HEARTBEAT OF HOME: WHERE IS HOME AND WHY DON'T YOU GO BACK THERE

You can't be all things to all people. You can't please everyone. You can't do a tequila shot out of the navel of a girl named Candy without being locked out of your house .. er ... ignore that last bit

But in art, the first two lines hold true. The problem with most popular art, be it music or print of visual is that it tries to do just that .. please everyone. Or sell something to everyone. Can we say Grammy awards? No, let's not

Thanks

Collette and I are into our season of plays presented by the Mirvish Company at several theatres around the city. Buying a season of shows is an interesting experience; you see a couple plays you want to see but you also have the opportunity to see shows you may know nothing about. The Mirvish shows are always professionally produced and we have discovered many many shows of which we are now quite fond.

It's a great way to see new things. Last year they did a production of Mary Poppins. I never would have bought tickets to see this show on its own but I ended up enjoying it very much

The first show we saw this year was Les Miserables, you may have heard of it. There was this movie so some guy named Hugo wrote a book based on it then they did a musical ...

This would be our fourth time seeing this show. It was a new staging, which mostly worked and featured an entirely new cast, most of whom .. vast majority of whom .. were outstanding. Ramin Karimloo as Jean Valjean was absolutely riveting with a voice and stage presence that almost made me forget Micheael Burgess and that's saying something. Another standout was Melissa O'Neal as Eponine, the best I've seen in that part; she has almost ... almost .. made me change my mind about TV singing competitions, apparently she won Canadian idol. Seeing this show again with beautiful new staging and a powerful cast made me realize how much better it is than the movie .. and I rather liked the movie

In the category of shows with which I was not familiar you can list another musical, one that was based on a movie with which I was equally unfamiliar, Once

Once is a musical about music, and musicians, in contemporary Dublin. The cast play all their own instruments and when not at front of stage as their character, sit to the side, as part of the band. The music is lovely, a kind of modern folk music, all piano and guitar and violin. The cast was strong (they almost always are in a Mirvish production) and the story, that seems at first blush quite simple, was moving and in terms of the resolution, quite brave

The next play I was unable to attend but Collette assured me that Aladdin was well produced and quite funny .. and yes, Mary Poppins aside, my Disney bucket was overflowing

Now, all of these shows were plays, well musicals actually, and from the epic decades-spanning Les Miz, to the intimate personal Once, to the magic inspired "family" fare of Aladdin, they were shows that knew what they were and didn't try to be anything else. And were therefor successful.

Heartbeat of Home, currently playing at the Ed Mirvish theatre (previously the Pantages) is not a musical, it not even a play. It is a show, a concert, a performance. The kind of thing I would never have seen if it had not been included in our season

Heartbeat of Home is prominently sold as coming from the "creators of Riverdance" OK right then I knew I may be drinking during this show .. heavily. Like through an IV ... a couple of IVs. This may just be a tad insincere .. I like Irish music. I particularly like the traditional instruments; fiddle and guitar and pipes and bodhran (skin drum). Some of the music is a tad oversentimental for me but I do enjoy the emotion and the humour of a lot of it

I am not a huge fan of traditional Irish dancing. I don't mind tap (Gregory Hines. Ben Vereen etc) but I can't quite get this Irish dance where they stand rigid, arms held by their side and clog away. Skillful? Certainly. But what's with the rigid arms? Are the shirts too tight? Are they holding up their pants/skirts? Have they had too much Irish whiskey and this is the best way to keep their balance?

But we were going, I'd never seen one of these shows, Mirvish always puts on professional productions and I thought .. what the hell I'll enjoy the music. See, I was all set to watch an evening or Irish dance and music ... and what I got was  .. well .. everything else.

See, this is a fusion show. We had Irish dancing, we had flamenco dancing, we had African dancing, modern dance, traditional tap, Broadway style dancing, hip hop and B boy ... when they pulled out the Kodo drums I pretty much had had enough. 

There was no theme to this show, no thread, I think they tried to morph from one musical form to another but it never really succeeded. It was like watching a variety show or more properly, a TV talent show. And like one of those talent shows the performances were far from stellar

A big problem with this show is that they kept trying to fuse everything, we never got a full on example of whatever dance form they were showing. The flamenco couple had talent but they felt restrained; a hot Latin number would start then here would come the Irish jig girls with their rigid arms .. SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK IS IT WITH THOSE ARMS??? 

Sorry, had to be said

Anyways

Art works when it's committed ... and yes, many artists should be committed. But art is all about a vision, a purpose, a desire to express a point of view. I've seen many examples of art that failed to move me on any emotional level but I admired and appreciated it for it's committment ... I didn't like it but damn it was good. That sort of thing

There were some highlights in the show. The band was excellent, particularly a pair of fiddlers, a girl who played a haunting Irish bagpipe and a bodhran drummer who led a couple of dance numbers. I want to mention in particular Lucia Evans, the show's main vocalist, a woman with a lovely fluid voice and a quiet, powerful stage presence that doesn't require flash and special effects to move you. 

