An American in Paris, Broadway, Palace Theatre, 5 Sept 2015

The pursuit of education means that for the next year or so, I will have the amazing arts scene of the American East coast as my muse! To kick off the transition, I headed straight to Broadway for An American in Paris as the perfect piece to bridge my British and American artistic experiences.

The remarkable visuals in this musical reaffirm my faith in the powerhouse trio that is Christopher Wheeldon, Bob Crowley and Natasha Katz. As the set pieces swirl about the stage, amidst projected sketches of the Paris skyline and a sea of dancing Parisiens, I cannot wait for my fellow audience members to know the magic I have known. Crowley and Katz create backdrops that are, as usual, incredibly grand yet never overwhelming. Large wooden boats hang down over a digital Seine at Lise and Jerry's first date; arcs set with triangles conjure the Chrysler building as Henri conjures dreams of Broadway. While at first it seems like every scene has a brand new set, it is really a collection of building facades that have been cleverly permeated and refreshingly lit, and modular walls that form any kind of alleyway or room.

Within this setting, Wheeldon choreographs like never before. One could hardly guess this is his Broadway debut, as he deftly punctuates script and song with movement. He introduces a unique style of dance that is blend of ballet and broadway -- a kind of pizzazz-laden elegance that flows perfectly from the music, and impresses even in the abstract hilarity that was the gag piece "The Eclipse of Uranus". Wheeldon also makes excellent use of one of my favourite features of his choreography -- small, token moments that have disproportionate volume. This is exemplified best by Lise's introduction, where a single sustained arabesque amongst swaying pedestrians shows immediately how special she is to Jerry.

However despite the visual spectacle, what I sadly found lacking in Paris was character development, leaving my emotional engagement about as muted as Lise was. Leanne Cope certainly has no trouble singing, yet she was given curiously few lines of song or spoken word. While she spoke primarily with her beautiful lines and winsome lyricism, it wasn't enough for me to understand Jerry's, Henri's, and even Adam's infatuation with her. In addition to this love square, writer Craig Lucas also embellished the story with new characters and motivations, such as Henri's family and their role in the war, or his own secret musical ambitions. While these were well-intentioned touches, which did succeed in lending this adaptation individuality, the amount of time dedicated to pure dancing means everything else must be left rushed or half-cooked. Fortunately however, Jerry Mulligan was duly moulded into an endearing casanova, primarily thanks to a winning performance by Garen Scribner.

The performance received a standing ovation at its end, something I suspect it gets at most showings, with audience members raving about the beautiful choreography. I gave my ovation surprisingly begrudgingly however, as I left feeling so unlike my Wheeldon experiences of the past. He has certainly mastered the look of a broadway blockbuster, but it was a safe bet on his dance prowess. It is of course a logical introduction, but I look forward to future productions that I'm sure will pack a far more solid punch as he feels his way around.

The Chorus; Oedipus, Victoria Theatre, 23 Aug 2014

In contrast to Facing Goya I'd seen the week before (yes -- a terribly delayed review), which required quite a bit of concerted attention and post-processing to properly appreciate, The Chorus; Oedipus was an immediate and effortless delight. It's directed by Jae-Hyung Seo, written by Areum Han, composed by Uzong Choe and choreographed by Eun-Jung Jang. It was first produced by the companies LG Arts Centre and Juk-Dal in 2011.

So here's how the show was mysteriously advertised: as a K-pop musical rendition of Greek tragedy. It inspired terribly little confidence, and I nearly foisted the tickets on someone else. But the rather off-the-mark marketing simply meant that the evening was able to completely blow my expectations out of the water.

The most immediately unique aspect of the show is that the whole thing is conducted on stage. The normal seats are left empty and the audience sits with the cast on the stage itself, at the centre of which is a circular 'arena' on which most of the action takes place. Four pianos nearby provide the accompaniment, and the chorus, when not acting, takes a corner of the stage. Seo's rationale is to harken the piece back to its original Greek theatre format, for the "audience to vividly witness the downfall of Oedipus as closely as the citizens of Thebes did". It is for this reason also that he has highlighted the choral element of Greek theatre, to bring it back to its roots.

The show starts with the folks of Thebes lamenting the drought, and Creon suggesting that avenging Laius' death is the answer to the nation's and Oedipus' woes. The audience is quickly enraptured from the way the citizens swivel their chairs around the circular stage, following Oedipus as he proclaims his resolve. One is viscerally swept up in everything he says as the chorus shifts around him, reflecting their engagement in his words.

