Is it the Show or the Performance?
Episode 48: Is it the Show or the Performance?
This podcast continues a series of talks between Lindsay and Craig on the plays they saw during their trip to England. This week they talk about two shows currently on in London: One Man, Two Guvnors and Merrily We Roll Along. The question they had about both shows is the question of the podcast: Is it the Show or the Performance?
Show Notes
- New Release: Scarlet Expectations of a Drowned Maiden and Two Greek Queens
- New Release: Monster Problems
- New Release: neeT Teen
- New Release: The Gift
- Merrily We Roll Along
- One Man, Two Guvnors
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Episode Transcript
Welcome to TFP, The Theatrefolk Podcast. I am Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk, talking on mic into a little foam box.
Hello! I hope you’re well. Thanks for listening.
Today, Craig and I have our last conversation about the shows we saw across the pond. Finally, we make it to the West End! But first, let’s do some THEATREFOLK NEWS.
New plays! We’ve got new plays in the Theatrefolk news section! How appropriate is that? I’m going to stop singing now. See? I start these things, I dive into them, and I think, “Oh, that’s not going to sound too goofy or awkward,” then I, in the middle, “Wow! This is goofy and awkward.” Welcome to my world!
Okay. So, I want to send a big shout-out for one of our newest plays Scarlet Expectations of a Drowned Maiden and Two Greek Queens by Robert Wing. It is so new! It’s got that new play smell and it is just a wonderful gem of a comedy.
So, in this play, legendary TV talk show host Dee Dee Dane welcomes women who just can’t seem to get it right when it comes to men. But, Dee Dee’s guests aren’t just any women. These relationship-challenged women are none other than some of literature’s most memorable characters.
We’ve got Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter, Ophelia from Hamlet, Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, Penelope from The Odyssey, and Medea from, well, Medea. Ah! It’s funny, it’s got great characters. You have to check it out just to see how Medea acts in this talk show world. It’s a fantastic competition piece, minimal staging. Go to our website, read the sample pages now. Do it. Or, you know, wait till the end of the podcast – that would work, too.
Lastly, where, oh, where can you find this podcast – this awkward, goofy podcast? We post new episodes every Wednesday at theatrefolk.com and on our Facebook page and Twitter. You can find us on the Stitcher app AND you can subscribe to TFP on iTunes. All you have to do is search on the word “Theatrefolk.”
Episode Forty-Eight: Is It The Show, Or The Performance?
This is a pretty big question to ponder when it comes to seeing theatre. A less than stellar show can be saved by an awesome performance, and a good show can be completely sunk by something subpar. And, as a theatre artist, when you’re going to see shows, I think it’s part of the job of being a theatre artist to distinguish, to make that distinction with what you’re seeing and where the success lies, or where the fault lies.
You cannot tar everything with the same brush. “I like this. I don’t like this.” You have to figure out what it is – specifically – that you don’t like or you do like about what you’re seeing. And, when we were in London, we went to see two shows in the West End for which we were seriously contemplating this question before we went – One Man, Two Guvnors, a modern version of the comedia play One Servant, Two Masters, and the Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along.
And, we also have a special treat. It’s not just Craig and I talking into the little foam box. We’e joined by an old university friend who – fun fact – was actually in the play – as opposed to figuratively, or metaphorically. Julie was in the play where Craig and I first met and fell in love over 20 years ago. Everybody say, “Awwwwww,” or, “Ewwwwww,” – depending on how you feel about cast romances.
On with the podcast.
Lindsay: Hello! We are still in England and we are actually sitting in a kitchen in Reading and Craig and I are staying with a very old friend of ours – well, I shouldn’t say it like that – a GOOD friend of ours.
Craig: A long-time friend of ours.
Lindsay: Long-time, excellent, that’s even better, who actually sort of knew Craig and I at the beginning of our time as artists and so, hello, Julia!
Julia: Hello!
Lindsay: So, Julia and Craig and I, we went and saw two shows yesterday. So, the first one we’re going to talk about is Merrily We Roll Along.
So, Craig, tell me what Merrily We Roll Along is.
