London Theatre Shenanigans, Day 7! I can't believe it's been a week already β seriously, where does the time go? (Wait, I know the answer ...)
Today I trekked out to the V&A Archives, where time passed far too quickly; took copious notes from Medea, rambled at theatre bestie about the bits of her requested Julius Caesar that I was able to catch, and kind of just absorbed Hedda. Proper thoughts on that another day, and maybe a bit of the other stuff I got to in the National Theatre's archives as well, but I counterbalanced all that tragedy tonight with Operation Mincemeat. That had been on my list the last time I was in London, but I went for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button instead (zero regrets on that choice) β which is to say I was ovedue and it was one of the definites for this time.
Once again, I went in quite familiar with the album, and once again Act 2 in particular threw me some curveballs. This isn't a complaint; the changes and additions made sense, and didn't feel like they'd been added just for the sake of adding songs. I was very curious to see how a different cast would handle material that felt so heavily written for its originators, since that's a fundamental test for the long-term potential of a show, and while I think this one will always be even more dependent on a particular sort of cast, it worked better than I expected. The cast for tonight were Roshani Abbey (Jean), Danny Becker (Hester), Madeleine Jackson-Smith (Bevan), Peter McGovern (Cholmondeley), and Alex Young (Montagu); I may have detected some vocal fatigue (plague? it certainly seems to be doing the rounds), and Madeleine isn't listed as playing Bevan on the site so I assume that was a pivot/less common cover, but I absolutely cannot fault the energy or the acting. Some things got laughs I did not expect (some moments in "Dear Bill", of all things, while I was failing at trying not to cry), though that was to me more audience than them being played for humour β the later callbacks to talking to flowers are sad, people, it's only funny the first time! But overall, I definitely enjoyed myself, and it's another show that is absolutely better live, because the energy in the space builds in that cast-audience feedback loop.
(There is something that just hits, too, about such a theatrically over the top musical ending with these five people who have just poured so much energy into everything for the last two hours and change standing there in an arc, lights dimmed, stars splashed behind them, cap on the stage before them, reprising "Sail On Boys" in this heartfelt tribute. Just ... yes.)
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With much appreciation to @silkandsteel for the tag, cause it's been too bloody long since I actually answered something properly (sorry, inbox).
1. The origin of your username: once upon a time I misspelled a word, and I kept it because it means I'll almost always be able to get the username I want.
2. I will always order this food: assuming the restaurant is good? Sushi, especially salmon π€€ or a very specific roll from a place back home. Tom kha gai. A properly done bagel (usually everything, sometimes poppy or jalapeΓ±o) with lox cream cheese. Yes, that's more than one answer. No, this will not be the last time that's happening.
3. Overused emoji: based on my recent ones ... π. Yeah, that's probably right.
4. Current favorite show/movie/book: I am the worst at favourite anything. But right now, I am brainrotting on Slow Horses after mainlining the show. Movie and book are a lot harder, but since my sister and I rewatched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy while she was here and I am reminded of how much I loved those films, let's go with that? π Otherwise it would be one of the musicals I watch a lot, and I'm not sure that counts. As for book ... yeah, no, I am not picking between my beloved children.
5. Song on repeat: I've been listening to the Ballad Lines studio cast album a lot recently, in anticipation of seeing it in February, and I'm really excited about the entire thing β but for specific songs, "Secondhand Shame" is the one I've been humming most recently so let's go with that.
6. Last thing you hyper-fixated on: other than Slow Horses, as aforementioned? Does Kate Fleetwood's singing count? π The HEX fic I'm banging my head against? π Shenanigans, mostly. Always shenanigans. (Side-eyeing you, @anne-in-dreamland β affectionately. π)
7. Oddly specific thing that brings you joy: one entirely random thing? The carnations in my kitchen vase, which are a lovely spot of brightness and smell lovely.
8. Phone wallpaper: SPACE. I've had a random nebula as my background for I don't even know how long at this point. It weirds me out to cover people's faces, IDEK.
9. What smell makes you happy: baking bread. Petrichor. The chill in the air before it snows. The ocean at home. For a fire sign, there's sure a lot of water scents I like.
