Manhattan 2019: Broadway Musicals

While this year we timed our trip to coincide with viewing Christmas lights, one of our main reasons for constantly revisiting Manhattan is the plethora of live theatre that is offered on and off Broadway.  We only planned for three nights and four days in the city but were still able to fit in three musicals by attending both a matinee and an evening show on the same day.  We could have tried to see four shows but did not dare schedule one for the first day, just in case our early morning flight got delayed or even cancelled due to inclement weather.  To make it easier to get “home” from the shows, we found a hotel at 45th Street and 6th Avenue, just a few blocks away from most of the theatres.

Our first show was Hadestown which won the Best Musical Tony Award in 2019.  Boasting a stylish, jazzy score, the plot interweaves two disparate Greek myths to make a single cohesive story featuring Gods, mortals and the three Fates who act like a Greek chorus, commenting on the action and planting seeds of discord and doubt into the minds of the humans and Gods alike. Hades and Persephone are the God and Goddess of the Underworld, a long married couple who now bicker and take each other for granted.  Persephone spends six months of the year on earth, coinciding with spring and summer and then returns to the Underworld for six months, which brings forth fall and winter.  Meanwhile songwriter Orpheus and his bride Eurydice are penniless mortal lovers, and Hermes, the Messenger God, presides over the entire affair, providing narration, exposition and commentary.

To stave off cold and starvation when winter comes, Eurydice is seduced by Hades into joining him in the Underworld.  Egging her on to her decision, the three Fates sing “What You Gonna Do When the Chips are Down?”  Bereft, Orpheus goes in search of his beloved, singing a beautiful love ballad that causes all the Underworld minions to stop and listen.  Hades is pressured to release Eurydice but will be deemed weak if he does.  The Fates taunt him with the song Words to the Wise, singing “Gotta think quick; Gotta save face; Caught between a rock and a hard place”.   Hades makes a deal to let Eurydice return to Earth but only under the condition that Orpheus must walk in front of her and never look back until they have both made it out of the Underworld.  As Orpheus makes the long trek back to Earth, the whispers of the Fates fill  him with fear and doubt as to whether Eurydice is actually there behind him.  (“Doubt Comes In”).

Hadestown is refreshingly original and innovative in terms of songs, score, book, stagecraft and choreography.  Unlike so many shows on Broadway today, the production is not a remake of a well-known book, movie, or TV show and is not a “jukebox musical” that relies on name-recognition of an established band’s well-known songs.  I particularly liked the set and staging used to portray the arduous journey into and out of the Underworld, including a circular moving conveyor belt similar to the one used in Les Miserables, smoke and mist filling the darkened stage, and Orpheus weaving and dodging large swinging lights that the Underground minions hurl towards him.

A round platform sits in the centre of the outer rotating belt, rising and lowering to expose a giant hole representing the path down to Hell.  It is very effective to watch as the characters appear to emerge from below or dramatically drop down out of sight.  There seem to be political undertones to the plot, as Hell is portrayed like a manufacturing assembly line and the deep-voiced Hades sings about Why We Build the Wall – “to keep us free; the wall keeps out the enemy”.  Unfortunately Patrick Page’s extremely low baritone voice hits such depths in tone that at times it was a bit difficult to hear what he was singing as Hades.  All the other performers had beautiful, clear voices, including the understudy who played Persephone at our performance.

I have always thought that jukebox musicals are a bit of a cop-out and usually do not consider them to be as good as ones where the songs and lyrics are written specifically for a show and advance the plot.  Often in a Jukebox musical, the story feels awkward and contrived in an attempt to force-fit plot lines to go with pre-determined lyrics.  Adapted from the similarly titled 2001 movie, Moulin Rouge! takes the typical jukebox musical trope to a whole other level.  Rather than using the works of a single artist or band (e.g. Mamma Mia/ABBA, We Will Rock You/Queen, Bat Out of Hell/Meatloaf), Moulin Rouge! uses current popular songs from a variety of artists.  Even more impressively, a few of the musical numbers (e.g. Elephant Love Medley) sample individual choruses or even single lines from multiple songs and string them together to create cohesive sung-through dialogue.  Listening to the music in Moulin Rouge! can become a game of playing “Name That Tune” as the references come at you fast and furiously.