Craig: Merrily We Roll Along, it’s the story of three friends told over the time of two decades. They’re artists – two of them, one is a lyricist, one is a composer, and the other is a writer, a novelist. And it shows their relationship as very close friends as they meet as youths, and then, how the Hollywood machine, the arts industry tears them apart to the end. And, the way the story is told, it’s told in reverse chronological order so that, at the beginning of the show, we see the ruins of their friendship and we slowly see it built back together throughout the course of the play as we go back in time.
Lindsay: So, wait. Craig and I have seen a production of this, was it this year?
Craig: No, last year.
Lindsay: Okay. And it was a pretty heart-breaking one. We were really looking forward to it and it didn’t live up to it. And we were trying to decide if it was the show that we didn’t like, or if it was the casting that was so poor, because the characters have to go from 40 to 20.
Craig: Yeah, like, I think the show, I’ve always thought it was kind of impossible because see, this was Sondheim’s first major failure because it ran for 17 performances on Broadway and then it closed.
Julia: Really?
Craig: That’s as long as it lasted.
Lindsay: That’s as long as it got.
Julia: Wow.
Craig: It was a dismal failure at a time, like, casting people were… Casts came and gone. Creative staff were fired.
Lindsay: They jumped the whole costume concept when they did it originally at Broadway. They all wore t-shirts.
Craig: With their names on them because no one could understand who was who during the show.
Lindsay: Which the Broadway audience hated.
Julia: Yeah.
Craig: And so, they kept retooling the show over and over again. They thought, “Well, maybe it’s the telling the story backwards that the audience doesn’t get,” so they tried productions where they told the story forward so that didn’t work.
Lindsay: And when we saw it last time, I was too questioning. I was going, “Maybe they just need to do it forward,” and when the way they did it backwards, I questioned that, too. But now, having seen this production…
Craig: Oh, but to get to where you were talking…
Lindsay: Yes?
Craig: You were talking about casting.
Lindsay: Yes!
Craig: The issue with casting is that you’re talking about characters that start as what, 20?
Lindsay: In the chronology, they start at 20…
Craig: Yeah.
Lindsay: And they have to go to 40.
Craig: Forty. So, that’s a very big range for it because, like, if you go from 40 to 60, but going from 20 to 40 is such a major…
Lindsay: Life change.
Craig: Yeah, it’s such a major life change and your body changes so much that it’s really hard to cast the show where you buy they’re changing ages throughout the play.
Lindsay: And the last production we saw, we didn’t buy it at all.
Craig: No, they were actually too old for the…
Lindsay: Yeah. And then, the original production, they went with teenagers so they were all 20.
Craig: Yeah, and that probably didn’t work either because you didn’t buy that they were 40.
Julia: That they were 45.
Lindsay: Yeah. Okay, so, and then, we saw this production in…
Craig: London.
Lindsay: …in London…
Julia: Oh.
Lindsay: …at the Harold Pinter Theatre. And I think it was pretty much a quintessential production.
Craig: I loved it, from the beginning of the play. I mean, the difference to me between this production and the one we saw in Cincinnati was night and day. I wouldn’t have understood that that was the same show.
Lindsay: And Julia, you were saying that that’s a show that you weren’t familiar with?
Julia: No, I’ve not seen this show before. I know a lot of the songs because of listening to Broadway soundtracks and stuff like that, and some of the soundtrack songs are very recognizable.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Julia: You know them even without knowing the show.
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: So, never having seen it before, my thought was that it was a fantastic production.
Craig: Yeah. Though not having heard some of the songs before, were you surprised what the songs were really about when you saw the show?
Julia: What I really liked was the song had a changed meaning because, as in the song time, they repeat themes and music throughout the play, and this one, the fact that, in one instance, the song had a certain flavour and a certain meaning, and then, earlier – or later in the play – earlier in their lives, it completely changed what they were saying by singing the same song.
Lindsay: That “Not A Day Goes By,” what a heart-breaking song because the first time the character sings it, it’s basically a divorce song. And then, the next time they sing it…
Craig: It’s a wedding song.
Lindsay: …it’s a wedding vow!
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: And it’s just like…
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: It’s just so heart-breaking.