10. Morning, night, or other type of person: absolute night owl. I've been an intermittent but chronic insomniac since I was very young, and would do much better if the day started later. My first alarm goes off an hour and a half before I have to get up because I am that bad at convincing myself to start moving.
11. What is your work/profession: professional cat herder, if the cats were engineers. π€
Tagging: the only thing I am worse at than answering asks and picking favourites is tagging people, so please β steal if you like and tag me if you answer, because I'd love to read your replies. π
London Theatre Shenanigans, Day 9! Which is to say: Into the Woods, the "screaming over Kate Fleetwood" edition. Because oh god, I screamed.
I really kind of wish I had posted this on Friday when I got back from the production, riding the absolute high but also the slightly sad mood of it now being over, because now I've had several days to absorb and it all feels slightly surreal. As previously said: I love Into the Woods. I love the Witch, a lot. She is quite probably my favourite Sondheim character, in my favourite Sondheim musical, because I have always enjoyed moral complicated-ness and fairy tales and this might as well have been written as a targeted attack against me ... and I watch it and say, "Thank you, may I have another?", because it's delicious.
I remember, when the film version was announced, having a very long conversation with one of my besties about our concerns over the adaptation, and how every so often we'd circle back to, "Meryl Streep is great, but she has one fundamental problem: she is not Bernadette Peters." And so when the Bridge announced Kate as the Witch, and one of the first things she said was how she was painfully aware that she was not Bernadette Peters, I cackled aloud ... but I'd be lying if I said I didn't worry somewhat about being disappointed. Not by her acting β that was never a concern β but by the singing. Like ... I knew she could sing. I'd heard her, last time I was over in London. But this is Sondheim. And it's a different range. And ... she's not Bernadette.
So the Bridge didn't try to make her that, and thank fuck they didn't, because it was absolutely the right choice.
I will always love the original cast and the proshot of that production, in all its occasionally campy but consistently heartwrenching glory. And I will always, always adore Bernadette's Witch, but whereas hers is genuinely (and I do not mean this in a bad way) a diva, the Bridge's version in many ways feels like she's part of the woods itself. A lot of this is visual cues woven into the costuming, but there's also something in the way she's portrayed that just feels that way, for reasons I can't quite put a finger on, and in so many ways it's fitting? The Woods are the crucible the characters are all put into and emerge from fundamentally changed, for better and for worse, and the Witch is in many ways the catalyst for that change. She also feels more genuinely bitter, which I do think benefits from differences in vocal timbre between them; in Act 2 in particular, this Witch is genuinely 1000% Done with these morons, and it shows in every fibre of her being β starting "Last Midnight" seated while the others are all standing really drove this home. And the last may be in some respects due to the age of the actresses at the time of playing the role, but Bernadette's feels more genuinely naΓ―ve or oblivious in her own way at times, while Kate's feels like her intentions are more sincere but built on a fundamentally flawed framework and so it's doomed to failure β and as someone who loves that sort of thing, I absolutely ate it up.
There's a sort of maniacal glee in the humour, from the very moment where she first pops up on stage between the Baker and his Wife; the way she wriggled as she walked offstage after "boom β crunch" is one delightful example. But then you get hairpin changes, like the difference in delivery between two adjacent repetitions of "get me what I need", where the first is softly wistful and the second strident, that do what always seems to pop up with her acting, which is to add so much nuance and unspoken depths to a character that I just want to understand everything behind the portrayal and the acting choices. @emylilas and I were comparing notes, and even between a matinee and an evening performance things would change, and I could legitimately sit through a dozen repetitions of this show and probably still notice variations β and yes, some of that is the joy of live theatre, but it's also particular actors, and I adore that.
Over the course of the two productions I saw with her (and the one without), I did get most of the regular cast β the only one who didn't turn up in any of them was Oliver Savile as Cinderella's Prince/the Wolf. I still am not a fan of Katie Brayben's vocals in this role, and cooled on Chumisa Dornford-May's Cinderella β lovely voice, but the acting fell short for me, especially alongside the standout work from Gracie McGonigal as Little Red. I will absolutely and unhesitatingly admit my bias in naming Kate as my MVP, but based on reviews and on audience reactions, I don't think I'm alone in that. It's a part that lends itself to that, admittedly; the Witch has the best snark, hands down, and some of the best songs. But even so ...
