Welcome to episode three of Crappy/Spectacular. This week we’re live in living color from The Mick’s bed. (No, but really.)
Topics covered include: Newsies’ first Preview on the Broadway, the Mike Daisey/This American Life debacle, and Dee Snider’s impending album of Broadway tunes.
Even though music was the heart and soul of the 2006 movie Once, and even in a sea of musical remakes of popular films, the idea of turning Once into a musical didn’t immediately seem like a sure thing. Suffused with sadness, the film is deeply introspective and subdued. Its music, though powerful, isn’t redolent with horns. It doesn’t roar or lend itself to any kind of tap number, either. It just grabs hold of your heart stealthily and like a vice, squeezes until it is nearly broken in two.
Which, not incidentally, is exactly what the stage musical version of Once is doing at the Jacobs Theater, where it has made an absolutely beautiful transition from screen to stage. With a handful of small but important changes, the creative team behind Once have stayed true to the spirit and intentions of the original film while turning up the volume for the Broadway stage. While changes to Girl’s character are occasionally difficult to swallow—there are moments where she feels more like a chipper cipher for wisdom and adage than a real woman—changes to the cast of supporting characters feel much more natural. In fact, their new voices—and the brighter, more vivid and varied tapestry they create around Guy and Girl—are a large part of why the musical is so successful.
Enda Walsh’s book deserves a lot of credit for that. After all, it’s his dialogue which creates those voices and, with his deft use of slang and colloquialism, even goes a long way to helping the actors create—and cover for lapses in—their accents. Those accents are, by the way, very good but not quite perfect. The actors occasionally slip into Liverpudlian British, or fakey sounding nonsense. Though the performances are so strong this is forgivable and, to be fair, I’m probably as harsh a critic of Irish accents as you’ll find outside Ireland.
Speaking of performances. Steve Kazee is killing it on that stage. People can debate whether or not he’s too handsome for the character of Guy ‘til kingdom come. (Though it seems Brantley, at least, has changed his mind on the matter.) I’d rather focus on the fact that no matter what he looks like, Kazee is giving a sensitive, layered, haunting performance. His costar Cristin Milioti is working hard to find the subtlety and humanity in a character that occasionally becomes a trope, and she’s succeeding. And together, Milioti and Kazee bring wonderful chemistry to the central relationship that drives Once. The shifting emotions and dramatic tension in the climactic recording studio scene between Guy and Girl literally took my breath away.
Still, Once’s chief strength remains its music. Wonderfully re-imagined for the stage with orchestrations by Martin Lowe, it’s performed by the talented cast of actors who also double as the show’s musicians. And as singer-songwriter Guy, Steve Kazee’s voice—running the gamut from playful to aching to sexy and back—reveals the texture and color and most importantly, the heart, in Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova’s music and lyrics. In a universe where the characters are unable to fully communicate through words alone, the music says everything they cannot—it is the place they connect, the place they understand each other best, the place they ultimately part. This was true of the film, and it remains true in the stage version. The music, here, is everything.
John Tiffany’s direction and Steven Hoggett’s movement (read: scaled back choreography) together emphasize and enliven the quiet ache in Once’s beautiful, tightly focused story of a love-that-wasn’t. Allowing the musical to be moody and quiet, to smolder instead of blaze, is perhaps the bravest decision the creative team made. It pays off. Not only because this allows the musical to remain true to its cinematic origins but also because it has made Once one of the most unique and compelling shows on Broadway today. Through its subtlety, Once set itself apart in my heart and mind as one of the most exciting pieces of musical theater I’ve had the privilege of seeing. Unexpected, right?
Additional Reading: A Handful of Things I Loved About Once, Before It Moves to the Broadway
Photo: Joan Marcus
You’ll see it in the faces of the uninitiated—people who are too young or too old, or people who just didn’t get the film, or have never seen it. Mention the word Newsies to them and they will be fully baffled. And then try to explain it: It’s a musical about newsboys.
The idea is unintuitive, and the movie is (mostly) bad. So why are we still talking about this? Why has a 1992 box office flop become the most unlikely of things – a bona fide cultural touchstone?
Here’s why: Newsies is the phenomenon that the fangirls built. A cult smash from almost the minute it existed, its popularity grew with the internet – with the advent of message boards and fan tributes and password-locked slash fiction penned by 14 year olds. With easy-access, downloadable media, and whole generations of kids who watched nothing but The Disney Channel between the ages of 5 and 10.
