This year marks the fourth season
of Broadway Barrage, probably the only thing I look forward to every year now. The
selection this year is almost equally divided between straight plays and
musicals with neither genre ending up being disappointing. Over all, it has
been an awesome year and a lot of shows made a very good impression that it’s
just so damn hard to choose a favorite. Or maybe I don’t have to choose a
favorite! Hopefully, this lineup can be duplicated for the 5th season coming
next year.
The play is basically two long
monologues from two guys who never meet or interact. The style makes you feel
like you are watching a stand-up comedy routine, which is true to some extent
because both Gyllenhaal and Sturridge have a few punchlines up their sleeves.
This is more of a drama, though, because of the sad stories that they tell. So
perhaps “stand up dramedy” is the more appropriate term? It’s easy to lose
track of what they are talking about because of the kilometric lines. Sea Wall/A Life is definitely not for
anyone with a short attention span.
You know you are old when
Harry Potter comes out of retirement and crosses over to the stage as a dad. Of
three! This is one of the things that makes Harry Potter and the Cursed Child work like magic. Aside from
taking advantage of an entire generation’s nostalgia, it also presents a
storyline that allows its characters to grow up with its fanbase. This is
common formula in film and television as of late but theater does not often get
to see something similar, even more so for a such a crossover material.
First stop: the songs. It
could be the abundance of falsettos that heighten the emotions or maybe the
honesty in the lyrics that hit you hard. Either way the soundtrack serves as an
extension of the play’s central theme, something that you can play over and
over again just for the sincerity of its message. Perhaps that’s the reason why
for a musical that is rather relatively young, Dear Evan Hansen’s songs have been enjoying a unique following
since its debut. I’ve always wondered why. Now I know, and I can’t be any
happier that I was able to experience those songs firsthand from such a
talented cast.
Betrayal is full of dialogues. Again, one of those talker straight
plays. The set couldn’t have been more minimalistic. You have two chairs, four
bottles of beer, and a wide canvas wall as the background. Only two actors can
sit at the same time, so the other one is forced to move to the background and
“admire” the wall art most of the time. Given the style, this is a relatively
easy play to stage if you have dependable actors who can capture an audience
with their mere presence.
And then you have the
production design. They totally transformed the Al Hirschfeld Theater, coloring
it rouge with velvet drapes hanging all around. Installing the iconic red
windmill on the left side of the stage and that gigantic elephant on the right.
You’re not watching Moulin Rouge,
you ARE in the Moulin Rouge. If you buy the most expensive ticket, you sit at
the VIP section in front made to look like you were at the famed cabaret
itself, right by the stage where all the action is.
Well that was a riot. I came
to the theater without expectations and not knowing what this material was all
about. I knew that there was a film but didn’t have an idea what the storyline
was. I just saw a lot of black and white, which somehow made me relate the
narrative to The Addams Family because of the same gothic look and feel. To
settle things once and for all this is a story about death, grief, and finding
life in such themes. That sounds rather ironic, yet the plot works that way at
least. In any case, if you do watch Beetlejuice,
do so for the humor.
This show would have been
boring if not for both Parker and Hochman who have impeccable comic timing.
They drop their lines in such a nonchalant manner that keeps the audience
laughing, like listening to seasoned stand-up comedians tackling some profound
realities in life but diluting it with deadpan humor to make it more palatable
to an audience that came to the theater to reflect on their everyday realities
without having to cut back on entertainment value. Overall, The Sound Inside is a pleasant
surprise, a funny and thought-provoking one at that.
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