Waitress - Review

Churchill Theatre, Bromley

****

Music and Lyrics by Sara Bareilles

Book by Jessie Nelson

Directed by Diane Paulus

Evelyn Hoskins and George Crawford

After a triumphant run in the West End, Sara Bareilles’ smash-hit musical comedy continues to wow audiences across the UK with this heartwarming show arriving at Bromley’s Churchill Theatre for one week only.

Waitress tells the emotional yet empowering story of Jenna Hunterson, a waitress and baker who is in an abusive relationship. The show sees her battling to transform from an anxious wife into a strong and determined woman, with ups and downs along the way.

Bromley's press night saw both first covers stepping up to the roles of Jenna and her gynaecologist Dr Pomatter, with incredible performances from  Aimée Fisher and Nathanael Landskroner respectively.  Fisher made the role her own, playing Jenna as comedic yet endearing. She had exceptional attention to detail, particularly in What Baking Can Do and It Only Takes a Taste. Her beautiful rendition of She Used to Be Mine had the audience on the edge of their seats, with the whole theatre erupting into rapturous applause almost before she could finish her last note. Landskroner’s Pomatter was full of the awkward, nervous charm we know and love, with flawless and tender vocals.

 

Other standout performances were from Evelyn Hoskins and George Crawford, playing the geeky and loveable Dawn and Ogie. Crawford’s Never Ever Getting Rid Of Me was comedic and witty with fantastic diction. Sandra Marvin’s Becky was hilarious and full of sass, and her powerful vocals in I Didn’t Plan It brought the house down.

Waitress is as refreshing as ever and hasn’t lost an ounce of its West End charm, despite occasional sound and lighting blips. A show that’s full of cheers and tears, often at the same time.

Runs until 26th February then continues on tour

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Waitress - Review

Adelphi Theatre




*****


Music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles
Book by Jessie Nelson
Based upon the motion picture written by Adrienne Shelly
Directed by Diane Paulus

Katharine McPhee

Of all the new musicals that Broadway has shipped to London in recent years, Waitress is quite possibly the greatest as Sara Bareillles takes an unflinching look at 21st century America through the eyes of waitress Jenna and her two best friends and workmates, Becky and Dawn. But what makes this transatlantic transfer quite such a success, is that while the musical is set in a nameless small-town, somewhere, anywhere, in the States – and Scott Pask’s set design is terrific, all disappearing telegraph lines and ingeniously sliding interior locations – Bareilles’ tale drawn from Adrienne Shelly’s movie, is a celebration of modern womanhood that transcends all borders.

Katharine McPhee crosses the pond from the Broadway production to open the Adelphi run and she is wonderful. Unhappily married to the abusive - albeit not without his own complex history - Earl, she is a hard working woman with a gift for making inventive pies who finds herself early in the show with an unplanned pregnancy. One of the show’s gritty strengths is its ability to upend traditional trends. Devastated at her pregnancy, Jenna nonetheless vows to remain strong, making the most of hers and her baby's future, and it is this grasp of verité that places Waitress firmly within the sphere of most of its audiences. That of course, and its songs. Bareilles acute eye for life and rhythm serves up a collection of glorious numbers that range from country, to rock, to Jenna’s scorchingly tender solo ballad She Used To Be Mine.

Bareilles and Jessie Nelson sweeten their tale with liberal amounts of comedy. Marisha Wallace’s Becky is recognisably wonderful as the much put upon spouse of a disabled husband, who while she loves him deeply, seeks her sexual satisfaction elsewhere. And Laura Baldwin is the wonderfully gauche and cooky Dawn, who discovers an unlikely online soulmate in Ogie, and who steals the show in her first half big number When He Sees Me.

Waitress’ men are no more than supporting roles in this celebration of womanhood – but they are neatly fleshed out turns. Peter Hannah is a convincingly unpleasant Earl as Jack McBrayer joins McPhee as a well placed American import. McBrayer’s physical presence and comic timing as Ogie is a work of genius. In the most complex of male supports, David Hunter plays Dr Pomatter, Jenner’s (married) gynaecologist, with whom she strikes up a brief but passionate affair . Hunter captures the awkward fusion of an unethical love (complete with in-flagrante comedy) together with a sincerely credible pathos.

The modest supporting roles are all perfectly delivered. Shaun Prendergast as the wise and saintly diner owner Joe is an occasional charming diversion, while Stephen Leask’s diner chef Cal and Kelly Agbowu’s Nurse Norma are both brilliantly observed characters.

Katharine Woolley’s 6 piece on stage band make fine work of Bareilles’ score and credit to director Diane Paulus, who must truly be one of the most visionary helmswomen on Broadway today. Credit too to producers Barry and Fran Weissler who, on seeing the movie some years back, had the vision to assemble Bareilles, Paulus and Nelson and create the finest deep-dish screen to stage transition in decades.

Booking until 19th October

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Waitress' director Diane Paulus talks to me about the show

Marisha Wallace, Katharine McPhee and Laura Baldwin

Waitress opens in the West End this week and I grabbed a rare, brief opportunity to chat with the musical's Tony-winning director Diane Paulus about the show.

