Following “Marry Me a Little” (see earlier review) and a 20-minute intermission, “The Last Five Years” was the second show of East West Players’ “An Evening of Two One-Act Musicals”.  We saw the preview performance on Saturday, May 9 at the David Henry Hwang Theater in the Little Tokyo district of Downtown Los Angeles.  Our cousin, Marc Macalintal, is the musical director of both shows that run as a double feature from May 13 to June 21 (extended from June 7).

During the intermission the crew turned around and removed the apartment set from “Marry Me a Little”.  They moved the piano out to center stage so we could see Marc play throughout the second show.  They also set up a chair for the guitarist.  Other than the musicians the set is fairly minimal.  Sometimes they have chairs out for the characters.  In the background and sides are large rectangular backdrops with different colored lights shining on them.  They occasionally project silhouettes of a tree (dead or alive depending on the state of relations?).  Since the musical consists of the two characters Jamie and Cathy singing about their failed five-year relationship, elaborate sets aren’t really needed.  They use an interesting concept with the costumes changing from black to gray to white or vice versa again depending on the state of relations described.  They have a costume change for nearly every song they sing and they go through just about every possible outfit in black, gray, white including a black blanket and black pants for Jamie during one song.

The musical has both characters playing out in song the details of a five year relationship, one from start to finish and the other in reverse.   In some scenes they sing to the other character that is unseen.  They only really share a scene in the middle.  It’s interesting to see their transformation in both directions.  They completely reverse their states by the end.  As part of the audience we feel the full brunt of the emotional swings perhaps even more so than the characters since they have five years to do so.  Each character has his or her own incomplete and possibly unreliable side of the story, though things make more sense by the end.  It’s like the beginning and end aren’t surprises but what’s interesting is what happens in between.  Still, they sing about more than just the relationship.  They mention the careers they both pursue with varying degrees of success and there’s something about moving to or living in Ohio.  I found some of these references confusing and a bit distracting.  However, I liked how one song had Marc and the guitarist as characters.

The lead actors do a great job portraying the characters as they change one way or the other.  We feel excited along with Jamie as he sings about first meeting Cathy and sympathetic as Cathy tries to patch things up towards the end.  They both sing well, very expressively, encompassing many different moods and situations.  Jamie even sings what seems to be a Jewish folktale for one song.  They make their characters’ complexities shine though the moods and situations, though.  They both have strong, though different, personalities; and then there’re the changes they go through.

The music differs from “Marry Me a Little” in that it sounds more pop and more modern.  In addition to Marc’s piano there’s the guitarist and what sounds like additional instrumentation that’s either pre-recorded or played in the background.  This gives the music a fuller sound that makes the sad songs more serious and the happier songs more celebratory.  For at least one song the music has to include both moods and does so adeptly.  It almost seems like an 80’s pop sound.  The songs sound a bit different from the usual “musical” sounding songs.  As always, Marc did a great job with the arranging.

My first thought at the end of the show was that it did seem like five years had gone by.  This is either a testament to the characters’ transformations or perhaps it’s the show’s intent.  The mood goes from bipolar to happy and back to bipolar.  This can get emotionally exhausting.  Still, they do a great job presenting it all through the acting, music, costume changes, and set.  In retrospect it is well placed with “Marry Me a Little”, that one being about two independent lives and “The Last Five Years” about two lives intertwined.  We get two versions of the story underlying the “Two for One” theme of the evening.  Most of my relatives who saw the shows either with us or before us preferred “The Last Five Years” to “Marry Me a Little” citing the more defined story line and preference for the music as reasons.  I still prefer “Marry Me a Little”.  These days we prefer lighter, more ordinary things to climactic drama.  But both have their merits.  Relationships, whether thriving, failing, or not existing at all are complicated and therefore make for great musicals.

Check it out at www.eastwestplayers.com.  We look forward to Marc’s next show.

On Saturday, May 9 we saw preview performances of two musicals, “Marry Me a Little” and “The Last Five Years” at the David Henry Hwang Theater in the Little Tokyo district of Downtown Los Angeles.  The performances are produced by East West Players, an Asian-American Theater company.  Our cousin, Marc Macalintal, is the musical director for both shows.  Before driving to the theater my wife read online about another musical we had seen nearly three years ago.  She read that “Rock of Ages” got five Tony nominations.  We had seen it at the Vanguard in Hollywood and it features many 80’s pop songs and Hair Metal hits such as Europe’s “The Final Countdown” and Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherrie”.  On the drive to the theater we listened to “When I’m with You” by Sheriff on KOST, one of the NOW Classic Power Ballads. (See later review)

