"Prologue" in this case = pre-show. It's a lobby performance. It's basically a (very, very ersatz) attempt at period atmosphere, separate from the body of the show.
You go into a kind of Epcot World Showcase Weimar Republic, in which the 'experience' begins before you get into the auditorium, so there are actors and musicians involved in the pre-show who are not part of the main performance. A lot of people love it; I have some issues with the idea of turning a musical about the creeping rise of fascism into something that is about half a step away from being Mamma Mia: The Party with swastikas. I'd perhaps have had fewer issues with it if Rebecca Frecknall's direction of the show itself hadn't been such an intellectually-sloppy mess, and if the two star performances hadn't been so painfully self-indulgent.
(How self-indulgent? I've no objection to the word - I could hardly object to the word, I use it often enough - but I really don't need to hear Sally sing 'toodle-f***ing-oo' at the end of the first verse of Mein Herr. Both Buckley and Redmayne would have benefitted a great deal from a firmer application of the word 'no' in the rehearsal room - but when the stars are the ones that made the production happen, they're probably going to be given a little more rope than is good for them.) |