JB:    Diane - With Waitress now such a Broadway success, what was it that drew you to the story being translated from screen to stage? 

Diane:    Well, when I watched the film, the Adrienne Shelly film, I was struck by, first of all, how theatrical it is. It's almost like a unit set in the way it's filmed, it's just in the diner. It's in a doctors office, it's at Jenna's house. Adrienne purposefully didn't really get into, you know, what town are we in? What does it look like on main street? 

It's really almost like a fairy tale and it's very quirky and the characters have a lot of personality and then you get this like sock to the gut, emotional punch of this woman's crisis of her life. And when I watched it, I saw that character and I thought, I know who that woman is because I know people who go through that.

And what struck me was quite a personal experience. One of my dearest friends growing up, is not a working class person. She's actually a woman of enormous privilege, but she had been in a terrible relationship where she had been made to feel small and made to feel like she didn't deserve: her feelings or her self.

And so I thought this thing of what happens when we lose our sense of self with really wrong things happening, like having an affair with your gynaecologist. Like, let's just say that's sort of wrong! But life is messy and that's what the show is also about. 

You know, the other thing that I loved about the story was, so she gets pregnant and she is not excited about being pregnant. So I'm a mom with two kids and I really related to that. However, I had read when Adrienne Shelly wrote the movie's screenplay, she was pregnant and she was terrified, like terrified. Like: “What if I don't love the baby?” Every other mother is going crazy, like on cloud nine pregnant. And, and so this feeling again, that’s not quite politically correct to say: “I'm pregnant and I'm like, you know, not as happy as I should be.” But, this idea of the journey of what it means to become a mother and the journey of learning to love yourself. So it's a universal story. So it was that character, the complexity of that character that interests me.

Diane Paulus

JB:    Jenna is a strong, well fleshed out character, however the three key guys in the story’s arc are, by comparison, quite thinly sketched: One, her abusive husband, is a bastard; Another, her doctor, has really questionable professional ethics; and the third one's a guy who's 100% heart and yet 100% geek. So why are Waitress' men such caricatures?

Diane:    I'm going to push back on that question because this is a story about Jenna as the central character and the next most important people around her are her sister-waitress friends.

You need to understand that the men are simply the supporting roles in this show. And when you're a supporting role, you're not given as much real estate and time as your protagonists. So we should just say that first. Right?

Now I think Sara (Bareilles) and Jessie (Nelson) and I always felt we never wanted the men to be caricatures. So you know, when you look at the film and you see Earl and you understand the decline of Earl and the humiliation he suffered by being fired and how he breaks down.

And as for the doctor’s questionable ethics, when you study the show, and we were very deliberate about this, it is Jenna who makes every first move on that doctor. That really was also quite deliberate.

JB:    Finally I want to ask you about Pippin, which I saw on Broadway and loved. When will you bring your production of Pippin over here?

Diane:    Thank you. I'll go tap Barry Weissler (producer of Waitress and Pippin) and say come on now!

Waitress is currently in previews and opens at the Adelphi Theatre on 7th March

Photo credit (London cast): Johan Persson

Waitress - Review

Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New York


*****


Music & lyrics by Sara Bareilles
Book by Jessie Nelson
Based upon the motion picture written by Adrienne Shelly
Directed by Diane Paulus

Jessie Mueller

Move over Mrs Lovett, there's a new baker on the block. Waitress, Sara Bareilles' female-fuelled take on modern Americana, is perhaps the finest example of new musical theatre writing in quite some years. 

Drawn from Adrienne Shelly's 2007 movie, Jessie Mueller is Jenna the titular waitress from a southern USA town, who not only serves tables but also bakes the top-notch pies that make up the diner's daily specials. Unhappily married to the inadequate and abusive misogynist Earl (covered very well by understudy Ryan Vasquez on the night of this review) Jenna discovers early on in the show that she is pregnant with their unplanned (and, by her, unwanted) child. Following her through the trimesters, the show’s story is strong, engaging and witty and under Diane Paulus' assured direction, never dissolves into sentimentality.

Jenna's two fellow waitresses are Dawn and Becky played by Jenna Ushkowitz and Keala Settle respectively, who sustain the momentum with perceptive comic relief. Dawn desperately seeks love, while Becky, a middle aged battle-axe agonising that her breasts may be misshapen whilst trapped in her own sexless marriage, goes on to satisfy her carnal frustrations in a second half surprise. Both supporting women are cleverly sketched out, with the dynamic between all three, as they share their respective anxieties and desires, proving credible, funny and ultimately moving. There should be a mention too for Charity Angél Dawson as Nurse Norma, whose dealings with the complex cavortings at the local surgery make for a witty measured performance.

Setting aside the stereotype of woman as domestic pie-making goddess, the baking analogy makes for a clever conceit. Not just Jenna's bun in her own oven, but rather the focus on what's inside a pie - ergo what's inside a woman - makes for some honest theatre. Jenna's anguish at her impending motherhood is as contemporary as it is timeless. When Mueller sings What Baking Can Do, we see the lifeline of sanity that baking has thrown to her amidst a life of domestic misery.

