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Matt Reviews: RAGTIME, LEFT ON TENTH & SH*T. MEET. FAN.
01:31:03
Another slew of reviews
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- [00:00]
Billy
Play ball.
- [00:11]
Matt Koplik
Ain't this the kind of weather for smacking ladder for playing baseball? The kind of weather makes a man hit like hell.
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Billy
Let's go.
- [00:20]
Matt Koplik
You suck some bitches. Let's see some pitches. Let's play some baseball.
- [00:24]
Billy
The crowd is striking out again, Schmidt. Yes, Phil. The Giants haven't got a prayer.
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Matt Koplik
Buy your underwear up your. Hello, all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history and legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And it's another bonus episode today, y', all, because we got more stuff to review now for at the risk of, you know, giving you a nice trigger word here, I do want to give a little bit of housekeeping. First off, this is being released on Sunday, November 3rd. So if you haven't voted early, if you plan to vote at the polls, make sure you have a wonderful voting plan. Voter turnout has been incredible. I hope you'll have either been donating or spreading campaign awareness or election information. Don't, you know, want to make sure that we disprove any misinformation? If you've been canvassing, you've been doing phone banking, there's no wrong way to help. It all helps, no matter what you do, no matter how small. And speaking of helping, no matter how small, not to be a selfish bitch here, but it is the last week of fundraising for my play, yours truly. We are at currently 3, 13.8 thousand of our goal, which is incredible. It's honestly more than I ever expected us to raise, which is a double edged sword because with this amount that we've raised so far, now the team has put out offers to people that we didn't think we were going to be able to afford. And now that we can afford them, we now need to raise money to pay for everything else, because that's theater for you. We are terrible with money. We are terrible with numbers. And we go, oh, great, now we'll like, you know, we'll spend wisely on actors who maybe wouldn't do this without knowing who you were. But that also means we now have to raise another 6k, which we can do, we absolutely can do. If we made it this far, I know we can do it. Still, if you haven't donated to the fundraiser, I'm going to put the link in the description box. Anything you can donate would be Wonderful, whether it's $10, $20 $100 for $5. The thought matters so much. Not everyone can donate. Everyone's, I'm sure, been donating like crazy to campaigns right now, and believe me, I get that. But this is going to be something really special and it's going to be a major help to the next step for this play and having it go somewhere. And someone in the Discord Channel did say, which, by the way, if you haven't joined the Discord Channel, make sure to do so. But someone in the Discord Channel did say, I want to donate, but I am nervous that if the play goes somewhere, Matt's not gonna give us three hour episodes anymore. Do not underestimate how eager I am to just talk and talk and talk. That's not gonna go away. Do I say anything? Who knows? But I do love to talk, so that's not going anywhere anytime soon. Daddy remembers his children. Even if he's gonna get some fancy rich stepchildren in the future. So that's all that. No new reviews right now, but if you would like to give a nice little rating or five star review, we always love it. You guys are awesome at it. As I said, Broadway Podcast Network reads all of them and they've been very vocal to me about how often you guys write reviews and how good they are. So just keep it up, you know, lead with your heart. We saw some stuff and we're going to talk about all of them we saw in the last week and a half. I want to say we saw left on 10th, the Delia Ephron play directed by Susan Stroman, starring Juliana Margulies and Peter Gallagher. We saw Shit Meet Fan at the MCC Theater with Neil Patrick Harris and Jane Krakowski and a whole bunch of other amazing people. We took a quick trip to the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn, New Jersey to see Jersey Boys, where we saw Dear Friend of Mine and of the Pod, Caitlin Frank, as well as Friend of Mine and Friend of the Pod, Danny Quadrino. We also saw Ragtime at City Center, Encores. Now, I'm not going to review Jersey Boys because by the time this comes out, Jersey Boys will have played its final performance. So there's really no point. And also, I wasn't there to review it. I was there to support friends. And I am very fortunate that I have friends who are very talented and very smart and very good at what they do. It makes it very easy to see them and stuff. So even if I don't like this stuff, I always like them. So I always have a nice thing to say to them, because it's always true. And I actually did really enjoy Jersey Boys at Paper Mill. It's just a good. It's a good musical. You forget often how good that musical is. It's a really strong book. My two biggest critiques of it, material wise, because I haven't seen it in about 10 years, maybe 15 at this point, but my biggest critique is that act one is very long, a little too long, and then it kind of abruptly ends. Like, spoiler alert. Frankie Valli's daughter dies of a drug overdose. He sings a song about it, and then we immediately flash to the hall of fame and everyone's on a good note. Maybe it's because Caitlin played the dead daughter, but I sat there, I was like, don't get over her that quickly. That girl died. Be sadder longer, please. But everyone in is very talented. Dani sings that marathon of a role so well. Very passionate audience. Very fun audience. It was a good night. It was a good night. And we went on Halloween. So that is how your boy spent his Halloween. So moving on, we will do in order Shit Meet Fan at mcc. Then we're gonna do Ragtime, and then we're gonna close out with left on 10th. Now, they may seem odd to you. You're like, well, Matt, don't you think people are gonna want to stick around for Ragtime at the end? Not for left on 10th. Believe me, you want to stick around for my thoughts on left on 10th. And with that in mind, let us continue. So we've done housekeeping and we've done a little brief bit on Jersey Boys. Shit Meat Fan. So Shit Meat Fan is a play at mcc. It is written and directed by Robert o'. Hara. It is based off of the movie Perfect Strangers, I think it's called. I think it's an Italian movie. And I did some research on it this morning, which I've probably forgotten because I then had to do playbill cataloging. I had to do research for the Passion episode, which I'm recording in the morning. And also I had to write a whole bunch of emails, so my brain is fried. But I believe it's called Perfect Strangers. I believe it's from Italy and I believe it is the most remade film that hasn't been turned into an English language film. It's been translated into every language around the world with every country doing its own version of the movie, except for America. Part of that is because Harvey Weinstein of owns the rights and the movie came out in 2016. So I'm assuming by the time that pre production was going on with Perfect Strangers, that is when MeToo happened. And so that just got thrown under the rug. So Robert o' Hara has done his own version of it for the stage. It is starring Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Krakowski, Deborah Messing, Garrett Dillahunt, Constance Wu, Trammell Tillman, and recently, instead of Billy Magnussen, Michael Oberhinther. I always forget how to say his name, but he's the Tony nominee from Take Me Out. He was also in Hand to God, if you saw that, which I did. He was very good in that. The basic premise of Shitmeet Fan is a bunch of affluent people. Not all of them are affluent, but a good number of them, very wealthy, slightly out of touch friends get together to watch the eclipse from one of their apartments. And as a game, Jane Grikowski says, let's all put our phones in the center of the room. And whatever phone calls we get, whatever texts we get, the whole room has to know about it. You have to read it out loud to everybody. If you get a phone call, they get put on speaker. And of course, wouldn't you know it, everybody's got a secret. They're all, you know, earth shattering and they all get exposed that evening. Do you want to know what all the secrets are? You don't have to. The truth is, when in doubt, think infidelity. Now who's being. Who's being unfaithful to who with. With who? That is where more, I guess, sort of the surprises happen. And there are one or two that genuinely I didn't see coming. The play is mostly a comedy. It tries to have a point of view about the wealthy and out of touch about microaggressions and racism a little bit. It's very intentionally cast with race in mind. The majority of the cast is white, save for Trammel and Constance Wu. There's a point to that. They have a conversation about being the only non white people in the friend group and how they act differently or how they feel like they're treated differently and all these other things. The play is. It's like kind of trying to be who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Boys in the band, but I don't want to say John Waters, but like, I don't know, I'm trying to think of like, who's sort of semi absurdist in theater because it's. It is over the top in its comedy for sure. Everyone is a caricature on purpose. And then of course, everyone's supposed to contain multitudes throughout the course of the night. And we learn so much more about them. And we learn about certain traumatic things that happen to certain characters and pain that some of them carry with them. Debra Messing, who is actually quite good in it and does probably some of the most convincing drunk acting I've seen on stage in a long time, her character gets a monologue in the second half that is so not. It does not fit into this show, at least not into the style that we've been told. And she literally says the line the night of the accident. And it's just one of those lines that, like, you hear Tyler Ellis use to make fun of on Instagram. Right? Of those, you know, when a play is being serious, the night of the accident, things like that. And Robert o' Hare is a very talented man. So it's not necessarily that I'm coming for him, but, like, come on, we all know that that is a pretty overdone dramatic line. The cast is pretty strong. Everyone gets an opportunity to be silly, to have a different shade to themselves. I think that the characters that are the actors who are probably most successful to me were Constance Wu and I'd probably say Trammel Tillman, because also I think that their characters just made the most sense to me. They had stuff going on that lined up with who we saw that they were. So it wasn't that they were doing these heel turns so much as the new information we were getting about them fit into how we