We went with my mother-in-law and her friend and arrived at the theater fifteen minutes before the 8 pm start time.  The expansive parking lot was more crowded than usual, perhaps due to a party going on at a nearby building.  Our tickets were for seats in the front row of the balcony.  Unfortunately the balcony rail was a bit too high for my mother-in-law and her friend and they had to go back a row to see the entire stage.  Getting to the balcony requires climbing two flights of stairs: one to get to the regular theater level and another to get to the balcony.  It’s also good to remember that there are restrooms on the balcony level in addition to the ground level.  Before the first show began, producing artistic director Tim Dang spoke.  He said that since this was a preview performance they were still working out the artistic elements of the shows.

Both shows together are billed as “An Evening of Two One-Act Musicals.”  The idea of two for one is a common theme throughout the evening.  “Marry Me a Little” is an off-Broadway musical consisting of songs by Stephen Sondheim that were cut from other musicals.  Our first impression was the set: a one-room apartment with high ceilings and high bay windows with a “view” of other buildings on Manhattan’s upper west side.  It’s a very thorough set with all the furniture, shelves, cupboards, a chest, and hooks for storage.  It really looks “lived in”.  The furniture, especially the TV set, appears to be a couple of decades old, though other technology shown later indicates the time period to be modern day.  The kitchen is very small with no dishwasher or microwave though it has a large island counter that doubles as a dining surface.  It had two doors: the entrance on the left and the door to the (mostly unseen) bathroom on the other side.

The plot is fairly minimal, portraying two single people alone on a Saturday night.  They do many ordinary things such as put away groceries, eat dinner, get ready for bed, etc.  At one point the male lead even unclogs the sink with a plunger.   Their activities are infused with songs about fantasies, past relationships, desires for companionship, and hopes for the future.  Like “Rock of Ages” the music wasn’t originally written for the musical.  The songs were cut from other Sondheim musicals such as “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, “Follies”, and “Company”.  My wife felt they sounded better than most other Sondheim songs she’s heard.  Many are humorous and involve fun dance numbers.  Others are more serious possibly indicating a past heartache or deep longing.  There are no spoken lines and the show doesn’t seem like it has much of a plot.  Still, they do a great job mixing choreography with the ordinary chores.  The actions of the two independent single lives are well coordinated.  Often they sing separately but sometimes they sing together.

The actors/singers do a great job, both of them singing well.  They both seem like regular people but when they sing they seem like the charismatic stars of their imagined fairy tales.  The male lead is especially good at this transformation, seeming to flip a switch from aloof to expressive, even silly.  I could sense that they felt their lives were incomplete, yet they didn’t seem unhappy either.  We could really relate to them.  My wife lived in a single room apartment on her own for one year and I lived in three different apartments on my own, two of them being single room places.  We could relate to the characters putting away groceries and not having plans on a Saturday night.  What’s ironic is that on that Saturday we did have plans: to watch a show about two characters that didn’t have plans.  So many musicals are about fantastic adventures, dramatic conflicts, and characters that do or experience more in two hours that any of us will in a lifetime.  It was refreshing to see a show scale back the drama and celebrate the ordinary.

The musical consisted of the characters singing with Marc accompanying them on the piano behind the set.  We couldn’t see him.  He plays well enough that additional instrumentation is not needed.  Sometimes there are short pauses between songs and other times the songs flow seamlessly from one to the other.  As stated, they sounded better than your average Sondheim.

The two for one is that we get to see two people’s single evenings in one apartment set.  The show didn’t seem too long or too short.  Most of my relatives who also saw both shows preferred the second to the first one because the first didn’t have much of a story.  But its relatability struck a chord with us.  Why not spend an evening singing a little, dancing a little, or marrying a little?

On Saturday, May 17, we saw the East West Players (EWP) production of the musical Pippin.  It currently has performances that run through June 22 (originally June 8 but it was extended) at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Little Tokyo near Downtown L.A.  Our cousin, Marc, is the musical director.  Pippin, with book by Roger O. Hirson and original musical and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, was originally staged on Broadway in the 1970's.  More recently, Schwartz wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Wicked.  For this EWP production of Pippin, Director Tim Dang, Marc, and the choreographers and designers sought to give it a more contemporary, edgy, and urban approach.  Pippin is a fictional account of the eldest son of Charlemagne.  It’s more of a fantasy than a history and it contains “play within a play” and fourth wall-blurring elements.

