This was the first show that we’ve seen at the Ogunquit Playhouse this year. It’s about an hour and a half away from us, and they put on fantastic productions. Unfortunately the prices of their shows have gone WAY up over the last couple of years, but considering the caliber of their shows, and the talent they cast, it honestly doesn’t surprise me that they’re charging Broadway-range pricing.
I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing this particular show, but Max Clayton was going to be in it, and he is my mother’s absolute favorite theatre guy. All season I’ve been telling her that he’ll probably be cast in at least one show, because he’s been the male lead in one show for the previous two seasons as well. I like Max too, but my appreciation is for his singing, dancing, and acting abilities—my mother however, definitely crushes on him, and I find it funny because he doesn’t do a thing for me in that sense. But since he’s my mother’s favorite, I promised her we’d go to whatever show he was in, so we went to see High Society.
I went in completely blind: I didn’t look up a synopsis, or listen to any of the songs. All I knew was that it was based on a Cole Porter musical that came out in the 50s, so I had an idea of the sort of flavor musical it would be. It was a cute show, and we had a very enjoyable time watching it together, but I don’t think it would be a show I would pay money to see again.
There is a narrator character who sets the scene and guides you through the rest of the show with little interjections here and there. The woman who played the character was wonderfully engaging, she was interacting with the audience a lot, and she kept jump-scaring people by shouting, “High Society!” at them when they weren’t expecting it during her little bursts of song. However, the way she enunciated her words when she sang made it hard to understand what she was talking about most of the time, so I wasn’t sure what was going on at first.
For a quick sum-up, there is a rich woman named Tracey Lord, who is preparing to get married tomorrow (her second marriage) to a guy named George (that nobody likes except for Tracey), while her ex husband Dexter Haven (who everyone likes except for Tracey) is trying to win her back, and her whole family is simultaneously being blackmailed by a magazine who threatens to write an exposé on her philandering father, unless she lets them cover her upcoming nuptials, meanwhile the reporter and photographer from the magazine who are sent to cover her wedding don’t realize they’re pawns in a blackmail scheme, and the reporter Mike also becomes smitten with Tracey, even though the photographer Liz is hopelessly in love with him. Got all that? Yeah, it took me a while too.
The woman who played Tracey was in her early 40s, and in the show the character has a little sister who looks to be around 12-13. I was confused at first and thought perhaps the characters were mother/daughter because of their ages. Their body language, and the lines shared between the two characters was definitely more sisterly, but I was glad when they specifically mentioned they were sisters and cleared up that confusion for me. Funny enough, the woman who plays their mother was only in her late 40s. Ah the magic of theatre, when a 48 year old can have daughters who are 43 and 13.
This is a musical where the women are the real stars. Tracey, her mother, and her sister Dinah were definitely the three highlights of the show. Tracey spends the penultimate night before her wedding getting drunk off her ass, and Robyn Hurder did an amazing job with her drunken dancing, singing, and general flailing about. I love someone who can play drunk convincingly. The mother was also hilarious, constantly wringing her hands about the crazy situations going on around her, and delivering some great one-liners, particularly riffing off of “shocking” things Dinah said or did.
Speaking of Dinah, that kid was the star of the show. She was the only juvenile in a cast full of adults, and she still managed to be a standout performer. Her comedic timing was wonderful, and she was a marvelous little dancer and singer. She even comes out en pointe for one particular comedic bit where she’s dressed as a mime and speaking French that absolutely had me rolling. She did a wonderful job.
By comparison, all of the three love-interest guys were a lot more one-dimensional. They had their moments, but their characters weren’t nearly as engaging and funny as the women were. There were some cute moments between Max and Robyn as Dexter and Tracey, and they had good chemistry together, but he was so much more subdued in this show than he’d been in last year’s show: Crazy For You. I don’t fault Max though, this show and the part of Dexter just aren’t designed to show off his skills. Even his singing wasn’t as good as I remember it, but I think that has to do with the fact that he was playing the role that Bing Crosby originally played in the movie, so it’s probably better suited to someone with a deeper voice. I’m pretty sure Bing was a baritone, and Max is definitely a tenor. The range just didn’t seem to fit him, and I got the sense that he was really reaching to hit some of those lower notes. He was still a delight to watch on stage, and my mother was thrilled with our fourth row seats and the fact that she could see him so clearly.
Another standout was Brian Batt, who played drunk Uncle Willy. I remembered him from Mad Men where he played my favorite character Sal, until they unceremoniously dropped him and his fascinating storyline from the show. I’m still bitter about it, so bitter I had to write some fix-it fanfiction years ago. I will say, it was slightly weird to see an actor in real-life who I’d written a fanfic about a character they played. As silly as it was, there was definitely a feeling of, “OMG, I hope he doesn’t know!” He was a riot though, juggling cocktails and making a general nuisance of himself. I also thought it was cute that when he talked about his “old love” that they left it ambiguous, until the end when it was revealed that Uncle Willy is gay. It was especially funny because they make you think he’s got the hots for the young photographer for most of the show. This was a welcome change from the movie (which we watched when we got home) where Uncle Willy was a letch who pinches his own niece’s backside.
There weren’t any songs that really stood out to me, although I’d definitely heard “Let’s Misbehave” before. Cole Porter must just not do it for me. It was still a really fun time, and we had a lot of laughs watching it. I had no idea where the love pentagram of Dexter/Tracey/George/Mike/Liz was heading until the show was completely over, so it certainly kept me entertained.
So yeah, not my favorite musical by a long-shot, but it was an incredibly well-done production with lots of talented folks pulling it all together, and I’m glad we went to see it.
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