January 19, 2023
British Stereotype Overload: Afternoon Tea at the Ritz (Vegan Version!)by Randi / November 20, 2018Hadestown at London’s National Theatre: A Riveting Epic of Love, Death…and Capitalism
It’s Theatre Thursday! And it’s Thanksgiving, so today we are talking about a show I’m thankful for, quite possibly my favorite show right now, Hadestown.
As with our recently reviewed Twelfth Night, I’ve been waiting a while to see what everyone in New York has been raving about regarding this modernish musical retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. People said that if Hadestown had opened on Broadway last season, it would have beaten The Band’s Visit for the Tony, and I was like ‘Umm Kulthum is that possible?’ Turns out, much as I stan TBV, yes, it’s true. Hadestown is one of the greatest shows in years and years, and is destined a classic that will never cease to amaze.
It’s such a great concept. I’m a huge mythology buff, and I still remember the words to the title song from our fifth grade mythology play “It’s All Greek To Me” (forking excellent title, right?). My favorite line was “Zeus was their king and Hera was their queen/sometimes they were wonderful sometimes they were mean.” So true guys. And one of my many roles (I was a child star) in that play was Persephone’s best friend, so her myth has always been special for me. Combining the familiar mythology with an original score (and some mythological bendabouting), Hadestown seems pretty brilliant on paper, and turns out it’s extremely brilliant in real life. It’s the only musical in London producing such thrilling theatrical magic onstage that feels incredibly new and fresh, all while being not only an interesting take on a classic romance but also an allegory of capitalism vs. socialism. I KNOW.
Before we get to the show, I need to share a little glimpse into my brain. A few weeks before our performance, Husbo P asked what it was about. And I said “Oh it’s like a retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice with all original music by Anais Nin!” Husbo P, being a man of knowledge, said, “Um, that can’t be right”, and I, being a woman of nonsense brain, said in an impression of Yente from Fiddler, “Right? Of course right!” and Husbo said, “Anais Nin has been dead for decades. Is it old music? Did she even write music?” and I, being stubborn, said “Well of course she wrote music because she wrote this!” and Husbo said “Well still, I think she died in the ‘70s…” and I said “Well this was written fairly recently.”
Reader, Anais Nin, a French-Cuban-American writer, indeed died in 1977. I meant Anais Mitchell.
So, with an original, enthralling score by Anais Mitchell, Hadestown tells of how Orpheus and Eurydice, two poor dreamers trying to make their way in this world (or maybe just find food), fall in love but get swept into the orbit of Hades, the god of the Underworld. They attempt to solve the age-old struggle of tragic love stories: the strength of love against the power of death. Okay that might be a direct quote from Once on This Island but it works here, except instead of just the power of death, O&E are also testing love’s strength against the god of death. Okay that’s in Once on This Island too. (Hey, as Hermes sings in the beginning, “it’s an old song, but we’re gonna sing it again.”) Well they mainly test love against doubt in that love, which here is even more insidious and devastating than death.
Our lovers meet in a café that could have begun La Boheme (too early for Rent). The vibe of the opening music is very jazzy, like old-fashioned steampunk-as-portrayed-in-the-Bad-Place with Hermes singing how “on the road to hell, there was a railroad line”. The buzz in the room is undeniable, the excitement created by this jazz-age throwback. It sets a fun and intriguing tone for the show, which rarely has a low point or misstep in score, book, direction, anything. Todd Sickafoose’s orchestrations are wonderful too. Okay I don’t really know too much about orchestrating but I needed to mention that last name because it’s how I imagine Samuel L. Jackson yelling on a plane if there were too many fools onboard. (I’M SICK A THESE MUHFU**ING FOOS ON THIS MUHFU**ING PLANE I’M SICKAFOOSE /end scene.)