already were perceiving them. It just made them more complex. It didn't make them a whole new person. And then other characters are pretty two dimensional the whole time and then try to have gravitas, and it doesn't really feel earned. I think that the biggest culprit of that is Jane Krakowski's character. And Jane Krakowski is someone who I do genuinely love. Although in this production, I felt that she couldn't totally shake Jenna Maroney or what's her face from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Just the very affected speaking. When you watch her on 30 Rock, especially in the last three seasons, you notice that she has a certain cadence and rhythm with which she delivers dialogue. And it works for Jenna so well, and it works for Tina Fey's style of writing. It's not so much that it doesn't work in Shipmead Fan, rather that because I know her work in 30 Rock so well, like, I have that whole show memorized, I could hear it all again. And it took me out of it a little bit. And there were times when I actually wondered if it was conflicting with what the play was trying to have her character be because her character is a therapist who is overly controlling and manipulative and two faced and hypocritical and very much like a mean girl. And she plays her like a more controlled genderoni. Jacqueline, that's her name on Unbreakable. Kimmy Schmidt. Jacqueline. The way Jacqueline is in the pilot episode of Unbreakable. Kimmichmidt is kind of how Jan Gracowski is playing this whole show. And it's not that it's unfunny, it's just a little expected. I would say that Neil Patrick Harris is leaning into more of his vibe from How I Met yout Mother, just in terms of the like, more confident straight man. Although how straight his character is, we don't know. Again, there are moments in this play where twists happen or turns happen that just don't make sense or fully dropped. Like Neil Patrick Harris and Michael have a moment on the balcony of his apartment that just, it doesn't register. It confuses you more than anything. And it's never explored again after that. Michael's character, we find out, is like a big cat who fucks everything, but is like also kind of homophobic. And it's just. But. And then when it's revealed that somebody in the group is actually gay, he's like, why didn't you tell us? We would have been accepting it. Like, it's just, it's very obviously the whole point of that is the hip being so hypocritical and unaware of yourself, but it just doesn't track. It doesn't scan as well for me. I think that what this play needed, I think this play needed a major workshop of the current draft with an eye towards continuity and an eye towards genre. Like, how big are we going with the comedy for this? How much of a satire on the elite are we going? Is this a dark, dry comedy? Does the ridiculousness eventually build overnight or is it kind of bold all the way through? And then when all the wreckage is on the floor, we kind of pick ourselves up. Because that's actually something that I thought that God of Carnage did really well. And remember when God of Carnage won the Tony, a lot of people were pissed because, like, well, it's a comedy and it's, you know, it doesn't really say anything. And why are we giving it to a comedy cue to now when O Mary is most likely going to win best play. But God of Carnage I thought was a great example. In fact, I would say that this is Sort of like who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf meets God of Carnage. It's an example. It's a really great way to show how ultimately we are all animals. We just over time became sentient and created rules and laws, some of which make sense. Like, you know, don't kill others, don't harm others. The main act I.e. the inciting incident of God of Carnage. But ultimately, at our core, we are animals and we will act accordingly. And it doesn't matter how much you read or how well versed you are or how much you've traveled. You are all putting on heirs. And on top of that, we never really grow out of being children. And you watch these four educated, supposedly reasonable adults become childlike dogs. And it builds. It very much builds over the course of the play. And shit meets fan does not do that. At least not for me. It has some funny moments. Debra Messing has a whole bit where there's a miscommunication about her and her husband in regards to possible homosexuality and load swallowing, which is a term that she says that the whole play, that the play uses a couple of times. We're swallowing loads now, is a line in the play. And it's funny. It is genuinely funny. It would be funnier if we built to that, if it felt earned. Especially because there's no the plot device that's used to make that miscommunication happen. That misunderstanding happen. Doesn't make a lot of sense. And you do kind of find yourself questioning how it can happen and how no one can catch on with this misunderstanding. And there's so many times where you have to sort of let go and let God in order to enjoy the jokes, which is fine. You know, we all love a good, enjoyable evening. But it's as I talked about with big Gay Jamboree, with comedy, with entertainment, it does separate the wheat from the chaff when you've actually took the time to plot it all out and make sure everything connects, because then the audience won't think about it so much. They will just be in it. So Shimmeat fan is sort of a fun experience for the time, but it's not great. Also, there's an ending to it that is confusing a lot of people. And my cousin and I. Hi, Scott. We talked about it on the way home of what we thought it meant. As it turns out, this is the ending that the movie does and every version of this story does. So this is not something new that Robert o' Hara came up with. But as I said, the play is Jane Krakowski going, let's all put our phones out. And everyone has to answer texts, and everyone has to answer the phones. And by the end of the night, like, we've all learned so much about each other. Some partners learn who's cheating on them, who might be gay, who's been hiding a secret for 10 years, who's having an emotional affair but not a physical affair, like, whose kids like them more, who maybe is putting somebody else's parents in a home, who may be getting fired and we don't know it, things like that. So who might or might not be pregnant. And when all the guests leave and Jan Krakowski and Neil Patrick Harris are back, are home alone, they go to their roof, and all of a sudden, the whole mood shifts, and Jane Krakowski and Neil Patrick Harris are now in a loving embrace, which doesn't make sense, considering where they were at the top of the show. But the point is meant to be that it's such a 180. They were like, what's happening? And Jane Gierkowski reveals, oh, why didn't you play the game? Why didn't you want to put your phone down? And, you know, Patrick Harris says, well, I thought it would be nicer that way. And wasn't it nice that we all had our phones off and we were just with each other? And she says, yeah, it was. And all the friends leave and everything's fine and everything's great. And their teenage daughter comes home and there's a twist with her necklace. And some people online have been confused as to what the ending means. Oh, does this just mean that they all decided to turn a blind eye and go on like nothing happened? No. The play ends with. It's like a sliding door situation. If. Then, if you want to be nasty about it. But the idea of, you know, there's two, we can play the game or we don't play the game. And all night long we are watching what would have happened if they played the game without knowing that there's an alternate universe? And the ending of the play takes us to that alternate universe of. But what would happen if they didn't play the game? And everyone would be relatively happy, or at least polite and kind, would have had a nice time without knowing so much that we as the audience know. So it's not that everything's better this way, it's just that nothing's revealed. And that's a very, you know, interesting point. Does that make this play deeper? No, but it does, you know, always beg the question, what is to be gained from being truthful? Do you keep a lie going to be happy? Can you be happy if it is based off of a lie? Is it possible to maybe burn the foundation of what you have to the ground and build something stronger and truer? I said this before with Slave Play. That's always been my interpretation of the final scene between the main couple is that it's been burned to the ground and now they're gonna build anew. Although, as we learned from Slave Play, it was different every night based off of how Paul and Rakina felt, which is fine. But the night I saw it, it definitely felt like they were rebuilding. And it just. With Shit Meat Fan, it's with these characters, I think if they were given the choice, they would want to not know. They would rather or say most of those characters would rather not know. I think Constance wu's character probably would have wanted to know. Everyone else, I think, would have been happier in Oblivion. And I mean, that's something to ask yourself. I mean, if you watched White Lotus, the second season of White Lotus, that's sort of the whole thing with Megan Fahey's character, right? She's so happy and it's because she chooses to be oblivious. And there's something to be said for that. Your skin is clear. You don't get gray hairs quite as soon as life is for you to enjoy. And ultimately you get one life. And the number one thing you should want to do with it is enjoy it and then also maybe leave a little something in the world to make it a bit better. It may not last forever, but at least you did something to contribute to the progress of tomorrow. And nobody in Shipmeat Fan wants to contribute to the progress of tomorrow. So they just want to be happy and have a good time. So I guess in their world, that's all that matters. Which is honestly makes the play sound a lot deeper than it is. It's an interesting turn of an ending. And I think that the conversation that I just had with myself about it comes from most likely the intelligence of the original screenplay. I now want to watch the original movie. I want to see how it plays. I also feel like it being Italian, a lot of the high stakes emotions make a lot more sense in that setting than in, you know, yuppie Brooklyn. Also, Scott and I were looking at the set and it's a gorgeous apartment set and they have a photo in the back to like show their amazing view. It's like of the Brooklyn Bridge and the New York City skyline and we're like so that view doesn't exist. There is no apartment in Brooklyn that has that view. Because anything, nothing is that close to the Brooklyn Bridge. And um, anything that has a view of it is. Again, it's too far back and blocked by other buildings. Like no one has that view. It's. It's a very. It's a painted backdrop, but it's a view I would love to have. So that's it on Shipmead fan. Next up, I'm going to take a quick break and then we are going to cover Rack time. So Patty, take it away.
