As of last night, Matt and I have seen all four Tony nominees for Best Musical Revival — three of the them in the past week.
In the fall we saw “Pal Joey,” with the unfortunately miscast Matthew Risch, the terrific Martha Plimpton, and poor Stockard Channing, whom I love but who can’t really sing.
Last Wednesday night we saw “West Side Story,” which was excellently danced and sung and had the terrific Karen Olivo, but was just… missing something. (Besides some of the English lyrics.) And as Matt said to me, seeing the show on stage makes you realize what a museum piece “West Side Story” is. And we were in the balcony, which, in the Palace Theater, is really high up, so we felt too far away from the action.
Last Thursday night we saw “Hair,” which was one of the best things I’ve seen this season. Going in, I knew very little about the show other than the two big songs, “Age of Aquarius” and “Let the Sun Shine In,” and the moment of nudity. There isn’t much of a plot. But this production is fantastic and bursting with energy. It doesn’t matter where you sit, because cast members come into the audience, even up to the mezzanine, where we sat. I totally recommend seeing this show. It’s a lock to win Best Revival.
Finally, last night we saw the revival of “Guys and Dolls,” which lives up to its dreadful reviews. We wouldn’t have seen it if not for cheap tickets.
I don’t know what director Des McAnuff was thinking. The production is way overmiked, the costume colors are depressingly subdued, there are distracting screen projections, Oliver Platt (Nathan Detroit) doesn’t speak clearly, Lauren Graham (Miss Adelaide) is bland as pudding. Craig Bierko and Kate Jennings Grant were somewhat better. Nicely-Nicely Johnson is played by Tituss Burgess, who played Sebastian the Crab in “The Little Mermaid,” and whenever he waddled around the stage I couldn’t help but think of him in his Sebastian costume with a couple of crab legs trailing behind him. And he had this horrendous faux-1940s gangster accent.
My impression of this “Guys and Dolls” was inevitably colored by the stupendous 1992 Jerry Zaks production starring Nathan Lane, Faith Prince, Peter Gallagher and Josie De Guzman, which is how I was first introduced to this show. Everything in that production just worked — bright colors, smartly over-the-top performances, great orchestrations. (Here’s Frank Rich’s review.) I don’t know what the point of the current revival is. If you’re going to do this show, do it right.
Oh, and it didn’t help that there was a group of teenagers sitting in front of us who appeared to be on a school trip. One or the other of them kept standing up in order to squeeze past his friends and go take a break. And 20 minutes into the show, the empty row in front of us filled up with four more of them, who for some reason arrived late. One of them was a very big girl who blocked my entire view of center stage, and another one of them spent the whole first act sending text messages. Fortunately we found different seats during intermission, closer to the stage and far away from those idiots.
Sometimes I think theater critics should be forced to review shows from the cheap seats.
