KWIT: Shucked

 KWIT=Kent's Week In Theatre...is this actually a thing now? I mean, I said 2026 was going to be a theatre year for me... but I wasn't really serious...was I?

Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto - Friday, March 6, 2026

Unless someone (like me) tells you directly (as I'm doing now) what Shucked actually is (I will get to that in a moment), then (to me) there's really nothing appealing about a country music-infused song and dance show whose story is built around corn and whose humour is seemingly corn-based puns.

Seriously. This is how the Mirvish website promotes the show:
Join Maizy, the spunky heroine, as she battles to save her beloved crop with the help of a con man posing as a "corn doctor." Get ready for a wild ride filled with toe-tapping country tunes, side-splitting jokes and a whole lot of heart. Will Maizy save the day and find true love, or will the corny jokes be the only thing popping?

That description alone makes me feel like I've eaten a whole large bag of buttered popcorn at the theatre...heavy, bloated and a little sick to my stomach. (For some reason I had a difficult time finding someone to take my second ticket after my original theatre companion had to bail....)

When I read that description, it gives the impression that Shucked consists of, I dunno, like, puerile granny humour and Conway Twitty songs sung by a cast ensemble. It sounds utterly unpalatable.

And yet, this thing was a multiple Tony-award nominee and won for best featured actor so there's got to be more to it then that...right? I mean, the blue rinse crowd is not the main theatre crowd anymore, and grannies are, like, my mom's age, or even younger and don't share "granny" sensibilities anymore. So what actually is this thing?

What you really need to know about Shucked is that it's not *just* corny jokes and bad puns (although there are plenty of those) but that it's a show densely packed with jokes in the vein of a Tina Fey/Robert Carlock production like 30 Rock or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (or the new, really good The Rise and Fall of Reggie Dinkins).  There's just so many jokes in this thing that if the first one makes you groan and the second one make you roll your eyes, the third one might crack and smile and the fourth one's gonna get you. Wash, rinse, repeat. When there's so many jokes, in such density, that even a 25% success ratio means you're still laughing quite a bit, and that's a pretty good time.

The structure of the show has two storytellers (Maya Lagerstam and Joe Moeller here) who narrate, interrupt, intervene and interact with the story, but aren't actual characters in the story. They are, pointedly, a black woman and gay man, speaking with southern twang, and these aspects are addressed as part of the isolated and improbably multicultural southern town of Cob County.

The story proper starts with a wedding, as Maizy (Danielle Wade) is about to marry her childhood sweetheart Beau (Nick Bailey), but during the wedding, the corn starts dying and the wedding is halted. Beau may be dim witted but he knows corn, yet he can't solve the riddle of why it's turning blue and dying. Maizy then comes up with a plan to venture out of the walls of Cob County and find outside help, even though everyone essentially tells her there's no reason to, and Beau tells her if she leaves, it's over between them.

Maizy empowers herself and heads out...to Tampa, where she meets Gordy, a largely unsuccessful flim-flam man from a family of scam artists and swindlers. He's posing as a podiatrist (advertising himself as a "corn doctor"), which is a silly scam to run, and he's in deep in gambling debts. When Maizy mistakes his advertising, Gordy sees not only an escape for his troubles, but also, from Maizy's jewelry, that Cob County may just be sitting on a minefield of rare gems.

And so the story heads back to Cob County where personalities clash and tensions raise and romantic entanglements get complicated. Jokes are told, songs are sung, and it all wraps up in a happy ending of course.

Shucked is not a spectacle of a show. The set is largely static with a few rolling corn field sections that rotate to become the "TAMPA" sign. Occasionally some barrels are rolled out or a mobile quarter-porch set, but this is not a visual show. It's a flat-out comedy, so the jokes and interplay and comedic set-ups are it's highlight.  

Beau's brother, Peanut (Mike Nappi), has a real deep, slow drawl, and often steps aside to tell a string of "Well I think" jokes which feel very Jeff Foxworthy "You might be a redneck" inspired. Again, just one type of humour employed in a show that crosses a bridge between Hee-Haw and Letterkenny. There's a sense that the show is making fun of small town southerners, or "simple folk", and at times it really, really is, but there are stabs, especially in the second act, at showing the merits of tight knit communities. "We may be simple" Beau says to Gordy, "but that doesn't mean we're stupid. That's a simple mistake stupid people make."

The book is by Robert Horn with additional compositions/lyrics by Grammy award winning powerhouse country music songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally. There are the cast ensemble songs and the story framework songs which feel like traditional musical numbers with just a little bit of twang to them, and then there are the solo numbers, the real nu-country power ballad type songs which are rather exceptional, if you like that sort of thing (though not my style).

But if the show's fullest intent is to be a comedy, then it is the songs where it falls flat for me. There's not a lot of humour in them, specifically in those big power numbers. They are, frankly, too earnest for the tone of the show. Shucked is not really all that interested in real emotions, so the big numbers are somewhat disingenuous.  I think these songs needed to be more in the Lonely Island vein where the first two verses and the chorus are the big, emotional numbers, and then the third verse takes a turn into something absurd, and the absurdity builds through the rest of the song, before abruptly coming back home to the emotional core it started with, but now completely undercut by whatever the absurdity was. 

Alas, what we have seems like musical numbers meant for people to listen to in earnest after the show. I'm sure it's been successful at that.

