Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Oh yes, that big.
Ok, maybe not that big.
So imagine my excitement when I found out that in the second semester of my sophomore year of college, the theater department would be producing his ‘89 musical, Aspects of Love, which is, in my book, one of his most underrated scores. Unfortunately I had to find out the hard way that not everyone was on the same page as me.
First, a quick recap of the story for the uninitiated:
*Deep breath*
The show centers around an English dude named Alex who falls in love with a French actress named Rose who eventually hooks up with his uncle George and marries him when she finds out she’s preggers. She gives birth to Jenny who meets Alex when she’s 12 and three years later, she gets the hots for him, meanwhile he may or may not actually be her father, the jury is out on whether or not this was intentionally ambiguous or ALW just couldn’t be bothered to address it, either way it’s still kinda gross. George gets agitated and eventually dies of a heart attack. Alex hooks up with George’s ex, Giulietta at the funeral and lets Jenny down easy, Rose sings a big ol’ ballad and…that’s pretty much it. Also there’s a French producer named Marcel (my role) and Rose’s friend with benefits named Hugo, who kinda pop up every now and then.
*Exhales* Everybody got that?
As you could probably tell from that synopsis, the show is…not without its flaws. But we’ll revisit that later.
At the time I was a student, the college’s theater department had a weird way of selecting shows. Basically you went in for a preliminary audition and then you found out what the show was at a much later date. In short, the director had the final say in what the show was going to be and everyone else…….not so much. It also didn’t help that the department, under its previous administration, produced shows even I had never heard of. A great idea on paper but in practice, it could be pretty alienating for the audience.
Our director was an interesting fellow who had a very high opinion of his approach to the show. He kept going on and on about how this production was the way Andrew Lloyd Webber always envisioned the show, how it was always meant to be seen in an intimate space, basically that this would finally be Aspects of Love’s moment in the sun and people would finally recognize it as the masterpiece it was….or so he thought. His directorial style on the other hand….how do I put this?….he couldn’t stage scenes for crap. You basically entered and stayed rooted in one spot unless told otherwise. In fact, for my number in the show, I had to lowkey change my blocking just so I could move around a little and wouldn’t be stuck in one place for what felt like an eternity even though it was only a minute and 5 seconds (why yes, I did look that up). I kept asking myself, “Ok, he’s going to actually stage these scenes, right?” Most people’s defense, when I would bring it up, would be “Well he’s an opera director, they just tell you to stand there and sing.” Yeah but I’m pretty sure they put in a little bit more effort at La Scala, jessayin’.
The rehearsal process was not a smooth one. At the beginning, cast members were dropping out left and right, the ones who stayed weren’t terribly jazzed about the choice of show, our makeup crew almost walked for reasons that would take too long to explain. It was overwhelming, at times, too overwhelming. But for the most part, I shrugged it all off because we had a great show, right?……..oh my sweet summer child.
Finally the day we had been waiting for all semester was here. Opening night, baby!…my elation would prove to be short-lived. We were well into Act Two and we had reached the part of the show where a paying audience had to watch a minor sing about how she has the hots for her 32 year old cousin. Why did I think this show had legs again? That’s when I started hearing the laughs. It seemed like every line the actress playing Jenny sang was met with guffaws from the audience. I can’t speak for the rest of the cast but I was truly thrown for a loop. And then we got to the bedroom scene where Jenny attempts to seduce Alex but he tells her to go the crap to sleep. Then when she is asleep, he reveals that yes, he does in fact feel an attraction. Meanwhile an agitated George is heading up to the bedroom to pretty much beat the everloving snot out of his nephew but has a heart attack and dies, everyone finds out he’s dead and then we move on to the next scene. The way our director had it blocked was, Alex would be singing about Jenny and start (oh God) slipping into bed with her while she was sleeping. George would enter and start moving towards the room, collapse and die. Alex would emerge from the room and see George dead on the floor, say “This is my fault, all of this is my fault” and then Rose and Hugo would enter and see what happened and then Jenny would also enter and then end of scene. As the scene progressed, the laughs just got louder. This was a fucking death scene and the audience was laughing as if they were watching Noises Off or something. I’ve also been reliably informed that when Alex said “This is my fault”, an audience member was kind enough to yell out “Yeah it is!” Needless to say, this was not the opening night I envisioned at all.
I was shell shocked but I was assured by friends that it was simply an issue of not knowing what the audience’s reaction would be. Right before our next performance, the director assured us that it was simply a combination of nervous laughter and…well…buzzed laughter. I think on some level I knew I didn’t believe him. The fact that they laughed that night as well was a hint for one thing. But we played out the last two performances, partied into the wee hours of the morning after our final show and went about our lives. At least everyone else did. I basically spent the next two years (yes really) unpacking just what the hell went wrong. The short answer was….a lot. The long answer will require a whole separate post because this one is too damn long already.
To Be Continued
The Aspie Actor 