As for that direction, as helmed by Rachel Chavkin, who staged my beloved Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway, Hadestown comes alive with great use of the space. I loved the efficient, effective use of the turntables and especially what’s in the middle of them. And at a few moments, Chavkin’s genius shines through with actually jaw-dropping brilliance, most notably during Hades’s powerful song “Why We Build a Wall”. The staging and sound mixing at this moment was the high point of the production. This is where Chavkin’s command of space, as we saw in Great Comet, shone the brightest (along with the bright lights). It’s a spellbinding performance of a riveting and relevant song. I couldn’t blink during this song, since it was the kind of theatrical magic you hope to experience a few times in your theatre-going career. The song, despite being written in 2010, feels like a direct response to the current political climate. The incredible staging of that scene was, to quote the Great Comet, “really beyond anything.”
Really, the whole show feels like a response to daily politics, and it’s continually surprising that it wasn’t written in the past week. Hadestown uses the well-known Orpheus tale and all the stories that swirl around Hades to weave a political allegory representing the evils of capitalism and the potential of socialism. It’s a remarkable thing to discern the layers in this musical, and realize it’s so much more than a retelling of a familiar love story. While it’s standard for theatre to respond to the politics of its age, it’s rare for a show to do so actually well, and while maintaining pure brilliance and beauty.
The material would stand with anyone, but this cast is truly off the charts flawless. As Orpheus, Reeve Carney (best known for not dying in Broadway’s Spider-Man) is ideal as the skinny white emo boy who thinks everything could be solved with one great love song (*cough* Roger from Rent *cough* (except unlike Roger’s “Your Eyes”, Orpheus’s love songs are actually good (good, they are insanely great))). Some people might say his voice is the weakest, but it’s like a reed, it’s thin but deceptively strong. He’s so well cast, and he deserves credit for carrying the show. No one has even close to his amount of stage time. As Eurydice, Eva Noblezada (who blew us away a few years ago as the newest Miss Saigon) is adorable and winning, although I wish her impressive voice got a song that actually showed it off to its full extent more that just the last bit of Wait for Me II (although, admittedly, holy crap, it’s my favorite 20 seconds in modern musical history). Patrick Page (also didn’t die in Spider-Man yayyy), with his truly otherworldly voice, seemingly coming from depths not of this earth, is the perfect Hades. Especially during “Hey Little Songbird”, his incredibly deep bass makes the predatory tinge of this song even more disturbing and upsetting. You can feel the lowest notes of his range in your soul, shattering any sense of calm you might have.
My favorite performances come from Amber Gray as Persephone and Andre de Shields as Hermes. Gray, with that unique raspy voice that somehow becomes clear and strong whenever she needs it to be, is a surprising Persephone, strong and opinionated after a long life spent between two worlds. We meet her at a point in her story much later than anyone has seen before. She brings down the house with her Act II opener “Our Lady of the Underground”, which will make you wish this show was running in rep with a one-woman show about Persephone.
But the coolest cat on that stage is legendary Andre de Shields (also known as the original Wiz) as Hermes, gallivanting between the mortal and divine realms as only Hermes can. And as only Andre can, he commands the stage with his joyful movement, his soulful singing, and his ability to command your attention even when he’s in the background.
The cast also includes a spectacular ensemble. Chavkin’s Great Comet cast raised the bar for diversity on stage, and here she is again doing what she does best: challenging the rest of the theatre world to do better. And it’s not just an issue of diversity in ethnicities – her shows are also the only ones to have diversity in body types, something that truly should be commended yet is rarely talked about.
This is the first show in a while that I can’t wait to see again. It’s emotionally exhausting to watch (I can’t imagine how it is to perform) but in a great way. You know I hate not having anything to complain about but this show is extraordinary. It is by far one of the most compelling and gorgeous scores in modern musical history. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius, really.
INFORMATION
Hadestown is playing at the National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre until January 26, after which I hope it will be transferring to Broadway, where it is sorely needed.
