2022 Theater review
Jan. 15th, 2023 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI went back to live theater with a vengeance in 2022. I realize I didn’t actually write up reviews of any of it? So here you go, a 2022 theater retrospective. Granted, almost all of these shows have closed. So it’s of limited relevance. But still.
Company
I have historically not really liked this show. It is stitched together from a number of one-act plays on marriage in the seventies, with the character of Bobby as a common thread. Bobby is an immature bachelor in his thirties, who is observing his married friends as a way to meditate on his own willingness/unwillingness to marry. The problem is—in the original, Bobby is a creep. Like, seriously. He hangs out with his married friends but wants to bang all the wives. In a way that makes it clear he wants to step into a marriage without having done the work—like, he doesn’t just want to have sex with them, he wants to replace their husbands. I hate it. I know that dude and he sucks.
The revival on Broadway last year gender flipped Bobby to Bobbi, and gender flipped a number of the other couples, including making one a gay couple. To purists, they hated this as it made many things in the original show not work. I liked it—because those things in the original show were super squicky for me. So even if the moments don’t land anymore, it took the show out of creepy-ville and let me enjoy how genuinely funny it is.
Patti Lupone is amazing as always. I got the understudy to Bobbi, who was the weakest part of the show, but that seems to be a flaw of the role, not the actor. And my favorite performance of “Being Alive” remains the one in Marriage Story.
Six
This is more like a revue on a cruise ship than a full Broadway show. It’s 70 minutes long, high energy the whole time. If you’ve listened to the album—that’s the whole show. Which is a lot of fun. And kind of light for the normal cost of a Broadway ticket.
This is the story of Henry VIII’s six wives, reimagined as pop stars. It’s very baby’s first feminism. It also assumes a familiarity with the history, which I can tell you the audience did not have. I’m not sure how much you’ll learn if you don’t already know it. My fundamental problem is if you treat the divorces as modern break ups, you lose the actual reality these women were confined in. I mean—it’s very catchy, I love the music, and hopefully some fans will go read further. But I found it pretty trite.
The energy of the audience though—there were cosplayers. Everyone there was currently a teenaged girl or had once been one and was consuming it as such. It’s a good thing there was no intermission because the bathroom line would have been impossible.
Book of Mormon
I hated this.
I mean, what did I expect, really. This is very dead dove, do not eat. I hate South Park, so why did I go watch the show by the South Park creators?
Honestly, given how people talked about this, I thought this was one of those art works where someone who normally does one schtick elevates themselves, like Jim Carey in The Truman Show. I’d heard a lot of discussion of whether or not this is offensive to Mormons, with the general consensus being that it pokes fun, but even many Mormons enjoy it.
No one, no one had told me how fucking racist it is.
I mean. Holy shit.
The moment they found out the mission would be to Uganda I was like OH NO. And however bad I thought it would be, it was worse. (Yes, I get that this was satirizing Lion King’s portrayal of Africa. That does not make it better.)
As a note, my grandparents lived in Uganda when my mother was a teenager, so from family stories, Uganda is not “generic Africa-land” to me, it’s a specific place. So to see a show predicated on a giant pile of racist stereotypes about Africans was just repulsive.
Then you add to that that this is one of the few shows with a large Black cast on Broadway, and the audience is almost 100% white, due to ticket prices, and I spent the whole show in this uncomfortable state of watching Black actors play out terrible stereotypes to uproarious laughter from rich white people.
I hated it. This show is awful. Do not see it.
Beetlejuice
I saw this because of the social media buzz. It was in the Winter Garden before the pandemic and was going to close because of complicated behind the scenes drama. Then the pandemic robbed it of its closing night. Then, during the pandemic, it resurrected. I suspect it wouldn’t have been able to without it, given that the pandemic meant the cast wasn’t doing anything else for the time it took the producers to line up another theater.
I enjoyed it quite a lot. It bears only superficial resemblance to the movie, which we rewatched after seeing the show. I like the show more. It got me in the feels a couple times, though ultimately I felt that it was relatively insubstantial and had some structural issues. A fun time, but nothing to write home about.
