Pirate Queen

Last night, Kate and I went to see "The Pirate Queen", which, if you haven't heard, is the new musical by the people who did Les Mis and Miss Saigon.  I haven't seen either of those musicals, though I've heard snippets of Les Mis (and didn't enjoy that very much), so I was pretty worried.  Add to that the bad reviews Kate has read of it, and well, it didn't seem that promising.

We sat in the first row (a new experience), and I can say with authority that the set design and costumes were both ridiculously awesome.  Queen Elizabeth I is a character in the thing, and her costumes were simply magnificent.  No other way to put it.  Just insane.  Some of them I could even recognize as being things that are in portraits of her.  I mean, that's dedication, to reproduce those historical dresses.  And the sets were very good; a portion of the show takes place on the sea, and they did a good job of making the stage into a boat, I thought.  The singing, for the most part, was also very good.  The woman who sang the main role apparently also sang the role of Elphaba in "Wicked" originally in Chicago, which excited Kate.  I never saw her as Elphaba, so I didn't really care.  But her voice was beautiful, and the man singing the main male role, Tiernan, did a wonderful job, too.

So yeah, that's the good stuff.  Queen Elizabeth, herself, was a bad thing.  Her singing was done in an operatic style, which a) is hard to understand, which is bad in this sort of musical (more on that later) and b) sounds icky.  I don't really like opera.  And to be honest, I would think that this reaction was pretty widespread.  They could really use a retooling of her singing.  And, I totally understand that it highlights her royal status vs. the pirate queen's lowness, but jeez.  It still sounds horrible.  The plot is a little bit weak too.  But you know, that can happen with a musical, so I wasn't too horrified by that.

And see, my other quibble is very personal.  There was almost NO speaking in this musical.  I know some people probably don't mind that, but I just don't enjoy it.  I don't want the plot to move along solely by singing.  It makes it hard to follow, and by the end, you're just exhausted.  Because seriously, every little thing takes 4-5 minutes to explain.  Dad's dead, sing.  Baby's born, sing.  I don't know.  It's just not for me.

On the other hand, I very much appreciate that A LOT of musicals handily pass the "Mo Test".  In this musical, the main movers were two women:  Grace O'Malley, the pirate queen, and Queen Elizabeth.  And they had 'conversations' that had nothing to do with men.  It's refreshing, and I experienced the same sort of feeling at "Wicked."  I'm not sure why.  Maybe women disproportionately make up the audience for musicals, and so it's okay endowing them with powerful women who talk about more than men and sex.  Maybe there's something to do with the pleasant sounds women can make singing (not that men can't, but I think there's a whole lot more room for women to be Broadway singing stars than men), and so writers of these things want to get more women involved.  Either way, or whatever the reason is, it's nice.

Anyway, would I recommend it?  Probably not.  Unless, you know, you like that kind of thing.

Comments

[gregalbr]

Hi Manogirl,
Thanks for the honest review of this show. It is hard to find a review that doesn’t either entirely trash The Pirate Queen, or sing its praises so syrupy that you know something must be wrong…
so it was nice to find a review from someone like your self who provides a look at both sides of the coin.

We will be seeing it tomorrow, and we are pretty excited, but after reading some of the reviews, I am a bit nervous...

Did you happen to read the story associated with this play? From what I understand it is based on the book "Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas" by Morgan Llywelyn

If you have not read it, I would highly recommend it. (or at least put it on your list of books to get to 'someday')

Talk about your strong feminine characters... Grania was really quite the passionate figure in history… Too bad they tend to leave most strong women out of historical text.

From some of the reviews I have read, reading this book may also help explain for some, many of the holes that apparently were left in the play when they attempted to portray it on the stage.

just wanted to drop a note and thank you for the review...

Oh, and by the way, Cool blog!