Seize the Stars

Popping back from my self-imposed exile for a moment to babble about the Tonys! Can we just have Hugh Jackman host every year? Seriously, who doesn't love this man? (But what was up with all that hopping? Am I missing some reference, because all that made exactly zero sense to me.)

I have to admit I haven't heard any of the new cast albums from this season's shows yet, but A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and The Bridges of Madison County are the only ones I'm remotely interested in. But at least this year's crop was more 'ho-hum' than truly depressing, like some recent years I can recall! ( Opinionated, sarcastic theatre geek comments behind the cut! )

Oy, I think maybe I was complaining throughout most of this post, but eh, I'm a musical theatre fan, so I have opinions! All musical theatre fans have opinions. That's part of the fun! We're critical because we care. We debate and disagree, but we always stick by it and love it, no matter what. So I'm looking forward to next year with trepidation bordering on terror, but always with the sliver of hope underneath. The next great show could be in a workshop or a regional theatre right now, just waiting for it's Broadway opening...*fingers crossed* ;D

Saw Oklahoma! at Lyric Opera in Chicago, it was unbelieveably amazing!!!! Everything so beautifully done, I can't rave enough! I'm so glad I splurged on a front row seat, because seeing the actors up close makes it so much more real and personal, and it's so thrilling to feel the vibration of the dancers' feet when they hit the stage and the orchestra in the pit when the music crescendos. Seeing all the little detail of the set is cool too; they built a little house, kind of like a shadow box, with a little space inside where the actors could stand and you could see Laurey move around while Aunt Eller and Curly talked outside, or how they used little hanging lights in front of the backdrop for stars in the sky during the box social, all sorts of cool stuff like that. And you really feel like you're part of the party during "The Farmer and the Cowman"! (Although I discovered that even in the front row, you are still likely to sit next to people who talk during the show. Thankfully, they didn't come back for the second act!)

The very best part though, was just hearing awesome singers sing awesome songs. John Cudia and Ashley Brown I was already a fan of, and just as I suspected, they were perfect for Curly and Laurey. "Surrey With the Fringe on Top" and "People Will Say We're In Love" were heavenly moments of pure bliss in their capable hands. Gorgeous voices, and both so charming and sweet. And funny. It was lovely to see John's comedic side, since in Phantom it's pretty much emo all the time (not that I don't love it!) but it was great to see how hilarious he could be, especially during "Pore Jud is Daid". We got the understudy for Jud, Paul LaRosa, but he was very good, great voice, maybe a little too romantically sung for Jud, but he fit the part well otherwise. Paula Scrofano was just perfect as Aunt Eller, crusty and sassy and wise and warm, you couldn't ask for more. Tari Kelly as Ado Annie and Curtis Holbrook as Will Parker were good and solid, as was Usman Ally as Ali Hakim. The ensemble were great, in particular the ladies in their colorful calicoes doing their pretty dance during "Many A New Day" were a vision of loveliness. The orchestra was great, neither too loud or reserved, which can sometimes be a problem when orchestras more used to classical stuff venture to showtunes, but they got it just right.

My one nitpick is that the first act ended with the Dream Ballet and left out the little bit where Laurey wakes up and it's Jud saying 'we better get ready for the party', because it's in the original script that way, and I think it's stronger dramatically to end the first act back in reality, and see the effect the dream has had on Laurey in her reaction to Jud. But from a practical standpoint, I can understand why they cut it out, since it is a lot of work to change the set back for just one line. The sets were beautiful, I must mention. The painted backdrops were just dreamy and enchanted looking, and the great big structures of the barns and houses that the characters could actually sit on the roofs of, or hang out of the windows of, were really cool.

The songs, though, first and foremost, are Oklahoma!'s crowning glory; the title song was possibly the most exhilarating thing I've seen/heard on a live stage ever. But when the curtain first went up, and then Curly came out on stage singing "Oh What A Beautiful Mornin'", I damn near cried. So joyous, so beautiful. And when Curly looks out over 'the bright golden haze on the meadow', the actor on stage is looking out over the audience, and for just about two seconds, he looked straight at ME!!! For a tiny little moment, the glorious voice of John Cudia sang one of the most beautiful songs ever written TO ME. It literally was a moment out of my dreams (reference intended!) and in that moment, I was the happiest little fangirl in world. I will remember that FOREVER. The whole show was magical and wonderful, just as good as I imagined, but the experience of seeing it live was even better than I could have ever imagined.

