Fantastic evening tonight. Very enthusiastic and grateful audience that greeted the cast with a standing ovation (our way of saying thank you for doing this) the moment they walked onstage. Lisa Kron spoke briefly before the event started, and during the concert she read the relevant stage directions that were needed given the concert format.
There was no staging- the cast (in costume) sat in chairs and would walk up to one of the stationary mics when they needed to speak or sing. Malone tried to incorporate as much of the moving around that she does in the show as she could. All of the performances hold up extremely well, for the most part. Kuhn, especially, is just heartbreaking as Helen. Malone seems to have gotten better since December when I saw the show in New York. My only quibble might have been Cerveris, whose mannered performance, so effective in the close confines of the Circle in the Square, gets a little lost in this much larger house. But that's a minor detail. He sounded fantastic.
After the show there was a Q&A, which a LOT of people stayed for. Joining the cast was Kron (again), Sam Gold, and Jeanine Tesori. Some questions were very good, others were rather self-indulgent, but that's the way these things go. Joel Perez was highly entertaining during the Q&A when he revealed one of the things he does backstage is rewrite the show's songs in different musical styles. Another amusing moment was when the cast was asked how they "come down" from performing such an emotional piece every night. Without a moment's hesitation, Cerveris answered, "alcohol." This prompted a highly amusing reaction from the youngest child (I can't remember his name and there were no playbills given out) to say "even me" and then he mimed drinking a martini. He also had a beautiful response when asked what the show has taught him. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) that it taught him that there are all different kinds of love and it really doesn't matter who you love and that no one can tell you your love is wrong.
Some woman foolishly asked Kuhn why her character has no reaction to finding out her husband was gay (despite the fact that the show includes an entire song and scene about her reaction). Kuhn, bless her, handled it very graciously, pivoting instead to an explanation of why Helen doesn't leave Bruce. We also learned a nice piece of information (that was new to me anyway) about the real-life Helen Bechdel. After Bruce's death, she went on with her life and eventually met and had a long relationship with another man (who she never married). However, when she died 3 years ago, she requested to be buried next to Bruce.
My favorite moment of the Q&A came when someone asked Roberta about how they keep doing the work and not feel too full of themselves. It was a dumb question, but Roberta made a comment about how they're all still here 15 months later and that they "didn't win some Tonys and say peace out". Again I'm paraphrasing but it was a bit of a dig at the Hamilton cast.
In all, a really great event that raised a good deal of money for the charity. I'm so glad and thankful the cast flew down on their day off to do this
Updated On: 7/25/16 at 08:57 AM