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Mickey-Jo finally went to MASQUERADE | Review and guide to the Off-Broadway immersive Phantom of the Opera
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Micky Jo
ACAST powers the World's best Podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend the world of commercial real estate is changing and fast. Welcome to in the Loop. We're diving into the topics that hit the hardest. We'll explore what's happening. Today.
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Micky Jo
Tomorrow, how can you bring components of the 15 minute city of the urban grid, the things people like, the gathering places and beyond. When you start thinking about the future.
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And start thinking about these things are.
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Micky Jo
Coming in in 2030 or 2040 or 2050, then you can go, okay, now how do I actually take actions today.
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To make that happen?
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Micky Jo
Subscribe to in the Loop wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com so some 40 years after he first began singing about it, it turns out what the music of the night really is is just a psychop musical genius screaming blood curdlingly amidst a residential neighborhood in Manhattan. And honestly, it was worth the hundreds of dollars that I spent to be there. 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 Micky Jo. I'm obsessed with all things theatre. I am a theatre critic and content creator here on social media and I am so excited to finally be telling you all about Masquerade, AKA the immersive off Broadway return of Andrew Lloyd Webber's the Phantom of the Opera, based of course on the Gaston Leroux novel. I saw this back in November during my most recent visit to New York and I have seen the comments. I have heard everyone saying, mickey Jo, it's been over a month since you saw Masquerade where is the review? Why so silent? Gosh, it's hard to wink in this. Anyhow, even though it is off Broadway rather than on Broadway, Masquerade remains one of the most expensive tickets I have ever bought in Manhattan. And it was done without question, not only because I had been reassured by those who had attended before me that it was actually worth the price tag in terms of the experience that was being delivered, but also because I was so desperate to see it and I was getting so much FOMO not having the chance to do so. So today, having experienced Masquerade, finally I am going to tell you all about it and I would like to draw your attention to the chapters that I will have created throughout this review. It is going to be structured in such a way that we are going to address the various different aspects of the show with some sections which are deliberately, entirely spoile free. So if you have not yet seen Masquerade and you would like a general overview, my thoughts of the show without specific details or spoilers, as well as potentially some sense of what to expect, a guide of how you could best navigate it, all of that is going to be here for you in the first couple chapters of this review. I will talk initially about what the show itself actually is, a little bit of context and backstory about how we got here. I will then talk about what you can expect from the experience, how it aligns within the Venn diagram of immersive, Atmospheric Interact, as well as all of the logistical information that it's helpful for you to know beforehand, what to wear, what the rules are, etc. We will then carry on to a general, spoiler free but slightly more descriptive overview of my thoughts of the production. And I say production because this is still very much theater. We will talk obviously about how it works before concluding with a couple of chapters about what I really loved about this and what I had some misgivings about. In other words, if you have seen Masquerade already, or if you have already learned about it and you're not as interested in the advice or the description of what it actually is, you can use the chapters to skip to the later sections of this review. As always, while I am sharing my thoughts, I would also love to know yours. Comment down below, especially if you have had the chance to do Masquerade, especially if you saw a different combination of performers to the one that I saw. Let everyone know what you thought of the experience in the comments down below. If you have any particular pieces of advice that I don't cover, feel free to share those as well. Alternatively, if you are someone who has not yet attended Masquerade and you have any questions that are not addressed within this review from me, then feel free to ask and I'm sure someone will be able to help. In the meantime, if you enjoy listening to my thoughts, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel for more reviews in the new year from the West End and Broadway. I may be back in New York sooner than you are expecting. Or if you would prefer to listen to my reviews without all of the masky goodness that I'm currently serving. Note that's mask Mask, not masc. That's. That's an adjective with which I have never been associated, then you can also find all of my reviews over on podcast platforms. In the meantime, let us hop together into a boat and venture out across a steamy, steamy lake. Watch out for falling lighting fixtures. We're going to talk about Masquerade. So what actually is Masquerade? Well, it is to some extent the New York return of the long running Andrew Lloyd Webber scored musical the Phantom of the Opera, which until the record is claimed, continues to be the longest running musical on Broadway. Even though it closed a couple of years ago at the Majestic Theatre. The show continues to run at His Majesty's Theatre in London and has been seen round the world. It is truly an international cultural phenomenon that has been parodied and acknowledged in various popular media. It has been adapted for screen. It is one of those musicals which emerged during the mega musical era in the 