Opinion Piece: Why Christine Made the Right Choice (at the end of Phantom, that is)

Why Christine Made the Right Choice

First things first, I have been Team Raoul since I was six and first saw the show. While I do like some aspects of the Phantom, I don't think he was the right choice for Christine (so obviously I detest how Love Never Dies turned out). I realise this is a controversial opinion for most 'Phans', so let me explain myself. There's two big reasons, and then a bit of a summary. 

1. The Phantom is a murderer, kidnapper, extortionist, and blackmailer.

This is the most obvious one; sure, he loves Christine, but murdering innocent people (Buquet and Piangi) and nearly killing the person you supposedly love by dropping a chandelier on her isn't the greatest way to express that. Love is admirable, but the Phantom is clearly a lunatic, no matter which way you shake it. Murder is murder. Yes, the Phantom had kind of a sucky and unfortunate life, but that's no excuse. Onto the other things: he kidnaps Christine multiple times. Kidnapping is wrong. Enough said. He extorts money from the theatre managers (money which he hasn't earned or done anything to deserve; quite the opposite really). Blackmailer... well, you know the Final Lair. "Chose him and he dies, chose me and he lives." Basically, the Phantom is willing to do whatever he things is necessary to get what he wants. He's very selfish, really (it just gets worse in Love Never Dies). And just plain insane. I really don't need to elaborate on this one any more; it's pretty self explanatory. 

2. Christine and Raoul have known each other for years.

This is kind of a combined one. I honestly believe that the Phantom is in love with Christine's voice and beauty more than her as a person, whereas Raoul and Christine have been friends (and somewhat in love with each other) since childhood. I doubt anyone, save Meg and possibly Mme. Giry, know Christine as well as Raoul does. In POTO, the Phantom says "He was bound to love [Christine], when he heard [Christine] sing!" but he loved her before he heard her sing. He loved her before the Phantom even knew she existed. Raoul loves Christine for herself, not for what she can do. In my mind, that's more valuable a connection than one forged over a single ability that a person has. Really, the Phantom and Christine's relationship fits most of the qualities of an emotionally abusive relationship (http://thestir.cafemom.com/love_sex/ 138933/15_signs_youre_in_an take a look at numbers 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, and sort of 14 and 15). I mean, come on, Phantom uses Christine's dead father to try and manipulate her into loving him! That is just wrong on so many levels. What Raoul and Christine have is a relationship built on trust and genuine love for each other. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Phantom is just mad. He's not a rational, normal human being. He's pretty darn close to being a sociopath. Yes, Raoul's a bit of a twit (I'm not fond of him basically using Christine as live bait to catch the Phantom, even if I do agree that it was the only option), but the bottom line is that he loves her as a person, so much so that he goes after her even knowing she's been kidnapped by a sociopath with no qualms about killing people. There's the other side of the argument, that Christine wouldn't be who she was without the Phantom's training, but I don't think that means Christine owes him love. Appreciation and thanks, yes. But not love. The only thing he ever did that was worth any kind of love was letting Christine go. I've heard the argument that Phantom loves Christine more, and that's why he let her go, but I think that's a nonissue. It's impossible to say who loves her more, and I don't want to go into it. In this case, Raoul needed to protect Christine from the Phantom, not vice versa. There isn't anything dangerous about Raoul, whereas the Phantom could easily lose it and kill her if she ticked him off enough (reminder: Chandelier nearly hitting her!).

By the way, the fact that I'm Team Raoul is not to say I'm fond of Raoul. He's not my favourite person (to use a theatre comparison: I usually would happily marry Fiyero (not Ben Freeman's, but all the others I've seen) in Wicked by the end of the show. I've only ever really liked one Raoul enough that I could actually justify anyone being in love with him (Antony Hansen's, FYI).) I think there's a lot of things he needs to work on before Christine fully commits to him. But he's not a murderer, not a sociopath, and for the other reasons mentioned above, I am 100% Team Raoul :) I don't hold it against anyone who's Team Phantom (although I question the kind of person you find an attractive prospect for marriage...), but I am, and always have been, Team Raoul. 

