Aaron Wallace - Page 3

Filling those water-walkin' sandals is Orlando native Eddie Ortega. His is the Jesus of the Bible - cool, chill, funny, sharp, smart, wise, surprising, radical, and full of love. He occasionally sings in Spanish, while his disciples add that and sign language too - your friendly reminder that nobody in the Bible spoke English...

Fate couldn't have found a more fitting show for the Garden Theatre's 2020 return than one with a whole song about getting out of the house and hitting the town... The Garden has done just about everything a theatre of its size can do to mitigate risk and keep its patrons safe... It did feel very good to be back in a theatre again...

a?oeThat's the worst thing I've ever seen,a?? said an elderly woman on her way out the door. a?oeI couldn't have said it better myself!a?? her friend agreed. Far be it for me to differ a?' they probably saw Ben-Hur in theatres while I still didn't know who was going to win the chariot race a?' but I loved it.

It's symptomatic of SPAMILTON's inconsistency: quite funny and thoughtful in one moment, down a rabbit hole the next. For every inspired sequence in which Lin-Manuel engages 'Stephen Sondheim as Ben Franklin' in a lengthy debate about the density of rhymes, there's a lazily written riff like 'not throwing away my pot' (an extended refrain that comes out of nowhere and exists only for the cheap laugh of a weed joke). Too many of the rhymes are moon-and-June; too many of the jokes are merely references in disguise; too many of the allusions are a crutch.

It's revitalized. It's funny (with new jokes). It's Facebook - er, Instagram. It's Mean Girls meets 2020. Fey's stage book is so thoughtfully transliterated from its early-aughts source, it's the familiar lines that earn the smallest laughs (except from those who've never seen the movie... shout-out to the couple who nearly died when they heard 'too gay to function,' clearly for the first time).

A single-act show, it could use an occasional shot in the arm. Some of the songs drag and none are especially memorable. As bus stories goes, the pacing is a long, long way from Speed. The central love triangle between Violet and two boys on the bus (military officers Monty and Flick) feels all too familiar, and its engagement with the theme of interracial romance (Flick is African-American, Monty and Violet are white) feels underserved in a show that is ultimately about self-shame and misguided faith. Still, the show...

Why? Every time I answer that, I start to feel like the Genie in a?oePrince Alia?? when he's counting all those elephants, peacocks, and camels. There are a lot of problems here. Maybe not fifty-three or seventy-five or however many Persian monkeys he has, but I can definitely point to at least five things that keep this stage version one jump behind its cinematic counterpart.

...but it's the humanity underpinning the comedy that really surprised me. The a?oestudentsa?? are so earnest in their efforts. It's their Muppet-ish instinct to make the best of a bad mistake under a spotlight that makes the show so relatable. Aren't we all just trying to do our best as the set pieces of our lives malfunction all around us?

Playwright Michael Wilson has turned all of Act I into a walk down the 'yellow brick road' of London, where Scrooge meets three vendors who will resurface more translucently later that night. It's as eye-rolling as it sounds and even more boring than you can imagine. Heads were nodding all around me. Only my coffee kept mine upright.

I would never drink on the job, but at ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE, a?oepour me something tall and stronga?? is part of the mandate a?" and the show writers are clearly counting on tequila to carry them through. Margaritaville is an island getaway where the drinks are strong, Jimmy Buffett is god, and every single inhabitant has exactly one personality trait. It's definitely the cheeseburger version of paradise...

It's an incredible production with a cast that slays Misérables. Some will lament the use of projection mapping, but it's relatively minimal and tastefully integrated within giant, imposing, ever-moving physical set pieces that tower above the audience and create an incredible sense of scale. I won't spoil any surprises, but there are a handful of very neat effects on stage, physical and digital alike. And the lighting design is both gorgeous and brave, unafraid to cast characters in shadows and keep things dark for long periods of time when it fits the mood...

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND comes to life with mounds of sand, full-fledged shacks, an overturned boat that doubles as a platform, a wood-planked bridge, and a running stream of water that curls around the stage in a rock-lined canal. Let me repeat: they built a river that flows through the theatre. It's the most impressive set I've seen here, and that's saying something. At one point, rain falls down from the ceiling all around the stage, as if to replenish the river as it evaporates under Derek Critzer and Jonathan Scaringella's lively light design.

DEATHTRAP gets off to a slow start, but by Scene Two - when the third of five characters enters the action - it's off to a fast-paced saga of twists, turns, and fatalities... Hilarity and homicide ensue, but in ways you won't see coming, with so many plot twists and misdirects that even an audience with ESP might gasp, as the Garden's sold-out house did all night long. Well, most of the theater...

For RAGTIME, director Mark Edward Smith and his crew have crafted one of the most appealing and stately sets I've seen at the Garden Theatre. The blocking is clever and thoughtful - important when you have a big ensemble cast on a small stage - and the lighting and costumes are on point. The vaudeville era must be the Garden's charm, because this is certainly the best staging I've seen here since the last season opener, Gypsy. But whether you've seen RAGTIME or not, it's the cast here that is really going to wow you...

IF/THEN is a dramatization of the concept of opportunity cost. How different might your life be because you went to the park an hour later than you planned or lingered there a little longer? How much of life's trajectory is informed by choice as opposed to coincidence or what is 'supposed' to be? How could your seemingly inconsequential afternoon fundamentally change not only your life but also the lives of your friends and family? IF/THEN has a lot of thoughts on those questions... the overall reward is worthwhile.

We talk about his new STRINGS ATTACHED tour - which happens to be his biggest and most extravagant ever (and for 'Weird Al,' that's saying a lot) - his Broadway bucket list, whether he's changed his mind on doing a new Star Wars song, what it was like to grow up as an uncool genius, why no one needs to look forward to his death, and his affection for a certain stuffed pastry, among other things....

For all my problems with GHOST: THE MUSICAL, Ghost remains an extremely compelling story. Its unusual blend of comedy, drama, horror, and romance is still striking on stage, and even though there were things I'd change, last night I texted a few friends and told them to be sure they see GHOST: THE MUSICAL while it's still at Theater West End, faults and all. I'm going to recommend the same to you...

That the odds are against it underscores just what a tremendous achievement COME FROM AWAY represents. Almost two decades later, this still isn't easy ground to tread - not for creators and certainly not for audiences. But COME FROM AWAY rings true. It is reverent but not funereal, stirring but not saccharine. It works, perhaps, because it looks at 9/11 from a distance - not from the streets of Manhattan but the distant shores of Canada instead. And it purposely eschews the maudlin. There is no emotional browbeating in this show... It speaks to a part of us that we sometimes forget we have - the part that, we hope, will rise to the occasion and respond to tragedy with compassion and care...

But lest you worry that this isn't the full-fledged Yankovic stage experience, rest assured: you aren't missing out one bit. I've always said a 'Weird Al' show is like a series of music videos brought to life on stage. True to form, nearly each new song in STRINGS ATTACHED brings an elaborate costume change, with occasional video interstitials...

Thankfully, when ANASTASIA hit Broadway, it dispensed with anyone immortal or winged, replacing fantasy with the real-world politics that led up to the Romanovs' demise. The added historical context grounds this once-wacky story, and frankly, I would have welcomed even more of it...