B (98:58)
And we're back. So to catch us back up, for those of you just joining us at number 42 of the rankings this season, we have left on 10th 41 is McNeil 40 is Tammy Faye 39 is Redwood 38 is the Last Five Years 37 is Romeo and Juliet 36. Home 35. Smoosh 34. All In 33. Othello 32. Glengarry Glen Ross 31. The Roommate 30. Our Town 29. A Wonderful World 28. Swept Away 27. Good Night and Good Luck 26. Pirates The Penzance Musical 25. Once Upon a Mattress 24. Job 23. Old Friends 22. Gypsy 21. Stranger Things 20. Boop 19. Operation Mincemeat 18. Real Women have Curves 17. Buena Vista Social Club 16. Just in Time The Bobby Darin Musical 15. Dead Outlaw 14. Elf 13. Death Becomes Her 12. Sunset Boulevard 11. Yellowface 10. Eureka Day 9. Purpose and Now 8. I'm Disgusting Cult of Love by Leslie Headland unfortunately, this play did not receive any Tony nominations this year, which is a shame because it was another one of my favorite ensemble pieces of the year and a really, really strong play. I would argue that Eureka Day is better at asking questions without a strawman argument, and Purpose, while maybe a little fattier than Cult of Love, ultimately goes a little deeper. But Cult of Love is a tighter play than Purpose. It is a tighter play and better constructed play than Eureka Day and like those two also has a phenomenal ensemble. I mean with these three you're basically just playing with house money of good shows. But Cult of Love for me was a little more enjoyable because it was a little tighter and better constructed. Again with amazing acting all around. Shout outs to Shailene Woodley who is making her Broadway debut in this Molly Barnard who gave my favorite performance in Cult of Love. Cult of Love tells the story of a family celebrating Christmas Eve at the parents home. The youngest daughter is living there with her husband while she's pregnant with her second child and we've learned that she has chemical mental chemical imbalance, most likely depression and bipolar and is known for hysterics and actually is normally on medication but she and her husband are not having her go on them which is making her mental capacity even worse these days. From her mental faculties I should say There are two other siblings. Three other siblings. There is Zachary Quinto who's the oldest brother. There is the oldest sister played by I believe it's Rebecca Henderson. And then there is the youngest brother which is Bill. No, no, Bill is the father who is the youngest Brother. The youngest brother is Johnny. No. Yes, Johnny. Christopher Sears as Johnny Doll. That's the youngest brother. And Johnny shows up with Barbie Ferreira, who we know from Euphoria on hbo. Cult of Love ultimately asks the questions about, you know, is family something that you are beholden to? Is family simply just a group of people who you have too many shared experiences with that you can't really quit them? What, like, do you love them? Or is it a biological connection that you can't forego? Because a lot of people talk about how family is. You know, someone is a group of people that you are beholden to. But what is family? Because a lot of people have chosen family because their birth family rejected them, sometimes for reasons you may not know or reasons they tell you, or sometimes they abuse them and they run away. Cult of Love is about a family that ultimately abuses each other in all of the most emotional ways and sometimes in the mental ways. But when things get really bad, when Shailene Woodley's Diana has a major episode, they are there, and they are, and they know what to do to help and to support her. And same with everyone else in that family. But there's also the question of what happens when your children start living lives different from yours and lives that maybe you grew up and told you shouldn't agree with? Do you have to rethink your whole existence and your whole way of thinking so you can show your child that you support them? What about your other children? Because the thing about Cult of Love is that the family, the Dolls, is a very religious family, but they have two children, a son who was going to be a priest who left to go to law school, and then a daughter who came out as gay. And they sort of feel like the lone wolves of this family. And then they have a younger son who loves his family but is absolutely aware of their dysfunction and kind of lives, this bohemian, vagabond lifestyle. And then Diana, who is the most religious of all of them and yet she has the most mental issues of all of them and is the most infantilized by the parents. And when the show ends without giving too much away, it ultimately shows, in the case of this family, the Doll family, that people will say that they will break off, that they will leave, that they will go off and do their own thing, but there's really no such thing as that anymore, not with how technology works, how even if you are still connected to one person in that family, you are connected to the rest of them, no matter how hard you pretend otherwise, no matter how much they hurt you, they betray you. And you can say that you're done, you're never really done. And that can either be heartwarming or that can be terrifying. Cult of Love is almost like a cynical, harsh, semi horror movie version of the TV show Parenthood. Another story of a very tight knit unit that treats their family like a club. And what's the difference between a club and a cult really? There's an ideology that you sort of implement for no reason. A loyalty that almost becomes your identity and an exclusiveness that one wonders is, is it because you love each other so much or is it because you're afraid if an outsider comes in, what they might show you, what they might reveal to you about your relationships with each other. And Cult of Love does not answer any of these questions, but it does explore them. The one thing that Cult of Love does that I can't super support is it is a very strawman argument kind of show. Not in terms of family but in terms of other ideologies, religion, sexuality. You know, they have a son who's become atheist