Elf - The Musical a review

On October 6th, Mikal and I went to the University District Food Bank Aloha Auction.  In case you forgot, I helped crowdfund to sponsor a table at the event.  While we were there (it was a total blast), we got some stuff (as you might expect, it was an auction and all. . .).  Some of it was pretty standard and I do every time anyway.  And some came as kind of a surprise.

A SURPRISE ????  How could that be? you wonder - I mean, at an auction you must raise your paddle to get something or write your paddle number on a sheet of paper.  Well, yes, you do.  And I did do that. . .and so did Mikal.  And then there was some wine or something.  And sometimes there is some confusion when you yourself sign your number but then have your spouse go check to see if you won and they think you meant a different one. .. so you think you lost the auction item and then bid on other things. . . and that means you end up with a whole STAYCATION package - which includes a night at the Sheraton, dinner at Gordon Biersch and tickets to Elf - The Musical at the 5th Avenue Theater.  When at first this seems like the end of the world because you spent more than you THOUGHT you did at the end of the night, this actually turns out to be a really cool fun thing.  

my house in elf form

Ok - so you're with me on why I was at Elf - The Musical on Saturday evening.  Plus - if we are friends on Facebook or you follow me on Twitter, you've seen my weird obsession with Elf and having my house full of paper snowflakes and garland (much to my husband's dismay at the amount of paper I have used). 

If you don't know the story (you've been living in a cave), Buddy the elf was an orphan as a child and one Christmas Eve, when Santa was delivering presents, he crawled into Santa's sack of toys.  Santa didn't notice until he got back to the North Pole and he and the elves decide to raise him as one of their own.  Buddy grows and grows and becomes so much bigger than everyone else with only basketball as his "special" elf talent.  He finds out he's human and decides to go into the city to find his real dad.  This does not go well.  His dad is a jerk and Buddy is banned from his father's building.  In his subsequent adventures, he meets a special pretty girl, falls in love, wins over his dad's family, ruins his dad's career, finds Santa's sleigh and helps save Christmas for all of the world - the bonus is that he also puts the spirit of Christmas back into his lady friend and his dad.  It all ends very happily.

The musical version of the movie follows pretty closely.  There are some scenes where the movie was directly quoted and directly sung from, "I'm singing, I'm in a store and I'm singing" and the response, "hey, there's no singing in the store" with the ensuing fight about the "big guy".  So, the cute factor was off the scale to WAY CUTE.  I mean, I love Elf.  I love this movie.  It makes me love Christmas.

But the production?  It was good.  I'm a stage manager, so there were some things that drove me crazy, but overall, it was very cute.  There were two major highlights - Buddy the Elf, played by Matt Owen and the opening song of Act II, Nobody Cares about Santa.

Matt Owen (after a good hour of searching google, I found very little information on this Seattle-born but LA dwelling actor) plays then incomprehensibly happy and optimistic Buddy the Elf. I actually thought several times during the show, "how on earth can someone be so happy?", "maybe he's super depressed during intermission or away from the show", "there's no way someone can be that happy all the time, it just is impossible."  He was great.  I read an article at some point about how he wanted to make Buddy his own Buddy and not copy what Will Ferrell did in the movie.  I think he succeeds here. I mean, Buddy in the movie is happy and full of Christmas cheer, but because it's Will Ferrell, you don't *exactly* believe it.  Matt Owen makes you believe - believe in Christmas, believe in Santa, and believe in syrup on spaghetti.

A very close second to Matt's Buddy is the opening number in Act II - Nobody Cares about Santa.  It's an excellent song full of tired men (and one woman - funny Cynthia Jones) who have played Santa all season long.  The season has come to an end and they are all having dinner at the only place open on Christmas, a Chinese restaurant. The song is catchy but mostly it's fun and kind of bluesy.  The best part is when the choreography (kudos to Denis Jones) gives us a chorus line of Santas doing pelvic thrusts to the beat.  It's pretty adorable (even though, I'm sure this doesn't sound adorable).  Anyway, it was the highlight of the night.

Overall, the musical is the movie with a couple of tweaks to make it stage ready and some songs that are actual songs and not Will Ferrell being Will Ferrell.  There are some catchy parts of songs, but nothing except the Nobody Cares about Santa song that really catches your attention and holds it.  So, without a hugely inventive script (it's the movie for the stage) and some catching tunes, it's really the production that makes the show.  

The show starts out with Santa.  He's a good Santa, except, I felt he was yelling his lines.  I know it's theater, but he was mic'd so he didn't need to yell.  But the show gets instantly better when you see the production choice next taken.  Elves.  Elves that are not played by little people.  Elves that are played by regular people, but with shoes on their knees.  It was hilarious.  It was brilliant.  It was adorable.  It really brought you into thinking that Buddy really was bigger than everyone else.

Some terrible staging and acting occurs right before Buddy is sent off on his trip on the ice glacier.  But the set design into the big city kind of makes up for that.  It's an art deco kind of design and the color scheme is inexplicably, but really cool and subtle purple.  I didn't notice at first, but then I realized that there is a color scheme that denotes the city - it's purple.  And I liked it.  Then you listen to some unremarkable songs and watch some things you don't remember.  

