hoo, boy.
Jagged Little Pill came out when i was in middle school; I knew the album by heart at some point. And to hear it all again today only affirms the genius of Alanis Morissette, because the songs and lyrics and beats all sound fresh. Had a blast listening to that music and the band plays it wonderfully (if a little loud). I'd add some of these tracks to my spotify happily. I will be humming these for the next week.
So what the JLP team has done here is therefore all the more infuriating. Yes the show tries to out-Woke itself, raising another ISSUE! at every turn but never actually treating any of them with any intelligence or nuance. There isnt a single surprise, flourish, twist (20 minutes in, the entire plot reveals itself) but OK. That mess of a plot could still emerge as somewhat entertaining if the book scenes had been watchable. I thought the dialogue was out and out painful. Winced repeatedly when the Obvious Bad Thing or Obvious Response to Bad Thing happened. (The brother and father fell victim to this most egregiously). Editing the plot down is so doable but fine, its a process. But fixing the dialogue? Adding a modicum of wit or introspection? Nothing?
And its unfair to the actors who, for the most part, make the most of this. Elizabeth Stanley is giving a knockout performance; she was the most likable, nuanced character by a mile and her voice is shrill/solid to mimic Alanis' to the perfect degree. I thought the highlights of the show by far were her singing Forgiven and then Uninvited. (And I thought Forgiven was staged particularly well- thought it closed the first act perfectly and teased me into thinking Act 2 would be better.)
Celia Gooding's character is buried under horrible dialogue but she does a damn great job with the singing and acquits herself nicely given the role she is playing. Lauren Patten's voice is other-worldly, but i found her character one-note, and I am shocked at how much love her You Oughta Know has gotten. She sings the hell out of it but the staging (red lights, chorus, American-Idiot style dancing) was too much. And they hold the show for the applause- which was wild, but the standing ovation seemed forced to me.
By the time we got to the protest scene, I was just angry: that song is great and SO AHEAD OF ITS TIME, it would have been so powerful to hear a 1994 number sung so poignantly in 2019. But this show's allergy to subtlety took over, until the cast is actually lined up Seasons of Love style holding protest signs that scream political slogans (that I think we all agree with, and thus dont see anything particularly clever or dramatic in using them here). I really didnt mind the cast moving the set around (which didnt look particularly cheap to me), and even bringing in the chorus for*every*single*scene was tolerable but that dancing! Front and center, spotlit and totally distracting and out of place? Oy.
Crowd ate it up: there was weeping all around me, everyone was bopping along to the music, myself included. I hope Stanley gets some kudos, and I hope Gooding (and Klena, and all of them i guess) get exposure and cast in better shows in the future.
FWIW, we were extreme left front mezz and saw every single moment perfectly.
