Carrie as a musical: I love the idea. I love the idea because it's one of the most ridiculous ideas since Spiderman -The Musical. WITH THAT SAID, I was super excited about it because I love the movie, I love the roles, I love theatre magic and I love Marin Mazzie.
What the Movie is about :
Carrie is a 1976 American supernatural horror film telling the story of a socially outcast teenage girl named Carrie White who discovers she possesses latent psionic power which seems to flare up when she becomes angry or otherwise distressed. Carrie's powers become apparent after her humiliation by her peers, teachers, and abusive mother, eventually resulting in tragedy.
What the Musical is about:
It's about two hours too long.
The show starts off in this weird interogation scene. It's Carrie's "friend" Sue, telling the police about how "she never saw it coming. She never saw ANY of it coming!!!!"
This is the top of the show and I can already tell what's coming: I'm gonna hate Sue.
...and I was correct.
Somehow they make this revival of a revival all about Sue, even though the show is called 'Carrie'. With all the interigation room flashbacks throughout the production, they should have just called the show LAW & ORDER: S.V.Sue.
Alas, there are even MORE people to hate in this show...including the entire ensemble cast. Chris is just a bitch, plain and simple and I can't figure out if it's the actress's or the director's fault, because I don't remember hating Chris THIS much. She's just a spoiled brat, with a limited voice range, who deserves to die and it's just a pity the audience has to wait till Act Two for it to happen.
As a matter of fact, this show really is Mean Girls on Ice while male chorus members are making gay jokes about each other the entire time. (Which sounds like a VERY fun show, but it's not. I promise.)
The mother/daughter relationship should be the main focus of the show, which it's not and THUS is the downfall of the show. THIS is where the real action is happening. When Marin Mazzie is on stage, there is actual stage work, actual singing, and actual storytelling going on. She's fantastic. The production values are great as well. Exploding this, levitating that. I really liked it, even though a lot of that stuff got 'laughs' because the tone of the piece was so uneven... non-specified at best. Was it supposed to be scary? Was it supposed to be 'cool'? No idea. Couldn't tell you. Eventually didn't care to find out.
We were gonna walk out, two unforgettable numbers in, but Sutton Foster was in the audience and I wanted to meet her at intermission.
After our meet and greet with her, we talked about leaving again but I REALLY wanted to see how they do the blood.
SUPER glad we did.
The way they do it is clever and it works. I didn't hate it. It's all about the following scene, though. When Carrie comes home after the school is burned down and everyone (BUT SUE!!!!) is dead. Carrie walks in and says 'Mama?'. Brilliance. Utter brilliance. I broke into tears. SOOOOOO freakin' good.
While I want to tell you what happens before and after the scene change, I won't. It's a great theatrical moment, that I'm VERY glad I got to witness, that if you can sit through the entire show to get there, if it's ever done again: it's totally worth it.
Now, if they could just kill Sue...