I sure am interested in seeing Lyric's The Sound of Music next year, although I doubt anything could ever top the magic of this show.

The latest cast recording I've discovered and fallen in love with is Death Takes A Holiday. A magical, touching, romantic show, full of both joy and melancholy in turn, with a beautiful score by the wonderful Maury Yeston. And the cast is just an embarrasment of riches: Rebecca Luker, Michael Siberry, Jill Paice, Max von Essen, Don Stephenson, Matt Cavanaugh... beautiful voices all! And as Death himself, Kevin Earley, who I'd never heard of before, but wow! What a voice! Apparently he was the understudy who had to go on when the original lead got laryngitis (you wouldn't believe things like that actually happen in real life, but here it is!) and all I can say is, I don't think he'll ever be an understudy again! If he doesn't become a huge Broadway star after this, there's no justice in the world. My favorite songs on this brilliant recording full of lovely music are his; "Alive!" captures all the breathless exhuberance of Death, off work for a day at last, discovering the simple joys of being human. (I have to say that this track makes me get up and dance around like an idiot whenever I hear it! It's so great!) And "I Thought That I Could Live" is one of the best things I've heard on a cast album probably ever, a desperate, impassioned monologue as Death realizes what it is to be human and love, and faces the prospect of losing it. The music is stunning and Earley's performance is breathtaking.

My other favorites are "Finally To Know", a lovely, gentle trio for the young ladies of the house as they make up their minds to pursue true love; "Shimmy Like They Do In Paree", a fun, funny number as one of the ladies attempts to teach the disguised Death the latest 1920's dance craze; and "Alone Here With You", a haunting duet for Death (in the guise of Prince Sirki) and the beautiful young Grazia as they fall in love.

Also of note are "Losing Roberto" and "Roberto's Eyes", both about the death of Grazia's brother during the war, wrenchingly sung by Rebecca Luker and Matt Cavanaugh respectively. They're both amazing songs, but I find they're not ones I like to hear too frequently because they're so raw & heartbreaking. But they are absolutely neccessary to the show to keep it from being too frothy; this IS Death we're falling in love with. He's not evil, but he's not a tame sparkly teen vampire. This show deals with real emotions and intelligently explores universal themes in addition to being melodious, romantic, and just plain beautiful. A real treat from start to finish, I highly recommend it! :)

Watched a DVD of the 1980 New York Shakespeare Festival production of The Pirates of Penzance, and it was totally great! The rather crappy picture quality didn't matter at all, the production was so fun and energetic that that's all you noticed, and quite honestly it's a miracle to have it at all! It was much better than the movie version of the same production, which I saw some of years back but didn't make it through because it bored me so much. What a difference an audience makes! The cast was having splendid fun hamming it up for them, and the audience was having fun watching them, and I was having fun watching it all too! The cast was wonderful: Patricia Routledge is awesome and I wish she'd been in more musicals; Linda Ronstadt can genuinely sing operetta, she's no pop star just faking it; and even Kevin Kline's pomposity works to advantage for the Pirate King, and he actually comes off as rather charming. The whole production was delightful; even though the sets and scenery were rather minimal, the little pirate ship that they occasionally rode around in was so cute, and since it was filmed on an outdoor stage, the summer breeze was always blowing through, and added a pleasant ambiance of realism to the seaside scenes when it ruffled the actors' hair and fluttered the ladies' dresses. All in all it was a lovely, funny, silly, sweet romp from beginning to end. (I just wish more stage productions would get filmed; I would consider it a huge shame to have missed this simply because I hadn't been born yet when it was originally staged!)

Okay, on to less cute territory: Jekyll & Hyde. I think maybe Love Never Dies has given me a taste for train-wreck musicals, because I never thought it would be any good, and I was pretty much right. But it's the only thing by Frank Wildhorn my library actually has, and since one hears tell of his work often (usually rather disparagingly) I was curious to judge for myself. The only thing of his I've heard is the uber-cheesy ballad "This Is the Moment" which is from this show, so I was prepared for the worst, but I'd heard the 1994 studio cast album is the best version, so perhaps a glimmer of hope? Not really. Jekyll & Hyde is just one of those stories that genuinely shouldn't be a musical. But even so, there must be a way to do it better than this.

