They clearly storyboarded this within an inch of its life, but WOW, what incredibly good direction -- both in the way these actors connect to the story, and especially in the way they've planned and called the shots. For a show with so much static writing -- how many repeated choruses can one handle? -- directors David Leveaux & Alex Rudzinski did an astonishingly good job of knowing when to give the cast active stage business versus when to serve up visual variety via new camera angles. While other recent live musical performances seemed to put stage actors into a musical with the hopes of catching important moments on camera, this seems to have been absolutely blocked so that the camera could properly frame real sequences of story moments. They seemed to have learned from directors like Fosse and Robbins, who knew that a moving camera could become its own kind of choreography.
Just shockingly good. That is HARD.
I don't have a lot to say about the performances, other than to say that Sara Bareilles should continue to write herself Broadway star vehicles. She's the real deal.
- GMB |