Now, you said something, Julia, which was really interesting about how important you thought the ensemble was in this production.
Julia: Yeah, I think that the ensemble of the production also had such a strong part to play. Like, the three sort of main leads, and then the secondary leads, couldn’t have been supported without the flavour that the ensemble gave because the ensemble was really part of what made the going back in time with the costumes and…
Craig: Costume changes, yeah.
Julia: …and just their attitude. So, like the chorus, the attitude of the chorus helped put the setting in, too.
Lindsay: They were the spine.
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: They supported, they allowed the three main characters…
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: …to do what they needed to do which is such an interesting thing to remember because so often, particularly when we’re dealing with high schools, it’s like, “Oh, I’m just chorus. Oh, I’m just chorus. I’m just in the ensemble. I’m not very important.” And it’s so essential, particularly in the larger musicals, that ensemble is the base, and without the base, the play doesn’t succeed, and this is a perfect example of that because, when we saw the Cincinnati production, they also played instruments so there was no base-support system from the ensemble, particularly in the sound.
Craig: Because the ensemble was playing musical instruments so they couldn’t…
Julia: Yeah, couldn’t focus on…
Craig: …they couldn’t sing loudly. I even think that cast was smaller than this cast.
Lindsay: Yes, it was.
Craig: And here you had, you know, a full orchestra, a full ensemble, you know, triple threat performers, and the sound was so huge in this show where I felt, in Cincinnati, it was very thin. And, apart from the big torch songs, the rest of the music didn’t really play very well. It sounded very mealy because it didn’t have that richness of sound.
Lindsay: And it really made the story and the show. It gave it the epic-ness that, I think, was originally intended.
Another really interesting problem about this piece is that the main character, because we meet him when he’s forty and he’s successful – he’s essentially a sell-out. He sells out every principle he ever had to become successful at the end of his life in the play. But, at the beginning of the play, we learn that he is miserable and it was all for naught.
Julia: And he’s offended the people.
Lindsay: Burned every bridge.
Craig: He’s just destroyed his whole life.
Julia: Yeah, his friendships are no longer.
Lindsay: And so, it makes him pretty unlikeable and that is real problem in any piece when you’ve got a main character who you can’t connect to and you can’t like because, yes, because we’re going backwards in his life, he just becomes more and more idealistic, more and more in love with…
Craig: Arts and music.
Lindsay: …arts and music. But, if you don’t connect to him at the beginning, you don’t care. And this guy, do you have his name? The guy who played Franklin Shephard I thought was brilliant…
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: …because I cared and I really, I wanted to go along his journey.
Julia: Even when he was being sort of the sell-out kind of jerk character at the end, or at the beginning – at the end of his life, or the end of the story – you could still see flashes of what he was and his own regret. I think you saw that.
Lindsay: Yes.
Julia: Like, he didn’t just play “I’m a jerk and I’m a sell-out but that’s what I like,” you really got from him that these are the choices he’s made, he’s not necessarily happy with it, and I think that gives it a sort of more sympathetic view because, yes, he’s made the choices that you wouldn’t necessarily make, but he realizes that they’re not necessarily the best or the ones that he would have made if he were a 20-year-old man.
Craig: Yeah, his name was Mark Umbers and, you’re right, his performance at the beginning of the play and he’s a jerk, it wasn’t just a jerk, you see the sum total of what brought him there.
Julia: Yes.
Craig: It was a very delicate thing to do. And I also say the characters all brilliantly transitioned in age.
Lindsay: As they went down.
Julia: Oh, my goodness!
Lindsay: Well, there was a point, Julia, you said, when they did the opening doors things that you just thought was the last 15 years.
Julia: Yeah, they came up to the front of the stage. And so, this is somebody you saw at forty-five, sort of a 40-year-old guy. And then, the song, just as they’re starting, circling artists, sort of he’s early, early twenties and he’s with his friends, and he looks up, and you just feel as if he’s lost 15 years on his face when you’re looking at him from the audience. Like, I don’t know how they did that. Did they change his makeup backstage in one of the scene changes?
Lindsay: I don’t know.