Shucked was an honest surprise, not remotely as cringe-inducing or saccharine or groan-evoking as I was expecting. It had a lot more bawdy humour than I was expecting, and much more cussin' than I was expecting (I still never expect swearing in musicals... one song is even titled "Holy Shit", the refrain of the song), but it's still not very provocative or challenging, I think to its detriment. It never actually deals with small town prejudices, and although it's clear that the one narrator is gay, there's nothing outwardly LGBTQ+ friendly about Cob County, it's pretty monocultural, and it likes it that way.

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, where Miranda seems like such a massive role, but she's actually 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 first 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 opening number she's participating in.  "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. If you think of her big hit "Save the Best for Last", you're not thinking of powerful vocals in that track. She has a way of hushed singing, and when it comes time for power, it never fully materializes.

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.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

 2022, d.  - theatrical performance (June 19, Ed Mirvish Theatre, Toronto)

Let's just get this out of the way off the top...I like Harry Potter ok. I'm not the hugest of fans, but I do generally like the film series and think they were quite an achievement.  I found the books started feeling unnecessarily bloated around the fourth and gave up on reading them.  I vehemently detest J.K. Rowling's outspoken anti-trans stance, and find that for someone who talks a lot in her stories about acceptance, that she seems painfully unaware of how close-minded and proactively hurtful she has become.  I wish to, as much as possible, distance my assessment of the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child from the ugliness of its creator, separate the art from the artist, as a lot of other artists had a hand in this production than just Rowling (is it fair to wish that the property were owned by some faceless corporation, like how Disney has control of Star Wars now?)

I was lucky enough to have a friend who is working on the show and graced me with tickets to the opening day performance, lucky in the sense that tickets are hard to get generally, and that I didn't have to pay for them.  

I'm not a regular theatre goer, but I've seen a number of different productions in Toronto (and even a couple on Broadway).  This was, far and away, the biggest, most elaborate, most technically complex production I've seen.  The theme of the show, through and through, is magic, and it's everywhere within the production.  It's not just the pyrotechnics emanating from the wands, or the clever trap door-aided physical transformation scenes, or the slight of hand tricks where one part of the set becomes a complete other set without you noticing the act of transformation.  It's everywhere.  I remember a performance of Les Miserables with a transforming set, but that's just it's transition from one act's backdrop to another.  This show's sets seem so simplistic and yet they are constantly move right before your eyes without calling attention to themselves.  Sometimes it's just a trick of the lighting, sometimes it's the ancillary players using the props as one thing, but them becoming another thing as the scene goes on (suitcases play multiple parts throughout the performance).  

While there are no songs -- it's not a musical -- there are dance numbers, and the dances are quite incredible.  They use props, wardrobes, and the various tricks of the sets and stage to create a dazzling display that serves the dual purpose both of visually arresting choreography but also in obfuscating the set transitions.  You only kind of notice the end result when they exit the stage, to see that it's been completely redressed during their dance.  The dancing is very contemporary, but also so specific to its dual purpose.  It's "in world" in terms of the people and their movements and the accessories being used, and, except maybe the first time, it never feels shoehorned in... there's an organicness to it.  Other scenes change as a result of passing time (an anti-montage if you will) which involves the cast on stage moving slowly and jerkily to not-quite-strobe lighting cues that make it seem like time is acting erratically.  Part of the plot also involves time travel, and they've devised an exceptionally clever lighting effect to show when a journey has completed, on top of the clock motifs embedded into the set that are equally highlighted by different lighting.

The stage features rotating pieces, trap doors, treadmills, all which are used in both obvious and obtuse ways.  Characters will walk decently paced while basically existing in same spot, while the curving part of the stage provides movement to pieces around them that give the illusion that the performer is moving closer or further away.  It's so well done, and so subtle, that unless you start to look for it you don't even see it.

Wire work also has a heavy role to play in this, and there are performers being swung around the stage, and in one instance over the audience (still not sure if it was a performer, an animatronic, or just a trick of light and wind), but it's again, always disguised how the performer, previously untetherd, suddenly is up in the air (or whether it's the performer or something else, swapped out through a trap door).

I was just in awe of this production purely on a technical level.  It's dazzling, and certainly exceptionally well thought through.  No movement is wasted, and every piece of the set seems to have been optimized for maximum functionality.  And it all looks magnificent.

Now it's all in service of the story, an original creation from Rowling, with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany also getting story credit.   It's steeped in the lore of the previous Harry Potter septology, but basically fits as a legasequel, in which the primary characters are children of the lead characters of the previous series, but the parents also play a part.  As well, in legasequel style, the kids are dealing with ripples that remain from the previous endeavour. 

In this case our leads are Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy, the former the younger child of Harry and Ginny, the latter the son of Harry's childhood rival, Draco.  Albus is awkward and anxious, he feels the weight of his father's legacy on him in a way his brother, James, somehow ignored.  He's unsure how to live up to the expectations he thinks are upon him, and it builds up anger and resentment towards his father within him.  Scorpius, meanwhile, is a nervous twitch of a boy who is super smart but also super awkward.  The horrible, unfounded rumour is that his parents used a Time Turner to go back in time and that he's the offspring of his mother and Voldemort.  In an absolutely clever and well done on-stage montage, we traverse two years of the boys' lives at Hogwarts (and inbetween) in less than 10 mintues of stage time which serves both to solidify their connection to each other, as well as the awkwardness between Albus and Harry.