1980s that has truly made the transition into mainstream consciousness. If you asked people who weren't familiar with all that much theatre to name a bunch of musicals, chances are one of the ones they would tell you about might be the Phantom of the Opera. Based, as I mentioned, on the Gaston Leroux novel. It tells the story of a young ingenue named Christine Daae who is conspiring soprano grieving the death of her father. Which goes some but not all of the way towards explaining why the creepy man giving her singing lessons through, I don't know, the holes in the wall is mistaken by her to be anything other than an opportunistic predator. But hey, I'm not here to judge. A lot of people find their story to be deeply romantic. And to those people I say you might actually have a lot to enjoy about Masquerade. And while Lloyd Webber's version of the Phantom of the Opera, one of actually a handful of musical adaptations of the story, has been seen on stage in A couple of different guises. The brilliant original production directed by Hal Prince being the most beloved and prolific. But with a few non replica productions also having been created specifically over the last like decade and a half. Masquerade is altogether more different to any of them because while they have brought new aesthetics and designs and staging ideas to the Phantom of the Opera, this actually adapts the material quite considerably. And so this is the headline news. Masquerade is not just the entirety of the Phantom of the Opera as performed in an immersive setting. For one thing, the duration is shorter than Phantom's always was. As a two act musical, Masquerade runs with a running time of I believe just over two hours, which sort of makes it sound like the full version of Phantom, just without an intermission. There are some things that have been removed. There are also some additions. The whole thing is also to a certain extent restructured. Things that normally happen in in a certain order don't necessarily happen in that order. And depending on how your overall group is divided when you see the show, the order that you see it in may actually vary to other people who arrived at the same time as you did. The way that this all works, and I am fascinated by the flowchart or spreadsheet that exists behind the scenes to make all of this work. Logistically it is just mind boggling is that multiple different performances of the show happen per evening and you can book for a specific pulse time as call it. You can arrive at 7 or 7:15 or 7:30 and you will get, depending on that time, a different pair of performers as Christine and the Phantom. I think a couple of other roles are the same throughout the night, as in who they are portrayed by. The rows may change between performances as well, but I think they do more between them than the Christines and the Phantoms do. That doesn't mean, however, that everyone within that group who has booked for that particular pulse is going to be together the entire time. There are occasions where the group is split. If you really want to remain with another individual, I think it's easy enough to do so. If you want to remain with a larger group, that might be a little bit more challenging. And the way that the performance itself actually works is you are moving between a series of different performance spaces. In this building that used to be an art shop that still retains that very unassuming facade. Everything about Masquerade is quite furtive and deliberately secretive and with something of an introduction reframing device delivered by a familiar character. You are in a different way to one you've ever experienced before, told the story of the Phantom himself with some expansion on corners of that story that perhaps have been explored on screen, but never before on stage. Much of it, however, is very nostalgic and utterly familiar. You are hearing the iconic Phantom of the Opera music, much of the original score, with some perhaps surprising musical additions from the wider Phantom universe, which I'll talk about in more detail in the spoiler section, as well as a great many changed lyrics. But I guess the key thing to understand here is that what you are really seeing is the Phantom story, largely from his own perspective. If the stage musical has always guided us through that world and that story with Christine as the main protagonist, this feels very much more from the Phantoms pov. Now, before I tell you what I actually thought of Masquerade, here are some suggestions about how you might navigate it, as well as what to expect. Now, all of the information about what you need to do before arriving and upon arrival ought to be available to you as a ticket buyer, online and on the show's website. But just to help you out, I will address some of the more important ideas, which is that there is something of a dress code. What I am currently wearing is actually what I wore to Masquerade with a bow tie, as well as this mask which is provided by the production if you arrive without one. And you can wear your own masquerade mask as long as it conforms to the colour scheme. The idea being that if the entire audience is dressed in black, a it looks super aesthetic, like you're all at a really cool gothic funeral, but B it doesn't distract too much from the visual world that they're trying to create and the performances that are going on. Because you can only establish so much atmosphere if you know there's distracting audience members around and you know you're trying to immerse yourself in this world and it's a little challenging to do so if you're very aware of the fact that you're sat there as a group watching attentively. Now, if you don't have a costume that works with the dress code, they have like this black cape type thing that they can distribute to you. They advise not to wear like stiletto high heeled shoes. They request that you do not wear trainers. Although I saw some contraventions of the dress code in our Pulse, it must be said, and I am a stickler for rules at the best of times. I was not only a teacher, I was also a librarian prior to that. So you know I'm going to have strong