Julia: Because he looked like a kid! He looks like a kid!
Craig: I think it’s just in our brains.
Julia: Oh, I know! But…
Craig: Actually, I think that’s the beauty of theatre because all of the good stuff happens in the audience’s brain.
Julia: Oh, for sure, for sure! But it just, like, he looked up and you went, “Okay! I get him!”
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: That’s a kid!
Lindsay: Fresh-faced kid.
Craig: And this is a theme on this trip, too, I think. No blackouts, scene changes…
Lindsay: Ugh!
Craig: …and full-view of the audience. It’s all fun. See, we have this campaign against blackouts in the theatre.
Lindsay: Yes.
Craig: It just works. It’s not a problem to see people bringing…
Julia: They know it’s theatre.
Craig: Yeah, we all know we’re in a play. You can see other people. It’s no problem just to bring furniture on.
Julia: Yeah, yeah.
Lindsay: We’re not recreating life. Although, that’s a really interesting segue because…
Craig: Yeah, that’s what I was doing.
Lindsay: I have been grappling, again – just because we’re like, “Do I like this play?” – was it because of the play? Was it because of the performance? And I just think it’s fascinating. I have now seen, I think, this is the quintessential performance.
Julia: The best performance you can get.
Lindsay: Aww! This was the best performance! I thought the characters were well-rounded. Wonderful acting, wonderful music, wonderful everything! And I’ve now seen a lot of Sondheim and I have to say that this one still leaves me a little bit cold in the heart.
Craig: Yeah.
Lindsay: And I think, I think it’s because I am a 44-year-old artist who didn’t go down this road. I think what it is is I really despise, in my heart, that this is really the only choice that was presented to me in the play. We know that Charlie went off and did his own thing. But that’s not the artist that we were presented, and that’s not anyone’s problem but mine, I think. I think that you can’t show… It’s more interesting to show the flawed journey than the idyllic journey.
I’ve been thinking about what it is about it that leaves me cold because company kind of does the same thing. We were left at the end with he’s left with problems and I don’t think those problems are going to be solved. Sweeney Todd, everybody dies! You know? That is what Sondheim does. He brings to life the flaws and I’ve just been thinking about what it is about Merrily that doesn’t hold the same place in my heart as other ones.
All right, so now…
Craig: Because you’re a writer, right?
Lindsay: I think it’s because I’m a writer.
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: And I’m at the same junction and I never made those – it never crossed my mind to make these choices. Like Gussie? Like, Gussie’s journey just floors me. Like, there’s just a ruthlessness of her journey.
Julia: Sleeping to the top.
Lindsay: Yeah!
Craig: And then, back to the bottom again.
Julia: Yeah! Well… Yeah, well, she ages, and for a woman who’s starlet, they get to a certain point where…
Lindsay: There’s going to be another one.
Julia: Yeah!
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: Yeah, she’s no longer the freshest face on the block so she’s going through what the other characters went through later on in the play, or earlier on in the chronology.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Julia: It’s hard to talk about the play.
Craig: I know.
Julia: It’s backwards.
Craig: It’s hard to talk about the beginning of the end.
Lindsay: Well, having said that, because we’ve had this discussion, too, about whether or not it works backwards-front, front-to-backwards. It works backwards, sure.
Julia: This production was so awesome, yeah, that it has to be backwards.
Craig: It illuminated why it’s backwards…
Lindsay: Yeah.
Craig: …because it was so strong at the beginning/end. It was so strong at the beginning of the play that you always have that sense of where it’s all going and that’s what just makes it so sad at the end that you know what this idyllic situation is going to become.
Julia: It’s three people who are energetic, following their dream, so strong in their friendship that you know that it’s all just going to hell in twenty years.
Lindsay: And it can be so idyllic, and it can be very saccharine at the end, they can play that to the end because we all know and it works.
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: It’s a balance.
Craig: Yeah, exactly. It’s very sweet at the end – overly sweet.
Julia: “We’re going to write the best plays and change the world!”
Craig: Yeah.
Lindsay: “Change the world!”
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: You know that that’s not happening…
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: …so it doesn’t matter how sweet and, well, those guys are rubes.
