1) People don't clap over the top of songs. (Thank you!!! You see, they must actually like theatre, and aren't just trying to convince themselves they're enthusiastic. They actually want to—oh, how novel—hear the best part of a song.)
2) U.S. theatre is very sensational. Which can be SUPER-fun. But I love, love, LOVE how British theatre takes everything back a notch. They aren't afraid of a little dead time here and there, or to sing in falsetto for an entire song, or to slow something down. Fantastic.
3) They sometimes surprise with something totally out of the box. For instance, eight years ago I saw Les Miserables in London after seeing it a million times in the U.S. And to this day I don't know how they did it—same set, same songs, same staging, same everything, but they actually made Javert the lead character, not Jean Valjean. It was incredible. Amazing! Kristin and I went back, what was it, Kristin? Like three days later or something? We just had to see it again. Totally changed the profundity of the show. I'd love to see it that way again.
Now, the point of this post is to warn you about what you don't need to see in London! I thought I had found the one show that stinks in Britain, but it turns out there's another. Eight years ago, I discovered it's worthless to see The Lion King. My favorite musical! I couldn't wait. But, hahahaha! It had no soul! A real travesty.... People running around all proper-like, calling Simba "Simbur" just didn't do it for me. So give me our soulful American performers in that show, please, please.
This trip, we discovered another! Can you guess? Which show can you imagine just wouldn't work in Britain? Wicked! It wasn't as bad as Lion King, but it definitely needed help. Galinda was never, ever meant to be British. Ha ha! Just wrong! :) Maybe—maybe—the rest of the cast, but you've just gotta get a valley girl to play Galinda. Also, all the main characters were missing a tremendous amount of attitude. Every one seemed so. . .mature. . . . Which might have been interesting.... Except that it wasn't.
My other great disappointment in Wicked was Elphaba's singing. She was ok. I even warmed up to her a little by the second act. But my favorite thing about Elphaba has been my hope that she'll destroy the whiny, nasally, pinched belting that Eponine made popular about 10 years ago. For years, you couldn't watch a woman sing on stage without her singing entirely out of her nose. And then Elphaba comes along.... YES! Biggest voice ever! And when she sings the pretty stuff, nothing nasally about it. Thank you, Elphaba!! (It's been great that the nasally voice Galinda has, which is exactly what everyone else has been doing in seriousness, is a caricature in Wicked. My hopes have been high that Wicked will change the tide!) In London, I don't know—maybe it was just an accidental casting, but the Elphaba was total nasal-girl all over again. Bleh. Which is funny, considering that London is typically a respite from nasal-girls. But in the one show where you don't find nasal-girl in the U.S., she suddenly shows up in Britain. Strange!
Anyway, we saw some other great shows, and actually still enjoyed Wicked. (They did have an interesting mood, with things a little slowed down and such. The characters were just too . . . desassified! :)) But even if Wicked and Lion King are the coolest shows ever, and London has the best theatre ever, be warned! Enjoy something else! You'll be so glad you did, too, because it's gonna be AMAZING. :)
