wake up in the morning. see picture of blorbo. im not dead and i can still look at pictures of blorbo. it'll be alright as long as i can still look at pictures of blorbo. you agree.
Masquerade (1/09/26, 7:30 PM): House Party at Erik's Edition
I didn't get a picture of the program or anything while I was there, but here's the ludicrously capacious bag they now sell at the merch stand after the show! It rings up at like $38 USD and change and it is WORTH IT. This thing is a beast. It's super sturdy cotton canvas with a zipper pouch inside and everything.
Anyway, I didn't actually plan to see Masquerade at the end of last week. This ticket was a surprise gift from a family I used to nanny for/still babysit for. They're always very generous with me, but in the past it's usually been things like a nice silk wool scarf and a hefty gift card for a local coffee shop. Once it was a day trip up to Connecticut for a Franklin Expedition symposium in Mystic, but that was with a couple of months' notice.
This year was different. This year I was prompted to check my email at about 4:30 PM on Thursday the 9th, with a winky face. They'd bought me a ticket for the 8 PM pulse that night, knowing Thursday is one of my days off. So I got myself ready in a hurry...
...and then hit an awful train delay. I showed up at the venue at 8:03. They'd already loaded in, but were able to put me on the waitlist to go in the following night.
I showed up at about 7:20 PM on Friday night; they asked me if I was really gunning for 8 PM. I'm actually in the process of trying to save up to go to Pulse 5 again with @traumanatrix, who really really wants to see Clay Singer's performance, so I said I was fine with going in earlier so I can have my next Pulse 5 experience with one of my best friends, and they offered to pop me into the 7:30 entry. This took off the pressure of saving up to see Hugh Panaro one more time as, so that was a plus.
And oh boy, did I get a Hugh Panaro pulse.
It was an understudy-heavy pulse--- we had Nicole Ferguson on as Giry, Claire Leyden as Christine, and Nkrumah Gatling as Raoul--- with a VERY reactive, receptive, and involved audience. Giry led me by the hand down the hallway during the overture. There were three women pulled over to do ballet exercises at the piano during the Hannibal rehearsal. Piangi recruited another clutch of about six people to say "bravo" any time they heard his name (and the male ballet dancer scolded them as a bunch of sycophants when they did it). The energy was crazy-intense across the board from the jump.
I'd seen Claire Leyden's Christine before (opposite Cooper Grodin and covering for Riley Noland the first time I went with a friend), but she was especially fantastic this time around. Claire plays a very realistic and grounded Christine who's legit trying to have a career. She looks uncannily like Emma Stone, complete with bright red hair, and has a really lovely fullness and true operatic depth to her voice that's really something to behold in this intimate of a setting. It was fascinating seeing Nkrumah adjust his Raoul off of her characterization; he played far sweeter and warmer opposite Francesca Mehrotra's Christine but seemed to be leaning more toward the pompous-brick-wall angle here, which worked well with Claire's Christine feeling really crushed in on all sides.
And then there was Hugh.
I hope he's not the only longtime Broadway veteran Phantom (aside from Jeremy Stolle, whom I haven't seen covering it yet in this version) who ends up taking this one up; as a longtime fan of the show who still has a photo he autographed to me in 2011 hanging up on my wall, there's a really special joy in watching someone you used to watch from the back of the house on a $27 ticket from three feet away and sometimes less than that. But just. God, I really thought having seen him in this once already would have prepared me, and it did not. I'm not sure you can prepare for Hugh's Masquerik.
As I mentioned the last time I posted about seeing him, Hugh has a really interesting way of squaring the circle of the audience being there in all these really intimate and exposing moments. It really does feel like you're accompanying him on a journey through his own memories (versus, for example, the very immediate way Clay goes about it, or Kyle ending it on such a Girl Who Is Going To Be Okay note that it feels like the audience positively intervened at the last moment). It's a very Muppet Christmas Carol situation, and we're all Gonzo and Rizzo, complete with the ability to interact with Erik's past even if Erik himself can't.