There was a fun number with the male dancers emulating being on a girder high up on a sky scraper, it was casual, relaxed, stomp-inspired tap where the dancers were able to showcase their personality, something largely bereft in the rest of the show. We needed more moments like this

In the search for a musical Home this show gets lost, lost quickly and lost to the point you forgot you were on a journey in the first place. It was very much like a buffet .. a Vegas buffet .. an old school Vegas buffet. Gosh, there's an awful lot of food, but no matter what they call it, it all tastes like chicken 

THE BOOK OF MORMON THEATRE REVIEW: A FUNNY THING HAPPENS ON THE WAY TO THE PROMISED LAND

Did you hear the one about an 18th century American farmer who claimed to have dug up a scripture not only telling of Hebrew tribes who lived in ancient North America but who were also visited by Jesus Christ?

How about the one about a village in Uganda, plagued by poverty and AIDs who had to pay tribute to a mad warlord in order to prevent him from mutilating all their females?

Well how about we roll both stories together and make a musical! Yeh that thud you heard was Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland passing out. Of course Mickey and Judy are both gone so we're stuck with Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) and their musical The Book of Mormon.

The play tells the story of a group of Mormon missionaries who travel to Africa to convert the heathen to their own brand of religion. The Uganda they find is full of violence and poverty and sexual abuse. The locals see no point in converting to the white religion as they see nothing in it for themselves. As one character constantly points out, visions of heaven mean little when you have maggots in your scrotum. As one of the Mormons is quick to learn "The Lion King did not present an accurate picture of Africa at all!"

I would call this play irreverent but that would be like calling Satan a guy with a grumpy attitude. This is satire, sometimes teeth bared in your face, sometimes slyly hidden inside of the cheerily scored, cheekily versed songs. Don't get me wrong, there isn't a ton of subtly here; we have a warlord called Buttfuckin Naked and an African expression that the Mormons thinks is like Katuna Matana but really means Fuck You God.

You could concentrate on the material that could offend and you would be well satisfied. These guys are equal opportunity offenders: Religion, Disney, TV, missionaries, sex, women, men, war, health care ... there is something for everyone.

Not surprisingly, The Book of Mormon devotes a lot of its time to harpooning, skinning, eviscerating and devouring the Church of Latter Day Saints. The Church provides the authors with a lot of material; let's be honest here, the Mormon Church, base on their own writings, is a pretty goofy religion. Each scene of the play is prefaced by the story of Mormon founder Joseph Smith and the creation of his church and it's pretty hilarious stuff. Much of the meat of the play's plot revolves around this goofiness and the Elders dispatched around the world to "sell" these stories to people

This is a Mirvish production so the performances throughout are quite solid but the standouts come from Mark Evans and Christopher John O'Neil as the two novice Elders and Samantha Marie Ware as a local village girl, Nabulungi who's name is constantly mispronounced by the Mormons; Nintendo, Neosporin, Neutrogena amont others. Miss Ware has the production's best voice, whether she milking every possible litre of innuendo from the song "Baptize Me" or soaring to the rafters in her homage to the promised land of the Mormons, "Sal Tlay Ka Siti"

Mark Evans portrays Elder Price, the golden boy of the Mormon missionary training centre, to whom everything comes easily and who is looked upon to do great things in Africa. Of course, this being a comedy, things don't quite work out that way. As his world and the visions of himself fall apart, the Elder is visited of a vision of Mormon Hell which is populated by Hitler, Jeffery Dalmer, Ghengis Kahn, Johnny Cochrane (I let OJ get off) and dancing cups of Starbucks coffee.

The true scene stealer of the production, however, is Christopher John O'Neill as Elder Cunningham. A congenital liar who has never actually read the Book of Mormon, he is initially perceived as Elder Price's sidekick. As Cunningham tells Price "You're Frodo and I'm Sam!" But as the mission begins to fall apart, it is Cunningham with his vivid imagination who saves the day; he reinterprets the Book of Mormon for the villagers, populating the already goofy parables with hobbits and Yoda and characters from Star Trek. O'Neill is a comedic tour de force, filling the stage with energy and momentum, able to show off his physical skills even to us up in the cheap seats

There is actually a form of message in all this madness and it has to do with that faith is faith, belief is belief, and perhaps the intent is more important than the method. But that never gets in the way of the true intent of this musical: To make you pee your pants with laughter. Book of Mormon is flat out funny, my jaws literally were aching when I left the Princess of Wales theatre.

It's pretty fair to say that this is one of the funniest productions to visit Toronto in a long time; they are predicting a sell out and I can't disagree with that. This is a touring production so it's run will be limited.
Tickets will likely be difficult to find but perhaps you could pray ... like, to Yoda.