Ariana Grande (22:29)

Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean you're the top?

Cynthia Erivo (22:32)

Yeah.

Ariana Grande (22:33)

You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet afraid of the.

Cynthia Erivo (22:47)

And we're back. So next up on the agenda is Tammy Faye, the musical about Tammy Faye Baker. Mesler Mesner, I think was her name after she divorced GM Written by Elton John on music, Jake Shears on lyrics and James Graham on book. Directed by Rupert Gould. Choreographed by Lynne Page, starring Christian Borrell, Katie Braben and Michael Cerveris. I saw Tammy Faye a few days after opening, I think two days after they announced their closing notice. I'm pretty sure the cast got the closing notice a few days prior. Tammy Faye is pretty much considered the flop of the season. It got pretty much trashed across the board from critics, and by the time it closes, it will have played 29 official performances and 24 previews. Losing its entire investment. And it's always a shame when we have flops like this. We always want shows to succeed. You want actors to be employed. But ultimately, if the stuff is just not up to snuff, what are you gonna do? I tried to go in with an open mind. I had heard talk from friends who had seen it. I try really hard not to let that sway me. I also try to get my friends not to tell me too much before I see a show. I already have two friends who hinted at their opinions of Audra McDonald and Gypsy. And I basically was like, nope, shut it down. I'm waiting till it's frozen. I'm waiting until it's settled, and I will see it later. Anywho, with Tammy Faye. I didn't know much about the actual public figure of Tammy Faye Baker. I knew, you know, her get up. I knew the basic spiel about her. I knew that RuPaul was obsessed with her, that many gay people are obsessed with her, that Kristin Chenoweth was obsessed with her and was trying to get a bio musical off the ground. I saw Ginger Minj play her on Snatch Game on Drag Race, and then I saw the movie starring Jessica Chastain. The Eyes of Tammy Faye. And, you know, there's a lot about her that's very fascinating. Her style is wild, and her attitude of positivity and constant energy is very admirable. But she and her husband also did a lot of shitty things, like also swindling people out of a lot of money. And the thing about Tammy Faye is, despite all of that, she has such a publicly positive perception. She was a joke for a very long time, and I would say in the 21st century, I guess, because she became mostly forgotten by a lot of people. The queer community really kind of kept her relevant and. And supported her in a lot of ways, but never really made her, in my opinion, never really made her quite the gay icon of other historical figures. And also, you know, her career never really felt, from everything that I've looked up about her and seen in the movie and read about her, she wasn't knowingly a gay icon when she was alive. I think she maybe discovered that towards the end of her life, but even then, like, sort of just barely. The musical. How do I describe the musical? People on the Discord asked, is this worse than Lempicka? And I'm going to say yes, because Lempicka, while also bad. Lempicka, suffers from having too many thoughts in its head and too many things that it wants to do. And so there is tonal whiplash in Limpicka. There is clashing genres, nothing Lempicka kind of wanted to be great. Comet meets Evita meets Fun Home. And there's a world in which that blend can work. But with Flimpicka, for me, it did not work. And thus it was constantly battling itself, which led to some uber campy moments, but memorable. And the ultimate sin of Tammy Faye is that it is just so dull. I was really thrown by how boring I found it to be. And also under baked. Rupert Gould is a very talented director. I know I mentioned this last season with Patriots. While I found that play to be very cold, I found that Rupert Gould's direction, you know, he's a very theatrical man and he has a lot of ideas in his head, a lot of images. And I felt that that was sort of to the benefit of Patriots. It also worked well in Ink. But Tammy Faye, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on on stage. The Bunny Christie set of all these TV screens and constant popping up and out of the floor. First of all, the show is too small for the Palace. The palace is a large, large theater really meant for shows like Beauty and the Beast and Daeda. I mean, I even think Legally Blonde was the wrong show for that theater. Legally Blonde should have been in, like the Schubert or the Neil Simon. The palace is reserved for spectacles and larger than life shows. I think the last production that I felt truly filled the palace was, I hate to say it, but An American in Paris. A musical I didn't care for very much, but the way it was put together filled that theater. SpongeBob was a show that they filled the theater. But I do think spongebob was ultimate smaller show than the palace was offering. And Tammy Faye would probably work better in a theater like the Music Box or the Broadhurst. I mean, it started life at the Almeida, which is a 300 seat theater. Granted, the plan was for it to go to the Gillian Lynn and they brought it to the Almeida instead. So it was always meant to be a bigger show, but you watch it and you're like, I can see why this maybe clicked in London. A It's, you know, it's a British telling of American story. So there's a remove there that I'm sure British audiences had about it so they could just sort of enjoy this American story from afar. And also, when you are in a theater that is a fifth the size of the palace, it's easier to get wrapped up in something if it's four inches from you, as opposed to it being 80ft from you. Distance allows you to be a lot more observant and objective. You can't get wrapped up in it so much. And at the palace, we all sat there and we were very removed from it. So we saw it for what it was, which is that it is ultimately an under baked musical telling of Tammy Faye. And I would even argue unfocused because it doesn't really have a take on her or her story. It doesn't really know what it wants to say. And sometimes you don't have to say anything. Sometimes you're just telling the story. But especially when you're telling a story that's true from the past, there needs to be some kind of angle. Otherwise, why are we telling it? Is it just because it's a good story? Sure. But, like, you know, what makes it a good story? Why do we like it? It's the same reason I feel about revivals. Like, don't be a director of a revival. If you don't like the show, if you think that you're gonna fix it, if you think that you have to apologize for it, your revival is gonna blow. And it does every single time. We talked about this, I think in the west side Story episode with Margaret hall of like, what are the revisals in the past that have been actually successful? And I'd argue that the only one that has been considered successful is the Hal Prince candide in the 70s. And even that has its detractors. But it did sort of start a new mold for Candide. Pretty much any other revisal you can think of has been met with criticism. There are fans of the David Henry Huang flower drum song. There are just as many critics of it. So with Tammy Faye brings us back to Tammy Faye, you ask yourself what made this creative team want to tell this story? Because ultimately Tammy Faye as a character is secondary in this show. I would argue that Christian Bale as Jim Baker is the larger role. You know, Katy Brabin has a couple of big numbers. She's got two powerhouse numbers in Act 2, both of which are unearned. Tammy Faye is so passive in this entire musical. And the reason for that is ultimately people want to believe that she had no knowledge of what was going on at the network that she was working at, of the swindling that was going on of their viewers. And maybe she really had no idea. And the movie with Jessica Chastain does kind of take the attitude that she was unaware or if she had any Inklings, she chose to ignore it, but they make that part of her character, of ultimately she's turning a blind eye, A, because they're successful, and B, because