Yesterday I went to see Enron – the play. I had slightly misread description and thought it would be a more musical affair than it was, but that’s something I get over, I’ve misread descriptions before and ended up being surprised by something I didn’t fully know what was. But the play didn’t seem to quite know what it was either, which was a problem.

As their website say, Enron the play is “Inspired by real-life events and using music, dance and video, ENRON is directed by Headlong Theatre’s Artistic Director Rupert Goold”, which sounded like a winner to me. I thoroughly enjoyed Goold’s Six Characters in Search of an Author last year, which was an intense and unsettling experience.

But while I enjoyed the acting and dancing as crafts, I fully failed to be intrigued by the story as presented in the play. Enron is Serious Business, and the parts that could’ve been dramatic and intense were instead made silly and comedic. Was the play a comedy or a serious drama? The best plays are a bit of both, and this one didn’t seem to be either. The Leehman Brothers as Siamese twins? Nerd stereotypes with combed back hair, framed glasses and social issues? Two executives at Leehman having sex on a table? What was the point of these artistic steps? There was so much that didn’t add to the story or flow at all. The dance sequence with Light Sabers was funny for about two seconds before it got tedious. The frequent fast music clips didn’t work for me, and the relationships between the characters had no firm grounding and didn’t come across as realistic, with one exception, the relationship of Skilling and Fastow.

I will give props for the minimalistic staging and how the trading room was turned into a very interesting dance number. The video work was very clever, and I liked how the stock price of Enron was displayed to the audience. Corey Johnson as Jeff Skilling was impressive in his performance, despite the character himself being so uninteresting it was mostly sad. He got strong support from Paul Chahidi‘s Fastow, the interaction between the two characters was the only parts of the play that really held my attention. There was a lot I could like in the play, but it was too fragmented to fit together as a whole strong enough to keep me interested.

It’s not that I think the Enron scandal is boring, far from it. I’ve seen the documentary and I have the book. It’s a thriller of a story, but on stage it lacked tension. I agree with the New York times review of the Broadway staging of the play that it was all show and little substance. It looked great on the surface, and Lucy Pebble has guts trying to make art out of Enron, but all in all I just didn’t care about anyone in the play, not even the poor people who lost everything for believing in their workplace. Not sympathising or disliking anyone in a play makes watching it very tedious, because you go to the theatre to get engaged in a story and I was hoping that the drama of Enron in real life would play out just as gripping on stage. Sadly, it was not to be.

Very, very disappointing.

In December, Mr Pharmacist and I went to see Edward Scissorhands at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, which is a dance stage. I am a big fan of Tim Burton and an even bigger fan of Danny Elfman, who composed the score to this and many other movies.

I enjoy seeing a remaking of a film on stage, be it as a dance show or as a play, as I am always curious as to how they solve the set issues, which is something I’ll write about in more detail in my report of Rain Man. Does it lose its grandness? Does the story suffer? And in the case of a dance show, can you translate the story without any words? As my favourite version of Romeo & Juliet is the ballet version, I’m already a convert to the last point. Film making in itself relies so much on non-verbal imagery as well, as facial expressions and movements are integral to the story, and this is very true in the case of Edward Scissorhands.

The principal dancer, whose name I can’t seem to find on the Sadler’s Wells Theatre, was very convincing as the awkward and confused Edward, who tries so hard and cannot help but get it all wrong. Kim, the “Winona Ryder” character, was less convincing. She was a fabulous dancer, but her character came across as quite bland. A bigger problem was that I didn’t really feel the connection between them. To be fair, it has been a very long time since I last saw the movie, but tell me this – is Edward supposed to come across as obsessed with her to a degree that makes him seem like a creepy stalker? The way he approaches her is to be frank a bit creepy. As for her, she is clearly into her boyfriend, but runs to Edward as a crutch when the boyfriend appears to be a jerk. Up until that point, she barely seems curious about Edward. It doesn’t really scream True Love to me, even if she seems to still be loving him as an old, lonely lady.

But this is not as much the fault of the dancers as it is the choreography, which didn’t really convince me. But the performences of the dancers and orchestra were really good, and they seemed to have a lot of fun with it. I should also mention that there were a lot of really young kids in the audience, one of which were sitting next to us and asking her mother questions all the time, like for example “Why aren’t they talking?” and “what’s happening? Who is she?”. She kept cracking me up.

Maybe I shouldn’t over analyze what was clearly intended to be a light, family show (and it completely works as that), I just wish the connection between the two was more firmly based. In the first scene they have together, Edward suddenly has normal hands and they’re dancing around with, err, dancing topiaries. I read that as being his fantasy, and not something that really happened. Mostly because of the dancing topiaries and non-scissor hands.

But despite all this, I had a very enjoyable time, and recognise that my expectations were probably a bit too high.And I can’t really blame the lead dancer for not being Winona Ryder, which is probably really my problem if I’m being honest with myself.

Originally posted on Lostjournal – March 20

I had the fortune of seeing Speed the Plow at the Old Vic on Tuesday, starring Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacey. I was there by myself, as the only tickets still available when I booked were single tickets with restricted view. Honestly though, my view was just fine, and they do move around a lot.

It was a very fine play indeed, and seeing such fine actors in action on stage was great. And it was so funny! My favourite part was where Kevin Spacey kicked the shit out of Jeff Goldblum. There was fake blood and shouting and all! Very entertaining.

Tonight, I bought two tickets to see Rufus Wainwright live. Can’t wait to see him again! And this time it will be on a Saturday, and I’m less likely to come rushing straight from work, and should then be able to enjoy it much more.