The fandom though.
Like, there were so many cosplayers in the audience, and I went on a day it was pissing down rain. It was clear that for a certain set of weird teenagers, this was THE SHOW. I get it—I just acknowledge I’m not the target. And I also think you can love something in a way that makes you not see the gaps in the actual writing because you’ve got your head canon to fill those in. Especially if you came to it through the cast album and social media first—you’ve already built it up, so it doesn’t matter that certain things are unmotivated or not quite resolved in the show.
It's now closed again, but I’m sure it will tour forever.
Macbeth
What a disappointment this was. Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga, from the same director that did the Daniel Craig/David Oyelowo Othello that knocked my socks off a few years ago. The direction was just odd on this one. They made the weirdest choices. Like having the actor playing Duncan get up after being murdered, walk to the front of the stage, and then do the next monologue as the comic relief guardsman. Like—what? It ended with all the actors sitting on stage eating soup.
It very much felt like a high school production. Not in that the acting was bad, but in that it was clear that it was more for the people on stage than for the audience.
Music Man
I bought a ticket for this in January 2020 for February 2021. That date got delayed, then delayed again, then finally pushed to June 2022, meaning this was the longest stretch ever between me purchasing a ticket and seeing a show. As we waited to get in, the usher said, “Have your three-year-old tickets out and ready!”
There was a time in that stretch where I thought live theater was over forever. I sure as heck didn’t expect this production to happen. And the whole audience had that energy—I heard people talking to their seat neighbors about how they first meant to see this with a friend that has since moved to Florida. (And note—that meant people were talking to random strangers sitting near them, which does not usually happen.)
Music Man is always a fun show. There’s a reason every high school does it—it has so many different parts that have a moment to shine. Some of its lyrics are also goddam opaque. Like Trouble? If you hadn’t heard it before it’s awfully hard to follow (“some stuck up jockey boy sitting on Dan Patch”? I mean), but for a certain type of theater kid, this is memorized like catechism.
Hugh Jackman is a double threat. I don’t mean that to be mean, but his singing voice ain’t great. That’s fine, though. He was a load of fun to watch. Marian, Madam Librarian was a highlight. I hadn’t seen Sutton Foster before, and she was amazing. They also rewrote the lyrics for Shipoopie, which took it from DEAR GOD WHY to completely forgettable, which I call a win.
Seven Sins
This was a Company XIV production, another one I’d had tickets to from the before times. Every time I see Company XIV, I love it. It’s a schlep to get out to Bushwick, but I never regret it. (Company XIV is baroque burlesque—a combination of burlesque, ballet, and circus, with a very specific aesthetic. If you’re in New York, check it out.)
Into the Woods
Into the Woods was one of the shows where one version is so burned into my brain it’s hard for me to enjoy other productions. In this case, the original cast recording and the video of the original run. I saw the revival back in 2002, and it was totally underwhelming.
This one was solid enough that the difference from my expectation just meant I could see it fresh. The puppeteer for Milky White was a particular highlight. I assumed that most of the audience already knew it, but from the gasp at a certain point in Act II, clearly there were a lot of people seeing it for the first time.
I started crying early in Act II and just kept crying through to the end. Like, ugly crying. Not dainty. And I had a mask on, so when we left the theater it was just a horror show under there.
Little Shop of Horrors
I’d only seen this staged in college before. This was a load of fun, and definitely needs the small theater to work. Christian Borle as the dentist (and assorted other characters) absolutely made it. He can make a meal out of stepping down a step.
We had the understudies for Audrey and Seymour, and that kind of showed. Audrey was…fine. But the power I expect in her ballads just wasn’t there.
The audience had a surprising number of elementary school-age kids. This is not really a kid-friendly show. I mean, yes, the comedy is very broad, but “horrors” is right in the title. At the end of Act II, where Audrey is being tempted into the shop by Audrey II, a little girl behind me whispered, “Mommy, I’m scared.” And I was like—oh honey. If you’re scared now, just wait.