feelings about these things. Everything else which you have brought with you, including mobile ph, can be stored free of charge in the cloakroom upon arrival in the entrance corridor. You can get all of this back when you arrive into the bar area at the end of the performance. It's just round the corner. This is also the first opportunity that you will have to visit the restroom if you don't go before the show. That's one useful piece of advice. This is a long performance. Use the restroom beforehand and then you can visit it again afterwards. You can also go and get your phones and take some photos in the aesthetic bar area at the end once you've retrieved them from the coat check. Like I said, these masks, masks are given to you free of charge. I found it very comfortable to wear. It's got elastic straps, it's adjustable on the back. They actually have two slightly larger holes on the sides here so that you can secure your glasses through them and put your glasses over the top because they won't be able to gain purchase on your nose, but that will hold them in place. So glasses wearers do not fear these masks. They have a little phantom mask logo embroidered into them up here somewhere. I actually think they look really cool. They're great souvenirs, though. They are not necessarily the only souvenirs that you will walk away with. And I'm not just talking about the merchandise that you can get at the end. As with almost all performances in New York, especially Broadway shows, you are given a program of sorts to take away that you get at the end of the performance, which tells you, in addition to a lot of other information about the show, who your specific cast was. Not only that, there is another little thing that every audience member, I believe, is handed at some point within the context of the narrative. And there are a couple of other occasions where you might get handed something that you might be allowed to keep. As a general rule, if you. If only one person or one or two people in a room get handed something, then you probably are allowed to keep it. If everyone gets given something, chances are you're going to have to give it back. And obviously if they ask you to give something back, then you give it back. The other thing which you receive, and this is as part of your admission, is a complimentary glass of champagne on arrival for the most part. You can also get a top up of this in the next room that you progress into. They go around filling up champagne glasses as long as they can get to you. You also, without Wanting to give really specific advice. And obviously if everyone tries to do this at the same time, it simply isn't going to work. But if you have ever been on Haunted Mansion or Phantom Manor, you know a little something about figuring out where some conspicuous opening doors are and maybe hanging out by those so that when they do open, let's say you might be the first person to get to walk through them. There isn't really, unless you go to the show and learn it by heart. Even then, there's not really a way to hack it so that are standing in the right place the entire time for everything. And also, you just don't need to worry about it if sitting down is important to you. And I would say that in some rooms, for some longer sections, almost everyone gets to sit down. In some rooms, only a few people do for the most part. On average, I would say two thirds of the group get to sit on just like, not comfortably, but on like little stools, little places to perch in each room. If you want to be one of those people, then you're going to want to make sure that you are one of the first to enter the room each time. And generally speaking, what this is, is atmospheric promenade theater that doesn't necessarily fall into the category of truly immersive, because you don't get to make decisions about your path. There are a couple of moments that I perceived of like one on one or very small group interactions, but they are few and far between. They are not necessarily with major characters. The Phantom isn't going to take you off into his layer and lie you down on a bed and show you a robot clone version of yourself, though that would admittedly impressive. There is, however, an entire segment of the show, and it's one that takes us to a world not explored within the Phantom of the Opera narrative. You will know it when it's happening, in which the entire thing does become newly engaging and participatory. Maybe you get a little something else to drink as part of that as well. And as someone who famously does not particularly enjoy immersive theatre in the interactive sense, who doesn't want to always enter into conversations with performers where I have to come up with something to say back in response, I really didn't have any kind of an issue with this. I didn't find it anxiety inducing. I like an immersive theme park world kind of a vibe. I like theater an awful lot and this kind of slotted into the midst of that Venn diagram for me. So my ultimate advice is to just give Yourself over to the experience. That's almost a lyric from the Music of the Night. Is it? Is it Open up your eyes something to that effect. Basically, the rules are the same as they would be in any other kind of a performance like this, which is be receptive to instructions that you are being given either explicitly or subtly from performers in character. Allow yourself to be guided, follow instructions, don't defy what you're told about where you should go. Like I said, if you really want to stay with one other person. Aaron and I managed not to get separated the entire time because when we were being grouped, we just made sure that we were huddled, that we were definitely in one zone or like in physical contact with each other. But I also wouldn't say, and obviously each to own in this regard, that it would matter too much if you did get separated. And as we were beginning it, we really didn't want that to happen. But upon reflection, it would have been, A, not that big a deal, and B, kind of interesting afterwards to debrief and talk about the journeys that each of us had had. Which brings me to my thoughts on