she always wants to see the positive. She genuinely believes they're doing good for the world. And Tammy Faye in this musical, you don't get that. You just watch her constantly react to things. And when the show is called Tammy Faye, she has to have more than that. She can't just be the linchpin that brings all the other characters together. She is our focus. She is our viewpoint of all of this. It's happening to her. It's her life. What we don't get that much. We don't get many facets of her. We see her be swept up in religion. We see her kind of come into her own sort of as a TV personality. That even sort of doesn't really work for me because when they start the network, her and Jim, she's already a natural edit. You watch him. You watch Christian Borle as Jim Baker, like, kind of flub stuff, and you watch her just always being able to cover and. And then one day he decides not to go on air, so she has to do it alone. And she's got this big song of finding her power within her and finding the love and Jesus and all that stuff. And everyone's like, oh, my God, we had no idea you had that in you. And it would be more powerful if there was a build to it. We've already seen Tammy Faye crush it on camera at that point. And so this song is more sort of just like she crushes it even further. It's very Gloria Estefan and On youn Feet of like, watch me, she did it. Watch me. She did it. Except in Tammy Faye, it's her going, I couldn't possibly do it. And everyone going, she did it. She learns about Jim Baker's affair, and she gets very upset about that. And then we cut to act two, and she's just all of a sudden more rigid and disciplined, but also has a pill problem. Also, as more things are happening with the network, she just keeps getting overwhelmed by it all. And we don't see her have a turn in any way. We don't see what she's learned about any of this. We just watch her be resilient. Her, like, big 11 o'clock number is like, if you came to see me cry. And it just. It doesn't. None of it feels earned. It's these moments where it's like, okay, we need a big 11 o'clock number for Tammy. Everyone knows that she cries. Let's talk about how she's like, I'm sure you expect me to cry, and maybe I will or maybe I won't. Who knows? It's so. It's all just wishy washy. Also, not for nothing, and I know it's hard to make this sort of resonate in a large theater like the Palace. They don't do Katy Brabin up in any way like Tammy Faye Baker. She also doesn't go for any kind of imitation of her, which in some respects is fine. I do often think that we give too much credit for actors who are able to pull off the voice or an accent of a real person and not necessarily the acting of it all. And Katy Brabin is doing a nice performance, as fully formed as she can do with this material. But. But she is also not channeling Tammy Faye Baker in any way, not in voice or mannerisms. And the design team isn't helping her in any respect with her makeup or her hair. She just doesn't give any of it. They reference her eye makeup, but when she talks about having all this mascara and eyeliner and rouge, you're like. And eyeshadow, you're like, I don't. None of that's coming across over the footlights or even on the TV screens behind her. I could go on and on, I guess, but I really. I don't think I can. There's so much that I don't. I can't even really remember anymore. As I said, this show is really just dull. It's. There are moments where you're like, what the fuck? They, you know, they bookend it with Temmie Faye's. What's it, mri, I guess, as she's being diagnosed with cancer. And part of her is thinking that she's in purgatory on her way to hell or heaven. She's still unsure. But, no, it's actually that she's at the doctor's office and it doesn't mean anything because it's not like it's a moment where she's like, I need perspective on the life I've led. It's just we have it so to give her a reason to flash back. Then when we come back, it's like, well, what was the point of any of it? What did we learn? What did we realize from our remembrance? Not really anything. She does say at the end that she couldn't have done it without a certain help in the world. And her nurse says, oh, God. And she goes, no, the gays. And of course, people applauded for that. And I was like, that felt so out of left field and unearned, because I know I talked about how she's become a gay icon for many, but in this show, we never see that, ever. There is a scene where she interviews an AIDS patient, which you can also see in the movie with Jessica Chastain. And in reality, Tammy Faye interviewed this individual via satellite. The person was on a TV screen and she was in the studio. And it wasn't out of fear of catching AIDS or anything like that. I think it was just scheduling issues. They couldn't get him to fly over in time, so they just did that interview that way. But of course, in the stage show, it's like, well, we want him in the room, which is fine. And then they add her hugging him, which also didn't happen. And again, it's dramatic license. You want to move your audience. It's a little more difficult. When it's a story that a lot of people remember and a moment a lot of people remember, it can feel like manipulation. But that's the only interaction Tammy Faye has with the queer community in this musical. And so for her to end it with, I couldn't have done it without the gays, it's like, well, apparently she could, because we didn't know that the gays were there for her. In this musical, Christian World's Jim Baker is doing his best. He just doesn't. You watch it and you can see how Andrew Rannells was a better fit of wholesome all American apple pie with a sinister edge underneath as well as a tortured spirit. Because there's also discussion of, well, Jim Baker also might have been queer and just never really addressed it and couldn't figure it out in time. And he and Tammy have sort of a reconciliation about that. And it just feels a lot too fast at the end for it and unearned. And I can imagine with Andrew Reynolds, who is queer and doesn't really pass for straight. I mean, he passes for, like, All American Boy. But there is a queerness to him that when you are told, well, Jim Baker might have had a queer component to him with Andrew, you could see that and it would all pile up. With Christian, it doesn't. Michael Cerverus as Jerry Falwell is just doing very much Disney villain and does it well, but there are no dimensions to his character. He's just pure evil. And, yes, the real Jerry Falwell, evil. But also, you can do degrees, you can do shades of Red. It doesn't all have to be ruby red all the time, right? It's nice to have variety. It keeps you as an audience on your toes. And nothing about the writing for Jerry Falwell or Michael Cervus's performance really gives you any of that. That's really all I can go off on Tammy Faye, guys. If you had more questions, let me know. In the. In the discord. I wanted this to be a Diana. I wanted this to be two and a half hours of strong and wrong choices that I would remember for the rest of my life. And it isn't that. It's not even Lempicka, which is a bunch of strong and wrong choices where you can see the kernel of where the artistry maybe started and got lost along the way. It's just a lot of vague intentions executed semi professionally, like it's not an amateurish disaster. You're just watching. Like, I feel like I see the vision board you made for this in the first writers meeting, and then nothing got fleshed out after it. And there are many musicals, much better musicals than Tammy Faye, that also have similar problems. I feel that way about Ragtime. I talked about that in my Ragtime review, that there are some songs that clearly were written early on, and then they never actually got around to earning those songs. So Tammy Faye shares DNA with that. But Ragtime is a better musical and better songs, so we forgive a lot more with that kind of stuff. Tammy Faye works a lot harder about it. And, yeah, that's it, I guess. So ultimately, with Tammy Faye, I would say it's a nay. And speaking of the rhyming, we're gonna take a break and then we're gonna come up on Swept Away. So Tammy Faye, nay. And then next up, Swept Away.