Lindsay: And then, when you work, front to… Wait, beginning to end…
Craig: Okay.
Lindsay: I think.
So, tell me, what do you feel about it?
Julia: I really liked it. Like, I mean, I didn’t have the same reaction. Now, I’m coming from somebody who’s only heard a few of the songs before. What I knew of the story was your briefing to me beforehand. It goes backwards in time, and then, it’s the sort of falling apart of their lives, and you see it in reverse chronological order. So, that’s all I knew about the play. And I do think I don’t have the same sort of connection to art so, I did art in school and I am a lover of art and appreciate it, but I myself am not in the industry so I can’t – I don’t have that personal…
Lindsay: That makes you, then, more of an ideal audience member.
Julia: Yeah, I don’t have that personal feeling towards what the character’s story is. I just thought, “Oh, that’s a really, really interesting way of telling that,” and, “It’s a sympathetic character but he’s a jerk.” At the same time, for me, because there is no possible way for me to connect with these choices, or my choices are different than his because I’m in a different industry, it just doesn’t…
Craig: There’s no equivalent in your line of work.
Julia: I can’t be left cold by it…
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: …because I don’t have an opinion, or I can’t agree or disagree about those choices as they pertain to me — which is good.
Lindsay: I know fully well that this is my idiosyncratic so it’s really cool. I’m really glad to hear that, just going in and appreciating the show, that it was a good experience.
Craig: I loved every second of it.
Lindsay: Yeah! That’s great!
Craig: From the beginning, I was gurning my loins because I really – it’s so funny – because I really believe in this play but I really believe it’s… I was beginning to think it was impossible to do it perfectly and I think I saw, like, as perfect as you’re ever going to see a performance of this show. I think this is exactly…
Lindsay: What it was meant to be.
Craig: …what brings that script to life – what we saw last night and, I must admit, I cried a little.
Lindsay: So did I! Well, that ending is so sweet that it just hits you so hard because you know what’s going to happen.
Craig: Yeah.
Lindsay: That’s what fathers say. “Why can’t you have a nice life?”
Craig: And then, I cried twice yesterday because I cried in the other show we saw.
Lindsay: Okay, so…
Julia: Oh, my goodness. Absolutely bald.
Lindsay: So, we had a great day of theatre yesterday because we ended with the Merrily We Roll Along, but we started with a farce, One Man, Two Guvnors, which was written by…
Craig: It was based on the Italian comedia play, The Servant of Two Masters. It was adopted by Richard Bean
Lindsay: I don’t know who Richard Bean is.
Craig: No.
Lindsay: But he is brilliant. So, this is was a vehicle that was, basically, we think developed for a comedian whose name is…
Julia: James Corden.
Lindsay: James Corden. It went to Broadway, just for a short run, and then, it’s been running here. Did you see it here, Julia?
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: So, when did you see it?
Julia: I saw it last December. So, a year and a half ago, and it was well into its run at that point – about eight months in.
Lindsay: It’s been going for quite a while.
Craig: It had a brief visit to Broadway then it’s back here now.
Lindsay: And there was a different man in the lead. So, that sort of had everyone with some trepidation. I wanted to see it because I wanted to see something that was not a musical but pretty quintessential…
Craig: English theatre.
Lindsay: …English theatre. That’s why we’re here, you know? Instead of The Thriller is playing here, you know? The Bodyguard is playing here. I don’t need to see Thriller.
Craig: You don’t want to see Thriller live?
Lindsay: No, I don’t.
Craig: There’s still time. There’s a matinee today.
Lindsay: Ugh. And, Craig, you had some reservations about seeing it.
Craig: Well, my reservations were that, everything I ever heard about this show was James Corden, James Corden, James Corden – how brilliant he is – and then, when they showed a clip on the Tony Award broadcast, it was just him doing a little odd scene. So, my feeling was that, obviously, this show just relies on this one actor – this one specific guy – and so, I felt, well, what would be the point in seeing it without this guy? And I’m so glad that we decided to go because it doesn’t rely on him at all. I mean, it’s a great role. It’s definitely the main character. I mean, he is the titch of our character – he is the servant – but there is so much to the play, there is so much more to the comedy than just him.
