Today, we went to go see Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Ahmanson. It didn’t leave me as excited as other musicals or plays have. Yes, the dancing and the music was great. However, the show had a number of problems:
- The plot was, shall we say, stupid. You needed to disengage your brain, unlike Urinetown. It didn’t even have a message like Hairspray. This is mostly the fault of the movie they started with—they were stuck with the white slavery plotline. They tried to recover, but it was just silly.
- Much as the actress playing Millie (Darcie Roberts) could sing and dance the part, she just didn’t have the right ingénue look.
There were some good parts—in particular, Pamela Isaacs was great as “Muzzy”, and Diana Kaarina was great as “Miss Dorothy”. I also noticed an increased trend as a result of the Internet: quite a few of the cast listed their websites in their biographies!
This is a summer for musicals for us:
- July: 110 in the Shade, Pasadena Playhouse
- July: West Side Story at the Cabrillo Music Theatre in Thousand Oaks
- August: Guys and Dolls at the Muny Opera in St. Louis
- August: Hairspray at the Pantages
One additional observation. As we were walking up to the Ahmanson, my wife and I were commenting on the number of original Music Center sponsors that are gone: Security Pacific National Bank, Litton Corporation, TRW, Hughes Aircraft, Teledyne Systems; Carter Hawley Hale; and others. All of these are no longer around to support the arts in Los Angeles. Who has filled their shoes?
