Three Weeks, Three Broadway Shows: Strange Similarities and Striking Differences Among Jagged Little Pill, American Utopia, and SIX
I would not call myself a “Broadway Person,” but due to a confluence of recommendations, impulses, and invitations I suddenly found myself with tickets to one show per week, three weeks in a row.
And I was into it.
I’m going to give you my hot take on each show rapid fire, then chew on a few tidbits that stuck with me; especially the things that struck me most about their commonalities and divergences.
Jagged Little Pill
Still Running - had a matinee ticket
Number of times I cried: at least a dozen
Highlights:
gasp-inducing experimental choreography and ensemble
bow-down-worthy young singing and acting talent, particularly Celia Rose Gooding as Frankie Healy and Lauren Patten as Jo.
very annoying suburban archetypes that are redeemed by the end but not tied up with a bow by any means
American Utopia
Limited engagement - caught it right before it closed
Number of times I cried: once
Highlights:
David Byrne is the most likeable woke older white man I have ever seen on a stage
LIGHTING oh my goddess the lighting
The pure unbridled joy and rapture of every single musician on the stage
SIX
Just opened - went for the first preview
Number of times I cried: zero, but I got a tingle in my eye twice and involuntarily “whooped” at least once
Highlights:
COSTUMES. If you are into costuming, sparkles, period fashion, or the Spice Girls, this show is worth it for visuals alone
The way I thought it was actually going to be totally vapid but then there was a little surprise
The moral of the story (#nospoilers)
Same, Same, But Different
Obviously, all these shows were musicals. I’ve heard that some Broadway shows are… not musicals, but I have never seen a show such as that and truly couldn’t even fathom it. However, they all treated their music in such a different way.
Sound
Jagged Little Pill is obviously an epic homage to Alanis Morissette’s genius 1995 album (which debuted when she was 21 years young btw) but it isn’t a typical “jukebox musical” by any means. The story of the show is tightly, intricately woven into the the lyrics of the music, so much so that at times the characters even fight-sing the words we know so well to each other as the dialogue. It is mesmerizing, and soul-untying.
American Utopia is like David Byrne flipping through an album of the memories and ideas of his life. He tells a little tale, then glances around for a minute, and like magic a flying keyboardist and talking drums and interpretive backup dancers are pouring through molten metal chain walls onto the stage like nostalgia flooding the mind. But Byrne is not your aging grandparent losing track of what he was saying in the middle of his story. He and his supergroup slice up the barren stage like sonic razors, except instead of everyone bleeding all over the place we are just hemorrhaging our attention. I was absorbing the show so hard I almost fell off my chair.
SIX was hyper self-conscious of its songs, so much so that the show felt a bit like a pageant on Mount Olympus. The music is so tight, so perfectly calibrated, you almost start to wonder if the women are cyborgs, each brought to life for the sole purpose of embodying anachronistic self-realized historical victims with absolutely perfect pitch. Somehow I even found myself singing along - I do believe it is the “poppiest” music I have ever joyfully clapped and cheered to.
Time
Jagged Little Pill takes its 90s origins and truly owns them, while flipping them on their head and even lovingly mocking them at times. If you think this show is all about throwbacks and cringey fashion, you are dead wrong. The show feels so now, I could imagine a family going through it as I type this very review.
Meanwhile, American Utopia exists in a timeless place, literally a no-place, as the name suggests. Byrne does remind us on a few occasions that he has a vague political goal related to “these days” but he is more talking about the potential of the universal self to look for something better. And that universal self happens to be him.
And SIX… tbh it does a weird job of dealing with time. It wants to be everywhere at once. The mash-up between accurate 16th century historic references and conjectured, very sassy takes from each character pushed me to really contemplate, were we different in the time of the Tudors? Or were we exactly the same, and the history books just garbled it up? Which brings me to my last point…
Women
I loved how present, proud, and raw the feminine was in each of these musicals. In fact it might have been my favorite part of all three. But again, in such different ways.
Jagged Little Pill really centers itself around the coming-of-age of adopted queer rebellious black teen daughter Frankie, and her controlling snobby repressed white housewife mother Mary Jane. That in itself shows you we get to get real with contemporary feminisms and lacks-thereof. With Alanis’ actually-better-after-25-years lyrics in the driver’s seat, we are literally on a feminine roller coaster of emotion from the first note to the last chorus. My friend who invited me to the show, however, noted that it seemed quite an oversight to not include any non-sample-size bodies in the whole show.
As I mentioned before, Byrne has obviously done his “home-woke.” He has a great cross section of identities and experiences banding together, but the space is his own, and is infused with a cool, non-aggressive newage masculinity. Then, somehow when you least expect it, dude says that he is playing just one cover for the whole show, and that he asked Janelle Monae if she wouldn’t mind and old white man like him singing her protest song, HELL YOU TALMBOUT. And during this song, Tendayi Kuumba came to the very front of the stage and animated encouraged the tame audience to actually shout the names of victims of police violence. Her stepping up at that moment, Byrnes treatment of the song, and the audience’s resonant (if somewhat hesitant at first) response was an epic win.
I really don’t want to spoil SIX for you by going into too much depth about what I love most about its' dealings with the feminine over the span of centuries, but suffice it to say it is worth staying to the end. Not risking any spoilers though, I just have to say that the ALL WOMAN BAND that accompany the stars is so very cool, and there is something unquantifiably refreshing, even healing, about seeing only women on a stage together, bopping around, sharing their stories, riffing (literally and figuratively) and appreciating each other’s talents and passions in front of a packed and devoted house of theatregoers. And did I mention I want to dress like them for Halloween? Who’s with me.
In Conclusion
See SIX and Jagged Little Pill, and definitely just high five David Byrne next time you see him toodling around town on his bicycle. And if these three random shows that I happened to see are any sort of litmus for the decade to come, brighter days are on their way. But the environment is still in a shambles, so we’re going to keep planting a tree for every poem we write.
Much love,
LAMARKS