August 23, 2007 - Thursday

August 23, 2007 - Thursday

review: andrew loyd webber’s phantom of the opera

Last night I went and saw the Phantom of the Opera here in the Nation's Crapital. It is my third viewing of it. The first was when I was about 15 with my father in Toronto, then about two years later with my girlfriend at the time and two other teens. I was a big fan of the musical; awed by the faux disco theme music, throbbing violins over a rock beat, the juicy organ, the cool story, and the neat stage effects. I had a small case of Phantom-mania back then; buying the album and cherishing one of those pricey glossy magazines with full colour pictures you get at Kiss concerts and Baseball games.

I never, however, got around to stalking girls in my high school with back corner lurkings, and notes signed 'O.G.' That was reserved for my dear friend, who, although was not a musician like myself, made a hell of a better beleaguered Phantom of the Opera than I did. He also made a pretty good Jim Morrison for a while too.

Anyway, as these things go, everything shiny and good is behind you. Happiness trails like a shadow at dusk. The rocky innocence of the past is tarred over with the jaded machines of the present. And blah, blah, blah –because I spent most of the three hour musical with my eyebrows screwed together trying to understand why I thought the thing was so amazing the two previous times I saw it.

Maybe it was the acoustics in the place. The orchestra was not loud enough; often being drowned out by the singing and clattering about on stage. Maybe it was the stage direction; large groups of actors seemingly milling around in confusion and drifting here and there on what was actually a pretty small theatre. Perhaps it was the actors themselves who were chosen for their particular physical mutation and lacked the chemistry to pull off love, friendship, and fear. Perhaps it was the myriad of set changes and the two-act format designed for people that, because of modern television, can't bear to watch the same thing for longer than 20 seconds. Maybe it was the music itself, essentially circling around three major melodic themes:

'The Phantom is Scary'
DUUUUUH! . . duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH!

'The Phantom Wants to Shag Christine'
Ding donggg, ding donggg, ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-donggg

'Christine Wants to Shag the Phantom but He Looks Like He Got Hit in the Face with Vanilla Pudding'
Do de do de do-dooo. Do de do deee

Or maybe, just maybe, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a pretentious twat.

Is there a similar rule about blowing the plot in musicals as there is for movies? Will you hate me for giving away the ending to the Phantom of the Opera as you would the ending to Fight Club? I'm about to. Besides, nobody reads these things anyway.

The Phantom of the Opera has two acts, helpfully entitled 'Act 1' and 'Act 2'.

ACT 1
(In which we meet the characters and the plot develops.)
The stage is set with many dark lengths of cloth hanging at weird angles. Thankfully, not too much singing going on here, just the occasional phrase or so. The actors are engaging in the slowest auction in history; trying to sell off left-over crap from the now-defunct Opera Populaire. They auction off item 665 (a music-box monkey) to an old Count in a wheelchair. The next item, 'Lot (gasp!) 666', is a restored chandelier in a shroud, purportedly related to the 'mysterious tale of The Phantom of the Opera'. With a bang the chandelier suddenly flashes, temporarily blinding and deafening the audience. Dimly we are aware that it's being hoisted to the ceiling while…

Overture:
DUUUUUH. . . duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Ding donggg, ding donggg, ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-donggg. . . Do de do de do-do. Do de do deee. . .

Scene 2 (many years in the past):
Here we meet Carlotta. She is singing in a loud warbling voice and looks like a Gaudi building wearing a circus tent. We clearly don't like her as she is engaging in more postulating and prissing about than the rest of the cast. She is obviously not the love interest either, as there is a silly fat man doting on her who is an Important Baritone rehearsing Hannibal, along with approximately eight or nine ballerinas with excellent legs. . . And one extremely annoying topless ballet dude who prances around in a figure-eight formation and keeps cracking his whip against the stage thus drowning out the dialogue.

This is also where we meet the two new owners of the Opera Populaire. Think of Dupont et Dupond, the two bumbling detectives from the Tin-Tin comics. Failing that, think of Bush and Cheney, in terms of their excellent administrative prowess. These guys are also the comic relief.
Three things are going on at the same time here. Firstly we are learning to like Carlotta less and less. Secondly the former owner of the Opera is trying to explain that the 'Opera Ghost' demands 20,000 francs payment a year (which Dupont et Dupond think is extortion, which, in effect, it is) and thirdly, we meet Christine Daaé who is supposed to be a Swedish chorus girl, but in fact looks like Sarah Jessica Parker if she were Jewish. We also learn that, aside from having excellent legs, Christine can sing Mezzo Soprano.