and a daughter who's gay. And they do a lot of straw man arguments where they have the parents or they have the sister who are very much more religious and more conservative, say these things that are so simplistic and obtuse. And granted there are of course people in the world who feel this way, but they say these things not because the writer is looking to get into the minds of these characters, but because they want the other siblings to say the speeches that the audience feels and wants to cheer on with. Right. It's the only part of the show that is not as nuanced and complicated as the rest of it. And it happens every now and then. And it's not that it's bad writing, it's just a little simple. And for a show that has a lot more meat on the bone, it's a little disappointing that these are the moments that still exist. But overall the piece is so effective that I. It's not that I ignore it, but I can forgive it when the other highs are so good. Which actually leads us next to number seven. This is it, Floyd Collins. The first Broadway production of Adam Gettles debut New York City musical about the true story of Floyd Collins, a cave explorer and enthusiast who was looking to make his fortune by finding a new cave in his homeland and you know, turned into an attraction so he and his family would no longer have their money woes and then only to get stuck in the cave and then A rescue team trying to save him and being unable to. And while all of this is happening, the media circus surrounding the attempts at his rescue. An odd idea for a musical, no? And yet another New York Times critics pick. Here we actually have. I didn't even mention all the other critics picks we've had, but that's because we're now in the section where I think the critics picks me more sense. Floyd Collins is a weird musical. I never saw it live, but I am a child of the early 2000s. I'm a teenager of the early 2000s, and I am friends with a lot of straight musical theater boys. And so this was a show that a lot of straight musical theater boys very much loved. This and last five years are like the two big ends for them. And I was aware of it and I didn't really listen to the music until I got to college. I did a whole paper on the call and then I did the Riddle Song my senior year, senior year of college, I think. But I never got to see the show live. And I'd always heard about the beauty of it and the simplicity of the original production. And, oh, Ben Brantley didn't understand the show back in the day. And, oh, we've matured so much now. We should really do it. And then they announced they're doing it at the Vivienne Beaumont, which is such a large theater for such a small show, and everyone's just sort of waiting to see what happens with it. And early reports from previews were not good. But I must say then the reviews come out, which were mostly positive, including critics pick from the New York Times. And I go see it. And I understand criticisms for the show. Floyd Collins as a musical has its bumps. It is a two actor that probably should be an hour and 45, no intermission. Not enough happens in the first act to warrant the length that this show is. It is Tina Landau as the book writer and director, trying to spread out the tension of whether Floyd will be rescued or not as long as she possibly can. And ultimately, I think proves that there is just so long an audience is willing to wait before something happens. Judging from the number of walkouts that the show has been having, on top of that, it is ultimately too large of a stage for this musical. The expansiveness of the theater works in some respects and the simplicity of the design works in some respects. As I said before, the second number of the show, Jeremy Jordan's intro number, the Call, is, in my humble opinion, perfect. I have no notes on it. There are other Times when the space swallows this musical whole and it's hard to have it reach past the sixth or seventh row. But the highs of Floyd Collins for me are so high that I can't be too bothered about the times when it's a little less good because there's nothing in it that's awful. There are. It has two performances that I think are weaker than everybody else. But musically speaking, the show is perfect. The design, I think, is very effective. For as simple, as deceptively simple as it may seem, Jeremy Jordan is officially now my pick for best actor in a musical. Not that I predict he's gonna win, but that's who I would vote for. Gray in alpha is now my number two. Even though, you know, he's not nominated, whatever. But Floyd Collins, it is not a perfect musical and this is not a perfect production. But in a time when there is so much shrink wrapped, perfectly pleasant. I am so happy when I see something, even if it's not consistent, that has such incredible highs that I am not angry about it. And this is a personal thing for me. Right. I'm sure there are people who would put Floyd Collins in their bottom five this year. I have a couple of friends who texted me after seeing it and super hated it. But also I have friends who, you know, saw, I don't know, like, Our Town and were like, oh, my God, what a beautiful production. Like, okay. Happy you enjoyed your time in the theater. I enjoyed my time in the theater of Floyd Collins, very much so. And I will continue to sing this revival's praises and I look forward to its cast album because, my God, is that going to be a phenomenal recording. Beautiful voices all around, an expanded orchestration of a wonderful Adam Gettles score. Is it as good as Piazza? Not quite. It's a little more dissonant, a little more plucky, twangy. But songs like the Call, I just can't get over How Glory Goes, the Riddle Song. It's just. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. When you have something as beautiful and complex, yet also simple and weird, but cathartic and emotional, some things can just sort of reach you in a weird, weird way and you can't define it other than just how you feel. And this was something where I understand that a lot of people don't have the same response to it, but I do think it's a worthwhile thing to see. I really do. Over a lot of mediocre to negative shows I've seen this season. So that's my number seven, which is Floyd Collins. Okay, moving on. Number six. I'm disgusting. The Picture of Dorian Gray starring Sarah Snook written and directed by Kip Williams, based on the novel by Oscar Wilde. This is perhaps the best usage and most creative and surprising usage of screen on stage this season. I can't say that it is as integral to the plot as Goodnight and good luck. It makes less sense. But this is a modern presentation. It's not a retelling because it is ultimately the novel recited verbatim by Sarah Snook with some, you know, cuts made to condense the material. But this is a one woman show. Sarah Snook playing every single part in this gothic horror story about the cost of vanity and putting all of your faith in beauty and youth. There's a lot of humor to it. There's a lot of theatricality to it, which I appreciate. The humor sometimes undercuts the biting message of the piece and sometimes the great loss and the cutting effect of the evil that Dorian Gray starts to lean into over time by going for humor more often and for a coy, arching eyebrow than a bloody sneer. You know, And I can't say that I was necessarily moved by this production. I didn't feel emotionally charged by it. What I felt was intellectually stimulated and artistically fascinated, which is nothing to sneeze at. This is a very, very smart, very, very. I don't say avant garde, but this uses every resource you could think of. In live performance, there is obviously the screen of it all. And most of Sarah Snook's performance is viewed on a screen as she is being filmed by an ensemble of videographers throughout the show. But there is also a live component to her performance and also there are surprises done within the screen. Spoiler alert if you aren't. If you want to see the show and are worried about spoilers, there comes a moment about 20 or so minutes in when you start to understand that that Snoop is not just going to be acting on her own, but she will be acting opposite herself on screen. As in there are pre records of her performance that she has to act opposite of, timed down to the millisecond, which is incredibly, incredibly impressive. It's not necessarily what I would vote for, for best when it comes to acting, but that's also why art is subjective, right? It is absolutely a tour de force of a performance and one that you cannot sneeze at because it is in addition to the multitude of characters she is playing, the text she has to always keep in her head, the physical exhaustion she must have from running not only all over the stage, but all throughout the backstage and through the theater. And then on top of that timing with pre records of herself. This is a mental gymnastic the likes of which I do not envy. If the fact that I am maybe less emotionally charged by it is a ding against it, that's also probably true of the novel. Oscar Wilde, I would not say, is a writer who's ever made me cry, but he isn't a writer who's made me think. And this production makes you think. But there's also a bit of an exhaustion you can get in the last 20 or so minutes of the show by being breakneck speed for so long, by constantly overwhelming your senses with every facet of theatricality you could use. There gets to be a moment where some people in the audience might plateau. I kind of did. And if I did, that means somebody else did as well. And I do also know some people who walked out and were not disappointed, but I think maybe expected a bit more of an emotional charge from it than they got. But it is a piece that is worth discussing and worth seeing. And I can't say that I want people to continually use screens on stage and videography on screen on stage. But this is a case of, oh, it's not similar to Sunset Boulevard. The videography is another character of the show and has a point to be made while doing it. Whether you agree with the point, whether you find it effective, is up to you, but it's not just for the sake of impressiveness. Although the show is impressive, and that is something that I appreciate, especially because unlike Sunset Boulevard, there are actual tangible set pieces to Picture of Dorian Gray. Again, while it is often a film that you're watching, there's also the excitement of seeing where things hide within the walls of the stage. There's a full apartment that they show and various doors and a theater and a puppet show and a forest. And it's just. It's not just relying on technology. It is truly using every square inch of that theater to tell the story. And for that, I think we should absolutely commend it. And if I, again, if I maybe wasn't moved, I was wholly impressed and I will remember it. And that is ultimately, you know, the. The biggest compliment I can give it. Next up at number five. We're getting down to it now, guys. Number five. I'm disgusting. John Proctor is the villain. This is absolutely the number one. I'm eating my hat. Show of the season for me. This was something that I went on mic and said. I feel like this is my worst nightmare come to life. A bunch of gen zers sit in a room and talk about how the Crucible is problematic now. That is not what the play is, although that is how some of the marketing promoted it. So I cannot be blamed for what was said in bylines and put in articles and said in commercials and whatnot. But the play by Kimberly Bellflower is much more complicated and much more empathetic than that. And pragmatic too. I appreciate a play where no one is fully right and no one is fully wrong. And that is the case for the first half of John Proctor is the villain. Everyone has stuff that they are going through, everyone is doing wrong by someone somehow and everyone is just trying to make it to tomorrow. Even the shitty boys of the school. Because this is a high school in, I believe it's Alabama. I can't remember the state anymore. It's been so long and I've been talking for so long. This episode is forever. But the play, obviously, it takes place around 2018, during the rise