The Theatah, the Theatah: London 2024, Part 5

One of the big draws for us in any major (English-speaking) city is the theater scene. We’re both suckers for a good play, albeit some of us more than others. Lisa likes to get out a couple of times on any trip, while John will happily take on an IV drip to park his butt in aisle seats, dawn to dusk. It’s never really a crisis, what with the lengths of trips requiring some discernment, but between the time available to us and the offerings in London’s vaunted theater scene, trouble might indeed have brewed. Fortunately for us, we had a wild card up our sleeve: Susan!

“Susan,” you ask? Why yes, Susan! A dear friend of ours in Braga, Susan (hi, Susan!) (ok, I’ll probably stop saying “Susan” so much now…) has only been to London a few times but she has fallen, hard, for the West End and all of its treasures. Turns out, she had already booked a guided tour into parts of England, and it was easy peasey for her to amend her itinerary to begin with a few days in London to meet up with us. In fact, our hosts were gracious enough to let her bunk in the guest room since we’d ensconced ourselves in the main bedroom once they were gone. Win! The upshot was that Lisa could take in the plays she wanted to, and John could link arms with our friend (you know who) to fill in any gaps. “But couldn’t John have just gone by himself,” you ask? Sure, but if you don’t haveta, why whouldja?

The long weekend of theater debauchery began with “A View From the Bridge”, by Arthur Miller. A little weird for the Brits to invest so much in a thoroughly American play by a thoroughly American playwright, but they knocked it out of the park so who are we to judge? John had seen the play 20-ish years before, and… ok fine, Susan had never seen it, so they went in with keen anticipation. Only, about 5 minutes in when a pair of illicit Italian immigrants appeared on stage Susan whisper-exclaims to John “oh I have seen this!” Which of course led to a phenomenon wherein we now keep an eye out for sketchy Italians to tip us off that we’re in a repeat episode of something. But I digress… (drink!) The nice thing about well-produced theater is it doesn’t really matter if you know the story – otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a production of “Hamlet” in the last 300 years. The cast, led by Dominic West (aka McNulty from “The Wire”) was excellent and it is an excellent if maddeningly fatalistic play, so a good time… well, an entertained time was had by all.

The next adventure for the theater buddies was “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club“, which is the same play as plain ole “Cabaret” but they’re doing a thing, apparently. It’s the same production that was moved to New York and just kicked up a fuss a the Tony Awards (writing in the year of our Lord 2024 for our future readers…). “Cabaret” is probably on the fringe of the “canon” of great plays, so the buddies were very sheepish, at first, to admit to one another that they didn’t really have a good time with it. Like, it’s a dark play about the rise of the Nazis within the crumbling husk of a decadent Berlin, but even so… great performances that will stick with us, but we both more or less felt like the thing didn’t hold together as a coherent show. You don’t need to tell us how wrong we are, we are aware that it’s a minority opinion. Nevertheless.

Lisa rejoined the troupe for “The Play That Goes Wrong“, which is a play you’ll either love or hate. There’s no message, there’s no life take aways; it’s pure farce. You either laugh or grind your teeth your way through the production. Fortunately, all three of us laughed riotously! Susan had actually recommended it, having seen it before, but from her giddy giggles you’d never have known that she could almost recite the script to you. For pure yucks with no interpretation required we all thought it was a great hit. Lisa then left the troupe again on our final evening, for “Showstopper! The Improvised Musical“. If you have ever seen the musical bits in “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” you know how this goes, only they produce a single, two-act play that more-or-less hangs together, filled with musical numbers based on topics and genres suggested by the audience. It’s kind of like a magic show, where sometimes you can sort of puzzle out how they make it happen, but to what end? Just enjoy the musical sleight of hand while it is performed before your eyes. The buddies enjoyed themselves and would probably go back again if the opportunity presented itself – it’d be a completely different show, after all!

The long weekend of shows was extra nice since we’d had some less-than-stellar fortune with other plays. As we’ve reported, “the Player Kings” was a bust thanks to ole Butter-toes McKellan, and we haven’t even bothered to mention (until now, ahem) a rained-out theater-in-the-park production. Thankfully the last few days all went off without a hitch!