Ariana Grande (40:16)

Billy, I beg to differ with you.

Cynthia Erivo (40:17)

How do you mean?

Ariana Grande (40:18)

You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of friends.

Cynthia Erivo (40:34)

And we're back. So next up, we have Ms. Swept Away, the new musical using the song catalog of the Avett Brothers. Do I know the Avette Brothers? No. Had I ever known about the Avette Brothers? No. Did I have any idea they existed? No. I heard of this musical when it was trying out in D.C. i think, at Arena Stage. And silly me, I thought it was an original score. Had no idea it was, technically speaking, a jukebox musical. So take my uncultured fuck self and cock slap me to death, everybody, because I Just had no idea. Also, I believe Jimmy Buffett is a producer of this, which is crazy to me. So this show, our only connection really to this show in terms of the community is friend of the pod. Will Van Dyke is the music director and arranger of this music supervisor of this. He. I will say the music for this show is handled incredibly well. As someone who does not know the song catalog, I thought that everything sounded beautiful and made sense for the world of the show. The vocals are great, the arrangements are great. It is definitely the number one reason to see this show. There are other reasons why I maybe would detract for you to see it. The book is by John. Sorry, John Logan. Not John Logan. John Logan. Some of you might know John Logan for his book for Moulin Rouge on Broadway. He also wrote the book for the Last Ship. He also wrote the Tony winning play Red, which is a good play, but I always thought was not as good as people like to say. I believe John Logan also has written quite a few screenplays. Did he do the Sweeney Todd movie? I think he did. He co wrote Skyfall. I'm on his IMDb page now, so let's take a quick look, shall we? John Logan's screenwriting credits. He created Penny Dreadful. Okay, that's fine. He co wrote Spectre. He wrote Skyfall. That's nice. He wrote the screenplay for Hugo. Okay. He wrote Rango. Okay. Yeah, no, he did do the screenplay for Sweeney Todd, a screenplay that I very much like. He did the Aviator, which is an okay screenplay. Sinbad and the Seven Seas, Last Samurai. That's a good one. Oh, and he wrote Gladiator. Okay. So like, you know John Logan, that guy. The book of this show, it's ultimately the story is you enter the theater and you see the highest stage deck known to man. There's the regular longacre stage and then a bunch of metal rakes, I guess you could call it, on top of that. And then a ship deck on top of that. And you're like, okay. So everyone's just craning their head up this entire time if you're in the orchestra. And on the ship deck as you enter the theater is John Gallagher Jr. In bed with a mask over his face. And we're all just going like, oh, God. Covid realness. And when the show begins, it's very sinister ghost like haunted lighting, very haunted mansion at Disney World. And a couple of actors enter the stage, one of whom is Stark Sands. And loom over John Gallagher Jr's bed. He comes out screaming and coughing. And spitting into a bucket. We find out that his character has consumption. And the actors behind him, who we have come to know are most likely ghosts, spirits. Tell John Gallagher Jr. That he has to tell everyone what happened to them, what he did to them. Otherwise he will never be able to rest. Basically like swept away is his confession, I guess you could say. And so we flash back to the late 1800s and John Gallagher Jr. Is on his ship with all of his shipmates and his captain. And a young man runs on stage who's desperate to get away from home and to be on this ship. And his brother, played by Stark Sands, comes there to chase him and try to get him to come home. But as soon as they're on there, the boat takes off and everyone is on the high seas. One of the things that separates Stark Sands and his brother from everyone else is that they are religious. They pray, they like to have sermons on Sundays. And they find out that pretty much all the men on the ship are not religious. They actually are kind of. They're not even agnostic or atheist. They're like anti God. And so this is sort of like something that butts heads with Stark Sands and John Gallagher Jr. And of course as soon as that happens, then there's a giant storm that tosses the ship over. Pretty much everyone on board perishes at sea except for Stark sands, John Gallagher Jr. Stark Sands, brother and the captain. And yeah, their characters literally are mate, captain, little brother, big brother. Little brother is played by Adrian Blake Enscoe and captain is played by Wayne Duvall. So the four of them are on this boat, this rescue boat from the ship and they end up spending the better part of two weeks on it with almost no rain, no food at all. So they're withering away. They've had very little sustenance from the rain in these two weeks. So they're hanging on by a thread. And the way that the stage does this is they do the shipwreck and everyone falls off the deck. And then all of a sudden the ship deck, spoiler alert. Everybody but the ship deck rises up. It's sort of a reversal of the growltiger's last stand in the original Cats. If you saw videos of that on Aurora's Spider Woman or you heard me talk about it how like the back of the wall came down like a pop up book and there was the ship swept away does the reverse of that. And so the deck folds up and there be you realize there's a mirror underneath it and. And on the metal rakes is the boat that's just constantly spinning in a circle, which explains why the stage deck is so high. And so it's these four in the boat for two weeks. And eventually, as they're getting more and more desperate, they realize that they're all starting to perish. But little brother is perishing the most. And because they need to eat, soon, John Gallagher Jr. Decides that they're going to kill little brother Adrien Blake ensco, and they