Nicole schreibt...

Following a long stretch in which I either had people tagging along with me to London or social obligations in town, this was the first time in ages I was fully on my own in London – which was actually quite lovely and made this the most laid-back trip in ages. And sometimes, when you don't plan anything at all, life surprises you – in this case by running into a friend and his mother at Bruxelles-Midi station as they were travelling back to Britain on the same Eurostar as me. Our ways parted at St. Pancras though as they had to continue to Wales and me to my hotel, a new Travelodge near Kings Cross which I didn't like too much – it was about ten minutes walk from Kings Cross down a rather grotty street and the hotel itself was rather meh, too, apparently an old hotel somewhat lazily refurbished.
Never mind, soon enough enough I was on my way to the West End for the first show of this trip, the muchly hyped "Gypsy" revival from Chichester, starring Imelda Staunton. Gypsy has been one of those Broadway Classics I've been wanting to see for ages, so I was glad it finally arrived in town no matter what – but even more so with the truly stunning Ms. Staunton who had already impressed me a while ago as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd. Except for a few highlights Gypsy isn't really full of great songs but it works fantastically well as a book musical, telling the truly engrossing (and somewhat) true story of famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, who, as a teenager had been dragged around the USA with her younger sister June by their fearsome mother Rose, the archetypal stage mother obsessed with having her daughters become famous. It's the younger sister June who dominates the first act until she finally has enough and runs off, so that Rose pushes the older sister Louise into the limelight. Seeing Lara Pulver transform from clumsy awkward Louise to sexy suave stripper Gypsy in the course of one long song was one of the best performances I've seen in ages, only to be topped by Imelda Staunton's truly heartbreaking Rose's Turn just before the end. Rose is certainly not an easy character and I can imagine the real Rose to be a major pain in the backside, but only a truly heartless person could not feel sorry for her in the end. Come award season, both Staunton and Pulver should walk away with those as best actress and best supporting actress.
Having nothing at all to do on Friday, I decided to finally visit the Horniman Museum of which I had read in one of those "London's best-kept secrets" listings. It's far out in the sticks in Forest Hill, but the long slog there by Overground and then a ten minute walk uphill is worth it for the fantastic sight towards London's City with its skyscrapers and St. Paul's Cathedral alone. The museum itself contains the natural and ethnographic collections of Frederic John Horniman, a traveller and collector from ye olde Victorian England, and is stuffed full with interesting masks, clothes, weapons and curios from Asia and Africa, as well as animals, plants and a truly impressive collection of music instruments from across the world and the centuries. Most of the collections are free to see, so all in all definitely a place I can heartily recommend visiting. Here's some info about the collections if you're curious.
After an afternoon break at the hotel, I braced myself for re-visiting a show I had loved when it first opened 25 years ago, then later came to loathe for its sexism and racism: Miss Saigon. When I first saw this in the early 90s, I knew nothing much of Asia or the Vietnam War and loved the weepy doomed tale of Kim and Chris. The first crack came when I read the biography of Le Ly Haislip, a Vietnamese woman who had also started as a bar girl in Saigon and actually married a G.I. and went to live in the USA with him (where their marriage fell apart not much later). Le Ly describes how she had moved from selling cigarettes to selling her body simply because it paid so much better and how the girls had simply seen the G.I.s as easy cash cows. I also began travelling to South East Asia myself, read a lot about the cultures and history of the region and just realized more and more what a lot of tosh Miss Saigon really was. Most of all though, I began to resent the obvious sexism in the show where Kim is the typical "western male's" fantasy of the soft, naïve, little Asian girl (a fantasy thousands of Thai women happily use to milk western men these days) who can't do anything without a man's help, whether it's Chris, John or the Engineer, the most obviously sexist figure, since South East Asia's red light bars are usually run by a female Mama San. I also began to resent the racism – forcing the Asian actresses to usually be on stage in skimpy bikinis and making Thuy a cliché hard-hearted communist while the noble heroic American GI gets to spout lines like Christ, I'm American, how could I fail to do good? I also came to realize that the authors' excuse It's based on Madame Butterfly is mostly bullshit, since Cho Cho San's situation is entirely different and she actually sings that she will be screwed if things with Pinkerton don't work out – there's none of that truly unbelievable hysterical behaviour of Kim topping herself before she has even spoken with Chris. I can see the need for a nice sad tearjerker finale to Miss Saigon, but honestly, it could have all been far more realistic, if Kim and Chris had actually met, confronted their broken dreams and how the war had screwed them over, then Chris and Ellen taking the kid with them to America, leaving Kim heartbroken and alone in Bangkok (and top herself then, if they really needed a Butterfly-style suicide).
