"Lestat," at long last!
Apr. 2nd, 2006 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicSo. "Lestat."
It has been more than a week since we went to see this latest tragedy of an adaptation of the Vampire Chronicles, and the details are fading as fast as Lestat's recollections of Heaven. Nonetheless it must be reviewed, so I'll do my best to recap the plot and highlight the most ridiculous, entertaining and dramatic moments for you adoring readers.
Where no Chronicles adaptation has gone before.
It's hard to give an objective review of the show, seeing as how (a) I'm a big fan of the books, (b) I can't really say what it was like to see the play without all that background, and (c) I was expecting so little of it that I was positively delighted with what I got. I can say that the music wasn't anything to rave about. In addition, with so much to cover in so little time—Act I and half of Act II covered The Vampire Lestat while the other half of Act II took care of the Lestatty bits of Interview with the Vampire—the characters had to vocalize their quickly-shifting philosophies and motivations so as not to lose the audience, whom I imagine were confused and/or unmoved anyway without the benefit of hundreds of pages of information from the novels to fill in what the musical simplified or barely touched. For the most part, though, the play was faithful to the books in plot, characterization and spirit.
I think "Lestat" functions best as a companion to the Chronicles. For me the best thing the play had going for it was its depictions, however divergent from the books and/or my personal interpretations, of scenes and characters that had never been represented in the movies: Lestat, his wolves and his parents; Nicki; Laurent and Eleni; Lestat, Armand and Gabrielle in the church; Armand with the Les Innocents coven; New Orleans/IWTV from Lestat's perspective; Armand tossing Lestat off the cliff... As it's been a while since I've read the books properly, there were even a few moments I'd forgotten about until they were performed—Lestat beating Armand to a pulp, for example, a moment I loved in the book, so even though Armand's face couldn't be broken and bloody and then knit itself back together, it was still satisfying to see.
And then there was the slash.
You may remember that many months ago when I first wondered what the play might be like, I had those dreams about the male characters kissing each other onstage to cheers from the audience. After one or two of those, I realized that a large part of what I wanted was, if not the kissing especially, at least for the intimacy that pervades the novels to be palpable. I also realized we probably weren't going to get it. Maybe I should have known better with people like Elton John behind the scenes. Still, when the reviews came out from San Francisco no-one mentioned any naughtiness, indicating its absence.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synn soothed by pointing out that that sort of thing wouldn't make a splash in SF. She's probably right. But it also turns out that most of the kissing, wrestling, seductions, entwining and homoerotic angst we were treated to in the play was sprinkled in just before its Broadway opening.
Despite being lackluster about the production in the days leading up to it, which I think was largely a defensive measure against disappointment, at dinner before the show I started to get excited again, thanks in part to a discussion with Alex, one of my earliest and best Chronicles buddies (and at the expense of everyone else at the table—sorry!), about what we hoped to see on stage, and also tosynn's comment in the subway that even if book writer Linda Woolverton managed to suck all the overt homoeroticism out of the play, we would certainly be able to read it right back in there. "A bunch of male vampires," she stressed. "Since when do we watch things and not find them slashy?" It was heartening.
And so what a delight to find that there was much slashiness built in! Nicki and Lestat were clearly gay lovers, so much so that Gabrielle wished them a happy life together. True to the books, once turned, the vampires no longer distinguished between genders or familial relationships when it came to expressing affection, so not only did we have a lengthy open-mouthed kiss between Lestat and Gabrielle, we were also given some wonderful casual intimacy between the men; for example, during one conversation Lestat and Louis entwined themselves on a settee, Louis lying on top of Lestat with his arms threaded through Lestat's bent leg. And there were some tongue-in-cheek comments about vampirism as a metaphor for queer life tossed in for good measure, nice and appropriate in the midst of today's debates over gay marriage, such as when Lestat first brings Claudia home:
Production specifics
I'm crap at identifying fabrics and I have no expertise in period-appropriate styles, but to this untrained eye the costumes were lovely, if at times cartoonish. I confess to not remembering most of them in detail. The best thing about the makeup was its absence: no stupid big teeth, no heavy mascara or bright lipstick, except for the acting troupes, and that's justified. The vampires were simply subtly pale. And Nicolas was pasty enough as a human and Marius dark enough as a vampire that even the skin tone didn't make the vampires look all that different from everyone else.
The scenery was uneven. I liked the huge vertical strips of what looked like torn cardboard, which glided left and right in various scenes to indicate travel and provided convenient hiding places when stalking prey. The two theatre sets were cool, too, so that we the audience were "backstage" watching the backs of the performers in front of the "curtain" playing to their own "audience." I hadn't realized that the set designer, Derek McLane, was responsible for other standout sets like the floor-to-ceiling museum collage for "I Am My Own Wife" and the lovely neon lights of "The Threepenny Opera."
Was psyched when it was announced last year that English graphic artist Dave McKean was in on the project as "Visual Concept Designer," and you could see his touch here and there: in the drawings of Lestat that have graced all the publicity material and the stage curtain, in the video installations that ran during each vampire attack and simulated the vampire's drinking experience by showing a stylized rush of blood cells followed by a single representational image from the victim's life (woman on a beach, baby laughing, etc.), in the random painting of a blue Picasso-esque cat lady in one scene.
Take this with a grain of salt, I suppose, since I'm not the world's biggest fan of musicals, but the songs were mostly unimpressive, longer than they needed to be, and at times set the entirely wrong mood. Even the most brilliant lyrics won't make an impression if they aren't set to a decent melody. I don't even remember half of the numbers, and the rest I'd rather not revisit. I had issues with Louis singing at all, musical or no. Lestat's power ballad came without an introduction on the heels of Claudia's attempted murder, so we were all trying to figure out how he got where he was as he sang, and what could have been his big number just ended up being a lot of noise signifying nothing. Others have pointed out the gross inappropriateness of Armand leading the cast in the cheerful/sadistic "To Kill Your Kind" as he orchestrated Claudia's execution. The only standout for me was Claudia's catchy "I Want More," which was a good song made awesome in comparison to everything else, chock full of melody and pep and personality. (catilinarian and synn liked the duet between Lestat and Nicki.)