The crux of the story is a bit of a shoehorn, as a wedged-in scene finds Cedric Diggory's father (the boy played by Robert Pattinson in The Goblet of Fire) implores Harry to use a Time Turner to go back in time and save his boy.  Harry, now Mister of Defense or somesuch, denies the existence of any Time Turners and refuses the old man's pleas.  However, a skulking Albus is aware that Harry recently discovered a Time Turner in a raid.  Albus and Scorpius, escaping their train to year 3 at Hogwarts, set out to steal the Time Turner and set right what Harry could, or would not.  Of course, these two awkward boys and their Time Travel shenanigans make a real mess of things and things get real bad.  

The plot weaves in and out of events of The Goblet of Fire, but uses its story to be one about fathers.  Harry feels like a failure as a father to Albus, a boy he doesn't try to understand, but then admits that without having a father himself, he doesn't have anyone to measure himself against.  Scorpius, having recently lost his mother to disease, senses distance between his father and himself, distance which Draco admits to not wanting but not understanding how to correct.  Harry's father figure, Dumbledor, makes appearances as a moving speaking portait (an excellent effect of lighting) and calls the old man out for his coldness.  James Potter, the father Harry never knew, is a bit of a shadow, until he is not.  And there's even another father who plays a role in the proceedings, but that's a spoiler.  And of course, there's Cedric Diggory's grieving father, who has seemingly withered away in his despair over the years.

Being that this production's opening day was on Father's Day, it was a rather fitting day to catch it, and the impact seemed even greater as a result.  I think it's the strength of the story.  The stupid boys doing stupid time travel things without thinking through the consequences seemed an exercise to get some fan favourite characters into the proceedings as well as drag the story through a number of familiar cues.  There are some surprises, but it all felt a little fan-servicey and it gets a bit Back to the Future Part 2 at times.

The all-Canadian(?) cast were all quite good, with only Scorpius performer Thomas Mitchell Barnet and Katie Ryerson's Moaning Myrtle really standing out for giving bigger, broader performances.  Everyone else was giving apt energy.  I think Draco Malfoy performer Brad Hodder did a good job, but it's more the character than the performer that gets the best speeches in the production, in part because of considering who the words are coming from. The accents are all "stage British", and sound as such, fading in and out a bit throughout.  It's all fine to my Canadian ears.  Actual Brits may feel differently.

The heavy insinuation by the end is that Albus and Scorpius are in love with each other, but the story never goes beyond inference.  It seems to be explicitly written in a way to allow for plausible deniability that they're just bestest friends ever and that the "love" they speak of for each other is just that.  It's Rowling's late-stage, out-of-story admission that Dumbledor was gay all over again, just cowardly. The boys share a hug or two but there's no kiss, which seems regressive.  I'm sure the production doesn't want the interruption of hate-filled homophobes standing up and disrupting the whole play but they easily could have devised it so that the show ends with their kiss which then goes to curtains and fanfare reception, drowning out the haters.  Fuck the haters.

Which brings us back to where we started. Rowling. A hater. Its obvious that this is a successful production but I have to say in the back of my brain I couldn't shut off the notion that there would be some form of anti-trans subliminal messaging somewhere in all this.  There isn't, and I admit it is paranoid thinking that there would be.  I'm sure it's something neither Thorne nor Tiffany would allow, but how does one condemn the artist and still condone their art.  If you support the art, you're therefore supporting the artist, are you not?  I can't in conscience tell people to pay to go see this production, but I can't really say it's not something worth seeing either.   The story, the name of Harry Potter is the draw, but the real art of it all come from set designer Christine Jones, costume designer Katrina Lindsay, movement director Steven Hoggett, composer and arranger Imogen Heap (it's a great score), lighting designer Neil Austin, sound designer Gareth Fry, illusions and magic from Jamie Harrison and all the other great artists involved.  Everyone else polished it up and brought it to life, all Rowling did was build the world and the characters and story (I know, it is a mighty achievement and I'm really falsely underplaying it... I just wish she weren't such a TERF).

Hamilton

2020, d. Thomas Kail - disney+

I am not a frequent theatre goer, but when I have gone it's largely been for either a musical or Shakespeare.  Though I prefer cinema to the stage, I don't dislike the experience of live performance (I've seen enough standup and concerts to affirm that certainly).  There is a power that it has that makes it such a different experience than the movies, and it's such an experiential mode of storytelling that it should resonate so much more strongly than its celluloid counterparts.  But my theatre going experiences, have been a mixed bag, some incredible, most forgettable. 

The musicals stand out more.  It's obvious why.  They're bigger, more lavish, attention-getting productions, plus a catchy tune can go a long way to connecting with the audience, and musicals allow for a little more give performance-wise... a lesser actor can make up for it with stronger singing, and vice versa.  But going to theatre - musicals particularly - comes with a greater expense,  and effort, and build-up, so the experience needs to live up to that investment.  The bigger shows produced obviously need to play to the broadest crowd possible to recoup their own expense, which typically makes for toothless storytelling.  Plus musicals are a music genre on their own, and there are trappings to it that engenders a sameness (like so many genres of music can), and if you're not a lover of those trappings, it can be off putting.