Seating: The Olivier theatre is a big ol’ barn but there aren’t really any bad seats. It’s a huge semi-circle around the stage, so it feels like there are three sides of the stage to sit on. I chose the extreme stage right aisle in the stalls and it was a perfect view, but there are really bright lights that shine directly into your eyeline in the first 10 or so rows, so that sucked. Go farther up or more into the middle (which blows if you like aisles).
Stage door: All the leads came out and signed and took pictures except for Amber Gray (sob), who I believe does not ever stage door. Andre de Shields was the coolest, nicest person to ever talk to and it was honestly an honor.
Oh I do have a complaint: The show art pictured at the top is GORGE, yet the programmes (which you pay for here) are super boring black and white, just with the title printed and nothing else. I demand a sad-rose programme.
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First Broadway Production of “Violet” Is Perfectly Done But Somehow Lacking
You know the feeling when everyone loooves something and proclaims how it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and you’re like…what? Are you high?
That’s how I feel about “Violet”, the current revival of the Jeanine Tesori musical (which premiered Off Broadway in 1997) starring Sutton Foster as a young, disfigured woman in the south on a journey to get a televangelist to fix her face. It’s the “American Hustle” of this awards season, except of course it’s 100x better than “American Hustle” because please. But like I said about that horrid movie, it’s like “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, with everyone saying how they like it, I think, in order to save face. Although “Violet” is actually decent and perfectly performed, I think people are “Emperor’s New Clothes”-ing it in their over-effusive, insanely exuberant adoration for what is really just an okay show.
That’s how I feel about “Violet”, the current revival of the Jeanine Tesori musical (which premiered Off Broadway in 1997) starring Sutton Foster as a young, disfigured woman in the south on a journey to get a televangelist to fix her face. It’s the “American Hustle” of this awards season, except of course it’s 100x better than “American Hustle” because please. But like I said about that horrid movie, it’s like “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, with everyone saying how they like it, I think, in order to save face. Although “Violet” is actually decent and perfectly performed, I think people are “Emperor’s New Clothes”-ing it in their over-effusive, insanely exuberant adoration for what is really just an okay show.
Violet is about a woman named Violet who is turning violet, Violet, who was disfigured by a wayward axe (jesu!) as a tween and is ghastly to look at – judging by the reactions of people we see meet her. My favorite thing about this show is that the deformity is left to the imagination. Seeing the beautiful Sutton Foster treated like a troll when we can’t see her scars adds great depth and meaning to the show. But it says a lot about this show that that’s my favorite part. Incidentally, I found it very strange that, while the deformity is left to the imagination, the actual axe-ident is portrayed with tween Violet (Emerson Steele, solid) covered in blood. I was like, what is this, “Carrie”??
Anyway, Violet, who’s turning violet, Violet, is like hey, I’m…of age…I’m going to ride a bus for days on end (man alive) to see this television preacher man who “heals” and “gets ratings” in…other southern state…and make him heal my facial deformity and make me purdy! So at the outset it’s hard to have much sympathy for her. I mean you feel bad for her, but not enough to get behind her on this journey to meet a televangelist. You’re like, Oh Violet, you are so spunky and full of gumption and you win over everyone you meet on this bus, yet you beleive in the magical powers of these greedy lying bastards who make money off “religion”? It’s “Sutton Foster meets “Leap of Faith””, the terrible no good Raul Esparza musical from a few years ago. (I actually enjoyed “Leap of Faith” more than “Violet”. It’s nowhere near as good, but it’s more enjoyable and fun! Take that as you will. Actually, I would love to see Sutton and Raul in a show together. But preferably not about televangelists. I think two Broadway shows about that kind of thing is enough.) Obviously, the real point of the story isn’t about the destination of meeting the preacher but about the journey and the people she meets, as all motivational posters will tell you.
