Last night was a big night. 

I probably should clear the elephant out of the living room: of course last night was the night the USA elected Obama. 

CNN was broadcasting live from Times Square, and the night, though hazy, was dry and not at all cold. We met the crowd there when we came out of the theatre at something to eleven. Here is what we saw:

Times Square, 10:55 p.m., 4th November 2008

Philip’s photos are better, I’m sure; he’s taller and he got the pictures from closer (I had to take mine from afar, before I was swallowed in the crowd). Maybe he’ll post them soon.

But before that, we spent over three hours in a theatre watching what might just be the hottest play on Broadway right now: Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County. Now we went in full awareness of the rave reviews the play got, but just how much can you expect from a three-act play set in the middle of Oklahoma? 

A whole doggone lot, so it turns out. We didn’t feel the time at all, not even with the two intermissions and the three acts. What a play.

What a night.

Well, we’re here again for a week of theatre and food.

Got in on Sunday via Delta, and are staying in a luxury apartment building, the Zebra, on 42nd and 9th — well, close enough to 9th to be called 9th. Found the place on Criaigs list. The entrance to our building is between two theatres, which is pretty cool. When we arrived the air was chilly, and there was a breeze, which was a little disheartening (though we did come equipped for cold). But hey. It’s November.

The view for our window

Our first outing was dinner at a bistro called Chez Josephine, which is basically next door to our building, and which was named for Josephine Baker. Very pleasant. We followed that up with a food tour of Chinatown yesterday, which was offered by the same company who did the food tour of the Village that we went on last year, in which we sampled incredible dumplings, very nice (and authentic!) Peking Duck, and a range of stand-up tastings that included tea, beef jerky, and scallion pancakes, among other things.

Where we started in Chinatown - Chatham Square

On the route - Meat getting ready to be served

Doyer Street - a crooked street in more ways than one

Just before the end - our guide, Raheem, and the teapots

And then last night we went to see the Tony-award winning musical from this year, In the Heights.

Well, what can I say? The musical was not disappointing because we had no real expectations, but it wasn’t earth-shattering either. It was competent. It showed its various inspirations — among them Rent and the short-lived Brooklyn and even in places a bit of Avenue Q – and it had a story and characters one could afford to like, and songs one could sing and remember, but what it lacked was real conflict, conflict that made us care. What happened in the end was never something that really mattered. Maybe that was because everybody was too nice. Maybe it was because things didn’t push far enough. The catalyzing moments were external — a black-out, a death — which didn’t leave a whole lot of room for character development. But the production was fabulous, as Broadway productions tend to be, with multi-level set pieces and scrims that allowed for different moods, and one of New York’s famous bridges as a backdrop (I’m not going to say which because I get them mixed up) and great lights and a live orchestra and a whole range of musical influences.

Enjoyable? Yes. Earth-shattering/life-changing? No. Worth spending money on? Yes, at a bargain price. But if you have only the choice of full-price tickets, then find another show.

We’re back again!

This time we’re not alone. We made this trip with Gavin and Carrie Collins, which makes it a little different and definitely more interesting.

We got here on Saturday, and have so far seen four shows. In order: Mauritius, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Young Frankenstein, and Gone Missing. But that’s not all. We’ve also been doing some good eating and we even took a tour. So the rest (including the restaurants):

Saturday: Perilla
Sunday brunch: Mesa Grill
Sunday night: Gordon Ramsay at the London
Monday: All-day Grey Line tour of NYC
Monday night: A. J. Maxwell Steakhouse
Tuesday: Ali’s Kebab Cafe in Astoria
Tuesday night: Prune

I’ll We’ll provide more details later. We have another close encounter with midday food in an hour or so.

I have just about completed my trip to New York, which would be classified as a short trip, with two and a half days in the city and four Broadway shows. It was also a solo trip as Nico is Montreal visiting JEB (Jaxon Elijah Bethel) and his parents.

On this trip I was somehow reminded of the review scale of the San Francisco Chronicle where one of five possible photographs would be shown to indicate how enthusiastic that paper’s critic was about the show that he had seen or how disappointed he was of that night’s offering.

Here are the five possible ratings:

The highest would be a man (the critic) suspended in mid air hovering over a chair out of which he had just jumped and he would be clapping energetically. That rating would indicate that the show was brilliant and had no flaws. On another rating scale it would be considered a 4 out of 4 or a 100%.

