Even for a theater critic, the determination to see “All people’s Speaking About Jamie,” the West Finish musical hit that opened Friday on the Ahmanson Theatre, wasn’t a simple one.
On the one hand, who at this level within the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t fed up with dwelling in suspended animation? On the opposite, the headlines concerning the explosive Omicron surge paint a stark image of a extra transmissible variant overwhelming already pressured hospitals.
I went with trepidation. My concern wasn’t a lot about my very own well being. I wore an excellent high quality masks, didn’t socialize earlier than or after the efficiency and took some consolation in being boosted.
What troubled me was the societal affect of attending theater in a viral hurricane. If it have been as much as me, venues would take a short Omicron pause till the surge subsides in our space. I wouldn’t encourage my family members to see a present proper now. How might I write a evaluation which may spur my readers to do one thing that might doubtlessly inflict hurt on themselves or somebody round them?
Earlier than the present, I reached out to the Los Angeles County Division of Public Well being, which directed me to its web site for official steering. After I adopted as much as ask concerning the advisability of attending a efficiency at a big indoor venue in the course of the present surge, I used to be met with radio silence.
Caught between an epidemiological rock and an financial arduous place, the authorities are leaving these decisions in particular person fingers. Science and our personal inexpert judgment are all we've got to depend on as we navigate what I hope would be the last chapter of this lengthy ordeal.
It’s a pity that “All people’s Speaking About Jamie,” an exceptionally sweet-natured present, couldn’t have hit Los Angeles at a extra welcoming second. The genial musical wears its coronary heart on its sleeve, and although it’s formulaic and mawkish, the drive of excellent will coming from the stage is difficult to withstand.
The present was impressed by the British tv documentary “Jamie: Drag Queen at 16,” which chronicles a teenage boy’s dedication to put on a costume to his promenade regardless of the resistance he confronted from college administration and the local people. Jonathan Butterell, the present’s director, turned the story right into a musical with authors Dan Gillespie Sells (music and orchestration) and Tom MacRae (e-book and lyrics).
The manufacturing, which started in 2016 on the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, earlier than shifting to London’s West Finish, is receiving its North American premiere on the Ahmanson. Broadway is probably going punched into its GPS, however the route to this point has been circuitous. A world tour that has to this point included Japan and Korea and a film adaptation (streaming on Amazon Prime) have preceded this American touchdown.
If the premise looks as if a detailed cousin of “The Promenade,” which reached Broadway in 2018 (after a 2016 premiere in Atlanta), the reveals transfer to completely different rhythms. “The Promenade” has extra conventional musical comedy DNA. “All people’s Speaking About Jamie,” extra pop-based and video-infused, appears geared towards jumpier consideration spans.
Critiques have been sturdy, however the present is extra of a business triumph than an inventive one. Agreeably efficient fairly than authentic, the musical has a generic rating (suppose homosexual bar mixtape, sprinkled with a couple of ballads) that lays down an infectious groove with out an excessive amount of concern for lyrical precision. Regardless of: Familiarity breeds content material in a theater viewers desperate to sway and shed a tear or two.
Set in Sheffield, “All people’s Speaking About Jamie” is loosely constructed as a set of musical scenes, during which obstacles to Jamie’s inevitable completely satisfied ending come up and fall away. The present sticks to the floor, not wishing to delve too deeply into Jamie’s psychological and social turmoil. The brutality that's routine within the lives of LGBTQ+ youth may show too disturbing to a musical theater viewers in search of a night’s diversion. The violence is proscribed, and the danger of suicide for boys like Jamie (though hinted at within the tune “Ugly in This Ugly World”) is left for a extra sensible providing.
Layton Williams (who changed John McCrea, the musical’s authentic star, within the West Finish) reprises his fawn-like efficiency as Jamie with a breathy depth and a sashay aptitude. The sympathetic determine he cuts in his college uniform doesn’t rely on his appearing. Williams can look forlorn or super-fabulous, however he appears a bit misplaced when one thing extra dramatically advanced is required of him. Nonetheless, it’s unimaginable to not root for his character.
Jamie is supported by Margaret (a top-notch Melissa Jacques), his economically struggling single mom, who sacrifices all she will be able to to compensate for the boy’s absent father (Cameron Johnson). Margaret doesn’t need Jamie to know that his dad rejects him, however her coverup has its personal unlucky penalties.
