  But when Burs goes too far, Queenie suggests a party.  It will be fun, she says, and he agrees!  Her plan however is to humiliate and hurt him, as part of this dangerous, powerful, ugly yet addictive dance they do.

The party itself makes up the bulk of the show, and of course things do not go according to plan.  Keep in mind this is the 1920s, in the wake of the 1918 Pandemic (the most terrible in history) as well as a what seemed like a never-ending war.  Women were fighting for political rights, new artforms and styles were emerging, racial and economic tensions were sky high, while deep into Prohibition booze still flowed and subcultures defiantly flourished.  Sound familiar?

Central to what follows are Kate (Kaitlin Doughty) and her dashing, quietly handsome beau for the evening Mr. Black (Deonte Allen).  Because Kate, frenemy of our hostess, has the hots for Burs and intends Mr. Black as bait to drive him into her arms, in revenge or a rebound.  Initially Queenie thinks this young man, who feels out of place among this bohemian crowd, the perfect catspaw, even as he himself finds her extremely charming.  

Then, she actually starts feeling something for him, as he does for her.  Worse (or better?) Burs begins to suspect as much.  This might be a way out for them, an escape from the spiral of bitterness and lustful pain at the heart of their life together.  She wonders, can I just leave?  Why haven't I before now?  He in turn wonders why he cannot let her go, cannot even face the prospect.  

As I suspected early on, somebody is not going to survive this party.  It will spiral into all kinds of directions, inhibitions and lies shed more swiftly (if more awkwardly) than garments as the night goes on and on and on.

Again, the music, dance and singing is very nearly non-stop.  It helps create this amazingly decadent world, one equal parts fascinating and repulsive, beautiful and toxic, free and in some ways enslaving.  Through pretty much everything--direction by Kristin Towers-Rowles, music direction by Daniel Koh, choreography by Michael Marchak, fight choreography by Amanda Newman--the party and its members (somehow not really guests) come to vivid life.  The double triangle remains in the center ring of this circus, with all four leads wonderfully alive and real across a range of emotions and situations.  But the entire ensemble do splendidly as well.

Some standouts include Emily Sotelo as the delightfully (?) predatory lesbian Madeleine, Spencer Johnson as the boxer Eddie, and Mirai as Mae, Eddie's mini bombshell of a girlfriend.  These and other characters get solos or sometimes numbers of their own, many of which make a kind of dream sense as the party (and show) continues, with reality slipping away, giving way to the terrifying delights of Truth.  Everyone deserves a mention--Eric Eberle, Sam Gianfala, Jonathon Saia, Steve Weber, Holly Weber, and Kelsey Weinstein. 

The Wild Party plays Fridays andSaturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m  until October 9, 2022 at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre, 2627 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica 90405 

Blood (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

I didn't know much about Blood when showing up at the theatre.  A musical involving Japan in some way.  My hope?  An enjoyable hour or so of theatre.

Blood proved to be all about how AIDS came to Japan back in the 1980s, when the disease remained far more mysterious.  At first, no one even knew how it was transmitted!  One of the first events chronicled on stage was the very first Japanese citizen to have died of this.  An American doctor shows up to secretly perform an autopsy.  The very distinguished Dr. Kazama (Toshi Toda) soon falsifies the death certificate, a practice we see continue for years.  After all, Kazama insists, pureblood Japanese are absolutely immune to AIDS.

Yeah, that idea had predictable results.

The production happily did not shy away from the sheer scale of the subject matter.  Named characters, for example, number in the dozens!  Settings jump back and forth across the United States and Japan, mostly the latter from Tokyo to regional hospitals and even a small fishing village. But what most impressed me (out of very many things that did) remains how the entire show remained utterly theatrical.  All too often plays I see shifting scenery or location for short scenes, stopping the action in favor of moving things around in half-light or some such.  Not here!  Three mobile screens constantly shift configuration, often with images projected onto them to suggest either actual locations (like a city street or Chinese restaurant) or sometimes events (the Hiroshima bombing) or thematic elements (red corpuscles floating in plasma).  Not only does this make for rapid, smooth pace, it highlights sometimes difficult truths the story explores.

Credit: Ed Krieger

For example, Japan is indeed the only nation to suffer a nuclear attack.  In the wake of that attack, as a country it had to give up the idea it was in a very sense divine.  Except of course that kind of notion doesn't swiftly or easily die.  Here are a people in a state of flux, and what they will become no one yet knows.

