I never expected to see Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney and The Go-Go’s sharig space in a Playbill, but Head Over Heels manages to merge two distinct creations together in unexpected and joyful ways.
So yes, this is a musical with the tunes of classic early ‘80s rockers The Go-Go’s at its heart. Instead of telling the story of the band’s rise to fame, creators Jeff Whitty and James Magruder went looking for a story they could weave and warp to fit into the music.
They went to Sidney’s Arcadia, and added their own particular twists to the tale. Here, the Arcadians have been happy for generations following their beloved beat. Warnings from the new oracle of Delphi (played by Drag Race participant and pop singer Peppermint) frighten the king Basilius so much that he takes the entire kingdom on a quest to meet their enemies in battle.
Meanwhile, both of his daughters are finding love in unexpected places. Youngest Philoclea has been wooed by the shepherd, Musidorus. He isn’t able to get entry into the court until he disguises himself as an Amazon.
As a woman, he is able to get into Philoclea’s inner circle, which includes her older sister Pamela and Mopsa, the daughter of the king’s viceroy. Those two are also falling in love.
So, lots of love is on the table, and we watch them fall in and out and in again. And the Go-Go’s are a perfect fit for the story. Their catalogue provides a nice selection of rockers, mid-tempo tunes and ballads that can be deployed to intensify emotions or underscore the action on stage. It could be Mopsa realizing she can’t be apart from Pamela during “Vacation,” or all of the characters with secrets promising that “Our Lips are Sealed.”
And the couples find love, or love again, by the end of the show. Mind you, it embraces a wide swath. There’s the old king and queen who have renewed their love, but there is also two women who have fallen into each other’s arms, and a man and his non-binary partner have reunited. Even one of the young lovers at the heart of the story has found that he’s really gender fluid, more than willing to embrace the female side of his personality.
So the show is a breezy confection with a serious, uplifting message inside. A perfect fit, I think.
The Nap
I left The Nap with a warmed heart, but also with questions that the new comedy from the creator of One Man, Two Guvnors doesn’t really answer.
The show takes us to modern-day Sheffield, where a young man has attempted to break out of a depressing, hard-scrabble life by becoming a professional snooker player. He’s found enough success to be in the upcoming world championships, but that has also attracted the wrong kind of attention from organized crime.
As Dylan (nicely played by Ben Schnetzer) attempts to focus on his upcoming match, the specter of match fixing arrives, as two investigators look into unusual betting patterns on one of the frames from Dylan’s last match.
That quickly takes Dylan down a rabbit hole of organized crime, led by longtime family friend Waxy Bush, who offers a tough choice for the next match: toss a frame, or his mother will be killed.
All of this may seem a little dark for a light-hearted comedy where the lead gets the woman of his dreams in the end. Suffice to say, there are more twists I won’t go into here.
And while those twists are eventually explained, that part of the plot doesn’t really come to a conclusion. Most of the characters wander off before the climatic finale round.
The bevy of eccentric characters are really what make the show work. Dylan is the relative straight man here, while his father is a failed businessman/drug dealer; his mother has attached herself to a walking Irish stereotype; And Ms. Bush runs her empire from a string of hair salons across Sheffield.
Strong, funny performances and the colorful characters help to cover for any of the lingering questions left by the script.
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