On to the thorn in the side of all VC adaptations: pacing. The play as a whole felt simultaneously rushed and sluggish: Each chapter of Lestat's life flew by, as did the dialogue and songs in the beginning, yet there were other songs and conversations that dragged and dragged. If only they had trimmed or choppedthe Knight Bus Gabrielle's syrupy "Beautiful Boy" and Claudia's whiny "I'll Never Have That Chance" (especially considering it came immediately after her other solo), they would have had more time for the Marauders character-building and exploration of the philosophical/theological debates that made the first few books so affecting. With luck the Powers That Be will even things out in the next few weeks. They're already making changes almost nightly. To be fair, I realize there is a lot of material in The Vampire Lestat to be covered in a play of two-hours-and-change, and for the most part the quick pace did work; by the end it felt like we had lived through all these chapters of Lestat's life, seen them flash by in proportion to how a vampire experiences them—a few minutes each within a three-hour play, like decades flash by to a creature that lives for centuries or millennia. If the slower sections are tightened up I think the whole story will feel more coherent.
The latest crop of miscast actors
As far as Lestats go, Hugh Panaro—former Phantom of the Opera, also Raoul in Phantom and Marius in Les Miz—wasn't bad. At the very least, he did charismatic!Lestat better than Stuart Townsend did angsty!Lestat and Tom Cruise did mentally-unstable!Lestat. The press photos make him look like Legolas but onstage the wig wasn't so bad, and he had the mile-wide impish grin down pat. The problem seemed to be that Panaro has more singing and acting talent than the script and music allowed him to express, so it felt like he was hemmed in for most of the night.
I don't have too much invested in Gabrielle, so I thought Carolee Carmello was all right. She managed the transformation well from stiff old matron in corsetted dress to nimble spitfire in men's clothes. She pounced, or more properly leapt, onto her first kill and growled as she ravaged his neck, which got a laugh. She stuck around long enough to do the church/Les Innocents bit and tell Lestat how stupid he was for turning Nicki, then ran off and didn't show up in Act II.
Nicki (Roderick Hill) was a waif of a young man who, by the time Lestat turned him, looked like nothing so much as a Half Blood Prince-era Draco, sick and pale and beaten. He wasn't how I imagined the character at all—too feeble, insipid, and a bad violin player. Let's forgive the prop department for giving him a bow that had not one but two separate strings dangle and drop off during the performance. Let's acknowledge that it's probably impossible to actually the play the violin as well as vampire!Nicki did in The Vampire Lestat. Let's criticize only the facts that Roderick Hill could not play or sing accompaniment, and the music he was given was terrible to begin with. Even after he became a vampire, his playing stayed pathetically mournful instead of transforming into the demonically frenetic. Fun with the slashiness, but ultimately no loss when Lestat chucked him on the pyre.
Uh, and then we were presented with Jesus/monk/magician!Marius. WTF. Michael Genet is an African-American actor (good to have some diversity, and this Marius was no Roman senator anyway) with some sort of odd accent. Wearing red robes that would be more appropriate in Tibet than ancient Rome (but whatever), he burst onto the stage at the end of Act I amidst lightning and fog and thereafter dispensed tidbits of wisdom to Lestat while fishing off a pier. When he wasn't floating in midair, that is. Oh God. It was one thing to have Vincent Perez play him as a dandy in The Queen of the Damned, because after the initial shock wore off I could see where the screenwriters and/or Vincent himself could distill him into the fey artist. The sage interpretation is plausible too, but at least in the movie he was deliberately amusing.
Armand wasn't half as awful, perhaps because of the comparison to WTFMarius and Creepy-Banderas!Armand or perhaps because I've resigned myself to the fact that no one will ever get him right, not even if they someday deign to cast a redhead. I'm sorry not to have gotten to see Jack Noseworthy in the part—they fired him when they reworked the character halfway through the San Fran run, and he looked pretty good in the role, from the one picture I've seen. Drew Sarich was too large physically, taller than the rest of the cast including Lestat and solidly built. It offset the whole dynamic of having someone young and fragile-looking who draws attention through seductive magnetism, usually while needing to tilt his head up to look at everyone. But Sarich's face was appropriately cherubic and overall the character was responsibly presented, including his petulance, desire for revenge after Lestat broke up his cozy coven, and, finally, reference to his relationship with Marius.
Claudia was a breath of fresh air when she finally arrived, much as she revitalized Lestat and Louis' languishing life together in New Orleans. Allison Fischer was a little old for the part (but then so was Kirsten Dunst; I suppose you're not going to get a good six-year-old actress who understands her role), but the hairpiece and costumes compensated. She rocked the house with her first solo, got a few great jabs in about Lestat, mourned for her lost chance to grow up, did the slash-and-burn thing with Louis, joined the cast of the Theatre des Vampires, and then poofed away in the sunlight.
Louis was...eh. Jim Stanek's head shot makes him look kind of cute, but translated into Louis with his curly wig, he didn't do much for me. Neither awful nor awesome.
Cast photos at http://www.lestat.com/cast.php for those who care.
Bad jokes, ironic ring tones and crashing scenery, or, That's what you get for going on the first night of previews.
There were plenty of things to laugh at. Most of them were unintentional on the writers' parts and left us to devise our own various methods of stifling giggles. (Jess bit her finger; I kept quiet but couldn't stop my shoulders from shaking with laughter, which I'm sure the people behind me appreciated.) Others were specific to our performance—the sort of technical gaffes you can excuse in the first preview performance, like one of the vertical strips of scenery crashing into another one on its way off stage, the mast of Lestat's ship getting stuck as it rose so it dangled into the scaffolding halfway through the second Theatre des Vampires scene, and the magic fire winking on and off at suspicious moments. Also, at one point, after a sexually tense song or moment between two characters, someone's cell phone went off, and of all ring tones it was that dance one that goes "Every time we touch..." I don't know how everyone kept from laughing, including the actors.