Violet gets on the bus (a group of chairs, thank goodness they didn’t try to make a bus) and chats up a nice old lady who recoils at the first sight of Violet’s face. Throughout the journey, Violet makes friends with two uniformed soldiers who just happen to both be gorgeous. Colin Donnell (Broadway’s Jon Hamm lookalike when he has a good haircut (i.e. not in his headshot)) is underused in a part that never really amounts to much. Joshua Henry gets the better role as the black man willing to fight for his country (it’s Vietnam era) yet having to constantly deal with the shitty people actually living in that country, in the American south in the 1960s (or really just the American south, period. Or really just America. Or anywhere. People are racist). Henry, as Flick, is one of the few people who can understand the prejudice Violet experiences when people just see what she looks like. It’s a lovely sentiment that the two would share this connection, but the suggestion that the effects of racism are similar to the effects of having a messed-up face is bothersome to say the least.
The greatest part of this show is Flick’s show-stopping, star-making song “Let It Sing”. It seems kind of out of place in the show, yet it’s the best reason to see the show (similar to the out-of-place “Fly Fly Away” from “Catch Me If You Can”, which should have been cut for story purposes but was indeed the best song written for the show). Joshua Henry has a voice, dammit, and it’s spectacular. He’s the most exciting and interesting part of this show. Actually, I’d love to see a whole show about Flick with Violet as the secondary character! Now that would be interesting! I want to see Henry headline all of the shows. Seriously, whenever he’s in a musical, you’re gonna want to see it.
The journey continues, and the relationships between the three main characters blossom into friendship and then into more. So yeah, both men fall for Violet. I guess there aren’t that many confident yet disfigured ladies in the south so once they met this no-nonsense gal they were like, “This is the shitttt!” or something. It reminded me of how on “Orange is the New Black” both guards think they are in love with Daya, who just seems kind of lame and blah and named after a vegan cheese that gives people stomachaches. Violet is 100x cooler than Daya, but the idea is the same. Violet and Colin Donnell have an unexpected tryst in a very dirty looking hotel room, and Violet sings my favorite song which for years and years I did not know was from this or any show but just something I fortuitously heard, memorized, and sang in my head before bed every single night. So when Violet started singing my special song to a sleeping nekkid man for whom she had lukewarm feelings, I was like…man. (The song is the lullaby “Lay Down Your Head”. Here is the best version imaginable.)
They make it to whatever square-seeming state they are going to, and Violet runs into a church yelling for the famous preacher man. She desperately screams how everything depends on him and she came all this way. It’s very intense and sad because you are like, Listen Violet, even if you see the man and he tries to help you, nothing is going to change. Realizing that she could not be healed, Violet has a kind of hallucinatory heart-to-heart with her deceased father, who is responsible for her deformity. The scene, heartbreaking yet lovely, seems out of place, as though it’s part of a more serious, important show. All the energy seems to have been saved for these final 10 minutes, which offer a too-short look at what the rest of the show should have sustained.
“Violet” is a really well done, very well performed, generally lovely show, yet in the end it feels not quite special enough. It’s small and sweet, and while other small and sweet shows can achieve untold levels of brilliance (like “Once”), this show doesn’t. I simultaneously felt that it was too short to accomplish what it was trying to, yet if it were any longer I would have started getting cranky and impatient. It belongs off-Broadway where it could be interesting but insubstantial without leaving people feeling unsatisfied. “Violet” is giving me the opposite experience that “Rocky” did: At “Rocky”, my audience was enraptured, energetic, and completely invested, yet the critics are meh about it, or worse; at “Violet”, my audience was bored (a guy next to me asked his girlfriend if he could leave, and it’s only 90 minutes!) and underwhelmed, yet critics are like orgasming over it. And many people are putting Sutton as the frontrunner for the Tony. Listen, Sutton Foster is incredible and will be in the Broadway Hall of Fame (I think that’s actually a thing but I mean it metaphorically), but she has two Tonys awards already. If she is THREE? That would be nuts. Like, Hilary Swank has two Oscars, and wouldn’t it seem a little excessive at best and ludicrous at worst if she had the same number as Meryl Streep? Same here. She’s wonderful and perfect and always is, but this isn’t the show for Tonys, and definitely not for a third. It’s a perfectly pleasant and enjoyable night at the theatre, but it’s lacking. Like a perfectly performed production of a B-level show.