of the second wave of MeToo, and these high school juniors are coming to terms with their own femininity, independence, what it means to be a feminist and how the world is changing, and how to view sexuality, sexual advances, the opposite sex, and the culture in which they are coming of age in and each girl finds themselves independent in some way and not in others, and confused about their independence in so many ways. While all this is happening, their old friend comes back after being away for a few months and hurting her best friend in the process. This is Amalia Yu's Raelyn. Her best friend Shelby, played by Sadie Sink, comes back after being away for a few months and Shelby basically slept with Raylan's boyfriend, which was, you know, that's a huge violation as friends, on top of the fact that Raylan is religious and part of the reason why her boyfriend cheated on her was because he wanted to finally have sex after years of being together and she wasn't ready. But then also there's the question of will Raelyn ever be ready? Because Raelyn doesn't seem to find boys sexually attractive, but that doesn't. But she's unclear if she's even queer. She just finds the idea of women taking men down far more exciting than actually being intimate with the man. Plus, on top of that, she's having the realization that being with one person since you're like 12 is maybe not the healthiest thing, and that maybe you're forever person you don't always find when you're 16. 16. On top of all this, men in their town, fathers and teachers of girls in their school, are getting accusations left and right from women who worked with them, who were alone with them. And the question becomes, well, I want to support other women and I want to support the MeToo movement. These girls want to start a feminism club. But when it comes, when it comes to your own home and starts affecting people you care about, how willing are you to believe victims? Because sometimes the easier thing to do is not the right thing. And sometimes the person who you like the least in the world is actually a victim. And if you say you believe victims, you believe victims. And supporting women does not mean tearing another woman down to show another woman that you care. It's showing empathy when it. When it's deserved, when it needs it. And sometimes you have to do really hard work on yourself and your priorities in order to show up and be an advocate for someone else who needs you. And that sometimes predators are not people who come out and seem evil. They are people who maybe have done really right by you and then have done really wrong by someone else. If there's one flaw I find with the show, well, one is that when I saw the show and they granted, they were still in the second half of their preview period, but I found that Sadie Sinkhe Shelby was probably the weakest person in the show and she wasn't. She wasn't bad. I want to make that perfectly clear. It's that everyone else was operating at such a high level and Sadie Sink has not been on stage in a while, so she was definitely getting her sea legs back. She was still figuring out how to physically be in the moment while also presenting outwards to 700 plus people, whereas everyone else in the company was really able to do that. Of course I mentioned Finestrasa as Beth Powell. The Tracy Enid flick of the group who is coming is also grappling with her own issues with me too, and the people in her life who might be coming under the thumb of the rise of the movement. And I'm glad that she got a Tony nomination. I was so fucking thrilled for her. The other thing I have is that when the shit hits the fan and Gabriel Ebert's character, Carter Smith, their teacher that they all love, especially Finestrasa, when it's revealed that Sadie sings Shelby had an affair with him when a few months prior. And that is why she slept with her best friend's boyfriend. Because she needed something to break her out of this feeling of disgustingness, her words, and then has her own sort of like little mental break and has to go away for a while. She comes back and she comes back and sort of hunts him down during a class dissertation about the Crucible, specifically the character of John Proctor and how he is not a hero, he is a villain in respect to how he treats Abigail Williams, a character who is treated as a villain in the play, but actually is a victim herself. And the play goes a little similar to Cult of Love with its strawman arguments. Similar to something like Yellowface that kind of falls apart in the third act of itself or in. I know when I'm saying like with Cult of Love, but like the simplicity of the strawman arguments, right? There gets to be a bit of a simplicity in the last 20 minutes of John Proctor as the villain that I don't dislike so much as that I'm a little disappointed because up until those last 20 minutes, the play is really good at finding humor in the complexities of human nature and the satire of our own not two facedness, but our own hypocrisy. And I understand that there's a catharsis to the last 20 minutes that I maybe don't get as a woman, but I do get as someone who is a sexual abuse survivor who will never really get a chance to confront his abuser as that abuser died. But I always kind of feel like it's an easy out when a character who maybe has to challenge an audience to grapple with their own feelings about them then takes a heel turn to make it just a little easier for them. I don't believe in letting an audience fully off the hook. I believe an audience should walk away with a million questions and really kind of fight for their opinion. And for much of John Proctor as the villain, that is the case. And it's not that the last 20 minutes fall apart. It's not that they're bad. It's that they're just a little less complex than the previous hour and 20. And for a show that up until then really kind of I thought was nailing it over and over and over again. It just sort of disappointed me that that's where it chose to go. But. But it does end in a way that really brings it all together. And so we forgive. And it's