(no subject)
me: I saw Chaplin last night.
9:47 AM skizdi: wha'ts thaT?
9:48 AM me: It's a new musical!
skizdi: ugh there was something i was going to tell you and i can't remember what!
me: new Broooooooooooadway musical.
skizdi: how was it??
me: Old Steve got free press tickets
skizdi: do i know about this show?
old steve
nice
me: because he's good friends with the director.
lol
well how else was I supposed to get you to know which Steve I meant??
skizdi: NATCH.
lol
me: GOOD old Steve.
9:49 AM skizdi: hahahahaha
YES.
that is the only way i will accept it from now on.
me: lol
skizdi: how was the show? who wrote it? is it about charlie chaplin?
me: It is indeed about Charlie Chaplin.
Music, Book and Lyrics by Christopher Curtis
at least that's how it was on the tryout.
9:50 AM I think they brought Thomas Meehan in to patch things up for Broadway.
Still problematic.
It was alright.
But problems!
Problems worth talking about!
I don't think it'll run.
Although the audience seemed to like it.
Of course, who knows how many free tickets they had.
9:51 AM The guy playing Chaplin was pretty winning.
skizdi: what kinda problems?
me: Construction problems!
My favorite kind!
OH
The design scheme
was AWESOME.
it was a musical
Which I know they've done before
but I'VE never seen any of those shows personally
9:52 AM so I enjoyed it.
Like
even blackish lipstick
white faces
all the set was in black and white and grey
really striking.
Even the lighting.
Steve was friends with the lighting designer,
and he came over to chat with us at intermission
and he explained that ACTUALLY
all of his lights were blue
9:53 AM and the show was a BITCH TO LIGHT DESIGN
because of being stuck in that monochromatic scheme
where normally he'd bring in like
Oranges
skizdi: ooooh
me: and reds
skizdi: yeah
me: and MAGENTAS
he said magenta
he was STUCK
9:54 AM with basically blues
and occasionally a yellow
Oh
also
your favorite girl from Anything Goes
...other than Sutton Foster...
was in it.
9:55 AM skizdi: lol the pretty soprano?
me: Yup!
Erin Mackey.
As Oona O'Neill
daughter of Eugene,
Chaplin's 4th and final wife.
She did a great job.
9:56 AM Too bad she only got to be in the last quarter of the musical
to act as Chaplin's unflagging support.
skizdi: womp
9:57 AM me: haha I feel like this is a problem with bio-musicals sometimes!
Like when people don't meet really important characters
until they're like FORTY-FIVE
9:59 AM Also
the musical suffered from preposterous things
like
Oona is trying to find the audition session at Chaplin studio
so she comes stumbling into his private office?
He doesn't have a secretary?
Lost people can just come wandering in?
10:01 AM skizdi:
that sounds
silly.
skizdi: The whole thing kinda suffered from preposterous occurrances.
And really
content-less songs.
10:02 AM They'd put dialogue into songs though
to make it seems like the songs WERE moving the action forward
when it was just the scenelets in the song that were doing it
which is
haha
it's like RULE #1 I've learned
if you don't have songs that move things forward
10:03 AM JUST STICK A SCENE IN THERE
which is fine,
but I kept thinking
why don't they do this IN the song?
It would make it so much more interesting!
I feel like there were 3 big songs about how great Hollywood was.
That is like 3 too many.
10:06 AM skizdi: lol
well maybe 2 too many.
10:07 AM me: But maybe the most disappointing thing
was how
after the opening
with Chaplin balancing on a tightrope
above a crowd of skeptical onlookers
wondering when it's gonna "all fall down"
all of a sudden
10:08 AM there are voices getting ready for a movie shoot
lights!
camera!
a guy slates the scene
take one
cue the snow!
and it's young Chaplin in the London snow with his mother
and I lean forward in my seat thinking
Oh SWEET
10:09 AM a big new concept musical!
Wrong.
They do this
one more time.
When Charlie goes to Hollywood to do Mack Sennett movies.
And that's IT.
That's ALL they did with that.
WHAT THE HELL.
Look
if you decide not to do that, FINE
10:10 AM but you CAN'T just leave in like two random times where it happens!
haha like I don't GET it!
skizdi: wahh
me: How could they just leave those in like that??
10:12 AM There were some really great moments though
like in the act two opening
10:13 AM where they caught us up on Chaplin's marital scandals
with Chaplin as a boxer in a ring
with these showgirls going up against him
Hedda Hopper acting as announcer
The girls would come up, and knock him out
and then get tossed a big sack of money.
It was really fun.
10:14 AM And later, Hedda Hopper sang her big number about how she was gonna get Chaplin,
and a big drop came down with sparkly letters saying
HEDDA HOPPER'S HOLLYWOOD
10:15 AM and Chaplin came out
and was basically her puppet as she fucked with him.
It was pretty cool.
10:16 AM Hedda Hopper did a really great job,
and was an exciting edition to the second act,
giving Charlie a real antagonist,
even though her character motivation for unmitigated eveil was as slight as "he won't appear on my show!"
10:18 AM I mean, all historical records indicate that Hedda Hopper was that fucking evil in real life,
so, I'll give them that.
skizdi: hahah
interesting!
10:19 AM me: And this one sequence in the first act,
where Chaplin decides to make a movie with a kid,
basically to work through his own issues of abandonment
as he describes it to us
we see the movies he's describing projected behind him,
10:20 AM then we're on the backlot,
where Chaplin is trying to give direction to this disinterested kid,
telling him he needs him to cry.
Chaplin gets the child's mother to leave,
10:21 AM and tells him that she's never coming back because he upset her so much
and of course the kid starts freaking out
and we flash back to an episode from young Chaplin's live
life
10:22 AM where he's separated from his mother as she basically goes into this charity hospital because she's losing her mind,
and young Chaplin is played by the little boy in the movie,
and then suddenly we're back in the present
Charlie gets the shot,
reunites the boy with his mother.
And you're like
oh!
Drama!
Theater!
10:23 AM then Chaplin's wife comes in,
we find out she isn't really pregnant and fooled Chaplin into marrying her,
Chaplin cuts her off. Tells her she's out.
And she announces that she's NOT leaving the marriage empty-handed.
And the audience goes "oooooooooh!"
10:24 AM Then Chaplin shoots the final scene of the movie
as the boy in the movie is reunited with his movie mother and the Little Tramp decides to marry her
and so Chaplin is narrating this great happy ending
where he meets his beautiful happy wife
10:25 AM and he like basically SNARLS this part out
It was awesome.
And I was like THIS
MORE OF THIS PLEASE.
MORE OF CHAPLIN ACTUALLY MAKING MOVIES
10:26 AM AND HOW HE WORKS THROUGH THE ISSUES IN HIS LIFE THROUGH HIS ART PLZ.
But no
then the first act
INEXPLICABLY
wraps up
with a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest
15 minute dance-sequence
that had LITERALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ACTION.
10:27 AM I turned to Steve about 10 minutes in
and was like "Steve....what the hell is going on????"
skizdi: hahaha
10:28 AM me: Okay, I think I'm done!
lol