Masquerade. Let me tell you what I thought of it. So I thought that Masquerade was pretty astonishing. And I give so much credit to director Diane Paulus, who is working alongside this extraordinary large creative team and has built something that is not only sprawling in its complexity, but is genuinely atmospheric and exciting and romantic and chilling and intense in ways that I think think the original production had perhaps ceased to be. Maybe it was. In the earlier years of its lifespan, much has been said about, you know, the Phantom chandelier drop and whether or not it's as fast as it used to be and whether or not it's really as fear inducing as it used to be. I've heard children on train journeys heading home from London saying it really wasn't that scary. But Masquerade, off Broadway, with the proximity that you are in with the lighting, with the sort of comparatively more claustrophobic setting as you're moving down this corridor, is unsurprisingly able to scare you an awful lot more. And I think the balanced critique of this is that there is an awful lot that it can do because of its setting, which empowers it to be, like I said, more intimate, more chilling, more romantic, more intense than watching Phantom on stage as part of a vast multi tier theatrical auditorium at a great distance. There are other restrictions on it because it doesn't have that same scale and also because there is this. This requirement for them to deviate deliberately at almost every turn from the original aesthetic, from the original direction, from Hal Prince and creative team, also from a lot of the original material. I was stunned, actually, by the extent to which so many of these lyrics were reworked. As well as, like I mentioned before, the reordering of scenes within the Phantom story. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the way in which it is framed. If you consider even this too much of a spoiler, then you're probably going to want to bail on me at this point and come back to me when you have experienced the show for yourself. But it starts with us enjoying a glass of champagne in a stylish room adorned with various characterful masquerade masks on the wall. We're all wearing our own. We are listening to a solo violinist play over a track of pre recorded music, which is how we are going to hear the instruments throughout the production. There is not otherwise live music, despite there being live vocalists, which, as much as anything else, I think is a logistical necessity because of the way that it works and because of the specificity of timing throughout the thing. We then enter into a room that looks familiar of the earliest moments of the Phantom of the Opera, with lots to be auctioned. Only our host there is a masked Madame Giry, who explains to us that we have been invited by the Phantom to his masquerade, a world of his own creation, with the song Masquerade being the first one that beckons us into the performance. That being after this creepingly atmospheric introduction, the first really wowing moment moment of the show. And we then get guided through all of the different rooms which predominantly tell the Phantom story in order, but at one point expand on that by offering us a really thorough look at his backstory as a captive of a French carnival, in which context we see a younger version of Eric kept in a cage, forced to perform and touted as a freak, which is the more interactive space that I was referring to beforehand. And this, I've heard a lot of people say, is sort of just fodder and filler and not their favorite part of the production. This was among my favourite parts of the production because they got to really lean into the concept. They got to build in elements that played into the strengths of an immersive, atmospheric experience. And they had these impressive circus performers doing insane things with fire and they were playing games with us and we were trying to toss coins into stuff. And everything about that atmosphere really, really lent itself to the. The format and otherwise. There were certain moments of trying to do Phantom in these various small, incredibly stylish rooms as we're moving around this building in Manhattan, that felt the littlest bit like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Like, at the end of the day, if you want to do musical theater, I think we've already figured out what is the most ideal way in which to do that. And so the extent to which this is a really exciting and interesting and creatively fulfilling thing to do for people who know and like Phantom versus people who have no familiarity with it whatsoever is something I perhaps question. That being said, if you're a devoted Phantom fan, ph and there are many, then that is not necessarily a guarantee that you are going to love this if you are a purist. Like I said, many, many changes. I watched people really passionately trying to lip sync along with the lyrics that were being sung and then looking slightly puzzled. Puzzled when they would frequently run into a moment where the lyric has changed and they want to try and jump back in, but they don't know how to. It is also ultimately a new artistic interpretation of the Phantom story, one which deserves a little bit of its own space and consideration. But on the other side of that coin, if you are someone who isn't that familiar with Phantom of the Opera as a stage musical and never had an extraordinary fondness for it, you might actually enjoy this a lot more than you. You might think, especially if you are someone whose complaints about Phantom have been that it isn't as dark or intense or romantic as it has always purported to be. Because that is something that I think is achieved by Masquerade. And certainly it is the mission of the show to try and endear you, I think, to the character of the Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera. Masquerade achieves that a lot better, for obvious reasons, because we see this tortured backstory, because we are exploring it from his perspective. I mean, ultimately, it's, I guess, by its own logic, this show that he has put together to show us what a difficult life