Theatres: Fun in London

Theatres: Fun In London

 

After reading my last post about negotiating the maze that led me in and out of London, you might well ask:  What the heck, Bro?  Did you have any fun?

 

You bet I did.  I was traveling with a relative and he and I think along the same lines, to wit, pubs and theater!  We also threw in a museum, some shopping and a few very classy bars!

 

Over the years, I’ve written a few times about pubs I’ve enjoyed and I found some more, but this time I’m writing about three plays we went to see, a comedy and two musicals.  You can probably see the direction this is going.

 

There is something you need to know about plays in the West End of London.  First of all, the imperative tube stop:  Leicester Square.  Why is it important?  Because that’s where the discount ticket offices are!  The Northern Line and the Piccadilly Line will get you there. The offices open at ten o’clock and the line grows lengthy, so be early.

 

Now, how about the plays?

We’d been waiting over a year to see Magic Goes Wrong, a comedy by Mischief (the name of the company) and the great magicians, Penn & Teller.  Mischief has written  some great comedy, such as The Play That Goes Wrong, and Peter Pan Goes Wrong.  When you see one of their productions, you know you’ll be entertained by buffoonery and side splitting goofball humor.  Magic Goes Wrong is no exception.   If I had to pick it apart, I’d say the first half was not as good as the second, but of course, for humor to work, you have to set it up and I hasten to add, I laughed a lot in the first half as well.  But, the second had me rolling.

The second play was The Drifters Girl.  If you’re my age you lived through the birth of Rock and Roll, The Drifters was one of the founders, a four man group with hits such as Under the Boardwalk, and Save the Last Dance for Me.  This musical tells their story, with an emphasis on the woman who made them stars and kept the group going in spite of personal crises and a revolving door of performers.  As the musical progresses, the whole repertoire of magnificent songs keeps the ball rolling and lively.  A unique story, well told and I guarantee you’ll come out of the theater tapping your toes, with lyrics on your tongue and thoughts of your misspent youth and the high school dances, and, oh yeah, of course the girlfriends.

The last musical we saw was Moulin Rouge and what a spectacular production it was!  The sets were wonderfully elaborate, and the songs and dancing spectacular.  Only a couple of things bothered this purist. 

 

Moulin Rouge was set in La Belle Époque, from the last of the 19^th century, until the First World War. It was the time of postimpressionism and racy dancehall music, of which The Can-Can is the most famous.   Toulouse Lautrec, as you might recall, was the artist who captured so many scenes of the Moulin Rouge dancers and the bordellos and the ladies of the night.

 

Instead, in this production, Toulouse Lautrec was portrayed as a down on his luck hobo, who miraculously came out of the gutter to bypass art and direct a play.  Meanwhile, except for the Can-Can, the music in this production depended on bits of rock and roll, as well as those of Lady Gaga and Madonna.  Not that I hate those songs, I just found them unconvincing, as I would if Les Miserables featured songs by the Beatles. Picture Jean Valjean singing “try to see it my way,” or The Phantom of the Opera, with songs by Elton John, backed up with choruses by the Shirelles, with a little Buddy Holly tossed in.

 

But I have to admit, the crowd loved it.  Gave the performers a standing O.  I kept my seat and didn’t mind that the enthusiastic crowd blocked my view.  I’d had had enough.

 

And I have to mention, before you leave Leicester Square, with your pockets full of discount tickets, or even if you’re not in the mood for theater, Leicester Square is also the gateway to so much culture. It’s a short walk to Trafalgar Square and on the way you’ll pass the National Portrait Gallery, which is only a very short walk to National Gallery, not to be missed if you’re an art fanatic, featuring centuries of art, including all my favorite impressionists, Monet, Manet, Renoir and so many others.

 

And while you’re in Trafalgar Square, walk diagonally across the street to The Admiralty Pub, the only pub in Trafalgar Square, and a glorious place, adored with flags and a large balcony in the shape of a ship’s upper deck.

 

Ernest Hemingway called Paris a moveable feast.  I call London a banquet!

My Fair Lady Updated

 

My Fair Lady

 

Practically everyone over the age of fifty knows the movie, My Fair Lady, staring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.  And maybe you aging musical addicts also know the musical was taken from Pygmalion, the play by the famous British playwright George Bernard Shaw.

 

Anyone know what Pygmalion means?  Comes from Greek mythology.  Pygmalion was a king who created the sculpture of a woman, then fell in love with the statue.  Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, brought the statue to life.  Too long a neglected deity in my opinion.

 

We could discuss that a long, long time, summed up by something often attributed to Winston Churchill.  Whether he said it or not is another question.

 

-       It’s not a woman’s fault that men woo goddesses and find they have married mere mortals. –

 

But back to My Fair Lady, a movie that won many Oscars in 1964.  Has it really been that long?  Three years short of 60 years ago?

 

Well, it’s time for an update for Americans, don’t you think?  Yes, it was a strictly English style musical, but filmed at Burbank studios, in Burbank, California.  Not one scene of it was filmed in London. So, what would it need for today’s American audiences.