This idea--that of a people evolving, changing--shows up again and again in Blood, without however any character actually talking about it.  Even the Narrator (Andrew Nakajima) changes, his songs and speeches initially done with Kabuki-esque make-up that vanishes in Act Two.

Honestly, this review could easily end up five times the length I will allow it to become, so brimming with ideas and nuance Blood seems to me. At heart it remains a kind of epic drama, told in a fusion of Western and Japanese styles--at times with great relish.  Lawyers at one time assume stances from classic Japanese theatre to discuss the advisability of suing over thousands of innocent people knowingly given infected blood (until the late 1980s no had had ever sued the Japanese government).  Elsewhere a chorus of ruthless businessmen and government officials sing a pastiche of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado.  A trial is presented, in part, as a stylized battle complete with swords and Samurai armour.

Credit: Ed Krieger

All of which serves to help us enter into this play's world, to understand better these events and their consequences. Make no mistake, this dazzling array of theatricality could--in theory--eclipse the drama.  I say "in theory" because the combination of performances and structure of the piece instead throws the humanity into sharp focus. Standouts in the cast include Sohee Park as Yoji Kurosawa, the attorney who finally persuades those poisoned by their government to sue, Miho Ando as the child patient/plaintiff Koyo Ninomiya, and Kazumi Aihara as the Nurse Eiko Asami who secretly helps provide evidence of what has been happening.  But to be fair the entire ensemble deserves plenty of credit for this amazing show, one that felt almost bursting at the seems for a larger stage, one to more comfortably contain the sheer scale of the show.  With that in mind, I hope Takuma Anzai, Ash Ashina, Anthony Gros, Alexa Hamilton, Takaaki Hirakawa, Michael Joseph, Saki Miata, Daryl L. Padilla, Mika Santoh and Taishin Takibryashi all get to walk onto a Broadway stage and re-enact this fantastical, heart-piercingly truthful dream in song and dance, based on events all too easily proven as having happened.

Blood plays at The Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood CA 90038 Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 3pm, until April 3, 2016.

A Very Die Hard Christmas (review)

Spoilers ahoy!

If you decide to go see Theatre Unleashed's latest production of A Very Die Hard Christmas (which for the record I think you should) then allow me to offer one vital piece of advice.

Go watch the original Die Hard movie first. I haven't seen the flick in years and for that reason ended up playing "catch up." This lovely, silly show which aims to simply bring a load of smiles and laughs takes the fact that movie was set at Christmas time then runs with it.  Yeah, it qualifies as a spoof of the flick, with all kinds of meta commentary (one character openly notes she doesn't make good decisions while another admits she probably shouldn't be working for the police department).  All well and good.  But the uber zaniness rises when they start to sew in bits from classic Christmas specials...

For example (HEY! I WARNED YOU ABOUT SPOILERS!!!!) when the Terrorists led by Hans Gruber arrive at the corporation's Christmas Party (held btw on Christmas Eve--who does that?) they line up to do a rendition of "Snow Miser" from The Year Without a Santa Claus. ("He's Hans Gruber/He's now in charge/He's supposed to be West German/But is English by and large...")

Other songs include "What's This" from A Nightmare Before Christmas and "Where Are You Christmas?" from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

And that really is the least of it. What with audience participation, a liberal use of confetti, taking the notion of firearms as somehow important to Christmas and (again) the whole meta thing (someone actually asks Hans Gruber "What's Hermione really like?") it is like a big funny roller coaster of laughs. Me, I loves me some angst. But also, I really enjoy this kind of over-the-top farce that just makes you giggle.

The leads are Wade Wilson as eternally gun-toting John McClane, David Foy Bauer as best-dressed terrorist Hans Gruber and Liesl Jackson as John's wife Holly who is having what one hopes is the worst hair day of her life. All three show talent and spark, but to be honest the supporting cast generally steal show--all of them playing multiple roles.  For example there is Margaret Glaccum as a pregnant office worker with very inappropriate feelsings for the tall blonde terrorists holding her at gunpoint. And Bradley Upton, Adam Meredith as well as Sean Fitzgerald pretty much making up the rest of the cast in a wild frenzy of costume and wig changes (one of them has to change character three times in a single scene, and looks increasingly frantic as he keeps switching back and forth).

A Very Die Hard Christmas plays Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm through December 19, 2015 at the Belfry Stage 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood, CA 91602. Tickets are $20 and reservations can be made by calling (818) 849-4039 or emailing reservations@theatreunleashed.org

*Please note this musical parody production features loud gunshot sound effects, the use of confetti and air cannons, fake blood, profanity, violence, and jazz hands. Welcome to to the party, pal.