he led, and, you know, why Christine should choose him. I will talk very briefly about the performers who I happen to see in Masquerade, which at this performance was Clay Singer as the Phantom and Georgia Mendes as Christine, with Francisco Javier Gonzalez as Raoul. And what I'm so interested by is the fact that there is not this cohesive casting approach across all of the different pulses, the actors who are playing the Phantom that vary wildly from one performance to the next. And Clay is one of the youngest, and I find that so fascinating that they haven't gone for consistency. And I've heard this that if you go to the different pulses, the show finds, because of the principal casting, a different sort of a tone each time that it varies quite considerably. If you think of somewhere like Disneyland, then they try to make the casting of their face character pretty consistent from one to the next. I mean, they're looking at people's facial structures and exact heights and all of these things. Masquerade off Broadway really said like, these phantoms are nothing alike, but they can be 15 minutes apart. There is also a terrific supporting cast who you come to realize are, over the course of an evening, playing the same small scenes repeatedly again and again and again, going between different rooms for the benefits of people who are seeing the Same story but 15 minutes behind each other. Georgia sounded fantastic as Christine, seen beautiful vocal tone and was quite grounded in the portrayal as well, which is something I appreciate about this character because she can occasionally become so doe eyed that she just about enters orbit. While Clay, also in fine voice, had this really frenzied intensity that came from being a more youthful, passionate Phantom, which I think does sort of tip the scales back in a certain way. Because when it's like daddy issues Phantom casting, who has just finished playing Jean Valjean to her cassette in les mis not 5 minutes ago, you do just urge her to realize that this is not the ghost of her dead father and to just go and be with handsome, wealthy Raoul. But with this one, I was like, do you know what? Hold on a minute, Cristine. You actually have something of a difficult decision to make here. And not unlike choosing between flavors at a Ben and Jerry's. There is more than one good option, at which point it feels like the perfect moment for me to tell you, in greater spoiler inclusive detail, everything I really enjoyed.
- [26:34]
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- [27:04]
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Micky Jo
About this production. So you know me to be theatre obsessed. I'm also a big theme park person, but I'm not a big immersive person. I like to watch other people have immersive experiences. I love atmospheric, but my theatrical preference is to sit on the outside of a goldfish bowl, proverbially, and watch something wild happening on the inside. I loved and enjoyed this and being amongst it so, so much because it was exactly as involved as I wanted to be, which was not very. We got taught a dance. We got encouraged to keep our hands at the level of our eyes. That was a fun little bit like Phantom nostalgia very early on, because normally Madame Giry wouldn't inform Raoul about that until the very end. And as much as anything else, I just loved getting to venture inside the world of a musical that I have seen on stage on multiple occasions. It had me thinking about what other stage properties this idea could work with. Like, what would immersive Les Mis feel like? What would immersive wicked feel like? With the answers, of course, being very explosive and very green. And even though the designs were different to those we had seen before, it was so utterly recognizable, usable, and it felt deeply nostalgic to enter this world. I also love the little details. I loved that we were all handed candles to hold in advance of arriving into different rooms. That's one of the things that you have to return afterwards. It's fun to see certain people in the room being handed a note after it has been used as a prop during a scene. And it's quite breathtaking to have the performers move past you, to have the Phantom's hand linger on your shoulder as he is brushing past you on his way out the of a room. I also really loved the balance of different performance elements. You know, obviously they're going to be doing a lot of singing of the songs from the Phantom of the Opera. I love that they found ways to include dance, that we had these sort of robot puppet versions of the Phantom and Christine dancing with each other. I said I loved all of the circus stuff because I thought it really worked in this setting. And it was a great way to be more involved and to cut to a segment where we could just have people gathering around a stage and have fun done acts perform. I also think it's very unexpected. It catches us a little bit off guard. It changes the pace very much from the Phantom of the Opera of it all. But the most surprising thing that happened was actually immediately after that scene, because Eric's backstory ends with him being freed from the circus with him escaping and being aided in his escape by a young Madame Giry, who has always spoken about having seen him there as a young man, but hasn't necessarily gone as far as to state that she actually was the one who brought him to the Paris Opera House catacombs before. However, that is what we see in this version of the show. And it's still a younger version of the Phantom played by a different performer who she then brings into the opera house singing to him. And it's very possible that this is going to shock you, because it shocked me. The song Learn to Be Lonely. No, this is not a song from the stage musical the Phantom of the Opera. It is not a song from Love Never Dies, as some people thought it was. This is the credits song from the Phantom of the Opera movie. And when I heard this song song, I was so unbelievably shook. But I think that's a really brilliant Easter egg for Phantom of the Opera fans. And obviously there is no song originally written to exist in that