Hamilton both embraces those trappings and explodes them.  It's a hip-hop musical, a rare feat on its own.  Likewise being a musical with a predominantly Black and POC cast seems to be a rarity, certainly one in achieving the heights it has.  It's become a touchstone for this generation of musical theatre and a certifiable pop culture phenomenon, certainly in America but well beyond.

Yet, like all theatre, it's heights can only reach so far.  Even running to sold out shows on Broadway, in Chicago and London and a few American tours it's still only reaching a fraction of the audience that are interested, curious, or intrigued by it due to proximity, availability or expense.  A cast recording has been available for years (I bought a digital copy back in 2017 and didn't really get too far into it, mainly because I couldn't find time to just sit down, listen and focus).  A cover album from rap and R&B stars also exists which I have given a whirl or two on Spotify, but these recordings don't quite have the same potency as seeing a live performance.

Which leads us to July 3, and the release of Hamilton on Disney+.  Disney paid $75million to acquire the international distribution rights to a 2016 recording featuring it's original Broadway cast (there were some roles played by others when it was working off Broadway as "The Hamilton Mixtape").  Originally slated to debut in cinemas in 2021, Disney convinced creator Lin Manuel Miranda to allow them to release it on Disney Plus during these pandemic times.  There are many reasons Disney wanted to do so (foremost being placing high profile content while their new theatrical features are being delayed, thus delayed from releasing on the platform), and likely many reasons why Miranda would agree (as it would likely pull an even wider audience than its theatrical release due to more butts being stuck at home).  But there's no way, after the monumental praise (and a few criticisms around historical accuracy) that this "movie", played at home, of a live performance can live up to the hype...can it?

Yeah, it goddamn well can. Hamilton is incredible.  It's beyond incredible, it's a masterpiece.  It's not flawless, but it's flaws don't influence the overall impact of this incredibly told, amazingly performed story.

First, let's just say that this isn't a stodgy effortless, from-a-distance filming of the musical, it's a very much shot for cinema, with close ups, zooms, pans all very smartly and artfully done to draw the viewer in even more to the performance rather than keeping them at arms length.  It wisely offers an experience the theatre cannot, like seeing Jonathan Groff's spitting as he belts out King George III's spiteful tune "You'll Be Back" (the whitest number in the book, borrowing a little from 60's American sugar pop like the Turtles, accurately annoyingly catchy).

The performances are amazing.  Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom Jr. and Renée Elise Goldsberry are a powerhouse trifecta with superstar charisma.  We've already been seeing these faces in prominent TV and movies but it's a matter of time before they are massive.  Perhaps this D+ showcase will be enough to break them even wider.  The rest of the cast is great as well, even the ensemble players who are mostly background dancing (one performer plays "the bullet" for each duel in the show).  If there's a weak spot, it's actually Miranda.  There's no doubt why he's playing the lead role...the passion he had to write this carries in his performance, but next to every other performer he falls just a little short in the power.  He has charisma, but at times his voice just doesn't push it over the edge the way Odom or Goldsberry's performances do.  But that would be part of his brilliance, in casting the strongest performers around him, to uplift the overall production, even if it outshines him.

The thing is, the material is so strong, even a weaker, but passionate performance still soars.  There are layers, here, starting from the top with casting a historical epic with a POC cast, touching on but also kind of skirting around slavery.  There's potency in seeing a Black man portray George Washington, knowing that the first President had slaves.  There's a potency in Hamilton's story as an immigrant (albeit a white immigrant) being portrayed and told by the child of immigrants from Puerto Rico. 

Despite being a story about the "Founding Fathers" of America, Miranda also doesn't skirt the role women play in the story of these characters.  This isn't necessarily a direct or focussed translation of the birth of a nation, instead it's a character study of Alexander Hamilton and his friend/nemesis Aaron Burr during this time.  One lyric in "the Schuyler Sisters" (working both mid-80's hip-hop and early 90's R&B together), the first female-led segment of the story, finds them rhyming "I've been reading 'Common Sense' by Thomas Payne/Some men say that I'm intense or I'm insane/You want a revolution, I want a revelation/So listen to my declaration/'We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal"/And when I meet Thomas Jefferson/I'ma compel him to include women in the sequel".  It's a very brief but pointed commentary that women got shafted.  That much of Angelica and Eliza's role is talking about how their place was to find security and comfort in supporting a man, but the play gives them strength in how they parlay, showing that women carried some weight amidst their mistreatment.

It's an absolutely fantastic character study, certainly showing how times changed, where men were uniquely concerned about their legacy and their impact on the world.  Of the 85 essays in the Confederalist Papers defending the new US Constitution, Hamilton wrote 51 of them (when there were originally supposed to be 25 total).  That's the fervor of a man trying to leave his mark.  "I'm not throwing away my shot", "He will never be satisfied" and "History has its eyes on me" are three of the main refrains of the story which tell the story of both the man, the men and their times.

