KWIT: The Devil Wears Prada

KWIT=Kent's Week in ...Theatre?? What the...?

The Dominion Theatre, London - Wednesday, January 28

I'm not a theatre guy. I've never quite caught the bug. Plays are, to me, conceptually boring - people standing on stage talking with limited room to move, limited scenery to traverse? And musicals, well, that's not music that I like to listen to.

And yet, I do get a bit exhilarated whenever I go to the theatre, particularly musicals. Even if it's terrible, I come out a little amped up and want to experience more, right away.

Lady Kent loves really only Shakespeare on stage. In our trip to London last week she managed to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in an afternoon show while I was at a work event. Shakespeare tends to make me sleepy but the experience of candlelit theatre sounded neat. She was all good for theatrical experiences but we were in London and I needed mine. I had her look at the extremely long list of productions (so many of them either adaptations of movies or turning a musical artist's catalogue into some sort of singing-and-dancing narrative) and she decided to go with what's familiar... The Devil Wears Prada. (Also 2006 marks both the film's 20th anniversary and our 20th anniversary since we started dating, and The Devil Wears Prada was our second movie we saw together, so a bit of a sentimental connection there).

It's off season in London travel so tickets were dirt cheap and when we got to the Dominion, the theatre was not so lively. it was maybe a 2/3 crowd on the main floor.

The big name draw of the show is Vanessa Williams playing the Miranda Priestley role originated by Meryl Streep. The rest of the cast is comprised of primarily British actors, including Stevie Doc as Andy, James Darch as Christian, and Matt Henry as Nigel. Canadian actor Keelan McAuley plays Andy's boyfriend Nate, who is just as aggravating a whiny and needy character as he is in the film, if not moreso.  I bring up the nationality of these actors because, with the exception of Emily (played by Talia Halford), these main characters are all American. And only Henry comes close to pulling off a convincing American accent.  The end result is, any song involving Andy, Christian, Nate (or the sexy nurse that Emily sings a duet with) all sound horrendously flat.

I don't know theatre well, so I'm not sure where the dividing line is with music by/lyrics by/book by credits, but the "music by" credit is to Elton John, and maybe you can hear it a little in one or two songs (ok, "Dress Your Way Up" is absolutely an EJ banger) but for the most part the music sounds like derivative musical theatre pap. I suppose like Hallmarkies or sitcoms or crime podcasts, there comes a sense of comfort with familiarity, so when a musical tune sounds like a musical tune, I suspect there's a segment of the musical theatre-going crowd that just eats that shit up. I point to the hilarious "Rogers: The Musical" from Marvel's Hawkeye TV series which apes the cliched musical tune to the extent that it acts equally as parody and loving homage. The opening number of The Devil Wears Prada, "I Mean Business" sounds almost exactly like the "I Could Do This All Day" number from "Rogers: The Musical", and I'm sure a thousand other musical theatre songs.

There are a few songs, "The House of Miranda", "In or Out" and "Dress Your Way Up" which have a disco feel, and the energy whenever that disco vibe is in play the music the whole show comes to life where much of the rest of it falls flat.

Henry gets a powerful solo in "Seen", the highlight song of the show, which, for the fourth lead of the show to have the biggest show stopper is pretty wild. But it's about growing up and hiding one's identity only to move through the world, shedding the layers of protection and masking to be seen as one's true self, and it's the only tune in the whole show that seems to have any real resonance for the character singing it.

If you know the movie, you know this story, and it's the same, just with song and dance numbers in it. Except that Andy seems very much a passenger in this story and not the protagonist. Everything sort of revolves around her, but musical interludes interjecting into the thoughts and emotions of the other characters really steal Andy's thunder, and frequently overshadow her. By the ending number, when Doc is belting out Andy's tune of independence, "What's Right for Me", the rest of the cast falls away and it's just Doc on stage giving it her all, and I'm not buying a moment of it. The solo spotlight still didn't feel earned for that character, and the emotion of the song felt inauthentic.

As for Williams... on paper, she seems like perfect casting for the role. In reality, I'm not sure what that role actually is and what is requested of it. I don't think I realized it from watching the film a few times, but Miranda seems like such a massive role, but she's barely in the story at all. She is the phantom, the spectre that looms large over everything, has her hand in everything, bends everything to her whim, but she's not present. And so when Williams appears, lifted up from below stage by a rising platform, she's obviously getting that rousing, show-stopping applause, but then she proceeds to sing-talk her way through the number she's participating in and never really gets much a spotlight song.  "Stay On Top" is Miranda's big number, but what it unfortunately does is expose Williams' limitations as a singer.  She's a tiny lady with big stage presence, but doesn't really have that big stage voice.

