Monday, November 18, 2024

Weekly Margin 2024, W46: Drag: The Musical

What: A new musical about two competing Drag clubs across the street from each other: their rivalry, the bitter history behind their founders, and the encroaching threats to their little paradises by gentrificiation and the IRS. Oh, and countless fantastic costumes, wigs, tea, reads, shade, and celebrations of the world of Drag.
And? I'm not immersed enough with the Drag world to fully engage with it on that level. As a piece of theater, it's fine. (my friends I went with are more in that world, and they had a damn blast at the show, for what it's worth) The stuff with the nephew Brendan is really effective (kinda mad I went to a Drag show and then had to have feelings about the fate of queer kids in America, but here we are), and my god the costume and wig work (especially everything worn by Popcorn/Luxx Noir London). And it was fun to see the very talented Nick Adams again.

Alaska and Nick Adams as Kitty Galloway and Alexis Gilmore, with the cast
of Drag: The Musical. Photo by Michael Bezjian.


Monday, November 11, 2024

Weekly Margin 2024, W45: A Wonderful World, Ragtime, Swept Away

What: A new bio/jukebox musical about Louis Armstrong and the four women he married.
And? It's still previews, so things could tighten up a bit. Right now it feels like it's between two shows: the generic biomusical where the main character narrates to the audience (the absolute laziest of telling, not showing), and a more compelling different lens, where the phases of his life are charted more by the four women he loved, and who he was with each of them. The scenic design by Adam Koch & Steven Royal is appealing, and the performances of Jennie Harney-Fleming, Dionne Figgins, and Darlesia Cearcy are fantastic. I went on a night that alternate James T. Lane was on for Armstrong, so while I can't give a verdict on James Monroe Iglehart in the role, I can say that James T. Lane is absolutely, well, wonderful.



11/07/24: Ragtime
What: New York City Center Encores! series gala presentation of the Ahrens, Flaherty, and McNally masterpiece.
And? It's more complicated to talk about this show than I thought it would be, especially after discussing it with the friends I attended it with. My friend who is a person of color pointed out that for Black people especially, the show is trauma porn. Much as I have always adored the show, that conversation was a stark reminder that this is a show for white people to see: Black people don't need to be told that Black people deserve dignity, humanity, and survival. Even if Coalhouse and Sarah get some of the best songs in this tremendous score, they also both die horrible deaths, leaving behind an infant child to be raised by parents who can never understand the experience of growing up Black in America.

Another friend of mine was coming to the show fresh: they didn't know the source material, the score, or the story. So while I was crying my little face off, they were thrown by just how many things were going on in one show. "It's a lot" sums it up pretty succinctly. I had the luxury of watching the show already having everyone's full arcs in my head; my friend was at sea over whose story it was.

And it all got me thinking. The buzz around this show is so loud that another Encores-to-Broadway transfer rumor has taken over the theater community. Who can blame them? This was a show with a perfect original cast album and a deep bench of talent in its original cast, cut short due to a certain embezzling producer. Its first Broadway revival was okay, but a bit of a letdown. But here we have Joshua Henry, the only performer I can think of who stands ready to take on the mantle previously worn by Brian Stokes Mitchell in the part: both men tremendous actors, full of charisma and power, and voices that can shake the walls of the theater. If nothing else, I'd like Mr. Henry to finally win his Tony. If something else, I'd also love an album of him singing Coalhouse's songs.

But. I wonder if this is the right time for this or not, especially in light of the election results this week. Part of why I wept through the act one finale when I saw the show was because it seemed like we'd made so little progress in over a century. "Til We Reach That Day" sings of a day that, over a century later, has still not yet been reached. Additionally, I'm concerned that if they transfer this production they will leave it as is, much like the recent Into the Woods revival. Don't get me wrong, I loved the revival when it played at City Center. But that's still officially a concert setting. There need to be additional steps taken to make it a full production. Michael Arden's production of Parade was able to toe this line, expanding and further developing its staging while still keeping the spirit of what it had at City Center.

The staging of what's playing right now at City Center is fine for a concert. But it is not a full production staging, and for a show this complex and full, with such an ensemble of players, we need strong staging and vision. We need the ambition of a civilization ready to call a shooting in 1906 the "crime of the century," though the century still has, as the show says, "94 years to go!" We need that staging not only to do the show itself justice, but to also do right by the audience members who don't already know and love the show. This production isn't ready for that yet.