Anyway, Violet, who’s turning violet, Violet, is like hey, I’m…of age…I’m going to ride a bus for days on end (man alive) to see this television preacher man who “heals” and “gets ratings” in…other southern state…and make him heal my facial deformity and make me purdy! So at the outset it’s hard to have much sympathy for her. I mean you feel bad for her, but not enough to get behind her on this journey to meet a televangelist. You’re like, Oh Violet, you are so spunky and full of gumption and you win over everyone you meet on this bus, yet you beleive in the magical powers of these greedy lying bastards who make money off “religion”? It’s “Sutton Foster meets “Leap of Faith””, the terrible no good Raul Esparza musical from a few years ago. (I actually enjoyed “Leap of Faith” more than “Violet”. It’s nowhere near as good, but it’s more enjoyable and fun! Take that as you will. Actually, I would love to see Sutton and Raul in a show together. But preferably not about televangelists. I think two Broadway shows about that kind of thing is enough.) Obviously, the real point of the story isn’t about the destination of meeting the preacher but about the journey and the people she meets, as all motivational posters will tell you.
Violet gets on the bus (a group of chairs, thank goodness they didn’t try to make a bus) and chats up a nice old lady who recoils at the first sight of Violet’s face. Throughout the journey, Violet makes friends with two uniformed soldiers who just happen to both be gorgeous. Colin Donnell (Broadway’s Jon Hamm lookalike when he has a good haircut (i.e. not in his headshot)) is underused in a part that never really amounts to much. Joshua Henry gets the better role as the black man willing to fight for his country (it’s Vietnam era) yet having to constantly deal with the shitty people actually living in that country, in the American south in the 1960s (or really just the American south, period. Or really just America. Or anywhere. People are racist). Henry, as Flick, is one of the few people who can understand the prejudice Violet experiences when people just see what she looks like. It’s a lovely sentiment that the two would share this connection, but the suggestion that the effects of racism are similar to the effects of having a messed-up face is bothersome to say the least.
The greatest part of this show is Flick’s show-stopping, star-making song “Let It Sing”. It seems kind of out of place in the show, yet it’s the best reason to see the show (similar to the out-of-place “Fly Fly Away” from “Catch Me If You Can”, which should have been cut for story purposes but was indeed the best song written for the show). Joshua Henry has a voice, dammit, and it’s spectacular. He’s the most exciting and interesting part of this show. Actually, I’d love to see a whole show about Flick with Violet as the secondary character! Now that would be interesting! I want to see Henry headline all of the shows. Seriously, whenever he’s in a musical, you’re gonna want to see it.
The journey continues, and the relationships between the three main characters blossom into friendship and then into more. So yeah, both men fall for Violet. I guess there aren’t that many confident yet disfigured ladies in the south so once they met this no-nonsense gal they were like, “This is the shitttt!” or something. It reminded me of how on “Orange is the New Black” both guards think they are in love with Daya, who just seems kind of lame and blah and named after a vegan cheese that gives people stomachaches. Violet is 100x cooler than Daya, but the idea is the same. Violet and Colin Donnell have an unexpected tryst in a very dirty looking hotel room, and Violet sings my favorite song which for years and years I did not know was from this or any show but just something I fortuitously heard, memorized, and sang in my head before bed every single night. So when Violet started singing my special song to a sleeping nekkid man for whom she had lukewarm feelings, I was like…man. (The song is the lullaby “Lay Down Your Head”. Here is the best version imaginable.)