Opinion Pieces: An Introduction

Opinion Pieces: An Introduction

I won't be reviewing any theatre for a while, as I won't see any shows until mid December at the earliest (and that's Phantom again, so I don't need to review that). So, to satisfy my need to escape from the world of essays and studying and to write for fun, over the next little while, I'll be posting what I like to call "Opinion Pieces." They can and will be about anything; some will be theatre-related (in line with the rest of the blog) and others will be more random (such as Figure Skating, news-related items, etc.) I'll still be posting these on my twitter, so I hope you enjoy them :) 

-Elizabeth

Matilda (Nov. 2 2013)

MATILDA

Here is another brief little review of a show, this time Matilda! I previously saw it in NYC while it was still in previews. I was really hoping to see Elise Blake or Christina Fray as I'd heard good things about them both, but I quite liked the Matilda I ended up with (Lollie McKenzie). It's quite a simple, point form review, but I hope you enjoy anyway. 

Lollie McKenzie as Matilda

I actually quite liked Lollie (but honestly, who names their child Lollie? Isn’t that a type of candy?); she didn’t have the strongest voice on the planet (I struggled to hear her at points), but I thought overall she was quite good. She hit all the notes with no difficulty or strain, and despite the volume issue she did have nice articulation. She was quite a nice dancer as well; she managed to make those awkward dance moves in Naughty look sharp and realistic. I did like her more than Milly Shapiro (whom I saw in NYC), despite Milly having a stronger voice.

As for the Children's Cast: I don’t actually know the names of all of the Children I saw; I only know Lollie and Garret Tennant (Bruce) for certain. The rest I’ve guessed by trying to match their faces to the pictures in the program book. To talk about the children’s cast as a whole, I thought they were much stronger than Broadway’s. The songs were comprehensible, and the children honestly just looked better trained/better rehearsed. Specifically, I thought the children playing Bruce, Nigel, and Lavender were fantastic. Three incredibly talented kids; all of them were very animated without it being overwhelming or annoying, and they all had nice voices and great facial expressions.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the Adult Cast. On Broadway, the adult cast looked young; most of them looked no older than 25, and a large majority looked much younger than they probably were. This was very clever casting, and I didn’t appreciate it at the time. The Adult Cast in London just looked… old. I mean, half of the men had facial hair, and they’re playing 11 year olds! One in particular looked like a 40 year old man, which was just a little creepy. It’s not as if their abilities made them any better; I actually thought the Broadway adults were overall a lot stronger.

I was indifferent about Mr Wormwood. He was not a stand out, but I didn’t dislike him. Mrs Wormwood, however, I found highly irritating. Whereas in NYC it was the children who couldn’t articulate properly, here it was Mrs Wormwood. I couldn’t understand half of what she said. I much, much prefer Lesli Margherita. I really liked this Miss Honey though; I don’t like the character in general, but she managed to make her slightly less annoying and appeared to be quite a strong performer. She made My House into an interesting song. 

And finally, for Miss Trunchbull. I vastly preferred Bertie Carvel. Alex Gaumond plays it like a man. That probably doesn’t make sense, but Bertie Carvel really put on an act and a voice trying to make Trunchbull just a very manly woman. In Gaumond’s case, Trunchbull was a man in drag, and that was it. He does handle the ribbon quite well though (that’s one of my favourite parts in the show). Not much else to say about him. 

The Phantom of the Opera (Nov. 2, 2013)

The Phantom of the Opera

This will be a very brief little review; I mostly saw the same cast as in the October 31 review, so this review just covers the new Christine and a bit more on Jeremy. 

Harriet Jones
(Phantom Website)

