Miss Julie, La Cage Aux Folles, Cymbeline and The Shawshank Redemption

London is the greatest place for theatre in the world! I can see a new show all the time, and this is wonderful. I have seen four shows in 2 weeks and I plan on breaking this record. I pay very little for my tickets and I get great seats.

The show I saw last Wednesday was Miss Julie by August Strindberg. This play was actually pretty awesome. Well, not awesome, good. Actually it sucked, it had the potential to be awesome, but the actors were absolutely atrocious. The guy who played the butler was the worst. This play was about the upper class mixing with the lower class, Miss Julie is in love with the Butler who is set to marry the cook/maid. Both the Butler and Miss Julie are complete idiots. These two have a completely lust filled attraction for one another. When lust is out of the picture, they really let the other one have it. They say and do horrible things to each other and basically it ends with a huge impulsive action wherein the butler convinces Miss Julie that killing herself is the answer to their problems. I am afraid I am not going to that in depth with this show because it was really bad. Had their been better actors and better direction I believe I could have loved this show. There was no sexual tension where there needed to be, the lines were flat and boring and it was incredibly slow paced. That's really all I have to say.

Now, La Cage Aux Folles. Oh my God this show was un-fuck-ing-be-lieve-able!! My parents came to london about a week and a half ago and we went to see this show on Monday. This show was hilarious! I loved every second of it! Normally I have trouble with musicals because they will get to a song and I'll be like, "AAAHHH just get to the funny lines!" but every time a song finished, I was loving it even more. They were all great, and some moments I was even cherishing. The song "Look over there" was just wonderful. I can't really use any other adjective, I just loved it. John Barrowman played "Albin" (For the uninitiated this was the equivalent of "Albert" in The Birdcage) and he was amazing, I got his autograph along with Simon Burke's who played his opposite and also the autographs of a couple of the smaller parts.

I really can't say enough about how perfect this show was. If I ever get to audition for this show, and I learn how to sing, I am going to shoot for and one day get Albin! I swear to God, I don't care about all the scary stuff that comes with it, that is a role worth playing! I was crying with my father I was laughing so hard. Some of the things they did were just too funny. This show is moving to New York soon and If you have the chance to see it, THEN YOU REALLY NEED TO SEE IT!!

Next was Cymbeline. This is one of Shakespeare's lesser known shows... And I now know why. This show... was awful. The lead actors were horrible, the smaller roles were wonderful. In a nutshell really. The daughter who was supposed to be beautiful was completely unattractive (That is putting it quite mildly). I know that isn't a nice thing to say, but really if you are going to have play wherein you have an irresistible woman, you should have a, at the very least, slightly attractive girl playing her. In opera you can get away with it, but not in a play. I totally pitied her, she wasn't even that good. She looked like a lost child and I just felt bad for her. The only redeeming quality of this play (not necessarily the show) was that it was basically a happier ending of Titus Andronicus. At the end instead of continuing the bloodshed, as was the case in Titus, Posthumus the husband of Imogen the daughter, takes the path of forgiveness rather than that of hatred. He is also the one whom has been wronged the most in this entire play. This was kind of a neat element to the story. Had it not had that, this entire play would have sucked bad.

Finally, the show I saw last night, The Shawshank Redemption. Good Show. I think it was pretty hard for that show to have been able to top the movie with Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins. This show was good but not that good. It was a pretty different take on the story and they really didn't hold back on anything, and they made it fun and really sad at certain parts. The way they killed Tommy was bold, I didn't think they were gonna show it at all, then there he was, pretty creepily hanging on a rope. The set for the entire show was just a huge jail cell which they actually pulled off really well. The gates moved, and they had upper levels, it was pretty neat. The guy who played Red was the balled black guy from The Mask and he was pretty great. I gotta say, up until his last monologue this show wasn't really doin it for me, then he said his last little speech and I was sold. It was a nice conclusion and it worked everything into its right place.

Anyway, Miss Julie sucked, Cymbeline was worse, Shawshank was good, and La Cage Aux Folles was amazing. If you have gotten this far in the blog, I praise your ability to read my crap. Hope you enjoyed it, until next time, see ya later!