( Bad doesn't even begin to describe Jekyll & Hyde )

( But it had a redeeming feature in the fine cast, at least )

I think I now need to go listen to The Music Man or She Loves Me or something, just so I can reassure myself that genuinely excellent musicals do still exist somewhere out there. (Or at least to fortify me through the next train-wreck musical I venture to listen to! Heehee!) ;D

I guess it's lucky my car chose to break down in the middle of a heat wave, since it's too hot to leave the house anyway! So in the air-conditioning I stay, and it's given me a chance to listen to a lot of music and movies over the past week.

My musical theater kick still being in full force, I watched a DVD of the London production of the 2000 Kiss Me, Kate revival. Ugh, big mistake! SOOO bad! So boring I could barely keep awake, and really poorly cast. ( Trust me, you'll be glad you missed this! )

Also listened to the cast recording of Triumph of Love, which was really good. I knew the story from a movie version of the play that came out a few years ago, which I thought was a really charming little gem, but I have to say that this musical version that was made a few years prior to that movie, is actually even better. An 18th century French play about the adventures of a cross-dressing princess and the tangled web of broken hearts her deception causes may not seem like a sure-thing for a fun musical, but it really is! ( A wonderful show, with a fine score, that will engage your head and your heart! )

(And now I think I'm going to keel over, because I've eaten nothing but pizza and snickerdoodles for the past two days, and while it was fun at the time, I feel rather ill now! Must go back to eating healthy food today!!)

Okay, despite many weeks of sewing projects coming and going, my Phantom kick has turned into a full-fledged musical theatre binge, and the Broadway Odyssey has resumed full force! So for now the sewing updates will have to wait while I review some cast recordings! For today, the second part of my analysis of Love Never Dies!

( The more problematic songs and why I love/hate them. )

Well, that's it for the songs, but as for the plot itself... to be continued once again! It'll require a whole other post to tackle that!

Ever since they aired the 25th Anniversary production of The Phantom of the Opera at Royal Albert Hall on PBS, I've been on a huge Phantom kick, which has even extended to Love Never Dies. This week I actually went to see the films of both productions on the big screen at the movie theater (final encore showings! Thank heaven I found out in time!!) and so, obviously, I have some thoughts!

( PotO 25: totally worth spending way more than a movie ticket should ever cost! )

To be continued in the next entry with thoughts on both productions of Love Never Dies!

Today's dose of happy stuff is: Musicals! While my Broadway Odyssey of exploring musical theater through listening to as many cast recordings as I can find has dropped off for the last year or so, I still do it when I can, and my most recent happy discovery is 110 in the Shade. A lovely little musical from 1963, it has an extremely fine score; highlights include the melodious 'Gonna Be Another Hot Day' and 'Rain Song' among other gems. The cast is great, filled with really talented singers of the kind that unfortunately are getting quite rare in musicals these days. Definitely required listening.

Also watched the Les Miserables 25th anniversary concert on PBS. I never cared for the show itself, but hey, free musical theatre is free musical theatre, and this had a really great cast of the aforementioned increasingly scarce amazing singers. The only unfortunate point was Nick Jonas as Marius, since he is pop star with a pop voice, and couldn't hold his own against all those powerful operatic voices. But everybody else was great, and even though I find most of Les Mis way too heavy and ponderous, there were some nice moments that made it worthwhile to sit through all four hours. (Although finding out they've got school children doing this show is rather disturbing; I hope they changed it A LOT for the kids, because asking some ten year old to play a prostitute would be more wrong than I can possibly imagine!!)

Now that I'm over whatever weird virus I had for the last two weeks, hopefully I'm done being ill for the foreseeable future, and might possibly start sewing again. So maybe the Broadway Odyssey might continue at a jauntier pace, since I'm going to need something to listen to when I'm cutting and laying out pattern pieces. :)

The Broadway Odyssey continues; I've fallen in love with The Secret Garden in a big way. A gorgeous score, rich and atmospheric, a wonderful cast, a magical story, the whole nine yards. I hadn't actually read the novel before, so I rushed out and got it after I listened to the show, and I really love it. The show does diverge from the book in a lot of ways; even before I read the book I thought the numbers with the adults going on about their past and how they all loved Lily were unnecessary and dull, and distracted too much from the main story, and after reading the novel, and finding out that there was nothing of the sort in the source material, I think so even more. Also reading the musical's libretto and finding they wasted a whole book scene on an invented sub-plot about sending Mary to a boarding school, is a bit distracting as well. But I can put up with all that, because of all the good stuff that's there. The music really captured the feeling of magic the novel has. And the cast was wonderful; usually child stage actors are way too hammy, but Daisy Eagan was very natural as Mary; John Cameron Mitchell was great as Dickon, despite the fact that they made the character older, he still had the right sort of elfin charm to make it work; even Mandy Patinkin, (who is the last person who could ever believably play an Englishman) played the role much more low-key than I've ever seen him in anything, thankfully! In fact the whole cast found just the right tone for it, and the ones who had to have Yorkshire accents accomplished them splendidly. The whole thing was a great treat, well-done from start to finish.

I wish I could say the same for the cast recording of the 2001 London revival, though! I was intrigued by the fact that it was supposed to be a 'steamlined' version, but instead of cutting just the extraneous material, they cut some of the best songs too! The did cut the "Quartet" for the adult characters, which was the weakest number, but they also cut "Show Me The Key", which was one of the best! It was also a very important plot point, when the robin shows Mary the key to the secret garden, and it was the most ingeniously integrated piece of musical adaptation in the whole show. But in a way I'm almost glad they did, because the London cast was terrible. Mary and Dickon were the best in the Broadway cast, but the worst in London. Their Mary was one of those stagey hammy children you always find, and their Dickon was... I don't know what that was! He was very strange and even a little bit creepy, because he's really crazily excited about whatever he's singing about, and it was just strange. They really ruined "Wick", and I fear what they would have done to "Show Me the Key". And his accent was terrible! It was something akin to Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, I kid you not. You would think an English actor (I assume he's English, anyhow) could do Yorkshire at least as well as an American, but no. Happily, they did cut most of the ghosts and their rather repetitive commentary (Yes, people, it's a concept musical! There are singing ghosts!) but they added a whole chorus of singing, dancing servants and gardeners! WTF??? How can it be a Secret Garden if there are twenty servants regularly invading it to sing and dance?? At least the 7 or 8 ghosts aren't actually 'there'. And Colin's mother being there as a ghost makes sense, because it was her garden. But dancing servants! Oy. And the guy who played Ben Weatherstaff was a comic or something, I think, and screwed up "It's a Maze" by trying to make it a more comedic number. The one thing I liked in the show was how they extended "Come Spirit, Come Charm" to include more of the Hindustani chant and swirling Indian music, but that's literally the only good thing in it that they didn't screw up. That was the big problem here, the tone was all wrong. They tried to make it cute or silly or jolly, when it's supposed to be beautiful and solemn and joyous. I suppose that's a weird combination that's hard to get right. But the Broadway production did it. I think I'll have to make some room for it on my list of favorite musicals. In the top 5 even. It's that good!

Just spent far too much money on random pretty things at Barnes and Noble. A journal with a Lady of Shalott cover (notice my icon!) and an oriental rug bookmark and lots of post cards and greeting cards, so if I have your address you will get a pretty card for Valentine's Day! :) Was much amused and almost tempted by the Stephen Colbert bookbag, but frugality finally triumphed.

Listened to Titanic: The Musical cast recording last night, and was quite impressed. I saw one number from it on a TV show back when it first came out, and I remember thinking it was very pretty (it was probably "Godspeed Titanic" since I knew the tune when I heard it again), but the whole score is quite top notch. The stoker has the most lyrical music of all the characters in two wonderful numbers, there's even some fun stuff in a cute period-inflected number about "Doing the Latest Rag", and even the rather ominous stuff leading up to and during the sinking has a strange beauty about it. It's pretty heavy story-wise, since unlike the famous movie of the same name, it's about 'Titanic as microcosm of and commentary on society' rather than a single character who happens to be on the Titanic, but it's never confusing and comes together very well, as well as being just downright more interesting. I think I'll read the libretto, and give it another listen before moving on in my Broadway Odyssey. :)