They make it to whatever square-seeming state they are going to, and Violet runs into a church yelling for the famous preacher man. She desperately screams how everything depends on him and she came all this way. It’s very intense and sad because you are like, Listen Violet, even if you see the man and he tries to help you, nothing is going to change. Realizing that she could not be healed, Violet has a kind of hallucinatory heart-to-heart with her deceased father, who is responsible for her deformity. The scene, heartbreaking yet lovely, seems out of place, as though it’s part of a more serious, important show. All the energy seems to have been saved for these final 10 minutes, which offer a too-short look at what the rest of the show should have sustained.
“Violet” is a really well done, very well performed, generally lovely show, yet in the end it feels not quite special enough. It’s small and sweet, and while other small and sweet shows can achieve untold levels of brilliance (like “Once”), this show doesn’t. I simultaneously felt that it was too short to accomplish what it was trying to, yet if it were any longer I would have started getting cranky and impatient. It belongs off-Broadway where it could be interesting but insubstantial without leaving people feeling unsatisfied. “Violet” is giving me the opposite experience that “Rocky” did: At “Rocky”, my audience was enraptured, energetic, and completely invested, yet the critics are meh about it, or worse; at “Violet”, my audience was bored (a guy next to me asked his girlfriend if he could leave, and it’s only 90 minutes!) and underwhelmed, yet critics are like orgasming over it. And many people are putting Sutton as the frontrunner for the Tony. Listen, Sutton Foster is incredible and will be in the Broadway Hall of Fame (I think that’s actually a thing but I mean it metaphorically), but she has two Tonys awards already. If she is THREE? That would be nuts. Like, Hilary Swank has two Oscars, and wouldn’t it seem a little excessive at best and ludicrous at worst if she had the same number as Meryl Streep? Same here. She’s wonderful and perfect and always is, but this isn’t the show for Tonys, and definitely not for a third. It’s a perfectly pleasant and enjoyable night at the theatre, but it’s lacking. Like a perfectly performed production of a B-level show.
Emilia: A Powerful, Relevant Take on History and Today
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Emilia, at London’s Vaudeville Theatre.
Who was the ‘dark lady’ that Shakespeare wrote sonnets about? Was she some strumpet, some rampallian? Bite your tongue, peasant! The new play Emilia follows the suggestion of editor A.L. Rowse that this mysterious figure in Billy Shakes’ sonnets was actually Emilia Bassano, one of the first female poets in England to have her works printed. And I’m all for this. Although unlikely, it’s fun to imagine that these two contemporary poets not only knew each other, but once upon a time loved each other, and that maybe Billy owes some of his most famous words to her. Maybe she was so talented that Shakey stole some of her words and made them famous, without attribution, without permission, without even thanking her. That’s the route of the new play Emilia, newly transferred to the West End from the Globe, in imagining this mysterious figure as one who, in a more reasonable time, could have been the famous playwright everyone knows.
We meet Emilia first as an older woman reading what has been written about her and scoffing at it. She’s finally reclaiming her story and telling us the truth – at least some of the truth; what we know about her real life is interspersed with the imagined interactions with Shakespeare, with some ‘mostly likely’ scenarios, such as who her patronesses were, mixed in too. To tell the story, three actresses portray Emilia at different stages in her life: first, a captivating Saffron Coomber as the vibrant young lady with all the world’s gumption; second, an affecting Adelle Leonce as the wiser and still strong woman she became; and third, back to Clare Perkins as the powerful older incarnation of the lady that wouldn’t stop fighting for her voice to be heard.
Throughout all the efforts to keep her in the ‘proper’ path – including sending her away to be raised in the court – Emilia wrote and lived on her own terms as much as possible in a society that didn’t let women do anything on their own terms. By presenting virtually her entire life and every move she made to stay true to herself and her writing, the play becomes an epic in female empowerment. It’s sometimes too focused on being seen as such, but overall it achieves the goal. With these sorts of messages, it’s easy, and common, for the creatives to hit audiences over the head with their morality lessons (and point to the modern day relevance in a too obvious ‘see what I did there!’ kind of way) when letting the work stand on its own feet would accomplish a more powerful result, yet despite falling into this common trap a few times, it doesn’t take away from the truly powerful result.