Set in Paris at the turn of the 20th Century and telling the tale of star-crossed lovers Christian and Satine, Moulin Rouge! carries on with the precedence set by the movie, but updates the music with even more recent songs (e.g. Katy Perry’s Firework, Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, Sia’s Chandelier) and tweaks the story so that it has a deeper and more comprehensive plot.  The chosen songs add emotional resonance to the characters and the lyrics actually advance the plot, which is my criteria for a good musical.  I had a slight issue with the anachronism of the modern pop songs since they felt a bit jarring in the context of a play set in 1900, but I quickly let that go and just went with it.  I could not help but compare the musical to the iconic movie upon which it was based.  Other than a few changes to the plot, the main difference was in the portrayal of Satine.  In the movie, Nicole Kidman played Satine like a delicate damsel in distress who spoke and sang in a whispery, high-pitched voice while in the musical, Karen Olivio’s version appeared more sassy, confident and road-weary as she speaks and sings in a stronger, huskier voice.

As well as trying to use more current songs to attract a new generation, some of the plot changes were driven by the complicated and expensive negotiation process of trying to reacquire the rights to the large number of songs used in the movie so that they could be reused in the musical.  For example, “The Show Must Go On” by Queen was a highlight in the movie but rights were refused for the theatre production since it would steal the thunder from the pending release of the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.  In total, 70 different songs were used in whole or in part within the musical and each song required permission from all the songwriters and producers who owned rights to it.  A single dissenter would render the song to be unusable.  For this reason, it is unlikely that Moulin Rouge! will tour much out of the USA since if it did, all the rights would have to be renegotiated again in the new country!

In addition to the music, the main draw of this musical production of Moulin Rouge! is its visually stunning set design, staging and lighting that just overwhelms the senses.  The entire auditorium of the Al Hirschfeld Theatre is bathed in a fire-engine red hue, with a giant windmill spinning on the left and an enormous purple elephant to the right of the heart-shaped stage.  A catwalk extends from the edge of the stage where CanCan girls and gorgeous courtesans in tight bustiers strut up and down.  Some lucky audience members paid big bucks to be seated at cabaret-styled tables on either side of the catwalk, although I think that seating would be too close to see all the overall choreography by the large cast.  While I was initially reluctant to choose Moulin Rouge! as one of our shows for this New York trip, I was quickly won over by the spectacular production.

Our last show was Scotland PA, an off-Broadway musical adaptation of a 2001 movie of the same name, which in turn is a spoof of the Shakespearean tragedy MacBeth.  Set in Scotland, Pennsylvania circa 1975, Joe McBeth (“Mac”) and his wife Pat work at Duncan’s, a hamburger and fast food diner along with their fellow employees Banko, and Duncan’s son Malcolm.  Mac has many ideas for improving business including implementing a drive-thru, but Duncan belittles his proposals. Feeling oppressed and unappreciated and spurred on by the visions of three “Bohemian hippie stoners”,  the McBeths decide to rob the burger joint but end up accidentally killing Duncan when he falls into a deep fryer during a struggle.  Mac and Pat purchase the place from Malcolm, rename it McBeth’s and start to implement Mac’s ideas (which parody McDonalds) to great success.  This includes the drive-thru, a new sandwich that has TWO patties with a piece of bread in between, and a new logo that channels the iconic Golden Arches, but are pointy (an important plot point) instead of round.  But trouble looms as police detective McDuff arrives to investigate the suspicious death.

Scotland PA is funny, clever and full of pathos as the story pretty much unfolds according to the plot of the Scottish play, but transposed to a modern setting.  It highlights the fact that Shakespeare’s themes are timeless and universal.  The songs are great, especially those sung by the characters playing Mac and Pat.  We did have a bit of trouble hearing what the stoners were singing and therefore missed a few of the omens that would signify the McBeths’ undoing.  I wish that there was a cast recording so that I could listen to them again.  This little off-Broadway show got such great reviews that hopefully it will get picked up and remounted on Broadway, and then I might get my wish.

We loved all three of these shows and would gladly watch any one of them again if they ever came to Toronto.  Here's hoping ...