The one moment that did not work for me was the death of the dentist. This happens (spoiler!) by suffocation. Borle drew this out for what felt like ten minutes—just absolutely writhing around the stage and making what I can only describe as turkey gobbling sounds. Problem is, this reminded me of someone else who took a long time to suffocate, and the moment that thought crosses your mind, that’s it. It’s not funny anymore.
1776
Oh man did this not work. Not at all.
The entire cast of this was women or trans individuals, and many of them non-white. The problem is, that casting didn’t then change much of anything? Like, they played it pretty straight. And there were moments where the text begged a question that the play did nothing with. Like a black woman as Ben Franklin saying that he will not accept the title of British citizen without any of its rights, which evokes a direct parallel to Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” But that moment just passes by.
At other times, the cast turns to the audience in direct appeals that fall completely flat. During “The Egg,” there is a giant montage of protest imagery that’s like, what. Am I supposed to feel something about America because of this? What point are you making?
They rearranged every single piece, and the arrangements are confused. I spent most of it going—why did you make that choice? You’ve murdered the line! Why are you breaking it up that way? What is going on?
In reading interviews with the directors, there are all sorts of touches they put in that don’t read to the audience. Like “Momma Look Sharp” is all sung marcato, and this is apparently done to evoke George Floyd. I can tell you, that did not come across. It just sounded like they were singing it wrong. Or there was a moment where someone came onstage and brushed Jefferson’s shoulders. This was meant to be a slave, specifically Hemmings’ brother. How exactly was I supposed to know that?
Then there’s this bit of total self-destruction from the cast.
Look, I respect trying to make something new out of something old, but this was pretty much an unmitigated failure.
Great Expectations – Eddie Izzard
Eddie Izzard doing a one-person performance of Great Expectations. All of it. The main problem here was that the audiobook of this that Izzard did is 20 hours and this performance was 90 minutes, so it was more watching in awe as Izzard kept running around the stage in heels than being immersed in the story. Dickens is a snarky bastard, though, and Izzard brought all of that out. Will definitely check out the audiobook.
Company
I have historically not really liked this show. It is stitched together from a number of one-act plays on marriage in the seventies, with the character of Bobby as a common thread. Bobby is an immature bachelor in his thirties, who is observing his married friends as a way to meditate on his own willingness/unwillingness to marry. The problem is—in the original, Bobby is a creep. Like, seriously. He hangs out with his married friends but wants to bang all the wives. In a way that makes it clear he wants to step into a marriage without having done the work—like, he doesn’t just want to have sex with them, he wants to replace their husbands. I hate it. I know that dude and he sucks.
The revival on Broadway last year gender flipped Bobby to Bobbi, and gender flipped a number of the other couples, including making one a gay couple. To purists, they hated this as it made many things in the original show not work. I liked it—because those things in the original show were super squicky for me. So even if the moments don’t land anymore, it took the show out of creepy-ville and let me enjoy how genuinely funny it is.
Patti Lupone is amazing as always. I got the understudy to Bobbi, who was the weakest part of the show, but that seems to be a flaw of the role, not the actor. And my favorite performance of “Being Alive” remains the one in Marriage Story.
Six
This is more like a revue on a cruise ship than a full Broadway show. It’s 70 minutes long, high energy the whole time. If you’ve listened to the album—that’s the whole show. Which is a lot of fun. And kind of light for the normal cost of a Broadway ticket.
This is the story of Henry VIII’s six wives, reimagined as pop stars. It’s very baby’s first feminism. It also assumes a familiarity with the history, which I can tell you the audience did not have. I’m not sure how much you’ll learn if you don’t already know it. My fundamental problem is if you treat the divorces as modern break ups, you lose the actual reality these women were confined in. I mean—it’s very catchy, I love the music, and hopefully some fans will go read further. But I found it pretty trite.