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Billy
Billy, I beg to differ with you.
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Matt Koplik
How do you mean?
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Billy
You're the top. Yeah, you're an Arrow caller. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire.
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Matt Koplik
And we're back. So Ragtime, Ever heard of her? She's a little known musical that's been making the rounds for the last 27 years. Based off of the novel by E.L. doctorow, which. Which incidentally I read junior year of high school. Really like the book. It's a tad dry, but it is a great concept and it is very well researched. So all of the fictional characters that intertwine in Ragtime, the novel, it's just everything fits beautifully and it is a very compelling story. Just. I wouldn't say that EL Doctro is like the most exciting writer. He doesn't have prose that like leap off the page, but he does have a great depth of history and character development. Anyway, Ragtime also was made into a movie in the 80s directed by Milos Forman, he who did Amadeus. And the musical has basically been a staple of the theater community since it premiered both in Toronto and then specifically on Broadway with the cast from Fucking Heaven. And Encores is doing it as part of their gala presentation. They did the same thing with Parade and Pal Joey. And they put together a very talented cast and a large orchestra. There is talk of it transferring to Broadway in the spring. They have to wait for a theater to open up. And they got a rave review in the New York Times. And people on the boards are all saying, oh my God, best encores I've ever seen. So what did I think of it? Well, first of all, let me just say this. I am somebody who does not cry when I see Ragtime. The last revival, I did not cry. I am somebody who cries when they listen to Ragtime. And that was actually evident today because I did not cry once last night at Encores. But I was in the gym, stretching. And I was like, oh, just for poops and giggles, let me listen to a number and see what I think. And I was listening to Peter Friedman's Gliding and I started to sob. And at the end of that song, when he sells the movie book and he and Ms. Lea Michele are colliding at the end of that song, I just started to sob. Not sob, but heavy tears came down. Yeah. That is a show where the music is so incredible. It's an extraordinary score and I find the musical to be strong. It's a good adaptation from the novel. It's very. It's a very impressive streamlining of the novel and leaning into a bit more of the emotions of the characters and the acknowledgement of the history that's happening. Because that's sort of the thing about history is that so many people who lived through it didn't recognize the history that was being made or didn't have an understanding of where that history was leading to. It's hard to know where history is taking you to because it's ultimately up to us to steer it right. And in Ragtime, there are characters who get massive applause and massive boos based on the things that they say, which I think actually is undermining the point of this story. I find it very dumb and very similar to how I felt the first time I saw kinky boots of, like, people patting themselves on the back for, like, understanding who the homophobe was. It's like this is a Broadway equivalent of a MAGA rally. And the difference, of course, is that with maga, it's built off of hate, whereas on a Broadway show it's built off of love and optimism and joy. So I'm not saying anyone's evil for it. I just find it very simplistic and very self affirming to applaud a line that you agree with, because that's ultimately not anything that's challenging you. The challenging thing is to sit and listen to the person you don't agree with and ask yourself how. How could this intelligent person at this time in history think this way? Well, look at the context. Look at what they knew. How could they know where the world was heading to? Would they have caught up with it? Some characters are on the pulse of where history is heading. Characters like Mother, like Tatya, even like Coalhouse, although he's one of the more tragic characters. But characters like Father have no idea where America is heading. And he's seeing all the. All the elements come into shape for it, and it terrifies him. And it upsets him. That's sort of the whole point of that baseball number in Act 2 of it's the underbelly side of the progression of America and of culture in general. The refinement is going away, but the passion is coming in. And passion is important because it's the. It's a human. It's a natural human response again. Q. God of Carnage. We're ultimately all just animals. But back to Ragtime. I don't know what everyone else's experiences with ragtime are. Productions. You've seen how you feel about the score. If you're somebody who's just like, give me that music. And I don't care what else you do, I'm there. This is the production for you. It's encores. They give it a full orchestra. And they give it good singers. And they just do the show now. They don't really do anything else. Again, it's encores. And the director is known to be someone who really just hires smart actors. And then tells them to just go. So there's not a lot of vision. There's not a lot of perspective or style. It's very simplistic. Which, again, I'm okay with. It's encores. It is stage door Manor for Broadway. You come in, you get 11 days of rehearsal. And you do the fucking show. And there are some moments of staging. They have two metal staircases, a la Sweeney Todd or Hope Cladwell and Bobby Strong from Urinetown. In Follow youw Heart. They have two of those staircases that they move around occasionally. They do it for Journey On. They do it for the night that Goldman spoke at Union Square. But it's not necessarily a production that enhances the material. I've saw quite a few people speak on this production and say, well, what I love is that they let the material speak for itself. They really just let it shine. Which is code for they don't do anything with the material. They sing it well. They acted fine. But the reason why this production is as successful as some might think it is. And I do think it's a successful presentation. But it's ultimately because Ragtime is really good material. Aaron's Flaherty and McNally did a really lovely job adapting a really lovely book. And that is why this ragtime succeeds. If you think it succeeds not because of anything that's actually happening on stage. Not because anyone brings anything to it. Not because of anything else. I would say the other thing that gives it, like, quote, unquote importance. Is just the context in which it's being performed, the time in which it's being performed, what it means right now. And so things happening on the outside of those walls give heaviness to things happening inside the walls, which is the beauty of art and definitely was a pointed reason for encores producing it. It's a gamble because you don't know how things like this election are gonna go. You choose optimism. You look at the signs and you see where things can head. But you. The moment you get cocky is the moment you get the rug pulled out from under you. And so I would say the one choice they really made was producing this when they chose to produce it. And it's risky to do it, but it does make everyone in the room at an emotional point that they are just far more receptive to this material than maybe they would have been in, like the Clinton administration, which is when the show did premiere and when a lot of critics were like, it's a little pat, it's a little on the nose. And like, yes, it is. It's ragtime. It's a musical that was written in the 90s, which is the last gasp of the mega musical. The 90s was when Broadway writers and directors and designers were. Were responding to the British mega musical. It's what gives us Ragtime Parade, Sideshow, Jekyll and Hyde, Scarlet Pimpernel, even Secret Garden, I want to say Will Rogers Follies. But shows like that, like these big sounding shows with these like 25 to 30 piece orchestras and heavy, heavy singing and big emotions that has gone out of style. Luckily, whenever we bring it back, we are more than happy to hear it. So let me talk a little bit more about this production specifically and then go into some casting. As I said before, it's a very talented cast of singing actors, half of whom I would say are appropriate for their roles. The two performances that I think are the most successful are Joshua Henry as Kohlhaas Walker Jr. And Brandon Uranowitz as Tata. I'm going to give the edge to Brandon Uranowitz here. Not that it's a competition, but Brandon I've always found to be an incredibly smart actor and a very good singer and a very gregarious presence on stage, which is all the things you need for Tatya. He obviously doesn't have like the rough quality of a singing voice that Peter Friedman did in the 90s, because Peter Friedman wasn't and still isn't really a singer. He's an actor who can sing and that sort of speak singy thing that he does as Tatya makes you live in the roughness of who he is and where he's coming from and his struggle. Brandon is an accomplished singer. So, like, when he sings gliding, when he sings successful, it is truly singing, and it's beautiful singing, but it does miss a bit of that roughness. But overall, Brandon understands who he is, how he fits into this role and what he brings to it. And he's also a very generous scene partner, which I am a big fan of. There are some people in this world, some of whom have been nominated for Tony Awards, for musicals in the last couple of years, who have been fan favorites in their shows and whose performances I actually hated because I found them to be incredibly selfish. Just throwing their scene partners under the bus for. By only living in their own space and saying lines how they want to say them, not even absorbing anything happening around them. And again, some of those people got nominated for Tony's in the last couple of years for doing that. So, you know, it works for them, but it's not actually good acting. And I would say that's a hindrance I have with Joshua Henry's Coalhouse, because he is such