Then you're at the store where you meet Cynthia Jones' Store Manager, "She's singing. She's singing in the store." There's a pretty cute introduction to Jovie, but her part isn't that big in the show, so despite her pretty voice, she's not what you're watching.  But I was watching the clever set design with the ladders that end up as green tinseled wreathed Christmas Trees with Jovie wearing an adorable lighted star hat.

Another stand out that I'm just remembering is the kid who plays Michael, Buddy's younger brother.  I'm actually not sure if he was portrayed by Noah Barr or Grayson Smith.  I'll go out on a limb and say Grayson Smith.  Either way, the kid has some pipes and the singing was really good.  He was a bit nervous on stage and clearly needs some practice being out there in front of a load of people, but the boy has some chops.  His rendition of I'll Believe in You made me tear up.

The rest of the act was pretty unremarkable for me.  This is where Rodney gets to say what he said on Facebook about an hour before I left - 

Then, like I mentioned before, enter in the best tired Santas in the business.  With this opener, it really made me glad to be back (even though there were 3 people around me that left at intermission). Poor Jovie is forgotten, Buddy helps his dad sell a book (well almost) and Christmas is saved (this is where I teared up again).  My only real "stage manager problem" was the snow - man, the blower was loud and kind of seemed like it didn't happen in the right spot.  But - eh - it's live theater - that's what we stage managers live for.

The tickets were great (thanks @udistfoodbank)!  We were in row N in seats 111 and 112 which meant that my glasses actually worked for me. I love going to musicals and I'm glad I saw this one at least one time.  I would normally want to try to go again if I fell in love, but I'm a bit sad to say, I love the movie already, so the musical, though fun to see, was good just once for me.  If you're into Christmas and you have some kids - totally go - it's cute and will put you in a good mood and make you love Christmas even just a little bit (even if your kids are driving you mad and you hate this season).  It's not high brow and you won't go home thinking it's the best thing you ever saw, but the 5th Avenue does it as much justice as can be done.

Cocktails at the Centre of the Earth - Review

Most of the time I go to the theater, I spend a huge amount of time evaluating every little thing about the production.  Less about the performance and direction of the performance and more about the lighting or how the show comes off from a stage management perspective.  Why?  Well. . . I'm a stage manager, so I am always interested in how other stage managers make a show go well.  Our jobs are to make the performance go well and look good!

I have to say - when I watched Cocktails at the Centre of the Earth, written and directed by Simon Astor, I did no such thing.  This tells me two things - 1) the Stage Manager rocked (I subsequently learned she does) and 2) the show rocks!  I rarely enjoy a show and just have fun - rare (and I even mean when I go to a huge production like Mama Mia or the like).

In the interest of full disclosure, I do know Simon Astor and several of the performers involved.  I am, perhaps, biased, and that is probably a huge reason for why I attended.  However, my bias does not outweigh the sheer delight I had watching the show.

I am not all that familiar with the steampunk sub-genre except for the cool looking outfits I see when it's a steampunk pub crawl on Capitol Hill, so this glimpse into their world was quite fun!  The story takes you on boats and blimps (or the steampunk equivalent word), under water and ultimately to the centre of the earth.  There are the elite, the wanna-be elite, the educated and inventive, the hard working blue collar workers, the competing performance artists (you'll see what I mean), the oppressed, a real robot and clouds  and sea horses.  You thinking, can that actually make any sense?  YES!

AND IT'S FUN!!!!

Not only is it fun, it's clever, silly and a good time.  The music, done by Meg van Huygen (whom I know as a friend, but didn't know was a talented musician/composer) complimented the clever dialog and itself was clever and interesting.  It isn't every day you listen to music where an accordion is center stage and good!  The band also backed several musical numbers (see, I'm telling you - FUN!) where several really talented vocalists were showcased.  Yes, an accordion backed some rockin' vocals.  Clearly Simon and Meg know how each other thinks.  This added tremendously to my enjoyment.

It's a huge cast.  In fact, when I was perusing the playbill prior to the performance, I thought, how am I going to keep them all straight?  But, again, the clever writing helped me right through my trepidation.  There are too many I liked so here are a few big stand outs for me.  Jonah Martin was hilarious.  He plays about a thousand people, or really one person with a thousand names in several places.  He cracked me up every time the scene changed and he came on stage.  I really did look forward to the beginning of each scene because of his performance.  Katherine Karaus (Patricia) and Monica Wulzen (Dovecote) play perfect bad girl team beauties. Katherine's innocent, adorable bad girl persona was spot on while Monica's dedicated, sexy bad girl persona will give you the chills when she sings (yep, she sings - it's hot!). Kai Curtis' silent movie skills were phenomenal and Todd Hull, Josh Hartvigston, and Laurel Ryan get huge props for their comedic timing.

There are so many things I didn't tell you about this show (talking foxes, peas, a doctor named bunny, oh and BURLESQUE - to name a few) that you'll need to attend to consume some Cocktails at the Centre of the Earth (and btw - Annex's cocktails were good AND apropos).