I saw a
poor production of The Phantom of the Opera last night. I complained to my
husband that it just didn’t give me “the feels” like I thought it should. The
pace of the entire production was way too fast, the sound engineering was poor,
there was no emotion, there were no dramatic pauses, there was no chemistry
between the actors…no feels. The characters who were supposed to be in love didn't touch each other or stand close until they had to finally kiss. The sets were different, but not spectacular. I
know that it wasn’t a dedicated “Phantom” theatre like how the Pantages was
built, but it was still lackluster.
Then I felt
bad for thinking so lowly of the production. These were professionals putting
on a classic production – could I have done any better? Who was I to judge? Maybe
after so many years – decades, in fact – since the last time I’d seen the show,
maybe my tastes had matured and The Phantom was not something that was any good
to begin with, but my immature theatre-sense at the time didn’t know any
better. I’d seen it so long ago and unwarrantedly put it on this fantastically
high pedestal that nothing would ever be able to come close to. That had to be
it, right?
And yet,
here I am at work (maybe I shouldn’t include that fact), listening to the original
London cast soundtrack on YouTube with a shitty pair of headphones, and…the feels!
I mean, it’s
not fair to compare last night’s singers to Michael Crawford or Sarah
Brightman, okay fine. But just the emotion that you can hear in their performances is enough to confirm to me that this IS
a production that can give me goosebumps. As I listen, I can totally envision
the original production that I saw on stage so long ago with the rich colours
and costumes and set design; the billowing mist of the underwater lake, the
smoke of the hundreds of candles that rose magically from the stage, the
elaborate, glittering, infamous chandelier.
And it’s
not just the singers or the remembered visuals – the accompanying orchestra for
this soundtrack version is just so expressive – it’s a character of the musical
itself. There are pleading strings, ominous brasses, thundering percussion. I
got the feels more from these recorded instruments than I did from the onstage
actors last night.
I
appreciate the efforts of a production company to put on a show – I really do –
but they just happened to miss the mark with this one. They’re all talented
individuals in their own rights, but this combination was just not a winning
one. As my brother commented, “we should have watched the [2004] movie version
before watching this show…that way anything by comparison to the movie would
have been better.”
True story.
