Posted: 6/10/17 at 11:58pm
I saw The Great Comet today and here are my thoughts (and warnings!):
When I walked out of Hamilton more than a year ago, riveted, I saw for the first time a huge billboard for a strange-looking new musical called “Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812.” Judging by the audacity of what looked like an interracial couple in 19th century, Euro-centric garb, surrounded by an essence of steampunk-ish design flare, I thought it was bound to be a hit, possibly the next Hamilton. I got home, watched a few youtube videos about the original performance in the Meatpacking District and put it on my list of Broadway must-sees. TV ads perpetuated my excitement, not to mention the community buzz, good reviews, and of course, the Tony nominations last month. Everyone is talking about this show. So when I finally decided to rush the matinee performance today with a friend, the day before the Tony Awards, I had high hopes, even though I knew there was a chance the headliner, Josh Groban would be absent.
The best way I can describe this show is that it was honestly the biggest disappointment I’ve ever experienced in live theater. That is unfortunate to say, especially since I loved the music and the cast. But what anyone who plans on seeing this show needs to know is that you must choose your seats wisely. Where you sit will make or break your experience, and it certainly broke mine. In fact, my seat alone was the primary reason I walked away almost hating this production, feeling a bit cheated, lied to and led on.
To start, I got into the rush line shortly after 6 a.m. Saturday morning. I was 10th in line (not including the couple that magically appeared in front of me an hour or so before the box office opened and ordered two tickets each). After four short hours, and waiting for the magic couple to order their tix, my companion and I finally reached the box office. The kind woman behind the window told me she had a table with two seats available, with an obstructed view, stage right. I specifically asked if these were decent seats. “It’s obstructed view, but every seat is obstructed, you will have a nice view of Pierre’s Salon...yadda yadda yadda.” I sensed a bit of rigmarole in her tone, but considering a woman ahead of us in line, who seemed like she knew more about the show than us, literally lept for joy when she found out she got “the table,” I decided not to question the ticket lady on her assurance and took the table.
Warning: This was a HUGE mistake. Our seats at Table C, and particularly mine, at seat 1, have to be THE WORST seats in the theater, no, in any theater. Just to give perspective: the theater, in terms of seating, is divided into three sections: Mezzanine/balcony, the orchestra, and the main stage. The orchestra and stage have sub-sections: on stage, there are “pits” or circular sections with seats and tables. The “stage”, which is basically an elaborate runway of sorts, pretty much wraps around these circular sections. There is also the “banquette” seating on stage, which is essentially stadium-style seating facing the orchestra section. In the orchestra there is traditional theater seating toward the back. But toward the front, in between the traditional theater seats and the stage (which is raised, by the way--important fact), there are saloon/club-style tables and chairs. This is where we were seated, and where you must absolutely avoid.
Our table was behind a row of stools at a bar-like slab facing the stage. When we sat down, I noticed our level was lower than the level in front of us with the stools. One woman was already sitting in one of the stools, directly in front of my chair, but there were two more empty stools next to her. I knew then the view of the main stage would suck. I leaned over to my friend and said “I guess, this is what she meant by obstructed.” Little did we know, that was not even the half of it. Eventually an older couple arrived and sat in the open chairs, obstructing the view even more.
At this point we had no idea how the show would be performed and where the actors would be. I was told and read several times that action happens “all around” the theater, so it did not bother me as much that three full-sized adults were seated, elevated (as opposed to stadium-style leveling, which would make common-sense), directly in front of me, essentially blocking the entire main stage.
The older couple in front of us didn’t seem to care. In fact, they seemed overjoyed by the experience and seemed annoyingly satisfied with their poorly placed seats. Well, good for them, I guess. They probably paid hundreds of dollars for them.
As the first act dragged on, I became more and more pissed. It literally baffles me to the point of feeling cheated, why our seats even existed. Who thought this was okay to sell to people?! I get that it was a discounted “obstructed view” seat, but this was comically obstructed by the raised bar-style stool seating in front of us and the people sitting in them. I would say that of the entire first Act, I was able to see literally less than 30 percent of the show. It got to the point where I simply just sat there, pissed, listening to the music because I could see literally nothing but the backs of heads. The action that happened in the mezzanine and staircases were the pretty minor chorus shenanigans that carry the show.
I could have stayed at home and listened to the soundtrack and gotten the same experience. What did I pay for? Why was I there? To see an occasional actor make brief eye contact, only to be punished by the blinding stage light attacking my pupils once the actor moved out of the way? Or to see another couple having the time of their lives, swiveling in their bar seats and gleefully pointing like school children at whatever was going on the staircase above me? Perhaps to try to hear what the cast members hiding behind the curtain behind the bar next to our seats were loudly whispering about as they prepared to march onto stage?
Yes, the seats were literally a joke. But then there is the show itself. I expected Josh Groban to be absent, and he was, but so were Denee Benton (Natasha) and Lucas Steele (Anatole). Okay, fair, it’s the Saturday matinee before the Tony Awards, I get it, and the swings substituting for the cast were AWESOME, particularly Blaine Krauss playing Anatole, who I think has an amazing voice. And the entire ensemble seemed to give it their all.
But all that was completely overshadowed by the story and plot, or lack thereof. The Great Comet, particularly its first act, is essentially a steampunk-lite cabaret show. The producers could have renamed the show “War and Peace: An Abridged Cabaret," and saved ink.
That was essentially the “plot”: one of the several story lines in Leo Tolstoy’s "War and Peace," following a young, unbelievably naive countess, Natasha, betrothed to a prince at war, Andrey, until she is tempted and wooed by an incestuous playboy, Anatole, and his sister Helene. But there is no spoken dialogue, only song, most of which is sung with so much fanfare it is easy to miss key plot elements whilst chorus members are chucking things in your face and trying oh-so-desperately to get you to realize this is not your typical piece of theater.
This pretentious air about the entire performance irked me. Like La La Land, which I also hated, it seemed to be trying TOO hard to be a different and unique piece of musical theater. It’s hyper-aware of it’s own unlikeliness, and tries shamelessly to shove it in your face and make sure you are aware, too.There were a bunch of funny one-liners that seemed to be thrown into the songs, almost as if to intentionally distract you from the lack of substance, so you felt something positive. And the cast members lining the aisles throughout the show could have very well just stood there, yelling over any of the songs or whispering in your ear “NO! LOOK AT ME!! LOOK AT US! AREN’T WE COOL! WANT A MARACA? GO AHEAD AND SHAKE IT! DON'T EVEN PAY ATTENTION TO THE STORY BECAUSE THERE BARELY IS ONE!”
The show was doing too much when there was not enough substance in the plot to back it up. The real show was the experience, not the story, and that felt cheap to me. It felt like a meal with unbalanced flavors. Sure, give me the bells, whistles and egg shakers, but balance it out with character development and story structure. Instead, we were quickly introduced to characters and, even quicker, forced to try to relate and empathize with them without really knowing them. Both characters Sonya and Pierre, for instance, had what sounded like, very emotional and powerful solos in the second act, but quite frankly I didn’t care about them. Sonya was literally in one or two scenes prior to her solo and by then I didn’t care about her, despite the fact that Brittain Ashford sang the you-know-what out of that song. And by now most know of the irony of the titular male star being a minor character, so Pierre’s final scenes seemed ironic. I could see, well hear, his emotion, but I couldn’t feel it because...who even was this person who is suddenly asking me to feel what he feels?. Their big moments fell flat because they were barely in the show prior to make you care about their heartbreak toward the end.
The Comet was not a bad production. I commend the show on its energy. I loved the references to other musical theater: Natasha and Mary’s mini version of "Loathing", The "Seasons of Love" style lineup in the mezzanine during the first act, allusions to Phantom of the Opera and Moulin Rouge, and others I may have missed. I loved that the cast seemed to genuinely enjoy performing, too, even though, at times it came across as meta. The choreography was also as eclectic as the score. The music, singing and acting were phenomenal. But what good is any of it if I can’t SEE ANYTHING and there is no character development to FEEL anything. If I wanted to just listen, I’d queue up the soundtrack at home!
I walked away from The Great Comet feeling cheated. I was sold a seat that shouldn’t be allowed to exist in a Tony-nominated, most-likely winning, Broadway show. I felt like the show over-promised and under-delivered, totally over-selling itself. It felt cheap, almost like a tourist trap that belonged off-off Broadway a la Paris’ Moulin Rouge. As I watched the older couple in front of me and a few others around the theater captivated by the exuberance of the entire spectacle, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were actually following along and enjoying the story as much as the bells, whistles and audience participation--the novelty of it all. Then again, for all I know, from where they were sitting, with a view beyond the heads and shoulders of folks seated in front of them, The Great Comet, live and in person, might actually feel like something more than just a gimmicky trap.
Updated On: 6/11/17 at 11:58 PM
