Opening Night - Gielgud

I've requested Saturday 11th matinee. Booked Priscilla party in the evening so the reverse of last Saturday!

For me, the book is the worst part of the show. Its utterly static, bonkers, and then tries to explain itself desperately by being embarrassingly on the nose.

That's down to Van Hove sticking too closely to Cassavetes' art film, which was also a flop in its day, and could never have been made into a commercial musical, with exciting action, by anybody.

I agree Rufus Wainwright's music doesn't advance the plot, but that would have been impossible anyway because the plot doesn't advance.

For me, as music, it's wonderful! I love it.

Of course, this was never a commercial prospect, post-Brexit, during Brexit, pre-Brexit, since the dawn of time lol.

Of course, he is understandably upset because his baby has been judged as ugly, and nobody can deal with that without getting upset. Sondheim was always upset by the smallest critical comment, for example.

Anyway, the cast do amazing justice to Wainwright's songs, and I've loved this eccentric show as something "completely different," to quote Monty Python.

And Sheridan Smith has been amazing, brilliant in the show, gone above and beyond to promote it, and indeed, without her efforts, the numbers would have been far far worse.

Steve. Naughty step. NOW.

The thing is, there's a difference between being avant garde or experimental and just being not very good.

Merch desk.

Couple in front devastated at £2 magnets having sold out, as they collect them for their fridge.

T-shirts reduced to £15. Who could resist!

T-shirt acquired!

Interval edit: Nicola Hughes is back and she's killing it. SO goode!

Hopefully on an off day this week where I'm in London, rush tix will be available. I'd like to truly judge this all for myself.

Slightly broader in scope, but all this mess these past few days... does this spell the end for van Hove's musical work in the WE? (and possibly the USA, considering how his West Side Story went)

I know he was slated to do a stage version of the Shining but I'm pretty sure that's dead in the water, and if it wasn't, it probably is now.

I'd love to use it, but tomorrow is the one day this week I can't do ! Thanks for the offer though.

A magnet is £2!? That must be the cheapest piece of merchandise in the West End!

2 tickets for this Saturday night (grand circle row A) for £10 each, see noticeboard.

I’m convinced this show is only 1 or 2 workshop weeks away from brilliance. They clearly fixed a huge amount in previews already. There are so few things wrong with it - but those two things have it holed below the waterline. What a frustrating shame when there’s a largely superb score, excellent performances, it looks great and the tech is smart and so well deployed. It could have struck a deep chord of empathy at this particular time, and become loved.

If, like Myrtle, you saw a young person (who reminds you of yourself) killed at a moment you’re under severe work pressure, why wouldn’t that trigger feelings about dead friends, parents gone or ebbing away, and global decay and conflict? So many people would relate to and love this show for going there and exploring why we carry on and how. But it resolutely avoids broadening its vision of Myrtle’s breakdown, reducing it down to her obsessing about her age (with theatre men and a female writer goading her about it. why? She’s their global star!). Perhaps Van Hove is honouring Cassavetes’ original, but there’s so little to fix to take it to those other places - just lines of dialogue to revisit. It would also fix the lack of genuine drama (a fuzzy electric guitar under ‘the demonic bit’ doesn’t count). The ghost of Myrtle’s fan doesn’t really do anything much to mess with Myrtle - if she ‘kindly’ brought back Myrtle’s parents or a dead friend, that might finally be something that causes Myrtle to end this (a bigger rewrite).

The other big problem is that I never believed for a moment this was a real play they were performing. I sat next to someone who’d recently seen ‘Six Characters In Search Of An Author’ - the characters in that are rehearsing an actual Pirandello play ‘The Rules Of The Game’. Research 101 is for any cast to read and act ‘The Rules Of The Game’ together. Did ‘Opening Night’ at least have a synopsis for the play Myrtle is supposed to be starring in? Probably - these are a top notch production team and cast; but it didn’t feel like it. And casting as they did (excellent Nicola Hughes) what would Sarah’s writing of a White woman mean in the real world specifically now? Even if Sarah didn’t want it to mean anything heavily political the reception on a highly politicised USA writing scene (particularly around race) wouldn’t let it be light. That could have been so interesting for the two women to grapple with.

I watched Nicola Hughes' character at the very end, during the scene from ‘the play’, which just felt like improv - and her expression was blank. Not a criticism - how could she show a flicker of either horror or approval when that would re-complicate what’s just been ridiculously easily resolved? The show needs to end, so her character has to just go into neutral. Perhaps more metatheatricality could break the spell instead - in the way Madame Irma at the end of Genet’s ‘The Balcony’ switches on the house lights and tells us to go home and ponder what’s real in our lives and what’s performance. That play ends, but doesn’t resolve - that’s left to us.

I loved the range of Rufus Wainwright’s score - I’ll have to peruse Steve ’s analysis to revisit it all. I can’t quite fathom it, but the sensation (more than the exact sound) reminded me of ‘Evita’ - perhaps it’s just the austere, next to the gorgeously lyrical, the spiky rhythmed, and rock. A joy to hear a score that doesn’t ingratiate itself with the audience as much as we’re becoming used to - it’s not ‘cute’. There are anomalies: 3 or 4 of the loveliest songs have a 1960s/70s feel (more like something from ‘Pippin’); one I could accept as being a character in a mellow moment, trying to apply some ‘Kumabaya’ to a pressured company; but more than one and I wondered if it would be better set in the 60s/70s where the sexual politics portrayed might work. But - beautiful songs they are.

Sheridan Smith makes it a privilege to watch. Yes, a few of her trademarks slip in (and the tattoos would be better covered up for this character I think), but in all other ways she really transformed and even aged up for a hard boiled (so always brittle and ready to crack) American actress. Myrtle’s final big Act II number showed Sheridan Smith as a fine singing actress. Not needed, but some tones even reminiscent of Dusty Springfield. If it had run I’d have seen this again and again.

I never got to see if the internet clips of the curtain call are indeed mocking the audience by being in character as feisty actors with an antipathy for their audience. That was almost completely absent last night in favour of extended choreography. The final production number is so off kilter (as others have said) it teases the audience with the ‘good time’ that too few have felt. Meta? - maybe. If this was ‘A Strange Loop’ that song might have featured earlier, in a taunting fever dream of Broadway pizzazz conjured by the impish ‘dead fan’. It’s a good song wasted.

Rufus Wainwright’s comment about Brexit narrowing tastes is way off-beam for why ‘Opening Night’ closed early. There’s so much that’s inventive with storytelling structure and style in London right now - ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, The Glass Menagerie’, ‘Bluebeard’; Van Hove’s ‘A Little Life’ was a challenging hit. The impish dead fan is a nice call back to the agent/trickster character in Van Hove’s own brilliant David Bowie musical ‘Lazarus’. Pre-brexit, but I never expected to see Sean O’Casey played in High Viz jackets, with a character dropping into an Elvis impression, but it was revelatory. London isn’t the problem. If only they’d done a ‘Martin Guerre’ and ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and closed it - for a fortnight - to answer some basic questions that might just have let what’s great about it shine for longer.

Hi distantcousin - I think it's just not grounded enough for it to dare getting specific on race. Too much else would then have to also get real to stay in sync. Chances are, if it had, it would have rebalanced it in a way that 'Opening Night - The Writer's Story' might have seemed a more fascinating and current show.

But jointly, a woman being told how to correctly do 'mature woman', and a woman told how to correctly do their own racial heritage (by a judgy community of writer peers & activists) might have been painfully hilarious - either bonding them, or pushing them apart in competiveness over their area of trauma.  But that probably wouldn't have been Cassavetes anymore - I must watch the film.