When asked, how is it possible she can sing? She replies that she's been taking lessons. When asked, from who? She replies, "I don't know."

Huh?

Anyway, after the cast sings the odd phrase here and there a large piece of set falls out of the sky nearly braining Carlotta who then stalks off the stage with her silly fat man. Now we meet Christine's friend whose name is –after meeting Carlotta Giudicelli, Monsieur Richard Firmin (Dupont), Monsieur Gilles André (Dupond), Ubaldo Piangi (silly fat man), Joseph Buquet (stagehand), and Monsieur Lefèvre (previous owner)– 'Meg'.

Meg's job throughout the performance is to be cute (with excellent legs) and further the plot. In this instance she furthers the plot by convincing Dupont and Dupond to let Christine sing the lead in Hannibal. . .

Which she does at the actual performance with great success, despite the distractions of a huge plastic elephant being wheeled around a stage space that's already cramped with eight or nine ballerina's with excellent legs, one prancing shirtless ballet dude with very white teeth, a bunch of other miscellaneous set, and some guy cutting in with lines of his own while she's trying to sing.

This is how we meet Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, who probably just narrowly avoided being called 'Jeff' by Webber. As it turns out Raoul is dashing, has wonderful hair, and is generally a nice guy. Not only this, but he knew Christine as a young girl when her name was 'Lotte' (Huh?) and still finds her hot.

This is indicated by the lines:

Can it be?Can it be Christine?Bravo!What a change!You're reallynot a bitthe gawkish girlthat once you were...

Apparently personality does not go a long way with this guy.

After the show we see Christine in her dressing-room in front of a very large incongruous mirror. People walk in and out congratulating her and keep leaving her door open. This struck me as redundant because her room is missing one entire wall. Meg, unsatisfied with Christine's "I don't know who my music teacher is", asks Christine how she got to be so good. Christine then launches into a hairy-fairy song about how when she was called 'Lotte' her dad promised her an Angel of Music. A Honda Civic might have been a bit more realistic, but hey, it's the opera.

Meg sings the operatic equivelant to 'Yeah, whatever.' and leaves.

Christine, now alone, aside from an audience of about 2,000 people, sings:
Father once spoke of an angel . . . I used to dream he'd appear . . . Now as I sing, I can sense him . . . And I know he's here . . . Here in this room he calls me softly . . . somewhere inside . . . hiding . . . Somehow I know he's always with me . . . he - the unseen genius . . .

This is how we learn that the Phantom is less of an 'Angel of Music' and more of a 'Pervert of Playgrounds'.

Lights dim and someone in the orchestra pit starts playing a single note on a bass guitar.
And there, there! In the mirror –the Phantom of the Opera! The mirror opens, smoke billows out. . . Actually wait. . . This is a problem I had throughout the whole production: there was not enough smoke. I know there was supposed to be more smoke in many key scenes, but either the smoke guy had the day off, or he was skimping on the dry ice. So a few whiffs of smoke trail out and the Phantom takes Christine's hand. The mirror closes behind them just as Raoul walks into the room, again using the door instead of just walking in through the missing wall. Now we get. . .

DUUUUUH. . . duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! DUUUUUH. . . duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH! Duh duh duh duh DUUUUUH!

. . . Except with a disco beat on the drums and some electric guitar. Frankly, the drum kit was not loud enough; too much Simon and Garfunkle and not enough Bee-Gees for the effect Webber was going for.

Through the use of clever stage design we see that The Phantom and Christine are descending into the bowels of the Opera House. Smoke (but not enough) and candles are used to indicate an underground lake. The Phantom, while poling through the lake with Christine in what appears to be large, half-sunken sombrero, sings about himself. Eventually they arrive at his gloomy abode where there are many large nine-prong candle holders. Jews would probably recognize these as the menorah used on Hannukah (which raises all sorts of questions about the denomination of the Phantom, and may explains the Jewish appearance of Christine, but not her name). They sing to each other until the Phantom uncovers a mirror in which there is a mannequin decked out to look like a bride. This scares the beejesus out of Christine who passes out in the sombrero.