not my place to say do better because they are doing really, really well. This is a personal thing for me when it comes to plays, especially when the play did so much work and did so well in asking those questions. And then to go a little more simple towards the end, I found to be just sort of. I found that to be an out rather than conclusion of what we had seen. So that's just my only thing about John Proctor as the villain. Otherwise this was such a wonderful surprise and I happily ate my hat, as I put it at number five. Number four, I'm disgusting. English yet another Pulitzer winner of this season and another best play nominee, very deservedly so, with two Tony nominations for its cast. One for Tala Ash, which I love, one of my favorite performances of the year. And the other one is Marjeanne Marchette, I believe that is the name of the actress. Yes, yes, let me say Marjane Nechette. Sorry. The play is the Broadway debut of Sanaz Toussi and she's a very young writer and so fucking talented and I am very angry and jealous of how good she is. So God damn it, Sanaz. This is a piece that I found so delightful, so endearing, so engaging and with so many pitch perfect performances, a great ensemble piece and not one that this is one where actually when it ends, it does not end with your comfort, it ends with what is true, which is that this is mostly taking place over the course of many English classes for a group of people looking to gain visas or amnesty in English speaking countries where and going from Farsi to English and the teacher teaching them, who is fluent and lives in London for many years and is now back in her home country of Pakistan, of Iran circa 2008. And the different students in her class, one who's more combative, that's Tala Ash because she's very smart and she wants to be a doctor and study in Australia, but she's having trouble with English. She doesn't like the language, she finds it ugly, she finds it confusing and which is why she's also struggling with it so much. And then another student goalie, who's 18 and is actually really flourishing in the class and that's because she actually really enjoys the English language and has this really phenomenal presentation, this oral report on Ricky Martin's song she bangs where she analyzes the lyrics in English and talks about what they mean in English and it's so, it's so sweet and she's so fun and she means so well and she's a smart kid and she doesn't let the negativity of Tala Ash's Alem get to her. She allows herself to succeed in this language because she likes it and because it shows that she's good at things and that she is smart and she's allowed to enjoy stuff. There's no harm in enjoying something if it doesn't harm anyone else. And then, of course, there are other characters. There's Roya, who doesn't even really want to be there. She's learning English to appease her son and then sort of backtracks and reclaims her Iranian identity and her love of Farsi and saying, like, I'm not going to bend to my child, who I love, but is hurting me with this. I'm going to stick with what I know and what I like. Which, you know, that is, I would say, a more positive spin on the mentality that has definitely done a lot of harm in this world of I'm going to stick with what I know and what I like and not challenge myself. I think the difference is that with Roya, Roya is challenging herself to learn English for the appeasement of someone else who is trying to erase their heritage as Iranian or Iranian. And for that, Roya sort of reclaims the identity rather than reject, challenge, reclaim something that's trying to be erased. And that is what makes that positive. And then on top of that, there's also Omid, who is, you know, the savant of the class, only to reveal that he's actually got dual citizenship and has learned known English his whole life. That's a whole other storyline you don't have to get into. And no one really cares about Omid anyway. It's really about the women in the show. But this is a engaging, fun, sweet play, perfectly acted. I loved it so much. I could watch it two more times. I just. I could not get enough of it. It was so wonderful and deals with themes of identity and representation and acclamation and when you're learning something new, especially something as difficult as a new language, what if you. What of your personage? Are you giving up to learn this new thing? Is there room for both? Is there space for two identities? Or do you have to let go of one a little bit to make room for another? Because what's the difference between growing up and, you know, code switching when it comes to something like a language, right? Are you progressing or are you altering yourself? And the show, again, doesn't give you answers. It just sort of wants to question it with different perspectives from different characters as they have different success with this language. And then the final few minutes is the characters of Elimination and Marjane speaking in Farsi with no subtitles. And just for about two minutes. And all you have to do is just sit in the moment of knowing that you don't fully understand what they're saying, putting you in their shoes as they're learning the English language, but also knowing these characters as well as you do now and absorbing the emotional context of how they are feeling in that moment. You have an idea of what they are saying. You maybe don't know it for sure, but you can feel it. And that's a beautiful thing. And I love it so much, and I'm so glad that it came to Broadway and that it's been so recognized by the Tonys. And that's English at number four. All right, number three. Today the air in Seoul is very clear and warm. Today the smiles, too, are warmer than the norm. Though the change is not maybe happy ending, ending. What can I say about this show that I haven't already said in my review in my ranking from December, and that hasn't already been said on the Internet? This show is exceptionally lovely and again, was a major surprise, really. No one had any stake in it. No one really thought anything was gonna happen with