The contemporary approach is evident right from the beginning.  The set looks like a dark alley with connected and elevated platforms above and a backdrop on which images are projected establish the scenes.  The “orchestra” consists of Marc as conductor and on keyboards, DJ LinoType as DJ, and Vince Reyes on Guitar.  The DJ is clearly visible on an elevated platform to the left of the stage (facing it).  Marc is behind and further to the left of the DJ.  I couldn’t see him for most of the performance, though my wife said she could see his hands conducting during some of the solo numbers.  Before the show starts a voice welcomes the audience and requests that we turn off all cell phones.  We thought this voice may be Marc’s.

The show starts with a welcoming and well choreographed number.  We meet the “Leading Player”, a kind of character-narrator similar to Che in Evita and the emcee in Cabaret.  However, unlike them, the Leading Player interacts with the characters of the story and he seems to have his own agenda.  The remaining players consist of seven named characters and seven unnamed members of the dance crew.  Most are introduced in the longer Act I.  The action progresses steadily with the character Pippin as the main focus.  Despite his top billing, the Leading Player is not the main player.  Pippin fills that role.

The costumes vary from contemporary dress to cultural to original.  Most of the female characters’ costumes consist of colorful wigs and outfits that complement their ample bosoms.  Some of the male characters’ costumes showcase their enviable physiques above the waist so there’s something for everyone.

The production makes use of technology with its ever-changing projected backdrops.  The program and articles about the musical made reference to Anime, but they don’t actually show many cartoons and only a few of the images looked to me like Anime characters.  They also use other types of modern technology that I won’t divulge here.  The projections effectively establish the scene.  They remove the need for elaborate props and set changes and there are very few of these.

The choreography is very impressive and is obviously updated from the 70’s.  It makes use of many styles including Hip Hop and martial arts.  It also gets very sensual for some numbers.

The story itself alternates between serious and humorous, sometimes confusing the observer as to its intent.  Most musicals I’ve seen were either very serious with a few humorous segments (e.g. West Side Story with the humorous part being the song “Gee, Officer Krupke” or Les Misérables with Thenardier providing the humor) or not so serious (e.g. Anything Goes, Curtains).  Pippin has some very humorous lines spoken by characters that take themselves overly seriously.  It also seems like it’s trying to convey a serious moral or message while cracking jokes all along the way.  The overall effect is a somewhat tepid and uneven mix that failed to draw me in at times.  The fourth wall violations add to the confusion, though some are very clever.  It’s like the story itself doesn’t know what it wants to be.  Perhaps this is intentional.  Another interesting aspect is that Pippen consists of two acts and Act I is nearly twice as long as Act II.  This imbalance caused the final resolution to seem less-than-fulfilling to me.  This, again, may be intentional.

Whatever the production’s faults, they don’t belong to the performers.  They act and sing well, conveying their characters thoughts and emotions and they can get quite complex, especially for Pippin.  The actors travel seamlessly between the story’s humor and seriousness and the minor characters make the most of their lines to establish their presence.  I felt convinced along with Pippin by the others’ manipulation, happy in his awkward excitement, and I shared his disappointment.

By far the most engaging the most engaging character is the female one played by male actor, Gedde Watanabe of 16 Candles fame.  Don’t worry, his costume is traditional and doesn’t showcase his “bust” like the other female characters’ costumes.  But his hilarious manner, lines, and singing captivate the audience.  The laughs just keep coming one after another.

What really defines the production is the music arranged by Marc.  It is much more that the contemporary Hip Hop mentioned in the reviews and the 1970’s Rock of the original score.  It also includes electronic, dance club, carnival-type, atmospheric, and industrial-sounding music.  This list is far from comprehensive.  The music doesn’t just fit or complement the scenes but it defines them and sets their tone.  There are times when the music seems to contrast with the action on stage but it still works.  It also fits well with the singing.  The songs are from the original first performed in the 70’s but, with Marc’s arranging, they don’t sound like 70’s relics.  He hasn’t just updated them but redefined them as unique works of art that would stand on their own in any era.  I was impressed with the vast variety of sounds in the music.  Marc conceded to me afterward that much of it was pre-recorded.  He was been working on it since last November and he had to refine much of it during rehearsals to fit the singing, choreography, and the scenes.  He described to me how this was a lot of work but still worth it in the end.  I could hear that the work definitely wasn’t wasted.  The music had its own presence but it never clashed with the action or the mood.  It never seemed too contemporary or too dated and its variety kept all the scenes fresh.  The music reflected Pippin’s journey from one new adventure to another.  I could almost view the production most appropriately as an extended music video of Marc’s arrangements.  To quote it, this could be the show’s “corner of the sky.”

Check it out.  Tickets and more info are available at www.eastwestplayers.org.