Abruptly Christine is awoken by the Phantom who is very loudly and very badly playing an organ. Clearly annoyed and grumpy by this rude awakening she sings a bit and then rips off the Phantom's mask. The Phantom covers his face and starts screaming at her; calling her things like a 'prying pandora', a 'little demon', a 'lying delilah', and a 'viper'. Both of them, now exhausted from all the quarrelling (you can just tell this relationship is off to a bad start), settle down a bit. The Phantom tells Christine he hopes she can love him despite having a face that looks like it's covered in vanilla pudding. She looks pretty unsure, even from twelve rows back. He tells her to leave.

Meanwhile up in the Opera House Dupont, Dupond, Carlotta, and Raoul are puzzling over some notes they've received, presumably from the Phantom. This is when we learn that –even though the Phantom is a sociopath, and aside from being a lousy poet– he's got a pretty good sense of humour.

The notes read:

"Dear Andre,
what a charming gala!Christine enjoyed a great success!We were hardly bereftwhen Carlotta left -otherwisethe chorus was entrancing,but the dancing was alamentable mess!"

Another, focused more on the extortion side of things:

"Dear Firmin,just a brief reminder:my salary has not been paid.Send it care of the ghost,by return of postP.T.O.:No-one likes a debtor,so it's better if myorders are obeyed!"

And finally he abandons any modicum of rhyme and meter and writes:

"I shall watch the performance from my normal seat in Box Five, which will be kept empty for me. Should these commands be ignored, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur."
They decide to do the exact opposite of the Phantom's intructions and cast Carlotta as the Countess and Christine as the mute page-boy in Il Muto, they don't pay the Phantom his twenty grand protection fee, and they put Raoul in Box Five.

This causes the Phantom to heckle the performers like the two old guys in the gallery seats of the The Muppet Show. He tells Carlotta she sings like a toad, which she does. He says her singing is so bad it's messing with the chandelier, which it does. He laughs loudly at innappropriate times, doesn't turn off his mobile phone, takes pictures with the flash on, and constantly clears his throat of a phlegm ball the size of a toaster throughout it's duration. Actually, that last was the guy sitting next to me.

Everyone freaks out. Raoul and Christine freak to the roof of the Opera House where they declare undying love and make plans to hang out after the show. The Phantom overhears and –in what has to be the winner of the Guiness Book of World Records category of Worst Audience Behaviour– brings the chandelier crashing down. Again the audience is temprorarily blind and deafened by the effect so that we are bumping into each other during intermission and can't find the bathroom.

A thing about the chandelier crashing down: This is actually a climactic point in the musical. One that I look forward to every time I see the show; the chandelier flashes and then drops like a rock towards the actual audience, swooping above our heads at the last minute before landing on the stage with a crash.

To put it in the words of my companion that evening, "The chandelier fell too slowly." And it did. It kind of flickered a bit and then lazily lowered towards the orchestra pit where it did an abrupt gravity defying change of direction and landed casually on the stage. Then there was a flash.
Not very impressive.

ACT 2
(In which arin starts drinking beer and is grateful he doesn't have to work today)
It's a year later and everyone including the ballerinas with excellent legs are partying at the annual New Years Eve Masquerade Ball. Christine and Raoul are engaged, and they have repaired the chandelier (Chandelier Repair People, not Christine and Raoul). Everyone is generally having a good time until the Phantom crashes the party.

Everyone is bummed out when he starts talking business at a social event. He's been busily writing an opera called Don Juan Triumphant (irony intended) and wants them to perform it. This causes chaos at the party and everyone starts singing completely different songs at the same time which drowns out the orchestra whose maestro is desperately trying to keep everyone in line by waving a little white stick (note to the conductor: bring a taser next time). It's at this point that a matronly lady with a big stick who had been somewhere on the stage throughout the whole performance and whose purpose I couldn't devine explains that the Phantom is an escaped fairground freak with a brilliant mind, who was presumed dead.

Everyone sings, "Ah?"

This chaos continues to the next day when the Phantom shuts everybody up by leaving a few notes lying around, again illustrating his power as a comedic writer with bad timing:
"Dear Andre,Re my orchestrations:We need another first bassoon.Get a player with tone -and that third trombonehas to go!The man could not be deafer,so please preferably onewho plays in tune!"

And:
"Dear Firmin,vis a vis my opera:some chorus-members must be sacked.If you could, find out whichhas a sense of pitch -wisely, though,I've managed to assign arather minor role to thosewho cannot act!"

