Theatre 2024: Four Minutes Twelve Seconds

It is more or less a universal fact that a good story is the most important element in the presentation of any type of narrative, be in a book, movie or play format.  For live performances, while fancy sets and costumes, music, lighting, and especially good acting are all useful elements, they cannot compensate for an inferior plot.

A case in point is the 90 minute play Four Minutes Twelve Seconds which has a riveting plot with many twists and turns.  Luckily, it also has a cast of stellar actors led by Megan Follows, who will always be known for her 1980’s portrayal of Anne of Green Gables, and Sergio Di Zio, who coincidentally was in an episode of Law and Order Toronto, Criminal Intent, that we just watched days before attending the play.

Currently performing at Tarragon Theatre, this is a family drama that feels like a thriller. The action starts with upper middle-class parents Diane (Di) and David discussing what happened to their seventeen-year-old son Jack after Di finds his shirt covered with blood. David initially downplays the blood as the result of a simple nosebleed, and then due to some inconsequential teenage rough-housing.  None of this rings true and under intense interrogation from Di, David’s explanations continue to change as he is caught in lie after lie. The tension rachets up as the real story involving a leaked sex video slowing unveils itself.  By the end of the play, the couple learns some hard truths about their “perfect” son and about each other.

The play is set up as a series of vignettes mainly featuring continued debates between Di and David with the passage of time being marked by subtle changes in clothing and Di’s hair which is tied into a ponytail then loosened repeatedly.  In trying to learn the truth of what happened, Di has confrontations with Jack’s friend Nick who she labels  as “slow” and Jack’s ex-girlfriend Cara who she dismisses as being “too Scarborough” (as in poor and trashy).

Megan Follows gives a powerful performance as her character Di goes through a wide range of emotions that almost mirrors the stages of grief, as she deals with the ever changing information that comes her way.  She starts with denial and anger as she rages against perceived injustices levied upon her son.  Then comes bargaining and depression as the truth starts to permeate and she struggles to come to terms with Jack’s culpability in events that led to his beating.  When she finally reaches acceptance, her proposed solution is shockingly tone-deaf and reeks a bit of wealthy, white entitlement.  Di Zio plays David perfectly, outwardly conveying an upstanding, devoted father and husband while subtly oozing with duplicitousness that makes you want to smack him on Di’s behalf.  Although their roles were small, the actors playing Nick and Cara were excellent as well.  I was especially impressed by the impassioned final rant that Cara directs at Di, where the meaning of the title of the play is finally revealed.  It is interesting that although he is referenced throughout the entire play, Jack never appears on stage.  You are left to imagine him through the dialogue carried on by the other characters.

The set is simple but effective, with most of the action taking place around the dining table of David and Di’s home.  For the few scenes where Di ventures out to speak with Nick or Cara, there is a lit-up V-shaped white line with a bench at one end that delineates the street or a setting outside of the house.  Nothing more is required since the set is inconsequential when you are so engrossed by the dialogue.  Four Minutes Twelve Seconds is a terrific play that dwells on issues of trust, privacy, consent, male toxicity, entitlement, class, race, and the perils of living in the age of technology.  It does a fine job of illustrating the point that a great plot is everything.

Theatre 2024: Dana H

What a strange feeling to be absolutely horrified yet totally mesmerized at the same time while watching a play.  Such were the emotions invoked while watching Dana H, a verbatim play with a twist.  Prior to this, my only experience with verbatim plays was with the 2014 musical London Road where the lyrics of all the songs were taken directly from interviews with citizens from Ipswich, U.K. as they commented on their thoughts about the serial killer that was plaguing their town.

Crow's Theatre's production of Dana H., which premiered on Broadway in 2019, takes the concept of a verbatim play to the next level.  All the dialogue in this one-woman show is taken from interviews with Dana Higginbotham, a chaplain from Florida who describes her ordeal of being kidnapped by psychiatric inmate Jim, a white-supremist neo-Nazi member of the Aryan Brotherhood who held her hostage for 5 months back in 1997.  We hear about how Dana meets, councils and advocates for the violent, deranged man, who repays her compassion by capturing her and dragging her from one seedy motel after another as they head south-west across the country.  She speaks mostly in a calm, dispassionate, almost emotionless manner as she details being abused both mentally and physically, only breaking down slightly when she recalls being brutally raped and assaulted.  For this memory, she shakily reads lines from a manuscript that she has written about her traumatic experiences.  Most appalling are her descriptions of the pair’s interactions with policemen during their travels, who she claims recognized her plight and saw her bruises but were too afraid of Jim’s Aryan Brotherhood association to provide her with much, if any, help.  The Aryan Brotherhood is described in Wikipedia as a neo-Nazi prison gang and organized crime syndicate with immense powers both inside and outside of the prison systems within the United States.

Playing the titular role, actress Jordan Baker enters a set that is made to represent one of the seedy motel rooms where Dana was held captive.  The décor is perfect, right down to the grime that can be seen on the walls, the filthy air-conditioning unit, and the tacky painting hanging above the bed.  Baker enters through the “front door” of the motel and sits down on the chair positioned centre stage facing the audience.  A sound technician follows and makes a point of helping her put on her earpiece.  Then we hear the voice of the interviewer ask his first question and the play begins as Dana opens her mouth to answer.

But rather than Baker reciting the lines from this interview, what the audience hears is an edited-together version of the audio interviews with a male voice asking the questions and Dana Higginbotham’s actual voice as she responds.  Baker lip-syncs in perfect timing to the audio, not only mouthing the words but mirroring the tone and context of the content with the appropriate facial expressions and body movements that include tapping of the chair or her thigh, rustling of paper or drinking from a water bottle, all in sync with the sounds generated from that audio.   As we were seated about 5 rows away from the elevated stage, my husband Rich and I had a clear view of Baker’s face and at first we concentrated on the exaggerated motions of her lips as she mouthed the words.  Very quickly after, we became so immersed in the story and the perfect execution of the lip-syncing that we totally forgot that the actress was not actually speaking.

Towards the end of this one-act play, shortly after describing the horrific description of Dana’s rape, the stage went black and when the lights came back on, the room was empty and the bed disheveled.  After a few seconds, there was a knock and then a maid came in and calmly went about cleaning the room and making the bed, all while multiple audios of Dana’s voice continued to play in a dissonant, jumbled manner.  The payoff of the scene came when the maid removed the bedsheet which revealed a huge blood stain.  With no reaction at all, she just added it to the pile of dirty laundry and left.  The scene seemed to serve two purposes.  From a practical perspective, it allowed Baker to rest off-stage for a few minutes.  In terms of the narrative, I guess it indicated how that area had become inured to violence and bloodshed as if it was an everyday occurrence.