I want to try to avoid a comparison of Harriet to Olivia. I don’t think that’s fair to either of them, as they are such incredibly different Christines. Yes, I’m more partial to one than the other and of course I have comparisons in my head, but for the purposes of this review I’d like to try and treat Harriet as an individual as opposed to one of many Christines, because she’s really quite different from any of the Christines I remember seeing. The first thing I’d like to talk about Harriet is her voice. It’s incredibly strong, and as far as I can tell, essentially perfect. There isn’t a moment where you doubt she’ll be able to hit the notes, no matter what she’s doing at the time. I did like her voice quite a lot, but what I found about Harriet was that she was most in character when she let her voice go a bit. Songs like Think of Me were nicely done, but completely vocally dependent. Because of this, I didn’t expect much different from the rest of the songs, so I was pleasantly surprised for Twisted Every Way. She stopped just singing it and really got into the character. I honestly think that was Harriet’s best moment in the show. The Final Lair was similar; not quite as effective, but very nearly there. I saw glimmers of this as well in Wishing and Past the Point of No Return, and I think that given a few months she’ll get more comfortable with the role, and be able to bring what she did to Twisted and Final Lair to all of the songs. While I’m not in a massive rush to see her again, I’m definitely hoping to see her in January or February. I think Harriet has a lot of potential to be a very strong Christine, and I’m excited to see that. I don’t really have a lot more to say about Harriet; she was nice overall, and I look forward to seeing her Christine grow over the next few months. She’s also a very nice person; she was lovely enough to let us see her dressing room and her costumes (best.day.ever).

Jeremy Secomb and I

I did mention Jeremy in my last review, but I felt the need to mention him again in this one (It’s typical; in 12 years and 9 shows I never saw the same Phantom twice, and now in the space of three days that streak was broken). I really, really like Jeremy. He’s actually starting to remind me of Hugh Panaro; he’s got an extremely violent and reckless Final Lair, and I love it! In my mind, the Phantom is pretty crazy, and I always want Christine to stay with Raoul (I’ve never been “team Erik”). The absolute madness in the Final Lair is perfect for showing this. At the same time though, the way he does the Lair also makes you feel a bit sorry for the Phantom, because obviously he’s devastated that Christine is leaving him. Jeremy actually had a line flub in the Final Lair, but as it’s only his third show and he recovered immediately (if you didn’t know the song, you wouldn’t’ve noticed), I’ve got no issues with that. I honestly don’t mind line flubs/other accidents in general as long as there is a strong recovery. Jeremy didn’t miss a beat, so good for him. I also need to mention his bit at the end of All I Ask of You; he stands right up in that Angel, and it’s so intimidating and magnificent at the same time. Really enjoyed Jeremy’s Phantom, and I really hope to see it again!

Layla Harrison and I 

That's basically all I need to say about Phantom; everything else is covered in my other review. There weren't any major bloopers aside from the line fluff, and Stage Door was fun (as usual) but not as exciting as Thursday's. Hope you enjoyed the brief review :) 

The Phantom of the Opera (October 31st, 2013) AKA Phantowe'en!

The Phantom of the Opera

(Phantowe'en)

Let me start by saying: BEST HALLOWE'EN EVER. Absolutely epic. I'm definitely doing this again next year. Alright, now onto the things that people who read this blog (do people actually read this blog?) read for (I assume... maybe you like these tangents?). 

I'm not sure where to start where this show. It was, in a word, stunning. Another word? Fantastic. More words? Awe-inspiring, perfect, beyond belief. I can't actually articulate this experience (and I'm incredibly embarrassed about this fact as I ended up quite speechless when speaking to Olivia and I will never forgive myself for that). I think that basically says everything; I'm rarely left speechless. I usually have something to complain about, or corrections/alterations I think need to be made. Obviously, I still have things I didn't like, but they are few and far between, and are vastly outweighed by the fantastic-ness that was this show.  

Cast board for the show I saw!

I'd like to start with Olivia, because she was the highlight of this show. It's easier to start with the things I didn't like as they are few, so I'll do that: I still don't love the lack of pointe shoes. I fully understand not everyone can wear them or dance in them (I definitely couldn't), I'm just overly nit-picky. The lack of pointe shoes does fix the height issue; she looks about a foot taller than the other dancers, so with her on demi pointe and the dancers up en pointe they look a little more unified. It's honestly not that big of an issue and I seriously doubt anyone else noticed. Really just me being pedantic. I excel at pedantic. 

