Maybe you had to have been there.
The Fox has reopened for the first time since the shutdown last spring. The air on opening night was full of excitement. The Fox is requiring full vaccination or a recent COVID test – the latter can even be done by a nearby testing site, and purchasing tickets leads to a site where one uploads a photo of one’s vaccine card, followed by a text with a link to a website that says in large, easy to read type CONFIRMED, along with more specific details. That gets shown to the folks at the door before proceeding to the ticket-takers. Doors are opening an hour before curtain, to help with the slower entrance process.
People were cranked up to see Pretty Woman the Musical. Some good performances, though, aren’t enough to save this show.
Why base a musical on a film that had a pretty weak script but two big-name stars, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere? Sheer economics. Broadway musicals are where the audiences and thus the money are. Straight plays don’t run as long and draw as well. The tourist crowd gravitates toward musicals, and it’s proven that recognizable names now do better than all-new material, with some Hamiltonian exceptions. So using a movie that people knew, even one from 1990, seemed like a logical idea. The play opened in 2018. Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance wanted the score to riff on late ‘80’s rock.
The basic concept of prettying up a hard, ugly, dangerous, illegal way of life is what the show starts out with. That’s part of the Cinderella/My Fair Lady concept the script is based on, but neither Cinderella nor Eliza Dolittle had to avoid getting beaten up by customers or had pals with track marks. It needs to rise above that. In today’s society, that’s hard to do.
So here we have Vivian (Olivia Valli) from Milledgeville, GA, who is sort of new to this kind of thing meeting Edward, rich, successful, wealthy family, etc., on a park bench. He wants to rent her, for an emotion-free evening, and then decides that this kid from the country, still with lots of raw edges, is just the thing for the week he’s in town doing billion-dollar deals. No, he’s not keeping her in the penthouse – he wants her on his arm, thinking that the right clothes will be enough to turn her into a lovely but otherwise unremarkable companion. Riiight. Director Jerry Mitchell’s concept of her rube-ness is unnervingly broad – she shakes hands like she’s pumping a well, for instance. One wishes there were more chemistry between the two but given the size of the Fox, that may be a function of the sheer size of the venue and how futile subtle onstage gestures can be..
The strength in the production comes from some of the secondary characters. Kyle Taylor Parker first appears as Happy Man, one of the street people, and then reappears as Mr. Thompson, the manager of the ultra-swanky hotel where Edward is ensconced. As the dignified boss, he’s particularly delightful, fixing a knowing eye on Vivian, then befriending her, including a dance lesson that’s one for the ages. Bellman Giulio (Michael Vincent Taylor) does a great job with very broad physical comedy. Between the two of them, they make the hotel Happy Town. When Edward takes Vivian to hear la Traviata, there’s an unexpected treat with part of an aria of Violetta’s coming courtesy of Amma Osei, bringing shrieks and applause from the crowd, well deserved.
David Rockwell’s scenic design was just as fine as he always delivers, of course, but it was handsomely exhibited thanks to Kenneth Posner and Phillip S. Rosenberg’s lighting design, with particularly delicious colors. The score is deeply unremarkable aside from the Verdi insertion and the waited-for appearance of the great Roy Orbison song of the same name. That happens at the end of the show, and, strange to say, was not added until some months after the show opened.
Much work involved in trying to save this show. It has its moments. But on the whole, it’s time to try again.
Pretty Woman
through November 28, 2021
Fox Theatre
527 N. Grand Blvd.
314-534-1111
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