The best part of Camelot is the music. Of course, this is still the subpar follow-up to Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady. But the beautifully played overture sets the tone and the opening scene is striking, with the stage floor covered in a white sheet to evoke a snowy night. But not even a revised book by Aaron Sorkin can make the plot compelling. Especially since he took out all the magic and then somehow made the plot even more nonsensical by creating a romantic past between Arthur and the sorceress Morgan Le Fey (who in this non-magical world is now a scientist).
The saving grace is Phillipa Soo - she sings and acts the part of Guinevere flawlessly and her performance is almost magical enough to save the whole show. Soo brings personality and humor to the role, especially for "Then You May Take Me to the Fair." If only she had more songs! If only she sang all the songs! Andrew Burnap is fine as Arthur, but he really has no chance when compared to Soo. And Jordan Donica (who was an excellent Freddy in My Fair Lady a few years ago) beautifully sings one of the best songs in the show - "If Ever I Would Leave You" - but the rest of his scenes as a skulking Lancelot are underwhelming. The gratuitously long sword fighting scene was definitely unwarranted - don't they know we're all just counting the minutes between songs? And the chaotic mishmash of intersecting scenes towards the end - Arthur confronting Le Fey, the knights shouting about how they want to pillage again (with the awful song, "Fie on Goodness"), and Guinevere and Lancelot finally sleeping together - does not help either. Vivian Beaumont Theater This show is the tourism industry's wet dream. Various scenes take place at all the landmarks: the original Penn Station, the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal, Central Park, Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge... c'mon, we all know no one leaves their neighborhood. It even sets up entire scenes for the sole purpose of recreating famous New York photographs - though, I'm not complaining about the tap dance scene on construction beams, during lunch, miles above the city.
The music is fine. The song everyone is waiting for ends the show. As the orchestra pit rises up to stage level, the actors step forward to join them and the audience preemptively leans forward too (triggering a cascade of blocked views) and cheers, drowning out the opening notes. Where is the talented ensemble for a dance scene suited to this grand finale? The stage space is empty and unused - in fact the ensemble is notably missing from the second act. Why hire all those dancers and not utilize them properly? Most of the songs are from John Kander and Fred Ebb's reject pile (with a few new additions by Lin Manuel Miranda), and you can kind of tell. The only other notable song is "But the World Goes 'Round," which Anna Uzele (as Francine Evans) sings beautifully. Unfortunately, her counterpart, Colton Ryan (as Jimmy Doyle), does not impress - not least because the two have zero chemistry. But the real issue in this show lies with the convoluted mess of a lack of a plot. There is little to no character development for the main couple, and even less for the myriad of side characters. The pacing is off and we jump from main story to side story with little transition or connection or resolution; references to World War II tragedies and racial discrimination in the country feel mechanical and compulsory. But people will see this show. It's a real money-maker, and I hope it helps to fund better shows at other theaters. Did The New Yorker publish this adoption article the same month this play is running on purpose? I don't know. But, having just read about transracial adoption, it was really perfect timing for us to see Julia Izumi's new play.
This is a weird play. But it's hilarious and clever and we loved it. Three Asian adoptee siblings - from different countries - reckon with their identities. Two of them are... dating. One of them buys a piece of the sky (joining the first wave of human-to-sky migration while also angering the birds) to have something all her own. Their insane mother (played by one of my all-time favorite Broadway actors, Kristine Nielsen) has set their father on fire for cheating on her and is in jail until she gets out for being crazy. A perfect 90 minutes, no intermission. Even though I could not get into the book and did not see the movie, I nevertheless feel confident saying that this play is the best of the 3 iterations of the story. The puppetry of the animals is mesmerizing and the staging, with most of the action taking place in a boat, is expertly conceived. Pi (the indefatigable Hiran Abeysekera), the sole survivor of a shipwreck, is forced to tell his harrowing story for (of all things) insurance purposes. The only way he can relive the traumatic reality is to spin a tale that places Richard Parker (a tiger) at the center. After quickly recapping the actual horrifying events towards the end of the play, everyone agrees that his tale is the better story.
