Transcript
Mayra Amit (0:01)
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Mickey Jo (1:49)
Huzzah. Huzzah. It's fun to say, isn't it? It's fun to say. Oh how I wish it had been as much fun to watch. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am Obsessed Theatre. I am a professional theatre critic and a content creator here on social media and I review shows that I have seen from around the world. Today is a great example of that because right back at the beginning of October I flew for the very first time to San Diego, California to see a handful of musicals including the world premiere production of this new musical, Huzzah at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. The show is written entirely book, music and lyrics by husband and wife writing team Nell Benjamin and Larry o', Keefe, whose work you will know together from of Legally Blonde and separately from shows like Heather's, which Larry was involved in, and Mean Girls, which Nell was involved in. So all in all a pretty great track record when it comes to fun, youthful, dynamic new musicals with scores full of absolute bangers. Which is what made me really excited about Huzzah. The only thing I knew about this show prior to going to see it was that it was set at a Renaissance fair, a concept which I am slightly familiar with, but which is not something that we experience really at all here in the UK, like historical reenactments and we have LARPing but we don't have Renaissance Fairs. The closest thing we probably have is like if you were to go to Warwick Castle, I guess, which is something I did do as a child. But the show describes itself as a musical comedy for when life is unfair. A nice little pun there, but it also speaks to the nature of the plot, which I'm going to tell you about today because it surprised me a little bit. We're also going to talk about the score, the production, all of the creative elements and the writing and what I had really hoped for this show that I don't think it's as yet delivering, but still possibly could in a reworked future version. As always, I'm just sharing my own subjective thoughts with you about this piece of theatre and if you had the chance to see it, I would love to hear yours. What did you think of Huzzah in San Diego? Do you see a future for this show and what direction would you like it to take? Also, for those of you who have been to Renaissance Fairs, please feel free to share that experience in the comments down below because I am now more than a little bit intrigued. Do they still happen frequently? Do I need to go to my first Renaissance Faire at some point? Where can I do this? When can I do this? Guide me to this future Tiny people in my camera as always, if you enjoy listening to my thoughts and this review, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Turn on notifications so you don't miss any of my upcoming videos. Or if you prefer, go follow me on podcast platforms or other social media apps like Instagram and TikTok. I literally never stop talking about theatre. It is a blessing and a curse and the next half hour or so is going to be no exception. Let's talk all about Huzzah. So let's explain what this show is and for those of you not familiar what a Renaissance Fair is. And it's quite appropriate that this was having its world premiere in San Diego, because I am given to understand that some of the earliest Renaissance Fairs in the United States, where the concept really originated in the years following the Second World War, took place in Southern California, I believe. And it's essentially this theme park meets historical reenactment idea, with all of these different stalls and these different participants and employees creating together this medieval European Renaissance era atmosphere. The vibes in this musical are perhaps Elizabethan, which is again appropriate because so is the actual facade of the theater with knights and princesses and theatrical Shakespearean esque players and also pirates. An entire pirate establishment, and much said about what used to be an entire pirate quarter. The vibes of the thing, at least the way that it's portrayed in Huss, feels a little bit like Disneyland if everyone is having at least three more drinks. One of my favorite lyrics in an introductory number that tells us all about the world of the Renaissance Fair, is, if you can't get laid at the Renaissance Fair, you cannot get laid. Which for me really told me an awful lot about where we were and the story that was going to unfold, which is where it all gets a little bit interesting and if I'm honest, begins to go south a little bit. Because my general overview thoughts were the concept of a Renaissance Fair is unique enough for the theater and has not really been explored. It is vivid enough. It is full enough of characters and its own sources of tension and drama and narrative. Even at the beginning of the thing, there are, like, paths we can take here. There are rivalries and frustrations and sort of unrequited loves. It's all there at the very beginning. We don't need the inciting event that eventually comes along to stir things up. It could already be a musical. My thesis basically is that you could just take a normal day at the Renaissance Fair and create songs around that. And that is a good enough musical. That is a fun enough way to spend our time. I desperately wanted this to just be fun and silly with a score full of absolute bangers. And it wasn't as fun as I kept wishing for it to be. And I think you have to work really hard to take something like a Renaissance Faire and these characters who dedicate their lives to it and the comedy of this setting, while they all then go away and lead very normal lives in a modern time, you've got to work real hard to make that anything other than fun. But not unlike the Addams Family before It I feel as though we take what would be a really easy, fun musical comedy concept and we make it needlessly frustrating and needlessly convoluted. My issue with the Addams Family is that you can just take those characters and give them songs and just make an Addams Family musical that really works. Instead, when that show was written, they foisted onto it a musical comedy type sort of farcical plot where the family are trying to be something other than what they are to impress the parents of Wednesday's new boyfriend in this very sort of Le Cage aux Foll reminiscent situation. And it's no longer fun because it's no longer the characters that we want to see. And likewise, in Hussar. And I will tell you what happens in this plot because I think it merits explanation. What we have is the joy of the Renaissance Fair and what everyone takes from it slowly slipping away and slowly being sucked out of it because of a new character who has arrived. And the whole thing becomes increasingly tense and a little bit dark. And I don't think the audience particularly enjoy that about this show. In the Addams Family, it feels like a hat on a hat. And in Hussar, it feels like, you know, a helmet on a helmet or a crown on a crown or a hat. You know what, they wear a lot of hats. It's a tricorn hat on a tricorn hat. So, in short, I think one of the major shortcomings here was writing this story that is, you know, a Renaissance Faire musical. It's a sort of complex enough musical theatre plot that happens to be taking place at a Renaissance Fair. Rather than writing the Renaissance Fair musical that musicalizes all of the quintessential ideas of the Renaissance Fair. And, you know, we have to contend with that. So let me try and explain this plot to you. And I haven't done this in some time, but it's convoluted enough that I think we would benefit on this occasion from some visual representation. Those of you listening on podcast platforms, you will not have the benefit of this visual representation. But I am confident that if you just listen to the words that I'm saying, the meaning will hopefully shine through. In any case, we have two sisters, Gwen and Kate. They are both the two daughters of the creator and proprietor of this particular Renaissance Faire, who is. Oh, my gosh, this guy. Apparently, we encounter him towards the beginning and we can sort of tell that he might be struggling a little bit. We learn a little bit more about that later on in the show. But he still has a very close relationship with Kate, one of his two daughters. We find out that he and his wife are divorced and there's a little bit of a rift in the family, particularly between the two sisters. This compounded by the fact that Kate remains at the Renaissance Fair, working with her father and helping to run everything, while Gwen manages their finances from afar. She has not personally visited the Renaissance Fair in some time. So when she has to go back at the very beginning of the show, it's a big deal and people are quite surprised to see her there. The reason for her return is she has found out that there is no money with which to pay all of the employees because the accounts have been drained. She finds out that this is so that they can hire a controversial new member of the Renaissance Fair and pay him in gold, because he is so hardcore, he is so Renaissance, which is not something I thought I would be saying ever in my life, that he does not actually have a bank balance or a Social Security number. Instead he has sword, fighting skills, a codpiece and now an awful lot of gold. His name is. Oh, you. Absolutely his name. His name is Sir Roland. Sir Roland. Do we have a surname here? Proud, with a W. Of course it is. And he has a mane of shoulder length sandy hair, a wardrobe of period appropriate Elizabethan fashion, a pointy sword and a British accent. And if at first he seems to us just deeply passionate about the world of the Renaissance Faire and accurate accuracy in reenactment, and maybe even a little charming, a little dashing perhaps, we quickly learn that he is an egotistical nightmare monster whose uncompromising vision for the fair and everything that he believes it ought to be begins to encroach on everybody else's way of life and basic human rights. Because it's not just the two girls and their father. There are also many other employees at this Renaissance Fair who are all trying to do their own thing. And like I said before, they all have their own rivalries and their own frustrations because some of want to use certain stages and playing spaces, but there are other people on those. There is a lady pirate who wants the Pirate Quarter to be expanded to what it once was and the community that they have there within the Renaissance Faire. All of these employees, these co workers, is basically reflective of a small town with different establishments and businesses and individuals trying to get what they need and sort of brushing up against each other. All of this made all the more complicated when Sir Roland begins to get involved and begins to enforce details that he believes to be correct in the Renaissance Faire in order to take it, as he says, to the next level. Now, initially, Roland here strikes up something of an amorous connection with the sister, Gwen, the one who is Renaissance Fair resentful. And the two of them maybe even share a night of romantic passion with each other, which, for the benefit of everybody involved, I'm not about to reenact with Frozen and Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe Plush, not on this platform anyway. But when Gwen begins to learn the troubling truth about Sir Roland, she is having absolutely none of that. And with perfect timing, he moves on to her impressionable and, I believe, younger, surely younger sister, Kate, who had a thing for Ser Roland and who was already pretty mad at her sister for going there at all, but is quite happy to accept the sloppy seconds, and takes up with Sir Roland in what becomes a very quickly serious relationship, as the two of them then plan together as this royal couple, to run the Renaissance Fair. And it's around this time that their father, proprietor of the fair, decides that the girls are fighting all together too much and it's all getting too complicated. And so he is going to draw a line right down the middle of the main sort of town square area. And everything on that side of the Renaissance Fair is going to be run by Gwen. She can decide what to do with it. And everything on this side of the fair, oh, my gosh, that is going to be run by Kate, and she can decide what to do with it with her ally, Ser Roland, who is basically, you know, doing whatever he wants without consulting her. And in response to this, all of the other participants at the Renaissance Fair then have to make up their own mind and join one of two increasingly hostile rival factions. It kind of turns into Lord of the Flies, but with turkey legs. I think that's about as useful as these are all going to be. Thank you for your service. And it's by this point that the whole thing has become entirely more convoluted and also a little more serious than it ever really needed to be. Because both for the audience and for the characters on stage, participating in the Renaissance Faire simply isn't fun anymore. And as we head into the second act and we begin to approach a revelation of dementia. You can put all this together and see where I'm going with this. It starts to feel a lot like a political allegory that speaks to how a society can become divided under the reign of an egotistic, egotistical dictator who insists upon his own superior way of living. And how the community ought to look and how it ought to be and ruins the lives of everyone else around him. If this is starting to feel eerily familiar, then that's perhaps because it is, but also, like I said, not a story that anyone necessarily expected to see or wanted to see reflected back at them from a Renaissance Fair set musical. There's lots of different things that I thought that this might turn into a political allegory that speaks to the current bleak political situation in the US or with.