Unmasked - The Other Palace / Broadway

{Spoiler - click to view}Basically the structure and format of this is very, very similar to Side by Side by Sondheim, especially the recent production of that that the BBC put on at the Royal Festival Hall earlier this year. Which isn’t a bad idea. And the cast were top-rate (though some unfortunate cracks by a couple).

I like ALW’s ‘new’ self-deprecating persona – he’s been projecting that well since the How do you solve a problem like Maria? Days, and it’s a lot more relatable than the ALW of, say, 30 years ago. The videos are nice, but I think they need to go way more into his creative process like Sondheim’s videos do in Side by Side. Otherwise they tend to be a collection of soundbites that we have heard time and time and time again (e.g. ‘all the elements must coalesce’, ‘this song used to be this song about Kansas’ etc). These are stories that have been tried and tested for years, and I reckon audience members going into this will have some familiarity with them – particularly if the show is being branded on the basis of his memoir that has them all anyway.

I get the logic of saving up all the Phantom stuff until the end, but it doesn’t work and I don’t think it will work for the intended American audience who knows him primarily for that. I felt they were trying to squeeze too much Phantom stuff in at the end, and maybe it should be peppered throughout the show.

The show as it stands is too long; it needs to be trimmed by about 45 minutes. So here’s what I would cut out (bearing in mind that this is meant for American audiences):

• Tell Me on a Sunday stuff, save for the title song and Unexpected Song
• Maybe one of the Phantom songs, perhaps Wishing
• ALL the Richard Curtis stuff – I’m sorry, but it wasn’t really funny and added nothing. The beginning song was dire. Generally every Curtis song was the same laboured joke that went on and on and on. Especially that one at the end about the song we didn’t really want to hear.
• Everything from Starlight – Germans love it, Americans don’t.
• Endless musings about his undying love for Love Never Dies – I know why this is in there, ALW has obviously got a vested interest in trying to foist this upon America. It’s obvious he wants this to be big over there, but it’s not ever going to be (and it won’t ever be here either). Maybe keep the title song in the ‘love songs’ section but leave it at that. ALW said in the video that he acknowledged finally that people didn’t think a sequel to Phantom was a good idea, but then attributed that only to critics. I don’t know if he’s being disingenuous or simply ignorant. Many audience members think that too. It also came across as bizarre at the end when they did the video retrospective, and then skipped past EVERYTHING after Sunset until LND (so that skips at least 3 shows!). This is particularly odd since even the Woman in White has hit Broadway; LND never has. Neither is a good show. I wonder if ALW acknowledged the flaws of the latter in the sense that he talked about how crucial a good story is straight after the LND title song was performed, and explained that a score without a good story isn’t enough. Is this finally a tacit admission that the plot for Love Never Dies is ridiculous?

What to keep and/or do more of:

• Stuff like ALW’s thoughts on the Rachmaninov Paganini variation and where he wants to position himself in musical history
• Stories about past funny events, e.g. the grand piano tale
• Getting to know the performers more – maybe they can share backstage stories, or meetings with ALW when working on his shows
• I’d put in ‘With One Look’, it’s one of his best tunes and Sunset is popular enough to have been on Broadway twice.
• It’s weird to have the full title song from Phantom, but then to shorten almost everything from Evita. Evita is big in the States. They deserve a full Buenos Aires and/or Rainbow High, not snippets of each.

What was entirely missing and was needed:

• Talks about his collaborations with lyricists and directors (and even producers, designers etc). There was precious little mention of people like Tim Rice, Hal Prince, and Cameron Mackintosh here – despite saying briefly at the end that musicals are collaborative.
• A good director. Sorry, but what exactly did Laurence Connor contribute here?

Overall it was enjoyable, but to make this an engaging, memorable and amazing experience rather than yet another concert medley, more is needed (but maybe less of Curtis…).