The energy of the audience though—there were cosplayers. Everyone there was currently a teenaged girl or had once been one and was consuming it as such. It’s a good thing there was no intermission because the bathroom line would have been impossible.
Book of Mormon
I hated this.
I mean, what did I expect, really. This is very dead dove, do not eat. I hate South Park, so why did I go watch the show by the South Park creators?
Honestly, given how people talked about this, I thought this was one of those art works where someone who normally does one schtick elevates themselves, like Jim Carey in The Truman Show. I’d heard a lot of discussion of whether or not this is offensive to Mormons, with the general consensus being that it pokes fun, but even many Mormons enjoy it.
No one, no one had told me how fucking racist it is.
I mean. Holy shit.
The moment they found out the mission would be to Uganda I was like OH NO. And however bad I thought it would be, it was worse. (Yes, I get that this was satirizing Lion King’s portrayal of Africa. That does not make it better.)
As a note, my grandparents lived in Uganda when my mother was a teenager, so from family stories, Uganda is not “generic Africa-land” to me, it’s a specific place. So to see a show predicated on a giant pile of racist stereotypes about Africans was just repulsive.
Then you add to that that this is one of the few shows with a large Black cast on Broadway, and the audience is almost 100% white, due to ticket prices, and I spent the whole show in this uncomfortable state of watching Black actors play out terrible stereotypes to uproarious laughter from rich white people.
I hated it. This show is awful. Do not see it.
Beetlejuice
I saw this because of the social media buzz. It was in the Winter Garden before the pandemic and was going to close because of complicated behind the scenes drama. Then the pandemic robbed it of its closing night. Then, during the pandemic, it resurrected. I suspect it wouldn’t have been able to without it, given that the pandemic meant the cast wasn’t doing anything else for the time it took the producers to line up another theater.
I enjoyed it quite a lot. It bears only superficial resemblance to the movie, which we rewatched after seeing the show. I like the show more. It got me in the feels a couple times, though ultimately I felt that it was relatively insubstantial and had some structural issues. A fun time, but nothing to write home about.
The fandom though.
Like, there were so many cosplayers in the audience, and I went on a day it was pissing down rain. It was clear that for a certain set of weird teenagers, this was THE SHOW. I get it—I just acknowledge I’m not the target. And I also think you can love something in a way that makes you not see the gaps in the actual writing because you’ve got your head canon to fill those in. Especially if you came to it through the cast album and social media first—you’ve already built it up, so it doesn’t matter that certain things are unmotivated or not quite resolved in the show.
It's now closed again, but I’m sure it will tour forever.
Macbeth
What a disappointment this was. Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga, from the same director that did the Daniel Craig/David Oyelowo Othello that knocked my socks off a few years ago. The direction was just odd on this one. They made the weirdest choices. Like having the actor playing Duncan get up after being murdered, walk to the front of the stage, and then do the next monologue as the comic relief guardsman. Like—what? It ended with all the actors sitting on stage eating soup.
It very much felt like a high school production. Not in that the acting was bad, but in that it was clear that it was more for the people on stage than for the audience.
Music Man
I bought a ticket for this in January 2020 for February 2021. That date got delayed, then delayed again, then finally pushed to June 2022, meaning this was the longest stretch ever between me purchasing a ticket and seeing a show. As we waited to get in, the usher said, “Have your three-year-old tickets out and ready!”
There was a time in that stretch where I thought live theater was over forever. I sure as heck didn’t expect this production to happen. And the whole audience had that energy—I heard people talking to their seat neighbors about how they first meant to see this with a friend that has since moved to Florida. (And note—that meant people were talking to random strangers sitting near them, which does not usually happen.)
Music Man is always a fun show. There’s a reason every high school does it—it has so many different parts that have a moment to shine. Some of its lyrics are also goddam opaque. Like Trouble? If you hadn’t heard it before it’s awfully hard to follow (“some stuck up jockey boy sitting on Dan Patch”? I mean), but for a certain type of theater kid, this is memorized like catechism.
