Many Plays, 2

There's still plenty to do, but I have to take some time for myself. Which is funny since I'm at work and getting paid, sort of, maybe, that should be my focus, but I'm going a little crazy.

Anyway, like I wrote before, this last month I went to see a lot of plays and I thought it'd be fun (for me) to go over what I saw and what I liked and didn't like about each.

The Women:
At its most, it's the story of a bunch of women in New York and how they deal with men. Divorce, cheating, dating, and remarriage are all big parts of the story. Not that the play's a downer, because it's not. It's really funny. The only real problem with it is that the playwright didn't do a very good job of transitioning from comedy to the drama and them back. It's like laugh, laugh, laugh, and then get hit upside the head with melodrama and weeping; new scene: laugh, laugh, laugh, hit with melodrama. And it does this over and over again.

Still the good far out weighed the overwrought drama and most of the women were spectacular at the comedy and those that weren't were really only important to the drama aspects.

The Producers:
Only one of the most fun musicals ever written. People cheating old ladies out of lots money after having sex with them to put on the worst play ever and after it closes take the extra cash and run off to Rio, with flaming gay men, a Nazi, and songs, what's not to enjoy?

In fact, I enjoyed this version almost as much as I did the touring company Wings and I saw years ago in SF. I did wish that Ulla had a better blonde wig and that we could see the dancers in their swastika formations during "Springtime for Hitler," but an overhead mirror would have cost too much for this little theater.

The Crucible:
This power of this play, when it's performed, rest on the shoulders of one character: John Proctor. Which was the problem with this performance. The guy playing John was too young and he just wasn't that good of an actor. When he's having dinner with his wife, Elizabeth, and she's poking at him because he screwed around on her, John should be played with righteous fury, like he's about to blame his affair on Elizabeth because she got sick and he couldn't have sex with his wife; the actor played it more like a teenager whining to his girlfriend about how sick he is of her teasing. The lust between John and Abigail Williams should be hot and animalistic; she draws him in with her sex appeal and he simply can't resist, but, again, this actor played it more like a first time crush, all awkward and bumbling and clammy.

The rest of the cast was spectacular, though. They took the words of Arthur Miller and really turned them into a morality tale and saved me from being totally bored with the play.

Kiss Me, Kate:
With this play, Cole Porter was trying to move his writing from what Broadway used to be -- a show with songs that were good, but had little to do with the plot -- to what they were becoming -- shows with songs that were integral to the characters or plot -- but didn't quite succeed. There may not be a lot of songs that are useless to the story, but the very first one, "Another Op'nin', Another Show" sure is and so is one of Porter's best songs ever, "Too Darn Hot." And it really bugs me.

Yeah, I enjoyed the show and really all the songs are wonderful, and the actors were great, especially the women who played Lilly/Katherine and Lois/Bianca and the show are extremely strong. I guess that why the non important song, like "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," bother me so much, the play is nearly perfect and these songs, as fun as they are, just take me right out of the story.

A Chorus Line:
Talk about you musical for those who love musicals.

It's all about the casting of a chorus for a play. It's one act of like 17 characters standing on an empty stage dancing, and talking about themselves or their love of dance, and practicing. And the dancing is amazing. From the perfect solo dances, to the practice groups where people misstep, to the high kicking finale.

Spectacular.

Snoopy!!! The Musical:
This play so wanted to be You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, but it just couldn't be and doesn't ever come close.

Frankly, to me, Snoopy is the most boring character in Peanuts. Yes I like his imagination, but everything always works out for him, or, if it doesn't, he just says it did and then moves on to something else. He's just so boring.

So is the play. Between the songs are short sketch like things that are supposed to be like a daily strip brought to life. Some of them are funny, but none of them connect to each other except that they include Charlie Brown, Lucy, Sally, Linus, Peppermint Patty, and Snoopy, other than that, nothing.

Most of the songs are light and airy and useless. Snoopy almost always sings about how great his life is or how great he is and how everything should focus on him.

And then there are the two songs that Focus on Peppermint Patty that completely mischaracterize the Peppermint Patty I remember from the strips. She has a crush on Charlie Brown. We all know it. (And yes, I'm aware of the lesbian jokes with her and Marcie, and even if Peppermint Patty's gay she can have a crush on a boy that's kind to her. I'm sure it happens all the time out there in the real world.) In the strips she constantly denied it, but she also called him up or sat under a tree with him and talked about love to him, but he never got the hint and she'd get frustrated. She'd never admit to the crush, though. But in this play she first asks him about her looks and when he mentions her big nose and how she might grow into it she then sings a song about how she wants her face to catch-up to her nose and later she sings Charlie Brown a song where she calls him "poor, sweet baby." It was all just so overt. The strip tended to balance her crush by having Marcie mock Peppermint Patty by insisting the crush was there. The play just has Peppermint Patty throw the crush in the audience's faces.

The last song, "Just One Person," while having a nice message, wasn't earned. You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown earned the sweetness of it's final song, "Happiness," by sort of tearing down Charlie Brown and showing him as a failure, so him and his friends finding happiness in little, everyday things was earned. This Snoopy!!! play shows some disappointment, but every time something happens to him, Snoopy turns it into a victory up to the point where he's actually proclaimed the Head Beagle. There is just too much winning to then delve into such a super sweet song.

The acting was decent. The guy who played Snoopy really hammed it up, but the woman who played Peppermint Patty was wonderful, I wish she'd had a bigger role in one of the other plays. It's too bad they had such a poor play to perform in.

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And there we have it. All the plays I've seen in the last month, or so. It's pretty obvious which one I saw last, isn’t it? Here's hoping, if I'm still around then, next year is as enjoyable.