Once at Le Petit Theatre through June 21
Based on the Oscar-winning movie that was kinda based on real life, Once is a “Czech girl meets Irish boy, boy almost gets girl, boy goes back to old girlfriend” tale. Or “Guy” and “Girl” as they’re called here.
That Once rejects a “and they lived happily ever after” ending is refreshing and it’s not without its charms. But cliches and truisms prop up this thinnest of stories making it easy to like but hard to love.
The cast of Once (photo by Brittney Werner)
Well, that’s how I felt about Once after seeing it at the Saenger Theatre in 2015. The current production at Le Petit Theatre, while competently done, exposes the show’s flaws that makes it even difficult to like.
Enda Walsh may be an acclaimed writer, but here his book just chugs along, offering equal helpings of both twee and easy humor rather than any real drama. Guy is a songwriter and we’re repeatedly told how great his music is but the evidence, i.e. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová’s score, doesn’t really back it up. Not a single number is memorable including their Oscar winner Falling Slowly.
A romance blossoms and fades. A ragtag group of musicians who barely get along with each other miraculously comes together to produce a record that even impresses the jaded studio engineer. And all this over the course of just five days? At least, an excerpt from a Mendelssohn piano work that is performed during the show is lovely.
Unlike John Tiffany, who directed the original Once, Conner Wilson isn’t able to bring out the more beguiling elements of this story or shape it with a light touch. While Daniel Zimnmer’s lighting, accomplished as always, bathes the stage in warm colors, William Boles’ scenic design, which serves for a variety of settings, lacks the granular details that drew you in to Bob Crowley’s design at the Saenger.
Patrick Cragin was a marvelous Billy Bigelow last year in Carousel at Tulane’s Summer Lyric Theatre and he well-fulfills the demands of Guy here. Other than an abysmal Czech accent (she reminded me of Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle), Josie Oliva does the same for Girl. Their story just never terribly interested me. He’s kinda whiney & self-centered and she’s pushy. They simply don’t merit two and a half hours of stage time.
The rest of the cast, all highly adept actors, many of whom I’ve enjoyed elsewhere, did what was asked of them, including, impressively, playing a range of instruments to make up the show’s orchestra. It’s just that Wilson had some of the them, especially those portraying the Czech characters, friends of Girl, come off as cartoonish; they reminded me of SNL’s “wild and crazy guys.”
Before the show, Le Petit’s Artistic Director A.J. Allegra gave a witty and engaging curtain speech and informed the audience that, an hour earlier, the sound board had gone kaput, but in the best “show must go on” tradition, the technical staff had come up with a way to overcome that, and the performance went off without any recognizable glitches. I applaud the entire Le Petit krewe for their doggedness, technical wizardry, and professionalism. I just wish I had been able to enjoy Once as much as, or more so than, I had the first time.
[For tickets and more information, go to https://ci.ovationtix.com/36212/production/1235310]
Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Saenger Theatre
The first time I saw Monty Python’s Spamalot, on Broadway in 2005, and the second time I saw it, in 2013 at Rivertown, I felt the same way.
“A shotgun marriage of two shows,” I wrote, “one was a ‘new musical lovingly ripped off from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (their words). It was funny seeing the classic Python skits done live by a group of accomplished actors. It just wasn’t as funny as watching them done by the original Pythonians. Spamalot’s other half was a throbbing theatrical in-joke, wickedly sending up Broadway in particular.” I preferred the latter to the former by far.
So I expected my response would be the same when I saw it recently at the Saenger Theatre. Boy, was I wrong.
I suspect that, given that I haven’t seen much Monty Python in a while, the classic skits, from the Knights of Ni to killer rabbits to outrageous Frenchmen, seemed almost fresh to me. Or, rather, the originals had faded somewhat in my memory so there were no odious comparisons to make. Or maybe, given these crazy, challenging times, I (and many others) just want an excuse to laugh at pure, silly fun.
Not only that, but this production, directed by Josh Rhodes, more or less the same as the one that ran on Broadway from 2023 to 2024, features visually spectacular projections by Paul Tate dePoo III (what a great name!) that evoke Terry Gilliam’s original cartoons but deliver them with new and fabulous flair.
And I’m not sure who tweaked Eric Idle’s original book, but not only are there now references to that slimy toad George Santos, but someone tailored the script particularly to New Orleans with shout-outs not only to Bourbon Street and Louis Armstrong and Lil Wayne, but even Juan LaFonta. Somebody clearly did their research. Bravo!
Big dance numbers, worthy of a MGM extravaganza, still remain like the Las Vegas homage All for One, and the hysterical You Won’t Succeed on Broadway [if you don’t have any Jews]. If no one particularly stood out in the cast, it was merely because they were all topnotch from the King Arthur of Major Attaway (another great name!) to all those lithe chorus boyz.
The cast of Monty Python’s Spamalot (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
I would take issue only with the gay-themed number His Name Is Lancelot, not because it’s offensive, but because it’s cliched. In it, the fey Prince Herbert who’s been under the watchful eye of his macho father connects with Sir Lancelot, who’s just come out. From the jokes about Herbert not wanting to do sports and other “butch” things to the instant romance, I just felt I’ve seen this narrative before (tho the line, after they kiss, that “1,000 years from now, this will still be controversial” hit the bull’s-eye). Could we please come up with some new gay tropes or images or cliches or whatever?