a perfect fit for that role. And he sings it gorgeously. He's gotten a lot heavier in his singing over the years, Post Porgy and Bess and Scottsboro Boys and Violet. Like, if you listen to him in Violet and you listen to him in this, he's definitely. He's leaning on those chords a bit more, which I don't mind at all. Again, it goes back to the heyday of the 90s, but it does. It's a different quality of singing now. So it's not so much that he's singing better or more effectively, it's just different. But it works for Ragtime. And he, again, is such a natural fit for it. So his presence, his instincts are all correct. My biggest issue is more that Nichelle Lewis as Sara, she's fine. She's got an amazing voice, and I think she actually sounds more classical in the role than I expected. But she doesn't really bring much to it. She doesn't bring much gravitas or power to the role of Sarah. And this is a role that has a large shadow over it because Audra famously wanted Tony for it, and Lachanze had done it at one point. But no one since then has been able to really make an impression as Sara. And we think of it as this big, big role. And it's not. It's actually a very much a featured role with a Big song. Two big songs if you count, well, Wheels of a Dream, but. And I say that because Wheels of a Dream is a duet, not Sarah song. But I've watched a couple of different Sarahs now go on and like, sound lovely but not make much of an impression. And Nichelle, I didn't find made much of an impression. And rather than meet and lift her in their scenes together, I found that Joshua Henry kind of steamrolled over her a bit. And, you know, sometimes you can't dim your star quality. You can't dim the power of your voice. You can't, you know, soften yourself to make someone else seem brighter. To bring up a canceled individual When She Loves Me happened, one of my biggest complaints was I thought that Laura Benanti was too powerful on stage over Zachary Levi. And he clearly was stepping up as much as he could, but it definitely made an imbalance in that relationship on stage. And Laura clearly was like, I'm not dipping myself for this guy. Fuck that. And you know, eight years later, we're like pop off says. But at the time I was like, you could maybe weaken a little bit just to make the power balance less extreme. But that's sort of what's happening here for me with Josh and Nichelle is that I think that he is so overwhelming on stage and she is not able to match him. And so while Wheels of a Dream sounds nice, they are not a dynamic duo. It makes me really wish Wakina had been able to do the production because I think she would have been able to give Joshua Henry that energy because she is a very powerful actress and a very powerful presence on stage. Speaking of Nichelle, who again, is solid in the role but is not able to really, for me, was not able to carry over the footlights. She sang your daddy son very well. She was very dropped in with her acting, but again, it wasn't a knock you over the head performance. Vocals were lovely gal, but I did not get the raw emotion that I am used to. But again, we. It's hard to compare with Ms. Audra. Casey Levy as mother was another one for me where I went, you are so talented and you are so smart. Casey does not get the respect she deserves as an actress. Having seen her in quite a few shows, I've always been blown away by her acting. She is the epitome of a dropped in musical theater actress. When I saw her in murder ballad, I was like, oh my God, you are giving me screen acting right now. And it's beautiful. She gave some depth to Frozen as much as you could. She's vocally so overqualified for Rose, Stopnik and Caroline or Change, but actually gave my favorite acting performance in that production. She was in Leopoldstadt and was very lovely in that. Girlfriend knows how to act and she is a Belting scientist. My issue is that I do think she's mismatched for this role. The quality of Casey's voice is just so modern, and Ragtime is a. I'll say. It's a classic sound. It takes place in the early 1900s. It's written in the 90s again, as we're coming off of power belting singing of the Les Mis Sideshow Parade era, you know, full. Where Belting had a more rounded sound to it and mixing in soprano. Head voice was richer and more of a throwback. It wasn't a pingy mix. And as I said, Casey is a very modern, powerful belter. Her break is also way higher than this role requires. And I'll get into this for a second with Back to the Four with Maren in a moment. But because of this, Casey does use her chest voice for a lot of the score because it's just where her voice sits. She can't. You can't go into head voice if your break is so much higher. And so that's what she's navigating the way she. She can. But it loses a little something. Mother has that big 11 o' clock number back to before. And one of my issues with Ragtime when I watch it is that act two, first of all, act two happens so quickly. Act one is all of these moving parts moving so slowly. And then Act 2 is just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And I don't get a lot of catharsis from it. It also has 5,000 power ballads back to back. It's got like nine 11 o' clock numbers at the end of the show. But I have a few friends, music director friends, and I won't call them up by name because I don't have their permission to quote them on this. But they've all. They've all said this. And it's. I just find it funny because I know somebody must have made this joke or made this reference to back to before a long time ago, and then they all just quote it. And so now it's just become canon. But Marin Maisie famously had a very strong belt and a very strong soprano and didn't really have a super fluid Liz Calloway mix. It was like she had a breaking point and then she Would flip. She could, you know, go into head voice a lot lower than her belts would have you believe. Like she could belts a lot higher than you ever realize. And she was willing to let go of that and do head voice if she needed to. Back to before is a great example of this. But again, very classic sounding soprano. And then a very heavy belt. And Maren sang in her head voice slash mix for most of ragtime. You can listen to it Journey on our children. Nothing like the city like she is. It's very smooth, smoother than we're used to with her. Very smooth, very light and. And very flowy and very classic sounding. And then back to before you were listening to her navigate a belt. And it gets the. The belt starts to overpower as the song continues. Like it it. As it builds. As the song builds, Maren's belt comes in more and more until the final chorus is her fully belting. And I think it's a C at the end. We can never go back to before. I think that's a C. And it's so incredible because you don't hear her hit a note that high in her chest until that moment. And there are higher notes in back to before. Before that. But she always did it in head voice. Navigating again. No, it was all in head voice. And then it was a little bit of chest going back up to head, then some more chest back up to head, chest, chest, chest, head, head, head, head, belt, belt, belt, belt. And what my music director friends have called it is mother's arc in ragtime is mother learns to belt. Mother begins the show and as a soprano of the early 1900s. And she ends as a belter of the 90s, which is a simplistic way of just chronicling her arc of independent and modern, of coming from a very traditional old world and recognizing the possibilities of the future and embracing it, rather than being afraid of it or angry about it, like her husband in a way. Again, we're on the Gilmore Girls train here. Mother starts the show as Emily Gilmore and ends the show a little half and half of Emily and Lorelei. And it's nice. So someone like Casey is belting pretty much all of back to before. There might be a bit of a mix in there, but it is a chesty mix. And so for moi, for me, in my life, that last chorus does not pack the punch that it should because Casey has been using her chest most of the evening, as well she should when that is how her voice sits. You can watch other mothers online do the Same thing. Christian Nol does belt most of actor before if you watch her on the View or on the Tonys. But if you watched the production, Christiannel did do a lot more pure soprano throughout the night. So even though I would have liked it if she had some more mix in her back to before, the overall structure of her singing for that production was classic's frown at the belt. Christiandoll also comes from the 90s, that school of singing like with Jekyll and Hyde and Miss Saigon. So there is that DNA in her. But you watch and every mother does their own thing and some are more successful than others. I would have loved to have seen Carmen Cusack play this role or Kate Baldwin play this role. They might be a little on the older side for it now but first of all a it's encore as fuck off. Like if we're, if we're accepting no set and sometimes having scripts and some performances being less well rounded because of the short rehearsal period, we are allowed to have a 45 year old woman play Mother. We are allowed. And I just like because I do think that Kate and Carmen are women who understand the importance of using your mix and having your soprano and holding off unbuilt for as long as possible. And that is what I really appreciate about that role of Mother and specifically what Baron brought to it. And it's always, it's always unfair to compare to the original. Especially with something like Ragtime where that cast is so the word is overused but it is an iconic cast of so many actors who had not become the stars that they were going to become. Every one of them was very much halfway on the rise. They weren't newcomers, they had all been established but none of them were household names. Audra was a two time Tony winner by that point but in supporting roles, Stokes Mitchell had done a replacement in Kiss of the Spider Woman and Jelly's Last Jam. He was not a household name. Marin was a Tony nominee for Passion which when you hear the Passion episode in a few weeks you'll know that's not the flex it would be for someone like Donna Murphy. Peter Friedman, Tony nominee for Heidi Chronicles and had done some movies but he was not a movie