Anyway, such were my thoughts when I finally visited this new(-ish) revival in London on a fabulous £20 dayseat in the front row. I found that I actually liked the first act set in 1975's Saigon with new stage sets that seemed more realistic than the original version that had always seemed more out of a Better Living magazine about Asian décor. I began to think that perhaps, except for some flaws, I had been too harsh about the show after all. I even didn't mind the idiotic "wedding", another thing that to me showed the western authors condescending attitude towards oh so naïve cute little Asians truly believing "marriage" could come about this way. There seemed to be a hint in the way it was directed that it was all a clever way to trick the dumb G.I. into a marriage, helping Kim to a golden ticket into the USA that way. Sadly things went downhill fast after the interval. There's still the unbelievably sappy "Bui Doi" thing with the video of oh so cute wide-eyed orphans to tug at the audience's heart strings (complete with a donation appeal for Syrian orphans in the programme!) and then the whole ludicrous nonsense in Bangkok. Beginning with John singing about how it's "too much for one heart" to not just tell Kim that Chris is in Bangkok but that he brought a wife along. Honestly, what man wouldn't make sure that Kim has advance warning of this instead of getting her hopes up? Then there's of course the contrived finale. Where Cho Cho San had me in tears with her dignified realization that her life is ruined, she's cast out from society and she rather end her life than live in abject shame, Kim just goes mental, deciding to kill herself without even speaking with Chris. I can suspend a lot of disbelief in the name of drama, but when a character behaves in an utterly unbelievable fashion I can only shake my head, sorry.
The sad thing is that there is such a great show somewhere in Miss Saigon with great music and some great scenes. If only this show had been in the capable hands of one of the new modern writers instead of those ancient sexists (who to me fulfill every cliché of the old-fashioned White Rich Man who can't deal with modern equal multi-cultural society). Ah well. I don't mind having revisited it, since it helped to confirm that the doubts and criticisms I had built up for so long were quite justified. I also did like most of the cast except alternate Tanya Manaling as Kim, who played her even weepier than necessary (though she did have a great voice). I was more impressed by the often critizied Alistair Bramner as Chris, whose voice might not have been all that great, but who was a damn fine actor playing Chris not like the usual Ken doll but with a lot more anger and frustration.
I didn't really know what to do with myself on Saturday and since the weather was moderately fine (for London anyway) and the parks were in gorgeous full bloom, I went for a long walk through St. James Park, Green Park and Hyde Park instead with a lunch pick-nick in the latter before returning to the West End for my first show, the play "The Nether" by Jennifer Haley. It had intrigued me because it dealt with the internet and its development, and how more and more people use virtual realities to escape from the restraints of real life into a place where they can be anonymously happy. Set in a near future where the internet has become "The Nether" and some people have become "shades" who live their entire lives online in virtual realities, a young agent for cybercrime (fabulous understudy Anna Martine) is after an elderly man known only as "Papa" (Stanley Townsend). He's set up a virtual reality house populated by beautiful little girls...for those (including himself) eager to indulge in some pedophilia. Rather chillingly, the little girl Iris was indeed played by a very young female actress (11 year old Jaime Adler) interacting with a young black guy called Woodnut (Ivanno Jeremiah) although we find out in the course of things that Woodnut is the virtual alter ego of Agent Morris for her investigation while "Iris" is really an elderly retired teacher called Doyle (David Beames). It sounds more complicated than it really was and the 80 minutes (no interval) flew by, raising quite a lot of interesting questions on cyberspace and virtual reality.
I was quite glad to be back in a sunny park afterwards, this time the Embankment Gardens by the river, where I hung out until it was time for a quick dinner and the second show for the day, David Mamet's “American Buffalo” starring my favorite redhead Damian Lewis along with John Goodman and Tom Sturridge. I'd have been interested to see each of them on stage, together, they proved quite irrestistible. Following directly on the heels of "The Nether", I found the story of three shifty small-time crooks somewhere in America rather dull, but at least it was surprisingly funny in parts and of course it was marvellous to see these three fine actors on stage together. Not to mention Damian Lewis' get up with ginger moustache and sideburns and a terrible 70s-style suit, while Sturridge had said goodbye to his nice floppy hair in favour of going nearly bald. Still, it was all entertaining enough, feeling almost like a movie and I returned to the hotel quite happy to have once more seen such a wonderful variety of things. And since London's parks were all so truly beautiful on a sunny April day, here are two pictures of the Embankment Gardens to end this on: