The
Phantom of the Opera
I had the absolute best time at this show. It wasn’t exactly the
cast I had planned to see, but I still enjoyed it immensely. As always with
such amazing shows, I’m organizing this by actor as that’s the more efficient
way to organize what I remember. I’ll try to include as much detail as
possible, but as usual with amazing, shows, I don’t remember a lot. I consider
that a good thing though; being so in the moment that you forget what happened
after the fact.
Oh. My. Goodness. New favourite Phantom. By a mile. I have never
been so amazed by a single person’s performance in my life. I’m really
struggling to just pinpoint a few things to talk about, because Earl was just
100% the total package. I’d heard he played a very violent Phantom, which I
didn’t think I’d be ok with, but it worked and I liked it (that sounds
horrible, but you know what I mean). So here’s a few favourite details. I’m
actually going to expand more on this after the show tonight, as I don’t
remember a lot of details I wanted to talk about.
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| Earl Carpenter as The Phantom (Earl's Twitter) |
Angel of Music/POTO/Music of the Night: Earl has a very unique
sounding voice, but it’s very suited to the Phantom, and very powerful. I’ve
never heard a phantom so vocally solid, and yet sounding every inch the Phantom
– sort of raspy and not quite human, yet
still perfect. It was the perfect voice for the Phantom. In POTO he struggled
with the lip synching a bit. His mouth and the way the words were enunciated
just didn’t match up. Music on the Night
was extraordinary. The voice is just so good, the acting was eerie… it was
amazing. I’ve got nothing more to say about that. Just AMAZING.
After PONR (I’ll talk more about his take on PONR in the Lisa-Anne
Christine section), when Christine has removed his hood, the Phantom very
nearly runs right at Raoul. I don’t know what stopped him, but something did.
It takes him a while to get himself together, and you can see him trying to
figure out a plan to get Christine away in his head as the scene unfolds. He
definitely realizes she’s not going willingly. And then he totally loses his
bananas when she pulls his mask of and that was terrifying.
Final Lair was an eerie combination of calm and total insanity. “I
believe we have a guest!” was just too calm, but you knew something big was
coming. You could feel (and see) the tension building up in Earl’s Phantom. I
don’t want to say the final lair was heartbreaking, because I really didn’t
feel sorry for his Phantom at all. I think terrifying is the better word.
I really, really loved Earl’s Phantom. I couldn’t pick out anything
that I felt was inconsistent in his portrayal or that I felt needed to be
worked on. Even more remarkable as he hasn’t done that many shows yet. He was
outstanding, and I can’t wait to see him again tonight.
Lisa-Anne Wood (Christine)
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| Lisa Anne Wood (with Kieran Brown) (Lisa-Anne's Twitter) |
I feel like a broken record, but WOW. There’s something just so
right about her Christine. It’s not Lisa-Anne playing Christine on stage, it’s
Christine. Simple as that. I’m just picking out a few things I like (you’ve no
idea how hard that was), but you can read more about my thoughts on her
Christine here.
She’s got the basics down pat; beautiful voice, beautiful costumes,
she absolutely looks the part, etc. But that acting is what pushes her over the
edge as one of the all-time best Christines. It’s very real, it’s very
visceral. She makes you feel for Christine (I have a habit of feeling like
Christine brought a lot of her issues on herself and as a consequence, the
character annoys me a bit – not so with Lisa-Anne’s). She goes for a more
childlike, innocent approach, and though I usually don’t like that, somehow it
just worked.
Loved the beginning of Think of Me; Christine looked really
terrified to be put on the spot like that, which made the triumph of being an
incredible singer all the more real and exciting. I liked how she did MOTN in a
very trance-like state, though she needs to be careful with that skirt sweep in
Stranger Than You Dreamt It; it was a bit too exuberant. The trip was convincing,
the fear and reactions to the Phantom were great. Not a lot to say; it was just
perfect.
Wishing. Oh my goodness Wishing. That was heartbreaking. Enough
said. She nearly does that thing Olivia was famous for with “and speaks my
NAME” with so much emotion and power. I didn’t cry, but I got very, very close.
Everything around that too; Twisted Every Way and Don Juan Rehearsal were
great, very emotional.
One of my favourite things about Lisa-Anne’s Christine was her
character consistency. You never got the sense she was really in love with the
Phantom; MOTN was done more in a trance than with full consciousness. This made
the end of the show (discussed below) very believable. There was a nice
transition from general tranciness (…you know what I mean) and a bit of caring,
to complete fear and terror of the Phantom. I liked it. Especially because
Raoul was played very sympathetically, and the Phantom was just a lunatic.
Point of No Return through the Final Lair was a rollercoaster of
emotions. PONR started off very sultry; Lisa-Anne/Christine was really going
all out for that character, and you could tell she had no idea what was going
on with the Phantom/Piangi switch (which was plausible because Earl imitated
Piangi’s accent at the beginning of the song). Then when she felt his mask
through the hood, all hell literally broke lose. It got very violent very fast.