this show and then had a lot of bad press because it was having trouble with money and coming in at the wrong time. They were delayed a month. And the premise was something that a lot of people felt wasn't really worth it. And then the moment it started, the word of mouth was like, no, this is a special show and should be seen. And the reviews came out and they were also saying like, no, this is a special show and it needs to be seen. And the producers of this show, God bless them, really invested extra money and extra time in getting people to see this. This is a true successor of Gentleman's Guide to Love and murder from 11 years ago. A show that really struggled coming out the gate, but had the reviews, had the word of mouth and had the foresight to know that if we can just get to the Tonys, we might have a shot. And they were able, unlike Gentleman's Guide, they were actually able to turn their fortunes around relatively quickly. It took about all of previews and, let's say, three, four weeks of performances before their grosses got to a place that were looking good. But they kept increasing because, again, word of. Again, because word of mouth was so strong on this, and we as a community fought for everyone to see it. That's the thing is, like, when a show really is special and people cannot, like, maybe happy ending, that's fine. But it proves that there is something about this show when its fortunes turn around like this because it shows that people really do not only love it in the theater, but they go out and they yell at people that they have to see it. And this is an intimate chamber musical with the production value of an actual blockbuster. It's not, you know, I know Darren Crisman said, like, oh, my God, not since Phantom have you seen spectacle like this. Like, it is a spectacle. It projections up the wazoo and a turntable and multiple beautiful lighting cues and an early set that gives off very, like, futuristic Korean company, like the Bunny Christie Company set. But it's a very elaborate production. It's not overwhelming, though. It all feels authentic to the piece. And I think this is a show that could work in a black box. It also works as well at this stage of spectacle. The only two notes I really have are a. As everyone knows, there are sightline issues with this show, but it's a Michael Arden production, and there tend to be sightline issues with it. But I will also say Michael Arden, just as a director on Broadway, gets better with each production of his that I've seen. I loved his work on Parade. I love his work on this. I think the musical itself is so good, it shows that he's able to work on new material, not just revivals. And my only other really complaint is that the last 20 minutes are kind of. Last 20 minutes have been a theme for shows this season. But, like, with maybe happy ending, it's not that things go bad in quality or anything like that. It's just that it kind of ends a few different times. You think we're wrapping things up and then there's like, another little bit to go and then another little bit. And an audience can get a little resentful if they feel like we're prolonging a conclusion. And luckily, when it ends, it ends very sweetly and everyone's very happy. But that is sort of my. Those are my only two real caveats. But I don't want anyone to think that that detracts from the fact that this show is just gorgeous. And I don't want anyone to also think, because it's, on the surface, simplistic, seemingly, that it is a simplistic show. What this show has to say about connection and loneliness and usefulness and, you know, what our society deems useful and what it does when something is no longer considered useful and the importance of. Of being connected to somebody in this world and what you do with the bittersweet feelings you have of when something you loved is over or someone you love is gone. Better to, you know, to have loved and lived than to not love or live at all. It tackles all of these things in a way that isn't heavy handed, that is genuinely sweet, but not in a sticky kind of way. It holds you in its embrace with both arms without crushing you and it sweeps you up in its loveliness without overwhelming you. It has a very good balance of humor and heart without pushing either too much and never goes for an easy joke, never goes for an easy gasp or an easy cry. It's just a dropped in lovely musical that luckily it seems that the public has caught on with. And it has two central performances by Darren Criss and Helen Jae Shen that are spectacular and their chemistry is phenomenal. Their balance with each other is beautiful and and I'm looking. I know people have been up in arms about Helen J. Shen's lack of a Tony nomination. If you listened to our last Tony predictions before the nominations came out, you would have been mentally prepared for it because we talked about how these things would work. But let's be very clear. Helen J. Shen is very young. I think she's like 25 and she has made her Broadway debut above the title, starring opposite Darren Criss in the front runner for best musical. Girl has a nice career ahead of her. She's not going anywhere. She's got many Tony nominations and most likely a few wins to come because she is a smart, engaging dropped in actress with a beautiful voice, star quality, a maturity that you don't often see in young performers and one of the few people I've seen graduate from musical theater programs in the last 15 years to actually have an individuality that were a voice that you can clock as hers and a spirit that you can clock is hers. And that is no Tony nomination can take that away or lack of Tony nomination. She's got like seven more coming down the pike in the next 10 years. Just you watch. And bravo to Darren Criss for taking a chance on a new musical, for building up his street cred on Broadway with other shows and now cashing in on this highly recommend. That's it for maybe happy ending. Moving on number two. I'm disgusting. Oh Barry. Oh Mary Cola Scola's masterwork. The biggest hit of the season. It's a front runner for best play. A