The music is the part I was most worried about when I heard about a hip-hop musical, a label which is a bit of a misnomer, since it incorporates more than just hip-hop, but that is indeed its foundation.  Miranda obviously loves the genre of music, and from a particular period of time as it largely bathes in the early-mid 90's sound of rap and R&B, but it sways back to 80's foundational with allusions to the sounds of Grandmaster Flash, the Sugarhill Gang, Run-DMC, and The Beastie Boys, and stretches forward up to the mid 00's just prior to when the vocorder took dominance for a very painful stretch of time.   There's even a couple of simulated rap battles for the debate floor complete with the choir of "oohs" and "ohs". There's nothing about it that's "hard", this isn't gangsta and isn't pretending to be, it very much leans in on the soulful, consciousness hip-hop tip, and if you listened to rap in the 90's you can hear multiple inspirations coming out of each song.  On top of that there's the language of Broadway still embedded in it, with tips of the hat to Gershwin and others throughout... Miranda's not forgetting to check where either of his inspirations come from.  This may be too much of a bastardization for hip-hop purists, but hey, Busta Rhymes and The Roots (among many others) deeply adore this show.

Believe the hype.

JFL42 Comedy Festival 2013

Last year's JFL42 festival of comedy started off on a wrong note with a horrendous delay in getting the festival passes after ordering.  Coupled with the confusion about how the festival works and not having a usable smart phone to effectively check in and reserve shows, there was a lot it had to overcome to make it worthwhile.  What it has was some damn incredible comedeians and the more shows you take in the more value you get out of the festival pass.

It was an easy decision to do it again this year, particularly when discovering the early announced line-up included four of my favourite acts (Mulaney, Kinane, Maron and Burress) with two of the headliners (Silverman and Ansari) vying for my headliner selection.  The ticket ordering process this year went incredibly smoothly, with my festival pass arriving within hours and buying a pass for my wife at the same time required only a couple clicks on a simple "Transfer My Pass" process.  Months before the festival, it had already started things off right.

What wasn't so great this year, however, was the scheduling, partly my fault but also a problem with the organization of the acts.  There was a bit of bunching of the bigger names towards the end of the festival, overlapping at the same time, which was problematic and caused me to miss out on two favourites, Hannibal Buress and Maria Bamford (there were midnight show options for each on Thursday and Friday nights, but not much of an option with work and kids.  As well, there didn't seem to be as many name acts this year as there were last year, and it was very close to the starting date when the last half of the 42 were revealed.  There were a lot more hosted events, which I guess is fine, but I didn't think to investigate them until deep into the festival.

So committed to the festival this year were we that I called in my mother to fly in to watch after the kids.  We only had four nights booked when we asked initially but we took advantage of the in-house babysitting and jumped on a couple of extra shows.  I matched my show attendance from last year (8 shows) but packed even more extracurriculars with my wife into the week.  Where she only saw three shows plus the headliner last year (Louis CK), she caught all the shows with me this year and it made for a far better festival experience.

Here's a few brief recaps of the shows:

Mark Little and Kyle Dooley (opener Todd Graham) - September 20, @The Comedy Bar, 7PM
I didn't know what to expect.  I love Picnicface, the sketch ensemble of which both are members, and Little is a great stand-up in his own right (saw him last year), so I had hopes they could deliver something entertaining.  And it was something, all right.

Todd Graham was an inspired choice for opening act.  He has a quiet, reserved delivery, with dry punchlines and methodical pacing led to a slow laugh build-up (often to the point of uncomfortably awkward), but ultimately quite funny.  Little and Dooley follow Graham on stage with a stark counterpoint, kicking over the mics, crunking to some hardcore hip-hop and screaming like they're wrestlers from the 1980's WWF.  The aggressiveness was disarming, like shocking your skin by jumping in the snow out of a sauna, bracing but it wakes you up.  They don't let up from there.

Little and Dooley construct a loose, free-flowing narrative about attending their high-school prom that takes dozens of diversions that seem improvised (and to a degree are) but are still an important part of the overall structure.  There's a third member to their team in the booth playing music queues and interfering with the proceedings causing Little and Dooley much hilarious consternation (as the unseen third man, he's brilliant and every gaffe or interruption led to comedy gold).

Little and Dooley's irreverent production was jam packed with so many clever elements and funny bits that my mind overloaded.  A section of the show found Little becoming so irate with the errors from the sound tech that he starts ranting, his rants at first repeated by Dooley, then Little starts speaking for Dooley (which Dooley also repeats) before stepping out into the crowd, doffing his shirt, taking glasses from various audience members and piling them all on one audience member as a "glasses totem".  It's hard to effectively describe, but certainly a memorable live experience.

The overall show was so amazing that my wife and I had every intention of returning for an additional viewing but scheduling conflicts interfered with that plan.  Definitely the right way to start off our festival, an easy highlight.  My biggest hope is that one of the performances was captured on video as there's so much in there I would like to witness again.  I wonder if much of it was the live setting (I'm quite sure of it) but I also believe that it would translate well to home viewing.

Jerrod Carmichael (opener Mark Forward) - September 20, @The Comedy Bar, 9PM
 I've heard him as a guest on Comedy Bang Bang a couple of times and heard a few short sets he's done.  Carmichael is a new-ish comic that's garnering a lot of attention, and the kid has some definite comedy chops as well as charm to spare. . What he doesn't have is a solid 45 minute set, and thus it felt more like a workshopping appearance and less a refined headliner.  His attempts to engage the crowd weren't received well.  He basically just asked two or three times if anyone wanted him to riff on anything, and the only reply he got was "Rob Ford" (eliciting major groans from the crowd), but once he learned he was the crack-smoking mayor, his eyes sparkled and he went off.  Carmichael can riff, I'll grant him that, but while full of promice, overall the set was a scattershot work in progress.