And he's so happy to have us there! House party at Erik's! Hugh split the post-dollhouse-scene 1:1 among three of us--- instead of leading one person by the hand to the desk in his study and then to the bedroom, he led one person by hand to the study, then took my hand to seat me at the desk and show me his music. While I was looking at it, he found yet a third person to bring to the bedroom. I've never seen this happen before, but there's such a quietly thrilled generosity to how Hugh's Erik approaches the audience that it only felt natural. He has friends! He wants to share with as many of them as possible!
Before that happened, though, I ended up having the 1:1 with the Phantom automaton for the first time. Kody Jauron was on as the automaton/Riklet, and while I knew the automaton 1:1 was a thing, I wasn't really sure what it entailed other than the person picked for it ending up with a newspaper prop to take home and that the ring for Christine was involved. Turns out it also involves dancing with robo-Erik (the workshop room is much bigger than I realized) and opening the jewelry box to find the ring in the first place before he slid it into his vest for the dance with the bride doll.
Because of this (and because I got the note from Erik's mother from Kody the very first time I went through), I really didn't expect anything to come of taking my usual spot near the cage in the carnival scene. At this point, I've learned that the carnival actors are fine with me doing that because I don't try to hog the interaction and I give them something to play off of to get other people over there to have the big core interaction with Babryrik. In a weird stable time loop thing, however, Babyrik took the newspaper prop from me, peered at the missing ring notice, and used that as inspiration for making me a little ring out of string. It did the job of luring a few other people over--- I pointed out when he was trying to show someone else the note from his mother, so she got to take it home with her--- and Kody decided to really play up when they pulled the cage away from me by screaming "no!" repeatedly and trying to reach out from under the blanket as he was rolled away.
Hugh-as-Erik bumped into me as he was approaching the back of the crowd, and I kind of blurted "I'm so sorry" and showed him the ring his younger self gave me.
Hand to God, he looked at me for a moment and his eyes welled up, which made my eyes well up, and we stood there at the back of the carnival with him clutching my hand against his chest as he stood on the apple box for probably a minute or so. He cried, I crode, we both crew before he left the scene. Just an unreal moment.
This moment got its first payoff in the following scene, where I ended up in the Accessory to Murder seat (holding the rope that he takes to hang Buquet) and decided to hand it to him instead of letting him take it. We've talked a lot about Hugh's use of Hands in POTO in general, and last time I saw him I even talked about the surreal experience of Hands over my own shoulder during the scene leading into AIAOY. But it turns out Masquerade NYC is pioneering brand new Phantom Hands technology.
New hand technology such as him laying his hand on my forearm, with his thumb curved around to the other side, and sliding his hand up my arm to meet my hand, where he squeezed it and grinned at me with very intense eye contact before taking the rope and running off.
My guess is Hugh had just sussed out that I was fine with physical contact as part of the show (he later grabbed me by the shoulders during Wandering Child and jumped up and down while cackling at Raoul), but I'm pretty sure I blushed right there in front of God and Mme Giry and everyone else.
After Wandering Child, Christine grabbed me as well, and we ended up running down to the dressing rooms together.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
She looked back at me and shook her head with this pained smile. "I hardly know myself anymore."
(Lerouxisms! Hooray!)
"I'm sorry."
"Do you ever get stage fright?" she asked.
The answer is yes, bad enough that I used to get absence seizures from it, but that didn't seem like it would help Christine on opening night of Don Juan Triumphant, so I only said "Oh, horribly."
"What do you do to help with it?"
"Try to power through, I guess. Pretend you're someone else. Do you need help practicing?"
"Oh... yes, I suppose I should..."
I love how Claire handles Christine having to fill the time as the audience gets into the dressing rooms. She did several almost manic repetitions of "no thoughts within her head but thoughts of joy" at the piano and asked a few other people if they had any advice about stage fright (plenty of them were more helpful than I was) before Raoul burst in, and was almost laughing from the stress during Twisted Every Way. She ended it holding my hands and leaning on me for strength before going to get her dress from the person holding it and hurrying out.