The second rating was the critic sitting in a chair clapping. This indicated that this was a very good show, a must see but possibly maybe just not as spectacular as the previous one. On another scale it would be a 3 out of 4 or a 75%.

The third rating would find the critic sitting alert in his chair, holding his hat. (I think you get where this is all going.) He is sort of interested in what is going on and at least they have his attention. Other scale ratings would be a 2 out of 4 or a 50%.

In the fourth rating we have come across the critic dozing in his chair. A 1 out of 4 or a 25%.

The fifth and final rating finds an empty chair. A 0 out of 4 or a 0%.

I experienced no empty chairs on this trip and only once did I come close to almost jumping out of my chair and clapping energetically. I said almost.

Curtains

My first offering was on Thursday evening and that was the musical Curtains. This show is by the same team that bought us Chicago, Cabaret and many others, the great John Kander and Fred Ebb (who passed away on 2004). This musical was long-in-development and is called a ‘musical comedy murder mystery’.

According to the press notes, “The musical, which is set in 1959 during the tryout of a Broadway-bound musical, whose cast and crew all become suspects after the show’s leading lady mysteriously drops dead onstage while taking her final bow to the sound of applause. The detective “is a fervent musical theatre fan, (who) allows the company to continue rehearsing while he conducts his murder investigation. He soon finds himself in the middle of the uproarious bedlam of theatrical egos and eccentricities, more murders and even a budding love affair.”

This show my no means disappoints, the mystery is clever and most of the songs are quite singable with “The Woman is Dead” reminding me a little bit of “Class” (from Chicago) not in tone but in style. The performances were all pretty solid but I must say that I’ve now had enough of Edward Hibbert’s shtick. It’s just the same thing over and over again. It was new when he played ‘Gil Chesterton’ in Frasier, and acceptable when he appeared in The Drowsy Chaperone but coming on heals of that show to see him once again go over the top, and in a much bigger way in this performance, I was pretty much over it.

Debra Monk and Keren Ziemba were both solid in their respective roles of ‘Carmen Bernstein’ and ‘Georgia Hendricks’ as was Jill Paice as ‘Niki Harris’ and Megan Sikora as ‘Bambi Bernét’. The performance that really stood out for me was that of Jason Danieley who played ‘Aaron Fox’ half of the musical within the musical’s writing team. He had a brilliant singing voice and not bad acting to boot.

There has been a lot of talk on a Broadway discussion board that I frequent that Raul Esparza who played the lead role of ‘Bobby’ in the recent revival of Company was robbed of the Tony Award for best actor in a musical by David Hyde Pierce for his Tony winning performance is Curtains. Being a big fan of Company, and of Mr. Esparza’s performance, I was curious to see if I would also come to that conclusion, I did not. Having seen Mr. Pierce’s brilliant work for many years in Frasier one would wonder if the same character would appear on stage like one of his acting partners here, Edward Hibbert. Granted I had seen Mr. Pierce in Spamalot but having cast that show out of mind I don’t even remember what he did in that forgettable hit. This performance was, in my opinion, worthy of the Tony he received so I don’t think that any robbery took place.

I can’t understand for the life of me how the gyrations in Spring Awakening won for Best Choreography over the dancing in Curtains. I can only guess that it got swept up with the excitement of that show (which I still don’t understand). There are real dance numbers here and they are done well.

All in all it was an entertaining night at the theatre. Not brilliant and not earth shattering. I think my first response when asked what I thought of the show was that it was cute. As the man in the chair I sat there alert, holding my hat and in my head I even clapped a few times.

Xanadu

On Friday night the offering was Xanadu. Yes, that Xanadu. Why would I be caught dead going to see a musical based on what is considered such an incredibly bad movie? The writer of the book, Douglas Carter Beane’s most recent work on Broadway, The Little Dog Laughed, was quite good and equally important, he and I were in the same class at acting school and in a play together while there.

For those that don’t know, Jeff Lynn and John Farrar wrote the music for Xanadu. Lynne wrote and produced all of the music for ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) and John Farrar is an acclaimed music producer, songwriter, singer and guitarist who is best known for his work with Olivia Newton-John. Farrar is a former member of the group ‘The Shadows’. So for those of you, like me, who have not seen the movie Xanadu you will still know the music in this show with songs like, “I’m Alive”, “Evil Woman”, “Have You Never Been Mellow?” etc.