The play Dana H. was written by Higginbotham’s real-life son Lucas Hnath, an acclaimed playwright known for penning A Doll House Part 2, a sequel to Ibsen’s classic play, The Doll House.  While the play describes Dana’s rescue and escape, as well as her eventual spiritual healing and new role in hospice end-of-life counselling, it does not describe how Dana reunited with Lucas nor how the ideas for the interviews and subsequent play came about.  The conceit of using his mother’s own voice to narrate her own story lends authenticity to the tale, making it all the more harrowing and impactful.

Whenever possible, I select the performance of a play that holds a post-show talkback in order to gain more insight regarding what I just watched.  This was more important than ever after watching Dana H since this performance was the most unique and unlike anything that I ever watched before. Hosted by Crow’s Theatre’s assistant director Paolo Santalucia, the talkback allowed us to hear the real voice of actress Jordan Baker and learn about her process in preparing for this challenging role.

Baker described the lip-syncing process to be almost like a dance, as she had to marry not just the enunciation of the words but also the body movements and emotions behind them.  While sitting on stage, in order to concentrate and listen as deeply as required to sync up with the sounds of Dana’s voice coming through her earpiece, Baker is put in what she describes as a “bubble”.  The lighting is set in such a way that she cannot see the audience and stares out at darkness.  The earphones block out all external sounds in order to further eliminate distractions.  Baker recalled one performance where the lights malfunctioned and she could actually see the audience as they shifted, coughed, reached for candy and so forth.  That made it exponentially more difficult for her to get through the show.  In terms of miming the actions such as slapping of the chair, she had to make sure not to actually hit the chair and make a second noise in addition to the one coming from the audio.  She explained how this play first made it to Broadway since under normal circumstances, such an avant-garde, intimate and intense show would have been relegated to Off-Broadway.  But it premiered during COVID when theatres were looking for shows with few actors in order to control the spread of the disease.  Baker was worried about whether she could carry what would be her first one-woman show, let alone one that required such a radically different technical performance.  She needs to wonder no more, as she was terrific.

Theatre 2024: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

The final show in our “Off-Mirvish” subscription series was the remounting of Tom Stoppard’s 1966 absurdist play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, highlighting two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Within the context of the play Hamlet, Rosencranz & Guildenstern (henceforth mentioned together as R&G) are two bumbling former childhood friends of the Danish Prince who are summoned to Elsinore Castle by his mother Gertrude and stepfather Claudius to observe and report on Hamlet’s strange behaviour.  They watch on as Hamlet mounts the play  “The Murder of Gonzago” to trap Claudius into admitting that he murdered Hamlet’s father.  In response, Claudius bribes R&G into betraying Hamlet by escorting him by boat to England with a letter to the English King requesting Hamlet’s execution.  Hamlet discovers the plot and switches the letter with a new one indicating that R&G should be put to death instead.

To some degree, Stoppard’s play retells this small subplot of the play Hamlet, but from the perspective of R&G.  We first meet the pair as they sit together in an indeterminant location, repeatedly playing a game betting on whether a flipped coin comes down heads or tails with the winner pocketing the coin. Guildenstern stubbornly calls “Heads” and loses 89 consecutive coins which seems to violate basic laws of probability.  This coin flip scene is our first clue that we are watching an absurdist play.  Absurdism is the philosophy that the universe is irrational and meaningless and trying to find meaning is a useless endeavour that leads to conflict.  Theatre of the Absurd is a term coined for plays that focus on absurdism.  Throughout the play, Guildenstern becomes upset at the incongruity of his experiences and acts out aggressively because of it.  Rosencrantz is gentler in nature and seems satisfied to just go with the flow since he can’t (or won’t) actively change anything anyways.  He just wants to be happy and to make his friend happy as well, to the point where he rigs a new coin game so that Guildenstern would win every time.

R&G seem unsure of who they are (mixing up each other’s names), why they are there, where they are headed, or what they can remember.  This theme of Individual Identify or lack thereof, further accentuates the irrationality of the universe.  They meet up with a theatre troupe led by a character known as “The Player” who seems to hold the answers to their confusion but does not or cannot reveal them clearly to R&G.  When they first meet, the Player refers to R&G as “fellow artists” as if alluding to the fact that the pair are actually actors or characters within a larger story (i.e. the play of Hamlet?).  Because of this, it is debatable whether R&G have any free will or ability to change a destiny that has already been pre-determined for them. While they consider it, they make no efforts to choose any path other than the one laid out for them.  Their fate and the inevitability of their deaths are so set in stone that it is actually in the title of Stoppard’s play (no spoiler alert required).  In this regard, R&G act as a stand-in for the “everyman” since death will ultimately come to us all.

Stoppard cleverly weaves actual scenes from Hamlet with the extra discourse and musings between Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and the Player. When speaking to any of the other characters within the play Hamlet, the Shakespearean text is quoted making it very meta since we are watching a play within a play.  The two titular characters are played by Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd who previously paired up to play the Hobbits Merry and Pippen in the movie version of Lord of the Rings.They are both excellent in their roles as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern respectively, especially Monaghan whose facial expressions exude his character’s sweet innocence and bewilderment.

I’m not sure that I fully appreciate Theatre of the Absurd and why plays of this genre are considered entertaining.  Perhaps it takes too much brain power for my taste.  At very least, Hamlet is referenced in this Stoppard play, which gives it some relatable context for those who are familiar with Shakespeare’s classic as opposed to watching the absurdist play Waiting For Godot, or as I like to call it, “Waiting for this Play to End”.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a three-act play that spans over three hours including two short intermissions.  This is an extremely long time to concentrate and try to follow along while inane, nonsensical dialogue is rapidly dispensed.  In the end, what I got out of it is this: “Life is absurd and then you die”.  I think this could have been conveyed in about half the time.

Theatre 2024: Aladdin

The next show in our 2023/24 Mirvish subscription series was a touring revival of the 2014 stage musical Aladdin, adapted from the same-named 1992 Disney animated film featuring songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.  This movie was part of Disney’s “Renaissance” of commercially successful animated musicals that included The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.  In turn, the film is based on the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, a much darker Middle-Eastern folktale associated with the stories told in One Thousand and One (Arabian) Nights.  In that folktale, Aladdin is portrayed as lazy, greedy, self-entitled and kills two men (abeit evil sorcerers)—hardly the hero of modern-day depictions.

