Poor unfortunate souls

Magnet #320 - The Little Mermaid

Every once in a while, I remember that I live in New York City, home of Broadway, Off Broadway and all things in between. And then I run out and buy random show tickets with random Playbill discounts.

I saw The Little Mermaid in previews last year.

So. Much. Fun. And here's why.

In their defense, my performance was a couple of weeks after that stagehands strike that shut down Broadway in late 07. (You know, the one that cost the city and the industry tens of millions, shuttered houses, closed productions, and ultimately lost jobs. Ok, maybe that's another magnet.)

TLM was in previews just before the strike, which meant that they were all rusty when they came back. Which made the performance I saw one to remember.

First - in what was possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen on stage - Ariel and the little boy playing Flounder were skating in their heeleys (No, don't get me started on that), and Ariel whips around to face him. The problem was, Ariel's costume had a floppy fishtail in the back. So when she whipped around, she smacked poor Flounder across the face. The kid was ok, but c'mon, in the halls of slapstick, that was truly hysterical.

Then - Ursula has this giant number near the end, where the focus is on her and her tentacles gyrating and pulsing behind her. At just about the end of the number, the tentacle machine was supposed to retract, and as it was halfway there, all of a sudden, over the music, you hear this terrible grinding noise, and the tentacles got stuck, with its arms all akimbo. They had to leave the apparatus on stage for the last couple of numbers. And truth be told, I really didn't think anything of it, until Ursula came out for her bows, and she smacked the machine like it was a misbehaving child. Hahahaah.

Still, I enjoyed the performance and loved the spectacle, and certainly, the kids in the audience were completely entranced (including the little 4-year-old dressed in a full Ariel costume). That's all you can really ask for in a Disney production.

It was the funnest performance ever - almost...magical.

eta:
In other, non-magical news. Tonight's the night of the second ticket of Hamlet that I bought, back when I couldn't figure out when I was going to London. I sold that ticket to a colleague of mine.

Sigh. It's a good thing that David Tennant went back in last Saturday night, huh. Thanks, hon!