By Barbara & Scott Siegel…
Some thoughts, this award season, on Masquerade, Schmigadoon!, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, The Lost Boys, Becky Shaw and Titanique…
There are quite a few shows we have yet to review, so we thought we might cover a lot of fertile ground by giving our critical comments about some of these shows in relation to the awards they have either been nominated for or have won.
Let’s begin with the Drama Desk taking the lazy way out of dealing with Masquerade. They gave the show a special award, which essentially took it off the table for consideration for acting awards for all six Phantoms, all six Christine’s, etc. They also put aside the extraordinary direction and set design that featured six different shows happening virtually all at the same time. Would it have been extremely hard to consider all of the elements in Masquerade — sure! — but that’s the job. While we’re happy that the show got some recognition with this special award, it really deserved more.
Everybody — The Tony Awards, The Drama Desk, the Outer Critics, etc. — loved Schmigadoon! So did we! Frankly, anybody who genuinely has a special place in their heart for musical theater would have to enjoy this comic valentine to classic Broadway musicals. Its comedy is deliciously spot-on, its big wink to the audience is winning, and it is so much better than it needs to be to get its laughs. Everything about the show is well-thought out and impressively staged. The actors sing and dance with a sort of magical glee; it is just plain fun. We’re not looking at what other prognosticators are saying, but to our minds, Schmigadoon! is a good bet to win the Best Musical Tony Award.
Highly touted, critically acclaimed, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, moved from downtown to Broadway but it still feels entirely downtown. The audience was loving it, but we were not.
While it was great to hear the music from Cats, most of it was sung better by the Broadway fifth or tenth replacement casts. But we give it super high grades for the dancing, which was stunning. Overall, the show was purely performative; there was little emotional commitment but plenty of political commentary. But it was political commentary largely about the past; nothing was pushing this show forward except its relentless exuberance. It might get some costume awards, but it’s not going to be a big winner — except at the box office, which, we have to admit, counts for a lot.
The Lost Boys is the sleeper in this awards season. It has a lot going for it: a slick script, great set design, exciting special effects, and a wonderful, deep cast that provides excellent performances — and great singing — from start to finish. We’ve never liked or enjoyed Shoshana Bean as much as we did in this show. She is funny, real, and sings her face off. Ali Louis Bourzgui proves that his performance in Tommy: The Musical was no fluke; this guy is seriously talented and charismatic. Frankly, all the lead and featured players were fun to watch and listen to.
Look, the show is a weird and winning combination of Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein (not the actual story, but the idea of a silly horror comedy) and a really heartfelt family story about trying to find out who you are and where you belong in this life. And it works.
This will, deservedly, win a bunch of awards, but probably not the big ones, which will go to Schmigadoon! and Ragtime, with a few others scattered here and there. But it is definitely a very good night of musical theater.
Becky Shaw is both an excellent piece of theater by Gina Gionfriddo, and a brilliantly directed revival by Trip Cullman, aided an abetted by excellent performances from the small, tighly knit cast, but powerfully pushed forward by Alden Ehrenreich as Max, who’s character is way too smart for his own good, and Lauren Patten who loves Max, (too) well, like a brother.
Full of emotional twists and turns and the kind of smart, tough writing that we rarely see these days, the show is as refreshing as it is dark. It won’t be everyone’s taste, but it was ours. And it might be yours.
Titanique is fun, but the one joke nature of the story tends to get a bit worn. The show’s biggest problem is that it hit an iceberg this season named Schmigadoon!, which offers way more variations on its own one joke set-up. Titanique tends to pale in comparison. It has a bus-and-truck feel about it; it looks cheap. And even the sound design was poorly done. Even so, we enjoyed it; don’t get us wrong, but it was light comedy compared to the guffaws from Schmigadoon!
