6 January 2024 I guess it's Saturday

[KathyB]

I spent the last hour finishing the NY Times crossword puzzle (hooray!) and ordering theatre tickets to Great Comet. The theatre was offering a $10 discount on tickets ordered in January, which almost offsets the $12 fee added to the ticket.    I'm seeing it on Sunday, March 24. I originally meant to order the ticket for Saturday, March 23, but wasn't thinking too clearly and ended up with March 24.

It has been Saturday here for 45 minutes.

[scenicdesign71]

Please give us a full report on Great Comet when you see it, Kathy!  While I wasn't a fan of the show itself when I saw it here, I'm curious to hear how it strikes you.

A quick Google search suggests the space will be a 200-seat blackbox configured as a four-sided arena -- which, like TGC's various original Off Broadway arrangements, sounds like it might be more convivial to the material than its spectacular (but, to my mind, insupportably overinflated) B'way incarnation.

The Arvada's website also mentions that "nearly all of the actors [will] also play musical instruments" onstage, which I don't recall being the case here at the Imperial, apart from Pierre spending a lot of time at the keyboard and maybe a handful of others hopping in and out of the shallow orchestra pit at various points.  I suspect there may have been considerably more such doubling in TGC's smaller Off/pre-B'way versions; as shows go, I can't offhand think of a more intuitively-obvious candidate for pure "actor-muso" staging than this one.

[KathyB]

Well, it was an experience.

I actually mostly liked it, but the best thing about the staging and the worst thing about the staging were exactly the same thing--the "immersive staging." There were several rows of cabaret-style table seats that were in front of the regular seating, and the people sitting at these tables got pretty involved in the show--the actors would interact with them, cross in front of them, etc., which was a hoot, even for those of us who weren't sitting there. I was in the front row of the regular seating and had a difficult time seeing a lot of what was happening, because most of what was in my viewing angle were the cabaret tables in front of me. Add to that the plot being very hard to follow (the ushers recommended that we all read the plot synopsis in the program before the start of the show), and I'm not sure I caught a lot of what was going on.  And I'm semi-familiar with the score.

I'm wondering if everybody had equally as bad a seat as I had, or had as difficult a time seeing the action. Did they purposely stage it so nobody had a good view at least some of the time?

It's too bad about the not-being-able-to-see part, because I think the immersive theatre concept is a great choice for the material. Everybody in the audience got involved in "Balaga," which was the definite highlight. The ensemble was very good; many of them played instruments, but only two of them (violin and cello) "really" played them, as in, were part of the underscoring. Pierre played the piano (I think; this was one of the things I couldn't see well) and the accordion, and Natasha played a trombone for all of two minutes.

Overall, I'm glad I went, although I really wish I had gone yesterday instead of today, because it was rain-turning-into-snow when I left, which didn't let up the entire 20 mile drive home. 

[scenicdesign71]

Immersive design and staging can be tricky, no doubt about it.  I wish I had some sage thoughts on the subject, but my immediate reaction to your post is simply that TGC itself, as far as I can tell, has probably always been stronger on festive atmosphere than on storytelling clarity (no small shortcoming, given that, as you mention, there's a lot of story to cover even in this relatively slim slice of the novel).  I'm tempted to wonder whether this production team was simply playing to the show's strengths, such as they are. ("Did they purposely stage it so nobody had a good view at least some of the time?" sounds almost like a rhetorical question, but it does have a certain logic in an immersive context such as this one, where the raucous party vibe seems at least as central to the show's DNA as Tolstoy, if not more so).

Speaking of theatergoing, I finally saw Appropriate on Broadway tonight and was as across-the-board impressed as I'd hoped to be; I had been in a bit of an ongoing nitpicky-critical phase for awhile, but recent outings (also including Days of Wine and Roses two weeks ago; and PBS's "Great Performances" airing of Dead Man Walking from the Met last week, though I guess not technically an "outing") have been very gratifying, with excellent -- indeed, sometimes breathtaking -- work tempered only by nits too minor to be worth picking.

Most importantly, all three were blessed with brilliant performances: a flawless ensemble in Appropriate and heartbreaking work from the central pairs in DoWaR and DMW.   If Guettel's and Craig Lucas's libretto for DoWaR impressed me somewhat less than Terrence McNally's for DMW (which should be studied by all would-be opera librettists, imho), or than Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins's laser-sharp writing in Appropriate, it's almost an unfair comparison.  And all three are being given ideal productions:  Ivo van Hove's established style has never felt more at home than in DMW, while Lila Neugebauer and the dots design collective make Jacobs-Jenkins's festering Arkansas plantation house a central character in Appropriate, and Michael Greif and Lizzie Clachan find a pleasingly intimate scale for DoWaR without skimping on storytelling.

Tomorrow night I'll be seeing Dead Outlaw.  And next on my wish list are An Enemy of the People and Ibsen's Ghost, but they might have to wait until I can cobble together more work.  If things really pick up, who knows: Uncle Vanya,  Illinoise,  Tommy... even by Tony-season standards, this seems like a very busy theatrical year.