 

I have some ideas for updating the title and some of the songs.  The songs, of course, were written by Austrian, Fredrick Loewe, and American, Alan Jay Lerner.  This is not the America of 1964 and needs a refresh for American audiences. 

 

First of all, the name must surely change:  My Fair Person

 

Updated versions of some songs:

 

Why Can’t Americans Teach Their Children How to Eat

 

Gun Fire On the Street Where You Live

 

Get Me A Line of Coke On Time

 

I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Tattoos

 

I’m An Ordinary Transgender Man

 

I Should Have Fled in Fright

 

I’m Offended That the Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain

 

And there are so many other movies that could use an update.  I’m sure you can think of a few.

A Wicked look at Wicked! Spoiler Alert

Spoiler Alert!

Of course, when I say Wicked!, I refer to the stage production I saw in London, not your long-ago ex-girlfriend who still floats deliciously through your daydreams as the dewy-eyed star of all your fantasies.

I’d read rave reviews…yes, I tell you, RAVE REVIEWS of Wicked!.  Spectacular!  Not to be missed!  Defies gravity!... so said the posters and the pundits.  See, that’s the problem with being well read.  You see these word-bytes here and there, and gauging the status of the publications that printed them, you swallow the bait like a starving striped bass on the first day of the season.

I should have listened to my mother, who said…well, I don’t remember exactly what she said, but it was something like “Reading will make you go blind.”  Maybe it was something else that would make me go blind.  Hmmmm, In any case, reading can make you blind when it comes to other opinions.  You find something you desperately want to believe (when swinging over the dark abyss of a theater production you were forced to attend) and you cling to it as the rope of last resort.

But, now let’s get Wicked!  What’s the story line?  Supposedly, it’s the story of the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz.  I say supposedly because for a while it was about professors who were animals who could talk and there was a plot afoot to deprive them of speech.  At this point they had me hook line and sinker because I had some professors who were animals and should have been deprived of speech.

Who hatched this plot?  You remember from the original Wizard of Oz that the wizard had no super hero powers.  This appeared to be only a slight inconvenience to the flow of the play.  Soon, or maybe later (I dozed into the blessed realm of slumber from time to time) a magic book of spells appeared on stage, somewhat abruptly, as if a stagehand suddenly realized this play was moving like a bullet train running out of track.

But, before the magic spells happened, lots of dancing in colorful costumes took place, with dancers whirling around feverishly, while some of the major characters bobbed up and down defying gravity with the help of ropes and pulleys.  This brought great and wondrous reactions from the spellbound audience whose cheers made my eyes snap open in time to hear songs of no purpose sung for no particular reason.  I’ll tell you this, nobody walked out of the theater whistling any of those gems.

Romance, of course, got thrown in, just for comic relief.  At which point, I pondered the possibility that the good witch was bad and the bad witch was good.  Which was witch?  Well, the good witch, who might now be bad, appeared in the opening scene to be overjoyed that the bad witch, who might now be good, was dead.   But, of course, she wasn’t dead because she disappeared in a trap door and ran off with the good witch’s boyfriend.  Wow, never saw that coming!  The trap door, I mean.

I'm left with a myriad of questions.  So, in the original movie, the bad witch flung a lot of odiferous poo-poo around and died in a splash of water, which at the time call for Hoop Hoop Hoorays and a theater full of glowing smiles.  Am I now to believe that was a ghastly mistake, a severe misunderstanding?  How about Dorothy?  She liked the good witch, yes?  And how about the Munchkins?  They seemed pretty happy when the bad witch went up in a puff of water. 

I came to the theater to be enlightened, but now all I have are questions and a strong resolve to fain sickness if asked to sit through it again. Also, I'm never reading reviews again.  I'm blind to them.  So, don't even try to tempt me with sequels, such as:  More Wicked.  Dorothy's Big Secret. The Gay Wizard. Munchkins in Hell.  Accompanied by the usual word-bytes:  Immortal!  A show the family will love!  I'd see it again!

How about the truth?  Defies Logic!  A Show Your Demented Family Will Love!  I’d See It Again, only if the alternative is death!

That’s about it for Wicked!, except, in the middle there was an intermission where I downed two double gin and tonics in quick succession, and my son and I plotted an escape to the nearest pub.  Before we could make our getaway, the bell sounded for act two and we were once again trapped in the tedium of songs without meaning, centrifugal dancing, and a plot shiftier than a villain’s beady eyes.

But, in fairness, my wife loved it, and so did my son’s girlfriend, neither of whom could coherently explain why they loved it.  Why was that?  Do you cry at commercials featuring loveable puppies that are as soft as your towels if you use a certain laundry contaminant?  If you answer NO, then you already know the answer.

Wicked!  Is really an algebraic problem, solving for X and Y.  In this case I’m talking chromosomes.  I’ll give you a hint:  Y =0.  I still haven’t figured out X.