As a young lady, Emilia became the mistress of Baron Henry Carey, an arrangement that let her focus on her writing while meeting the most influential patrons of the arts. It’s in this detail that the play sees her meet fellow poet William Shakespeare, a peer who at first seems like the only one who gets her but who, like all men, disappoints as he deems her writing simply a hobby. The use of Shakespeare, and the portrayal, was brilliant. When the two poets’ relationship sours over his theft of her words, they come to a head in the extraordinary, dynamic climax of the first act, with the cast spread all over the theatre shouting and clashing. Luckily for me, Shakespeare barged into my box to do his shouting from there, and he hilariously said to me “I’m so sorry madam, you can have a free ticket for the next play”. The scene was incredibly staged and directed, with everything chaotic but organized perfectly. I wish the direction remained more like that throughout, instead of sometimes getting lost in keeping aspects modern, such as music and dance. Those attempts (I think someone dapped) read as more of a joke than a way to make any sort of commentary.
The dark turn of the second act makes complete sense and is necessary, but it almost feels surprising, which it shouldn’t considering how truthful it is. Perhaps it’s because all the girl-power messages are finally starkly shown to not mean much when you’re in a society that isn’t listening. Perhaps it’s partly because of the modern aspects used as jokes and the girl-power applause breaks that don’t work as well as the play itself. More so at the end, the morality lessons threaten to get lost in heavy-handed presentation. When big statements are made about men and women that still apply, they tend to elicit raucous applause, which is fine, if it’s warranted. Too often, there were dramatic statements that seemed present for that very reason, instead of serving the story. There’s a fine line between important and indulgent, and a few times it felt like the latter (especially when the audience erupted after one character asks a male character why he was explaining stuff she already knew to her). Maybe it’s just that audiences are too eager to be a part of things. But it all comes together at the end, with the oldest Emilia giving a fourth-wall breaking speech that was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever seen. It nearly erases any flaws of the preceding show, and serves to reinforce that overall, this is a potent, impressive work.
The cast of all women turns the Shakespearean tradition of men playing women on its head while also happily reminding me of RBG saying “when there are 9”. In defense of the all-male casts that still proliferate while all-women casts are usually nowhere to be found (or only for shows with all-female characters), I’ve heard people say “well it’s funny when men play women! Women playing men is not funny at all.” This show is like CHECK AND MATE, MUFUCKA. Shakespeare (Charity Wakefield (omg you’re more British than Shakespeare!)) was so incredibly pitch-perfect and hysterical, I was almost embarrassed at how much I was laughing. It was a hilarious character, like Shakey from Something Rotten! but less mean in his humor. Amanda Wilkin as Emilia’s goofball husband Alfonso was also nonstop hysterical with her gallivanting around the stage and ridiculous moments, especially when she played an era-appropriate song on the recorder in a baby’s face. And what made me laugh harder than anything was when one of the older ladies of the ensemble, briefly played a duke who was railing against women speaking or writing. The audience booed and hissed, which made me super mad because audiences are ridiculous here, but the actress completely made the show by shouting back, ‘excuse me this isn’t PANTO SEASON.’ It was THE BEST. And despite most of the ensemble switching in and out of various roles, they reached such emotional depth with the dramatic turns of the plot that you almost felt guilty for laughing in a previous scene. Everyone is wonderful, and even though it’s all women, the diversity of the cast was stellar. A range of ethnicities, ages, abilities, bodies, with old ladies playing young, and even one deaf actress. This is how 99% of casts should be. And if all new plays were as strong as this one, I would be thrilled.
INFORMATION
Emilia is playing the Vaudeville Theatre until June 15. It runs 2 hours 30 minutes.
2 Comments
Ok so I saw a headline about how this show is rlly rlly good but before I believed it I went here to see what you said first 😂
IT IS SO GOOD!