Another striking scene is where Oedipus visits the oracle, who reveals the disturbing truth that he was Laius' murderer. The cast transforms into the birds whose prophecies the oracle interprets -- flapping haphazardly and ominously around her. With their hands reaching up into the sky, fingers pointed like beaks ready to strike, they caw sharply with their desperate message of doom.

Simply everything was phenomenal. The acting incomparable, the singing emotive, the choreography complete. It was by the latter that I was really most profoundly impressed -- every movement was heavily imbued with meaning. There is a quickening of the heartbeat in the frantic fights and chases, a real haunting fear as Laius stalks eyeless and desperate across the stage, and a depressing calm as the abandoned baby Oedipus lays silently quivering on the ground. Of note, both Laius and baby Oedipus were played by Sun Pyo Kim, whose expressions and vocalizations were daring and exactly on point for each character or creature he donned.

Subtleties such as these were just a sample of the attention to detail ubiquitous throughout the piece. Not a single stone was left unturned, with every second rich in meaning -- each twitch of the suspicious eye, wiggle of the judgmental finger, or angle at which they turned their bodies away from Oedipus' heinousness. One such moment that stayed with me was where two of the cast are fighting, and one is pushed into a piano. As he falls on it he plays a discordant chord, marking the moment in the score as well as in action. Also of note, even before the show started, there were various complaints about how hot the theatre was -- but ushers explained that the temperature was at the request of the director, who presumably used it as yet another means to embed the audience in Thebes.

At the final moment, the curtain of the stage is raised, and Oedipus walks away through the empty audience seats, having banished himself from Thebes. The aisles are dotted with sign posts and random seats are spotlit. The moment he leaves through the theatre entrance, thunder sounds -- rain has returned as the prophecy foretold. And the audience leapt to its feet.

Wicked, Grand Theater Marina Bay Sands, 14 Jan 2012

Let me profess that Wicked is my most beloved musical ever. It's a wonderful portrait of the human spirit, and from that very first cut into intermission when Elphaba had completed her ascent and sung the last note of Defying Gravity, and I was sitting in the Gershwin Theatre blown away and with tears in my eyes -- ah, that's when I got irredeemably hooked.

I saw that first Wicked on Broadway in '06, saw the West End version in '08, and many repeats of the soundtrack later, I caught the Australian cast in their Singapore run a week ago. And delightfully true to form it was -- I could tell by the lump in my throat come intermission. The acting was on point, the music inspiring, and the whole ensemble infused with a wicked green energy.

This being my third viewing though, I couldn't get as much into the story as I had before, given that I knew everything that was coming. I don't know if that's a fault of my jadedness or of the cast's -- that there was nothing truly refreshing about the evening. Every joke was played out the same way I remembered, every line delivered exactly alike. Perhaps there simply isn't much leeway for interpretation in every iteration of Wicked, leaving merely a very entertaining sing-a-long session behind. (And that I did, to the chagrin of my neighbours.)

The only part which gave me renewed appreciation was the scene where Elphaba and Fiyero rescue the lion -- Jemma Rix truly gave quite a butterflies-in-stomach, 'hands touch, eyes meet' excitement of first love, which I don't remember to have moved me in Wickeds before. Susie Mathers as Glinda managed to squeeze some fresh laughs out of me as well during the ever-entertaining Popular.

In terms of singing, Mathers was spot on -- a delightfully slick soprano whose notes suitably glided and bounced over the accompaniment like bubbles. I found Rix to be quite disappointing though, simply because of her narrow range, meaning the parts of Defying Gravity that needed to pack a real punch were instead sung at almost a whisper. It wasn't harmful enough to threaten the emotion of the scene though. Apparently (I hadn't checked before, and now I have I wish I appreciated it more then...), the Elphaba I saw in London was none other than Kerry Ellis (and Eden Espinosa on Broadway) so I suppose my bar was set really high.

To nitpick the other actors: Bert Newton did not quite become the eccentric balloon-jetting Wizard I had in mind; Fiyero David Harris was not a good dancer and his singing merely passable; the rest of the main cast not particularly memorable. But as a group, their dancing and acting was filled with energy and pizzaz, turning Oz into a truly inviting and enrapturing place.

So on the whole, though in parts there was room for improvement, overall it truly was a Wicked as spectacular as any other (it seems Stephen Schwartz simply made an unassailable musical). I was transported right back into Broadway and for that I give this cast its chops. It was good enough that I've been chiming and whistling the soundtrack all week, and am plotting to go again.