In Disney’s sanitized film version, Aladdin is a poor, thieving street urchin with a heart of gold who roams around the Middle-Eastern city of Agrabah with his sidekick Abu, a chattering little monkey.  He meets and falls in love with Princess Jasmine, but it is decreed by her father the Sultan that she must marry a prince.  The evil sorcerer and royal advisor Jafar seeks possession of a magic lamp with a genie inside who can grant three wishes.  Jafar’s minion is an ill-tempered parrot aptly named Iago.  The lamp is hidden inside a cave that only can be entered by a heroic “diamond in the rough” and Jafar realizes that Aladdin is the one.  Through mishaps in retrieving the lamp, Aladdin ends up becoming the genie’s master and wishes to be turned into a prince so that he can marry Jasmine.  Aladdin arrives at the palace riding a giant elephant (actually a transformed Abu) and woos Jasmine by taking her on a magic carpet ride while singing the now iconic song “A Whole New World”.  Jafar unmasks the fake prince and takes control of the lamp and genie, but Aladdin outwits him and marries Jasmine for the prerequisite Disney happy ending.

The late, comedic genius Robin Williams was the voice of the giant blue genie, and his manic, tour-de-force performance still acts as the gold standard for all subsequent portrayals of the genie in live action movies and stage musicals.  Singing the showstopping song “A Friend Like Me”, the genie goes through all sorts of magical gyrations to prove his powers, including morphing into various forms and multiplying into many genies, as only can be done through animation. To adapt this movie magic into something that would work in a live theatrical production takes some fancy stagecraft.

The musical does a great job of recreating the look and feel of the movie, with bright, colourful sets depicting the ancient city of Agrabah, the gilded and bejeweled cave where the lamp is found, and the palace.  The flowing silky costumes and in particular, the genie dressed in bright blue and Jafar in his long black robe, all channel the wardrobe of the characters in the film.  The animal sidekicks of the film have been replaced with human versions of Iago and Abu, but in place of the monkey are Aladdin’s three goofy but loyal friends Babkak, Omar and Kassim.

While the musical retains the same opening songs to introduce Agrabah (“Arabian Nights”) and Aladdin (“One Jump Ahead”) as in the film, additional songs were added including “Babak, Omar, Aladdin, Kassim” which the four friends sing to busk for money.  My favourite additional song is “High Adventure” where the three friends set off to the palace and fight royal guards in an attempt to save Aladdin who has been captured and imprisoned by Jafar.  Unfortunately, the new song “Proud of Your Boy”, meant to show Aladdin’s desire to honour a promise to his deceased mother to stop stealing, has taken on an infamously negative association when an American far-right, neo-fascist group named themselves “Proud Boys” after this song.  Poor Disney must be horrified.

To reproduce the animated extravaganza of the song “A Friend Like Me”, the extended live production number includes dancing waiters performing acrobatic moves, slinky harem girls and a slew of gold-clad, top-hatted tap dancers that look like they just came from the finale of A Chorus Line.  Additional lyrics are added to the song including a brief interlude where in quick succession, the genie sings notable lines from other Disney animated musicals including Beauty and the Beast (“Tale as old as time..”), Little Mermaid (“Look at this stuff..”) and Pocohantas (“.. And you’ll never hear the wolf cry…”).

The romantic magic carpet ride scene where Aladdin and Jasmine “soar” through the air was a bit of a letdown in this revival version of the show.  My husband Rich and I had actually watched this musical when it first previewed in Toronto in 2013 before heading to Broadway.  In that initial production, I seem to recall the carpet swooping across the entire stage with a large moon and starlit backdrop.  From what I see on Youtube, it is still like that on Broadway.  For our show, the stage went dark, and the carpet made short, constrained movements across a much smaller section of the stage with merely a spotlight on the Aladdin and Jasmine.  Also when “Prince Ali” (aka Aladdin in disguise) made his grand arrival at the palace, instead of an elephant he was pushed on stage sitting on what looked like a slightly raised Ikea trolley used to access objects on the top shelf.  At very least they could have created a taller platform and covered it with royal trimmings and decorations.  I guess these are the staging cuts and compromises that are made for a traveling road show that is only in town for a short period of time.

Better special effects were on display in the grand finale when Jafar takes control of the genie and wishes for himself to be the Sultan and ruler of the lands.  In a flash, Jafar’s black robe turns into a white Sultan’s robe.  Then when Aladdin tricks Jafar into wishing that he could be the most powerful genie, in another flash his robe turns bright red before he “vanishes” into the lamp that he is now trapped in.  Now that is some fancy stagecraft.

In general, this musical version of Aladdin provides all the feel-good fun of the Disney film.  Although it was probably targeted more for families with children, it was still a refreshing change from the many serious, tense or depressing plays that we have watched recently.  It was nice to just relax and enjoy an evening out, forgetting about the woes of the world. That is the power of good theatre.

Theatre 2024: Uncle Vanya @ CAA Theatre

Are the terms “Russian play” and “happy” oxymorons?  Or perhaps it is the concept of Chekhovian plays that is incongruous with anything lighthearted or joyful?  Because after watching a performance of Anton Chekhov’s classic 1897 work “Uncle Vanya” for the first time, it is hard to imagine a group of more morose, ineffectual people who are not only disappointed with their lots in life but are also bored, unfulfilled and so instilled with inertia that they make no efforts to change their lots in life.  There are a few moments of dark comedy since the characters are so pitiful that you are induced to laugh at the absurdity of their often self-imposed plights.

The setting of the play is a country estate run by Sonya, a plain looking spinster and her uncle, Vanya.  The pair toil endlessly to keep the run-down property going and send all profits to Sonya’s father, an elderly professor who lives in the city.  Also present at the estate is Mariana, an old nursemaid, Vanya’s mother Maria who is an ardent admirer of the professor, Astrov, an old county doctor who Sonya is secretly in love with, and an impoverished neighbouring landowner nicknamed Waffles because of the pockmarks on his face.

Sonya and Vanya’s mundane but familiar existences are thrown into turmoil when the Professor comes for a visit, accompanied by his beautiful and much younger wife Yelena, who he married after the death of his first wife (also Sonya’s mother and Vanya’s sister).  Both Vanya and Astrov are attracted to Yelena and try to woo her despite her being married.  She responds to Vanya’s advances with disdain but reciprocates Astrov’s feelings.  In a North American play, Yelena and Astrov would end up running away together in pursuit of their happy ending.  But this is Chekhov’s world where Yelena stays with the elderly professor who she no longer loves, either out of guilt and a sense of commitment, or more likely due to inertia and lack of will to act.