Otherwise, from bringing out the dead to always looking on the bright side of life to razor-sharp jibes at Andrew Lloyd Webber & Phantom of the Opera, this Spamalot offers smile-, giggle- and guffaw-inducing merriment. The tour continues through November, making stops in such cities as San Antonio, Dallas, and Atlanta. If you want to have a knight of pleasure, don’t miss it.
[More information at https://spamalotthemusical.com/]
King Lear at Tulane’s Lupin Theater
420 years after its debut, King Lear remains Shakespeare’s greatest, most profound work, one of the 3 most probing existential dramas of all time along with Oedipus Rex and Waiting for Godot.
The tragedy of King Lear pales in comparison, however, with that which recently occurred when the immensely talented actor Michael C. Forest passed away unexpectedly during the run of the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival’s King Lear. A tribute to Forest appears below.
As for Jana Mestecky’s production of King Lear, it was good. “Good”, however, should not be the defining adjective of this canonical work. “Powerful”, “daring”, “overwhelming” should be the words that come to mind upon exiting the theater. Yes, “good’ is better than “bad”, but just barely.
To start with, Mestecky situated it in a vaguely medieval time which was further underscored but Jennifer Johnson’s traditional costumes, appropriately luxurious for the nobles portrayed here. Yet this, and James Lanius III’s simple raised platform of a set, had the effect of distancing us from this Lear. With questions of class and privilege constantly making headlines these days, Mestecky might have done something to make her production more relevant.
While all the members of the cast spoke their lines intelligently, subtext was missing (with one exception; more on that later). One wishes the Bard’s words, some of the most gorgeous ever written, had been shaped and finessed with more attention to detail. That said, I wouldn’t have minded some trimming of the passages where such characters as Edgar, the Fool and Lear are “mad” or pretending to be crazy; we get the point and too many references of Shakespeare need footnotes for a modern audience to fully appreciate them.
Too often Mestecky had actors speaking directly to the audience, but to what end? Were they confiding in us? Or merely talking out loud? It simply wasn’t clear. And during the monumental storm scene, no one seemed to get wet or even acknowledge that it was raining on them. (Perhaps it was because I had seen Spamalot a few days earlier, but Edgar, the Fool and Lear’s gibberishy ramblings during the storm kinda reminded me of a Monty Python sketch.)
John Neisler made for a respectable Lear, speaking the poetry well, though his highs could’ve been higher, his lows, lower. Nia Ragini (Goneril), Anja Avsharian (Regan) and Zarah Hokule’a Spalding (Cordelia) were all good, if standard issue, as Lear’s daughters; more than any other production of Lear that I’ve seen, they actually looked like sisters. Spalding doubled as the Fool, not an unusual casting choice, and nicely showed, in subtle manner, the correlation between her two characters.
John Neisler in King Lear
Philip Roderic Yiannopoulos offered elegant bastardliness as the evil Edmund without ever overdoing it, while Helen Jaksch fully embodied that officious prig Oswald, Goneril’s steward.
Only Jake Bartush, however, fully brought his role as the Duke of Cornwall, Regan’s wicked husband, to exhilarating life with a new (to me) and inventively kicky interpretation. While never going overboard, Bartush endowed Cornwall with a swaggering sexuality rarely seen in this part but which seemed utterly suitable for it; with Bartush hinting at Cornwall’s possible bisexuality, I kept wondering if there’d be a scene featuring a three-way with Cornwall, Regan and Edmund.
This is not the first time I’ve lamented about the traditionalism seen in too many N.O. Shakespeare Festival productions so I wonder if that is something they demand of their directors. The Scottish play is up next at Tulane. Will it be fair, foul or somewhere in between?
[For tickets and more information about Macbeth (June 26-July 12) go to https://neworleansshakespeare.org/]
In Memoriam
New Orleans lost one its most talented actors when Michael C. Forest passed away suddenly on May 29 at the too young age of 40.
I had admired Forest since I first saw him in 2019 in A Raisin in the Sun starring Carol Sutton. After stating that her superb portrayal of the matriarch Lena Younger should come as little surprise, I wrote:
What is astonishing, tho, is Michael C. Forest’s performance as Lena’s son in his stage debut. Exuding charisma, his Walter Lee can be hot-headed and a bully to his wife and sister, but when a putative friend’s tragic deception is revealed, Forest masterfully portrays how Walter Lee’s soul collapses. One can only imagine, watching him convey all of Walter Lee’s passions, that this is what it must have been like on March 11, 1959, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre when Sidney Poitier created the role.
Michael C. Forest and Carol Sutton in A Raisin in the Sun
Two years later, when the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival put on The Comedy of Errors, Forest played Antipholus of Ephesus, a successful businessman, with equally laudable results. As I observed “when Forest pops his eyes when he can’t comprehend what’s going on around him, it’s not cartoonish silliness, but a humongous explosion of natural frustration.”
He was similarly impressive in Crescent City Stage’s 2022 production of Derek Walcott’s Pantomime, and I had looked forward to seeing him in King Lear and many more future productions. He shall be missed. R.I.P.