Opener Mark Forward was great.  Forwards a Canadian pro, with a solid roster of odd material (including an opening conceptual piece about monitoring his phone for news about his grandmother which had a great payoff).  I got the sense he could easily have pulled a headliner set.

Sam Simmons - September 23, @The Drake, 7PM
"In Australia, all comedy is like this".
What a delightfully odd place that must be.

Simmons I caught on a Jon Dore hosted Just For Laughs alternative program earlier this year.  I didn't catch his name at first but upon seeing a clip while looking for shows at the JFL42 site, I immediately recalled how much I enjoyed him.  His hybrid stand-up/prop comedy/performance piece ebbs and flows between self-effacing, self-aggrandizing, hyper-sexual, off-beat, way-off-beat, outright bizzare, conceptual, clever word play, silly word play, groan-inducing wordplay, audience interaction, odd-ience interaction, audience berating, conversations with himself (pre-recorded), and things with food.  Lots and lots of food.  It's a little more than an hour of weirdness pummeling the audience, with an 80-to-20 hit to miss ratio, and a lot of those misses Simmons can turn into hits with his self-effacing or audience-berating tactic ("Fuck you guys, that was brilliant").  Simmons has no shame, even when he's pretending to be ashamed.  There's running bits throughout the show, with the Old El Paso Taco Kit playing a major part right up until the epic taco-crushing finale.  A decidedly entertaining and unique experience.

Marc Maron (opener Andy Kindler) - September 24, @Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 7PM
I've been listening to Maron once or twice a week, almost every week for four years.  His podcast, WTF, has reached over 400 episodes now, and each episode he engages in a one-sided conversation about his life and what's going on.  Maron's not just a comedian to me, he's a friend, a dear friend, someone whom I care about, yet I've never met.  I had only heard him perform shorter sets, seeing them on youtube or Comedy Central programs, but it was only early in the year when I received all four of his stand up records that I ever heard him as a full act.  But listening to him over those four albums is to hear him evolve as a person, not just as a comedian, and a lot of the stories and jokes were familiar to me in one form or another as he reshapes them on the podcast in rants or conversations (often he retells them in a "I have a joke about that with X as the punch line" way).  It's great stuff, but at the same time, knowing Maron so intimately -- as all his regular What The Fuckers, What The Fuck Buddies, What The Fuckanadians etc do -- is to worry about him and hope his show goes well (he had just had a bomb set a week or two before his JFL42 appearance so that was fresh in my mind).

But Jesus, what I forgot is that Maron is a fucking professional comedian, a 30 veteran of the industry, and seeing him on stage is to see a master at work.  He is incredible.  Within seconds of him arriving on stage you could tell he was loose, poking fun at his opener and friend Andy Kindler (more on him at the end), and he was ready to get into it (he followed that up with a brutally funny physical impersonation of his friend and fellow comedian David Cross).  Maron is a professional talker.  He has bits and his bits are incredible.  He's managed to hone his bits into a form where they don't sound like bits, they sound like conversation, and so when he's not in his bits you can't really tell he's riffing.

This was the first time I've seen Maron perform an hour that's wholly fresh to me.  I was thinking that because of his podcast that I would have known all the jokes or knew where he was going but I was absolutely swept up by seeing someone so capable of working a crowd and engaging them both as friends and potential enemies.  I love Maron, so there's total bias in this write up, but he absolutely killed and I was just floating by the end of the show.  It was like I finally got to put a face and physicality to that disembodied voice that rings around my earholes so often (Maron's also taller and more handsome than I had pictured).

Now Andy Kindler, on the other hand... well, I was immediately soured when he was announced and took the stage as opener.  I don't like Kindler for all the reason's he seems so completely aware about why people don't like him.  He's opinionated but in a manner that makes him seem bitter and envious.  His act is free of jokes, save for some Vaudevillian one-liners he likes to toss around knowingly, otherwise he's just got this shtick of being a jaded bottom-rung Hollywood type and completely self-denegrating.  He gets his laughs from his sad-sack self-awareness (he acknowledged the warm crowd at length and discussed how this was his best show ever, despite the fact that it was only a lukewarm crowd), but it wears thin very quickly.  His anger and vitriol towards specific individuals or organizations or movies or programs in Hollywood seem to have no other viewpoint than "I don't like it because it's successful", leading to no jokes, just hate.  The best thing to come out of Kindler's set was the end...no not that tired joke, but Maron's poking fun at him.  For all the jokes Kindler makes at his own expense, within a minute of being on stage Maron topped those two or three times over.

John Mulaney (opener Sean Patton) - September 25, @Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 7PM
If there was one act I could not miss this year, John Mulaney would be it.  His "The Best Meal I Ever Had" is my all-time favourite stand-up routine for a few years running.  His two albums, The Top Part and New In Town are comedy classics, the product of an affirmed comedic voice, one that seems to be getting better with age.  Mulaney's an expert storyteller, a gifted wordsmith, and he has mind-mouth coordination like few others.  His bits waver from funny to stitch-ripping hilariousness.  He entered the stage expressing that the evening would include a lot of new material, but if that was actually true, none of it was evident (except at one point where he declared "That's staying in the act!").  It seemed as polished a routine as either album, and whether it's just the confidence he has on stage or just general quick wit, there was nary a lull in his hour-long set.