The other major dramatic plot point occurs when the professor insensitively announces that he has decided to sell the estate in order to fund a more lavish lifestyle for himself and Yelena in the city.  Perhaps they can buy a “summer cottage in Finland”.  He treats the issue that this will leave his daughter and brother-in-law homeless and jobless as a minor inconvenience that he hasn’t fully considered yet and totally ignores the fact that the estate actually belongs to Sonya and is not his to dispose of.  The professor’s thoughtlessness and lack of gratitude towards him finally causes Vanya to explode in rage.  This leads to a huge fight culminating on Vanya firing a gun at point-blank range, missing the professor twice. He is a failure even in this regard and his dismay is comical. After decades of apathy and acceptance, when Vanya finally tries to take action to change his fate, he does not succeed.  In the end, the professor backs off from the idea of selling the estate and leaves with Yelana.  Sonya and Vanya return to their old routines with Sonya comforting Vanya by implying that although they feel unhappiness now, one day they will find peace and joy in heaven.  She softly repeats the words “we shall rest” over and over and over again, as if to emphasize the monotony and emptiness of their current lives.  Despite her hope for the afterlife, this ending felt extremely depressing.

Ironically, Uncle Vanya is based on a prior unsuccessful comedic play called The Wood Demon that Chekhov wrote eight years earlier in 1889.  Featuring a cast of 15 characters (compared to Uncle Vanya’s 8), The Wood Demon was panned as being long-winded, convoluted and facetious, perhaps curing Chekhov from further attempts at writing comedies.  That he was able to trim the cast by half, take the best ideas from The Wood Demon and convert it into the classic drama which is Uncle Vanya speaks to his talent.  Unlike the characters in his play, his strength of character allowed him to turn failure into triumph.

Uncle Vanya was one of the first plays to concentrate on the environment and the harmful effects of over-development at the expense of Nature.  Dr. Astrov was a great proponent of conservation, lamenting the destruction of Russia’s forests.  The play was also lauded for its realistic characters, naturalistic dialogue and universal themes of unfulfilled potential, wasted lives, unrequited love and failed ideals.  Yelena’s name is interesting as this translates to a variation Helen in English and her character draws parallels to Helen of Troy.  While not quite launching a thousand ships and starting an epic war, Yelena’s presence did ignite previously dormant emotions in both Vanya and Astrov.

Although it is part of the Off-Mirvish subscription series, this version of Uncle Vanya is actually a remount of a 2022 Crow’s Theatre production.  Crow’s has impressed us time and again with their innovative staging and while the fixed structure of the CAA theatre limits what can be done, there were still some great touches added to the setting of the crumbling estate where the play takes place.  To emphasize how run down the manor is, in the first scene, water appears to be dripping from the ceiling into a bucket and when Vanya makes his entrance through a set of rickety wooden doors, one of the doors actually comes off its hinges.  A broken beam representing the rafter of the manor extends beyond the stage into the audience, further emphasizing the decrepit state of the home as well as adding a slight touch of immersive staging to the set. The glass wall stage right gives the illusion of a garden on the other side.  I would have liked to see the original staging of this play within Crow’s Theatre’s Guloien Theatre since from accounts that I read, that production was truly immersive and in the round.

The excellent cast included a few familiar faces.  One was the Tom Rooney who played Vanya.  We saw him in the Crow’s Theatre production of 15 Dogs in 2023 and he was superb in that show as the black poodle Majnoun.  Rooney is equally impressive in Uncle Vanya, making you feel his pathos and share in his pain.  Eric Petersen plays the smaller role of the professor with the right amount of arrogance, bluster and insensitivity.  We watched him in several past productions of Billy Bishop Goes to War.  I’m not sure if this is becoming a new Crow’s Theatre trademark, but just like Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 which we watched earlier this year, the program for Uncle Vanya contained a Family Tree to help us tell the characters apart.  Maybe it is because both of these Russian-based plays feature characters with impossibly long names.

From the purpose of enriching our literary and cultural knowledge, watching Uncle Vanya was enlightening and important.  But from an entertainment perspective, my husband Rich summed it up best.  It felt like the theatrical equivalent of eating a kale salad.  He knows that it is good for him but saying he enjoyed the experience might be a bit of a stretch.  One thing that it did do was make us appreciate our own relatively happy and fulfilling lives all the more.

Theatre 2024: Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

We originally had tickets to see the musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 back in February 2021 before COVID canceled all live theatre.  In January 2024, we were happy to finally be able to watch this demanding show that is based on part of Leo Tolstoy’s epic 1225-pages literary tome War and Peace.  That opus spans from 1805-1820 and weaves fictional interactions between five noble families within the timeframe of the Napoleonic wars.  It also includes lengthy discussions on history and philosophy.  The musical over covers a very small section (less than 100 pages) of the second of 4 books and 2 epilogues within the novel.

As its unwieldy title implies, the musical concentrates on the plight of Countess Natasha Rostova, an impressionable young romantic pining for her fiancé Andrey who is away at war.  Natasha is further disillusioned by Andrey’s father and sister who don’t approve of her.  To distract herself, Natasha travels to Moscow to visit her godmother Marya with her cousin and best friend Sonya accompanying her.  While attending the opera, Natasha meets and is seduced by the lothario Anatole who convinces her to break her engagement to Andrey and “elope” with him instead, despite his already being secretly married. Anatole is the brother of Helene, who is married to the titular Pierre, a wealthy, socially awkward misfit who struggles with philosophical questions that are a reflection Tolstoy’s own beliefs.  Natasha is saved from total ruin when Sonya discovers and foils the elopement plan.  But Natasha has destroyed her chances with Andrey and unsuccessfully attempts suicide in despair. Pierre comforts Natasha and gives her hope for the future, then witnesses the passing of the Great Comet of 1812 (the other part of the musical’s title and a historic phenomenon that was visible by the naked eye for 260 days).

The first song of the show, titled “Prologue”, acknowledges and makes fun of the complicated source material as well as the large cast of characters with lengthy Russian names.  Singing a cumulative song, in the same vein as “Twelve Days of Christmas”, one by one the characters appear on stage to introduce themselves and then each refrain adds the name and main trait of that character to the top of the verse before reviewing all the previous names mentioned.  “.. Anatole is hot .. Marya is old-school .. Sonya is good .. Natasha is young.. and Andrey isn’t here”.  There is a visual family tree included in the program which is actually referred to in the song with the lyrics “If you want to keep up with the plot .. complicated Russian novel .. Everyone’s got nine different names .. So look it up in your program”.  While singing this amusing song, the cast members dance around and actually gesture to the programs on the laps of the audience members sitting in the front rows.

