More Phantom review...
Okay... where was I? Ah yes, Music of the Night. He sang it pretty decently, though without quite enough passion. What got me though was two things - half the time, because of where I was sitting, I couldn't even SEE him because Christine was in my way. The other was he did this stupid little move in the middle of the song where he sort of flung himself against the portcullis, with his back to it and his arms out. I think he was maybe trying to be 'sexy'. Riiight. (By the way, he's really a good looking guy based on his cast photo in the program... but his Jim Carrey-ing ruins it.) At the end, when the mannequin reaches out to Christine... he just let her fall. Just thud, on the floor. Didn't catch her, didn't slow her fall, didn't move to help her. I mean, I didn't expect the guy to carry her, he's a skinny little guy, but geez, it doesn't help his Phantom's image any that he just kinda lets her collapse onto the ground!
Oh, quick aside, I don't think I mentioned how cool the effect was at the end of Think Of Me when it looks like you're looking out into the audience from backstage. All it took was some curtains, footlights and a conductor, but damn, it looked cool!
Anyway.
I don't like the "persian" outfit they have the Phantom wearing during the whole Stranger Than sequence... I mean, the only other tie to the book's references to him spending time in the east is the monkey music box, really... so it just seems so very out of place to have him in that coat and that stupid little hat. (I hate that hat.) I didn't like the way he played it, either. He seemed sort of angry when she pulled the mask off (I do think it's better how he dodges her a couple times before she gets ahold of it, as opposed to the very cute and sad but less... realistic... hypnotized by her touch thing in the movie.) but then when he was crawling across the floor to her, he was doing this grinning and crazy giggling thing. Ick. I was a little disappointed that he actually DIDN'T deliver her back to the theater in front of Buquet and the girls. That would have been a cool touch.
Notes was good. It was hard to focus on any one part, since the balance with them all up on stage was different from a studio recording. Andre and Firmin had some trouble keeping in tune with each other during pretty much the whole performance, but they were funny. More lyrics were changed in this scene, but I don't remember the precise changes. I was too busy giggling over two things they did NOT say, but I thought of in my mind.... "But we have no pants" and "who would have the balls to send this".
Well, maybe it doesn't take much to amuse me sometimes.
I have to say it was kind of stupid the way they seemed to aimlessly mill around the stage looking dazed and confused as the Phantom did his voiceover of his letter about Christine. What was UP with that?
More of Il Muto was performed that the audience can SEE... I think they do as much of it in the movie, but going on in the background as we see the Phantom and the managers. Carlotta and Piangi were both amusing. He hammed it up by holding a note for a ridiculously long time. Impressive. When Andre got up there to say they would perform the ballet from act three, he hemmed and hawed over 'trying to find what act it was' (obviously the actor knew, but the character was fumbling) and I had to restrain myself from yelling "ACT THREE! IT"S ACT THREE!" although I'm sure that would have amused the visiting school group. The dummy Buquet they dropped on the lasso wasn't gonna fool ANYONE. It was about 200 pounds lighter than the man playing him, and I'm not even sure there was a face on the thing. I mean... wimpy effect. Really really wimpy.
The set for All I Ask of You was cool. I didn't expect the angel to be so close to the stage. It was, I estimate, about 15 feet up (slightly more than 2 Raouls high, by my judgement). The Phantom must have stayed up on the little catwalk above the stage the whole time... it could easily have been a double behind the backdrop of the opera casting the 'menacing' shadows. (Overplayed! Overacting! Gaa.) I think Hugh was trying to convey sadness during the reprise, but ending up with 'crazy' again... way to make him the sympathetic character Webber wrote him... and then the chandelier dropped. That was awesome. It started down kinda slow, but then it sped up and whooshed down to right above the heads of the people in the first couple center rows (I wonder how many people have pissed themselves at that show), then was jerked in to the stage to land right in front of the actors. Awesome.
