Category Archives: Musical

Fun Home

Broadway, Musical, Uncategorized July 28, 2015 Leave a comment

Fun Home is the Little Engine That Surprised the Heck Out of Everyone.  Despite its lack of star power or big dance numbers, it beat out more likely contenders including Something Rotten and American in Paris to take home this year’s Tony for Best Musical.  More startling, the book is based on an autobiographical graphic novel about a woman coming to terms with her sexuality as well as that of her father.  Not exactly the most obvious source material for show tunes.   Consequently, I arrived at the performance ready to be blown out of the water.  Instead I was mildly splashed.  To be sure, the piece is thought provoking, but there’s also something remarkably flat about the experience.

The structure of Fun Home is extremely inventive.  The main character, Alison Bechdel, is portrayed by three profoundly talented actresses.  Beth Malone plays modern Alison and is our guide, drawing and telling her story throughout.  Emily Skeggs brings to life college-age Alison, who goes from struggling with her homosexuality to embracing it as a critical part of her identity.  Most thrilling is Sydney Lucas as young Alison.  She’s one of those almost-scary kids with a huge set of pipes and a presence to match.

The staging by uber talented Sam Gold is ingenious, moving the story through time while nodding in the direction of the source material.   Gold also makes the most of the in-the-round venue, sometimes swirling the characters through the space.

The piece is written as an operetta; think Gilbert and Sullivan.  While I am delighted that Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron are the first all-female team to win a Tony for writing a musical, this is not my favorite form (unless it is actually Gilbert and Sullivan).  I’m simply distracted by heart to heart dialogue delivered in singsong.  But the real buzz kill for me happened early on when the adult Alison summed up the entire plot to come in one sentence.  From that point on there was little at stake.  I became increasingly passive and wondered why I wasn’t trusted to follow a more engaging evolution of the story.  That would have been a spectacular journey to take.

Fun Home is currently playing at the Circle in the Square Theater.  For tickets and information, visit http://funhomebroadway.com/tickets.php.

Something Rotten

Broadway, Musical, Uncategorized June 18, 2015 Comments: 2

While I tap my toes to many classic musicals and once sang “Godspell” in French, that world lost me somewhere around dancing cats and warbling beggars.  My ambivalence towards the modern day musical makes me the perfect audience member for Something Rotten.

The plot revolves around the invention of the musical as a new entertainment form that just might knock Will Shakespeare from his perch as the most popular dramatist of the Renaissance.  The clever lyrics by Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick manage to simultaneous praise and make fun of the genre.  And their music borrows no more than seven seconds of no less than 15 other famous scores.  It’s a veritable aural Where’s Waldo for the initiated.

There is no doubt I was further seduced by the delightful performances of the two leads.  Brain d’Arcy James, painfully wasted as the spurned husband in NBC’s Smash, is put to great use as the sweet, ambitious and misguided Nick Bottom, desperate to secure a comfortable life for his family by making a decent living as a playwright.  And two time Tony Award winner Christian Borle — channeling Tim Curry — takes on The Bard as 16th Century Rock Star.  The two bring out the best in each other and their performances are further elevated by a staggeringly talented group of supporting and ensemble actors.

Casey Nicholaw’s direction and choreography keep the action moving at a swift pace and allow the cast members to move breezily from one beat to the next.  He even makes a potentially tedious kick-line work to advantage.

I could certainly make my usual complaints that most of the tunes were forgettable and the characters broke out into song at annoying intervals.  But since these criticisms are supplied by the show’s own book, instead I can report that I laughed at just about everything.  Yes, it’s all over-the-top and ridiculous, but I appreciated the self-awareness of the piece.  In fact my only disappointment is that my own chuckles and snorts got in the way of my hearing every line.

Something Rotten is currently playing at the St. James Theatre.  For tickets and information visit http://rottenbroadway.com.