Some of the intended humor fell flat, the most memorable of which was Gabrielle's early line about how she knows how Lestat feels after slaughtering the wolves, like he's gone to hell and back and no one can comprehend the change in him, because she had given birth. *sound of crickets chirping, then a few titters* Apparently that was cut by the second night. But there was also some genuinely funny dialogue, like a couple of jokes at Bram Stoker's expense, a couple of jokes at Louis' expense, Lestat's wry comment about how he has a problem with making fledglings who leave him, and his exasperated "Will you never let me forget that?" when Claudia taunted him about having told her he was an angel the night he turned her into a vampire. Claudia's breakaway pop hit also got a great reaction from the audience. Probably it was sheer relief at having some halfway decent music to latch onto.
The rest in chronological order, I suppose.
The curtain rises to reveal Lestat in the Auvergne woods, kneeling behind one of the wolves he's just killed. He starts in right away with a song that must have lost most of the non-Chronicles fans in the audience; the lyrics doubtless explained the situation, but I for one didn't catch most of them because I was still getting acclimated to watching a play, and all the way through the first few scenes in Paris, there was no time to figure out what was going on, even for those of us who knew the plot, since we're talking about the play plot and not necessarily the book plot. I read that Bernie Taupin et al removed the bookends of the show in which Lestat is shown typing his story out on the computer, and also condensed the beginning from its original format in San Francisco, where people complained that it took too long; again, hopefully they'll adjust the pacing one more time and find a happy medium.
Before you knew it Lestat was done with his opening number and walks off stage to be replaced by a mysterious man with spiky gray hair, dressed in what looks like a painter's uniform, gray coveralls splattered with white. He growls "Wolfkiller" quite dramatically, the lights go out, and then we're in the second scene, the de Lioncourt homestead. Some cursory gruffness from the Marquis, Lestat knocks him down as the elder reaches out to strike his wife, and then we're left with mother and son bonding. Gabrielle sympathizes with Lestat before ordering him to run off to Paris, be with Nicki and not to worry about her; Lestat bolts, leaving Gabrielle to sing about her "Beautiful Boy," not to be confused with Cole from Mr. Holland's Opus.
Ah! but then we reach exciting Paris, backstage at the theater during a performance wherein lots of people in costumes are dancing and singing the creatively titled number "In Paris" while a delighted Nicki dashes back and forth between Lestat and his performance. Nicki is playing the bawdy crowd-pleaser Lelio, not that anyone who hadn't read the books knew who Nicki was, who Lelio was, or really what the hell was going on. (Sadly, we never see Lestat in the role, or for that matter, as an actor at all. He meets Magnus his first night in town.)
There's only the one bed... Guess we'll have to share it...
After this whirlwind of an introduction, the blond pair adjourn to Nicki's tiny apartment, where Nicki announces that, gee, there's only the one bed. What to do? Leap upon it together, naturally, engage in a tickle fight/wrestling match/lovers' reunion, share a bottle of wine and settle into lounging/touching/reminiscing. (At least one slasher among our entourage thought Nicki was Lestat's brother but went with it anyway, not as disturbed as she thought she ought to be.) Nicki starts "playing" his violin and singing to Lestat off-key in badly pronounced French, and then, in one of the earliest WTF moments, half the pit orchestra joins in. I half expected Lestat and Nicki to stop and look around for the source of the sudden accompaniment.
Sated in multiple ways and apparently unaware of the extra instruments, Lestat intelligently goes out for a walk in the middle of the night and runs into the painter from before. Oh, wait, it's Magnus! Magnus drains him and makes him drink, then does the crazy rapid exposition/joyous leap into the magic stage pyre of doom, leaving Lestat to fend for his poor tortured self.
One big happy bloodsucking incestuous bisexual family.
Blahbeddy blah, Gabrielle shows up in town with a sudden bout of consumptive illness, she finds Nicki and wishes him & Lestat well in an impressive acceptance of her son's homosexual bohemian lifestyle (lines to the effect of "Since I watched you two as children skipping hand-in-hand down the lane I've known you would be together for the rest of your lives...take care of my son"), Nicki tells her Lestat hasn't been home in days, and after she leaves Lestat sings an angsty song outside Nicki's doorway about how his friend is right in front of him but he can't take him. Then he visits his mother, who somehow figures out that he's a vampire by touching his hands and cheek, and begs him to turn her so she can be freeeee. Now I know it's been a few years since I've read the book properly, but didn't Lestat forcibly turn Gabrielle and Nicki against their wishes? Because they were both willing here, and in Gabrielle's case quite pushy. Lestat wasn't that innocent.
Enter everyone's favorite Botticelli angel.
Lestat and newly-vamped/liberated Gabrielle paint the town red, wander through Notre Dame and encounter our buddy Armand, who for some reason was already in the church and didn't seem too terrified. They follow him back to his crypt cult, where Lestat makes his inspiring speech intended to free them all from ignorance. There was a nice lack of crazy elder lady down there. Another lovely touch came when, in the middle of his song about the ability to and necessity of coming above ground and living among mortals, Lestat presses a crucifix into Armand's hand; as the song and dance whirl around him, Armand gapes at the cross in his hand, slowly loweres it, stares at it, breathes, looks at Lestat, and you could see his expression shift from wonder to hatred as, true to the book, he watches Lestat destroy his carefully constructed worldview and undermine his leadership without even realizing the damage he's causing. Stage set for revenge in Act II.
Unable to wait that long, Armand drags Nicki down and forces Lestat to turn him. Poor pathetic Nicki asks Lestat to do it so they can be together forever. Unfortunately lacking the constitution for the change—too innocent for it, apparently—Nicki has a seizure and goes catatonic for the remainder of his soon boring stage time.
Theatre of the absurd, in more than one way.
