All right, I haven't
reviewed anything in a long time, but after having a crappy streak in the last
week of seeing 2 "meh" shows and 1 mediocre one, I feel like I should
get back on the blogging horse, as it were, so that others may avoid my fate.
So, I might as well start with the most "interesting" show to
review....which would be Venice. Venice is currently running as part of
the "Lab" series at the Public Theater, which means it is being given
the chance to be seen by audiences while it is further developed and whatnot.
However, this is not a truly new work by any means...it has already had
productions in both Kansas City (naturally!) and LA. My advice after many
years of development and multiple productions: move on and write a new show.
I went in unsure of what
to expect, as I'd heard many negative comments about the show, but also had heard
from others who had liked it. I thought it might be a "generational
thing," as is often the case with any musical that includes rap and hip
hop. If so, consider me an old, old man. I love me some rap and hip
hop, but I generally prefer it to be, ya know, good rap and hip hop.
Venice has a plot, I'm
sure. I can't decide if it has too much of a plot, or too little of one,
but either way I guarantee you won't care much about it. A general
summary is that 20 years ago in Venice there was a very vaguely-described
terrorist attack that killed a lot of people, including the parents of Venice
and Willow (who is/was the daughter of the president...of Venice?). Since
then a corporation has been very greedy! And that corporation
wants...things to happen? That aren't good! Honestly, I am still
not sure, but it is the basic post-apocalyptic situation in which people like
to talk about the elusive "safe zone" a lot, and also hate
corporations and the army. Pretty cutting-edge stuff. We also
encounter our first problem here: either name the location Venice or the
character Venice. You don't need both! When they are singing about
Venice you don't know if it's the character or the city/country/continent/god
knows until you later hear the pronoun they are using. It's like having a
character in Oklahoma! named Oklahoma!
Venice and Willow knew
each other as kids and have been writing each other letters since then and are
in love. You won't see any chemistry proving this, but fortunately we
have a completely pointless rapping narrator to tell us these things that are
never fleshed out through the actual book scenes with 1-dimensional characters.
Venice's half-brother is evil and also has marital problems. I know
you're always interested in the villains' relationship issues! Also, the
CEO of the evil corporation loves Willow. You can see where this is all
heading. The casting director has kindly made things easier to understand
by casting the men on a sliding scale basis…usually the darker the skin the man
has, the more evil he is.
Throughout this we have
a narrator to over-explain the plot at times, and other times to literally just
stand in the scaffolding and watch. As I mentioned before, this character
is completely unnecessary...but happens to be the lyricist and composer, so I
suppose that provides job security. His main function on stage seems to
be bulging his eyes and gesturing with his hands like a mad, gay Italian.
This photo summarizes 95% of his scenes:
Just in case you find
yourself bored during the first 2/3 of the first act with these underdeveloped
characters, they also add in the half-brother's wife, and Nicki Minaj....sorry,
I mean Lady Hailey Daisy. Sorry, I mean Nicki Minaj. She is apparently
both an entertainer and the mistress to government workers. She's
literally a government hooker! Her purpose is to be SEXY and HIP and
MODERN. She performs a number at a party right before the wedding of
Venice and Willow (?!) in which she introduces herself by saying something like
"I AM THE HOTTEST BITCH IN THIS JOINT!" Apparently in the
post-apocalyptic world it isn't a faux paus to steal attention from the bride.
Adding to the book
problems are the music...a few tunes are hummable, but the lyrics are
problematic, to say the least. I usually am not much of a lyric nazi, but
there are so many false rhymes that you get excited when you hear a true
rhyme...such as rhyming "enemy" with "enemy." The
hook to one song is literally something like "I can't imagine what we
imagined would happen is happening/Is this really happening?" I wish
I had the lyrics on hand, as I believe there's another "happen" in
there somewhere.
The set pretty much
consists of stairs and scaffolding, so it's basically Michael Grieif's wet
dream. The choreography is somehow strangely Riverdance-ish, in that they
move their legs A LOT, and their torsos don't do much. I am not sure how
that fits in with a modern/futuristic show, but I am sure there is a reason.
I honestly did want to
like Venice; I ignored the "It's too loud! The rap is
terrible!" comments and thought it was the usual old theatre queens doing
what they do best. However, these opinions are sadly in line with my own.
Even with a fairly strong cast, this show shouldn't move any further
without a complete overhaul. It's a bad sign when the two most
entertaining parts of the show were watching the queens in the first row's
reactions to the show (which were very similar to my own), as well as staring
at the sweat that accumulated in a VERY unfortunate place on an actor's
costume. Note to costume designers: tight grey suits can be hot, but if
you notice that your actor sweats in awkward areas then change the costume!
Or just as a general rule: don't have people wearing tight suits and
dancing around under hot lights.
I’ll end this rambling
post with a general thought: not every type of show or story lends itself to a
musical. After seeing various
movie-to-musical transformations over the year, I think all of us can agree on
this. While Venice isn’t based on a
movie (it’s VERY loosely influenced by Othello), I don’t think post-apocalyptic
plots really scream out “musical!” If
people asked themselves “Would this really make a good musical?” more often, we
could avoid these pena ajena situations.