Lindsay: It’s really a modern comedia.
Craig: Yeah.
Lindsay: You know?
Craig: It’s a modern comedia, farce, it’s a little panto.
Lindsay: What I adored about it was that it was both style and substance, and what I mean by that, they were just so fully committed to these characters – the way you have to be in comedia – and just in physical commitment, character commitment, vocal commitment, it was never cheesy. It was full-on and I’ve never seen that, such a committed, you know, performance like that.
Craig: There was something about the way they did takes to the audience. At, like, the punch-lines, there would be a look to the audience that, I don’t know how to describe it other than it was including the audience in the joke but not winking at the audience saying, “Look how funny we are,” which is what you see sometimes.
Lindsay: No, it was really character-driven. And then, there was also quite a bit of improv, well, which purported as improv.
Craig: It seemed like improv. I’m going to go with it.
Lindsay: I’m going to believe it’s improv. You know, between the main fellow and the audience – that’s another thing, I’ve never seen that so committed, and well-done, and just being in the moment but yet, really acknowledging what’s happening in the audience. And I have to say that the main guy was fantastic. But the other characters…
Julia: Supporting characters were just as good and, like, every character, you can think of a moment in the play where you were in fits of laughter because of that one character.
Craig: Right, yeah.
Julia: It wasn’t as if he’s really funny and the cast supports him.
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: He’s funny. It’s this character has a moment that’s just absolutely hilarious. That character has a line that you’re sort of floored by the line itself.
Craig: Yeah, that’s why I think the massive failure in the publicity of this show is pushing that one guy.
Julia: Yeah.
Craig: It’s truly an ensemble piece.
Julia: Yeah.
Lindsay: Yeah, again, and the ensemble was insane. Like, I think my favourite character was the lover.
Julia: The young lover.
Lindsay: The young lover named Alan whose real name is Orlando, but you know…
Craig: There’s already Orlando Dangle taken.
Lindsay: There’s already Orlando Dangle taken and he was so committed and, I think, actually, he had the best lines. I think, you know, I got so excited, I was like, starting to jot them down because I just thought…
Craig: Everything about it, he was trying to be an actor so everything about him was so intense. Like, every time he’d move anywhere, it would be [smashing sound] plant and deliver, pose.
Julia: And the one-body play with the public schoolboy and the actor. “Are you an actor?” “Well, why’d you say?”
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: Sorry, it’s a funny line.
Craig: And I thought the show was stolen at the end of the first act by the guy, the waiter.
Lindsay: Oh, yeah, the waiter!
Craig: Yeah, Alfie.
Lindsay: There’s a guy who plays an 80-year-old waiter.
Craig: Well, he starts off as just, you think, well, it’s just a tottering old man character and that was funny enough with the physicality and the very slow walking. You know, the first thing he had to do was carry this tureen of soup but he has the shakes in his hand and, you know, you just fear for your life of where this soup’s going to end up. But then, it turned out, like, a brilliant intense physical performance. Like, he was getting thrown down stairs, left, right, and centre. He was getting smashed by doors. What else was happening to him?
Julia: Hit by cricket bats.
Craig: Hit by a cricket bat.
Lindsay: Hit by cricket bats. It was just a…
Julia: Picked up and thrown into a door at one point, I’m pretty sure.
Craig: Yeah, yeah.
Lindsay: I think we’ve hit it that that was the genius of the production. It just wasn’t one man. It was a whole cast, an ensemble, and they worked together, and they all brought it to the table. I’ve never laughed – I’ve really never laughed so loud and so hard.
Julia: I think the only time I’ve had a similar reaction is when I saw Noises Off as a teenager.
Craig: Oh, okay.
Julia: Because Noises Off, especially a teenager who was in theatre, I saw it at the West End when I came to – as a teenager – here, and that had the same sort of, you’re lying on the floor trying to sit up straight because you’re crying so hard because you’re laughing.
Craig: There were times I actually covered my eyes because I couldn’t see, I couldn’t process any more information. I had to finish doing the laughing that I was doing before I can move on.