Onto the things I do like. Like my brain after the show, this will be slightly disorganised and may require some deciphering. So good luck with that! I'd like to start with my favourite parts; Hannibal/Think of Me, and The Graveyard/Wishing. While Carlotta was singing Think of Me, I decided to watch Christine and Meg for fun, since I've seen Lara do it 4 times. Olivia was dreamily mouthing the song along with Carlotta, and my mouth dropped. That was the first of many little details that Olivia brought to Christine; such a small thing, and I doubt that half the people noticed, but it makes the world of difference to those of us who have seen the show more times than we can count. As for her own Think of Me, there's something about it that's just pure and beautiful. I can't explain it, but it just works. It looks like a young, inexperienced girl gaining confidence in herself throughout the song. I never liked Think of Me, but Olivia's was beautiful. You saw the growth throughout the song, as opposed to the immediate transition most Christines do after the first bit of the song. 

Olivia Brereton
(Tumblr)

My other favourite part (and yes, this needs its own paragraph), was The Graveyard/Wishing. The transition to the Graveyard scene is brief and beautiful. That's usually it. The music is stunning, the voice is beautiful, the costume is gorgeous - and that's where it ends. Not with Olivia. She does this thing with her voice, and I know nothing about singing so I don't know what to call it, or if it even has an official name, but when she sings "And speaks my name" something just happens in her voice, and it basically rips your heart out. And it happens again in Wishing, with "Why can't the past just die" (so my heart was ripped out twice and it hasn't come back yet. Just thinking about it I tear up again). It's just... heartbreaking, really. It turns Wishing into a much more emotional song; it's usually just this gorgeous, beautifully sung piece, and Olivia did that, but she made it so much more real. My words aren't doing it justice; you have to hear it to believe it. It's just magnificent. And it'll kill you inside. But still magnificent.

Olivia Brereton and Layla Harrison
(Tumblr)

More things about Olivia: I really love her look. She's got this beautiful graceful look about her, but facially she also looks quite young. It gets the point across that although Christine's dealing with all of this stuff, she's still a child (she's definitely under 21 in the books, right?). I've already covered her subtleties in Think of Me, but they carry throughout the show. When other Christine's might've been dead silent and just sort of looking at something, Olivia actually did something (like normal people). It didn't feel like acting. Her Christine actually grows and changes throughout the show; the journey becomes real. And finally, the fierceness! That's what I felt was really missing from her the first time; it was so real, but there wasn't any passion or fire. I can't say that anymore. During the second act, she really started to come into herself, gain confidence, and actually fight. The Phantom wasn't getting away with anything; she was going to fight for herself. The Final Lair was emotional; Olivia really killed it. I'll touch on Sean and Jeremy later; I mentioned that Olivia's Christine gained fierceness and passion, and this was the culmination of that. She fought. My favourite part was when she kissed the Phantom; once they'd broken away, she had her arms stretched out and it almost looked as if she was offering more, basically trying to do whatever she needed to save Raoul. If my heart wasn't already torn apart at that point, it would've broken a bit during this. It's just the subtleties that she brings to her performance; it left me speechless. It made songs like Music of the Night and Think of Me so much more realistic. She does Past the Point of No Return really well as well; you can tell she has utterly no idea that it's the phantom until she feels his mask and screams. And she tries to run away at first, but then she gets angry! She really got in his face and showed a lot of bravery and fight. That was a Christine that was sick of all of this and just wanted her life back. 

And so ends my Olivia Soliloquy. Sorry for gushing.

Jeremy Secomb
(Phantom Website)

On to Jeremy! I love his Piangi, and I really wasn't sure about Piangi being the Phantom. It just didn't sit right with me. But he was very good. He had a lot more confidence than Geronimo, which really showed in the performance (a little more reckless; Geronimo played it safe). He really threw Olivia around quite a bit, and I'm not sure how her wig stayed in place with all of that manhandling. He was definitely very fierce and violent at times, and it worked. The Phantom is a madman, after all. His voice was nice (I think his mic went out a couple times though), although a little weak at points (final note in Music of the Night). Point of No Return was a little bit like Piangi/Phantom-ception. It was good though; I think Olivia and Jeremy make a good pairing. They're very receptive to each other, and they had really nice chemistry without it being overwhelming. Overall, I liked him, and I'd be happy to see him again.