The musical is sung-through meaning that there is no spoken dialogue, except for a few comforting lines expressed by Pierre to Natasha for dramatic effect in the penultimate scene.  Some of the libretto is taken word-for-word from the English translation of War and Peace.  As a result, while most of the lyrics represent dialog between two characters, occasionally they also reflect a character’s inner thoughts or emotions.  When Natasha and Sonya first arrive in Moscow,  Marya praises Natasha on her engagement to Andrey and Natasha next sings “I blush happily”.  This is obviously not part of the conversation, but rather her inner thoughts.  Within the same song, Sonya occasionally turns into a narrator.  When Natasha tells Marya “My cheeks are glowing from the cold”, Sonya sings “She said, gazing at Marya with kind, glittering eyes”.  It is almost as if she is reading text from the novel.  There are also instances where a character sings about himself in third-person as Pierre does in his last interaction with Natasha.  Pierre sings about himself “Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but he didn’t speak …”.  This constant change of perspective within consecutive lyrics of a song is disconcerting and you have to pay attention to discern between dialogue, internal thoughts and descriptive exposition.

In addition to the lyrics, the music is also challenging to listen to, with its use of dissonant chords, harsh sounds and varying musical styles. The score is a mixture of Russian folk, classical, indie rock and operatic music and is described by the composer as an “electropop opera”.  The songs are definitely not “hum-hum-hummable” to quote an ironic and winkingly self-referential line from Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Row Along.  Yet they work when heard in the context of watching the play. These tunes that sounded strange and alienating when merely listening to the soundtrack suddenly feel appropriate and engrossing when supported by the actors in costume, the stagecraft and choreography.

While the main orchestra can be seen situated up high, at the back of the stage and the sides of the theatre, they are supported by some of the actors who also play instruments when they are not the central characters of the current scene.  When the actor who portrays Andrey and Andrey’s crotchety father is not playing his minor roles, he wanders around playing a clarinet.  The actor in the role of Dolokhov, a friend of Anatole who flirts with Helene and gets into a duel with Pierre, plays the accordion, guitar, drums and cello when he is not in a scene.  Looking at the program, you see that many of the musicians are also understudies for the main roles.

As with all the shows that we have watched in the past at Crow’s Theatre, the most impressive part of this musical is the breathtaking staging.  Decked out like a Russian opera house bathed in hues of pink and purple and decorated with gilded railings and sparkling chandeliers, the theatre is set up almost “in the round” with stadium seating on 3 sides, forming a “U” shape around the stage.  The first row of seating on each side consists of small tables to give the theatre an intimate “cabaret-like” feel.  The main stage is a small platform in the centre of the floor with posts on each corner that allow it to be rotated.  High above behind the stage and on both sides above the audience are raised “theatre catwalks” where not only the musicians can be found, but also where some of the scenes take place.  Steep stairs on either side of the stage lead up to the catwalks and during the show, the actors repeatedly run up and down the stairs and in a circular motion along the catwalks, occasionally while carrying and playing instruments.  The energy expended by these actors and musicians is incredible and it felt exhausting merely to watch them.  Because the catwalks do not make a full circle, to complete their circuits, the actors would come back down through the audience, often pausing on the steps to sing their songs.  To follow all the action, you have to look up and down, left and right, front and back, at least if you are lucky enough to be seated in the centre section as we were.  If you are positioned under one of the catwalks, you would miss what was happening above you.

There is much audience interaction in the musical, starting right off the bat with that Prologue song that breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the crowd to instruct us on how to keep the characters straight by reviewing the program.  This continues throughout the show with the characters wandering up and down the aisles and in one case, Anatole even plops himself in a chair between two female audience members, wrapping his arms around them and chatting for a minute.  In the show, this illustrates a strange Russian custom to sit quietly for a few minutes before embarking on a journey. Another time, Anatole makes his grand exit by running out the back of the theatre, offering to kiss the hand of any audience member who extends it.  I was too shy to stick out my hand but regretted it afterwards as I could have been part of the fun.  In other scenes, some of the people sitting in the front rows were pulled onto the stage to join a dance, share a toast or otherwise participate.

I am assuming that those who wanted to take part chose to come early and claim the seats right up front, since we were forewarned that audience participation would happen. The audience advisory email we received was hilarious as we were told to be prepared for fog, strobe lights, dueling with gunshots, poisoning and (..gasp) ... sleigh riding!!.  In fact, the sleigh ride scene where Anatole prepares to run off with Natasha was the most creative bit of staging of the entire show.  Balaga, the crazy Trokia (a sleigh pulled by 3 horses) driver races with Anatole to retrieve Natasha while singing “Who’s that madman flying at a full gallop… knocking people over..”.  To enact this scene, Balaga stands at the top of the back catwalk and holds long reins in his hands which are attached to the poles on the platform stage below.  As he snaps the reins and sings with the clip-clop sounds of hoofs in the background, you can totally imagine the horses racing in front of him.

The choreography was very impressive in using the allocated space in the small theatre and especially the small stage.  In one party scene, what seemed like the entire cast was twirling and dancing at high speeds on that tiny platform all at once and then a few of the men performed the Russian Squat dance.  One false move and someone would have been accidentally kicked off the stage.  I watched a Broadway version of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 on Youtube and in my opinion, the intimate setting of the Crow’s Theatre version of worked much better than the staging of the huge Imperial Theatre.  In our theatre, the entire audience was relatively close to the action as opposed to on the gigantic, multi-layered Broadway stage where only the few lucky (?) ones with cabaret table seats right on or in front of the stage had that feeling.  The people in the nosebleed sections of the stadium seating would be too far away.  And while it might have been a cool experience to be sitting in a sunken section on the stage, I’m not sure how much of the show you could actually see from there?

The only time that I was disappointed in the Crow’s Theatre staging of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 was in the representation of the comet in the final song.  In consoling Natasha, Pierre realizes that he loves her, and that realization brings new energy and meaning to his life.  This is symbolized in his sighting of the comet which before this moment portended disaster and the end of the world.  But now he sings “The comet brings no fear.  No, I gaze upon it joyfully.  This comet .. feels my joyfully uplifted soul, my newly melted heart blossoming into a new life”.  With such big words, the sighting of the “Great” comet should be spectacular, and it is so in the Broadway production.  The lights go dark, hundreds of lights glow as stars in the sky, and then a gigantic celestial orb lights up above the stage.  In the Crow’s theatre production, a small row of 20 lights hanging under the catwalk at the back of the stage light up to represent the comet.  They didn't even darken the stage so that we could see them better. This supposedly miraculous and significantly symbolic sighting turned out to be a bit of a letdown in an otherwise brilliantly staged play.  It is interesting that historically, this comet actually was visible in 1811, not 1812.  Perhaps the word eleven contained too many syllables in an already lengthy title for a musical.