Mulaney closed the show with a sister piece to "The Best Meal I Ever Had", which was a story called "The Best Night I Ever Had", about the time he was 8-years-old and met Bill Clinton.  The story takes a few necessary diversions (as most of his stories do) but it all builds an incredible picture that puts you right into the scene with young John as your avatar.  There's a moment in the story where Mulaney notes that the fundraiser where he would meet Clinton was held at the same ballroom that you see at the end of the Fugitive.  He drops a few notes of description, pauses for a moment to gauge the audience, then proceeds with the story, only to backtrack and detail more descriptors, not of the ballroom, but of the scene from the Fugitive.  He then pauses, assess the audience, then proceeds with the story once more, only to stop, backtrack and go off on a very intricate, 2-minute, obsessively detailed description of the climax of the Fugitive.  It's an applause worthy feat that sets a peak for the Clinton story that doesn't let down.

I was unfamiliar with his opener Sean Patton, but his set was entertaining, and I like his style, which was enough for us to fill in our Thursday night 9:00 gap with his headline performance.  More on him shortly.

Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet - September 26, @The Dakota Tavern, 7PM

Okay, I know it's not a JFL42 show, but it could have been.  Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet were the house band for the Kids in the Hall, which makes them a part of comedy history and certainly helped in endearing them to me as one of my favourite bands of all time.  The Shadowy Men, a not-quite-surf-a-billy threesome disbanded in the early 90's and after the death of bassist Reid Diamond were destined to be a band for the history books.  With their first album Savvy Show Stoppers reissued on vinyl last year, Shadowy Men reformed with Sadies frontman Dallas Good (if you're going to replace someone named Reid Diamond, only someone named Dallas Good can fit the bill), who played with Diamond and drummer Don Pyle in their post-Shadowy effort Phono-Comb.  The reforming was a three show event which led to a few more smaller shows last year, and a surprise residency during September this year at the Dakota Tavern.

This was my third Shadowy Men show in two years and where the first time was a quasi-religious experience (so many emotions from my youth came flooding back, as well having one of my best friends from high-school and adulthood there with me who lives on another coast, experiencing this live performance we never thought would happen... it was miraculous), this third time matched the second in a smaller, far more intimate venue with a hundred other devotees of old, and a few new.
The Shadowy Men rip through their repertoire at breakneck speed, one song leading into another, into another, into another...six or seven in a row without a pause.  I love the music and know the songs intimately, (though, through the years the names of the tracks have begun to escape me).  It's like a warm audio hug, just utter pleasure listening to Brian's guitar sing and watching his hands move, seeing Don's sweat over his drums and dropping a few pithy comments at rare intervals when he speaks.  I noticed I haven't paid much attention to Dallas Good in the past (since Pyle is the voice of the band, and Connelly is the spotlight, the bassist is easy to overlook), but I made a point to focus on what's going on with the bass this time.  Knowing that Good is playing Diamond's original bass I have to wonder just how much that particular instrument is integral to the band's sound.  The bass is so prevalent in the songs but also so overshadowed by Connelly's amazing hands that one so often wants to attribute signature moments in the songs to Connelly's guitar.

They played two sets, Connelly blowing out his amp at the end of the first set, causing a delay for the second, and thus causing us to miss out on its latter half as we had another place to be.  Still, absolutely amazing, every time.  I've had Shadowy Men songs running through my brain ever since.  I love it and will never tire of it.

Sean Patton (opener ?) - September 26, @The Comedy Bar, 9PM

This was a blessing.  Patton's opening set for John Mulaney was good, but it didn't imply how great Patton was a headliner.  The undersized crowd at the comedy bar spoke volumes as to how criminally below the radar Patton is flying, but judging by his uproarious, often shocking, often dark, often jubilant set, he's slated to appear all over that radar very soon.  Patton kicked off his act by sermonizing the crowd, then launching into his deep impression of Christian comedy, which at once is painfully unfunny, and conceptually hilarious in execution.  Patton then launches forward into a masterclass on storytelling, interspersed with some straight up jokes and aces crowd work.  His storytelling, an exaggeration of his own life, is filled with dark spots but presented with an affirmative nature so that it never drags too deep so as to take it out of comedy (though it threatens a few times in his closing story about his 12-year-old naive indiscretions).  He wavers in and out of hinting at a southern Nawleans drawling accent, and on occasion plays fully into it as a character type.  He knows his material and can command a stage, he's got a refined voice and he's ready for the next level.  His subject matter may not be to everyone's taste, and he likes to fuck with the audience's trust just enough to perhaps be off-putting to some, but overall should definitely break him out.  It was a revelation, one of my new favourite comedians.

His opener (whose name I've forgotten, but probably for the best) was a bit of a mess on the other hand.  Her act was a shambles, with punchlines flying out without jokes and jokes without punchlines.  Often repeated was "I don't know what I'm saying" which may not be a bad catch phrase if she's able to say a lot of hilarious non-sequiturs in a manner that seems like she doesn't know what she's saying.  Unfortunately it came across as her not actually knowing what she's saying, far too often.  It was continually unfocused and unrefined, there was a lot of senseless cursing and at times unbridled anger that seemed to have no direction.  Somewhere in there is a voice that has a unique perspective but judging by this performance it's a ways away from being found.

