Annie (The SOB Review) – Providence Performing Arts Center, Providence, Rhode Island
* (out of ****)
Leapin' lizards, what a dog.
Regular readers will know that in my appreciation for live theatre, I cut my teeth on the original Broadway production of
Martin Charnin and
Charles Strouse’s
Annie when
I saw the London mounting way back in 1979.
I was charmed by virtually every aspect of the show, beginning with
Martin Charnin and
Charles Strouse's winning score and
Thomas Meehan's lighthearted, whimsical books (with auspicious beginnings for Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal) right through the nuanced, winning performances by
Stratford Johns and
Sheila Hancock, and ultimately to all the magical design elements, particularly
David Mitchell's intricate set.
Flash forward to the current touring production of
Annie, and it’s a pale imitation of that original show. Bet your bottom dollar, because it looks that cheap.
Sure, the story and score still hold up -- in fact, given the current state of the economy, they resonate brilliantly -- but strip away practically every last nuance from the lackluster performances and the glorious design elements that wowed me thirty years ago, and it all comes down to what this
Annie amounts to.
To put it simply, it’s a scrim. No, not a scream, but one scrim after another after another, nearly devoid of most actual scenic design. It looks as cheap as it is bad. There's absolutely no magic. No wonder this revival falls so flat.
I’m truly grateful to
Gratuitous Violins for taking me as her guest, but at the risk of sounding like an ingrate, I’d like to scratch what
I had to say about
Guys And Dolls. This warmed-over
Annie marks the worst, most disappointing musical revival I’ve seen over the past year.
It’s a hard knock, but someday, if not tomorrow, a dazzling revival worthy of the exceptional core show will come knocking.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Annie, Charles Strouse, David Mitchell, Gratuitous Violins, Martin Charnin, Musical, Sheila Hancock, Stratford Johns, The SOB Review, Thomas Meehan, Touring Production
Annie: Thirty Years LaterThirty years ago this month, my view of the world and all its possibilities was forever and inalterably changed.
Nearly two years before I ever set foot in New York City and six before I would see my first
show in a
Broadway theatre, I was truly fortunate to be among thirty
Homestead High School juniors and seniors from
Mequon-
Thiensville (Wisconsin) to travel with history teacher
Brook Brown and his wife Liz for an extraordinary action packed ten-day journey, first to London and then to Paris.
Prior to this experience, my family had traveled only infrequently. While we took a month-long drive to California back in the summer of 1976, most of our other road trips were limited to visiting relatives in northern Wisconsin or in Minnesota.
So when I boarded my TWA flight from Chicago to London, my excitement was surely palpable. Everything from being on a wide-bodied plane to traveling without my parents made everything fresh and new. I was so thrilled that I couldn't even sleep on that long plane ride across the Atlantic. Once there, I soaked up London like a sponge.
Part of the experience of traveling to London, I was to learn, would include two evenings of live theatre. Prior to this trip, I could probably count the number of times I had seen stage performances on both hands, and with one exception, they were all high school productions (
Bye Bye Birdie,
Don't Drink The Water,
Fiddler On The Roof,
Gypsy,
Harvey,
Oklahoma!,
Romeo And Juliet,
South Pacific and
You Can't Take It With You). Mind you, I really enjoyed seeing each show, especially those under the expert direction of Homestead's musical director Sonia Simonsen, but they only hinted at the overall experience that professional theatre would afford.
In London, for our first night of theatre, we were provided an option of seeing one of two West End mountings of two Broadway hits:
Annie or
A Chorus Line. Since I was already familiar with the former's cast album --
Martin Charnin and
Charles Strouse's score was a favorite of our family's during our long six hour drives to Minnesota -- I opted to see
Annie.
Little did I know upon entering London's
Victoria Palace Theatre (current home to
Billy Elliot - The Musical) how swept away I could become by just one show. From my front row center mezzanine seat, I witnessed nothing short of pure magic.
I was absolutely riveted by the legendary
Stratford Johns as Daddy Warbucks and the glorious
Sheila Hancock as Miss Hannigan -- she simply blew me away with a sublime performance I can still vividly recall even today.
I marveled at Charnin's ingenious direction,
Peter Gennaro's breathtaking choreography and
Theoni V. Aldredge's dazzling costume design.
But it was
David Mitchell's sliding set designs that completely floored me as they transported
Annie's array of characters across the stage without them even having to take a step.
To say it transported me as well would be a major understatement. I was wowed. Big time.
As noted above, we also had a second night at the theatre.
Our entire group went to see a production of
Agatha Christie's Murder At The Vicarage at the West End's
Fortune Theatre (current home to long-running hit
The Woman In Black). With a run of 1758 performances, this show was no slouch, either. But this production was much more old school English theatre than the captivating American import I had seen the night before.
Going to London, in and of itself, had already been a life-changing cultural experience in which I truly began to see the world in a different way, and the subsequent visit to Paris only enhanced this wonderful new perspective on life itself.
But the exhilaration I felt in seeing
Annie was a life-changer of a different order. With a strange new tingling sensation down my spine, I was replete with goosebumps from head to toe. This live performance would forever change my expectations of entertainment. I now saw just how brilliant stagecraft could be. Entertainment became art. And I was forever hooked on live theatre.
Coming full circle, I'm about to revisit
Annie for my third time.
This coming weekend, I'm traveling to Providence to visit my beloved friend Esther (
Gratuitous Violins). One of the things I love about Esther is how genuinely interested she is in sharing experiences. She knew that my visit would coincide nearly thirty years to the day since I first enjoyed
Annie and all it had to offer.
In addition to celebrating her birthday, I have a feeling we'll also be toasting my life-changing experience as we look forward to yet another thirty years of seeing theatrical magic unfold before our eyes. So here's to two vitally important females in my life -
Annie and Esther.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Annie, Anniversary, Broadway, London, Murder At The Vicarage, Musical, Sheila Hancock, Special Messages, Stratford Johns