front runner for best actor in a play could win featured actor in a play. If it's not Francis Chu could win costumes, could win director. I think that this is a show that could go 5 for 5 at the Tonys this year. That would it would be the carousel of 94 of this year and I would not be mad about it. What else is there to say about Omari? Nothing. Everything's been said. I said it, you said it, everyone said it. We are, we have hit the five hour mark here at least of my recordings and I'm tired and I have one last thing to to cover so and I know you guys know that this is coming, but just to wrap things up, let us say number 42 was left on 10th 41 was McNeil 40 was Tammy Faye 39 was Redwood 38 was the Last Five Years 37 was Romeo and Juliet 36. Home 35. Smoosh 34. All In 33. Othello 32. Glengarry Glen Ross 31. The Roommate 30. Our Town 29. A Wonderful World 28. Swept Away 27. Good Night and Good Luck 26. Pirates The Penzance Musical 25. Once Upon a Mattress 24. Job 23. Old Friends, Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends 22. Gypsy 21. Stranger Things 20. Boop 19. Operation Mincemeat 18. Real Women Have Curves Number 17. Buena Vista Social Club 16. Just in Time, The Bobby Darin Musicale 15. Dead Outlaw 14. Elf 13. Death Becomes Her 12. Sunset Boulevard 11. Yellowface 10. Eureka Day 9. Purpose 8. Cult of Love 7. Floyd Collins 6. The Picture of Dorian Gray 5. John Proctor Is the Villain 4. English 3. Maybe Happy Ending 2. Oh Mary. And of course, at number one for the 2024, 2025 season, in my humble opinion, is I'm disgusting. The Hills of California, written by Jez Butterworth, starring Sam Mendes. And as the hills of California, Ms. Laura Donnelly, giving my favorite performance of the season. Sorry, Sarah Snooks. Sorry, Cola Scola. Sorry, Jeremy Jordan. Sorry, Jonathan Groff. It is Laura Donnelly and the Hills of California, baby. As those of you who listened to last year's London episode know my mother and I saw the Hills of California on our very last night in London last June. It was a last minute decision and all we knew was that it was coming to Broadway. It was one of the few things that was playing that Monday night and the reviews were solid, they weren't amazing and I had two friends who had seen it and they weren't super into it and so I did not expect much and it was three hours long and I went, oh God, this is we're really gonna do this on our final night. But we go and act one happens and it goes by in a flash. Act two happens, it goes by in a flash and My mom were like, Jesus titty fucking Christ, this is good. And then Act 3 happens. And Act 3 was definitely the most Jezz Butterworthy of all the Jez Butterworths acts. But it was messy and it was long and it was a little unfocused, but still, we enjoyed it and we didn't let that distract from the fact that Act 1 and 2 were so good and that Laura Donnelly especially was incredible, both as their mother and then as Joan in, you know, present day, which was a huge coup, by the way, because in the playbill in London. Sorry, the program in London, because they don't give you free playbills. You have to pay for a program. On the front of the program, Laura Donnelly's photo with the other three sisters, it only showed her photo as the mother. And inside the program, there was no one listed to play Older Joan. And so when she came out as Older Joan in present day, because those of you who don't know, you can listen to my review of it either in the London episode or in, I think October is when I did my recording episode review of it, as well as the rankings of it. It is about four sisters living in northern England in the 1950s and then flashing forward into the 1970s. Their mother is dying. Their older sister Joan, ran off to America when they were kids back in the 60s, in the 50s, and they don't know exactly what happened. And what you learn is that the mother who was trying to turn these four sisters into a famous singing girl group similar to the Andrews Sisters, because their mother loved the Andrews Sisters and she was training her daughters, like, with almost a military regiment attitude, into becoming this singing group. And she loved her daughters, but she was very strict. She also ran this hotel called the Sea View Hotel, even though you couldn't see the Ocean View Hotel, but you couldn't see the ocean. And then what ended up happening was the agent who came to check them out basically propositioned the mom to be alone with the oldest daughter, Joan, who he thought had the most talented. So he claims, and she probably did. But Joan takes him upstairs to one of the lone rooms with both Joan and the mother, knowing that this man most likely wants sex. And of course he did. And things got complicated from there, and Joan eventually ran away to America to pursue a career in singing. She even made a record. And when she comes back to visit their mother when she's dying, all the sisters hash it out and they talk about the past and they talk about the present, and they talk about what Joan has been up to and what all these daughters have been up to as well, and what's going on with Mother and whether they can forgive her, whether they can't. When Laura Donnelly showed up as older Joan In Act 3, my mom and I lost our shit. Now, in America, I'm assuming, because of Equity rules, they had to list her in the playbill as both the mom and as older Joan. Plus, they also had her photo out front as older Joan. So I was pissed off that that reveal was spoiled, but it didn't take away from the fact that the show was still good. And in fact, it was better because I would tell people, well, the first two acts are amazing. The third act is a little rough. And then, if you recall Friend of the Robbie Roselle, Robbie, if you made it this far, hallelujah, baby. He had told me that the word he heard was that Jez Butterworth went back and did a revision on the third act, and oh, boy, did he. There's very little genuine rewrites. There's not a major overhaul of the third act. What he mostly did was he cut out about 20 minutes of stuff, including two major plot lines that are