Pretty Woman :: Pretty Good

Matthew Murphy

Pretty Woman the musical will have played Broadway for a year, come August. I can’t believe it took me this long to get over to The Nederlander to see it, but it did. See, it wasn’t a priority for me, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I am one of the millions of people who adore the movie and who adore Julia Roberts, so I knew the play and the leading lady would pale by comparison. Also, and this is the truth, I heard it wasn’t very good, and so I chose to see all the other shows around town, figuring I would get to this one eventually. So when I heard that the show’s stars, Samantha Barks and Andy Karl, would be leaving the play soon, I figured I had best go while the originals were still in it, and that’s what happened this week.

As I settled into my seat at this historic Broadway Theatre I took a moment to thank the theatre gods for the thrill I get every time I find myself with the privilege of getting to be in a theatre, to look around at the architecture, to take in my fellow theatre-goers, and that thrill that happens when the lights go down and that first big boom comes out of the orchestra. And when it happened on this night, a surprise awaited me.

Pretty Woman is good.

Maybe I benefited from having heard it wasn’t good, so I walked in the door with a low bar set for the evening. Or maybe it’s just good theatrical storytelling. Okay, maybe it’s a combination of the two, but the bottom line is that I didn’t stop smiling once, all night, and that is a feat for any theatre patron – there almost always comes a moment when you start to fidget in your seat, check your program to see how many musical numbers are left, or check the time. Not one of these things did I do at Pretty Woman.

First of all, the songs are perfectly enjoyable – but, then, I did like Bryan Adams when I was younger and the score by he and Jim Vallance is very listenable. The melodies are what we have heard people say time and time again that they should be: hummable. I was able to leave the theater humming some of the songs. And the lyrics are amiable and land right where they belong on the emotional scale of one to ten, carrying the storyline and characters right through to the final bows. More to the point, though, is that the songs are singable for the actors, who are the real reason I enjoyed this show so much. Every single artist who walked onto the stage was engaging without being overpowering. With musical theatre ensemble actors, it can go one of two ways – they either disappear or they draw focus unnecessarily. The women and men of the Pretty Woman ensemble manage to transition from the Hollywood Boulevard characters to the Beverly Hills gentry, displaying different personalities without demanding the audience’s attention – we look at each of them because we want to, and in the case of Jennifer Sanchez and Allison Blackwell, I REALLY wanted to. While inhabiting a variety of characters, these two ladies simply had to crook their little finger and they had my attention. Excess within control. I really did come to love, in two-plus hours, these people for creating a visual story on a platform on 41st Street.

Matthew Murphy

As for the leading players, each of these New York actors successfully stepped out of the shadows of very famous movie actors playing very famous roles and created something that was fresh. They went to live in Julia Roberts’ house, and Richard Gere’s house, and Hector Elizondo’s house, and Laura San Giacomo’s house, and Patrick Ridgewood’s house … and then they decorated those houses in their own style. The two people with the most fun at this were Eric Anderson, as hotel manager Mr. Thompson, and Sam Seferian, playing Giulio (Dennis in the movie) the bellhop. Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton, when writing this script, changed these roles to give them greater freedom of expression, providing Mr. Anderson with more than just one role to play and allowing Mr. Seferian wonderful and endearing comedic dance bits. We loved these characters on screen, and the night I saw the play, the audience must have loved them too, given the screams during the curtain call. Both men benefit greatly from the ‘Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman’ reminiscent ‘On a Night Like Tonight’ – one of the most enjoyable musical numbers in the show. Even after seeing the film Pretty Woman’about 70 times, I did not miss Misters Elizondo and Ridgewood, because Misters Anderson and Seferian were both such consummate professionals at creating these roles for the stage.

Orfeh, in the scene-stealing role of Kit De Luca, is simply one of the great voices you will ever be allowed to hear live. I wish she could be in every musical I go see, I wish she were singing in a club or concert venue once a week in New York, I wish I could be in a room when she sings, as often as she sings. Audiences gasp when she hits those money notes. She holds nothing back in her performance, not as a singer, not as an actor – she leaves it all on the stage and when she leaves the stage, the audience is just waiting for her to come back. She is, to paraphrase Kit De Luca, a Superf*ckinStar.