Cut to the Theatre des Vampires, where the coven has taken Lestat's advice to heart and formed their own acting troupe. Their first production tells the story of the "Origin of the Species," only it's no myth I've ever seen in the Chronicles. It was pretty to watch in a Lion King-esque, mouth-gaping kind of way: four ensemble members hold horizontal rods with green strips stretched between them while white-clad, mask-wearing mimes/dancers alternately squat beneath the "grass" and poke their heads above it in a baffling play about mankind, lust and innocence, and the savior Marius who swoops in from above in his red robes to save innocence but doom man to suffer lust, or something. All I know is there was this flabbergasting allegory and it was set to a choir chanting MAH REE OOOOOOS, MAH REE OOOOOOS. No Druids, no Mael, no extra-crispy tree god, no Those Who Must Be Kept. (Rumor has it Akasha & Enkil did make a token appearance in the San Fran version.) Desperately searching for a way to give them the benefit of the doubt, I've decided the entire thing was meant to be an idealized expression of Armand's life, with Marius rescuing him from the brothel and acting as a sort of God-savior.
Time passes. With his mother-daughter and broken boyfriend in tow, Lestat whines and wanders along the Devil's Road in search of Marius and a cure for Nicki. Beside a giant mossy stone head, Gabrielle soon gives in to her inevitable wanderlust and leaves Lestat to grow up enough to kill his suffering friend. "I didn't make you so you would leave me," Lestat complains. "Well, I gave birth to you with the hope that one day you'd leave me," she retorts. Oh, snap.
Having arrived at the same resolution as Gabrielle, and also having lost what little there was of his own personality to begin with, Nicki channels Brent Spiner in Independence Day and grunts, several times, "Release...me..." until Lestat caves and, weeping, puts him on the fire and scatters his ashes.
All alone, just when he is about to give up, two huge panels in the back of the set separate, lightning and fog pour out of the cavernous opening, and warlock!Marius floats into view, beckoning Lestat to "Come!"
Curtain.
Act II, Scene 1. In which the closing scene does not prove to be a hallucination or nightmare.
Zen Master Marius sits barefoot on a pier on his Those Who Must Be Kept-free Mediterranean island paradise, fishing with a hookless string into the stage. No wonder you aren't catching any fish, supposedly wise one! He chats with Lestat about their mutual friend Armand, whom Marius "took off the streets" before realizing what a terrible idea it was to make a vampire that young and needy (Take heed, Lestat! or don't.), then tells him that to learn about immortality he needs to live among mortals for the span of one full mortal life. Suggests a subversive little town in the New World, nudge-nudge wink-wink,says Om and sends Lestat off.
Act II, Scenes 2-something. In which we cover much the same ground as IWTV.
The opening song, "Welcome to the New World" (oh, the genius of your titles, John-and-Taupin!), was nice and energetic, with Lestat posing against a railing and smiling down on the silly yet intriguing little native mortals while they do all the dancing. Some people on the "Lestat" posting boards complained that in the SF production, there wasn't enough of a noticeable difference in costume between Paris and Louisiana, but that was clearly fixed, since the ensemble now wear turbans and loose cotton clothing instead of Europe's rich brocades and head-to-toe coverings.
Lestat finds Louis in a tavern, at which point we have some movie contamination issues when Louis tells him that he's in despair because his wife killed herself and their newborn baby, and then Lestat wastes no time in vamping him—again, with the victim's implicit permission, to a degree. We get a couple of scenes in their cozy apartment as Louis wrestles with the Terrible Thirst and Lestat urges him to "Embrace It," It being of course his ruthless vampire nature. (Oh God, please let me repeat, Louis singing is just wrong, even singing out of melancholy.) I've already mentioned the highlights of the New Orleans chapter, Claudia's song and Louis and Lestat's entwining/retreating echoing their tempestuous relationship. It was all very enjoyable. In the culmination of her growing pains, Claudia feeds Lestat the absinthe- and laudanum-laced young lady from the ball, Louis sets the place ablaze, and they run off for Europe.
Act II, everything else but the end. In which we return to Paris, Claudia gets her come-uppance, Louis' heart breaks, vengeance is sweet, and Lelio rises like a phoenix.
I've also already mentioned that directly following this scene is Lestat's big solo number, "Sail Me Away," only we aren't told how he escaped the raging blaze or how much time has passed since the last scene. Oh well.
Lestat pays a visit to our favorite undead acting troupe, where he discovers that not only has Armand become their manager (since the poor pack is utterly incapable of taking care of itself), but Claudia and Louis have also joined the cast of players as, you guessed it, vampire slayers. Okay, you didn't guess it, but it's true. When Lestat shows up they're in the middle of a parody of vampire bodice-rippers, wherein Laurent, who by the way is also huge and not a teenager, plays a Transylvanian bloodsucker uttering lines like "I vant to drink of your beau-ty" while a nubile young victim in her bed responds passionately, "Drink from me! Don't die!" Just as he gives in and she swoons, Louis' van Helsing and Claudia's—what, Buffy?—burst in and stake Laurent's character, to the "audience's" applause. It was great fun! Still, I must say I was embarrassed for Louis and Claudia.
Anyone who'd read the books or seen IWTV knew what was coming, but it's still heart-wrenching to watch Armand wrest control of Claudia's fate from Lestat, who is too late and too weak to stop it, and to see Louis ruined afterwards. Louis drifts about with Claudia's dress in his restless hands and takes his depressed leave of Lestat, who then meets Armand on the roof of the theatre. Armand sings an utterly forgettable and repetitive song that was probably about how Lestat got what he deserved. Lestat then totally one-ups him by saying he'd met Marius (oh, the look on Armand's face), and not only that, but Marius called him his greatest crime against vampires. And then we get to see Armand chuck Lestat off the roof!
The last scene...
...is best done Movies in 15 Minutes-style. Lestat lies at the base of the cliff/ground far below the roof, broken, calling out to God for answers or meaning. God doesn't answer because we're not watching Memnoch, but Marius does, and in the play they're kind of the same person anyway, so it's all right.heaven the spotlight. They fade into smoke and lightning, etc. Lestat steps forward in a red shirt and jeans, says, "I am the Vampire Lestat, and I am immortal." Curtain falls. Standing ovation, which I hope was for encouragement and not an expression of complete satisfaction, but if standing ovations mean a longer run, then keep it up, kids.
The end. In which we keep talking anyway, because 5,000 words are better than 4,900.