Ray (Shobna Gulati), Margaret’s staunch pal, is often round to buck up morale with a naughty wisecrack, some low cost sweet and a heartfelt phrase of encouragement. At Jamie’s birthday celebration, she cheers him on as he gingerly takes a couple of steps within the pair of killer crimson pumps his mom has purchased for him. The affectionate, open-minded nature of this nontraditional home scene stands out as the musical’s warmest contact.
Hugo, the proprietor of Victor’s Secret, a drag clothes retailer, turns into one other essential ally. Hugo’s drag moniker is Loco Chanelle, and the position is performed by a performer who additionally comes with two names, Roy Haylock, higher identified to followers of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” by his stage identify, Bianca Del Rio.
A kindly mentor, Hugo ensures that Jamie is correctly kitted out. However he’s simply as involved with the boy’s drag persona, a selected id requiring defiant creativeness and grit. Within the quantity “The Legend of Loco Chanelle,” this drag veteran, backed by fellow drag queens, demonstrates to a younger acolyte simply how an origin story is concocted. (Kate Prince’s frolicsome choreography permits the camp to saunter within the highlight.)
Jamie can at all times rely on his greatest pal, Pritti (Hiba Elchikhe, refreshingly honest), a studious hijab-wearing Muslim lady who additionally looks like an outcast at their working class college. When she expresses confusion concerning the which means of his new excessive heels, Jamie clarifies that he doesn’t wish to be a lady however that he want to be accepted as a boy “who generally needs to be a lady.”
“I wish to be a drag queen,” he explains. “For a job. You are able to do that, you realize, make some cash. Simply not in Sheffield, are you able to think about.”
However as Hugo later teaches him, drag is greater than a present. It’s a type of empowerment. “Drag queens must be warriors,” he declares. “Efficiency is a battle. Make-up is armor….A boy in a costume is one thing to be laughed at — a drag queen is one thing to be feared.”
The enemies lined up towards Jamie embody a fellow pupil named Dean Paxton (George Sampson), whose homophobic taunts betray a deep masculine insecurity. Jamie’s father offers essentially the most devastating blow when he tells Jamie that he disgusts him. After which there’s Miss Hedge (Gillian Ford), Jamie’s well-intentioned however skittish trainer, who after a grievance from a mum or dad, informs Jamie that he can not go to promenade dressed as a lady, irrespective of how glamorous.
Margaret, who needs for Jamie the dazzling life she might by no means think about for herself, takes on her son’s issues as if they have been her personal. Throughout a momentary mother-son disaster, she offers vent to her emotions within the showstopper “He’s My Boy.” The lyrics are soppy, however Jacques delivers the maternal sentiment with a thunderous ardour worthy of Jennifer Holliday.
“The Wall in My Head,” Jamie’s cry of the alienated coronary heart, serves practically the identical operate in “All people’s Speaking About Jamie” as “Waving Via the Window” does in “Pricey Evan Hansen.” Besides that the phrases aren’t as piercing and the interior lifetime of the character appears a bit extra pat.
The manufacturing is overlong, with a sequence of endings which can be a drag in each senses of the phrase. In no universe ought to this present take practically three hours, however significantly not in a single during which theatergoers are respiration behind protecting face masks. (By the way, a couple of COVID-19 jokes and allusions are perfunctorily included, although the musical is basically set in a pandemic-free realm.)
The design scheme of the manufacturing might be summed up as fluorescent drear, presumably to convey the grimness of Jamie’s college. Video projections that generally appear to be a playful model of FaceTime enliven the visible tedium, however I felt an ideal sense of aid each time we returned to Margaret’s vibrant yellow kitchen.
I can’t advise whether or not it is best to see “All people’s Speaking About Jamie,” however I discovered the musical’s light generosity to be uplifting. It’s removed from an ideal present, however there’s a purpose it’s discovered favor all through the world. This heartening story of extravagant individuality triumphing over claustrophobic conformity is made for the theater.
‘All people's Speaking About Jamie’
The place: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Friday, 2 and eight p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays Ends Feb. 20
Tickets: Begin at $35
Information: (213) 972-4400 or centertheatregroup.org/
Operating time: 2 hours, 50 minutes
Info on Heart Theatre Group’s COVID-19 wholesome and security necessities might be discovered at centertheatregroup.org/go to/health-and-safety
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