One thing that really interested me was that the climax to "Last Midnight", which had felt a bit flat for me on first viewing, worked in these subsequent performances. I don't know if that was Kate's acting or viewer bias or catching Jennifer on an off day or what, but there was something both snappier and intentional about her movements at the end that made it make sense in a way it hadn't before. It feels more like willingly hurling herself into that abyss, which is already textually suggested (give me claws and a hunch / just away from this bunch) but played out visually here with body angle and speed of motion. (I told Emy "it made more sense with Kate in the driver's seat taking that bus straight down to hell", and I stand by that observation.) And in that sense, having Rapunzel as the vocal and visual counterpoint just works on so many levels, especially with the implications conveyed by Tom Scutt's costume design of some element of role reversal, and also does that make Rapunzel an echo of her mother, and no wonder I have been wallowing in Witch thoughts since.
(Speaking of Rapunzel: I think I forgot to scream about Bella Brown last time, but she made a strong (positive!) impression and I am very much looking forward to seeing how her career progresses, because she definitely seems to have the singing and acting chops already. Also very glad they let her come in as a harmony in "Children Will Listen" as well, because it felt like it rounded the whole thing out and played into the Witch and Rapunzel's dynamic and maybe even themes of reconciliation and redemption in a way that really fit the show's vibes.)
Other random observations: I loved the way "Hello Little Girl" was blocked as a dance; that works so well both narratively and visually, and picked up the bounce of the music in a great way. Incorporating the Prince's thing about blood into the shoe-fitting had me wheezing but it was so appropriate. "Agony" will always and forever delight, and the physicality of it especially sent me. I appreciate the Baker's Wife having agency in "Any Moment / Moments in the Woods", even if I still wasn't quite buying it.
Also: stage door, alas, was a wash, in part because I am far too much of an awkward potato to approach the few people who did come out that way but also because very few did. Can't say I blame them given the weather (even if I was the nutter running around London with at most a fleece or an unlined raincoat), but a bit sad nonetheless. It's a production where I'd have loved to express my proper appreciation directly to the cast, especially when it's so much of an ensemble piece.
Anyway. That is more than enough rambling, I think. The tl;dr is that flying across an ocean, impulse-buying that extra ticket, and spending more than I ought have to see this production in general and Kate Fleetwood again in particular was incredibly worth it and I have zero regrets, even after walking back into work this morning and promptly drowning in emails. And now I'm going to go continue to wallow in this Witch-induced brainrot and continue catching up on things tomorrow.
Okay, now that I've had some time to mull over things, some (potentially incoherent) Thoughts on 3x08 ... well, specifically That Thing and some broader tropey stuff.
I get why people are upset -- I absolutely do, especially given that this show has made some rather unfortunate choices vis a vis optics. Colour-blind casting is wonderful, but it also means that you run the risk of accidentally (or subconsciously) falling into tropes you didn't necessarily think through. Valda and Fain are both examples -- the actors for both are utterly wonderful, but the two Most Problematic Whitecloaks being particularly dark-skinned definitely has Unfortunate Implications, especially contrasting Valda against avuncular, generally well-intentioned Geofram Bornhold. And there's a trend in this season in particular with PoC characters being the ones who die, especially in more unpleasant ways. Ihvon dying over Maksim. The White sister in Liandrin's cabal being the first to go (and to get absolutely smashed in the process). Ispan's death versus Nyomi's. Loial, generally.
At the same time, I get why there are deaths. The source material has eleventy billion characters; it was inevitable we'd see them, especially as the show goes forward and focusses more and more on the 'kids' without the need for established names to carry the show. It's even more inevitable as plotlines proliferate, and threads have to be tied back in and the show made to work within its constraints. I hate them -- I have a habit of picking out, as my favourites, characters who very often end up dead (or, if not, sidelined, but that's not important here). When I read the books, many years ago, Siuan was my unequivocal favourite from the moment she first showed up, and when I read the spoilers last night, insomniac and trying to convince myself to sleep and not watch, I was simultaneously shocked and not surprised.
