In the Heights
I'd read the reviews for In the Heights, a new off-Broadway musical about the return of Nina, a freshman at Stanford in California, for her first summer back home in Brooklyn Heights, Manhattan, but what I initially read about the show didn't really impress me. In a last-ditch effort to see a few more musicals before returning home for the summer, however, I made a trip to the 37Arts theatre complex to check out this earnest little musical which is rumored for a Broadway transfer (we'll see how that pans out). Besides for the question of whether or not Nina will return to school in California, the other modest but captivating dilemmae of the show include the love life of local shopkeeper Usnavi, played by the show's creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (at the center of the photo above and at right), and the lottery win of Abuela Claudia, Usnavi's grandmother and the earth mother figure of the neighborhood, who relies on her overwhelming store of pacienca y fe - patience and faith.
It's an extraordinarily energetic show, with a score full of Latin- and hip hop-inspired songs by creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has an unconventional underdog charm about him. The set by Anna Louizos, another great asset of the show, is evocative of a vibrant neighborhood and its storefronts, a lovely likeness of the Brooklyn Bridge featured prominently in the background.
Though the show is a bit loud and it's hard to really take in every lyric of the show, it has a well-meaning quality about it similar to Rent. Its story is easy enough to follow, and I could see the show appealing to just about any urban young person - provided you could get many of these urban young people to go to the theatre in the first place. It's certainly a production worthy of a home on Broadway where it could appeal to a broader audience, but the people who made the brief (but tourist-unfriendly) trek over to the West Side seemed to enjoy what they saw!
The Year of Magical Thinking
The one play that I wanted to see this year was The Year of Magical Thinking. Joan Didion is one of my favorite authors, David Hare is one of my favorite playwrights, and Vanessa Redgrave is one of the actors I most admire, so I took the plunge and bought myself a second row seat. With Didion adapting her Award-winning memoir for the stage, Hare directing, and Redgrave starring, what could go wrong?
The answer: not a lot. But something at the play's heart. It's hard for me to place exactly what I found unsatisfying about The Year of Magical Thinking. It's a very well-shaped one-woman play, expressly calculated to move the audience and cut to the emotional core of the grieving process. The play is about the character of Joan Didion (played by Vanessa Redgrave - confused?) and the way she copes with the death of her husband and the illness and subsequent death of her daughter Quintana. Redgrave delivers most of the dialogue from a deck chair at center stage, ploughing through the material like a real trooper. For the most part she succeeds, and the production that surrounds her is often impressive.
While the sets by Bob Crowley were evocative of the somber mood of the show, they were ultimately a distraction to the proceedings. The show's single costume by Ann Roth was lovely and flattering. The lighting of Jean Kalman deserves special mention, particularly during a stunning scene in which Redgrave abandons her sitting position to wander in the darkness, her figure illuminated by the flashes of light from nearby fireworks, a wonderful evocation of Didion's fractured thinking - the punctures of memories that arise and fall away as quickly as bursts of light.
This is where Redgrave's acting succeeds most - when she is most vulnerable to the snares of memory and "magical thinking," a psychological term describing the "what if" thinking of a grieving individual. There are icy moments when Redgrave seems utterly caught by the "vortex" effect she describes in the play, as if she's performing the play for the very first time and has suddenly fallen prey to her memories.
Ultimately, however, I'm unable to call the evening an unwavering success. Though many of the show's parts are exquisite, there is something I can't entirely put my finger on that's missing from the whole of the show. Though Joan Didion has written a play that is certainly well-crafted, she has, to me at least, missed the heart of the subject. Never once was I left discomfited, and this was a play where I went in expecting to be absolutely rended by the material. At times, the play even achieves a level of humor utterly absent from the source material, and while I wasn't so much bothered by the lighter feel of the play, I wished Didion would have dug deeper during the play's darker, more stream-of-conscious-influenced moments (especially a particularly powerful "vortex" moment in the play).