I’ve never seen a Christine fight so hard to escape, and Earl was dragging her
right back. That wasn’t acting; that was living. This was the first time I’ve
seen a Christine not give into the Phantom at all, and it was AMAZING. It just
felt so real, and so much more accurate. Why would Christine give up on trying
to escape? It just doesn’t make sense. The way Lisa-Anne played the part the
whole way through was that she was scared of the Phantom, so the consistency
was great. She never gave into him; not for a second. The Final Lair killed me
a little; Lisa-Anne played a very young Christine, so it was hard to see her
getting thrown around as much as she was. There was this one moment where the
Phantom just screamed “YOU TRY MY PATIENCE MAKE YOUR CHOICE” (no breath in
there, just one big scream) and she made this noise that was somewhere between
a scream and a sob and it just… yeah, I was not ok with that. In a good way, if
that makes any sense at all. At that point I just wanted everyone to take a
break for Christine’s sake (yeah, I forgot I was watching a show. Sue me). I absolutely adored the way Lisa-Anne sang
“Pitiful creature of darkness…” etc. It stayed consistent with her not really
feeling anything for the phantom other than fear; when she sang “God give me
courage” she turned to the audience with the biggest, tear filled eyes, before
continuing. I’ve always though that would be a nice touch, and it was good to
see it work as well as I’d imagined it. My only complaint about Lisa-Anne was
that she didn’t actually put her hand on the deformity during the second kiss. It
was floating there about half a foot away, which doesn’t really support the
idea that Christine is showing the Phantom she accepts him for his deformity
(especially since Earl’s Phantom was really not into touching Christine if he
could avoid it). Anyway, it’s a minor touch, but I have to have something to
complain about (if I’m going to be really picky, she also has a tendency to
stick her index fingers out as far as they’ll go. It’s not really an issue, it just
looks a bit odd).
Lisa-Anne is a truly incredible Christine. If I didn’t still have a
soft spot for Olivia’s Christine, she’d be topping my list. She’s absolutely
brilliant, and I’m really hoping they promote her at least to alternate next
cast (preferably principle; I think she could handle it easily). Just a really
extraordinary all-around performance, and an amazingly well developed character
for only having been on a handful of times.
Oliver Savile (Raoul)
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| Oliver Savile and Lisa Anne Wood (tumblr) |
Confession time: I used to have the biggest crush on Raoul (as a
character, not the actors specifically. Same with Fiyero). But lately, Raouls
have been falling very flat, with weak singing, cringeworthy portrayals – not
my cup of tea at all. But Oliver… WOW! As I said to my friend after the show,
“I’d marry [Raoul] in a heartbeat!” I think that says it all really; Raoul is
written to be such an obnoxious character, but somehow has to be made likeable.
Christine’s such a strong character; she needs someone – for lack of a better
term – worthy. And I think that Oliver really made Raoul a likeable, caring
human that you actually are rooting for.
One of my favourite moments of Oliver’s Raoul was All I Ask Of You; when Christine was having her little panic at the beginning, he sort of buried his face in her hair and was holding her very tightly. It’s hard to explain, but it was a very comforting gesture. That whole song was great for those two; it was just really… right. This Raoul was someone you’d want around in a crisis. Another nice moment was in Twisted Every Way; when Christine was panicking and had stood up from the chair, Raoul tried to pull her back, then gave up and just looked utterly defeated. You sensed that he was at a loss of what to do, but he didn’t want to just give up. I loved that Oliver’s Raoul never looked at Christine like she was a burden. He seemed genuinely concerned with her wellbeing and truly wanted to protect her. She wasn’t just some pretty singer; he really loved her. It was really nice.
I also really liked how angry and intimidating Oliver’s Raoul could
be. When he was yelling at the Phantom or speaking to the policeman in the pit,
his tone and body language changed completely. It was a bit scary, but it was
never a side of him you saw when Christine was around, which I liked. It set
the scene nicely for his ferocity in the Final Lair.
Overall, I really enjoyed Oliver’s portrayal. It was certainly one
of the strongest Raouls Phantom has had lately, and I’m really excited to see
it again.
Georgia Ware (Meg)
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| Georgia Ware as Meg (google) |
I started out quite liking her Meg. Georgia usually dances in the
back, so aside from some beautiful penches and generally pleasant dancing, I
hadn’t really gotten a chance to watch her dance, and now that I have, I really
like her as a dancer. Elegant isn’t quite the right word, but she certainly
looks every bit the prima ballerina of the Opera Populaire. She also has a nice singing voice, lots of volume,
and was very attentive in the beginning of Hannibal. But after that, the acting
became contrived (in that it felt very calculated), and the singing a bit
shrill. Angel of Music was nice, and she and Lisa-Anne had some nice
best-friendy chemistry, but I didn’t get the same vibe of closeness that I do
with Layla and Harriet or Layla and Emmi. So she’s definitely got Hannibal
down, and she’s very close on Angel of Music. But that’s not to say I
didn’t like her; I did, quite a bit
actually. It’s difficult for second covers as they usually haven’t had the time
or practice to really develop their characters, and I think that’s what was
really lacking. Meg dropped into the background after the first few scenes, and
by the end seemed like a bit of a pointless character. She was a cute, almost
childish Meg, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with being a ‘cute’ Meg;
it’s just not my preferred approach. Anyway, I did enjoy her dancing and for
the most part her singing.
As for the rest of the show, it was a bit weird having Layla off,
because whether she’s Meg or in the ensemble, she’s always fun to watch. Notes and Masquerade fell particularly flat without Layla in them; Notes especially needs a Meg that's really attention-grabbing or it's just boring. So
when she’s not on, I have to figure out something else to do with myself. I ended up
watching a lot of Lara, because I love her Carlotta and she was spot on with it
today (funny, sassy, great voice). Also watched Danielle and Georgia in the
ballet scenes – liked them both a lot. One of the dancers (I think the swing,
because it was whoever was the butterfly in Masquerade - usually Georgia’s part) seemed a bit off. I
also love Tim Laurenti as Andre. He does the intro to the Il Muto Ballet so
darn well. Every time I see him, that part sends me into hysterics.
All in all, I enjoyed this show a lot. It was fun to be there with a
friend (Hi Lucy!) for once instead of on my own, and the show itself was one of
the best I’ve ever seen. I’m guessing that exact cast is never going to happen
again so I wish I remembered more of it, but it was amazing while it lasted J
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