Julia: I’m pretty sure that we were laughing too hard because the people next to us left at intermission. But I don’t think it was anything to do with the play.
Craig: Oh, I think it was going to do to you.
Julia: I think it was sitting next to me!
Lindsay: Well, that’s their problem then. They cannot enjoy.
Julia: They couldn’t enjoy it.
Craig: That’s their problem.
Craig: And you were writing down lines? I was practicing little moves that I was seeing on stage.
Lindsay: Oh, yeah.
Craig: Everyone had, like, a little move as they came on stage, or when they walked off stage. It was like this little comedia-inspired turn to the feet and…
Julia: Yeah, James Corden had the little…
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: But not James Corden. Sorry.
Craig: No.
Julia: Sorry to the actor. Francis Henshall, he had that little…
Craig: Yeah.
Julia: …hop-step kind of thing, leading.
Craig: Yeah, brilliance, brilliant physical.
Lindsay: Brilliant physical, brilliant committed. If you are teaching comedia to your students, you know, this is the show to see to really give a physical, just a visual physical idea of what it really means to do comedia, because I think we get, because we don’t have a lot of – we just have books and we have “here’s what a lazzi is,” and what does that really mean? And, what does that mean to take food to an excess? And what does that mean to follow a committed character without being cheesy, without being wink-wink to the audience? I think this is an excellent representation of what that means.
Craig: Yeah, I saw so many things that I’d only read about in books.
Lindsay: Yeah!
Craig: Just even, it was an old restoration theatre. Just to see, you see drawings of how the scenery works in a restoration theatre – the little piece of the come on from the sides but it was just completely different, actually seeing the, “Oh! Okay! So, it looks like that!” I get this whole, it works in depth instead of…
Lindsay: Height.
Craig: …slats, yeah.
Lindsay: And you’ve seen it twice and you still prefer James?
Julia: I prefer James Corden. However, James Corden is an actor that I know anyways.
Lindsay: Right.
Julia: I like him outside of seeing this. I went seeing this knowing James Corden and his work anyways – as a comedian, as a comic actor – so, for me, going to see it the first time, it was to see him. And, he delivered. He was fantastic. This time, it was to go see the play because I knew the play itself was strong enough no matter what. It was interesting comparing the two performances. I think the new guy, what’s his…? I don’t know his name anyways! He was…
Lindsay: You have to pay for a programme in England! We won’t pay for…
Julia: Shh! He was as good in terms of comparing it to. I think that James Corden just had the wide-eyed innocence a little bit more. Like, there was just a bit more of that, he’s completely overwhelmed by the situation he’s in.
Craig: He’s put himself in, really.
Julia: Yeah, that’s true!
Craig: And, again, breezy, breezy from the beginning to the end. It started off, about 15 minutes before the show starts, a band is on-stage, playing songs, getting everyone in the mood, and then, boom! It just slides from that into the start of the play.
Lindsay: No blackouts.
Craig: Yeah. At the end of each scene, the drape would come down…
Julia: The band comes up.
Craig: The band would start playing before the curtain was down. Maybe on stage, different actors in the play would come on and do little pieces in the…
Julia: With the band.
Craig: With the band, in-between scenes.
Lindsay: Knowing how long this play has gone on, I was just so impressed by how joyful it was.
Craig: Yeah.
Lindsay: And, even at the end, when they came out and they sang – because they sang a final song – I wouldn’t have known that they had…
Julia: A two-year long run.
Lindsay: No, and I just find that wonderful.
Craig: It looked like so much fun. You just wanted to go and do that.
Lindsay: Yeah, it looked enjoyable, it looked like they were having fun, and it looked like they were thrilled to bits to present this show. I don’t care if they don’t feel that way but they put it on.
Craig: I felt that way.
Lindsay: I felt that way and I think that’s the most important thing.
All right!
Craig: Perfect.
Lindsay: Thank you so much for…
Craig: Thanks, Julia.
Lindsay: Yes, thank you, Julia!
Julia: No problem! It was good to go out to theatre.
Lindsay: Awesome. Bye!
Music credit: “Ave” by Alex (feat. Morusque) is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
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