The introductory scenes in India are perfunctory; you can feel the audience waiting with anticipation for the story to really begin. In the most confusing scene, Pi's family seems to not realize they signed up to travel on a cargo ship that lacks a restaurant, let alone vegetarian options. And the scenes in the hospital bring Pi back to reality and break the spell, not least because the actors in these scenes deliver stilted lines as if they are still in rehearsal. But the magic of the scenes with Pi and Richard Parker make up for everything else. Eight people are listed in the program as puppeteers for Richard Parker, and they alternately do an amazing job of endowing him with personality and life. After his phenomenal Tony-winning show A Strange Loop, we had high expectations for whatever Michael R. Jackson would do next. And while White Girl in Danger has some fantastically catchy and clever songs, the 3+ hour production does not seem quite ready for prime time. The premise is amazing. Jackson grew up watching and loving the classic soap operas that featured all-white main characters, and so he sets the musical in a town called Allwhite where the storylines center on the white characters and the Blackground characters are relegated to janitors and lunch ladies. But what happens when one of the Blackgrounds wants her own Allwhite storyline? All hell breaks loose.
The first half of the show is very very good, but it starts to deteriorate just before intermission and then devolves into chaos in the second act. Jackson does an excellent job of poking fun at classic soap opera tropes (with many references that only soap opera buffs, myself excluded, will get) and highlighting the problematic aspects of racial representation not only in soaps, but also more broadly. Unfortunately, it was hard to hear and process the tightly packed lyrics; something seemed off with the sound in the theater and the actors' voices bounced around the space, creating a cacophony that mirrored the outrageous plot twists on stage. Even though Keesha Gibbs (played by Latoya Edwards) is the Blackground character yearning for an Allwhite storyline, the surprise main character is her mother, Nell Gibbs (played by Tarra Conner Jones). This twist smartly breaks Nell out of a stereotypical "Mammy" role; unfortunately, her voice is too piercingly shrill and made me cringe during her many songs. The best talent on stage came from the backup trio inspired by Little Shop of Horrors - in particular Jennifer Fouché as Abilene. And Molly Hager stands out as Megan White (in a trio of Allwhite high school girls that also includes Meagan Whitehall and Meagan Whitehead) - we especially enjoyed the lesbian song/sex scene that comes out of nowhere towards the end. What we didn't enjoy at all was the long monologue at the end delivered by Clarence (one of the Blackground characters, played by James Jackson Jr), but obviously speaking as Jackson. It's as if Jackson did an interview about his inspiration and intention for the musical and then for some reason decided to include the whole explanation in the actual show. Cut the scene and save the exposition for a talkback after the show. Learning about the premise of the play - passengers on the 34 hour train ride from LA to Seattle fantasize about missed connections with each other - was much more interesting than actually sitting through this production. The technique used to portray these imagined conversations is clunky at best. Repeated refrains of "I would have said" or "and then I might have replied" are peppered throughout the dialogue, but inevitably get confused with the actual interactions between the passengers. For a play with no intermission, it was way too long... but if there had been an intermission we might have left.
TJ (Will Harrison), a medic in the US Navy, has defected to save himself from being sent back to Afghanistan and is unsure if he'll stay on the train or disembark in time to get back to base. The imagined advice that he gets from the other passengers (Is he imagining them giving advice? Or are they imagining giving him advice?) goes both ways while also giving us insight into the stories of the other passengers. Jane (Camila Canó-Flaviá) does not give him any advice, but is mesmerized by his face, and imagines a missed romantic connection with him. Performances all around are fine, but unfortunately every time Canó-Flaviá delivers a line we remember that she is an Actor who is Acting. Also the set of moveable train seats on a rotating platform added nothing to the production, and resulted in half the audience looking at someone's back for full scenes throughout the play. |
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