So there you have it: "Lestat," as seen in the very first preview performance on Broadway. With luck it will last longer than "Dracula: The Musical," or for that matter, "Dance of the Vampires," did, so that it is still running in July when Margaret makes it to the States and so I can re-read the book before going back, and that the creative team make lots of adjustments so we can be treated to a different and even better production. Here's hopin'...
It has been more than a week since we went to see this latest tragedy of an adaptation of the Vampire Chronicles, and the details are fading as fast as Lestat's recollections of Heaven. Nonetheless it must be reviewed, so I'll do my best to recap the plot and highlight the most ridiculous, entertaining and dramatic moments for you adoring readers.
Where no Chronicles adaptation has gone before.
It's hard to give an objective review of the show, seeing as how (a) I'm a big fan of the books, (b) I can't really say what it was like to see the play without all that background, and (c) I was expecting so little of it that I was positively delighted with what I got. I can say that the music wasn't anything to rave about. In addition, with so much to cover in so little time—Act I and half of Act II covered The Vampire Lestat while the other half of Act II took care of the Lestatty bits of Interview with the Vampire—the characters had to vocalize their quickly-shifting philosophies and motivations so as not to lose the audience, whom I imagine were confused and/or unmoved anyway without the benefit of hundreds of pages of information from the novels to fill in what the musical simplified or barely touched. For the most part, though, the play was faithful to the books in plot, characterization and spirit.
I think "Lestat" functions best as a companion to the Chronicles. For me the best thing the play had going for it was its depictions, however divergent from the books and/or my personal interpretations, of scenes and characters that had never been represented in the movies: Lestat, his wolves and his parents; Nicki; Laurent and Eleni; Lestat, Armand and Gabrielle in the church; Armand with the Les Innocents coven; New Orleans/IWTV from Lestat's perspective; Armand tossing Lestat off the cliff... As it's been a while since I've read the books properly, there were even a few moments I'd forgotten about until they were performed—Lestat beating Armand to a pulp, for example, a moment I loved in the book, so even though Armand's face couldn't be broken and bloody and then knit itself back together, it was still satisfying to see.
And then there was the slash.
You may remember that many months ago when I first wondered what the play might be like, I had those dreams about the male characters kissing each other onstage to cheers from the audience. After one or two of those, I realized that a large part of what I wanted was, if not the kissing especially, at least for the intimacy that pervades the novels to be palpable. I also realized we probably weren't going to get it. Maybe I should have known better with people like Elton John behind the scenes. Still, when the reviews came out from San Francisco no-one mentioned any naughtiness, indicating its absence.
synn soothed by pointing out that that sort of thing wouldn't make a splash in SF. She's probably right. But it also turns out that most of the kissing, wrestling, seductions, entwining and homoerotic angst we were treated to in the play was sprinkled in just before its Broadway opening.Despite being lackluster about the production in the days leading up to it, which I think was largely a defensive measure against disappointment, at dinner before the show I started to get excited again, thanks in part to a discussion with Alex, one of my earliest and best Chronicles buddies (and at the expense of everyone else at the table—sorry!), about what we hoped to see on stage, and also to
synn's comment in the subway that even if book writer Linda Woolverton managed to suck all the overt homoeroticism out of the play, we would certainly be able to read it right back in there. "A bunch of male vampires," she stressed. "Since when do we watch things and not find them slashy?" It was heartening. And so what a delight to find that there was much slashiness built in! Nicki and Lestat were clearly gay lovers, so much so that Gabrielle wished them a happy life together. True to the books, once turned, the vampires no longer distinguished between genders or familial relationships when it came to expressing affection, so not only did we have a lengthy open-mouthed kiss between Lestat and Gabrielle, we were also given some wonderful casual intimacy between the men; for example, during one conversation Lestat and Louis entwined themselves on a settee, Louis lying on top of Lestat with his arms threaded through Lestat's bent leg. And there were some tongue-in-cheek comments about vampirism as a metaphor for queer life tossed in for good measure, nice and appropriate in the midst of today's debates over gay marriage, such as when Lestat first brings Claudia home:
Claudia: I've never had a father.The vampire attacks were suitably sensual/sexual, with most characters attacking from behind and sliding their hands along the victim's body while he or she swooned. And in the fulfillment of my dreams, we had, if memory serves, three m/m kisses—Nicolas/Lestat, Louis/Lestat and Armand/Lestat. Hugh Panaro must be having a blast up there, ha ha.
Lestat: Well, now you have two!
Production specifics
I'm crap at identifying fabrics and I have no expertise in period-appropriate styles, but to this untrained eye the costumes were lovely, if at times cartoonish. I confess to not remembering most of them in detail. The best thing about the makeup was its absence: no stupid big teeth, no heavy mascara or bright lipstick, except for the acting troupes, and that's justified. The vampires were simply subtly pale. And Nicolas was pasty enough as a human and Marius dark enough as a vampire that even the skin tone didn't make the vampires look all that different from everyone else.
The scenery was uneven. I liked the huge vertical strips of what looked like torn cardboard, which glided left and right in various scenes to indicate travel and provided convenient hiding places when stalking prey. The two theatre sets were cool, too, so that we the audience were "backstage" watching the backs of the performers in front of the "curtain" playing to their own "audience." I hadn't realized that the set designer, Derek McLane, was responsible for other standout sets like the floor-to-ceiling museum collage for "I Am My Own Wife" and the lovely neon lights of "The Threepenny Opera."
Was psyched when it was announced last year that English graphic artist Dave McKean was in on the project as "Visual Concept Designer," and you could see his touch here and there: in the drawings of Lestat that have graced all the publicity material and the stage curtain, in the video installations that ran during each vampire attack and simulated the vampire's drinking experience by showing a stylized rush of blood cells followed by a single representational image from the victim's life (woman on a beach, baby laughing, etc.), in the random painting of a blue Picasso-esque cat lady in one scene.