So I went in knowing that Siuan was going to die, but I didn't know how they'd handle it. And it was heartbreaking. But thinking about it, in the aftermath, there's one thing in particular that I actually do like about the change, and that is how it makes her an active participant in the Tower's breaking. Not that she causes it -- that happens in both books and show -- but that she isn't silenced, stilled, bundled off into a cell, and then basically vanishes from the Tower. We see more of her mistakes play out on the screen, but in addition we see her try to make amends for them. "I am Aes Sedai" felt like a challenge as much as a proclamation -- a reminder of what the words mean, of what the Tower should be, at this time above and beyond any other. It felt like more agency than I remember her having in the books. (Could it have been done without her dying? Arguably yes. But if she was going to go out, and if they wanted to give Sophie a suitably dramatic moment to play, this was the best opportunity within her book arc. Could it have been done without such a violent -- if mercifully off-panel -- death? Again, arguably yes, but as someone pointed out on Bsky, it's a definitive shorthand for Actually Deceased in a show where anything short of death can be Healed, and even more than that if you're the Dark One, but that's another story.)
Would I have liked to see the show go a different way? Maybe. There was a lot of speculation floating around about ways show Siuan's storyline could go, especially in connection with Moiraine's book arc, and especially after Siuan and Mat's conversation I really warmed to the idea -- it would have been lovely to see more of their dynamic, and there were some very interesting ways that could have wound. My ultimate response depends a lot on how the rest of the show (which we hopefully get!) plays out. But there will always be things you wish a show did that it doesn't, and that's what things like fanfic are for. I've been disappointed many times, and this one hits me less hard than some, because even if I dislike it at first blush I can see how it makes narrative sense.
But again: I get it. I get that there are actor conflicts, and cost ramifications, and any one of a thousand things that might have precluded Sophie's continued involvement as a regular -- and if they followed book!Siuan's storyline, that would have probably warranted regular involvement. I get that there are issues with killing a woman, a character of colour, a lesbian in an onscreen relationship -- so many issues, taken in the context of an industry that is pretty awful to minorities of all sorts, and especially when it comes to SF/F. I'm not saying all of this to try to convince anyone one way or another, but mostly to kind of get my thoughts on the events of the finale worked out, when it's not what I expected.
Your feelings on this, whatever they are, are absolutely valid. If you walk away from the show, that's your prerogative -- goodness knows I've done that with shows in the past. If you choose to defend it or to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, those are equally justifiable. Everyone has to decide what their personal break point is with the media they engage with. I hope, if you do walk away, that you're able to keep whatever joy the show gave you; feeling like a piece of media you love has betrayed you is always painful. Personally, I hope we do get more of this show, and I'm willing to give them a chance. I haven't agreed with all of their choices, but overall I'm still enjoying it, and I'm definitely eager to see what comes next ... though not to wait two years for it, assuming it's a similar cadence.
(Anyway. I hope that was some measure of coherent in the end. But now I'm going to try to do something entirely different with regards to another character on this show, so I'll shut up instead of going on any further.)
London theatre shenanigans, Day 8 -- aka Overload Day 2, but what a glorious way to overload. Went back to the National Theatre archives in the morning for lesbian suffragists, which I might now have to track down the script for because I'm honestly pretty intrigued, then hopped over to the Bridge Theatre for the extra Into the Woods viewing I'd slotted into the one open spot in my calendar. Going to keep my thoughts brief because I go back again tomorrow night and I'll scream more properly then (without an early morning following), but let me just sum it up by saying that the cast board did not disappoint me today and also you may mark me Dead of Kate Fleetwood. #noregrets
My evening ticket was for Cable Street, which was the last advance ticket I picked out β partly due to the premise sounding interesting (The Battle of Cable Street and the ordinary people in the middle of it) and partly after listening to what they had up on their SoundCloud. I found the first half of the musical to be stronger overall than the second, and the eventual reveal at the end was somewhat predictable (which may have been deliberate), but I also appreciate that it didn't shy away from the darkness. It feels painfully timely, at any rate, and I hope they get a full recording given the nods they seem to be garnering.