Newsies is not just a thing. It’s a whole kind of thing. What you’re about to read didn’t start as an essay, but as an act of memory. It’s about stuff that I remember, that I stayed up late on Saturday night to record on VHS. Because I was that kid, and because so were you: Musicals-obsessed, riveted by anything with singing and period costumes. Hypnotized by 17-year-old Christian Bale.
This is what you know, and have always known, about Newsies. You just needed to be reminded somewhere to remember it.
Click on the doodle below to read more. Or just keep scrolling forever (less fun!). And feel free to add your own random thoughts, non sequitur memories, and half-remembered Newsies-related flashbacks in the comments.
Hunter Parrish wants you to come see Godspell. Or at least, we’re pretty sure that’s what his beautiful blue eyes are telling us in this lovely little picture. (It’s either that or “Hey girl, look at my smile, I want to take you on a charming and innocent first date. You wear your bobby socks, I’ll buy the milkshakes.”)
And because when the handsome, dashing, emotive Hunter Parrish wants something he usually gets it, we’re here to hook you up with a pair of tickets to see the show. For free!
All you’ve got to do is follow @thecraptacular on the Twitter, and Tweet the following message:
Oh My #JesusParrish, @thecraptacular is giving away a pair of tickets to @BwayGodspell. RT and Follow to win!
We’ll pick a winner first thing tomorrow morning, so get tweeting!
Maybe if you’re really blessed, you’ll be able to snag a seat at next Tuesday’s show, when Jesus Parrish himself is doing a post-show talkback. We’ll be there with bells on, so if you’re really lucky you can probably say hi to us too.
EDIT: DING DING DING, WE HAVE A WINNER! Everyone congratulate @wheezeface, who snagged the tix.
And keep your eyes peeled. We’ll have more giveaways in the not-so-distant future!
Photo: Tumblr
What’s up, guys? It’s Saturday, so get out and see some theater. And if you can’t, you should spend at least several hours pointlessly browsing the internet reading things about theater. Reading this, thankfully, will only require a couple of minutes, so you can move on to hot photos of Josh Young, intense message board debates over whether Ricky Martin will be nominated as Lead Actor or Supporting, and how the hell you pronounce Steve Kazee’s last name…
It’s been a big year for Jay Armstrong Johnson. He was the Frank Abagnale Jr. alternate in Catch Me If You Can, performed in the world premiere of Dustin Lance Black’s 8 alongside stars like Ellen Barkin and Morgan Freeman, and starred in the buzz-y off-Broadway show Wild Animals You Should Know. He’s currently starring in Ryan Scott Oliver’s 35MM, which just extended its run at Galapagos Art Space. We caught the show this week and chatted with Jay about meeting Ryan, starring in the most famous college production of Floyd Collins of all time and, of course, his first Broadway crush.
M: How did you first connect with Ryan?
J: I met Ryan when I auditioned for him in my junior year of college. He was brought in as a composer for the new work slot at NYU Steinhardt, and I wanted the role so badly, but my director wanted me for Floyd Collins. I didn’t end up doing that show—Alive at Ten—but he had me do a demo recording of it. Ever since, he’s used me in most of his stuff, and here I am — the luckiest guy in the world to be workshopping a show by one of the most brilliant composers of our generation.
M: So, 35MM is a series of songs based on photographs. If you had to write a song inspired by a photograph from your life, what photo would you pick?
J: I’d probably pick this really incredible photo that I took the summer before I went away to college with my best friends in the entire world. I’m wearing khaki cargo shorts on with flip flops and a wife-beater, because I’d just gotten out of dance class. And it’s just me and five or six of my friends standing in the middle of the street essentially hugging each other.
M: I went to NYU too, so I’m curious… Why NYU?
J: I went to a performing arts high school in Texas and I was a dance major. So I wanted to go to a school where I could get a really strong basis in vocal technique. It’s the only place I applied. So if I didn’t get in, I was just going to go to New York and say ‘screw it’ and live there. Thank god I got in!
M: Can you tell us about Floyd Collins? The production you mentioned earlier is pretty legendary. The whole thing is on YouTube.
J: It’s my favorite theatrical experience ever. I never thought that doing a piece of theater where I had to sit in one place for two and a half hours would be so rewarding. But coming from a dance background, to only act with my mind and my voice was something that I had never really explored before. I think it helped me grow immensely as an actor. I miss it a lot. And I want it to be revived one day and I want to play it on a larger scale.