But damn if we aren't lucky to have both Joshua Henry and Brandon Uranowitz here to breathe new life into Coalhouse and Tateh. There aren't words for how full the performances of these two men are, and after only ten days of rehearsal.

Nichelle Lewis and Joshua Henry as Sarah and Coalhouse Walker, Jr.
Photo by Joan Marcus.


Monday, November 4, 2024

Weekly Margin 2024, W44: Death Becomes Her

What: A new musical adaptation of the classic camp film about the lengths to which two women will go to win the love of a mediocre man.
And? It's ultimately a bit uneven, but act one is a lot of fun -- super campy, three leads with fantastic comic delivery, and songs cleverer than expected. It does start to lose a bit of steam after they've gotten to the reveals of the special effects designs to match the body mutilation we're all waiting for. Unfortunately Michelle Williams, while a great vocalist, seems very uncomfortable in this space, moving stiffly with a frozen face, but as long as we can focus on the clowning of Megan Hilty, Christopher Sieber, and the incomparable Jennifer Simard, we're in good hands. Also, when you go, make sure to read Megan Hilty's bio in the Playbill. I promise you won't regret it.



Monday, October 28, 2024

Weekly Margin 2024, W43: Tammy Faye, Maybe Happy Ending, Jason Robert Brown at Carnegie Hall

10/22/24: Tammy Faye
What:  The Broadway transfer of the West End musical about Tammy Faye Bakker, with songs by Elton John and Jake Shears.
And? I was so deeply bored. Katie Brayben was great though.




What: The English translation of a hit Korean musical. Set in a future time in Seoul, two "retired" obsolete generations of Helperbots (sentient androids) go on a road trip to seek one of their former owners.
And? I adored it. What an absolute darling treat of a show, genuinely funny and heartwarming. It examines not only our willingness to dispose of technology for the newest and fastest, but also how one who has been discarded can both live and die with dignity. Ably directed by Michael Arden (ugh I love him) with an electric and sleek scenic design by Dane Laffrey (and wonderfully vivid video and projection design by George Reeve), the show is light and color and a softer side of sci-fi. As the two leads, Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen do wonderful work: Criss has fully commitment to the stilted physicality of his older model droid, whereas Shen, while much closer to passing for human, still maintains the precision of an artificial being.

Helen J. Shin and Darren Criss as Claire and Oliver. Photo by
Matthew Murphy.


Monday, October 21, 2024

Margin Notes: Honeyland




Abby Goldberg and Anika Buchanan, front, as Fran and
Helen. Photo by Thomas Mundell, Mundell Modern Pixels.


Seen on: Sunday, 10/20/24.

A young man in military uniform strides through the jungle in Vietnam. By the next scene, he is gone. Mike's three best friends--Helen, Fran, and Tom--all gather to spread his ashes, reconnect, and remember their time together: through political protests, theater troupes, road trips, drug use, and other iconoclastic moments of the 1960s, the four of them attempt to navigate their early twenties with seemingly endless possibilities but ultimately disappointing realities.

Or at least, that's how the show starts out. Most of the songs are flashbacks to these remembered times, and the connecting "present-day" dialogue, stilted from the first, quickly peters out until Fran is tasked with introducing the context for each song ahead of its performance. The result is that one feels that not only is the show only half-written, but also that the writers changed their mind about what kind of show they were writing midstream, and didn't bother to revise the earlier parts. Unfortunately that underwritten nature extends to the characters within the show as well. It can feel silly to call out male writers in musical theater, since they already comprise ninety percent of musical theater writers, but these two fully failed their female characters here: Helen's character notes are that she was in relationships with both men, had a child (whom we don't meet), and sings a song about being a 60s girl with Fran. Fran has even less, becoming instead the de facto narrator and introducing each song, but with no story of her own. It's a real disservice to her portrayer, Abby Goldberg, whose soulful eyes and clear singing voice deserve material worthy of her instrument. When she laments in the final scene that she feels "like [her] life is incomplete," I wrote in my notes, "because the writers gave you nothing."