Overall, it was great to see Vanessa Redgrave work her magic, and the play was different enough from the book to hold my interest thoughout, but I left the play unmoved. Guiltily enough, I had a far better time at Deuce, a play by which I was genuinely moved despite its far inferior quality and craftmanship. Both plays featured equally effective actresses, but there was something about the earnestness of the characters in Deuce, a play similarly focused on the topic of aging and death, that I never got from the "cool customer" Didion character at the heart of of The Year of Magical Thinking.
Legally Blonde
When I first heard that the 2001 film Legally Blonde, which starred then up-and-coming Reese Witherspoon, was being adapted into a musical, I cringed. Why, God, why? I lamented. Broadway is already so rife with movie adaptations and jukebox musicals - write something original already! Still, the show's music was being co-written by Laurence O'Keefe, composer of the hilarious off-Broadway musial Bat Boy, and his songwriting partner Nell Benjamin, so I kept my hopes up.
It turns out this show is an absolute winner. In the vein of long-runner Hairspray and High Fidelity, the latest of the movie adaptation musicals to open (and close) on Broadway, Legally Blonde utilizes a high energy pop-rock score to tell a familiar story. There is an earnestness, however, behind this production that isn't always on display in movie-to-musical adaptations. We as audience members really do get behind brainy sorority blonde Elle Woods as she learns to embrace who she is.
At the heart of Legally Blonde is relative newcomer Laura Bell Bundy (featured at right), best known to little girl Broadway fans as one of the original standbys for Glinda in the musical Wicked. Bundy is an excellent choice for the role of Elle Woods, a sorority girl who follows her ex-boyfriend from UCLA to Harvard Law School in order to win him over with her charm and social prowess. Soon enough, Elle learns it's going to take more thinking and less drinking to win her way into the arms of her man. Bundy plays her character's highs and lows with high energy, proving herself worthy of a leading role in a musical. She has a certain perky charm that even succeeds in exceeding that of Reese Witherspoon (in my unpopular opinion).
Along the way, Elle meets Emmett, a Harvard grad who helps her along the way. Emmett is played excellently by Christian Borle, who never lets his geeky character descend into caricature. Emmett's song "Chip on My Shoulder," about his drive to better himself despite a checkered past, is one of the highlights of the show, a bouncy ballad that proves that the show may be full of pop songs, but it's still able to maintain a quality of groundedness.
In the role of Paulette, portrayed hilariously on screen by Jennifer Coolidge, Orfeh falls a bit short, failing to rise to the comedic heights of Coolidge, but still she's a talented performer and a winning personality. Richard H. Blake, Kate Shindle, Nikki Snelson, and Broadway vet Michael Rupert provide excellent support, and Leslie Kritzer, Annaleigh Ashford, and DeQuina Moore are highlights as the "Greek" (get it?) chorus in Elle's mind.
The production that backs this fabulous cast is well-oiled and stunning. Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, the show's production numbers are bright and bouncy, punctuated by snap, crackle, and pop hip hop dance moves that play out in harmony with bright over-the-top sets by Hairspray designer David Rockwell. Though the musical, like the movie, never takes itself too seriously, its characters are always endearing. Mitchell at times allows the show to descend into gooey Hollywood hilarity, but never for long enough to lose the audience (the closest to this disaster was a courtroom scene in which Elle attempts to peg the pool boy witness as either "gay or European" - funny, but too drawn out).
Overall, Legally Blonde is a return to form for the movie-to-musical genre. It's sometimes over-the-top and sometimes lacking in the lyrics department, but try to stop yourself from having an absolute blast. And, thanks to the talented cast and more than adequate book by Heather Hach, you actually care about the characters - how about that? Spring Awakening is still my pick for Best Musical, but omigod you guys, I think I just found the most fun musical of the season. If only there were a Tony Award category for that!
In other news...
Last Saturday, I went with a gaggle of friends to Coney Island, which was lovely. It was so nice to be by the ocean for a day, and the weather was beautiful. We saw the freak show, which was certainly a unique "theatrical" experience.
I also saw two good movies: The Lives of Others and Year of the Dog. Both come highly recommended.
Summer is fast approaching (less than 5 days left), but I'm still soldiering on! I'm seeing August Wilson's Radio Golf tomorrow night and then 110 in the Shade on Sunday and also on its opening night, Wednesday, May 9!
No comments:
Post a Comment