Take this with a grain of salt, I suppose, since I'm not the world's biggest fan of musicals, but the songs were mostly unimpressive, longer than they needed to be, and at times set the entirely wrong mood. Even the most brilliant lyrics won't make an impression if they aren't set to a decent melody. I don't even remember half of the numbers, and the rest I'd rather not revisit. I had issues with Louis singing at all, musical or no. Lestat's power ballad came without an introduction on the heels of Claudia's attempted murder, so we were all trying to figure out how he got where he was as he sang, and what could have been his big number just ended up being a lot of noise signifying nothing. Others have pointed out the gross inappropriateness of Armand leading the cast in the cheerful/sadistic "To Kill Your Kind" as he orchestrated Claudia's execution. The only standout for me was Claudia's catchy "I Want More," which was a good song made awesome in comparison to everything else, chock full of melody and pep and personality. (
catilinarian and synn liked the duet between Lestat and Nicki.)On to the thorn in the side of all VC adaptations: pacing. The play as a whole felt simultaneously rushed and sluggish: Each chapter of Lestat's life flew by, as did the dialogue and songs in the beginning, yet there were other songs and conversations that dragged and dragged. If only they had trimmed or chopped
The latest crop of miscast actors
As far as Lestats go, Hugh Panaro—former Phantom of the Opera, also Raoul in Phantom and Marius in Les Miz—wasn't bad. At the very least, he did charismatic!Lestat better than Stuart Townsend did angsty!Lestat and Tom Cruise did mentally-unstable!Lestat. The press photos make him look like Legolas but onstage the wig wasn't so bad, and he had the mile-wide impish grin down pat. The problem seemed to be that Panaro has more singing and acting talent than the script and music allowed him to express, so it felt like he was hemmed in for most of the night.
I don't have too much invested in Gabrielle, so I thought Carolee Carmello was all right. She managed the transformation well from stiff old matron in corsetted dress to nimble spitfire in men's clothes. She pounced, or more properly leapt, onto her first kill and growled as she ravaged his neck, which got a laugh. She stuck around long enough to do the church/Les Innocents bit and tell Lestat how stupid he was for turning Nicki, then ran off and didn't show up in Act II.
Nicki (Roderick Hill) was a waif of a young man who, by the time Lestat turned him, looked like nothing so much as a Half Blood Prince-era Draco, sick and pale and beaten. He wasn't how I imagined the character at all—too feeble, insipid, and a bad violin player. Let's forgive the prop department for giving him a bow that had not one but two separate strings dangle and drop off during the performance. Let's acknowledge that it's probably impossible to actually the play the violin as well as vampire!Nicki did in The Vampire Lestat. Let's criticize only the facts that Roderick Hill could not play or sing accompaniment, and the music he was given was terrible to begin with. Even after he became a vampire, his playing stayed pathetically mournful instead of transforming into the demonically frenetic. Fun with the slashiness, but ultimately no loss when Lestat chucked him on the pyre.
Uh, and then we were presented with Jesus/monk/magician!Marius. WTF. Michael Genet is an African-American actor (good to have some diversity, and this Marius was no Roman senator anyway) with some sort of odd accent. Wearing red robes that would be more appropriate in Tibet than ancient Rome (but whatever), he burst onto the stage at the end of Act I amidst lightning and fog and thereafter dispensed tidbits of wisdom to Lestat while fishing off a pier. When he wasn't floating in midair, that is. Oh God. It was one thing to have Vincent Perez play him as a dandy in The Queen of the Damned, because after the initial shock wore off I could see where the screenwriters and/or Vincent himself could distill him into the fey artist. The sage interpretation is plausible too, but at least in the movie he was deliberately amusing.
Armand wasn't half as awful, perhaps because of the comparison to WTFMarius and Creepy-Banderas!Armand or perhaps because I've resigned myself to the fact that no one will ever get him right, not even if they someday deign to cast a redhead. I'm sorry not to have gotten to see Jack Noseworthy in the part—they fired him when they reworked the character halfway through the San Fran run, and he looked pretty good in the role, from the one picture I've seen. Drew Sarich was too large physically, taller than the rest of the cast including Lestat and solidly built. It offset the whole dynamic of having someone young and fragile-looking who draws attention through seductive magnetism, usually while needing to tilt his head up to look at everyone. But Sarich's face was appropriately cherubic and overall the character was responsibly presented, including his petulance, desire for revenge after Lestat broke up his cozy coven, and, finally, reference to his relationship with Marius.
Claudia was a breath of fresh air when she finally arrived, much as she revitalized Lestat and Louis' languishing life together in New Orleans. Allison Fischer was a little old for the part (but then so was Kirsten Dunst; I suppose you're not going to get a good six-year-old actress who understands her role), but the hairpiece and costumes compensated. She rocked the house with her first solo, got a few great jabs in about Lestat, mourned for her lost chance to grow up, did the slash-and-burn thing with Louis, joined the cast of the Theatre des Vampires, and then poofed away in the sunlight.
Louis was...eh. Jim Stanek's head shot makes him look kind of cute, but translated into Louis with his curly wig, he didn't do much for me. Neither awful nor awesome.
Cast photos at http://www.lestat.com/cast.php for those who care.
Bad jokes, ironic ring tones and crashing scenery, or, That's what you get for going on the first night of previews.
There were plenty of things to laugh at. Most of them were unintentional on the writers' parts and left us to devise our own various methods of stifling giggles. (Jess bit her finger; I kept quiet but couldn't stop my shoulders from shaking with laughter, which I'm sure the people behind me appreciated.) Others were specific to our performance—the sort of technical gaffes you can excuse in the first preview performance, like one of the vertical strips of scenery crashing into another one on its way off stage, the mast of Lestat's ship getting stuck as it rose so it dangled into the scaffolding halfway through the second Theatre des Vampires scene, and the magic fire winking on and off at suspicious moments. Also, at one point, after a sexually tense song or moment between two characters, someone's cell phone went off, and of all ring tones it was that dance one that goes "Every time we touch..." I don't know how everyone kept from laughing, including the actors.
Some of the intended humor fell flat, the most memorable of which was Gabrielle's early line about how she knows how Lestat feels after slaughtering the wolves, like he's gone to hell and back and no one can comprehend the change in him, because she had given birth. *sound of crickets chirping, then a few titters* Apparently that was cut by the second night. But there was also some genuinely funny dialogue, like a couple of jokes at Bram Stoker's expense, a couple of jokes at Louis' expense, Lestat's wry comment about how he has a problem with making fledglings who leave him, and his exasperated "Will you never let me forget that?" when Claudia taunted him about having told her he was an angel the night he turned her into a vampire. Claudia's breakaway pop hit also got a great reaction from the audience. Probably it was sheer relief at having some halfway decent music to latch onto.
