![]() ![]() And costumer Paloma Young time-travels across the centuries in her resplendent outfits, both for peasants and aristocracy. Malloy plays with anachronistic language and 21st century sensibilities just as freely as he harnesses a bewildering range of musical styles into a cohesive whole. But even without all that drilling, the storytelling is a model of accessible clarity, acknowledging its literary roots (right down to characters occasionally singing of themselves in third-person) but with a witty contemporary spin. ![]() The rousing “ Prologue” furthers that background work as the cast sings, “ Gonna have to study up a little bit if you wanna keep up with the plot,” before breaking down the characters into broad types (“Helene is a slut, Anatole is hot,” etc.). Malloy has whittled the story down from about 70 pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, providing a cheat-sheet summary and diagrammed family tree in the Playbill for easy reference. ![]() The same goes for the $14 million move to Broadway, where the Imperial Theatre has been extensively reconfigured to accommodate onstage seating for 200 at tables and banquettes, while also clearing paths for the cast to get amongst the audience, both in the orchestra and upstairs in the mezzanine. Last year, the creative team negotiated the shift to a proscenium stage in a run at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., keeping the immersive nature of the production intact. The commercial transfer allowed scenic designer Mimi Lien to push the environmental aspect even further, crafting a cabaret boîte in which the performers and musicians moved freely among patrons seated at café tables. That menu expanded, along with the production, when it moved the following year to two consecutive purpose-built New York venues. The sung-through show was originally commissioned and developed by Ars Nova, the fertile off-Broadway creative hub where it first premiered in a tiny space disguised as a kitschy Russian supper club, serving warm pierogies and vodka. No disrespect to the marvelous cast, many of whom have been with the project since its earliest stages, but the true stars are the material and production, which is often as cinematic as it is blazingly theatrical. #The great comet of 1812 full#Although the role has been expanded to take full advantage of Groban’s lustrous vocals, this is very much an ensemble piece, enlivened by flavorful characterizations in the principal roles and off-the-charts energy from the hard-working chorus. Right out of the gate, the show has been doing near-sellout business of $1 million-plus per week in previews, perhaps bolstered by the wide fan base of Josh Groban, making a knockout Broadway debut as Pierre, the unhappily married Moscow aristocrat drowning his existential sorrows in booze and books. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |