Little Beau Creep
Review: Beau Is Afraid If you don’t already suffer from anxiety going into this movie, you may want to prepare for an immersive experience. In this epic cinematic fever dream, Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) answers the question, what if Uncut Gems was remade by Charlie Kauffman but instead of an Ethiopian opal, it’s your mother’s judgment? The first hour is stress porn at its most visceral. Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is a psychologically-delicate loser living in squalor in an unnamed city. In this movie, though, he doesn’t become Joker, he instead attempts to visit his remote but domineering mother. Increasingly horrifying developments prevent this from happening. Beau lives in an urban hellscape with dangers - many imagined but some perhaps real - that are at his throat as soon as he opens his front door. Set upon from the start by a tidal wave of anxiety and Cronenbergian levels of psycho-physical violence, Beau’s only solace lies in his drug-administering therapist. Even at rest, he is tortured by memories of his mother, which swing between overly-affectionate and abusive. Escaping from the incredibly choreographed unhinged venality and street terror propels us into Beau’s voyage, much of which experiences passively, tossed along on an unpredictable stream of random circumstance and hallucination. Aster’s own tropes are present from these early scenes, his fascination with decapitation, devils hanging from ceilings and people jumping off ledges all touched on. They appear in various guises throughout Beau’s odyssey - the foreshadowing tapestry in the opening of Midsommar is replaced by a video tape that seems to predict an inescapable future. People as puppets or painted models or characters in a play - another of Aster’s fixations - is another theme. Beau lands in a suburban sanctuary that becomes more sinister by the day, and then escapes to a dreamlike woodland camp, before arriving at his mother’s house for a final reckoning. The plot is really a series of increasingly surreal, horrific tableaux, each with their own stakes. What if swallowing pills without water killed you? What if you left your apartment door open and unattended in a feral neighborhood? What if every single feeling of safety that you ever felt was an illusion? It’s a series of rug pulls, with the added feeling that mother is watching at all times. The cast is a parade of national treasures: Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Richard Kind and Patti LuPone. There are also some gasp-inducing cameos that I won’t spoil. Phoenix delivers his exasperating milquetoast of a man with impressive discipline, and in flashbacks Armen Nahapetian is excellent as young Beau, as is Zoe Lister-Jones as his mother. Kylie Rogers also stands out as the suburban couple’s chaotically unhinged teen daughter. It’s all here. Comedy, body horror, animation, post-modern framings, Black Mirror-esque weirdness and relentless Freudian symbolism. At three hours long, it might be a stretch for some, but the pacing, cast and sheer variety of Aster’s cinematic toolbox were compelling. You might not love all of it, but you can’t help but admire the ambition. (PO) Beau Is Afraid is playing at the Prytania Theater Canal Place and across the city. To the Bat Cage!
Review: Renfield If I have any complaints about this high-octane gore fest, it’s that it could have used more Nicolas Cage. I mean, that’s my complaint with almost all movies, but here especially. We’ll get to his performance, but the upshot is an absurd vampiric romp that slashes its bloodthirsty way through New Orleans, seen through the eyes of young Renfield (a foppish Nicholas Hoult). Dracula (Cage) is living in the abandoned Charity Hospital after centuries of adventures with his familiar, Renfield. We’re shown some very satisfying black and white flashbacks, Cage doing his best Bela Lugosi in the flickering footage. Times are hard, though, and fighting the church’s vampire hunters has taken its toll. Dracula needs fresh victims, and in his weakened state, it’s down to Renfield to supply them. Our boy is experiencing a kind of class consciousness, though, relating the exploitative relationship he has, and slowly coming to the conclusion that Dracula is kind of abusive. Inspired by a support group for toxic relationship survivors and the goriest meet cute ever with a local cop Rebecca Quincy (played by Awkwafina), Renfield moves out of the derelict hospital, determined to make his own way in the world. The subplot is a chaotic mix of police corruption within the “PDNO”, as an organized crime group flexes its muscles. The crime family is fronted by a manic son (the hilarious Ben Schwarz), doing his mother’s bidding (Shohreh Aghdashloo as the hard-nosed matriarch). Renfield tries to escape Dracula’s clutches as he also helps Quincy and pursues self-improvement in the group. Dracula is a tenacious boss, though, and chases Renfield down. It’s here that Cage excels, delivering a wonderfully camp portrayal, mixed with sinister undercurrents of bullying. He obviously relishes every word, and every flamboyant body movement. There are a couple of large fight scenes, each doused with such cartoonish amounts of blood and carnage that it’s hard to be squeamish about. People are beaten to death with another person’s limbs, heads and legs are detached and fly through the air, and it feels like the director (Chris McKay) is just seeing what he can get away with. The effects are great, Cage becoming a smoke cloud or a colony of bats as he terrorizes just about everyone. There are some good local jokes, it being set in New Orleans and being a great addition to the canon of NOLA media post-lockdown [see our feature on that here]. Renfield and Quincy escape a fight and need to meet to regroup and one of them yells, "Meet me at Cafe du Monde!", you know, WHERE THE LOCALS MEET. Quincy also delivers a good bit about the Sysyphian task of sobriety traffic stops in a city that has drive-through daiquiri stores. Is the movie ridiculous? Yes. Is the plot, even within its own universe, completely goofy? Hell yes. Would I almost immediately see it again because it was a fun time? Absolutely. I wish Dracula had a few more dramatic flourishes, but hey, I’ll stick my neck out for Renfield. (PO) New New Orleans Media! (feature) Seeing red: Moulin Rouge! The Musical
When a musical’s title contains an exclamation mark, you know it means business. This stage version of Baz ‘The Michael Bay of Jazz Hands’ Luhrmann’s 2001 cinematic jukebox romance comes at you hard from the start. The clicking fingers and filthy bassline of Lady Marmalade thrust you into the glittering, gaudy chaos of Paris’ Moulin Rouge nightclub, where tutu’d twirlers and corseted courtesans promise to fulfil your every desire. This becomes a literal plot point as the club is in financial trouble (booo!), although club patron the Duke of Monroth will perhaps invest (hurrah!), but that is dependent on him sleeping with and owning the club’s sultry star, Satine (ewww!) who is incidentally coming down with a fatal case of terminal consumption (awww!). Enter Christian (Conor Ryan), a sappily romantic Ohioan visitor who has fallen in with the charismatic socialist ‘bohemians’ Toulouse-Lautrec (Nick Rashad Burroughs) and Santiago (Gabe Martínez). Christian just wants to write and perform his love songs, and in a classic mix-up, he ends up in a dressing room with Satine (Courtney Reed) delivering his best Elton John while she believes him to be the Duke and they fall instantly in love. When the Duke DOES turn up for what he paid for, they convince him to back a new show, and Christian is relegated to sad boi side piece (conflict ensues). The entire enterprise is handled by campy, opportunistic hedonist Zidler (Austin Durant), the club’s manager. The pop musical numbers come thick and fast, especially when a lyric can be crowbarred into the conversation, and the playlist has been fully updated from 20 years ago, so expect more Lady Gaga than Nirvana. The plot isn’t the most convoluted, and for me, the show is at its best when exploring the themes of found family within the bohemians or the club employees. Christian and Satine trade ballads (both have impressive pipes), and Toulouse-Lautrec and Santiago both get evocative set pieces. The costumes (Catherine Zuber) and scenic design (Derek McLane) do a lot of great work, your ticket money right up there on stage, seamlessly swinging from baroque theater to the grimy Montmartre to the sophistication of Champs-Élysées. There are quite a few huge, exuberant dance numbers that show off Sonya Tayeh’s expert choreography. The songs work well for the most part (the musical jump scare of Cee-lo Green very much excepted) and renditions of ‘Firework’ and of course ‘Your Song’ get ecstatic audience reactions. There are a couple of high-octane medleys that pinball you through two decades of pop hits, and the second half opener of Bad Romance builds from a sexy two-hander to a full-out joyous ensemble whirlwind. It’s a spectacle. Yes, it’s sentimental in parts, and don’t think about the plot too hard, but if you love pop music and huge neon sets and streamers popping out of canes and saucy innuendo and large-format burlesque, then you’ll have a memorable night out. And at the end of the day, that’s really all that the Moulin Rouge wants for you. Moulin Rouge! The Musical plays at the Saenger until April 16th. Paws for thought
Review by Lefty Lucy The heartbreaking thing about live theater is that when it's good, and it ends – that’s it. It’s done. You can't watch it over, and over, and over again, pausing to take in the all luscious visuals and cleverly placed props. The theater, well, “it flares up, burns hot, and then it’s gone…”. So you try to take in every detail you possibly can – every shovel, every pruning shear, every machete (every rifle – literal and figurative – hanging on the wall), but, inevitably, you get swept up in the story, the characters, the comedy! And you're left only remembering a vibrant shadow of the incredible artistry that delighted, shook, and comforted you for 80 minutes. Or at least, that’s what it’s like for me; Not 10 minutes into the Radical Buffoons production of Exit, Pursued by a Bear, and already I regret that this will be my one and only opportunity to see this outstanding production. House opens, and our eager audience floods into a transformed black box theater that truly looks like they’ve ripped the wall off of a hunting shed, with our seats set up specifically to allow a peek inside. There’s almost a Pee-Wee’s Playhouse vibe, if the Playhouse was a murder den in the woods. The set is a cornucopia of scenery, complete with deer mount, busted up lawn mower, in-progress window frame leaning against a worktable, a chair connected to a chain, and much, much, much more. Props to Lindsay Rowinski, Marissa Botelho, & Jean Trachek for their spectacular scenic and prop details - you could have left me with the lights on alone in the space overnight and I still don’t think I would have been able to notice every perfectly-placed piece. Of course, it was impossible to take everything in before the lights dimmed and the show began (but I know because I lingered after and took a billion pictures). I went into this play completely unfamiliar with it, beyond the title. I wish I could tell you what happens, linearly, from scene to scene, but I’m afraid my memory doesn’t work that way. What I can tell you is this: The play opens on Independence day: spotlight on Nan (embodied by the fantastic Natalie Boyd), a modern (and dissatisfied) housewife and animal lover, who has decided she’s leaving her husband…out, for the local bears to eat. She’s had enough, and she’s duct taped dear Kyle – that’s the husband (played sincerely by Jon Greene) – to a chair, chained the chair to a rig in the ceiling, covered him (and the driveway) in honey, and has begun thawing the pounds upon pounds of deer carcass that Kyle’s been shooting and freezing (with no end in sight) so that it might tempt some hungry bears, and solve all of Nan’s problems. We learn through a series of reenactments performed by Nan, her stripper pal Sweetheart (portrayed by a perfectfully deranged Angie Z), and childhood best friend Simon (brought to full technicolor life by the truly transcendent Mint Blair), that Nan’s husband Kyle has become red-flag city, the final straws being endless name calling and physical abuse. The specific story of abused-wife-has-enough is almost (sadly) cliche at this point – Nan even mentions Thelma and Louise, emphasizing a trope that has been around for well over 30 years by now. But Lauren Gunderson’s masterful use of comedic and theatrical structure, combined with the choices of directors Torey Hayward and Tenaj Jackson supported by their incredible cast (all born to play their parts), takes this topic from ordinary to revolutionary. This quick-witted and deeply personal play takes a microscopic look into the complicated layers of an abusive relationship, and leaves you asking… Who’s the bear? Now, I could talk to you about how Nan likes to quote Jimmy Carter, a lot, and somehow it’s hilarious. Or how impressed I was by the choice and execution of Kyle’s first monologue – enunciated, somehow, completely clearly despite having a red ball gag tied firmly in his mouth. Or, I could gush about how the sound, lighting, and costume design (provided by Amara Skinner, Stephen Thurber, and Aya Designs) are so spot-on and mingled so seamlessly, I barely have any distinct notes or memory – though I did occasionally wonder if some of the sounds were curated design, or simply NOLA noises, wisely folded in by Amara Skinner. All of the design elements work together to allow the audience to get lost in this world that walks the line between realism and fantasy (my notes at one point read simply, “that is some fine looking meat!”). Theater! I could also tell you how, after I googled it, I learned that this show is an homage of sorts to Shakespeare’s play the Winter’s Tale, which includes the stage direction, “Exit, pursued by a bear.” But honestly? All I know about that play is that it goes completely off the rails, in part because there’s a bear in it. This play shares a bear, but here she only goes off the rails on her way to greener pastures… or woods…or a city. I’m no Shakespeare, but you get the metaphor. So, whether you are a theater nerd or just enjoy good storytelling, there are even more depths for you to mine in this fantastic production. Don’t miss your chance to see this comedic and Radical show. Exit, Persued By A Bear runs on 4/6 , 4/7 @ 8pm (doors at 730…ish) at the Fortress of Lushington See where Lefty Lucy is performing next! Going on a hunch
If there’s one thing that British cinema does very well, it’s genial low-stakes capers, with a slightly eccentric protagonist tilting at windmills of varying seriousness. In the last year or so, we’ve had ‘Mrs Harris Goes to Paris’, and then more recently ‘Living’, both of which were feelgood romps of this very ilk. The Lost King also sidles up to this genre, but has the distinction of being based on a recent true story, which adds to the charm. The true story is this: In 2012, Philippa Langley, a single mother from Edinburgh, spearheaded a successful search for the hereto lost grave of King Richard III. She also sought to redeem his image, which had been so thoughtlessly trashed by one William Shakepeare and propaganda by the Tudor royal family that replaced him - the last of the Plantagenet kings. Pop history remembers Ricky III as a cruel hunchback who locked up and murdered young princes after imprisoning them in the Tower of London, and yet beyond a cursory analysis, there is little factual historical evidence to support any of this. Driven by a humdrum life and a sudden vigor thanks to some new historical society chums, Langley sets about locating and digging up the lost grave, which just happened to be under a civil service car park in the city of Leicester. Langley is played with no little charisma by the excellent Sally Hawkins, who also communes with the dashing ghost of said King (who can only be seen by her) during her quest. Hawkins is probably most famous for being the non-aquatic love interest in The Shape of Water (for which she was Oscar nominated). There’s definitely a parasocial relationship that develops here - can Hollywood ever give Hawkins a human boyfriend again? Steve Coogan plays Langley’s coparenting ex husband, and though initially skeptical, he eventually becomes a supportive cog in the machine. The hunt and excavation takes on a life of its own once the probability of finding the actual body becomes more likely, and much of the movie is spent on the various public bodies that unfairly swoop in to try and claim credit for Langley’s work. It’s an inspiring tale of creating a new life that centers your own fulfillment, as well as good, old-fashioned tenacity. A put-upon David who takes down the Goliaths of naysaying academics. It being a true story, we know (or can easily find out about) the outcome before it happens, but it doesn’t detract from the joyous ending, and thanks to Hawkins and Coogan, it’s a satisfying retelling, and finally it’s on Langley’s terms. (PO) The Lost King is playing at The Prytania Canal Place Review by Emily Hingle
The hip stretch of Magazine Street between Jefferson and Henry Clay Avenues is home to several boutiques catering to the aging Millennial, quick-service eateries specializing in healthy foods (Playa Bowls) or tasty foods (District Donuts), and a brand-new piercing boutique called Studs. This cool, clean, studio is a perfect fit for the neighborhood, all eye-popping neon accents, uptempo pop tunes and translucent neon green stands showcasing the goods. Studs is all about the ear. Staff are happy to consult about earscaping: the art of strategic ear piercings in order to stack jewelry for a dramatic look. You fill out some forms, provide ID, and you are shown a selection of jewelry. Using a chart, you select exactly where you want that new piece of jewelry to go. My piercer, Raynbow, met me in the lobby to discuss piercing location, the heal time, and what jewelry would be best for that particular area. I decided to get the Snakebite Midi, which is two piercings close together. Raynbow invited me back to the freshly-sterilized room. It looked almost like a doctor’s office with a sink, a cushy patient table, and sterilized instruments, but the bright yellow accents and hair clips in jars brings it all back to ear piercing. After confirming things, she explained in detail how she would do the piercings, and how the flat-back jewelry works. She really put me at ease, and I imagine that she is amazing at helping nervous clients get through the process well. Raynbow spoke to me throughout, making sure I was handling the process. Some people can experience light-headedness or actually faint while being pierced, and it was clear that she was ready for that possibility. Afterwards, Raynbow again went over the after-care regimen and handed me a guide. As I left, the staff gave me a goody bag with holographic stickers, a scratch-off game to possibly win a discount, and a stick-on diamond tattoo (which I have not seen in 20 years!). As a young girl, I was taken to the mall to get my ears pierced. It was a rite-of-passage for girls in the 1990s and 2000s to sit in the store’s window with everyone watching, and get pierced via piercing gun by a possibly inexperienced (and nervous) clerk. It wasn’t unheard of at these mall stores for the piercer to set off the gun when you weren’t expecting it. She might say, “I’m going to do it on the count of three. One…CLICK!” After the event, you were told to wash the piercing and turn it regularly to get it healed up. As an adult, I’ve also had piercings and tattoos from various tattoo parlors. They can be noisy and intimidating places. Studs is a spot for kids to go to have a fun, safe, and private piercing experience, and it’s a tranquil environment for adults as well. It felt good to be in a room by myself instead of out in the open. It’s certainly safer to be pierced with a needle rather than a gun that shoots an actual earring through your lobe, but I never knew about not twirling your earring until the knowledgeable staff here explained why that’s a terrible idea. I would certainly go back for single piercings, but the boutique’s emphasis on earscaping and the jewelry sets that they create for that are making me think about doing more. Studs is open at 5705 Magazine Street, 11am-7pm daily. FIRST NIGHT REVIEW
Sects and Violins Fiddler on the Roof @ The Saenger Theater The themes of tradition being challenged by new ideas is one that looms large in many ways over this beloved 60-year old musical. The staging itself creates these very tensions, and in this touring ‘Broadway in New Orleans’ production, a couple of small modern touches are introduced to emphasize the ongoing relevance of the story. The story is book-ended by the lead in a modern, bright orange parka, driving home that the themes ring true for the people of Syria, or even more topically, Ukranians (to whom the show is dedicated). Tevye (Jonathan Hashmoney) is an impoverished milkman in a Jewish village in Tsarist Russia in 1905, who nevertheless delights in the rules that bind society and will help him marry off his five daughters. If there’s a stronger, more emphatic opening number than ‘Tradition’ then I’ve yet to see it, the central tensions of the show set up with incredible gusto from the off. “People ask me where these traditions come from,” Tevye confides to the audience, “And I’ll tell you…I don’t know.” Tevye lives happily with his wife, Golde (Maite Uzal), a hard-working pragmatist with a no-nonsense outlook. His three eldest daughters are approaching marrying age, and although the meddling matchmaker Yente (Gabriella Green) fusses around them, they each have their own ideas, which slowly but surely come to the fore. Tevye speculates on how life could be, and while being grateful for his faith and culture, wishes for just a little more in life. Hashmoney brings a fresh charisma to the number ‘If I Were a Rich Man’, ramping up the laughs as his imagined life of wealth gets ever more decadent. At first, life is comically exasperating for Tevye, as his eldest Tzeitel (Randa Meierhenry) ducks away from an arranged marriage to bluff elder butcher Lazar Wolf (Andrew Hendrick). She has eyes for the local tailor Motel (Daniel Kushner) and Tevye goes against his better judgment and relents. In these early scenes, fast-paced humor dominates, and the lines come thick and fast. Lazar Wolf offers Tevye a drink - “I won’t insult you by saying no!” comes the reply. Perchik (Austin J Gresham), a young student, tells Tevye that money is the world’s curse - “Then let God smite me with it!” yells the dairyman. There’s also a telling part where Perchik interprets a bible story as saying that “all employers are evil” and let me tell you, only the back half of the theater laughed. Tzeitel and Motel’s wedding comes as a first act climax, with joyous scenes of incredibly gymnastic and inspirationally-arranged dance numbers. People usually think of West Side Story, but Fiddler on the Roof is low-key one of the greatest musicals for dance numbers. Back flips, feats of agility, and of course the famous bottle dance, explode on the crowded stage. All credit to the truly outstanding work by choreographer Hofesh Shechter. Already, though, the cracks in age-old practices are starting to appear. Perchik dances with unmarried Hodel (Graceann Kontak) to initial outrage, and the wedding is broken up by Tsarist militia men, in a stark warning of the violence to come. Tevye’s world begins to crumble as we start the second act. Hodel and Perchik declare their love, Tevye’s permission overstepped. He very sheepishly gives his blessing, with a lament: “Love! It’s the new way!” His limits are severely tested, though, as Chava (Yarden Barr), falls for a visitor, Fyedka (Carson Robinette), who isn’t Jewish. He questions his own relationship with Golde, as they duet on the gorgeous second half highlight, ‘Do You Love Me?’. The family unit is strained, as is the community as they are violently evicted from their village by the Tsarist forces. New ways and ideas come in many guises, from cheeky loopholes that allow teenagers to dance together to the extermination of a people and their culture. It’s a pretty bleak ending but the power of hope is never extinguished. Breathing new life into a 60-year old musical can’t be easy, but Michael Yeargan’s sets and Catherine Zuber’s costumes do fabulous work in updating the aesthetics without losing the ambience of an early 20th-century East European village. Tevye’s incredible dream sequence wouldn’t look out of place in a Tim Burton movie, and classic set pieces such as the expertly-rendered bottle dance are utterly compelling, visually reinforcing the subtle, growing tensions. I’d only ever seen half of the epic film, and so to experience the full range of emotion, from belly laughs to near-unbearable poignancy, was unexpected but very welcome. This production of Fiddler is as fresh, challenging and relevant as it must have been in the 1960s. We can pay respect to theatrical traditions while accepting new ideas, and when a huge ensemble uses both to create something this powerful and entertaining, that’s surely the real sweet spot. (PO) Fiddler on the Roof plays at the Saenger Theater through Sunday March 5th. Click here for more information and tickets. Living
It’s not such an original premise: a man who has played it safe for his whole life receives a terminal prognosis and changes his outlook. In many ways, too, this is a dramatic mirror image of the gentle comedy Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. It’s set in a similar world, with faceless bureaucracy to be stood up to by someone with nothing to lose, repressive British manners to be overcome and fairly low stakes in the scheme of things. The central performance by Bill Nighy, though, elevates Living from straightforward schlock. Living is a remake (with a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro) of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru, or To Live. Mr Watanabe is replaced by Nighy’s Mr Williams, a man so buttoned up that you sense he can barely breathe. Decades of dull pen-pushing and thankless deference to his betters come crashing down when Williams, a man in his 60s, is given a stomach cancer diagnosis. In the short term, a Ferris Bueller-type day off in Brighton with boozy bohemian playwright (Tom Burke), gives Williams a jolt. He gets drunk, sings out loud in a pub and sees a burlesque show. But he eventually translates this newfound urgency and focus to his workplace, and takes up causes that had been floundering in paperwork hell, particularly one that would convert a corner of a working class slum into a children’s playground. He takes long lunches with a charismatic young former coworker (Aimee Lou Wood) and looks to instill an unadulterated dose of ‘carpe diem’ into his already-dusty team of younger men. This is done in ways that American audiences might find too subtle to be interesting, but the rebellion has to be analyzed on a relative scale. Nighy does such a good job of conveying a life of constraint, a stifling, starch-stiff existence with precious few air pockets for self-expression and certainly no room for bending the system, even for good. Small victories become hugely significant, and even the act of shaking a colleague’s hand and thanking them for their work becomes a talismanic freedom charge. The humble playground itself is an obvious visual metaphor for living, and the message is perhaps that letting yourself go on the swings for even a few minutes is better than watching from the sidelines. Living is slow and quaint for the most part, but Nighy’s emergent charm is irresistible, and it’s a welcome reminder to make even the small parts of our lives as memorable as possible. (PO) Living is playing at the Prytania Theatres at Canal Place TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL
First Night Review at The Saenger Theater Broadway loves a comeback, stars and subjects alike. Recently, there’s been a renaissance of women who turn their real life lemons into showtime lemonade. There’s Pamela Anderson, hot off her documentary and literary forays into memoir, who poured her exploitation and heartbreak into her performance in the Broadway revival of Chicago as Roxie Hart. But the award for crisis management and reinvention has to go to Tina Turner - both the real superstar, and the star of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, now touring its Broadway show at the Saenger Theater. With an emphasis on energy, heart, and soul, this musical is a true testament to the resilience and strength of one of the greatest musical icons of our time. The production opens with a young Anna-Mae Bullock, discovering her gifts and witnessing the breakdown of her turbulent family. From there, the audience is taken on a journey through the ups and downs of Tina's life, including her rise to fame, her tumultuous relationship with her former husband Ike Turner, and her eventual triumph as a solo artist. Throughout the show, Tina's music serves as the backbone, providing a pulse-pounding soundtrack that keeps the audience bouncing in their seats. The lead actress, Naomi Rodgers, is phenomenal as Tina Turner. She channels spirit and stage presence, delivering powerful vocals and electrifying performances of hits such as 'River Deep, Mountain High', 'What's Love Got to Do with It', and 'Private Dancer'. The supporting cast is equally impressive. The runaway fan favorite was Ayvah Johnson (a Slidell native!) as Young Anna-Mae, who immediately sells Tina’s prodigious nature by virtue of being a singing and acting prodigy herself. Garrett Turner as Ike—no relation, I expect—is pitch-perfect in his mercurial performance, swinging from smooth charm to rage to sniveling as quickly as the tempo changes. The choreography is also a highlight, with faithful reproductions of the high-energy routines that vaulted Tina and the Ikettes to stardom. In addition to the music, Tina - The Tina Turner Musical provides a glimpse into the personal struggles and triumphs of Tina's life. The show chronicles her journey from a battered young artist to a confident and empowered woman, exploring themes of abuse, resilience, and self-discovery. The show even touches on some of the tools she uses along the way: the reciprocal abuse learned from her parents’ relationship; the support from her bandmates and tour manager, also victims of Ike’s temper; and the Buddhist meditation practices that finally give her the strength to leave. It's a moving tribute to the fortitude of the human spirit and the power of perseverance. The production design is also noteworthy, with stunning lighting and outstanding costume design that all come together to create a truly immersive experience. If you missed the iconic performances of the Ike and Tina Revue or Tina Turner when she was playing live, you’ll feel transported into some of the most memorable shows of the last 50 years. The use of projections, sound design, and special effects are especially effective during scene transitions, which seem to happen almost instantly thanks to the actors doubling as stage crew. This makes what could be a long show move at a clip, allowing the audience to remain immersed in the story being told on stage. Overall, it's a dynamic and entertaining celebration of one of the most beloved musical legends of all time. The show is a must-see for fans of Tina and anyone looking for a toe-tapping night. New Orleans showed up in its best sequined and fringed getups for the affair, so your 80s wig won’t be out of place. Plus, there’s just something special about dancing and singing to 'Proud Mary' mere blocks away from the bank of the river herself, and it's an experience that will leave you feeling empowered and inspired. (Eileen Daley) Tina: The Tina Turner Musical plays at The Saenger through February 12th. More information and tickets here. It’s a trope as old as time. A grizzled gumshoe fighting his demons of alcoholism and bereavement as he drops into a buttoned-up institution to crack some skulls and find a violent killer. Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) is a pulp-ish detective grimacing and poking his nose around West Point military academy in the snowy winter of 1830.
Given the presence of demons, though, who better to have as a sidekick than a morbid, occultist weirdo such as Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) himself? Poe, you see, just happens to be a cadet at the facility, as he was for a time in real life. The growing number of ritualistic murders are panicking the top brass but Poe has insights enough that Landor takes him on as an eccentric assistant. The photography throughout flickers like an animated daguerreotype, and scenes are dimly lit and are evocative of a gloomy outpost. This gives it the vintage ambience of a Christmas ghost story, and one that Poe could easily have written. There are certainly enough newly-liberated human hearts flying around to inspire one of his gory fables. Bale brings the familiarity of a world-weary dick to the proceedings, and it’s a restrained performance as he navigates the formality of the academy and the unseemly nooks of its underbelly. It’s Melling, though, as an excitable, almost Holmesian puzzle-solver that steals every scene. He strikes a pallid, poetic but strikingly eloquent presence in what is essentially as much a Poe origin story as it is a whodunnit. Some great British acting talents wrestle with the unusual accents of the time period and geographic location, with Toby Jones and Timothy Spall as a suspicious coroner and crusty general respectively. Lucy Boynton does great work as a cynical beauty with a good line in dramatic seizures but it’s Gillian Anderson as haughty matriarch Julia Marquis who matches Melling’s oddness with some truly memorable melodramatic outbursts. The script is charmingly verbose, and put me in mind of the TV show Deadwood. People aren’t ‘falsely accused’, they ‘suffer an unwarranted calumny the likes of which are an assault on their dignity’...that’s not a direct quote but you get the gist. If you like flowery dialogue, methodical procedures and vaguely silly twists, then it’s compelling enough to warrant a couple of hours. I’d love to see Melling as Poe in a franchise of his own, but for now, these tell-tale hearts will have to suffice. (PO) The Pale Blue Eye is playing at the Prytania Canal Place Theater |
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