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.