Kyle Kinane (opener Rob Mailloux) - September 27, @The Mod Club, 7PM

If there was a highlight of the festival, it would be Kyle Kinane.  I've been a fan of Kinane since he appeared on the Nerdist's first Comedians You Should Know showcase (episode 51) and he's only gotten better.  His first album Death of the Party found a not-so-young-but-still-young Kinane presenting his unique dark hilarity in a refined state, but his second album, Whiskey Icarus revealed the genius that was hiding from that first album.  Like Mulaney's set this year, Kinane has a new hour that seems polished and ready to go to press, his voice so strong that he fills every moment with a nugget of brain joy uniquely his own.

Comedy can be about telling jokes, but the best comedians are storytellers, those that can take even the smallest moments, like throwing out a handful of change, and turning them into epic reveals about the human psyche and making them relatable, as well as spinning them so cleverly on their previously unknown axis that they build in how funny they are.  Kinane this hour bares his soul, yet somehow in the most reserved way possible.  He's crying out about how lonely and damaged he is while contrasting it by doubling over his audience in laugher.  Kinane has a gift of riffing, able to talk and hit upon particular words that even if you miss two-thirds of what he's saying it's still going to perpetuate your laughter.  He has a bit about gay porn which is funny, but only crescendos when he starts expounding upon a scenario he's never seen but would like to see.  Though it's unlikely I'm ever to hear "butt-to-butt" out of the context of this joke, if ever I do I'll likely collapse in giggle fits.  His "butt-to-butt" riff sustained for so long that I nearly threw up from laughing so hard.  It's a good thing I didn't eat dinner before I went.

Kinane, even moreso than Mulaney, has one of the most unique voices in comedy, strictly speaking timbre and tone here.  The only other comedian who can make me laugh so hard just by talking is Buress (still sad I missed him).  Kinane's set was a gift, a treasure trove of turns of phrases that are so odd, yet sharp that you want to swirl it in your ear, rattle it around your brain and slide it out on your tongue again and again.  You will want to develop your own Kinane impersonation because half of the hilarity is in the delivery.

Rob Mailloux was the dark and tortured opening act.  Steeped in material from his seemingly very painful personal life, Mailloux talks about being adopted and his own anorexia as well as about horrifying medical maladies.  He's able to inject enough humour to make them palatable but they're still too shocking and too bleak of subject matter (and obviously still all too relevant to Mailloux) to fully transcend in the same way Maron or Bamford deal with their demons on stage.  His act is really good in foundation but it's still too much of a gut punch to be considered enjoyable.

Aziz Ansari (opener Kyle Kinane) - September 27, @The Sony Center, 10PM

In 2005, whilst visiting New York City, I bought 3-disc comedy compilation called Invite Them Up, a weekly premiere alternative stand-up showcase presented by Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale.  It was a concerted effort on my part to discover more comedy, having then-recently found David Cross and Mitch Hedburg and realizing I liked this stuff.  On that compilation the stand-out sets came from two sources, one Demitri Martin, the other Aziz Ansari.

In that set, Ansari talked about a senator who compared gay marriage to bestiality, particularly with box turtles, and postulated that this senator was really into turtles.  He also had a delicious rip on Kanye West whose music he loves, and whose personality he's fascinated with, and speaking Tamin in a brief encounter with M.I.A.  Ansari's dive into both pop-culture and political arenas was just what I was looking for and he became a fast favourite well before his major turn on Parks and Recreation and his subsequently awesome comedy albums.

This time around Ansari is laser focused, a singular topic in mind...that of, err, being single.  His new set is part comedy, part culture study, as he walks through all he's researched and learned and observed on single life, dating rituals as they compare to other countries and other eras.  It's evident that Ansari is growing up, and despite being a successful actor and comedian he's still trying to figure out some aspect of life.  It was surprising to witness a whole act without a single story about Kanye, but also kind of refreshing to watch him interplay with the audience and build upon that freewheeling in his act.  It was a strangely intellectual yet no less enjoyable.

What I learned though was that a multi-thousand seat theatre, like the Sony Center, isn't the best way to view comedy.  Particularly after coming off of seeing Kinane in a few hundred seat room, it was interesting to see him repeat much of the same material in a much bigger room, on a much grander scale.  The comedy doesn't play as well, though still amazing, and I've figured out that, at least for me, it's the space.  The laughter doesn't fill the space of a big theatre like it does in a smaller setting, the laughter needn't drown out the comedian, but they should have to fight to keep pulling you back in.  For stand-up, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre is probably the largest venue that can house it without destroying the sense of intimacy.  Ansari has gotten used to working crowds the size of the Sony Center and has built an act that's meant for such a space.  At the same time, it doesn't have nearly the same impact as Kinane's Mod Club set or Mulaney or Maron's Queen Elizabeth Theatre set.

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For JFL42 next year, some recommendations:
- Doug Benson for the whole week, doing stand-up, doing Doug Loves Movies, and doing Benson Movie Interruptions.  I would go to every single one.
- Deborah DiGiovanni I haven't seen do stand-up in some time, and I miss her.
- Kristen Schall and Kurt Braunohler
- Ron Funches
- Jonah Ray
- Kumail Nanjiani
- Headliner suggestions: Flight of the Conchords, Tenacious D, David Cross, Mindy Kaling, Joan Rivers (seriously)

...I've got more (I'll add them for posterity later).