Before I move on to write about Samantha Barks and Andy Karl, I should touch on the actor playing Philip Stuckey, Charlie Pollock. Above I wrote that these Broadway actors went to live in the movie actors’ houses and decorated them their own way. That was not the case with Mr. Pollock, a recent replacement for the great Jason Danieley, who I am sorry I missed. I am not sorry I saw Mr. Pollock, because he is very good in the role. But the role has changed some in the transition from screen to stage. There is a magic that Jason Alexander has that allows him to communicate to audiences a character in less time than it takes other actors. The script for Pretty Woman The Musical does not allow an actor playing Philip Stuckey the luxury of communicating to an audience the way the movie script and Jason Alexander were able to. Stuckey comes across as a garden variety, misogynistic, douchebag – not even a villain, just a tool. And while Mr. Pollock is a very good actor, appealing to the eye, with stage presence, this underdeveloped character fades into the background until the climactic scene where he raises back to strike Vivian, at which point the character leaves the play until the curtain call. I hope I will see him in the future in a play where I can really check out his talents.

Matthew Murphy

Now about Andy Karl. I have seen every play on Broadway (and some Off) in which he has had an originating role, and I have enjoyed him in each of them, even loved him in some (Okay, I admit it, I am a huge fan of Rocky), always finding him unconditionally charming. Never, at any time, has he appeared to be more charming than in Pretty Woman. With the role of Edward Lewis, he reached a new level of communication for me. The songs the character has been given, the musical monologues he provides to let the audience know the feelings he cannot share with Vivian, give us a glimpse into parts of the man we don’t get to see in the iconic film. And he is in incredible voice, transitioning from the Broadway sounds we are accustomed to, to the rock sounds of Bryan Adams, sounding, at times, like the rock star himself – and remember, I like Bryan Adams so that probably helped Karl along in winning my heart. Absolutely charming, and no mistake.

And speaking of charming.

Boy, thought I, I do not envy any actress tasked with filling Julia Robert’s thigh high boots. Roberts and Vivian Ward are two of the most beloved women in film history. How could any actress dare to take on the role? I was skeptical, starting last year when the play opened, but it did not take long for Samantha Barks to change my mind. The enormously voiced Miss Barks found a new way to deliver every famous line from the movie and make us forget we had ever heard Miss Roberts say the words in the first place. Then she would unleash that enormous voice and I found myself thinking HOW does she fill this room with such EASE?! It was like she just flipped a wall switch and the power came on. She had me in the palm of her hand, all night long. She has an appeal, indeed a magic, all her own. It was like I was seeing this character and this story for the first time – and I love it, and her.

Now here’s the drawback. I wasn’t seeing this story for the first time. So I can tell you, with all sincerity, the one and only problem I have with Pretty Woman is that they didn’t adapt it for the musical stage. They basically took the movie script, sat it down on the stage in almost all the costumes from the movie (a good choice made by Gregg Barnes), changed a couple of things around, added some musical numbers and called it a day. And even though I thoroughly enjoyed my evening of smiling for two hours and thirty-five minutes, I could not deny that there was a lack of musical theatre play structure. It wasn’t enough to hinder my enjoyment of the work of the cast or Jerry Mitchell, who has directed and choreographed the play with the adroit expertise for which he is known and loved, so I can’t say it is a complaint – more like an observation. And there are more important observations to be made. Like this one:

I had a great time at Pretty Woman. I can see why crowds are still buying tickets (the theater was almost at capacity the night I was there) and cheering for the little show that could. It is a thoroughly enjoyable night at the theatre. It’s not Hamilton, but not everything has to be Hamilton. This is fun, romantic, familiar musical comedy.

It’s Pretty.

Pretty Woman runs about 2 Hours 35 minutes with one intermission