The rest in chronological order, I suppose.
The curtain rises to reveal Lestat in the Auvergne woods, kneeling behind one of the wolves he's just killed. He starts in right away with a song that must have lost most of the non-Chronicles fans in the audience; the lyrics doubtless explained the situation, but I for one didn't catch most of them because I was still getting acclimated to watching a play, and all the way through the first few scenes in Paris, there was no time to figure out what was going on, even for those of us who knew the plot, since we're talking about the play plot and not necessarily the book plot. I read that Bernie Taupin et al removed the bookends of the show in which Lestat is shown typing his story out on the computer, and also condensed the beginning from its original format in San Francisco, where people complained that it took too long; again, hopefully they'll adjust the pacing one more time and find a happy medium.
Before you knew it Lestat was done with his opening number and walks off stage to be replaced by a mysterious man with spiky gray hair, dressed in what looks like a painter's uniform, gray coveralls splattered with white. He growls "Wolfkiller" quite dramatically, the lights go out, and then we're in the second scene, the de Lioncourt homestead. Some cursory gruffness from the Marquis, Lestat knocks him down as the elder reaches out to strike his wife, and then we're left with mother and son bonding. Gabrielle sympathizes with Lestat before ordering him to run off to Paris, be with Nicki and not to worry about her; Lestat bolts, leaving Gabrielle to sing about her "Beautiful Boy," not to be confused with Cole from Mr. Holland's Opus.
Ah! but then we reach exciting Paris, backstage at the theater during a performance wherein lots of people in costumes are dancing and singing the creatively titled number "In Paris" while a delighted Nicki dashes back and forth between Lestat and his performance. Nicki is playing the bawdy crowd-pleaser Lelio, not that anyone who hadn't read the books knew who Nicki was, who Lelio was, or really what the hell was going on. (Sadly, we never see Lestat in the role, or for that matter, as an actor at all. He meets Magnus his first night in town.)
There's only the one bed... Guess we'll have to share it...
After this whirlwind of an introduction, the blond pair adjourn to Nicki's tiny apartment, where Nicki announces that, gee, there's only the one bed. What to do? Leap upon it together, naturally, engage in a tickle fight/wrestling match/lovers' reunion, share a bottle of wine and settle into lounging/touching/reminiscing. (At least one slasher among our entourage thought Nicki was Lestat's brother but went with it anyway, not as disturbed as she thought she ought to be.) Nicki starts "playing" his violin and singing to Lestat off-key in badly pronounced French, and then, in one of the earliest WTF moments, half the pit orchestra joins in. I half expected Lestat and Nicki to stop and look around for the source of the sudden accompaniment.
Sated in multiple ways and apparently unaware of the extra instruments, Lestat intelligently goes out for a walk in the middle of the night and runs into the painter from before. Oh, wait, it's Magnus! Magnus drains him and makes him drink, then does the crazy rapid exposition/joyous leap into the magic stage pyre of doom, leaving Lestat to fend for his poor tortured self.
One big happy bloodsucking incestuous bisexual family.
Blahbeddy blah, Gabrielle shows up in town with a sudden bout of consumptive illness, she finds Nicki and wishes him & Lestat well in an impressive acceptance of her son's homosexual bohemian lifestyle (lines to the effect of "Since I watched you two as children skipping hand-in-hand down the lane I've known you would be together for the rest of your lives...take care of my son"), Nicki tells her Lestat hasn't been home in days, and after she leaves Lestat sings an angsty song outside Nicki's doorway about how his friend is right in front of him but he can't take him. Then he visits his mother, who somehow figures out that he's a vampire by touching his hands and cheek, and begs him to turn her so she can be freeeee. Now I know it's been a few years since I've read the book properly, but didn't Lestat forcibly turn Gabrielle and Nicki against their wishes? Because they were both willing here, and in Gabrielle's case quite pushy. Lestat wasn't that innocent.
Enter everyone's favorite Botticelli angel.
Lestat and newly-vamped/liberated Gabrielle paint the town red, wander through Notre Dame and encounter our buddy Armand, who for some reason was already in the church and didn't seem too terrified. They follow him back to his crypt cult, where Lestat makes his inspiring speech intended to free them all from ignorance. There was a nice lack of crazy elder lady down there. Another lovely touch came when, in the middle of his song about the ability to and necessity of coming above ground and living among mortals, Lestat presses a crucifix into Armand's hand; as the song and dance whirl around him, Armand gapes at the cross in his hand, slowly loweres it, stares at it, breathes, looks at Lestat, and you could see his expression shift from wonder to hatred as, true to the book, he watches Lestat destroy his carefully constructed worldview and undermine his leadership without even realizing the damage he's causing. Stage set for revenge in Act II.
Unable to wait that long, Armand drags Nicki down and forces Lestat to turn him. Poor pathetic Nicki asks Lestat to do it so they can be together forever. Unfortunately lacking the constitution for the change—too innocent for it, apparently—Nicki has a seizure and goes catatonic for the remainder of his soon boring stage time.
Theatre of the absurd, in more than one way.
Cut to the Theatre des Vampires, where the coven has taken Lestat's advice to heart and formed their own acting troupe. Their first production tells the story of the "Origin of the Species," only it's no myth I've ever seen in the Chronicles. It was pretty to watch in a Lion King-esque, mouth-gaping kind of way: four ensemble members hold horizontal rods with green strips stretched between them while white-clad, mask-wearing mimes/dancers alternately squat beneath the "grass" and poke their heads above it in a baffling play about mankind, lust and innocence, and the savior Marius who swoops in from above in his red robes to save innocence but doom man to suffer lust, or something. All I know is there was this flabbergasting allegory and it was set to a choir chanting MAH REE OOOOOOS, MAH REE OOOOOOS. No Druids, no Mael, no extra-crispy tree god, no Those Who Must Be Kept. (Rumor has it Akasha & Enkil did make a token appearance in the San Fran version.) Desperately searching for a way to give them the benefit of the doubt, I've decided the entire thing was meant to be an idealized expression of Armand's life, with Marius rescuing him from the brothel and acting as a sort of God-savior.