The worst number of the show is easily "I Only Love You For Your Body", where Andy and Nate are supposed to be playful and sexy and funny, and at best accomplishing playful. There's no chemistry between the two performers and the choreography gives Nate some very feminizing movements which makes you question whether Nate would be attracted to any woman.

The show is not great overall but also far from a disaster.  It has its highlights in its numbers, some of its sets, and most specifically its costume design. Everyone, with the exception of Nate and Andy early on, looks incredible. The wardrobe all naturally needs to be functional in song-and-dance routines, but they all look like extremely high end fashion, tailored to all the performers perfectly. It's the saving grace of the show that it looks so damn good. I was never bored with gawking at good looking, fit, exquisitely dressed people. 

I came out of the experience truly aware that I enjoyed myself with a heavy pinch of the ironic salt. I couldn't get Lady Kent to commit to another, but I'm thinking 2026 might be a theatre year for me.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Ballerina

2025, Len Wiseman (Underworld) -- download

I have recently been watching a lot of movies in chunks of viewing time, often with gaps of days in between. I have also been dealing with a winter bug for more than a week which has left my brain with a permanent low-battery alarm. Both of these have contributed to plots escaping my memory almost as soon as I hit the Stop button on the remote. I don't take notes, leaving that for Hallmarkie Days, so end up struggling as what to say when it comes times to write about it. Back in the old days, that is where "I Saw This!!" emerged, but my newer stub-based posts method generally precludes that. Generally.

Meta meta meta...

So, we all know that this is a spin-off of the John Wick franchise, one that (checks Googles) takes place between 3 and 4. So, this is after John (Keanu Reeves, Keanu) was thrown off the roof, with a thud, but before he's gallivanting all over the world trying to kill the head of The High Table. It specifically involves a tribe (were they always called tribes? I don't recall that word being used for all the ritualistic crime organizations) John used to be part of, the Ruska Roma and a new tribe, that all the others dismiss as just a cult, one to be very cautious when dealing with. In particular it involves Eve MaCarro (Ana de Armas, No Time to Die), who escapes the latter tribe, at the cost of her father, is found by Winston (Ian McShane, Deadwood), and handed to the Ruska Roma for training and family. She ends up not appreciating any of it, and her father stands in for John's puppy.

This is also a Len Wiseman movie, so from the movie perspective, that means his template was a woman (vampire) in a rubber/leather jumpsuit wielding dual pistols while fighting vampires & werewolves in a shadowy European city. That lends itself well, as an adult Eve heads off to find the cult that killed her family, garnering the ire of The Director, as John himself did once. Against orders, she seeks out advice from Winston and is directed to Prague to a member of the cult, a man named Pine.

Pine (Norman Reedus, The Walking Dead) is also "defecting" and also with his daughter, a blatant mirror of Eve's history. Its on Continental ground, but the cult doesn't care for the rules and attacks Pine, and in turn, Eve. They almost make it out, but Pine is shot, and Eve left unconscious. She is forgiven his indiscretions in that Continental, because she didn't kill anyone, and heads off to arm-up, only to have the Prague sommelier (I believe that is what they called the first example of John Wick-ian arms dealer?) attacked by The Cult. The arms dealer sends her to Hallstat, Austria, a small ski village high in the mountains.

And that is where All Hell breaks out, a typical (oh JW movies) "kill every fucking person" fight between the residents of the village, which is made up entirely of The Cult, and Eve. And briefly, John Wick, who is asked by The Director (Anjelica Huston, 50/50) to take down Eve, for fear of increasing the friction between The Cult and the Ruska Roma. We learn the origins of The Cult, in that the village was setup as a refuge for all killers from the other tribes, when they want to leave that life and have a family, but still be protected. It honestly doesn't sound like such a bad ideal, but I guess they evolved into something more cultish, seeking the same level of power & control of its membership as the rest of the tribes. No one really ever escapes this world, except for, much later, John. Eve survives but pretty much ends the entire Cult, leaving behind plenty of children who will probably make it their life's goal to kill her. Tit for tat, I say. And John uses a loophole to avoid having to kill her. Its not like he can piss of his leaders even more than he has in three previous movies.

This movie was competent enough, but it left very little in the way of emotional / visual impact as the "proper" John Wick movies. And no, I am not talking the "you killed his dog?!?!" emotional impetus, but more the connection between us, the viewer, and Eve. This is not Ana de Armas' first OK Corral role, but it just didn't work entirely for me. I couldn't even go so far as to say "popcorn movie" as, with those, I am usually expectant to watch it again some time. I mean, I have even rewatched Sisu lately. Maybe I can blame it on the chunky viewing habit I mentioned above, but this is just not staying with me.

P.S. Its not that movie Ballerina, and yet... it is?