will drink his blood, and they will eat his flesh. And stark sands is like, you're not going to kill my brother. How dare you? And Adrien's like, no, no, no. I want to die. I'm like, I'm done for. Just kill me. And so stark sands takes the knife and ends up killing himself. And they eat stark sands. And of course, like, two days later, they are found, and everyone on the ship that rescues them sees the bones of stark sands and, like, the dry blood on the bottom of the boat. And they realize what has happened, and they're all horrified. And so those three men come back to shore and go back to their homes, having to live with what happened. And we find out that the captain pretty much strank himself to death. Little brother goes on to live the rest of his life, has a family. And John Gallagher, Jr. Also continues to live on his life and outlives all of them, only to wind up in this bed with consumption. And now that he's confessed, he dies. And I suppose he is reunited with those souls, and they all go to heaven. A platform comes down from the flies, and John Gallagher, Jr. Gets on it, and then the lights go out. Now, that's. That's a very odd tale to tell, I would say. Here's the thing. The show begins the way it begins, and you're like, oh, okay, what's going to happen? Is this, like, a ghost story? What's happening? And then we flashback to the ship so much flashing back in these musicals. We flash back to the ship, and we're on the ship for maybe, like, 20 minutes, and we get sort of an idea of where all the conflicts are between stark and John Gallagher, Jr. Of how little brother has stuff home that he's kind of ignoring and what the vibes of the ship are. And before you can say boo, that's when the shipwreck happens. And so the majority of the show is on the boat with these four characters, where I know it all ends with us eating stark sands, which is a sentence you never thought you'd say. The joke I've Been telling people is like when you told me this show is about swallowing stark sands, this is not what I had in mind. Sorry, let me say that again. Like Samantha Jones, honey, when you told me this musical was about swallowing stark sands, this is not what I had in mind. Which is. I'm sorry, that's funny. I'm funny. But considering that it ends with cannibalism, you'd think that it would be more engaging. And I just didn't find it to be. I was actually very bored. I found the second half of the show, actually. Sorry, the second. The last two thirds of the show, the last hour. Let's say that to be both overwritten in text and underdeveloped in terms of story. Not that a lot of things have to happen, but there's got to be more tension. There's got to be more internal conflict going on. And it was very. Just drawn out. And part of that makes sense. On a dramaturgical level. We want to feel like we are deserted on this boat with these men and to really feel the. What's the word? What's the word I'm looking for? Just how, you know, mental these men are going. That makes sense on a dramaturgic level. On a storytelling level, I was losing focus constantly. I was looking at the design, I was looking at the lighting grid, I was looking around me. It. I can't say that I really got into it. There are things happening in that stage that are well crafted. This is in some ways a return for Michael Mayer as director. It doesn't make up for Funny Girl in a Beautiful Noise, but it is back towards the direction we know him for, of his Spring Awakening days, his Hedwig days, American Idiot, of just really bold visuals and tight knit ensembles and fully integrated musicals with, you know, text and song and choreography and staging. It's not on the level of his original Spring Awakening or his Hedwig. It's not on the same level as American Idiot, but it is much higher than Funny Girl and Beautiful Noise. So it definitely feels like we're making a return to the mayor that we love. I will also say that the choreography by David Newman is very effective. The way they do the Shipwreck I thought was really. I won't say spectacular, but it was really clever and really exciting, I guess. I think the design is also really well done. This set by Rachel Hawke. It's simple, but it's effective and. And has surprises within it. I know I spoiled that for some of you with the ship deck, but hey, if you are adhering to the timestamp. So you don't want to have spoilers about some of these shows. You're okay. The lighting by Kevin Adams. Kevin Adams is one of my favorite lighting designers. He just is so good at atmosphere and temperature. Does that make sense? Like, you feel the cold and you feel the wet with his lighting. It doesn't. And it's also very artful and you get the vibes of the eeriness. So there's a lot of nice things happening. It's just that ultimately I don't find the story engaging. I find it over long, underwhelming. So there's a lot of pretty wrapping paper. There's a nice bow on top. It's placed strategically under the Christmas tree, but you open the box and there's nothing but tissue paper inside. Not unappealing tissue paper, but tissue paper. And I'm glad that they got a critics pick. You know, we love shows that can get praise and hopefully have that translate to sales. I don't agree with the critics pick, and especially if you read Jesse Green's review, it doesn't read like a rave. He basically says, like, this show has problems, but ultimately I enjoyed it. Fuck you, and Lord knows I can be the same way. But I'm also not gonna give a critics pick to a show that, even if I enjoyed it, I thought had too many problems. You know, that is ultimately what we're going to lead to with our final show on this podcast. No spoilers. But yeah, I just. For me, this was very underwhelming. And I will do an updated ranking of all four of these shows with the current season when we get to the end of the episode. But yeah, that's all she wrote on Swept Away. We're gonna take another break. And then next up will be Death Becomes Her.