revealed in the third act that ultimately go nowhere. But he cuts them, and he adds little pieces to connect the dots of scenes in the third act that now have giant holes in between them, and he adds little connective tissue to them. So the arc is a lot clearer and it's a lot tighter. And then two major moments that I don't really want to spoil, but they're about coming to terms with the past and acknowledging that your memory may not always be accurate. What you remember is not what someone else remembers. Because everyone wants to be the hero of their own story. We're all the main character. Nobody thinks of themselves as the villain. We really don't want to think of ourselves as the victim. And if we do, it ends up becoming our identity. And you see Joan, later on in life doing everything in her willpower and her mental compartmentalization to not be the victim of her assault as a teenager while also being unable to overcome the ghosts of the past. Even with the years gone by and the thousands of miles of distance, she can't bring herself to go upstairs and see their mother knowing what happened with her and that agent. The girl who went upstairs never came back down. And Joan, for all of her metamorphosis, is still that girl in a lot of ways. And she and her sisters have a lot of closure, have a lot of questions, have a lot of love, have a lot of Resentment and resolvement. And with all done on a stunning set, phenomenal ensemble work, beautiful, funny, dynamic writing. God, this was just my absolute favorite thing of the season. And it's less that nothing else can measure up to it and more that this just stuck with me so hard that I will not forget it. I will not forget the surprise of seeing it in London and enjoying it as much as I did. And then the joy of seeing it on Broadway and it being even better. I gotta give props to Jez and to Sam Mendes of you had a show that was working in London that people liked a lot, but you knew you could do better. You knew you could take another crack at it and make it even better. And my fucking God, did you everyone take a fucking note at that. You want to be number one of my rankings? Don't be precious about your work. Don't be sensitive. Go back and say, no, no, no, I can make this tighter. I can make this clearer. Let's go for it. Let's do it. And they did. And it gives me joy, it gives me hope. It replenishes my crops and makes my skin clear. It makes me fertile all over again. It makes my hair thick. I love it. I love it so much. Thank you for giving me a waist and thick hair and straight teeth. My God. Hills of California. You did it. You did it. We did it together. To quote Jennifer Simard, I did it. You did it. YouTube better not do it. That is our ranking, everyone. Hills of California, numero uno. Thank you so much for making it this far. This is absolutely the longest episode of Broadway Breakdown to date. I hope it never gets gets this long again. But we had 42 shows to cover. This is 308 minutes long. We are averaging what like eight and a half minutes per show here? Honestly, really more like eight minutes. When you take into account the reviews that I had to cover and then the musical interludes. This is more like averaging eight minutes per show, which isn't that long when you think about it considering how often I can talk. This was a marathon of an episode. But I feel like I kept it concise, I kept it compact and if you made it this far, congrats. Hopefully not in all one sitting, unless you have a cross country bus ride to get on. So anyway, that's it for now guys. If you're listening to this on the day it comes out or for the few days afterwards, I am in London right now with my mom and my sister, seeing a whole bunch of stuff, enjoying my time, enjoying my leisure the episode about London will probably be coming out a week from this episode, so look out for that. And then there will be at least one Tony retrospective episode, a Tony prediction episode, and then a Tony reaction episode. And then we're gonna take a bit of a break for the month of June and July and there will be one announcement episode coming out after that. But it's both an announcement of the shows we'll be covering in our deep dives as well as a bit of a shakeup in terms of the structure of how we are going to be releasing episodes for Broadway Breakdown. Nothing crazy, nothing you guys haven't heard already, but just a little different in terms of how we're going to be releasing it. In what sort of order? The month, Our monthly. I think there'll be more episodes on a consistent basis, but how those episodes work will change in terms of order is all. We're working with a team right now that's helping us expand our outreach for Broadway Breakdown and then also sort of figuring out how to just make everything go even more smoother, more smoother, more smooth than it has in the past. Because while this has been a banner year for the podcast. Thank you guys. We've had many episodes of the podcast reach number one on Broadway Podcast Network's trending list. We can always go bigger, we can always go better. We're taking a lesson from Jez and Sam and with that in mind, I think I would like to close us out with what diva would like to close us out with today? Fuck it. I'm gonna close this out with Ms. Barbara Harris because I love Barbara Harris and I earned it. I deserve it, baby. And she's being lip synced to eight times a week in the Picture of Dorian Gray. If you know, you know. So that'll be it for today. I'll see you guys in about a week for the London episode. Thank you for all your reviews and make sure to review and give us a five star rating if you can. I love reading your guys reviews. You've been killing it lately. Join the Discord Channel if you haven't yet, where you can talk about the Tonys, you can talk about shows you're seeing, shows you're doing, get ticket advice, ask me questions after listening to the podcast, correct me if I'm wrong on anything I say in the podcast. And yeah, that's about it. So follow me on Instagram at mycoplickusualspelling if you like. Take it away, Ms. Harris. Bye.