I deliberately selected a show where there was a talkback session with the cast following the performance.  We heard about how some of the actors were musicians first in their careers, and how they dealt with learning their complicated roles.  While watching the show, I thought some of the cast looked familiar and I was right.  Marya was played by Louise Pitre who is best known for starring in Mamma Mia which we watched in 2000.  I first saw her even earlier when she played Mrs. Johnson in Blood Brothers back in 1993.  Evan Buliung who played Pierre was in Fun Home back in 2017.  We actually attended several previous shows starring Hailey Gillis who was Natasha in this one.  She was in Ghost Quartet at Crow’s Theatre in 2019 and back in 2017, we saw her in Onegin which is another operatic period piece with themes very similar to this show.  I asked the production manager whether they were influenced by the staging on Broadway, and he informed me that they were not allowed to use any part of that since it was copyrighted.  This was just as well since for me, the staging for this show was vastly superior.

Theatre 2023: Pride and Prejudice, Sort Of

I am quite familiar with the plot of Pride and Prejudice after having read the classic Jane Austen novel of manners, as well as watching the 1995 British TV miniseries and the 2005 movie with the young, hot actors Colin Firth and Matthew Macfayden respectively starring as the iconic romantic hero, Mr. Darcy.  Set in the Regency period between 1811-1820, the story revolves around the Bennet family with five unmarried daughters who are not entitled to inherit from their father’s estate based on the laws of the times which dictate that property can only be passed on to a male heir.  The irritatingly pushy mother Mrs. Bennet is desperate to find wealthy spouses for one or more of her daughters so that the family can be supported after Mr. Bennet’s passing.  The five girls include beautiful and kindly eldest daughter Jane, handsome, spunky and witty Elizabeth (Lizzy), bookish and reclusive middle child Mary, and the two youngest daughters Kitty and Lydia who are described as insipid, self indulgent and ignorant.

Most of this ubiquitously well-known story revolves around the romances of Jane and Mr. Bingley, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy and to a lesser extent, Lydia and Mr. Wickham.  The general consensus is that title of the book refers to Mr. Darcy’s pride causing him to look down on the “lower class” and Elizabeth’s prejudice in judging Darcy based on first impressions. There is just as much evidence in the book to argue that Elizabeth’s pride was hurt when she overheard Darcy flippantly denigrate herself and her family when they first met, and that Darcy was prejudiced against the Bennet girls due to their need to marry in order to avoid their unfortunate circumstances.  Regardless, these two “character flaws” are the plot devices used to keep the Lizzy and Darcy apart for the bulk of the book.  In terms of tropes used in romance novels, not much has changed over the centuries.  The story has been adapted so many times and in so many ways.  There is a spoof novel called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, multiple movies and plays with or without a modernized spin and several musicals including the 1959 version called “First Impressions”, which was originally going to be the title for this novel.

Accordingly, when Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort of), the play originally from Glasgow that won the 2022 Olivier award, arrived on the slate of the 2023-24 “Off-Mirvish” subscription series, one had to wonder what new ideas were left to freshen up this old tale.  As it turns out, this rendition of the classic romantic drama is a hilarious jukebox musical comedy featuring five talented actresses who play all the relevant roles from the novel, darting behind a screen or off stage to switch costumes and characters.  As a framing device, the plot of Pride and Prejudice is told from the perspective of the servants of the various households, which the same five actresses also play.  This allows them to provide extra exposition such as explaining the inheritance laws of the time, to introduce or identify new characters as they first appear on stage and to manipulate the sparse props required by the story.  They also stress the important narrative role that servants could play in affecting a plot, such as misdirecting a missive (think about what happened in Romeo and Juliet!).  As we sat in the audience waiting for the play to start, we kept hearing a ringing sound which turned out to represent the buzzers used to summon the servants.  One by one, they appeared from the back of the theatre wearing plain white cotton slip dresses, yellow rubber gloves and using rags and dusters to “clean” the seats along the aisles.

Once on stage, the servants playfully bantered amongst themselves, dusted and cleaned, and explained their purpose within the play.  They then turned on music from a “boom box”,  grabbed microphones and belted out the Elvis Costello song “Every Day I Write the Book”, which is the perfect song to reflect their roles in presenting the stories about their employers.  This injection of karaoke-styled singing of classic pop songs continued throughout the play, sung by both the servants and the characters within the Pride and Prejudice story.  Occasionally instruments were played as part of the musical numbers.  In true jukebox musical fashion (or at least for good jukebox musicals), the songs were cleverly selected to fit right in with the plotline.  Jane crooned “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by the Shirelles after meeting and becoming instantly smitten with Bingley at a dance.  When Elizabeth showed her distain for Mr. Darcy after feeling insulted by him, she retaliated with Carly Simon’s hit song “You’re so Vain”.  When Mr. Darcy’s wealthy and powerful aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh made her appearance dressed in flamboyant red dress, naturally Chris de Burgh (pun intended?)’s song “Lady in Red” was performed to usher in her entrance.  When the Bennet family was in despair because Lydia had disgraced them by running off with the rakish Mr. Wickham, the sisters belted out “Holding Out for a Hero” in hopes that someone could find and save her from ruining her reputation.  And most hilariously, Mr. Darcy finally admitted his feelings for Elizabeth by singing David Cassidy’s hit “I Think I Love You” from the Partridge Family TV series.

The main story of Pride and Prejudice started with one of the servants quoting the actual first line of the novel—“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.   At this point the quick-change artistry began as the actresses jumped from character to character.  One of the actresses portrayed Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Darcy and another played Elizabeth’s best friend Charlotte Lucas, as well as Mr. Bingley and his sister Miss Bingley.  It was quipped that the siblings "looked nothing alike".  A third actress played Jane Bennet, Mr. Wickham and Lady Catherine de Bourgh.  A fourth actress had the most roles, taking on Mary Bennet, Lydia Bennet, Mr. Collins, the tedious priest and cousin of Mr. Bennet who would inherit the Bennet estate, as well as Mrs. Gardiner, the sister-in-law of Mr. Bennet.  The actress playing Elizabeth Bennet was only responsible for this one role within the main story since she was in almost every scene.  Poor Kitty Bennet was only referred to and not shown onstage at all.  Comically, Mr. Bennet was purported to be sitting an armchair facing away from the stage while reading a newspaper.  As scenes changed, “Mr. Bennet” along with his chair was pushed on and off the stage.  At one point, a servant lit a cigar for him, and smoke emanated from the front of the chair.

