Amateur Night at Porchlight

On Saturday, my companion surprised me with tickets to Porchlight's production of Maury Yeston's Phantom, which I've been dying to see. I was shocked that he had actually been paying attention when I've talked about it, usually scheduling something with him is like pulling teeth and then once we finally settle on a date it's up to me to get the tickets. So, after a great dinner at Mama Desta's and desert at Bittersweet, it seemed like it was going to be a great night. Unfortunately, the production did not live up to the standard set by Ragtime, which is surprising since the principal production staff returned. Maybe it's unfair to judge everything from here on out by Ragtime's standard, but at the same time, it was such a leap forward for them that it can't help but cast a shadow over everything they do. While the story was fine on its own (although having read Gaston Leroux's novel, I can say that Yeston and Kopit made just as many changes to the story as ALW did, it isn't any more "authentic" despite what the critics would try to get you to believe. If you really want to see the actual story played out, the 1925 Lon Chaney silent film is the truest adaptation you can get), the acting was wildly uneven, the sets were mediocre to awful, and as much as I hate to criticize the orchestra when they usually perform a thankless job as it is, and I hate even more to criticize a fellow trumpet player, the score was heavy on the trumpet and trumpet player Kevin Tague played like he had just had extensive dental work done earlier in the day. Every time he would play, the people in front of me would start laughing, it was so awful. However, the rest of the orchestra did fine, and the synthethized honky-tonk piano added character by making it sound like the soundtrack to an old silent movie, effectively setting the tone for the rest of the prodution. However, I found Yeston's songs to be far less compelling than the scores of his other three major shows, which may explain why this one never made it to Broadway and found success on the dinner theatre circuit instead. They were nice, but hardly memorable (again, despite what the critics would have you believe. "La La La La La, Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba" is hardly in Music of the Night territory.) I will take Lloyd Webber's bombast and pomp over Yeston's timid and safe tunes any day. Then there was the set. After using the space so effectively in Amadeus, Sweeney Todd, and Ragtime, one would think they could have come up with something better than an open thrust with a revolving backdrop that looked like it was about to fall apart at any minute. Seriously, the back drop was a round drum that spun from the stage to the manager's office to the Phantom's lair, any other setting was achieved by drawing the curtains across the backdrop and setting up some tables or other visual cues. It was very noisy (audibly and visually) and distracting. The chandelier drop was probably the most anti-climactic thing ever in a theatre, although my companion was right next to as it swooped down the aisle and got a good jump out of it which he doesn't think I noticed! I wasn't expecting anything sumptuous, but after seeing how effectively they did Ragtime (and again, Amadeus and Sweeney) I was expecting better. If they couldn't do realistic, they should have gone for abstract and done a less-is-more approach. Lastly, there was the acting. Other than youngster Drew Mikuska, who played the Boy in Ragtime and did so well, and older Jim Sherman, who played Grandpa in Ragtime just as well, there wasn't a single regular in the cast. There were a few bit players from the Ragtime transfer, but no other regular Porchlight members, which in a cast of 16 made a noticeable difference. Hopefully they're resting up for Nine. Drew was good but wasn't given much to do, and Jim was fantastic, one of the two bright spots, the other being Lara Filip, who was an excellent Christine. She gave the character all the vulnerability and strength needed to make her believable, and has a fantastic voice that easily segued between the more pop style inner-musing type songs and the more operatic character performance songs. She was superb. The rest of the cast was blah, with the exception of Peter Oyloe as the Phantom, who wasn't totally awful, but bordered on it. To start with, he looks about 20 in his program photo, and not helping any is the fact that Kopit wrote the character with the over-emotionalness of a goth high school kid. However, in the book, every adaptation except for the movie of ALW's production, and we know what I think of that, the Phantom is much older, and according to the timeline presented by Jim Sherman's character, the Phantom should have been pushing 40. The overly dramatic lines he was given were cringe inducing, and while Oyloe is a decent singer (obviously why he was hired), he can't emote his way out of a paper bag (and I mean that literally, the mask looked like he had covered his face with masking tape and even though Christine did remove it, his back remained to us so we never got to see his face which is essential to forming an emotional connection with the character). The Phantom remained a cypher throughout the show, which didn't allow the audience to emotionally bond with him. Instead we attached ourselves to Christine and had to wonder why she didn't pursue Philippe (Raoul's name was changed and he was now a Champagne heir, sort of a male Paris Hilton) with a little more determination. Still, it wasn't awful. If I hadn't seen Ragtime and had my expectations set so high, I probably would have enjoyed it more, and I do still recommend it at least to contrast with ALW's take on the show. I just hope they put a little more effort into Nine next spring.