Time passes. With his mother-daughter and broken boyfriend in tow, Lestat whines and wanders along the Devil's Road in search of Marius and a cure for Nicki. Beside a giant mossy stone head, Gabrielle soon gives in to her inevitable wanderlust and leaves Lestat to grow up enough to kill his suffering friend. "I didn't make you so you would leave me," Lestat complains. "Well, I gave birth to you with the hope that one day you'd leave me," she retorts. Oh, snap.
Having arrived at the same resolution as Gabrielle, and also having lost what little there was of his own personality to begin with, Nicki channels Brent Spiner in Independence Day and grunts, several times, "Release...me..." until Lestat caves and, weeping, puts him on the fire and scatters his ashes.
All alone, just when he is about to give up, two huge panels in the back of the set separate, lightning and fog pour out of the cavernous opening, and warlock!Marius floats into view, beckoning Lestat to "Come!"
Curtain.
Act II, Scene 1. In which the closing scene does not prove to be a hallucination or nightmare.
Zen Master Marius sits barefoot on a pier on his Those Who Must Be Kept-free Mediterranean island paradise, fishing with a hookless string into the stage. No wonder you aren't catching any fish, supposedly wise one! He chats with Lestat about their mutual friend Armand, whom Marius "took off the streets" before realizing what a terrible idea it was to make a vampire that young and needy (Take heed, Lestat! or don't.), then tells him that to learn about immortality he needs to live among mortals for the span of one full mortal life. Suggests a subversive little town in the New World, nudge-nudge wink-wink,
Act II, Scenes 2-something. In which we cover much the same ground as IWTV.
The opening song, "Welcome to the New World" (oh, the genius of your titles, John-and-Taupin!), was nice and energetic, with Lestat posing against a railing and smiling down on the silly yet intriguing little native mortals while they do all the dancing. Some people on the "Lestat" posting boards complained that in the SF production, there wasn't enough of a noticeable difference in costume between Paris and Louisiana, but that was clearly fixed, since the ensemble now wear turbans and loose cotton clothing instead of Europe's rich brocades and head-to-toe coverings.
Lestat finds Louis in a tavern, at which point we have some movie contamination issues when Louis tells him that he's in despair because his wife killed herself and their newborn baby, and then Lestat wastes no time in vamping him—again, with the victim's implicit permission, to a degree. We get a couple of scenes in their cozy apartment as Louis wrestles with the Terrible Thirst and Lestat urges him to "Embrace It," It being of course his ruthless vampire nature. (Oh God, please let me repeat, Louis singing is just wrong, even singing out of melancholy.) I've already mentioned the highlights of the New Orleans chapter, Claudia's song and Louis and Lestat's entwining/retreating echoing their tempestuous relationship. It was all very enjoyable. In the culmination of her growing pains, Claudia feeds Lestat the absinthe- and laudanum-laced young lady from the ball, Louis sets the place ablaze, and they run off for Europe.
Act II, everything else but the end. In which we return to Paris, Claudia gets her come-uppance, Louis' heart breaks, vengeance is sweet, and Lelio rises like a phoenix.
I've also already mentioned that directly following this scene is Lestat's big solo number, "Sail Me Away," only we aren't told how he escaped the raging blaze or how much time has passed since the last scene. Oh well.
Lestat pays a visit to our favorite undead acting troupe, where he discovers that not only has Armand become their manager (since the poor pack is utterly incapable of taking care of itself), but Claudia and Louis have also joined the cast of players as, you guessed it, vampire slayers. Okay, you didn't guess it, but it's true. When Lestat shows up they're in the middle of a parody of vampire bodice-rippers, wherein Laurent, who by the way is also huge and not a teenager, plays a Transylvanian bloodsucker uttering lines like "I vant to drink of your beau-ty" while a nubile young victim in her bed responds passionately, "Drink from me! Don't die!" Just as he gives in and she swoons, Louis' van Helsing and Claudia's—what, Buffy?—burst in and stake Laurent's character, to the "audience's" applause. It was great fun! Still, I must say I was embarrassed for Louis and Claudia.
Anyone who'd read the books or seen IWTV knew what was coming, but it's still heart-wrenching to watch Armand wrest control of Claudia's fate from Lestat, who is too late and too weak to stop it, and to see Louis ruined afterwards. Louis drifts about with Claudia's dress in his restless hands and takes his depressed leave of Lestat, who then meets Armand on the roof of the theatre. Armand sings an utterly forgettable and repetitive song that was probably about how Lestat got what he deserved. Lestat then totally one-ups him by saying he'd met Marius (oh, the look on Armand's face), and not only that, but Marius called him his greatest crime against vampires. And then we get to see Armand chuck Lestat off the roof!
The last scene...
...is best done Movies in 15 Minutes-style. Lestat lies at the base of the cliff/ground far below the roof, broken, calling out to God for answers or meaning. God doesn't answer because we're not watching Memnoch, but Marius does, and in the play they're kind of the same person anyway, so it's all right.
Marius: Stand up.They rise up off the floor into
Lestat: But my legs are shattered.
Marius: Stand up anyway.
Lestat: I can't.
Marius: Sun's comin' up, boy. Might wanna try harder.
Audience: Ha ha ha ha.
Lestat: Oh, all right. *gets up with Great Effort*
Marius: Good boy! Here's a treat. *lets Lestat drink from his Ancient Vampire Wrist Font of Strength*
The end. In which we keep talking anyway, because 5,000 words are better than 4,900.
So there you have it: "Lestat," as seen in the very first preview performance on Broadway. With luck it will last longer than "Dracula: The Musical," or for that matter, "Dance of the Vampires," did, so that it is still running in July when Margaret makes it to the States and so I can re-read the book before going back, and that the creative team make lots of adjustments so we can be treated to a different and even better production. Here's hopin'...