This musical is performed in one of the smallest Broadway Theatres, The Helen Hayes (previously called The Little Theatre). I get the sense that this space was maybe chosen because many people thought, like I did, “who would go and see a musical based on Xanadu?” The space does work however. Solid performances by the entire cast with special mention going to Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa. Kerry Butler is quite good in the lead role of ‘Clio/Kira’ and Cheyenne Jackson who stepped in for James Carpinello, who broke his foot during rehearsals, is also good. There are no weak links in this group. There are some great lines that poke fun at the movie of Xanadu as well as at Andrew Lloyd Webber and the lack of creativity in theatre in the 80s. One character says the show is “like children’s theater for 40-year-old gay people” she also says, “If we’re muses of inspiration, what are we doing in the theater?” I’m sure that I missed some of the inside jokes about the movie, having not seen it and Butler’s take on Olivia Newton John was quite funny.

The musical runs 90 minutes, without an intermission, and this is also talked about. At one point a character, when taking about the length of the show, says “they have only just started up their first barricades across the street”, referring of course to Les Miz, which indeed was playing across the street and I was leaving Xanadu, Les Miz was just in intermission.

At the end of the day, it’s a juke box musical and even though it’s a fun evening it’s a far cry from what one expects to see on Broadway. Or maybe it’s a far cry from what I expect to see on Broadway. I’m not disappointed that I saw it and I expect that it will do well, especially for nostalgia crowds. It will probably do for ELO what Mama Mia did for ABBA. The show only opened on the 10th and it’s gotten mixed to positive reviews with a few negative ones thrown in as well. As one critic wrote, “The 90-minute show, which kicked off the new season last night at the Helen Hayes Theatre, is a grand little piece of smart dumb fun.” I kind of agreed as I sat in my chair, alert, with my hat in my hand.

Frost/Nixon

Saturday afternoon brought the piece that I had anticipated probably more than all of the other offerings on this trip, Frost/Nixon. As sort of a history buff and a total Watergate buff, I was curious about this piece. I remember the actual interviews and the press surrounding them at the time and I had recently seen interviews on Theatre Talk with a number of people associated with this piece.

The stage is set with one table and a chair behind it. A number of feet behind the chair and above on the wall was a set of television screens, 36 in all. Six across (6 times) and six down (6 times) filling out the space all framed into one giant screen with lines running through it from the separation of the various sets.

The play had two narrators, one in each camp. ‘Jim Reston’ speaks for the Frost camp and ‘Jack Brennan’ speaks for the Nixon camp. It’s all done in flashbacks and the TV screens are used as a device to help change scenes. This device irritated me at times but was quite effective at others. The basic plot is the preparation for the interviews by both camps. As far as the play goes I felt that there could have been more but the performances took the whole production to another level. There was not a single weak performance in the play but the performance of Frank Langella alone is worth the price of admission. He finesses his Nixon character so brilliantly and is consistent throughout. It’s not that Michael Sheen does not rise to the occasion with Frost, it’s just that there was more to latch onto in this play with the Nixon character.

As I mentioned earlier the scene changes using the screen became an irritant. At times it felt a bit gimmicky and the sound accompanying it was rather loud. During the actual interview sections the screens were more effective allowing the audience to see how it might have actually looked on television. The most effective use was in the final questioning of Nixon on Watergate. The camera moves in for an extreme close-up so we see this one face covering these 36 screens and we watch as Langella portrays Nixon at his most vulnerable. A Tony Award well deserved.

I might have been jumping out of seat if I though that the play was a bit stronger. I was sort of making that jump in my head for the performance of Frank Langella but at the end I was sitting in my chair clapping.

110 In The Shade

The last show that I saw was one that I knew nothing about. I had not read any reviews but I knew who some of the cast members were. As the show started, I realized that I was watching a musical version of The Rainmaker, a play by Richard Nash. It’s a familiar musical especially to me and that was brought home even more when I saw a quote from Ben Brantley, theatre critic for the New York Times, who called it, “a poor man’s Music Man“. Both musicals deal with the arrival to town of a con man and his effect on the community.

The songs in this musical are not ones that I think that I will remember. As a matter of fact, I’m writing this about an hour after seeing it and can’t remember one song from the show. That’s not to say that they were not performed well but I will get to that soon. The same team who gave us The Fantastics, Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones brings the songs here to us.