There were other examples of the play’s clever use of props to portray some of Pride and Prejudice’s plot points but in a humorous fashion.  With rain in the forecast, Mrs. Bennet forced Jane to ride a horse rather than take a carriage to visit Mr. Bingley, in hopes that she would be stranded due to bad weather and asked to stay longer.  Mrs. Bennet’s loud proclamation that “It’s time to mount Willie” (the horse) drew the expected laughs from the audience and then a large plastic horse was brought out which Jane needed a step ladder to climb up onto.  To simulate the rain that she encountered, Jane was sprayed with water from the servants’ water bottles.  Sitting in the fourth row of the theatre, we actually felt a bit of that spray.  In the scene where Elizabeth and her aunt Mrs. Gardiner visited Darcy’s Pemberley estate and viewed a life-sized portrait of him, two servants held up a giant empty picture frame in front of the actress playing Darcy in order to simulate the painting.  To reflect Lizzy’s confused emotions upon seeing Darcy’s image and not being able to take her eyes off it, every time she turned around, the portrait “moved” with her so that she was facing it again.  This happened a few times and on the last iteration, she turned to face Darcy himself as he had unexpectedly arrived a day early.  At this point, there was a sly reference to the 1995 BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice where Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy is infamously wearing a soaking wet, see-through shirt after swimming when he unexpectedly meets Elizabeth.  In the play, the servants hilariously asked why Darcy was not wet, which would be totally out of context if you did not understand the reference.

Despite the limited cast and the camp and silliness, Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort of) does an amazing job of hitting all the important plot points of the source material.  It does add a few anachronisms such as the metal step ladder for mounting the horse, the doc marten boots worn by the servants, the karaoke machine and wireless microphones, but they just add to the fun.  There was also some swearing (even by the ladies) thrown in for comic effect as well as a very funny recurring subplot where Lizzy’s friend Charlotte is actually gay and pines for Elizabeth while settling for marrying dull Mr. Collins.  Lizzy is totally oblivious to Charlotte’s feelings and misses all the subtext behind her words.  The servants had the last word and closed the show by singing a rousing rendition of  “Young Hearts Run Free” by Candi Staton.

This was one of the most enjoyable, entertaining and creative plays that we have watched in a long time.  We laughed, we cheered, and we bopped along to the tunes.  I wish that they would film a West End production like they do with so many other plays so that it will show up on a streaming service, since I would love the opportunity to watch it again.

Theatre 2023: 42nd Street

The musical play 42nd Street is an adaptation of the 1933 black and white movie of the same name, which in turn is based off of a similarly titled 1933 novel by Bradford Ropes.  Located in the heart of Manhattan’s entertainment district, 42nd Street has become synonymous with live theatre in New York City, especially at Times Square where it intersects with Broadway Avenue.  The book and the movie probably went a long way in cementing this connotation.

Bradford Rope’s story describes the backstage politics and power dynamics of Broadway in the roaring 20s.  He writes about chorus girls (and boys) subjected to casting couch tactics, the self-proclaimed “male gigolo and man-whore” Pat Denning who accepts money from various wealthy benefactors including the past-her-prime star Dorothy Brock, who herself has an elderly sugar-daddy Abner Dillon financing her latest show, mobsters for hire to separate Pat and Dorothy, the young male lead singer Billy Lawler whose influence over his gay director and lover Julian Marsh results in the firing of any perceived competition, and the fresh-faced but hardly naïve chorus girl Peggy Sawyer who juggles several suitors but ultimately prioritizes career advancement over love and marriage.  Much of the action revolves around the casting, rehearsal and performance of the Broadway show “Pretty Lady” which features tap dancing numbers that were extravaganzas in the vein of The Ziegfeld Follies.  To simulate the sound of the tapping on the page, Ropes would write “Ticka Tack Toe .. Ticka Tack Toe”.  This was not the best written book in terms of literary style or dialog but there were enough gems in the narrative to be mined to produce an Oscar nominated film that was the most profitable movie in 1933 and is now considered a classic.

While the movie version of 42nd Street takes some plot points and main characters from the book, it significantly bowdlerizes the seedier elements of Ropes’ novel, replacing them with traditional wholesome Hollywood tropes of the time.  The famous director Julian Marsh is still mounting the revue show “Pretty Lady”, but he is no longer gay.  Instead, he is ill, and this is likely his last show, making him desperate for it to be a success in order to financially secure his retirement.  The timeframe is moved to the early 1930s in the heart of the Great Depression in order to heighten the desperation of all involved for the show to be a hit.  As in the book, Dorothy Brock is still the star of the production,  which is financed by her rich, older benefactor Abner Dillon while secretly seeing her true love Pat Denning behind Abner’s back.  Marsh sends thugs to rough up Dennings to keep him away from Brock.  But in the movie, Denning is now an honorable man who is in love with Dorothy yet chafes against taking money from her and seeks to make it on his own.  The main narrative follows the old standard storyline where naïve but ultra-talented ingenue Peggy Sawyer is plucked out of the chorus line to become a star and save the show when Dorothy breaks her leg and cannot perform.  Billy Lawler is also no longer gay but now is Peggy’s supporter and love interest.

Although many taboo subjects from the book were eliminated, this movie was “pre-Hayes Code” so there were still some racy scenes that might not have been included a few decades later.  One of the experienced chorus girls named Ann Lowell is nicknamed “Anytime Annie”, about whom the male choreographer Andy Lee quips “She only said no once, and then she didn’t hear the question”.  As a prank on Peggy while she is looking for the casting director at the tryouts for Pretty Lady, Ann and some other showgirls send her into Billy Lawler’s dressing room where he is semi-clad in his underwear (in the requisite “meet-cute” scene).  During the tryouts, the women are called upon to lift their skirts so that the director can inspect their legs.  Director Julian Marsh is physically aggressive with Peggy, grabbing her repeatedly as he tries to whip her into shape to replace Dorothy on short notice.  At one point he even yanks her into a kiss to help her get in “the right mindset” for a love scene.   None of this would be acceptable in today’s “Me-Too” environment!  In another scene at Peggy’s rooming house, a woman in a negligee can be spotted in the background sneaking her lover out of her room.  It is interesting how much sexual inuendo was allowed in movies in the 1930s compared to the puritan decades of the 50s and 60s when you could not even show a married couple sharing a bed or use the word pregnancy.