moment. I did sort of think afterwards it would be nice if we also got a Love Never Dies nod as well. But by definition that's all stuff that has happened subsequently. Maybe even just something in like the instrumentals and the pre recorded orchestration. And perhaps there was, and I missed it very possible that that happened. Love that they did learn to be lonely. And I really loved the scene that it was a part of and that it ends with the older Phantom walking in and being confronted by this memory of his younger self. I love the way that it was positioned from his perspective. I thought that worked really well. I loved that we got to see some murderous encounters up in the rafters rather than seeing the result of the people falling down to the stage. And we have to talk about the design of the whole thing because so many of these rooms looked absolutely fantastic. And they are small spaces with an extraordinary attention to detail in each room as well as in the passageways between each of these rooms. The version of the Phantom's lair with the boat that you descend down to is gorgeous and brilliant. The room in which, wishing you were somehow here again was performed because we had the indoor variant version of the performance, not because of drastic weather conditions, but just because of temperature, I believe. So very possibly that is the one that is happening throughout the winter because it's not getting any warmer. Though we did still get to walk through the open air rooftop area and it would be very cool for that to be performed out in the open air and for the Phantom to be Screaming out into the night of Manhattan. Less cool if you know you're an overlooking apartment. But hey, if they're a Phantom of the Opera fan, they're getting nightly shows like several of them. In fact. That room where Wishing is performed was actually one of my favorites because you had this walkway that you entered through before going down a set of stairs into the room where Christine would sing to the grave of her father. And it was all sort of murkily lit with this green wash. And the Phantom would arrive towards the end of that scene, as he always does, but he was lit from behind, casting this enormous shadow down into the space below. And from where I was standing, I could just about see him leaning over over the edge of the walkway. But there were some people who were still positioned up there so they had it from his perspective. It's a show that I think even though it's, you know, the tickets are expensive, it does sort of make you instantly want to go back again to have a different experience and see things from other angles, because there's so much to appreciate about it Now. I was incredibly close to getting pulled for a one on one experience. As we were leaving one of the rooms after the group had had been divided, I saw a couple of people being taught another little piece of choreography by Madame Giry. But nothing particularly exciting happened to me other than I knew where I wanted to be standing. At the end of Madame Giry's introduction and explanation, I put myself right in the midst of the double doors that I noticed behind me. So I had the most incredible introductory experience to the world of masquerade, because we were encouraged to turn around and the doors opened and I can just see this long corridor of pitch black darkness from which a figure is emerging. And at once the music stirs, the lights come up enough that you can see a whole bunch of performers wearing masks, wearing these elaborate, colourful masquerade costumes. And someone leaps forward, takes both of my hands and pulls me at pace into the space as it all lights up. That is one of the most extraordinary things that has ever happened to me because it's the little literal example of that thing that theatre tries to do with an Act 2 opening number. I was grabbed by both hands and pulled into the story, literally. It was so cool. And even though I knew I was standing in a good spot, I didn't expect it to be that exciting and engaging right from the very start. Now I would characterize myself as a Phantom of the Opera fan in a way where I have a lot of appreciation of the material, but it's also a little bit of a campy guilty pleasure for me and considerably less, I thought of that slightly, slightly campy tonal quality that it finds sometimes in the show. This was more just sort of sinister and brooding and sincere. I still loved when the group broke off across a handful of rooms and we were in a dressing room space and Carlotta came in and then Piangi and the managers and Christine came in and then Raoul followed in after her. I think you get all of this content no matter where you go, but in a different order. And they just move between rooms doing the same scene over and over and over again. I liked getting intimate encounter with all of these different characters. And Carlotta is, you know, making people hold coats and kissing the top of a bald man's head. It does feel like a real privilege to get to share that space with musical theater characters who, you know well. And there were a couple of legitimately chilling moments, if not utterly terrifying. There were also a couple of very impressive illusions. But I think what I am the most impressed by is just the logistics of how they can shepherd so many people through that building in sequence and how it all works, what that track looks like for individual performers. The fact that you have Christine's going off to be Meg in the middle of their evening, or maybe like before they become Christine. Like we had Anna Zavosen as Meg in our Pulse and she is Christine for different people. The fact that that is a component of how this works. The fact that they don't need to issue you that many overt, heavy handed instructions because so much of it is implicit and they can guide you subtly through this gorgeous world that they have created. The design is extraordinary. The experience is fun and atmospheric and more romantic, I think, than I have ever found the Phantom of the Opera to be. Previously, I had a great time. However, not unlike the Phantom himself, I did have some notes.