star. It was, I mean Judy K was the other Tony winner in that show and she was playing Emma Goldman like one of the greatest Princess Dracs ever. Mark Jacoby, best known for Showboat at that point it was all these people who were so talented and everyone in the theater knew of them. They were creating names but that was the show that was the major turning point for all of their careers. And they were so ripe in their powers as musical theater performers. And you hear it on that album. You hear them be smart, passionate actors with star quality and these special voices that you can clock. You know what Audra sounds like with a blindfold on. You know what Marin sounds like? You know what Brian Stokes Mitchell sounds like? I was at a music theater, Trivia, a few weeks ago at Verse. I think I might have talked about this. And for Trivia, they did a blind listen of Take Me or Leave Me for Rent. And they played, like, 10 different versions of different bootlegs from concerts and stage productions. And there were, like, four of them that no one could recognize. And they ended up being people that we all knew. But when you were listening to it, you're like, I don't know who that is. That could be one of 10 people. Which tells you a little something. Other highlights of this Ragtime. Ben Levi Ross is a very strong mother's younger brother. He sounds very good. Shana Taub does a nice job with Emma Goldman. I wish she was a little more passionate, but whatever. This production also opens with the little boy and Cole House Walker, the child on stage. And he tells him the opening line of. In 1902, Father built a house at the crest of the Broadview Avenue Hill in New Rochelle, New York. So it's like. I guess the framing device is he's telling him the story, one might say. But then that gets dropped immediately and that child doesn't come back on stage until the end of the show. So there goes that. Also, I don't. Maybe someone can answer me. This is the song Harry Houdini that used to open Act 2. Is that officially cut from Ragtime Forever? Because without it, the plotline of the little boy being clairvoyant makes no sense and is so underdeveloped now. Because now it opens with Coal House Singing, which is what happened in the 09 revival. And it makes you wonder if that's just how it is. Now. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who skip that song, but without it, nothing that they're alluding to about the little boy being clairvoyant. Tracks other than three Warn the Dukes and We're Gonna Know those People Someday. But that's. Again, it's brushed aside as, like, this fucking kid. And the things that kids say. The darndest things. And it's. It's weird in the book, too, but it makes more sense in the book that they have more Time to explain it. But, yeah, this whole point is like, the little boy is clairvoyant, very much the Shining. But it. Yeah, it was. It was just one of those things in Encores where it's like half the audience knew it was what it was just because they were ragtime fans. But there are a couple people who just didn't know what was going on with the whole war in the Duke stuff. Overall, yeah, this is a solid rack time. It's very nice for Encores, the people who told me that it was the best Encores they've seen. Ultimately, I think it's probably the best show that Encores has produced that they've seen. Encores didn't used to do shows that we just knew worked and that we all loved. And sometimes they did. But usually it was shows that were forgotten gems or rough gems. They were pieces that you knew you were never going to see on a Broadway stage ever again, but you wanted to see with the full orchestra and Broadway talent for that one week. Now, two weeks. It was a really lovely archaeological production. And sometimes it yielded really painful results like I Married an angel or High Button Shoes. And sometimes it yielded really amazing results. The two best Encores I've ever seen were the Apple Tree with Kristin Chenoweth and Most Happy Fella with Benanti and Schuller Hensley. One is because Most Happy Fella honestly felt about as close to a fully realized production as I've ever seen at Encores, while not feeling so try hard about wanting to go to Broadway. It was just doing the material, but having a sense of style about it, having fully realized performances about it. It was one of those things where if you didn't pay attention too much, you didn't recognize how intelligently Casey Nicholaw would simply stage a scene while then also doing a beautiful bit of choreography. It was like a sleight of hand. You were tricked into thinking you were seeing a fully integrated, major Broadway production, and only when you stop to think back on certain moments where you go, oh, actually, I guess the staging here was kind of simple, but it was effective because then it would be done with a very cool moment and everything just sort of flowed in a beautiful way. Apple Tree is still the best one I've ever seen, because Apple Tree was what a genuine Encore's transfer used to be, which was a performer who was so perfectly cast in something and an audience collectively going, oh, this show is way better than I remembered it being. 2,200 people sat there and went, the Apple Tree score Is incredible. How did we forget? And this book is way better than they said it was. And it was directed well. They were intelligent about the scripts. Back when everybody used to hold scripts at Encores. They would sometimes do very smart things with the scripts, but not anymore. And it was. It was just. It was one of those moments where everyone just collectively went, this can't just end here. This ha. Something has to happen with this. And now Encores, it's not their official mission statement, but I have it on very good authority that they do schedule every season with the hope of one, at least one show a year transferring to Broadway. And if you don't believe me again, look at sort of what's been happening since Encores came back from COVID And there are rumors of this going to Broadway. I know they have commercial producers attached. They are looking into theaters. Do what you want. Ragtime is a beautiful score. It deserves to be heard all the fucking time. I do not think that this production is special enough to move to Broadway. A Ragtime also just always loses money anytime it plays Broadway. But I don't think this production is special enough. I haven't really felt that way about most Encore's productions since it came back. What they do is they do much more concrete shows that can survive a simple staging. That doesn't mean the production is great. That means the people who wrote the show did a very good job. And I really wish that we could recognize the difference. I really wish Jesse Green could recognize the difference. Because the same fucking thing happened with his review for Our Town where I'm like, nothing is happening. Thorton Wilder wrote a masterpiece. And this production doesn't do jack with it. They get out of the way of it. They don't ruin it, but they don't do anything with it. And you don't have to do a Jamie Lloyd reinterpretation. You don't have to do a Sam Gold in Romeo and Juliet like teddy bears and bright lights to do something. But you do have to have a point of view. You do have to have a sense of style and pacing. You do have to know what to do on an actual stage besides just having people enter and exit, which happens 85% of the time with these Lear encore shows. But we digress. I want to say I did enjoy myself at Ragtime. It's a lovely night at the theater. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I think it's the best thing I've seen at Encores. Nor do I think it should transfer. I I didn't cry. But that's my own thing with Ragtime. I cry when I listen, not when I see it. If you're on the fence about getting a ticket, get a ticket. Why not go for it? It's Ragtime. Everyone should hear that score live as many times as they can. But I will tell you that now. I've been listening to the original Broadway cast recording again. And watching some bootleg of it to remind myself. And yeah, nothing's gonna top the original. It's just not gonna happen. It was so many creative people making magic at a very specific point. I'm not going to call them all geniuses. Because genius is a very specific term that I would put for someone like a Mozart. Where it's just the amount of brilliant work they put out at such a natural pace. Is what made them a genius. But I will say that everyone involved with Ragtime. That original incarnation. They were brilliant artists. Some of them are alive still. And they are still brilliant artists. And that was a case where they all brought out the best in each other. And made a really strong musical. With an incredible score. That was given a top notch cast in 97. With an overwhelmingly Carcassian design. Some would say that it hindered it, but. Which is probably true. But also, the things they did with that design. Are unmatched for any other Ragtime. I guess what this production can show you. Is that you don't need all the bells and whistles. To have Ragtime pack a punch. But it would be nice to have like some more staging. It would be nice to have a little bit more of a point of view. But it's encores. You don't really go for that. And that's fine. You get when you come for encores. You get what you want when you go to an encore show here. But no, I do not think that this is a Broadway ready transfer. And anyone who tells you that. And ask them what exactly it is that they think a Broadway show is. What they think a final, not even Broadway show. What they think a final product is. If you were to go see something at signature Theater in D.C. or Chicago Shakespeare Company. If you were to see this done. This exact thing done there as part of their season. Would you be like, absolutely brilliant final product. Or would you feel like something was wanting? Everything changes based on the context in which you see it. It's an encore show. You don't really expect much of a set. You don't expect that much staging. That is why it is effective in the way that it Is. But things change when you move it to the Palace Theater and start charging 350 bucks for the orchestra. Know what I mean? All right, that's going to be one more break and then we are going to do left on 10th.