Ariana Grande (53:53)

Billy, I beg this input with you.

Cynthia Erivo (53:55)

How do you mean?

Ariana Grande (53:55)

You're the top. Yeah, you're an arrow color. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Freddy.

Cynthia Erivo (54:13)

And we're back. Final show of the review episode is Death Becomes her, which just opened like two days ago at the L'Enfantan Theater. Based off of the movie starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis. The Broadway version has a book by Marco Penet, music by Julia Madison and Noel Carey, as well as lyrics and starring Jennifer Simard, Megan Hilty and Christopher Seaver and Michelle Williams. If you're nasty. So two things. One, I do know Joel. Sorry Joel, I do know Julia and Noel. They went to Emerson with me. They were the class above me. I haven't seen either of them in about six years, seven years. We are friendly in the same way that I am friendly with Gray, although I've actually seen Gray more in the past two years and I've seen either of them. But, you know, we're college friends and we have many mutual friends and we all sort of keep up on each other. So I'm very proud of them for this show. But also, I don't want anyone to think that my having known them has influenced my opinion on the show or my opinion on their work. I try to be objective every time I can. And also, I'm sure that neither of them are going to hear this episode. They don't need to hear my opinion. The show is selling incredibly well and they got very good reviews and there's a great audience response to it. So, like, no matter what it is, I think positive, negative, whatever, it doesn't matter. Second thing, I am not a fan of the movie Death Becomes Her. Yes, I am a millennial homosexual and I like Drag Race. And I unfortunately have gay friends. So it is absolutely in my vernacular. The memes are constant in my text threads, in my DMs. I know the movie. I've seen it a handful of times. I don't think it's totally bad. I do think that it has humor in it. My biggest takeaway is that I think the movie's best stuff is when Meryl and Goldie are on screen together. When they are separate, the movie still is okay. It's them holding up their weight. And Bruce Willis does his best with a role that ultimately is there to react off of them. So he does a very good job with what is not much of a role. And now that it's 2024, the special effects are not as mind blowing as they were in 1992. I don't find the movie as funny as others do. I don't find the Isabella Rossellini stuff all that captivating. I also think the movie falls apart in the third act. I know it's a major cult classic. I know that it has a lot of fans. But I talked about this with a friend online the other day. I was like, people have this perception that it is now considered mainstream, like hundreds of millions of fans. I'm like, no, no, no. It is definitely one of the more popular cult classics, as evidenced by the business it's currently doing on Broadway, which I also would attribute to the Genius marketing for this show. The marketing team for Death Becomes her deserves the Nobel Prize. Like, they are up there with the Barbie marketing team in terms of just knowing the assignment and getting asses into the theater. But I do think that people who love the movie have a warped perception of how big a footprint it has in the world. It doesn't have that huge a footprint. It's sizable, but bigger than she Devil, the other Meryl Streep comedy flop from that era. But it's not Delaware's Prada big. It's not Mean Girls big. It's a different kind of beloved cult classic. So that's where I'm coming from with this musical. I went in having heard a lot of good things from friends, and again, I try not to let that influence me. But it's harder for me to shake off positive vibes because I'm always eager to love something and I want to have the best time. So I'm hearing from multiple friends like, oh, it's a blast. You'll have a ball. I go in and I'm like, okay, here we go. And I had a great seat. It wasn't a press seat because I'm not that fancy. The team didn't offer them for this one. So I bought my $80 ticket for 4th row Mez Center. Great view. Saw everything. I will say I had fun at Death Becomes Her. I did not have as much fun as I was hoping, though, and I think there are some reasons for that. Part of it might be a little too high expectations. I wasn't expecting, you know, the best thing of all time, but I had heard that it was really smart and really well put together and just like, you know, in terms of entertainment value, best bang for your buck right now of the season. And there is a lot of good here. I'll start with the absolute number one reason anyone should see this show and it is Jennifer Simard in the Goldie Hawn role of Helen. Jennifer Simard. I have sung that bitches praises for years. She is the talent alien of our time and I'm so glad she is getting her just dessert. She's getting her vehicle. This is going to be a major turning point for her career and I'm so thrilled. And she is absolutely, for my money, the best thing in this show. After her is Megan as Madeline Ashton. And I will talk a little bit about the difference between them later. There is absolute spectacle in the show. Money was spent. I think that the set design is very well done. It's very elaborate without feeling overly Garish. Like it's intentionally garish. The costumes by Paul Tazewell are also really strong. I told Gunkle of the pod, Adam Ellsbury, I was like, part of me wonders, wonderful. As good a job as Paul did with this, part of me is like, what if we gave it to Greg Barnes? What if we gave him $2 million, a mountain of cocaine and saw what he came up with when he spent it all? Because that man has never known a rhinestone he didn't love, didn't know how to cinch a woman that he didn't love. Like the man who gave us Aladdin and Sideshow and Drowsy Chaperone. I'm like, I don't know. Give him all the money in the world and LSD and see what sketches he has. Because the designs of death becomes are sort of split in two. There are the costumes that are the most successful, which is pretty much most of what Michelle Williams wears. She looks. She looks great. I wouldn't say it's very otherworldly elegant. It's just sort of Vegas elegant. Which again fits for the sort of the vibe of this show. They're much more going Vegas than like Fellini on crack. Which is sort of how the movie feels to me. And I think that once Megan and Jennifer transform, they are designed impeccably. There's some ensemble stuff that I don't love. I don't love how they're designed for Michelle Williams is like cronies. They're basically either go fully sex nude or go full sparkle unitard. It's sort of at the halfway point. It was giving me sort of ensemble vibes from Cher show where it was like, this is 60% of an idea that needs 40% more fine tuning and something that I felt like Greg Barnes would be able to really kind of nail would be something like that. In addition to the Madeline Helen stuff and the Viola Van Horn stuff. So that was like a double edged sword for me. The design of. I think the set works. The costumes are very good, but not all of them and not all the time. The book is funny. There are plenty of times that I laughed. Again, we're talking about shaving off stuff or sucking the air out. There is absolutely air in this musical. It is not air airtight. I would argue every scene you could suck out about 30 seconds. There's not so much that there's like any specific number or scene that I would fully cut. There are numbers that I think are less successful than others, but it's not like there's a moment in the show where I'm like, oh, cut the whole thing, scrap it and start from scratch. It's more like, if we're gonna keep this train going, at the very least, let's keep it going at a speedy momentum. Because there are times when it does flow really nicely. And then other times where it's just like, I think we're luxuriating in this moment a bit too long. We could probably cut four lines, speed up two of these exchanges, and be on to the next scene. And it's fascinating what happens when you just suck out like 20 seconds from every scene or song. Something. I'm not going to talk about this with Wicked, but it is one of my major notes of Wicked of, like, if you were to, like, just suck out 20 seconds from each thing, before you know it, you've shaved off 10 minutes of your show and the thing just moves like gangbusters. And it's the difference between a nice time and just like the fucking ball of your life. For me, I know plenty of people who have really loved this musical. And again, I did like it. I did enjoy myself. I wanted to enjoy it more. So I'm trying to talk about what would have made me enjoy it even more. The book is pretty faithful to the movie, story structure wise. It follows it almost exactly. The only real change they do is they start the show with Viola Van Horn talking about and singing about the potion, if you want perfection, which the New York Post rightfully called out. I didn't realize it at the time, but he was like, that's one of the few hummable melodies. Because it's a direct ripoff of the title song from Kiss of the Spider Woman. And I heard it and I went, oh, shit, he's right. And Johnny's a bitch. But he is right about that because I also walked out of the theater, I was like, why is that, like, the one song I can hum? And it's because I already knew the melody. So that's the only really major difference the book does. They alter details within the plot points from the movie, timelines and certain things. But, like, the overall story follows the movie closely. The jokes, again, the jokes I really enjoy. Sometimes it's the inflection, sometimes it's the joke itself. Some jokes are more sort of like, that was nice, but I didn't laugh. Or, you know, that was clever, but I didn't laugh. I probably laughed out loud every couple of minutes. Not like every 15 to 20. Like every like 5 to 6. Which for a 25 hour musical. That's. That's a good number of laughs. But I was really hoping a. A laugh a minute or two laughs a minute. The score by Julia and Noel, I think fits the show. Mostly the lyrics are clever throughout. There are only a couple of songs for me where I was like, oh, this sounds like how I would want. A Death becomes a musical to sound. One is if you want perfection. One is for the gays, which is a fun number, but I'll talk about that in a second. And then my favorite song in the show is Tell Me Earnest, which is the song Madeline sings with Helen as she's basically seducing Ernest under the guise of trying to get to know him as her best friend's fiance. I think the lyrics are great. I think it has a funky melody to it that is jam worthy. And Adam and I really love. There's a line that Madeline has that Adam and I both love because we're both like. You just can hear Julia saying this line. And it might be the only time she gave Megan Hilty a line reading. And maybe we're just projecting. But it's when she's asking Ernest, like, what of her movies has he seen? It's like, how much have you seen of me cinematically? The roms, the comms, the rom coms, the dramas, the drama Ds. The way she says drama Ds, I'm like, that is Julia Madison all over the drama Ds. It's just so fucking dumb and funny. As I said, that is my favorite song in the show. I think that it has a beat, it has a melody, it is catchy, it's funky and the lyrics are clever and laugh out loud funny and like on just the right side of PG13 almost are. Something that Adam also said that I agree with is that like, this is very clearly not for kids. This is a musical comedy for the 21 and older crowd and maybe the more evolved 17 year olds. This is not a show that teenagers go to become obsessed with like newsies or mean girls. This is, if you're going to be here, we're not going to soften the tone for you. You're either here and you're queer or you can go across the street, which is totally fine. Not every show is going to be for everybody. And I do like that. Death becomes very much is sticking the flag in that land. This is another show like Elf totally knows what it is and sticks to that vibe the entire time. And they don't really try to go for emotion, which I Appreciate. They have the big I will never leave you song alive forever between Megan and Hilton, between Megan and Jennifer at the end. But it's not like a super heartfelt song. It's much more just diva worship. And I think they end it in a nice, clever way that's still in touch with the tone and with those two characters. There's not a lot here that I. There's nothing here that I hate. There are things that I would do differently if I were there, and it's not because I want this to be a different kind of show. I'm happy with the kind of show it is. I'm just like, I think we can go even further. One of the things is this is, as far as I know, Chris Catelli's debut as a director. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is his debut as a director. And he's a very good choreographer. And he does some nice stuff in this as a director. He keeps the show on track. He handles all of the effects, which I think the biggest thing that I give him credit for, maybe I'm wrong giving him credit for this, is doing a lot of the body doubles in the show, of making it blatantly obvious that they're doubles, of not trying to hide the fact and, in fact, embellishing in it, which I think makes it all the funnier and more impressive. So things like Madeline's fall down the stairs is actually an incredible moment. Not because you're like, oh, my God, how did they do it? You know how they did it. It's so obvious how they do it. So you're already applauding the craft of the body double for how they're doing it, and then you're just laughing at the absurdity and the obviousness of it all. And I think that is something that the whole show could do more of. I don't think that Chris has really found his niche yet as a comedic director. Outside of the body double work and a couple of sight gags, I would watch scenes and I would think we're really just doing traffic patterns here. We're not really coming up with stuff with the characters and the actors to find jokes within the jokes. There are already punchlines, there are already some visual gags, but I'm like, imagine what we could do with. I mean, I'm trying to think of a really great comedy director, but you think of Michael Blakemore's direction with Kiss Me Kate and City of Angels and the original Noises off or the last Noises off revival also had some great comedic direction or Casey Nicholaw's work on Drowsy Chaperone. Just finding ways to massage the actors into making bonkers choices so we can find more jokes within the scenes just from little pieces of staging and character touches. Often the way that scenes are directed, it's pretty straightforward and just playing out the punchlines to the audience. And there are plenty of punchlines, so it's fine. Ish. But it really could have leveled this show up for me. From a gentleman 7.7.5 to like an 8.5 9. Really made all the difference in the world. Now this is where I talk about Megan, Jen, and why for me, Gen is the guiding star of this show. Because Jen is a freak, let's put it that way. She spent many years of her career doing off Broadway shows and weird productions all over the country and just, you know, really kind of finding inspiration from the nooks and crannies of New York theater. And so when her time came with Disaster and Company and all that stuff, like she has an innate sense of what works while also having such a wealth of knowledge of comedy and inspiration from so many different people that she can make these informed choices that are so odd but always work because she's also a smart actress, but she has bits coming out of every pore of her body. She can bring so much to the table already. Megan is an incredibly talented. Okay, I'll put it this way. Let me start this way. And then delve further into Megan and Jen and the direction. A show like Death Becomes her is essentially a glammed up drag show for Broadway, which is totally the right vibe to go for this musical. The difference for me between Jennifer Simard and Megan Hilty. And apologies for foul language, but you guys have known me long enough to know that this is how we go. Megan is an incredibly talented, wonderfully intelligent actress diva. Jennifer Simard is a faggot. And you know exactly what I mean by that. This is a. Jen is the kind of weirdo talent alien that because of everything she brings to the table, everything that's in her mind of comedy, of singing, of glamour, but also being a freak and weird. She is so locked in to this role, to this material, to this tone, that she is writing it like the Dom top she is. She is a 12 out of 10, you know, causing a power outage on 46th Street. Megan is giving a very well crafted comedic performance with touches of brilliance. And she will get even more brilliant as the run continues, as she settles in. And she's Able to get even weirder. There are pockets of this show where she is catching her breath because Chris is putting her through her paces during certain numbers. Numbers like for the gays. But I also don't feel like as a director, Chris is massaging the weird out of Megan. And by out of her, I mean like out of her body and onto the stage, like into her choices and into her characterization. Her Madeline is very polished, which makes sense for the kind of character that Madeline is. But when you have Jennifer who is making these choices that are out of left field but still stick like a fucking gymnast, and then Megan, who is doing great work but also like for me were choices that I saw coming, they land, they're good, they're informed choices, but they are not like, where did that come from? She looks and sounds amazing. She is very funny. And as I said, as she is getting more comfortable with the show as they now start to settle into this run and as she plays off of Jen more. I am sure in a couple months time we're gonna see Megan find even more nooks and crannies of this part. Because if you saw her in Noises off, that was a performance that was so meticulous and very informed. And because of the character she was playing and I'm sure with help from the director, her well researched and well thought out characterization of her part manifest it in freak and just like wildly interesting comedic choices. And I wanted more of that. In Death Becomes her, you see it from time to time, but not at the same constant stream as Jen. So someone on the Discord asked like, oh, do you think that Death Becomes her is now the front runner for best musical. Do you think Megan could win actress? I don't know how they're doing. Jen and Megan as leads. I think if there's justice in the world, they're both considered leads. If Jen gets put into featured, it would be a crime and it would be category fraud. Between the two. Gen is my pick. If I had to pick one for a nomination, I would pick Jen. I think we're still kind of living in Nicole sunset season. Death Becomes her has definitely become a major force in the best musical Tony race because it is selling incredibly well and got very strong reviews. So it has now been given sort a sign of approval by critics of like, you are both a fun time and you are a like a well done time. We sign off on this. So there's like permission now by a lot of Tony voters of like, oh, we can vote for the silly thing. Same thing with oh, Mary. Right. I do think maybe happy ending is the better show with the better score and. And just more creative. But I don't want that to deter people from seeing Death becomes Her. It's a very different kind of show. It's just that I feel like I would love more of the inventiveness of maybe happy ending to go into Death becomes her. Like, okay, we're gonna go for silly, dumb drag. Let's think outside the box. What's some spaghetti we can throw at the wall? Because there are moments of spaghetti on the wall and death becomes her. And those are the best moments. And then there are times where you're like, okay, this is fine. This is sort of going by the numbers. But it's colorful numbers at the very least. Christopher Seber really has no role. Ernest is even more underused than he is in the movie. He's got, like, one big number in Act 2, which is not much of a number. There's a visual gag with furniture. That's really the whole purpose of it. He is again there to react off of Jen and M3gan, and he does a good job with it. But if you've seen him in Shrek or if you've seen him in Spamalot or the Prom, you know what he's capable of. And he's under. And he's just not allowed to shine in this. Michelle Williams looks great. She sounds great. The voice is incredible. The voices all around in the show are incredible. Megan and Jennifer are singing their fucking faces off. Michelle, she's not an actress. I also would argue she doesn't really have stage presence. And it's abundantly clear when she's opposite Megan and Jen, who not only can act, but. But have stage presence and star quality shining out of their fingernails. So you have Michelle, who is holding her water around her, but not beyond her. She also has problems with her heels, the way she walks in her costumes. Like the ultimate drama of the show is wondering if Michelle Williams is going to make it or not offstage in one piece. She does. She's done it. She did it every time I saw the show. But you do sit there holding your breath, going, is she gonna make it to the wings? I don't know. That's kind of it, I suppose, with Death Becomes Her. It's a. It is a good time. I like to go again, knowing what it is now and with my expectations tempered to see if maybe I enjoy it more on second viewing. It's hard for that to happen with a comedy like this because when you know what a lot of the jokes are, when you know what a lot of the gags are, the element of surprise is gone, and so it's harder to have it be as special the second time around. That's how I felt about something rotten. But sometimes when a show is good, it can actually get better on a second time or stay just as good the second time. That's how I felt about Drowsy Chaperone. So I am interested to see how I feel about this after the fact. I'll try to maybe go again February or March. We'll see. See, Maybe I can get press seats again closer to Tony time. I couldn't get it for opening, but maybe I can get it by Tony time. Maybe the podcast will be even bigger by then and they'll really want me. Because we keep getting reviews and ratings right now. Last I checked, on itunes were at 267, which is great. I would love for us to get to 300, but that's probably not going to happen by the end of the year. Maybe by my birthday in March. We'll see. I guess that's it for now. I told you I would do an updated ranking of the season, so I'm gonna do that now. I'm going to include the Off Broadway stuff as well, just to kind of being all inclusive. I will start with number 22. So, out of 22 shows this season, at the bottom of the list, number 22 is left on 10th, which is just. I hate to use the word because it's so mean, but it really did feel embarrassing for all involved because you know how capable they all are, and this just wasn't it. Number 21, McNeil McNeil and the Mick Margarita. Number 20 is Tammy Faye. Number 19 is Strategic Love Play. That was the Helena York play I saw at Minetta Lane. At 18 is Romeo and Juliet. 17 is home. 16. The roommate. 15. Vladimir. Which seems unfair since I only saw. No, no, I did see all of the show. Sorry. For a second I was like, I walked out, right? No, I didn't walk out. That's where my brain is at these days. 15. Vladimir. 14. Swept away. 13. Shit, meet fan. 12. A wonderful world. 11. Our town. 10. Once upon a mattress. 9. Drag the musical. 8. The big gay jamboree. 7. Job. 6. Death becomes her. 5. Sunset Boulevard. 4. Yellowface. 3. Maybe happy ending. 2. Oh Mary. 1. The hills of California. So, just so you know, I would say 22 through 18 were just like, I really disliked or hated this. 17 sets Romeo and Juliet strategic love play Tammy Faye McNeil left on 10th disliked to middling would be, I would say 10 through 17. So that is Home the Roommate, Vladimir Swept Away, Shitmeet fan, Wonderful World, Our Town, Once Upon a Mattress. I would say 7, 8, 9 are shows that I had a good or worthwhile time at, but I had notes and that's job. Big age, embry and drag. And then I would say 5 and 6, which is sunset Boulevard and death becomes her is I enjoyed myself. I have notes but I would say more on the enjoyed myself front. Then I would say one through four is just like I really, really liked loved this and that is Yellowface. Maybe happy ending. Oh Mary and Hills of California. So stay tuned for more shows this season. We have Gypsy currently in previews. Cult of Love just started previews and Eureka Day starts previews very soon. And that's it for now. Check back again for the end later this week for Passion with podmother Ali Gordon. And then we're going to take a two week break and come back with some more deep dive episodes and maybe some reviews. And yeah, if you guys like the podcast, give us a nice 5 star rating. Write a review. We always love to read them. If you're going to write a one, two, three star review, just, you know, be considerate of the fact that I'm a human being. So say how you feel. But just remember that I read it and I do, I do absorb it. I am going to have us close out with Megan and Jen singing Alive Forever because I am very happy that these gals are getting their moment in the sun. And I think that no matter what you feel about Jesse Green or he felt about his review as an actress, you could not ask for a better money review than he wrote. Those two. And I think we should all honor that. So I'm gonna take it away with Megan and Jen and oh and join the Discord Channel if you haven't yet and you want to. And that's it for now. Take it away, Jen and Megan. Bye.

Ariana Grande (82:38)

Look at you. Look at you. No, look at you.

Cynthia Erivo (82:42)

Okay, let's look at me.

Ariana Grande (82:44)

We can face eternity Just you and me we both am to be alive forever Alive Till the stars fade away in an endless night if I can find the way I follow your light.