The story takes place in the Texas Panhandle on July 4th, 1936 and has a kind of Oklahoma feel to it at times. What I found most interesting was the use of color blind casting, which in a piece like this, never happens on Broadway. Four of the main characters are a father, two sons and a daughter. The father and one son are white while the other son and the daughter is black. The other main characters are the town’s sheriff and the con man. It’s a pleasant enough story to watch and I think that it’s a show that a whole family will enjoy. I could not help feeling, however, that it was a bit dated. Not because it was set in 1936 because other shows are set even earlier, like Chicago, but they don’t feel dated in the same way that I felt this was.

As for this cast, again there was an even ensemble of fine actors. It was good to see John Cullum on stage again. He played he father, ‘H.C. Curry’. And then there is Audra McDonald. Any show that this woman is in automatically rises to another level. It is quite evident why she has won four Tony Awards (three of them before she was 30). Simply brilliant! There is nothing that this woman cannot do on stage. An incredible actress, singer and dancer. When the script says that he character is plain, one has to stop and say “Audra McDonald plain? Surely you jest”. On top of her talent she quite a beautiful woman so that characterization did not work for me and I’m sure not for many in the audience. I would have to say that on her performance alone this production rose to one level higher than it would have been without her. On a side note, it would be interesting to see what she does in the new TV series Private Practice next season but I expect that we will see her Tony winning performance in A Raisin In The Sun on television before that.

I sat alert, with my hat in my hand for this show but in my head I was clapping and jumping out of my chair for Audra. Too bad I could not do that for the entire show.

So there it is, four shows in two and half days and soon I’ll be making a trip to the airport (3:30am) to head on back to Nassau. The new Broadway season has only just opened. It would be interesting to see what will be happening in the various theatres in months ahead.

By the way, as a point of information, when the San Francisco Chronicle reviewer did his review of You Can Lead A Horse To Water, the critic was sitting in his chair clapping.

This is Jaxon Elijah, one month old.

Sleeeeeeeeeping …

Wide awake …

Faaaaast asleep …

Ready to go …

And Simba, the first baby in the house.

Philip is in New York.  I am in Montreal.

He went to see shows.  I came to see Jaxon Elijah Bethel, first son of my brother and his wife.

Will we both post?  That remains to be seen.  But check here for photos of Jaxon.  I’ve been happily clicking away.

Ta-ta for now.

On Saturday, apart from seeing Philip’s friend Kim, we had brunch with his former student Holly and attended two shows: a play by one of Philip and Kim’s classmates Douglas Carter Beane, The Little Dog Laughed, and Sondheim’s Company.

I’m going to write about the play, and Philip’s written about Company.

Plays have been few and far between on this trip. There are a couple of reasons for that. The main one, I think, is that we booked this trip so far in advance that many of the plays we wanted to see were closing before we arrived. Then there’s Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays that are not playing all at once (and that Philip feels would have just been frustrating, as we’d only be able to see the first one).

We also haven’t had the greatest experience with plays. Many of the ones we’ve seen in New York lately have been so-so — well produced but not memorable. Exceptions include August Wilson’s Jitney back in 2000, I Am My Own Wife from 2004, and last year’s Doubt. I would add Caroline, or Change, because I have trouble thinking of that as a musical — as Philip says, it’s more of a play with music (although virtually everything is sung). But it’s counted as a musical, so don’t mind me. The other good plays (Tongue of a Bird, Wit) we saw in Oregon in the 90s. This year, Butley was fine, if a little dated, a little English, and Losing Louie was also that — fine. Fun, in places. But this one was different.

And funny as hell. It’s about a Hollywood agent, her movie star client, a heartthrob who happens to be gay, the male escort with whom he falls in love, and the escort’s friend (female). The agent’s a lesbian, and her client is gay, but he’s not allowed to come out because he plays straight sexy parts and is paid big bucks to make the ladies drool and the guys wish they were him.

Julie White, who plays the agent, was brilliant. We were on the floor laughing. Manny, if you’re reading this, you have to see this play. According to her, her client “suffers from a slight recurring case of homosexuality.”

We really enjoyed it. It wasn’t as dense as Butley, or quite as dark. If you like theatre, it’s a cool commentary on Hollywood vs Broadway. We really liked it.

