Theater Review - The King and I

The King and I

Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Book by Oscar Hammerstein II

Directed by Bartlett Sher

Where: Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont, New York, NY

When:  Saturday, December 26, 2015, 8pm

After the lovely revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific directed by Bartlett Sher at Lincoln Center, The King and I had a lot to live up to seeing as how it's another Rodgers and Hammerstein production also directed by Bartlett Sher and also showing at Lincoln Center.  While it doesn't overtake South Pacific purely based on the book and songs, The King and I is still a charming production, beautifully acted and nicely directed.

Tony winner Kelli O'Hara takes on the role of Anna, a Welsh teacher who travels to Siam to teach the many children of the King played here by Hoon Lee.  The duo of O'Hara and Lee are rather intriguing together -- there's a slight romantic spark between the two coupled with a tension as the authoritarian King attempts to rule over Anna and their quick-worded barbed exchanges are charming.  O'Hara is gloriously at home on the stage with a voice that commands attention in both the most dramatic and comedic of situations.  This is my third time seeing O'Hara onstage and she really is a treat to watch and hear.  Lee is a nice counterpoint, taking on a serious tone, but having a quick wit that makes The King and I much more humorous than I ever expected.

The stand-out moment of the evening for me, however, came from Tony winner Ruthie Ann Miles as Lady Thiang, the King's most "treasured" wife -- you see, he has many women to whom he is betrothed.  When she belts out Rodgers and Hammerstein's rather heartbreakingly written "Something Wonderful," it was the one moment in the show I found myself getting chills.  Kudos to Miles for delivering what I found to be the night's most captivating moment.

Throughout the first act of The King and I -- a musical with which I was completely unfamiliar prior to heading up to NYC -- I found myself rather enthralled by the proceedings with a nice mix of clever songs (a melange of ballads, humorous ditties, and the quintessential "Getting to Know You").  Unfortunately, following the intermission, I felt like the musical didn't hit the right notes.  It's no fault of O'Hara, Lee, or Miles or even director Bartlett Sher, but rather the fault of the musical's book which oddly intersperses some disappointing musical numbers with oddly paced drama.  There's not much there to really grab us and reel us in which is a bit surprising since the first act captivates.

Don't mistake that last paragraph for complete distaste in The King and I.  It's a lovely "old school" Broadway musical certainly earning its "classic" status.  It's just not quite a complete piece to me, but Kelli O'Hara, Hoon Lee, and Ruthie Ann Miles are worth the price of admission.

Theater Review - Nice Work If You Can Get It

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Music and Lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin

Book by Joe DiPietro

Directed by Kathleen Marshall

Where: Imperial Theatre, New York City, NY

When:  September 5, 2012, 8pm

Were I thirty years older, I may have been laughing as hard as the lady behind me, but seeing as how I am not yet sixty, Nice Work If You Can Get It is, to me, a tired Broadway trifle that shoehorns some lovely George and Ira Gershwin tunes into a story that is unworthy of their presence.  Songs in a musical exist as an extension of a character's personality or a way of furthering plot, but they absolutely must relate in some way to the overarching story.  Here, we get none of that with playwright Joe DiPietro simply tossing in classics like the title number, "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," or "S'Wonderful" seemingly at random, failing to have these oftentimes emotion-filled songs create any meaningful impact on the plot.  Ultimately, this dooms the musical and is where Nice Work falters the most.

The plot is a throwaway, but I appreciate the homage to 1930s movies/radio shows/Broadway that it strives to achieve.  Multi-millionaire playboy Jimmy Winter (Matthew Broderick...more on him later) is about to be married for the fourth time -- this time to impressionistic dancer Eileen Evergreen (Jennifer Laura Thompson).  After a drunken binge one evening in a speakeasy (for, you see, we are in the Prohibition Era), he runs into Billie Bendix (Kelli O'Hara...more on her later as well), a bootlegger who wears pants and a cap (which lets us know she's tough as nails with a likely heart of gold to match) to whom he reveals that he's really only marrying Eileen because it will make him look responsible to his mother who will then bequeath him the extensive family fortune.  While he tells his story, Jimmy reveals to Billie that he owns a huge mansion in Long Island that he rarely uses and Billie sees this as the perfect location to store her crew's supply of illegal booze from the police.  In the play's next two hours, we get multiple cases of mistaken identity, several instances of awkwardly newfound romance, and a few dance numbers thrown at us all of which are pleasant, but not quite enough to sustain the running time especially since the songs don't do a darn thing to forward the plot.

In fact, the songs that are the most successful end up being the throwaway numbers which utilize some of the lesser known songs in the Gershwins' catalog.  When the hoity-toity Eileen lounges in a bathtub and begins singing about how "Delishious" she is, a bevy of bathing beauties climb out of the same tub to dance with her and extol her great virtues -- a truly creative moment and one of the few successful times that a song tells us exactly what it needs to in regards to a character.  Or take Act II's "Looking for a Boy" sung by Duchess Estonia Dulworth (Judy Kaye) who, heretofore, has been the very definition of uppity, pompous, and prim.   When she unknowingly becomes intoxicated, the typically bluesy (and perhaps sultry) Gershwin number becomes a literal "swinging from the chandelier" moment that is a true showstopper and the obvious moment that single-handedly won Ms. Kaye this year's Best Supporting Actress Tony.

