Fallen Angels (Streaming)

I saw Fallen Angels on Broadway and then watched it on BroadwayHD, which I joined just to see it. (I wonder how many new subscribers they got due to Fallen Angels.)

Fallen Angels is silly as can be, and extremely entertaining. It offers two fabulous roles for women and leaves room for them to unleash their own silliness. Kelli O'Hara and Rose Byrne are terrific, amazing, incredibly funny.

The point of this post is to discuss how the streaming version compares to the live. Director Scott Ellis provides a smooth, clear, record of the show that captures a great deal of what was on stage. I was afraid that the streaming version would come across as horribly overacted, but it came across as just the right amount overacted!

While the close-ups are lovely, I missed the ability to choose where to look. I sometimes focus more on a person listening than a person speaking, to see how the character is responding. An actor who is a good listener can add so much to a show. I often didn't have that option with the streaming version, as the listener was not always in the shot. 

All in all, Ellis et al. did a terrific job, and it's always wonderful to have a record of that most ephemeral of arts, theater. I feel that someone who only saw the streaming version had a full experience of the play. Many times, on seeing taped versions of live performances, I would think, "You had to be there." But not with this Fallen Angel. It truly allowed watchers to be there.

But where did it go? BroadwayHD only showed it for a few weeks. I hope it isn't gone forever. I know that there can be complications with unions and rights in the US (which is why, I suspect, BroadwayHD has so many West End versions of American shows). Here's hoping the show has a long life somewhere!

Wendy Caster

You Can't Take It With You

photo: Joan Marcus

The new Broadway revival of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s You Can’t Take It With You is spectacularly bad. This, perhaps, shouldn’t be surprising. New York theatre no longer specializes in top-drawer revivals of the classic comedies of the twenties, thirties, and forties. Once in an ever-growing while, you’ll get a production like Doug Hughes’ The Royal Family, done for Manhattan Theatre Club in 2009, where a talented cast creates the kind of magic that makes you feel like the golden age never ended. More often, though, you end up with subpar stagings that might even make you question the integrity of the original work: the Kim Cattrall Private Lives; the Victor Garber Present Laughter; Roundabout’s ghastly Old Acquaintance. There are even more such productions of which I don’t care to be reminded.
 

This new take on the Pulitzer-winning classic, staged by Scott Ellis in a Roundabout co-production, seemed so promising. On paper, the cast is divine. The set takes your breath away as soon as the house lights dim. The incidental music by three-time Tony winner Jason Robert Brown had my toes tapping. Yet as soon as the gums started flapping, I knew something was terribly wrong.