Hugh Jackman is a double threat. I don’t mean that to be mean, but his singing voice ain’t great. That’s fine, though. He was a load of fun to watch. Marian, Madam Librarian was a highlight. I hadn’t seen Sutton Foster before, and she was amazing. They also rewrote the lyrics for Shipoopie, which took it from DEAR GOD WHY to completely forgettable, which I call a win.
Seven Sins
This was a Company XIV production, another one I’d had tickets to from the before times. Every time I see Company XIV, I love it. It’s a schlep to get out to Bushwick, but I never regret it. (Company XIV is baroque burlesque—a combination of burlesque, ballet, and circus, with a very specific aesthetic. If you’re in New York, check it out.)
Into the Woods
Into the Woods was one of the shows where one version is so burned into my brain it’s hard for me to enjoy other productions. In this case, the original cast recording and the video of the original run. I saw the revival back in 2002, and it was totally underwhelming.
This one was solid enough that the difference from my expectation just meant I could see it fresh. The puppeteer for Milky White was a particular highlight. I assumed that most of the audience already knew it, but from the gasp at a certain point in Act II, clearly there were a lot of people seeing it for the first time.
I started crying early in Act II and just kept crying through to the end. Like, ugly crying. Not dainty. And I had a mask on, so when we left the theater it was just a horror show under there.
Little Shop of Horrors
I’d only seen this staged in college before. This was a load of fun, and definitely needs the small theater to work. Christian Borle as the dentist (and assorted other characters) absolutely made it. He can make a meal out of stepping down a step.
We had the understudies for Audrey and Seymour, and that kind of showed. Audrey was…fine. But the power I expect in her ballads just wasn’t there.
The audience had a surprising number of elementary school-age kids. This is not really a kid-friendly show. I mean, yes, the comedy is very broad, but “horrors” is right in the title. At the end of Act II, where Audrey is being tempted into the shop by Audrey II, a little girl behind me whispered, “Mommy, I’m scared.” And I was like—oh honey. If you’re scared now, just wait.
The one moment that did not work for me was the death of the dentist. This happens (spoiler!) by suffocation. Borle drew this out for what felt like ten minutes—just absolutely writhing around the stage and making what I can only describe as turkey gobbling sounds. Problem is, this reminded me of someone else who took a long time to suffocate, and the moment that thought crosses your mind, that’s it. It’s not funny anymore.
1776
Oh man did this not work. Not at all.
The entire cast of this was women or trans individuals, and many of them non-white. The problem is, that casting didn’t then change much of anything? Like, they played it pretty straight. And there were moments where the text begged a question that the play did nothing with. Like a black woman as Ben Franklin saying that he will not accept the title of British citizen without any of its rights, which evokes a direct parallel to Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” But that moment just passes by.
At other times, the cast turns to the audience in direct appeals that fall completely flat. During “The Egg,” there is a giant montage of protest imagery that’s like, what. Am I supposed to feel something about America because of this? What point are you making?
They rearranged every single piece, and the arrangements are confused. I spent most of it going—why did you make that choice? You’ve murdered the line! Why are you breaking it up that way? What is going on?
In reading interviews with the directors, there are all sorts of touches they put in that don’t read to the audience. Like “Momma Look Sharp” is all sung marcato, and this is apparently done to evoke George Floyd. I can tell you, that did not come across. It just sounded like they were singing it wrong. Or there was a moment where someone came onstage and brushed Jefferson’s shoulders. This was meant to be a slave, specifically Hemmings’ brother. How exactly was I supposed to know that?
Then there’s this bit of total self-destruction from the cast.
Look, I respect trying to make something new out of something old, but this was pretty much an unmitigated failure.
Great Expectations – Eddie Izzard
Eddie Izzard doing a one-person performance of Great Expectations. All of it. The main problem here was that the audiobook of this that Izzard did is 20 hours and this performance was 90 minutes, so it was more watching in awe as Izzard kept running around the stage in heels than being immersed in the story. Dickens is a snarky bastard, though, and Izzard brought all of that out. Will definitely check out the audiobook.