As for Company, here’s what Philip has to say:

My first and only exposure to this musical was a production performed at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts by the second year students during my first year there back in 1978. I purchased the album after seeing it and have listened to that recording over the years. A number of months back I purchased the documentary on the recording of that album and it was great to go behind the scenes of this musical that I had enjoyed listening to these many years.

Of the 13 shows that we saw, only one had really disappointed us and that show was definitely not this one. Company lived up to what I expected it to be. I was not at all bothered by the actors playing instruments. As a matter of fact it was not something that occupied my mind that much during the musical. I wondered afterward if maybe it was because it was something to which I had become accustomed, after seeing the same thing done in Sweeney Todd, or was it that it was more of a natural fit in this production? I have only great admiration for those performers who did what was quite a difficult job and will not dismiss that out of hand as a gimmick. After all it’s Sondheim’s brilliant music that they had to play, which can be difficult for the most seasoned musicians. I thought they did a great job playing it and making that playing look effortless.

What I had not remembered from seeing this musical, almost thirty years ago, was a lot of the crisp dialogue. It was good to here the words of George Furth coupled with the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim and to remember that there is some brilliant writing contained in this piece.

The comparison to the recent revival of Sweeney Todd is inevitable because of the actors playing instruments. I feel, however, that it’s difficult to compare these works based on that aspect alone. One can say that the instrument thing worked better in one show than in the other, but, outside of just that element, these are quite different musicals. I enjoyed Company for what it is but, in my opinion, it’s no Sweeney Todd, which is one of the most brilliant musicals ever written, so it’s not really a good comparison to make.

My last experience watching Raúl Esparza on stage was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I was not very impressed with that show and therefore kind of dismissed his performance. I was very impressed with his performance on Saturday night. His renditions of both ‘Marry Me A Little’ (don’t know why this song was ever cut from the original) and ‘Being Alive’ were brilliant. I think that it was a pretty even cast and that the people who stood out did so mainly because their characters are written to stand out more than others like Joanne (Barbara Walsh) and Amy (Heather Laws). I did not feel that there were any weak performances in this production.

I enjoyed my evening at the theatre. Did I see one of the greatest musical ever written? No. I did however see a show that is so much better than a number of musicals presently playing on Broadway, including the Tony Winning Best Musical Spamalot and that disappointment up on 53rd street called A Color Purple.

Well. Last night, just about 24 hours ago, we were preparing to watch Caroline, or Change. This morning we were up at five British time (midnight EST) and caught British Airways across to New Jersey. Everything was uneventful. We were warned to expect bumps on the flight but there was very little turbulence to speak of. I slept a bit on the plane but didn’t finish sleeping; Philip slept a lot. We hit the turbulence as we descended in New Jersey, but landed safe and sound.

So Philip and I made it through immigration, and went on downstairs to collect our bags. We have bought some things. The bags are full now, and we will need to buy another, I think, before we go home. We squabbled over the getting of a cart — Philip made some reference to “drama” on my part — and ended up not getting one for the luggage. Good thing, in retrospect. Philip carried the suit bag, now bulging like it did when we drove across the States from Victoria, and I carried the camera and my two bags. We stood in line for a cab, and when we finally got one – driven by a tall bright-skin man with an North African aspect and some kind of Pentecostal-style Arabic lecture on the radio. Philip turned to me and said, “Next time we get a limo,” and I agreed; it’s less hassle and costs just about the same.

So off we go. The taxi driver says something about rush hour in the city and the cost of the cab ride and then we’re on the highway. I tune out. Philip and I exchange some kind of make-up words, and then I hear a tune from the front seat. It stops. The driver’s saying something, then all is quiet. I’m thinking about what I’m going to do when I get into town: Philip’s going up to the Apple Store, and I’m going to go pick up the presents I saw for Tasha and look for an overnight bag in Times Square. I’m going to try and get a bath and a nap too. There’s a tune from the front seat again, and then.

BLAM.