M: If you could only dance or sing for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
J: Singing. There’s something so cathartic about it. Dance is an incredible art form, of course, but I’ve been singing since I could talk. I didn’t start dancing till I was like, 16 years old…
M: Did you burst out of the womb singing?
J: Probably! I’d have to ask my mom about that, but we were a pretty musical family. My dad played the drums and my mom and my aunt were always singing and harmonizing.
M: What’s your favorite pop song to sing along with right now?
J: “Not Over You” by Gavin Degraw. That’s on repeat over and over on my iPod right now.
M: What’s up next for you?
J: I’m going out to the La Jolla Playhouse to do Hands on a Hardbody. Allison Case is playing my love interest and I believe that Hunter Foster is playing the lead. It’s about a car dealership that gives away a pickup truck every single year. If you get chosen to be in the contest, you have to keep your hands on the truck and the last one standing wins. It’s kind of like A Chorus Line, except instead of dancers wanting to get into a Broadway show, it’s a bunch of hicks wanting to win a pickup truck.
M: Most important question: Who was your first-ever Broadway crush?
J: Sutton Foster. I was fifteen and I saw Thoroughly Modern Millie—it was my very first Broadway show, and my first time in New York City, and I thought she was the most immaculate thing I’d ever seen on stage in my life.
Photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia
When was the last time you saw a show where people started freaking out at each other as soon as the lights came up? And I mean shouting in anger – not in rapture – about what they just saw.
This happened to us at a recent film screening of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies at the mammoth AMC movie theater on 42nd Street. (The last of these screenings happens tomorrow night in theaters across the US.) The screening ended, there were a few moments of prolonged Phantom-ly darkness, and then the lights came up and everyone started yelling.
“You ruined the whole thing!” shouted one guy, across ten rows and an aisle, to the women in front of us.
“You should have just left!” came another terse comment from the back.
This continued for a solid five minutes after the film ended. The first guy was particularly indignant. “That’s operatic style!” he moaned. “Ruined by these people from New Jersey.”
He was not just referring to a group of women sitting in front of us specifically, but to entire sections of the theater. Because during the two-hour screening – a recorded version of the show’s recent production in Australia – entire swaths of the theater were laughing. And I mean laughing at the film, not with it.
But I don’t think those women disliked the show. In fact, I think they had a wonderful time – as we did – and would welcome the chance to see Love Never Dies again. So what gives? Why is this show so much fun to hate? Maybe because the hatred is fond in its intentions, sentimental in its regard for Lloyd Webber and his work, and utterly deserved.
And maybe it’s because this is the rarest of rare theatrical gems: a truly camp musical.
Granted, I don’t think Andrew Lloyd Webber sees the show that way. In a series of pre-show interview clips, the venerable composer describes Love Never Dies as basically the best thing he’s ever written, and maybe the best musical of all time. So we’re talking about total disconnect between artistic intention and audience reception, here.
Oh dear.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to The Phantom of the Opera is only a couple of years old, but it’s already had several lives – a poorly-reviewed London production, a fully revamped version of that same production, and then the Sydney staging. Despite bad reviews, Lloyd Webber seems determined that the show should continue; rumors of a Broadway production are still swirling.
In Love Never Dies, we meet the Phantom ten years after the original story ends, after he’s left France for America and is doing business on the Coney Island boardwalk as Mr. Y, a mysterious impresario. Christine, his former love, is now married to an alcoholic, down-and-out Raoul, and has a young son. When Mr. Y tricks Christine into coming to America to make her American singing debut, there is – naturally – a fraught reunion that puts Christine’s marriage in jeopardy and throws her son’s paternity into question.
Having seen the original version in London in 2010 and now the Australian version on film, I thought it was delicious trash. The premise itself – that the Phantom, formerly a menacing murderer, is now a sensitive romantic hero and an eager dad – is nutty enough. But the style of the show, in both incarnations, is so overwrought that it’s impossible to take it completely seriously. In the current film version, Ben Lewis, as the Phantom, plays most of the show in a cartoonish, agonized grimace while Christine, a catatonic Anna O’Byrne, stares straight ahead in a series of feathered, bedeazzled dresses that would make Big Bird jealous. Meg Giry is now a low-rent dancer on the boardwalk, and an alto. Raoul has been transformed from a dashing young vicomte to a mustache-twirling supervillain.
And yet, despite its obvious flaws – its cheesy ballads and failing attempts at creepiness – there is something thrilling about this Phantom, something that is much bigger than the show itself. Because it’s impossible to deny: Love Never Dies is hugely, unabashedly fun, and funny. It’s so funny that I even wondered if the London production was intentionally so, if maybe Jack O’Brien Jerry Mitchell – the show’s original creators, who’ve since left – were hip enough to understand that the show’s strength was in its absurdity.
In one scene, Christine must choose between the Phantom and Raoul, as she does in the original show. In this moment, the audience is asked to believe that the best this beautiful, talented, grown woman can do is a callow, abusive drunk and a disfigured former-murderer. But the whole circumstance, despite the sweeping strings, is so banal at its core. It’s the boring choice that real people make every day between things that just aren’t that exciting, but circumstance forces the choice. Go to work or have a depressing day at home? The construction worker or the accountant? The dirty jeans or the slightly less dirty jeans? Life with the Phantom or life with Raoul?
This silliness plays like a scene from any of the Housewives reality shows. Love Never Dies, after all, banks on more or less the same principles as those shows – opulent costumes, a lot of overplayed yet ultimately insignificant interpersonal drama, and the total absence of any nuanced thought or human feeling. The guy in front of us was mad that other people were laughing, but maybe it’s escaped him that this type of entertainment is more or less the sum total of what people laugh at these days.
And in a weird way, Love Never Dies seems to represent a kind of fruition for the Phantom. It won accolades and awards in its time, but the original show is unabashedly melodramatic and excessive, like the decade that surrounded it. Not even Sir Andrew himself would quibble with that. I can hardly be a surprise that Love Never Dies turns things up to eleven. It would be a disappointment if it didn’t.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Love Never Dies on Broadway. I’d probably see it more than once. Throw in dreamy, big-singing Ramin Karimloo as the Phantom and I’d see it a lot more than once. Because not everything has to be Sondheim or Guettel, and this show is more fun than anything they’ve ever written anyway. And hey, maybe Kim Kardashian will be available to play Christine.
The milestone birthdays of great theater composers are often heralded with tribute concerts and revivals. People give achievement awards and make speeches. It’s a good time.
So naturally, the Phantom of the Opera, as a composer himself, wants a piece of that action. His big bash — the 25th Anniversary Concert, which was recorded in London last year on the actual anniversary — aired in the US for the first time last night.
Here at The Craptacular, we love the Phantom. We love him because, as persons of a certain age, we associate him with our earliest experiences of theater. And because we love his continuing superstardom in the face of changing theater trends. And because we’ve never been able to answer this burning question: If the Phantom is such a magician and a genius inventor, and such a fan of creepy dolls, why can’t he just fix his face?
In an attempt to answer that question – and many others you undoubtedly have – here’s a roundup of stuff we’ve written lately about our favorite birthday boy – the OG himself. And some extras about his friends and associates.
It’s Saturday. It’s 3:30. You’ve missed the matinee but you think you’ll probably make the evening show, if you can get yourself out of your pajamas at some point. Here’s what’s happening right now in theater. Or sort-of happening, as it were…
Two things happen every single time we see Andy Mientus in anything.
He’s seriously the most compelling young Broadway actor we can even think of. Which is amazing, because by our calculation, he’s never actually set foot on the Broadway stage. We’ve seen him in a NYMF musical, cabaret shows, and the about-to-open off-Broadway revival of Carrie, yet never on the Great White Way.
Well, we’re telling you now, the countdown is on. This kid is going to be a star.
Because he’s cute as hell. Like that quiet, smart boy in your algebra class whose hand you wanted so badly to hold forever. And he’s got IT—you know, that thing that makes it impossible to take your eyes off of him, that makes you feel like you’re the only person in the room when his eyes are on you. And he can sing like a motherfucker. And he gives off this amazing air of certainty. Like you should trust him, like he’s the only person anywhere who knows what’s going on and what to do next. Plus, have we mentioned he’s cute as hell? Because he’s swoon-worthy, giggle-inducing good looking and that shit is important in the theater. Just ask Patrick Wilson.
So keep an eye out. And maybe go see Carrie, you know, so in five minutes when he’s super famous you can be that snob who says you “knew him when…”