If the women are cleverly devised, the men are little more than thinly fleshed out flawed caricatures, with the only admirable man on stage dying before the final curtain. Escaping from Earl's contempt, Jenna stumbles into an affair with her gynaecologist Dr Pomatter (Drew Gehling). It’s an unlikely liaison, the married Pomatter’s actions being unethical, unprofessional and adulterous, however notwithstanding Pomatter cheating on his wife, the love between the two serves to inspire Jenna in believing that not all men are beasts.

Dawn finds love online with Ogie, a geekish tax auditor who shares her love of history. Little more than a decent if two-dimensional twat, Christopher Fitzgerald nonetheless imbues the role with maniacal energy. Already recognised with various awards and nominations for his performance, Fitzgerald's fabulous physicality serves the role perfectly and it is a joy to see this gifted performer so perfectly cast.

Bareilles' writing is a long overdue example of new musical theatre that is imaginative, thought provoking and most of all entertaining. More than just a hardened pie crust hurled at the patriarchy, Waitress is a perfectly baked celebration of womanhood today.

Now booking until June 2017

Photo credit: Joan Marcus

Pippin

Music Box Theatre, New York City

*****

Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Directed by Diane Paulus 

Pippin is a show of quirky historical provenance. It tells of the time of medieval French emperor Charlemagne who was committed to expanding Christendom and slaughtering non-believers. Pippin was his student son, ostensibly committed to the people and appalled at his fathers tyranny. As the show unfolds Pippin discovers rebellion, love and sex and from these potent threads does Schwartz craft his tale. Written some forty years ago against a backdrop of a USA enmeshed in the Vietnam War, American anti-Communist policies garnering questionable popularity and a nation reeling from the sacrifice of thousands of US troops in a far-off conflict of dubious purpose, there are moments when Pippin's message deafens with a contemporary resonance.

Schwartz's tale is told by a group of travelling players and set almost entirely as a play within a play. It is in Diane Paulus' interpretation of this show however, that musical theatre is re-defined. The troupe's Leading Player invites the audience to join her in watching their imminent spectacle in Magic To Do and hers and the company's superlative-fuelled descriptions are not hollow promises. The vision of Paulus’ production is quite-simply jaw dropping. The players perform in an on-stage circus ring, but where for example Barnum tried superficially to recreate a circus on stage, this show uses world class circus skills as the simple means to tell its story.Circus is the medium rather than the message and with illusions and stunts that are often breathtaking, it is truly rare to encounter a show that presents such a display of sheer human talent with minimal gimmickry.

Gabrielle McClinton understudied magnificently as the Leading Player. Her poise and coquette-ish cocked hat every inch a nod to the original work of Bob Fosse in whose style Chet Walker has choreographed this production. Both vocally and in her physical presence she held her audience rapt, showing as is often the case the energetic enthusiasm of the understudy who brings a fresh proud vigour to their performance.

Brit, Matthew James Thomas provides just the right amount of youthful naïveté to Pippin. Vocally perhaps not completely warmed up for the show's signature number, Corner Of The Sky, he was beautifully on his game for a spine tingling Morning Glow that closed the first act.

Key featured actors include fellow brit Terrence Mann as emperor Charles. The Yanks just can't resist an Englishman to play the bad guy and Mann does not disappoint. Laconically corrupted by absolute power, his War Is A Science is a cracking turn whose lyrics, on closer study, are a horrific comment upon the slaughter of war. Mann's real-life spouse Charlotte D'Amboise plays his on-stage wife Fastrada with a treacherously sly allure, whilst Rachel Bay Jones is widowed single mum and Pippin's love interest Catherine, bringing just the right amount of kookiness to remind us that the show was written when memories of the hippy 1960s would still be fresh

It is down to cast newcomer Tovah Feldshuh as Pippin's grandmother Berthe to provide the evening's show-stopper. Whilst her number No Time At All was always written as a singalong piece, Schwartz can surely never have imagined that it would be sung by a sexagenarian actress, suspending herself from a trapeze high above the stage, (sterling physical accompaniment from the muscular Yannick Thomas, up there with her) as she sings the brilliant yet powerfully poignant shtick of lyrics that tell of a rudely youthful and vigorous mind reluctantly forced to acknowledge the constraints of an ageing body. Feldshuh's routine is flawless theatrical excellence.

Schwartz's melodies are inspired, his harmonies sublime and with lyrics that are often outstanding, he can be forgiven the odd lapse (a "left-handed flea" anyone?) in his pursuit of gloriously assonant rhyme at all costs. (And in an un-related hint of possible post-Pippin plagiarism, listen carefully to the middle bars of Pippin's Glory and ponder if they might have inspired John Kander's opening bars of All That Jazz from his and Fred Ebb's Chicago that was to hit Broadway some three years later.)

This band of travelling players, or at the very least their production, need to do what Charlemagne failed to achieve. Land in Britain, conquer the West End (soon) and run for years.