Masquerade was cool. I was NOT at all fooled by the dummies on either side of the stage. The choreography was very different from the movie, but it was excellent in its own way. I liked the monkey costume, the man/woman costume, and Christine's dress had some pretty colors in it. It was cool, too, how Raoul and Christine get involved in the more balletic part of the dancing instead of doing a quick twirl round the floor like the movie. Oh, and Andre's costume, basically a skeleton unitard... let's just say it didn't quite... contain him. Man coulda used a (better?) dance belt.
Red Death. I was never afraid of that costume. It's supposed to be menacing. But it wasn't. Until I knew the lower jaw moved. It moves CREEPY. It's just really, really really creepy. I don't know what makes it so creepy, but it is.
Madame Giry's story of the Phantom's history is a little different... Essentially that there was a fair, a man in a cage, he escaped, everyone forgot him, but she didn't. Less there to connect him to her, and it also places him a bit older... which didn't at all track with the ages of the actors... but oh well.
The second Notes was better than the first in that, in the voice over, each person was approached by Giry ('reading the letter') in turn, as they were mentioned in the letter. No aimless milling. That was good.
Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again. Not one of my favorite songs, and the staging was pretty boring, just Christine walking around and singing. Wandering Child was okay, but I still wish they peformed it as a trio still instead of a duet. I didn't think the staff would shoot actual sparks. I thought it would flash and something on the stage would explode. What it was, was wimpy little sparks shooting out of the staff itself. They petered out WELL before they hit the stage, of course. I can see how a moment of carelessness on the part of Christine or Raoul could end in them on fire... but it wasn't really all that threatening. Yes, come here, come here monsieur... because I can't hit you any farther than 3 feet away!
Don Juan I thought, was better than the movie. The costumes and set were less abstract, more period. And instead of being PAINFULLY obvious that it's not Piangi coming out to greet her, the Phantom is entirely cloaked from head to foot in a sort of.. ringwraith like robe, completely covering his head as well. Then it's easier to see how anyone could be fooled... although it's still a little iffy that anyone ever would be. And man, were the two of them gropy! He ran his hands all over her, including down over her crotch (through about 3 million layers of fabric... but still... and she did the same (through about 3 million layers of fabric... but still...), and here I was thinking the MOVIE woulda been more daring! I didn't like how she sort of freaked out after that, realizing it wasn't Piangi (oh, like she woulda groped Piangi. Come on.) and barely croaked out the end of the song. And I like Point of No Return, so don't be fumbling that one!
The final lair scene was basically, well... he was Jim Carrey. Damn him. Crazy, laughing, grinning, posing, hardly sympathetic in any way whatsoever. There was good tension in the moment when he goes up to Raoul with the candle to burn through the lasso and free him, as he stood there for a moment, next to him, Christine looking horrified, and then he finally released Raoul. He was doing a better job of being 'sad' after she left... but he wasn't good enough to make me cry. I only got choked up at all when I thought of MY Phantom, how *I* see him, not how Hugh portrayed him. But there were some very wet sniffles in the audience. Perhaps they had never seen the movie or heard Crawford. Heh.
The chair trick was pretty cool, I thought the cape would crumple, but it still looked like he was there. Oh, and the chair is free standing, so the trick is way cooler, it's not pushed up against a wall like I expected it to be, for a more easily camouflaged exit.
I had forgotten how different the ending feels between that and the movie. It's very... suicidal. Like he really MEANS it's all over. The music's over and so is he. That's what it feels like to me, as opposed to seeing the ring on Christine's grave and knowing he carried on somehow.
I was roundly disappointed in Hugh. I know I've probably made some enemies saying that, but really, he was NOT the Phantom. (Who I've secretly been slipping up and calling Erik, despite the fact that I've been so vehemently against it in the past, given that he's NOT NAMED IN THE MUSICAL.) Still, it was worth seeing. And if Raoul moves up... I'm SO going again.
All I gotta say is the guy we get at our theater in february had better be better than Hugh. If Hugh moves on to the tour, I'm gonna be PISSED.