- [57:48]
Billy
Billy, I beg to differ with you.
- [57:50]
Matt Koplik
How do you mean?
- [57:50]
Billy
You're the top.
- [57:51]
Matt Koplik
Yeah.
- [57:53]
Billy
You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire.
- [58:21]
Matt Koplik
And we're back. So left on 10th. Do you know who Nora Ephron was? She was a brilliant screenwriter and director, best known for her Oscar nominated screenplays, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed. You've Got mail. She also wrote the book Heartburn and the screenplay adapted from that and the Oscar nominated screenplay Silkwood. Nora has a sister named Delia who is also a wonderful writer. Delia wrote a book that she turned into a play based on her life about her, her being a widow and trying to get Verizon to fix her Internet and then writing an article about her struggle with Verizon and then reconnecting with an old flame and falling in love in her 60s 70s, then getting cancer, Beating the cancer, getting cancer again and beating it again. And in the process she loses a dog. Now I cannot tell you whether this is a gripping tale. People live miraculous lives and we all have stories that can be shared. And this is something that could possibly have been a very lovely story to tell. Maybe as a movie they do try to liken it to a romantic comedy without actually delving into why romantic comedies work. And that's not me mirroring my own play. But Delia in the play often talks about how it's just like romantic comedy, like the ones me and my sister grew up with and wrote and loved. But it's not. They don't have any miscommunications. They don't have any hurdles other than Delia's cancer. They don't have a meet cute. It's. I don't. I don't know how to talk about this play. Honestly. It's you. We try to be kind and we try to be polite, but also I don't like lying. So I'm not gonna tell you that this play was good. I'm not gonna tell you there was really anything good about it. I'm going try, I'm going to try and politely discuss why I did not like this, why I found it to be objectively not good. If you liked this play. Props to you. Don't let me yuck your yum. If you were interested in seeing this play but wanted to know what I had to say about it, maybe I can sway you. And if you had no interest in seeing this play, but you were promised before the break that I was going to give you something worthy to listen to. I, I would say buckle up, but I honestly don't know. The truth is that I am so tired. I have been non stop since September, probably early September, with scheduling recordings, doing research for recordings. I've been, I've, I, I have the next month of Deep Dives recorded, edited and uploaded. That has taken so much work. I also have the fundraiser going on. I have theater that I'm seeing that I'm then commenting on this podcast. I've had some writing gigs. I'm actually going to be at a event Friday morning with friend of the pod, Robert W. Schneider, doing a panel about podcasting in addition to just a million other things. So we are tired. We are so tired. So I'm going to try to make cohesive statements. It may not happen, partly because this show fucking rattled me. I gave you the basic premise. Juliana Margulies is Delia Ephron. Her husband has died. She's the show opens and she's on the phone with Verizon fios trying to get her Internet working. And when it doesn't work out, she talks to the audience about what she's gone through and how she writes an article in the New York Times about her Verizon troubles. And from that article, Peter Gallagher, her old flame, is like, hey, Delia, remember me? And she says no, but they correspond via email anyway. And he tells about all the things that they did together when they were young, which she doesn't remember, but she likes him anyway. He lives in California, she lives in New York. They have a couple of meetups. They fall in love very quickly. She gets cancer, he sticks by her. They get married in the hospital, she beats the cancer, they go visit their friends. She feels like she can conquer the world, but the cancer comes back. There is a scene in the hospital where Delia is fighting infection. She's on a treatment, but also her lungs are filling up with fluid. And the doctor tells Peter Gallagher something about her chart. Like her monitor has to stay above 90. If it goes below 90, it means that the fluid is winning, but she's got to get back up to 90. And she's like really struggling through her treatment. She's been in bed this entire time. It's just Been like a montage of Delia getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And Juliana Margulies is in bed, quote unquote, unconscious. And there's a projection behind the bed that says 95. And it gets down to 93 and then 92. And Peter Gallagher is just talking to Juliana Margulies. Come on, baby, you gotta fight it. Fight it for me, please. Please, baby, fight it. Goes down to 92, 91, 90, 89, 88, then back up to 89, 90, 91, 92. And the entire time Peter Gallagher is going, come on, baby, you can do it. You can fight it. You can do it. And it's a scene that would probably land in a movie. Probably not. Definitely. Probably on stage. And we talked about this in Heart of Rock and Roll. The James Earl Jones Theater is not a massive theater, but the way it is built, it has a lot of open air. So it is not an intimate house. So watching something that should be done in close up on a soundstage when you are 60ft away looks so ridiculous. And poor Peter Gallagher has to sell it as best he can, but it's just. It's near impossible. He is very charming. He still looks damn good, but his part doesn't equal anything. There is so much narration in this play, and narration is tricky because it can work very well. And it could also be an absolute crutch and detriment to any kind of drama or tension. It's so much exposition. It's not a full two hander. It's Julianna Margulies, Peter Gallagher, and then two other actors who play a variety of roles. One is Peter Francis James. The other is Kate McLu. McCluggage. McCluggage. McCludgy. Sorry for butchering that name. Kate is actually my favorite performance in the show. I can't say she's amazing. She doesn't have exactly great material, but she does define each of the different roles that she plays and is very memorable, which is rare, this kind of a show. Honestly, my favorite piece of information. There are two dogs in this play. One is Honey, Delia's first dog who dies of cancer. And Delia even says, did Honey take on my cancer? No, she didn't. After Honey is the dog Charlie. But Honey is played by the dog Nessarose. Yes, a wicked fan. Definitely adopted that dog and let that dog perform in left on 10th. I don't even know what to say about this show. It is everything you could possibly have an issue with. I had an issue with. I had an issue with the design, I found it to be unattractive, kind of lumbering. It's mostly an apartment set. A curved wall of books with two or three doors, like ivory white painting on the. On the paneling. And then in the distance behind it is what I can only call a watercolor rendition of New York. My friend and I, when we sat down, we were like, I can't tell if that is a very bad projection, like an AI projection or someone's trying to make it look like a painting because it would move, but in a way where it felt like the projector was broken, not like it was shimmering or anything like that. It was very unattractive. The set would occasionally move, like the walls would break and they would try to reconfigure it so you would be in different locations. But this is not Dreamgirls, where like four towers can make a multitude of scenes. This is a wall that breaks and twists, then twist the other way and then twist the other way. The big thing they do is eventually the walls split totally down the middle and they move to the side. The apartment set does not go off completely because the stage would be so empty without it, but they move closer, off to the sides, and that's when they bring on Delia's hospital bed. And for the montage, they have the two actors who are not Peter Gallagher and Juliana Margulies constantly taking hospital screens and zooming them back and forth and back and forth, forth in between montage scenes. So set wise, not a fan. Lighting design. There were some nice golden hues, some nice greens, some nice blues. This isn't a Romeo and Juliet situation where I at least enjoyed the aesthetic of the lighting most of the time. Romeo and Juliet. I did not like the aesthetic of the production, but I did think that the lighting gave an ambiance that so much of that production lacked and really pulled weight in setting a tone. Nothing in the design of this show sets a tone other than the Zabar's bag that Julianna Margulies brings with her for her first day in the hospital getting cancer treatment. So design wise, for me, that's a no. Writing also a no. It's Nora and Delia are two very smart women who wrote some wonderful scripts. I would be misremembering the dead if I were to tell you that Nora Ephron batted a thousand as a writer. Don't forget this is the woman who did the Bewitched movie with Nicole Kidman. That is bonkers. Delia co wrote the screenplay Hanging up, which Diane Keaton directed that movie is notoriously bad. Nora Ephron did the movie Mixed Nuts. The movie Michael, like, yes, we have Sleepless in Seattle. We have When Harry Met Sally Silkwood, you've Got Mail, Julia. And Julia, if we're being semi generous. But she did not have a perfect career. Nobody does. And so it's unfair to Delia to be like, well, Nora was really the one. Nora had her bombs too. But also, being a talented and intelligent writer in one medium doesn't mean you can handle another. Delia clearly understood filmmaking. Her parents were screenwriters. And she talks about in the play her love for the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which, oh boy, did that give me PTSD to hear that. And they have two actors in Seven Brides and Seven Brothers get up every now and then for no reason other than it's a sight gag, but they bring them on to move a bed. And Delia being like, I wanted my own western brother from that movie. And I'm like, oh no, I don't like it. When we come for other things and their sexual politics and then we admit that we love Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And as somebody whose favorite musical is Carousel, believe me, I've had to have this conversation before. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is legit bad. The politics of that is just straight up terrible. And I don't want to hear a word defending it. Any movie that has the line, I would like to wear something of your mother's. Or like, it makes. It makes me feel good to wear something that belonged to your mother. No, get that out of my house. Get that out of my car. I don't want to hear that ever. That's some Mike Pence bullshit right there. Anywho, the writing, there is no motor to this play. There is no real structure to this play. It's more. And then this happened. And then this happened. There is a full blown scene as Peter Gallagher and Julianna Margulies are courting each other early because they live on opposite ends of the of the country. They are emailing. So we're watching Peter Gallagher on one side of the stage sit at a computer and Juliana Margulies sit on another side of the stage at her computer and just talking out loud to their computers, at each other. One could say, oh, that's giving me. You've got male vibes. It's giving me Love Letters. That A.R. gurney play where two actors just read love letters to each other. But at least in Love Letters there is a story going on through those letters. There is A build. You're watching one character mature and one character devolve. This is just 5 to 10 minutes of 2 people being like, do you remember this from our childhood? No. Well, it happened. I just. There is no development of either of these characters. They don't learn anything from their experiences, from each other outside of just. You can find love again at an older age. The death that you've experienced from your loved ones doesn't have to define you. You can fight, but, like, that's not even at the forefront. It's just things that happened to them. And every time you might think a scene's going to get going, Julianna Margulies stops the action and recites some narration. Now, maybe the narration would bother me less if I thought Julianna Margulies did a good job with it. I love Juliana. I love her on the Good Wife. Girlfriend is an amazing screen actress. Alicia on the Good Wife is one of my favorite characters in all of tv. And if you haven't watched the Good Wife, please watch it. Season four is a little rough, but it gets so much better. The pilot episode of the Good Wife is so incredible, and it just hooks you after that. And it's got Marybeth Peele, it's got Christine Baranski, Josh Charles, Christopher Knoth, but he's being a predator, so it makes sense. And then a whole, like, so many of your favorite Broadway actors are in it because they shot it in New York. They were pretending it was Chicago, but they shot it in New York. And Alan Cumming is on it. Kristin Chenoweth was on it. Santino Fontana had an episode. I remember at one point. I think Malcolm Getz had an episode at one point. Kyle Dean Massey just. Yeah, like every Broadway person you've ever known. Oh, Laura Benanti, she was in it for a little bit. She played Dylan Baker's, like, latest wife. But point is, I saw Julianna Margulies on stage in Feston back in 2006, and that was actually my introduction to her. I never watched er. I still can't watch er. And I remember seeing her infested and being like, where did they find this woman? She's not good. And then I eventually got into the Good Wife many years later, and I was like, oh, no, she's an incredible actress. Maybe that was just bad script and bad director. I do not think that Juliana Margulies fits for stage. Her talent for acting is in tune with the medium of film. She does not know how to make herself bigger for stage. Louder. She doesn't know what to do with her body. So that way it's all in view of the audience. You know, she's good at minimalism, she's good at specificity. She's not good at looking out at an 1100 seat house and filling it with her in a way that still feels organic. It's choppy and it's cold. We were asking afterwards, we're like, maybe she's actually just doing a very spot on Delia Ephron. And we don't know that because we don't know what Delia Ephron is like. But even if it were the most spot on imitation, there's something that isn't connecting with the audience. It feels so put upon. It feels so presentational and performative. And yes, it is a performance, but you don't want to see the acting. You, you want to feel it, you want to absorb it. You don't want to go, oh, well, that was a line delivery. And that's what you get. It's, it's, it's a stilted and, and stiff performance. I, you know, it's up there right now for me this season with Katie Holmes and Our Town and Tommy Dorfman and Romeo and Juliet where you're just like, you just don't look comfortable. Whether you're having a good time in the show or not is beside the point. From my perspective. You are not fitting on that stage. You are not fitting with this text. You are not able to own yourself in this performance. And it's blatantly obvious when she's next to Peter Gallagher, who does know how to be on stage and does know how to present himself and does know how to be dropped in while filling the space with him. Granted, he doesn't have a role. He plays the swoon worthy man that she falls for, who's too good to be true, who's kind and caring and attentive, says all the right things, is always there, shows up when it's hard, but also looks like Peter Gallagher when they start the fucking. He's good at the fucking with no mention of Viagra. And I'm like, okay, good for you. But he doesn't have anything to play other than just being charming, which he can do. But you, you're watching him try to navigate more and just coming up short because it's, you're just hitting a wall all the time. And Stroman as a director isn't giving either of them anything. You would at least think as a choreographer, Susan Stroman would be able to Fill that production with movement of the two of them, of the two supporting actors. Make that thing flow. Since there's a lot of. There's a lot of small scene work, but it has no pacing. It is, it's not sluggish, it's just sort of tranquil. It just keeps going on a placid scale, which may not be the correct combination of words, but again, I am tired. It is 1:15 in the morning. There is no there, as I said, there is no motor to this piece. There is no pacing to this piece. It's all one big hundred minute blanket of tranquility. And the problem is that that blanket is made of the scratchiest, pokiest yarn. You have lines that just jump out at you like she's having a conversation with a friend, Joanna Margulies, as she got her cancer diagnosis. And I won't spoil it too much, but this is going to go into a Tony category I intend to put at the end of the season. Which is best left on 10th. Quotes from left on 10th, presented by the cast of left on 10th. And one of the lines is, actually, I had AIDS. Not going to tell you what the context is of that line, why it was said, but just the words, actually, I had aids. Which is insane but also kind of hilarious based on how you say it. Like imagine you were quote unquote, that girl, that Becky, that Karen. Or you're like. Or you're like the self correcting person, right? And so, and someone says, oh, you know, here's Jennifer, she had a cold last week. Actually, I had aids. I don't care who you are. That is fucking funny. And the line's not meant to be funny. It's a serious line up there with Debra Messing. Not since the night of the accident, which is taken so seriously. I have a whole bunch of other ones I wrote. I wrote a whole lot of them down. I want to see if there's any others that I could share with you. I am a leukemia patient now, which reminds me of Kelsey Grammer on 30 Rock when he's playing Abraham Lincoln in that one man show. And he gets shot and he stands up and he goes, I'm a ghost now. I should just go to Monte Carlo and die. Let's see what's up. Who knows how to break horses? I need to get off. Every man from Northern California wears a backpack. It's so for a show that should be smooth sailing. It is incredibly choppy waters on a boat that is modeled after an 80 year old model that wasn't that well done to begin with. But at least we didn't know better then. We know better now. Everyone involved knows better. And yet somehow this is where we're at. I'm being generous as I talk about this. As I said, sometimes I talk to people in the community offline about what's happening in the season, what's being performed, what the general response is. And like, when Merrily