The next thing I know, there’s the smell of burning rubber and the taxi is swerving across the highway. We’re heading for an exit ramp, we’re doing a 360 turn, we’re turning round to face the oncoming traffic. I’m thinking I should’ve done up my seatbelt when the door on Philip’s side of the car swings open and I see my husband fall out of the car onto the highway. I’m hearing myself say “Oh, God, oh, God,” which is an extension of the prayer I said as we pulled off from the terminal and I thought the taxi was going a little fast, a prayer that I said as we sped under an underpass: Dear Lord, please don’t bring us safe all the way from London to die on the road. I know more people die in traffic accidents than in plane crashes. Don’t let it be us, and I’m seeing my husband fall out of the car holding onto the door handle and be dragged on the highway. “Let go, Philip, let go!” I yell, and he’s letting go and the car’s stopping. I can’t see him. I can’t see anything. All I know is that I’m smelling burned rubber and the car is stopping and the door is open and my husband is not in the car. I get out and there he is lying on the highway. But he’s moving. There is a bank of cars coming towards us in every lane of the highway but they’re far away and we haven’t hit anything but the two verges of the road and maybe a median, and he can stand up. I pull him over to the side of the road and ask him if he’s okay, and he says he thinks so. He looks at his left hand and sees red on it and thinks he’s bleeding. “Did you hit your head?” I ask, and he says he’s bleeding, but he’s not. Nothing seems to be hurt except the bruises on his fingers where he broke his fall out of the door. I’ve got out of the car with my bag and the camera and now we’re standing on the side of the road, because I know for sure that if the cars that are coming slam into the taxi I am not going to be in it and Philip is not going to be in it and my computer is not going to be in it. But the cars don’t slam into anything, they just blow their horns and swerve around the taxi, which the driver has driven onto the side lane. Philip starts to cross the road to the taxi. The driver is shocked out of his skull and he says he’s going to put us in another cab. He flags another one down, a cab with two women in it and being driven by a black guy with an accent, and we get into it.

As we drive into town, I’m still wondering whether Philip is all right. He doesn’t know yet; when you’re in shock you don’t feel pain. But he is not bleeding, he’s not cut, his clothes are not torn, he appears to be fine. I’m thinking we should maybe go to a hospital but I know that he is not going to agree to that, and then there’s the question of insurance and Les Miserables tonight and getting back to Nassau on Sunday. So I decide we’ll just wait and see how he is when we get out of the cab finally in Manhattan at the Casablanca.

The new taxi driver, who drives far more safely, and who, it turns out, is from Haiti and knows people in Nassau (natch), asks us what happened and Philip tells him that the other driver was going far too fast and kept answering his cell phone. The last tune I heard was another call coming in, and he picked it up and looked at it and that was when he hit the verge. And then he slammed on the brakes and did the 360. We were lucky or blessed or miraculously protected, because it’s rush hour and the cab was alone on the road — otherwise we would have been in a multi-car pile-up and I would probably be a widow today. But instead Philip has walked away.

So anyway. I wrote this at his request. He told me to get it down while it’s still fresh in my mind. Fresh? I’m still smelling burning rubber. I’m still seeing him falling out of the car and lying in the road and I’m still not believing what I’m seeing.

And I’m still thanking God as I did: oh, God, thank God.

Amen.

Our third revival on this trip, was Les Misérables, which we saw last night back here in New York. This show comes back to Broadway without having been closed the amount of time that it would usually take for a revival to happen, but the producer, Cameron McKintosh, decided to have it mounted for a limited run of six months by the same directors, John Caird and Trevor Nunn, who staged the original productions. I suspect that if the show is doing good business, at the time that the six month limited engagement is up, the run might become open-ended.

It’s been a while since I saw the production and seeing it last night was like going back a week after I had seen it last. I pretty much remembered the staging as it was basically the same production with very minor changes. The major difference this time around was the cast.

First of all there is some color blind casting with a black ‘Javert’ and a Latin ‘Fantine’. Norm Lewis plays ‘Javert’ and his portrayal is a bit different from others that I’ve seen. His voice is brilliant, like the others, but there is an element that he has added that makes the character more human. Most ‘Javert’s’ have come across as unfeeling and with only one goal in mind. Lewis’ ‘Javert’ makes you feel his drive but also his questioning. When other actors playing ‘Javert’ jump off of that bridge, it’s hard to believe that it’s because they are conflicted because that is something that you don’t see that throughout. One actually feels sorry for this character at certain points in the musical and better understands his dilemma.

