When Harry Met Sally - the view from the West End
by The Mattster
So, tonight was the night I saw Alyson Hannigan in When Harry Met Sally at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London's glittering West End. Although Haymarket and Piccadilly Circus are easily the least glittering bits of central London. But I digress...
The story starts outside the cinema as I poo poo my friend Sam's suggestion that her precious Alexis Denisof might show up to give his wife some support on her second night. "Of course not Sam, he's filming Angel in LA, don't be ridiculous." Five minutes later, and I swear I'm not making his up, who strolls down Haymarket and into the theatre but Alexis Denisof himself, looking very dapper, clean-shaven, very tall and grinning from ear to ear.
"Excuse me. I have to call EVERYONE I have EVER met, RIGHT now." (Cordelia, 1997)
Well colour me stunned. (Buffy, 1998. I'll stop it now.) I immediately phoned up to our friends who had foolishly already gone in and screamed "Get DOWN here NOW - it's WESLEY!!!" but soon after he popped into the stalls. Cant imagine why.
It pains me to say it, but that was the highlight of my evening. Under normal circumstances, of course, it would have been anyway but it was supposed to be a mere trifle compared to seeing Alyson on stage. Our Willow, showing off her immense talent on a royal London stage.
First, a disclaimer. This was a paid preview of the show - the real thing doesn't start till next week. It is unfair, and against theatre-going ettiquette to "review" a preview. It is of course not against the law to talk about it and this is what I'm doing here. But please take everything with a small pinch of salt as previews are a polishing of the final version.
And a second disclaimer: in the first half I had seats in the second from back row of the Gallery. This was mistake number one. Generally it doesn't matter - I've seen Les Mis a couple of times from the gods and enjoyed it no less than when I've been front row. Thing about Les Mis is, the performers use microphones, which is crucial in musicals. In plays, wearing a mic is a take it or leave it affair. And for reasons known only to themselves, Luke and Alyson left it. Which resulted in the fact that we literally couldn't hear a lot of what they were saying. Voice projection is pretty anathema to consummate screen actors and from my own days in the theatre I can attest that it is the most difficult thing. In projecting, you can end up just shouting, which dilutes anything subtle about your performance. So Luke and Alyson had to shout. And not only did that fail to increase our ability to hear them, it also spoiled their performances. I actually don't remember much about the first half as it was impossible to concentrate.
What I do remember looked like a very high school version of the play. Luke and Alyson were not bad but compared to Billy and Meg in the film, they were a poor shadow. It wasn't the performances that let this production down though. In fact, for newcomers to the stage, they both handled it remarkably well. What let it down was the bizarre staging. Never letting us forget that this was originally a film, the stage was almost minituarized to resemble a cinema screen - being wide but much shorter vertically than most stages allow. This didn't allow the actors much room for manoevure and it allowed for no imagination in the set. Sets were sparse and whitewashed, which works if your writer was Bertolt Brecht and your director Stanley Kubrick and there was absolutely no sense of place or time besides the subtitle of the year that popped up occasionally. (Which led to some excruciating "topical" continuity blunders, like the mention of Silence of the Lambs (the movie) in 1987 and a mention of The West Wing before it had even hit American screens). The music too was dull despite the talented Jamie Cullum being behind it - everything like the music, the use of the filmed segments relating the relationships of "ordinary" people and the dialogue just made you want to see the film again.
I saw the second half from the upper Circle which we sneaked into (yes, all 8 of us) for the second half and was finally able to hear what was going on. The problems described above were all still there but not so much effort was required to actually watch them, hence I relaxed into the experience and enjoyed it. The ending was very abrupt and although Luke and Alyson were good, there was none of the simmering tension the characters had in the film. Therefore, you didn't really care whether they got together or not and most of the time you were wondering why they even bothered. In the film, you knew they were right for each other all along.
By far the most telling element of the evening came at the very end, after the applause and the bows etc. People who have seen the film will remember that the final "happy couples" insert is of Harry and Sally themselves, talking about how they met and how they eventually got married. Finally, Alyson was on screen, and doing all of those little things that made Willow so adorable. THIS was where she belonged and I had a great big grin on my face all throughout the segment. It seemed like she was home. Which is not something that really bodes all that well for her theatre run but it more than restored my faith in her abilities. I think theatre, with its emphasis on movement and presence rather than facial expression and eye contact, is possibly not for Alyson whose talents certainly lie in the latter.
So, disappointing but not dire. I do advise seeing it, but I'd avoid Gallery seats like the plague - you absolutely WON'T enjoy it from there, it was almost unbearable.
A pleasant evening but all the better for seeing Wes!