lost director and a lot of people threw their hands up in the air, I was like, well, there are some casting choices that not everyone was thrilled with. And actors on Broadway know that you don't blame the actor for getting cast. You blame the director for casting them. And if they can't get that performance out of them, that falls on the director. Yes, the actor may not be up to snuff in many regards. They may not be a good enough singer for the role or technically a very good actor. But it's a director's job to recognize that. And sometimes a director can make really good use of that actor anyway. So I say this because I am saying what I'm saying about left on 10th when I tell you that the overall, not overall, the unanimous response from the community is harshly negative. Believe me when I say that Tony chances, probably none. Not even probably none. I can't imagine this going anywhere. It's. Maybe it can have life regionally for actors over 50, but they're not. It's not good material for actors over 50. Like, they would be doing it just to have something to do, which is ultimately what it feels like. With Juliana Margulies and Peter Gallagher of like, it would be nice to have a job. Right now I would like to work right now. I would like to do theater again. And I'm always going to applaud film and TV actors coming to stage, taking a chance. I'm really excited for Cult of Love. There are a whole bunch of TV and film actors doing that one, like Shailene Woodley, Barbie. What's her name? Barbie Ferreira, the. The actress from Euphoria. I'm very excited to see what they do on stage, but when it's not good, when it's not working, it doesn't do anyone any favors not to call it out. I got. I'm not going to call it Red, but I got written to on Instagram. I think it was a comment on the Romeo and Juliet review that basically was like, I don't understand the need to, like, shit on these things. Can't you just, like, say nothing? Now? Listen, it'd be one thing if I was punching down a struggling show that is really good that I didn't like, or a struggling show that's having an identity crisis. Like, did I punch down a little bit in my review on Instagram for Lempicka? Probably. But I also tried to be as fair as I could with why I was negative about it because I also recognized that with Lempicka, a lot of hard work and a lot of good intentions went into it. It's just that I found that the final product was extremely bad. But because I didn't, I knew that the people behind it weren't trying to make a bad show or. Or didn't care if it was a bad show. I wanted to be respectful of their intentions. Romeo and Juliet is grossing over a million dollars a week. They are sold out till the end of the run. There's nothing I can do to change that. If I think that the production is bad, I have no problem saying it because also when you are telling people not to say their negative responses, that is A censorship and B it doesn't add any kind of conversation. If everything is good, nothing is good. And theater tickets are too expensive now for me to just blindly say that everything is the thing to it's why I don't trust first preview responses from anybody. It's why I don't trust social media personalities. They'll say one thing online and then tell you something else at a bar. Believe me, no one working on Broadway thinks that everything is great and believes that the whole community should just rally behind everything. You got into this to do work that meant something to you. And when you are in a show and it's just a job, you're grateful for the paycheck, but you really want to be in something that's going to make an impact. And a lot of things don't. Some things just come and are left on 10th. Some things show up and it's just the show that people did while they were in between TV gigs or if you're Susan Stroman before your big musical in the spring. And it's. It's really fucking frustrating to see. I know so many people who've written such amazing things and can't get their foot in the door. And they aren't an Efron, they don't have connections to Susan Stroman or the Roth family and thus can't get their stuff seen at a pub, let alone Broadway. So when you see something that is just rotted to the core of not a good script, poorly designed absentmindedly directed. You just sit there and you get angry. You're like, aren't we doing this because we love it? Aren't we trying to make something special? And maybe everyone on board with left on 10 thought that that's what they were doing, but I don't totally buy it. You can't watch it and tell me that everyone put in their best work or attempted to do their best work. I'll end this on a positive note. I am seeing McNeil on Wednesday. I don't. That's not the positive. I don't expect to have nice things to say about it, but I go in every time with an open mind. I'm seeing Wonderful World on Saturday, so I'll be reviewing both of those shows. I am going in with an open mind about Wonderful World. I haven't heard overwhelmingly great things, but I haven't heard overwhelmingly bad things either. I'm also looking forward to when the Wicked movie comes out because I just listened to a movie podcast, an Oscar prediction podcast, with a bunch of movie critics who are like theater kids. They like their musicals. But they came out of that screening and talked about it on the podcast, saying that the movie is legitimately wonderful and that they see it making a lot of money and being a big Oscar contender. And that means more to me than anybody on this network or on Instagram from Broadway posting about it. I don't trust any of them when they say that the movie's great. I want it to be. I want it to be great, and I hope it's great. And if it is, I can have a lovely rave review for it on this podcast. I feel like also, I've been so disappointed so much lately. I want to remind everyone I love Tales of California and I raved about it on here. I really enjoyed Sunset Boulevard. I didn't think it was as brilliant as others thought, but I very much enjoyed it. I had a great time. I recommended to people really liked Omari. I didn't love Job, but I thought that there was a lot about Job that was worth talking about and recommending it. Was there anything else? So far this season, it's been a kind of a meh. Oh, Yellowface. I really, really liked Yellowface. So it's I'm not a total negative Nancy. I even. I think I gave Ragtime a relatively positive review. I didn't piss my pants about it in the way that other people did. But also I have said, like, Ragtime does not overwhelm me in the way that it overwhelms other people. The music does. I'll listen to that album forever. And this Encores production is nice. It's very nice. It's not my favorite, though. It'll probably. I don't know if anything's going to usurp Apple Tree or Most Happy Fella. No, no musical that Encores does now is going to be a surprise to me because I know those shows are good. Maybe Love Life in the Winter, because I don't know much about love Life. And maybe that'll be a nice surprise. We'll see. That's it for now. I'm at a loss for words. It's late, I'm tired, and I just talked about left on 10th for half an hour and that is way too long to talk about that goddamn show. If you like the podcast, guys, give us a nice 5 star rating. If you want to give us a review that's also wonderful, make sure to join the Discord Channel in the description in the episode box and donate to the play. This is the last time you're going to hear me make that ask for any of you. So if you're annoyed with me for bringing it up again, guess what? After today, well, sorry, I've got like two or three episodes where I bring it up just because I recorded them a month ago. But on this day on Saturday, November 2nd, or I guess now it's Sunday, November, Sunday, November 3rd, I will no longer be updating you. I will no longer be asking you. So today's the last day, so hallelujah. But the link will be in the description box for that. I guess I'll say we'll close out with Marin Maisie. We've done her a bunch. But I do love her. And I'll just close out with back to before because, listen, that's where we're at right now, you know, and that's a good message to go out on. So, yeah, join us for the next episode, which is going to be Little Shop of Horrors with friend of the Pod, Sutton Lee Seymour. To be very exciting. That's coming out on Thursday. And yeah, I look forward to you guys hearing that episode as well. Anything else? I got to say, no. I mentioned the Discord. I mentioned the fundraiser. Oh. If you are interested in seeing the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, we are performing in December at Skirball NYU. I have a link for the tickets and a 10% discount code if you want to go. I don't have a solo. I didn't go out for one. I'm too wiped. I Also, I know I contributed lyrics to a song. I just don't remember which one. Oh, it was the Hanukkah song. The Adam Sandler Hanukkah song. I. I helped rewrite some of those lyrics, so at least there's that. But if you're there to see me, you'll be disappointed. Just go to see a good show, and, yeah, that's it for now. I'll see you guys on Thursday with Little Shop of Horrors. Take it away, Marin. Bye.
- [90:10]
Billy
There was a time when you were the person in motion? I was your wife? It never occurred to? Once more? You were my sky? My moon and my stars and my ocean? We can never go back to before? We can never go back.
- [90:51]
Matt Koplik
To be.