The most controversial bit of casting is that of Daphne Rubin-Vega as ‘Fantine’. There is no doubt that she is a competent actress, having been nominated for a Tony for originating the role of ‘Mimi’ in “Rent” on Broadway, but the question in this production concerns her singing voice. It’s different from any ‘Fantine’ that I’ve heard, in either live performance or on stage. I’m not as questioning about her voice as others have been, because after all she is dying and the choice for this actress seems to be that this is something that she has decided to hint at from the very beginning of the musical. There are lyrical qualities in her voice, as we can tell at times during the show, but this is not the way she has chosen to sing this character. Most ‘Fantines’ are bright and lyrical throughout their short time on the stage and then all of a sudden they up and die having developed consumption in the very last few minutes of the performance. As ‘Fantine’ has never been that major of a character for me during her twenty minutes on stage, I did not have some of the problems that others have had with the performance of Ms. Rubin-Vega.

Of course what would Les Misérables be without ‘Jean Valjean’? I originally saw Alexander Gemignani in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins in the role of ‘John Hinkley’ and he followed that up in last year’s revival of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. My initial reaction to hearing of his playing ‘Jean Valjean’ was to wonder if he had the chops to pull it off. ‘Hinkley’ was a very light character and his portrayal of ‘The Beadle’ was brilliant but very different from would be required in Les Misérables. There is no question that Mr. Gemignani rose to the challenge. His ‘Valjean’ was strong and forceful when needed and soft and caring during the tender moments. His ‘Bring Him Home’ was flawless and was one of the main reasons that Nico made the comment, after the show, that she would love to have a CD of this cast, if they were to ever produce a recording of this production since this is probably one of the most recorded musicals ever.

On the comic side, the ‘Thenardiers’ (the Dickensian crook-couple who make their living by conning other people) were excellent in this production.  ‘Thenardier’ was played by Gary Beach, who we last saw as the cross-dressing Director in The Producers and his wife was played by Jenny Galloway, whose Cockney interpretation is just right.  They were both excellent.  It doesn’t hurth that they have some great scenes, but they played them to the hilt.

The cast is smaller than the Original Broadway or London casts but that did not take away from the power of the performances to pull this show off effectively. It was good to go back and see this production and to know that it continues to hold up well. New audiences to Les Misérables will get to see what the fuss has been all about over these many years.

On Thursday night, we attended Caroline, or Change, the Tony Kushner musical (yes, I said Tony Kushner musical —, yes, Angels in America, that Tony Kushner) at the Royal National Theatre in London. We left that production with stars in our eyes — almost literally, there were stars in the show, and a Moon, and a Washing Machine, and a Dryer, and a Radio — you had to be there.

How can I describe this production?  Well, first of all, know that the writer was Tony Kushner, and it was originally staged at the Public Theatre under the direction of George C. Wolfe.  It is technically a musical, but it feels more like a play with music.  Most of the dialogue is recitative, and the music doesn’t automatically sound like “tunes”, though the inspirations are very tuneful — rhythm and blues and 60s soul music.  This site will give you an idea of the opening number (turn on your sound).

The setting is Lake Charles, Louisiana, and the opening song has lines like “Nothing happens underground in Louisina/Cause there ain’t no underground in Louisiana/There’s only underwater” while we see clearly that Caroline, the title character, is a maid who is working in a basement – the only basement, we learn, in the state.  The time is November-December 1963, and anybody who knows their American history knows what November ‘63 is famous for.  The play/musical that follows traces Caroline’s reaction to the change that is coming in that decade.  Just to set the scene some more:  Caroline is the black maid who works for a family of liberal Southern Jews, and that family consists of one child, Noah, who has lost his mother to cancer, and whose father is totally withdrawn, but whose stepmother, a Jew from New York, has come to fix things.  This is the story of how they are fixed.

What’s really interesting is that the things/people Caroline talks to or is talked to by are not people but objects — the Washing Machine, the Dryer, and the Radio.  Later, she’s told by a Bus that President Kennedy has been killed, and the Moon makes comments throughout.  I won’t say more about the story — do your own research — but let me just say that the play/musical/whatever was unique.  In one way it reminded me of Horse, in that the objects around Caroline work rather like the Jury, but the rest of the thing — pretty well all of it, with one or two stand-out exhanges and lines — is sung-through.  It’s freeform and magical and unrealistic and real, and it’s about race and class and the Civil Rights Movement and how these all affect real people in specific places in time and space.

I’d see it again tomorrow.