- [36:53]
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- [37:25]
Micky Jo
And Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his Natural ally. Doug Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Savings very unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. So some of these are shortcomings in a theatrical sense. Others are shortcomings in a sort of theme park immersive logistical sense, which is the one I want to start with. Because this is the thing that started to annoy me, me the most. And having tried to be in a great spot to begin with, I sort of fell into a pattern error. And I both did. Where we were among the last to leave the room every single time, which made us among the last to arrive into the next room. And I wish there had been more of a mechanism to shuffle this. It happened on a couple of occasions where if you were the last to enter, you became the first to leave. But there was this whole sequence of one room after another after another, after another after another where it kept being sort of followed through to a further exit. So the people who entered first would get the best seats and would then exit first. And if you were last, you were stuck being last and standing at the back around people. Everyone still has a great view. You still feel involved and immersed and in proximity, you don't have the chance to sit down. The bigger issue is that for some of those rooms, if you are the last in, they can't wait for you because the timings are so tight and so spoiled specific. So I kept hearing songs starting before I was all the way in the room yet. And there's a sort of like, realistic atmospheric quality to that as well. Like you're wandering in while this scene is already playing. But it's not meant to happen like that. So it did get to be a little bit annoying. I just wish there was a way for them to shuffle the deck a little bit more as we progress between rooms. So my advice to you, once you exit, certainly from the console carnival scene, is to try and be among the first to change rooms for the next few. Because that's when it really starts. That the first people then seem to have consistent priority for the next few scenes all the way through to the final scene of the show. Now, I was tipped off by the fact that there was a lyric change, because ordinarily the Phantom would sing, Remember, there are worse things than a shattered chandelier. And he didn't sing that. At which point I went, oh, yeah, that hasn't happened yet. Because we end with a grand operatic disaster, you know, it's going to be different. Different because we started with Masquerade, so already things are a little bit unusual and the exact events of the plot are shuffled a little bit. So the two operas that normally happen in the show are sort of combined to be one, and the falling of the chandelier becomes something that happens towards the very end. However, we had a slightly different evening at Masquerade, not just because we had an indoor variant, but also because I don't think we got the full chandelier drop. And I say I don't think. I am fairly certain we didn't get the full chandelier, chandelier drop because I ended up being stood next to a stage manager on a walkie talkie who was very inconspicuous, but who I did overhear saying, sound only, sound only, sound only in quite an insistent way. And I'm sure that the chandelier drop works more often than it doesn't. However, I was already a little concerned and confused about how it was being set up because we re enter a room that we've been in before, only with sort of two semicircles of seating and standing positions around a large circular playing space and a chandelier up above it. At which point I'm thinking, here it comes. She's gonna fall down, chandelier all over the floor. Ikea, eat your heart out. And so I assumed that the way that the seating was set up was perfectly placed so that the audience would, by being in those seats, be as far back as they needed to be. And perhaps because the positions of the chairs are. Aren't fixed, usually that is the plan and something went wrong on this occasion. Someone can let me know in the comments, perhaps. But what ended up happening was at the end of the scene when the chandelier sort of starts to begin to fall, people rush in to say, quick, quick, get up and stand behind the chairs. Which obviously people weren't able to do fast enough. So the playing space wasn't entirely cleared. So the chandelier descended, but didn't drop all the way. Which, you know, when this is meant to be the more in intense, new dynamic, atmospheric, exciting version of Phantom, you kind of want a fast, genuinely intimidating, fearful chandelier drop in comparison with the one in the show that isn't as scary anymore. Something which I don't really talk about is that I also experience symptoms of claustrophobia on occasion. And if I have a sort of imaginary bubble of my space and I am unable to move, I don't like the Idea of people moving further into that. If I was with my back up against a wall and people started reversing, not even at me, but towards me, I would find that incredibly anxiety inducing. That's something I was incredibly aware of. Entering into Masquerade. It's one of the reasons why I didn't want to be separated too far from Aaron. It's not a problem that I encountered. I don't think they are overfilling those groups. And our group was at capacity for that pulse. I do think that you would encounter this even less if you, again, managed to be in the sort of forward party of each group, especially from the carnival moment onwards. But just generally, if that was a concern that I had, it was almost never a problem. One thing I will say, and I really don't know that there's anything else that they can do about this, and it's an incredibly impressive building, and almost everything they've done to create the world of Phantom within that building is so atmospheric and so transporting, you will occasionally find yourself in a stairwell that feels very Manhattan. But the biggest, biggest issue is that we have this opening rehearsal