The other day, I went to a Broadway show with my friend C.L. Now, for those of you who don’t know me, I was basically raised by movie musicals and the dream of Broadway. The stories, the music, the dancing… I was a small child entranced. What I am trying to say is that I have a strong connection to musical theatre. Musical Theatre basically helped me survive high school and will always be a love of mine.
Back to the present! We went to King Kong at the Broadway Theatre, directed by Drew McOnie with a book by Jack Thorne and score by Marius de Vries and Eddie Perfect. We wanted to go and see the puppet, which had been advertised as 24 feet tall and operated by more than 10 puppeteers, and the King did not disappoint! He took over the whole space in the theatre. We were sitting in the balcony and when the puppet stood up to full height, it was like we were eye to eye with him.
The story is the one we all know. A young woman is looking to become a star in New York City and goes out to sea with a director to film a picture that will shock the world. They and the crew from the ship find themselves on Skull Island and meet with a formidable beast, instantly thought to be a monster who has taken and presumably killed the young woman. King Kong and the young woman form a connection that is tested when she helps the others trap the large primate and bring him back to NY to be shown off to the masses willing to pay for a ticket. Of course, the King is out of his element and New York City is not ready for him.
The show was entertaining and being able to witness how this creative team imagined some of the iconic scenes from the ship traveling over the ocean to the massive puppet climbing the Empire State Building was a thrill indeed! The music wasn’t particularly memorable but it was good and told the story. One thought I had about the performance in general was a sense of being out of it’s own time. The original movie was set in the 1930s, the remake in the 70s was purported to be more “modern times,” and the Peter Jackson remake in 2005 takes us back to that iconic time right after the crash of Wall Street on Black Friday. This musical seemed to start in the 1930s but sort of forgets that from time to time while telling the story. For example, there is a marvelous scene where the gigantic puppet is slow motion running through the forest holding on to the young woman, and the music that played in conjuncture sounds like something one might hear in a synth club late at night whilst wearing a glow stick necklace. One of the ballads sung by the leading lady actually sounded like a pop song from today! Also, the choreography would have moments of amnesia about what kind of movement might happen in the 1930s. There were moments of contemporary dance, breakdancing, vaudeville, partner swing dancing, and even modern dance when the “trees” of the forest where moving around the crew upon their arrival to Skull Island. That I didn’t mind so much because I didn’t expect trees to start doing the Charleston.
There is one other aspect of the show that I want to touch upon that I was surprised about: the audience. I feel like Broadway has changed. When I was young and we went to see shows, it was ingrained into my behavioral synapses that we sat quietly for the show, reacted appropriately and applauded at the conclusion of a song or at the end of the show. Lately, the audiences seem more involved, but in both an obstructive and an inclusive way. It’s almost encouraged for our audiences to be a little more of the hooting and hollering sort. I think it’s important to take the cue from the show and the atmosphere. If you were going to see Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, one might expect a little more carrying on from the audience, but if you were going to see Light at the Piazza, you could see how being a little more of a subdued audience would help the story come across better. King Kong fell right in the middle of that equation. There were group numbers that were reminiscent of those classics like 42nd Street or Anything Goes that didn’t necessarily include the audience, but allowed for applause after the dancing and singing was done. However, at one point, the puppet was the only “performer” onstage and he walked towards the audience and almost played with them for a second, in essence breaking that “fourth wall” much like some sort of Brechtian performance, which took me aback slightly considering that even though the other characters would sing out towards the audience, it wasn’t as if they were singing directly at us. They maintained the integrity of the “fourth wall,” but at that moment, the King did not.
Also, standing ovations used to be earned. You didn’t have to stand at the end of the curtain call for every show, which I feel like has been a regular occurrence lately. This practice has almost become expected now and this always surprises me. As a performer, receiving a standing ovation is a thrilling experience, difficult to put into words, but nowadays, they seem to be common place. Is this a change for the better? Shouldn’t I be happy that Broadway is becoming a little less snooty and a little more accepting? I am not really sure.
Share your thoughts!
Mar Tells Mini Tales 