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London Theatre Shenanigans, Day 6, vague speedrun edition!
Today was Playboy of the Western World at the National Theatre, which I picked partly because I like mixing straight plays and musicals and partly because it sounded fun β and it was, all told. I was only vaguely familiar with the story going in, and it was about as absurd as I expected, but the cast was genuinely engaging, and itβs always fun seeing actors you know from screen going back to theatrical roots. So β fun, definitely, and worth seeing, and kind of a nice bit of breathing space between higher energy pieces.
(Tomorrow is day 1 of Theatre Overload, since Iβll be at the V&A archives most of the day before a musical evening, but I anticipate zero regrets, except perhaps for the earlier morning required. Weβll see!)
Catching up because I have been busy! Behind a cut because it's a lot. π The tl;dr? I have a problem, and that is not enough days for all the theatre I want to see (always).
Day 2: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which I got a ticket for solely on whim β the trailer looked interesting, and I do like Passenger's music. It was ... good but not amazing? Most of the songs are not the type I expect to be earworms, though if they release a cast album I expect I'll add some to my playlist. I hadn't seen the film so I went in a bit blind, with only the most general knowledge of the storyline. It's more of an ensemble piece than I anticipated, which is nice; Mark Addy isn't a singer, really, but it works for the role, and both Jenna Russell and Noah Mullins are β Noah in particular impressed me. (Also, the doggo. Best damned use of a puppet I've seen onstage.)
Day 3: this was a twofer, and started with Ballad Lines as a matinee, which was in a much smaller venue. It's always interesting to see things in that kind of a setting and wonder how they'd translate to a larger stage, but this one is clearly still evolving β I'd listened to the studio album and gone in thinking I knew how things would go, only to be curveballed in the 11th hour. Not mad about it, but "it's not a Charis fic, that won't happen" turned out to be a filthy lie. π Excellent cast all around, though, and still a very interesting concept (Scottish-Irish-Appalachian music threads), and I'm very glad I was able to see it.
In the evening I finally caught Hadestown, which I've wanted to see for a while and never got round to. I wish I'd gotten a proper look at the cast board, because I am 99% sure it was a cover-heavy night but I can only guess as to some of them. Any which way, despite having watched it on video, there were things that absolutely worked much better in person β it's got enough audience interplay, and some particularly striking moments with the lights, that hit differently, the end of the first act in particular. Delightful.
Day 4: hey, that's today! Today was Globe Theatre day; I caught a stage combat demo and took a tour (during which I was Completely Normal, I swear) and nerded out after both, but the main event was The Tempest tonight in the Sam Wanamaker playhouse. I sat in the pit (friend's advice β "it's as close to being a groundling as you can there, surely"), and would recommend that to anyone who goes. Without giving away anything about how they interpreted it here β because if you go see it, I think it's better not knowing the twist β it was an interesting and unexpected production. I wish I'd had a chance to properly read through the play again before going in; heck, I wish I could watch it again with text in hand, because there were definitely textual tweaks. It was genuinely fun, occasionally funny, and definitely thought-provoking, though, and I'm glad I went β and not just for the gorgeous interior.
Tomorrow Later today: Into the Woods! Will I explode from sheer glee? Entirely possible. Stay tuned? π
London plans are rapidly coalescing. There will be much theatre and even more screaming, and other bits of stuff crammed in between. So far: Into the Woods (for the ever-delightful Kate Fleetwood in what might be my favourite role in what might be my favourite Sondheim), Operation Mincemeat (because I regret not catching it last year), and Oh, Mary! (because it seems fun). I think Iβve figured out the rest of the lineup in my head, so next up are the rest of my tickets and then archive plans and then just trying not to vibrate out of my skin with anticipation while I take care of everything mundane that needs to be done beforehand.
(Adulting, pah. Except it pays for the theatre tickets and everything else, so β¦ maybe not so much pah.)