Cat Lane
(Phantom Website)

New Meg! We all know how much I adore Layla-Meg (otherwise known as world's greatest Meg), so I compare everyone to her. I have to say, I was disappointed in the new Meg. She was just a Meg. Her voice wasn't quite there, and she was over-anticipating the scenes a bit (she was on her feet before the set actually hit the ground at the end of Carlotta's Think of Me). I think once she's had a bit more time to settle into the role she'll improve, and I look forward to seeing that. 

Sean Palmer
(Phantom Website)

Some of you might remember my withering condemnation of Sean Palmer's Raoul. You'll be happy to know that he has improved greatly. He still doesn't do the jump into the 'lake' (no idea why), and I don't like that, but aside from that, he's actually moved out of the background and become a part of Christine's life. He almost did the belly-flop of Antony's that I love in the Final Lair! He really put himself into the performance this time; instead of just skating through it, I felt that effort was actually put in this time. I was very pleased with his performance in general, and I'm hoping for further improvement. More reasons to go back to the show again!

With Jeremy Secomb after the show

Now for one of my favourite parts: bloopers and funny moments! For bloopers, the most noticeable was when Olivia's cloak got caught on something during Wishing; it took her a couple of tries but she was able to tug it free eventually. In the Auction, the mans showing the props had a couple line flubs and actually ran into the chandelier once. He seemed a bit out of it. I'm not sure if this was a blooper or not, but Sean once again didn't jump from the bridge into the lake. He stripped off his jacket, then just kind of walked off. Not very heroic. Olivia's Aminta dress was ripped at the bottom; ironically the same place it was got ripped during the show when I saw her in June (I assume it's been fixed since then, but just got ripped again). There were a couple of other little things; I do love bloopers and accidents though (provided no one gets hurt of course). One of my favourite 'funny moments' was during Buquet's story for the Ballet girls; when he was talking about the "yellow parchment skin" one of the ballet girls exclaimed "EW that's disgusting!" I had to choke back laughter; it was brilliant. I can't remember what she said about his nose, but it was equally hilarious. It's kind of a reminder that the ballet girls aren't these sophisticated dancers; they're quite young as well. Those were the highlights for me; there were a lot of other funny little moments as well that I just can't remember off the top of my head. 

With Layla Harrison

With Lara Martins

Stage Door was fun; I love getting to talk to people that are waiting there as well, and I had a really nice conversation with a few people today. The best part, though, was the Hallowe'en costumes! The cast really went all out. Lara's was my favourite of the night; not sure exactly what she was, but it was a combination of Hannibal costumes, a black tutu, and some other things. It was a masterpiece. There were some great group costumes; a guy in a princess costume; Zombie red-riding-hood; a pumpkin with full face-paint; and many others. Layla was a devil, Jeremy was himself, Lara was whatever Lara was, and Olivia was some sort of Skeleton. It was a really fun experience; I had a lot of laughs at Stage Door. I basically collapsed with laughter when I saw Lara's costume. It was golden. It was funny talking to the people I was talking to as they quite quickly got the sense of how blown away I was by Olivia, and one of them said "we'll know when Olivia comes out because she'll start screaming." I didn't scream, but I did lose my ability to articulate myself. I need to apologise for that again next time I see her; I hate when people do that and I'm quite ashamed at myself for being one of those people. A funny thing about Stage Door is I guess I go there too much, because Lara, Olivia, and one of the ballet girls (not one I've ever spoken to) recognised me. I don't know how Olivia remembered me as I haven't been there since June, but it was still funny. I do love Phantom Stage Door though; everyone is so friendly. Given the things I've been dealing with over the past few months, it's very therapeutic. 

With Olivia Brereton

Phantom again on Saturday; expect another (albeit less detailed) review as I will be seeing Harriet as Christine for the first time. I'm quite grateful for this; I don't think I could take another of Olivia's Wishings so soon. Anyway, hope everyone enjoyed their hallowe'en! 

EDITS: Some things I remembered a few days after writing this review... another thing about Olivia is that she makes all of the idiotic things Christine does make sense. She doesn't just pin it on the idea of 'possession' as most Christines do; everything has a reason, and she shows it. The other things I wanted to add was a line issue in Wandering Child. During the 'fight' scene, either Sean repeated a line, or Jeremy said a line that was Sean's, because one line got said twice in a row. Not a huge issue, just thought it was interesting.