sequence. Carlotta is asked to perform for the new managers. A stage wait falls down. She declares that she will not. Christine Daae is prompted to sing. She sings, Think of Me. We then have her encounter with the Phantom, and we all start to journey down to the Phantom's lair as we hear the Phantom of the Opera being sung. As we transition from the rehearsal space down into the Phantom's candlelit layer, we all queue up onto an escalator and we all go down this escalator that we, all, later on in the evening will go back up again. And it's, depending on your perspective, a little bit jarring or a little bit funny that you're like, right, we're now all holding candles and clearly you're being guided and you're part of a group and you've bought tickets. So, you know, no one is being utterly convinced of the new reality that they're trying to establish. But it is just a little bit kind of cutting into that, that you're stepping onto an escalator and slowly going down the escalator and then stepping off at the same time. Safety has to be the main focus. And to cover the escalator in, like a trickling waterfall of dry ice would probably be a terrible idea, because already I was slightly concerned that people weren't going to get off the escalator and move around fast enough. And they do a great job of making sure, that people. People do, because then you'd have a pile up, albeit a very stylish masked pile up. My only other reservation about Masquerade as an experience, and I think one of the things that keeps it from that genuine feel of truthful theatricality is the lack of live music. And especially because the only thing that this really retains from the original production is the score and the characters, admittedly with just so many choices, changed lyrics, you really aren't getting that same sweeping, grand, epic, emotional quality that you would get from a full string section from a full orchestra, and you're getting it from the vocals. But there's something just the littlest bit like Ellen Stardust, Dinah Gale's Broadway Rose, because you have great vocalists there as well. But they're singing along to backing tracks. And that's kind of what this starts to become on a couple of occasions. And I don't think it helps, even though I like, as a dramaturgical choice, that we start with the violinist who I immediately thought, is this meant to be her father? Is that what we're seeing here? And he then later does sort of appear in a way that connects all of that together. But the fact that you begin with a live instrumentalist before, you will then hear an entire evening of pre recorded music, I don't know if that's meant to be an apology for that, to mitigate it somewhat. For my part, I thought it only really served to highlight that discrepancy. And also, and this is purely personal beef, one of my favorite songs, if not my favorite song in the Phantom of the Opera, because I am a strange, strange man, is notes. And there was the littlest allusion to notes, but notes is sort of the biggest casualty of the transition from Phantom to Masquerade. We get like a little bit of a nod to Prima Donna as well, but we don't have that whole first, first notes into Prima Donna. That's sort of the most sizable cut of the material. We get all of the big hits. We get Music of the Night and the title song, All I Ask of you, and the little Phantom ending of that. We get the whole of Final Layer, or actually perhaps a very slightly shortened version of Final Layer. From what I remember, I was very involved and engaged and immersed. I was not standing there taking notes or clocking every single change that happened. But in almost every song there was a new or altered lyric. And so if you have paid a lot of money, be aware of that going in. Don't have the experience that I've had with shows before, where all you're doing is reacting to changes the entire time, so you can't really enjoy it on its own terms. I suspect, though, that Masquerade, while it would have to run for a very, very long time to begin to approach the length of Phantom's Broadway run, is not going anywhere anytime soon. And perhaps some of these are teething problems that can be ironed out. They're not going to put notes back into the show, they're not going to get rid of the escalator, but considering that there have only been a couple of months of performances, I think parts of the way that you experience this as an audience member and the way that certain scenes are staged may continue to shift and evolve, which is very exciting to look forward to for now and until I return, which I hope to before too long because it is a really singular theatrical experience. You're not getting something quite like this anywhere else, really, in a way that combines a nostalgic, very well known musical with a bespoke atmospheric setting. Until then, those are all of my thoughts about Masquerade Off Broadway. I think this is a hugely exciting and creative and innovative thing, the existence of which in the first place I just applaud. I think it's so much more interesting than Phantom just simply returning to its former Broadway home in a production which is cheaper and just different enough to not have to pay royalties to members of the original creative team and their estates. It's a truly new exploration of this story and these characters that has created this gorgeous, intriguing world, which is a real delight to get to explore. It felt like a genuine privilege to get to step into the world of Masquerade, and I hope to be back. For now, though, I am very curious as always, to find out about everyone else's experiences of the show. Share all of your thoughts about Masquerade in the comments section down below, as well as any questions that you might have about the experience. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to my thoughts. Make sure that you're subscribed or following me on podcast platforms ahead of many new reviews as well as lots more theatre content in the new year. And as always, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
- [49:25]
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