Carlotta –bringing to mind the wistful thinking of the type of girl one meets in bars around here– refuses to perform on the grounds that the Phantom might capture her. That's when Raoul gets the brilliant idea of using the performance to trap and shoot the Phantom.

Christine, meanwhile, has been pining away about the 'Angel of Music' her dad promised her. She visits the grave of her father to try to sort herself out. There, the phantom creepily disguised as her father's ghost, starts offering her the proverbial 'stranger's candy'. There ensues a kind of Fatal Attraction mindfuck in which everybody keeps calling everybody else 'Angel':

PHANTOM Wandering child So lost, so helpless Yearning for my guidance

CHRISTINE Angel or father Friend or phantom Who is it there staring?

PHANTOM Have you forgotten your angel

CHRISTINE Angel, oh speak What endless longings Echo in this whisper

PHANTOM Too long you've wandered in winter Far from my fathering gaze

CHRISTINE Wildly my mind beats against you

PHANTOM You resist PHANTOM/CHRISTINE Yet your/the soul obeys....

PHANTOM Angel of Music! You denied me Turning from true beauty Angel of Music! Do not shun me Come to your strange Angel...

CHRISTINE Angel of Music! I denied you Turning from true beauty Angel of Music! My protector.... Come to me, strange Angel...

PHANTOM I am your Angel of Music... Come to me, Angel of Music

Christine is starting to get suckered in again when Raoul studs onto the scene and shakes her out of her reverie. The Phantom, pissed at this interruption (seriously Phantom, next time: chloroform), declares war on them both while unleashing four or five roman candle fireballs from his walking staff in a generally Stage Left direction. Raoul and Christine flee. Even more enraged the Phantom declares war on both of them.Later, during the actual performance of Don Juan, the Phantom switches places with the silly fat man and takes over the lead role while wearing a really big hoody. It dawns on Christine that while the Phantom is really ugly he is actually quite buff –as opposed to the silly fat man who is just. . . well. . . fat. The incongruity, despite the clever hoody disguise, does not escape Christine who wrenches off the hood exposing the Phantom in his mask. She then wrenches off the mask too, which shocks the audience because we learn that it's not just a mask, it's a mask and wig. The phantom is no longer the menacing cloaked figure looming around throughout the musical. He is, in fact, a Mr. Potato Head covered in vanilla pudding. His embarrassment is evident as he grabs Christine and flees back to the caverns beneath the Opera House.

Raoul, in a righteous fit of originality, declares war on the Phantom (Can you do that? Can you declare war on somebody that has already declared war on you? Aren't you already at war?). With the help of the matronly lady with the big stick he finds the underground lake that doesn't have enough smoke on it and jumps though a trap door in the stage.

In his lair, the Phantom forces Christine to put on a wedding dress while he watches. Christine puts it on with much soulful singing and trepidation. He says, you don't love me because I'm ugly. She says, I don't love you because you're an asshole. Once again Raoul shows up, interrupting what was about to be a very interesting exchange of thoughts. Distracted by his fiancée, who is in a wedding dress, he isn't aware of the Phantom who sneaks up behind him and drops a noose around his neck. Despite the tightening loop of rope around his throat Raoul sings the operatic equivalent to 'Oh shit.'

The Phantom then makes his ultimatum: Marry me or Le Viscomte de Manliness will spend the rest of his short life with the kind of long necks attributed to certain rare African tribes. He repeats his demands several times and is saved from becoming redundant by Christine grabbing his Mr. Potato Head and planting a deep operatic kiss on his lips. She repeats this again until the Phantom is utterly flamoozled because he's never been tenderly touched by another person, let alone tongue-battered by a hot Jewish bird.

He's so befuddled and frazzled that he proceeds to make the largest leap of logic since 'Jesus died for our sins.' and frees Raoul and Christine, telling them to get the hell out of there and to stop screwing around with his mind. He then takes a seat on his big chair and pulls the shroud he's often seen wearing over his head, but not before saying to no one in particular (except the 2000 viewing public), "Christine, I love you."

It's then that Meg shows up with her excellent legs and overall cuteness and cautiously approaches the covered Phantom in a chair. She yanks off the shroud and. . . He's gone! But what's this? He left behind his mask, without the wig. She holds the mask up to the spotlight.
The audience leaves to the underground parking garage where we sit in our idling cars for half an hour breathing in noxious carbon monoxide fumes and start to marvel gigglingly about how good the show was. Except the chandelier didn't fall fast enough.

Hope I haven't ruined it for you.

THE END