The movie 42nd Street is deemed a musical, but there are only five songs, and they are only sung as part of rehearsals or performances of Pretty Lady.  There is no bursting into song with lyrics to advance the main plot.  Even the “show within a show” has no real plot but is rather a series of standalone numbers meant to showcase the tunes written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin including “Shuffling off to Buffalo” and the eponymous finale song “42nd Street”.  The main draw of the movie is the series of spectacular dance sequences choreographed by Busby Berkeley including a large cast of dancers creating kaleidoscope-like geometric patterns which he filmed from overhead and from below to create incredible images. Two memorable lines came out of this movie—“By tomorrow, I’ll either have a live leading lady or a dead chorus girl”, and “you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!”. Up and coming stars Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell starred as Peggy and Billy respectively and would go on to be paired in many more musicals including The Golddiggers of 1933 and Dames.  A young (pre-Fred Astaire pairing) Ginger Rogers plays the experienced chorus girl Ann Lowell who catches Abner’s eye after he dumps Dorothy and is first offered the starring role.  She turns it down saying that she did not have the chops to carry the show but suggests Peggy instead.  In light of the explosion in Rogers’ film and dance career shortly after, this statement seems so ironic.

As part of our 2023/2024 Mirvish subscription series, we watched a touring production of London West End’s latest revival of the live musical 42nd Street.  This show was first staged on Broadway in 1980, winning the Tony awards for Best Musical and best choreography for that year.  To expand the show into a full-fledged musical, in addition to using most of the songs from the 1933 movie, popular tunes from other movies of the time including other Keeler/Powell collaborations were added.  Songs including “We’re in the Money”, “Shadow Waltz”, “Dames” and “With Plenty of Money and You” were used to beef up the performances within Pretty Lady, although this show-within-a-show still has no real plot.  But now, more in the fashion of contemporary "book" musicals, songs are sung by the characters of 42nd Street to advance the main storyline.  When Dorothy feels like she is losing Pat, she sings the torch song “Only Have Eyes For You”, and when the cast goes on the road to Philadelphia for pre-Broadway tryouts, they sing “Getting Out of Town”.  In addition to more songs, changes to some of the characters and plot made the musical flow more cohesively than both the movie and the book.

Instead of two male producers for the show as in the book and movie, the musical has male and female producers, Bert and Maggie, who are also the songwriters and who act as comic relief both in 42nd Street and in Pretty Lady.  Peggy is portrayed as being much more naïve and forms relationships with Maggie and chorus girls Ann, Lorraine and Phyllis, who take her under their wings.  In the number “Go Into Your Dance”, Peggy impresses the others and proves her remarkable talent at tap dancing, which clarifies the later scene where Ann recommends Peggy for the lead to replace Dorothy.  In the movie, this came out of the blue and made no sense at all.   Another major plot change involves how and why Dorothy falls and breaks her leg.  In the movie, Dorothy trips in a drunken stupor and jealous rage as she assumes that her beloved Pat is two-timing her with Peggy.  In the musical, Peggy bumps into Dorothy during a number in Pretty Lady and causes her to fall.  This results in Dorothy demanding and Julian immediately firing Peggy.  To set up this scenario, Peggy is portrayed as being klutzy and always bumping  into people, which didn’t make sense to me since she is supposed to be such a gifted dancer.  The plot device is weak, but the firing sets up the big production number “Lullaby of Broadway” when Julian and the cast realize that they need Peggy to save the show and rush to the train station to convince her to return.

In the performance that we watched, two staircases that sat innocuously on either side of the stage during the rehearsal scenes are pushed together and with the help of some video magic, the Philadelphia Broad St. Station appears right before our eyes.  In general, the set design for this show was gorgeous with its Art Deco backdrops and the costumes worn during the Pretty Lady numbers were equally spectacular.  Add to that the stellar dance performances and what you get is a light-hearted, fun period musical whose sole purpose is to entertain, which was just what we needed to kick off the holiday season.

One small point of note is that being a touring road show, the cast of this production was significantly smaller than the West End revival that played in the Royal Drury Lane Theatre from 2017-2019 and which was filmed for streaming access in 2018.  While the Toronto version of the show only had 5 extra chorus girls and 8 chorus boys in the ensemble, the West End production had over 20 girls and 12 boys.  Their ensemble alone outnumbered the entire Toronto cast.  Thus by necessity, the dance numbers that we watched were on a much smaller scale than those of the original.  But the great choreography and talented performers in our show made their presence seem so large that we did not feel lacking.

It is interesting to compare Pretty Lady’s grand finale number 42^nd Street in the movie versus the musical.  In each case, it is a big production piece featuring Peggy and Billy singing the jazzy tune although in the movie, it is sung with a peppy cadence while in the musical, it is sung with more of a slow, sultry jazz rhythm (which I liked better!).  The song is meant to convey the atmosphere of the iconic street where you can “Hear the beat of dancing feet”, but also “where the underworld can meet the elite”.  Both the lyrics and the dance number show that it is not just all good times and song and dance on the street, but that there is a seedy, dangerous side as well.  In the movie version, in the middle of a dance sequence that features all types of people on the street, a woman is physically assaulted and murdered.  In the musical version, the shock factor of the scenario is toned down a bit as a purse snatcher is shot dead by the police.  The final words of the song sum it all up – “Naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty Forty-Second Street”.  Once again for this number, there are noticeably fewer people in the musical than the movie, and even fewer people in the touring production than the revival version.

The final scenes in both the movie and the musical focus on director Julian Marsh as opposed to the book which ends on the perspective of the newly minted star Peggy Sawyer. In the movie, Marsh stands alone outside the theatre and morosely listens as patrons walk by praising Peggy while diminishing Julian’s role in the show’s success. In the musical, after Peggy gently rebuffs Julian’s mild romantic overtures and leaves to attend a celebration party with the rest of the cast, he sings the final reprise of 42nd Street.  It feels like an eleven o’clock number and leads one to question who is intended to be the main protagonist of this musical—is it Peggy or Julian?  The question is further complicated in the final bows.  In the Toronto production that we watched, Peggy is clearly the star and gets the final bow while in the filmed West End version, it goes to the actors playing Julian and Dorothy who come out together.  Maybe this is just attributed to who were the bigger named actors in each version of the show, but it is still a bit perplexing what was the actual intention of the show creators.

Nonetheless, this was an enjoyable and visually stunning musical that left us happily humming and tapping our feet as we went home.  I always thought that it would be fun to learn to tap dance, and this just fueled my fantasy.