So I finally saw Beautiful last night, and at intermission, I noticed about 6 policemen in the lobby outside the mezzanine, along with an empty stretcher. I overheard the woman involved talking to someone about it. She said the person next to her “slapped her leg,” she wanted that person ejected, the house management wouldn’t do that, so she called 9-1-1. She was asked if she was physically hurt at all, and there was a big pause, and then she said something about how she had a knee replacement so anything involving her leg hurts. She actually wasn’t that emotional about the whole thing. She seemed more stubborn than anything else.
I don’t know how it got resolved. The intermission was a bit longer than usual, but not that much. I wonder how often stuff like this happens. Maybe it happens all the time but we just don’t know it.
I don’t know if the house management offered her another seat (not that she would have taken it). I don’t think they could throw out another patron based on someone else’s story, but they should have offered her another place to sit (although the show was sold out). Maybe they did and she refused.
“Other that that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?” I enjoyed the show, although the book, like with many jukebox musicals, often just seemed like an excuse to throw songs up on stage. But I was very impressed with Jessie Mueller. She has major presence on stage and, even after a year, she is giving a warm, detailed, committed, and winning performance that was well-deserving of the Tony. J Scott Campbell, the new Gerry Goffin, plays the character like an overgrown kid. That’s a completely reasonable interpretation, but I think it undercuts the poignancy of the later scenes. Did Jake Epstein play the role that way as well?
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