But the problem is that when the musical's main characters deign to burst into song, their numbers never hit home in the way they do for the secondary characters.  It's not Matthew Broderick or Kelli O'Hara's fault either, both of whom I couldn't help but think were truly enjoying their time spent onstage together.  Although neither were given the best plotlines, they both seemed to be be having a ball during their scenes together despite performing eight times a week.  Unfortunately, this evident genial rapport doesn't really translate to chemistry which I think is more a fault of their characters than the actors themselves.

I've seen Ms. O'Hara before in the wonderful South Pacific (which has greatly improved in my memory as time passes) and she has a lovely voice that simply isn't showcased to its best effect here.  She has a few nice numbers -- particularly when she's permitted to let her comedic side show like in the hilarious bedroom romp "Treat Me Rough" -- but her character of Billie simply doesn't have any substance for her to latch onto.  Similarly, Broderick's playboy character is one-note and the actor decides to play him with an oddly side-mouthed almost-lisp which faded in and out when he saw fit.  Despite that annoying tic, I had read several reviews that said the actor seemed to be phoning this role in, and while he certainly wasn't a revelation, he is serviceable in the part with an adequate voice (that worked well with the old standards that don't require a ton of belting to be successful) and a naturalness to his dancing that, while not well honed, was oddly pleasant to watch.  [Funnily enough, I was kind of reminded when watching Broderick of my long-ago high school production of Bye Bye Birdie...like me, Broderick was having fun, but likely realized he's not the best singer and dancer in the land.]

However, in the end, this musical is just an excuse to wrap some semblance of a story around a group of Gershwin songs.  There's no substance to the plot or heft to the characters.  Everyone simply trudges along to the show's inevitable ending which will undoubtedly lead to a standing ovation from the crowd.  [...Which is another irksome quality of theater nowadays -- I'm all for applauding at the end of a show even if you didn't care for it just to show respect to the actors, but not every single production deserves a standing ovation....You're diluting what a standing O really should stand for...End of Soapbox Rant...]  Nice Work If You Can Get It is pleasant, but it's simply not very good and "pleasant" just doesn't cut it when you're shelling out money to see a Broadway production.

Theatre Review - South Pacific

South Pacific

Book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan

Music by Richard Rodgers // Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

directed by Bartlett Sher

When: Saturday, December 26, 2009

Where: Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont

What: Musical, Professional Theatre, Broadway

There were so many things right with this production of the "classic" musical South Pacific that it's easy to overlook it's major flaw -- the lack of any story that matters. Similar to the recent film release of Avatar, South Pacific at the Vivian Beaumont in NYC is a beautifully crafted piece...but it has no strong story and it manages to drag that nothingness out for three hours.

The general gist of the story is this -- stationed on an island in the South Pacific in WWII, young nurse Nellie Forbush has fallen in love with an older Frenchman, Emile de Becque, who has moved to the island after he ran away from France because he killed a man. Now, killing a man wasn't enough to push Nellie away from him, but once she finds out he has two interracial children from an affair with a Polynesian woman, she's through with him. That's pretty much it. It's obvious that the two of them will get back together, so why stretch this thing out to three hours?

Fortunately, despite the lack of any important story (although, to be fair, I guess it had some impact when it was first presented in 1949), everything else shines, particularly the two leads. Paulo Szot (who plays Emile) is apparently best known for singing opera and his voice was just amazing. The winner of the 2008 Tony for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, Szot brings an astounding amount of emotion to his deep baritone (I had to look that up...I couldn't tell you a tenor from a soprano) and his acting skills were top notch, too.

The cute Kelli O'Hara, while perhaps a little too old to be playing a naïve twentysomething, steals the show in my opinion. Also nominated for a Tony for this role (she didn't win), O'Hara runs the gamut of emotions from perky to dejected to uptight to lovelorn. She's a fine dancer, a funny comedienne, and a beautiful singer. I was just drawn to her every second she was onstage. Whereas Szot is given some of the musical's most emotional ballads, O'Hara is privileged to sing some truly fun songs with clever lyrics and director Bartlett Sher really sets up the whole production around her Nellie, giving her some of the best set pieces to work with (literally taking a shower onstage while she sings "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" was just one of his clever stagings).

Szot and O'Hara are surrounded by a great cast of singers and dancers who all get a chance to shine. I'm not a huge fan of big dance numbers and, fortunately, this musical didn't really have any. What it does have, however, is a thirty piece orchestra...and that won me over in a big way. The music was simply, for lack of a better word, gorgeous (I think that "gorgeous" should probably only be used to discuss something visually, but who cares). The orchestrations just sounded amazing. From the 5-minute-plus Overture to the final notes of the curtain call, everything sounded sumptuous and full. Most musicals these days get by with a much smaller orchestra than this and having a group thirty people big adds that intangible something that makes South Pacific rise above the rest.

Now, did this thing move me emotionally as much as The Lion King? Nope. Were the songs as good as those in Mary Poppins? Nah. And while this may not be the best musical I've ever seen thanks to its lackluster story, South Pacific was absolutely a very enjoyable experience and well worth its ticket price.