| LONDON Last Week (Very long and maybe a spoiler or two) | |
| Last Edit: sergius 08:34 pm EDT 10/08/23 | |
| Posted by: sergius 08:26 pm EDT 10/08/23 | |
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| CRAZY FOR YOU—Charlie Stemp, who is not yet 30, is a rare commodity: a male musical comedy star. It’s hard to think of a contemporary, American or British, who’s as skilled and as charming a singer and dancer. I’ve never seen CRAZY FOR YOU so shame on me because it’s entirely winning. This is, I take it, a reproduction of Stroman’s original work, and it’s easy to see why it put her on the map; the level of movement invention is high throughout. I’m generally grumpy about jukebox musicals, but if CRAZY FOR YOU can be considered an early version of one, there have since been few as good that I’m aware of. Through and through, the show’s a tonic. Stemp was a fine Barnaby in HELLO, DOLLY! a few years ago. Broadway should get him back pronto. OPERATION MINCEMEAT—Hugely popular in London, its charm eluded me entirely. Obviously indebted to SIX and its ilk—and to HAMILTON especially—it feels like scrappy, collegiate improv at best. It didn’t help that the sound balance was terrible, the musicians and the performers battling for preeminence throughout. I heard about two thirds of this lyric driven show which, though frustrating, was maybe plenty. In fairness, the audience seemed mad for it. Maybe it’s a British thing. PRIVATE LIVES—Having seen Maggie Smith in this light years ago, I’m forever spoiled. She is, of course, a deeply idiosyncratic actor which, to me, PRIVATE LIVES needs to come across. Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers are competent but uninteresting; they’re not scathing enough. The play’s polite sadism seems mostly lost on them, or beneath them, and so the play tarries when it should thrust. For Coward, love can be an especially savage variety of doom eagerness. His wit is often cruelty barely disguised. This production is closer to drawing room comedy than to the rapier satire it’s meant to be. VANYA—There’s no compelling reason to rewrite Chekhov of course. His world of sorrow is always entire; everyone is wholly and uniquely alone. Here everyone is singular: Andrew Scott plays all the characters and he’s tremendous. If, expectably, the play loses some depth in this effort, what’s astonishing is how Scott accumulates a spectrum of feelings and bounds between them so that all the sorrows of man are, well, all the sorrows of man. At one point he sings “If You Go Away” and it’s as shatttering as it is surprising. This take on UNCLE VANYA is either a gimmick or an effective conceit. To me, nothing can dull Chekhov’s greatness, so I’m happy to see his work boldly reconfigured. VANYA beautifully illustrates how we all struggle to feel like one person when we know we are several. PYGMALION—Another revision—there are a lot of adventurous British directors working today and they seem well supported which is encouraging—this one directed by Richard Jones. His is a cold, clinical take—the scenic design is especially confused and ugly—and it sputters off in too many directions, but Shaw’s brilliance is hard to dim. The two leads, Bertie Carvel and Patsy Ferran especially, manage finally to draw you into Shaw’s great disquisition on the perils of middle class morality. And of masculine authority. It’s possible I have never actually seen PYGMALION, so, despite some wrong turns, I was very happy to see this. DR. SEMMELWEIS—An unlikely, riveting play about the discovery of, basically, bacteria. Mark Rylance, singularly committed and arresting as always, helped to put this together and the result, which effectively combines science with dance and music, is oddly compelling. Semmelweis is credited with discovering the importance of hand washing (timely of course) in the prevention of disease—septis—and death. Rylance, as the not so mad doctor/scientist on a mission to stem the deaths of pregnant women who were routinely dying at the (unclean) hands of the men delivering their children, never sacrifices credibility for all his remarkable invention. Women killed in the service of men’s intransigence is a shocking story but, sadly, still not an unbelievable one. OLD FRIENDS—It seems strange that NY has yet to see a proper tribute to Sondheim like this one—Bernadette Peters should not have to go to London to celebrate him—but here we are. This is exactly what you think it will be and what you want it to be: an exhilarating procession ‘of songs demonstrating Sondheim’s sublime, ceaseless musical intelligence. And his great, ambivalent heart. The revue format works better in the second half than the first when it’s more contextually jarring—content dictates form except in a revue—but it’s no matter. The singing—and the sound!—is terrific. Unsurprisingly, it’s Peters’ presence (dear, game) that provides the emotional weight, even as her vocal capacity is now diminished. Salonga is a strong but somewhat colorless singer. The show pulls the stops out—how many stops are there?—over and over. It’s exhausting. And, at the end, intensely moving. HAMNET—The Royal Shakespeare Company provides a proficient version of Maggie O’Farrell’s rich, grief soaked novel, but it’s lifeless, all bones, no flesh. Lolita Chakrabarti, who also made LIFE OF PI smaller than its source, summarizes things neatly but the play lacks feeling. It’s the epitome of prestige theatre: handsome and staid. Nothing’s at stake here. I’m drawn to stories about Shakespeare’s life and times—how did Shakespeare even happen?—but this was a disappointment. Will and Agnes (Ann) deserve better. THE FATHER AND THE ASSASSIN—This is one of those big, history plays the National Theatre does so well. It’s about the circumstances surrounding Ghandi’s assassination as told by his assassin, Hiran Abeysekera here and terrific. If you don’t know this history, the play might be somewhat hard to follow but, because this sort of story is more often than not the same story, the trajectory is clear. Everyone here is fully committed. The play has more size and scope than depth, but it’s a work of passion and dedication. SUNSET BOULEVARD—Lights, camera, action! Literally. Jamie Lloyd has hijacked SUNSET BOULEVARD and made it interesting. Suddenly, and strictly speaking, it’s sensational: you feel every which way watching it. It’s entirely audacious, sometimes lunatic, and completely thrilling. Nicole Scherzinger is a wildly incongruous—the point clearly—and spectacular Norma Desmond. Lloyd pretty much recalibrates—no, torches—the show except for her two big numbers (a précis of the entire story) which she delivers powerfully to put it very, very mildly. This SUNSET BOULEVARD is predictably spare—a Lloyd trademark—and proves the adage: less is (way, way) more. It’s the kind of show you watch with your mouth open. If more theatre were this bold, this committed to being startling, superlatives would be meaningless. But because theatre is so often not challenging, we need superlatives for when it is. So dust them off. There is no chance this doesn’t get to NY. If not you could use your miles. |
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