The post-PONR unmasking absolutely destroyed me because Claire played it as an act of love. She had her hands cupped around either side of his face to hide it from view after she pulled the mask off, but of course he freaked anyway. Of course he tried to bring the chandelier down on himself. Of course he shouted "get away from me and let me---" after she tackled him away. Of course he dragged her down to his lair again. This has all happened before. There's nothing that can be done to change it.
And that brings me to the reason it took me a while to write this.
During "this face which earned a mother's fear and loathing", Hugh slowly had Erik look up at me, actually pause while making hard eye contact, and then snapped "pity comes too late" at me before abruptly looking down again, grabbing Claire-as-Christine, and making her look at him for "turn around and face your fate: an eternity of this before your eyes".
Pity comes too late. Yes, it's all pretend. But in that story, the one that Hugh Panaro plays so specifically and overtly as one the audience touches, interacts with, holds, is held by, we were still too late. It's always been too late. Holding his hand, both younger and older Erik, at the carnival, doesn't actually change anything no matter how magical it feels in the moment. Even the fact that Claire's Christine pretty evidently chose him doesn't change anything. He will always let her go, no matter how she lingers after the kiss with her fingers in his hair.
And that's what Masquerade NYC is all about, Charlie Brown.
Normally, I hang out in the bar for a while after the show, but I was so overwhelmed this time that I basically bought the bag and went to go wait outside. I wanted to try to talk to Hugh about this--- how sincerely moved I was, how incredible a choice it was for him to make. I saw someone who might have been him emerge at a pretty brisk pace from the stage door, but I didn't want to run after him. I waited a little longer just in case I was mistaken.
Haile Ferrier came out when I'd been there for about twenty minutes.
"Oh, hey!" she called. "You've been in my pulse before, haven't you?"
"I saw you on New Year's Eve!"
"Oh, that's right, and the party! How are you?"
"Honestly?" I said. "Kind of overwhelmed after the pulse I just saw."
"Were you waiting for someone in particular?" she asked.
"Has Hugh left?" I asked. "I thought I might have seen him a little bit ago, but I didn't want to run after him to check."
"He might have left early. He does have to travel this weekend."
"Oh, well, in that case I don't want to pounce on him when he's on a schedule anyway."
We wished each other safe travels home, and I made my way to the diner to get something to eat. Sometimes, I guess, maybe it's better to not get definite closure on a moment in art.
But man. I'm going to think about this for the rest of my life.
Ballet is filled with the supernatural - when you have dancers who train to become so graceful that they glide and float over the stage, why wouldn’t one have them portray heroines, both earthly and unearthly? Here are some beautiful and Gothic ballets a heroine should watch - online (through the links in the title), and in-person if given the chance.
Swan Lake
A heroine trapped in the form of a swan, a Noble Champion dedicated to saving her, a wicked sorcerer with an amazing outfit, and a tragic ending - Swan Lake is ideal for any heroine. It also may be the most approachable ballet for non-aficionados to watch, as almost everyone is familiar with Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake suite, and the plot was used for the 1994 movie The Swan Princess, and 2003′s Barbie of Swan Lake.
Giselle
A story of tragic love and supernatural vengeance, Giselle is about a young girl who dies of a broken heart when she discovers that the man she loves is engaged to marry another women. After her death, she is taken in by the Wilis, virgin women who died before they could wed, who dance men to their deaths - they target Giselle’s lover, but she saves him with her love and devotion.
La Sylphide
The story of La Sylphide is filled with fae and Highland forests. A sylph falls in love with the already betrothed James, who abandons his fiance in favour of the fairy - but witches plot against James for a slight, and are determined to kill James and unite his betrothed with his best friend. Romance, tragedy, and magic all abound on the stage as supernatural beings meddle in the lives of mortals, with fatal ends.
La Esmeralda
Based on the novel Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo, La Esmeralda focuses on the story of Esmeralda, a Rroma girl in Paris who finds herself pursued by many men, including the villainous archdeacon Claude Frollo, while she loves the captain of the King’s Archers, Phoebus. La Esmeralda has all the love and yearning and heartbreak of other Gothic ballets, but has itself a happy ending, a welcome change from the bleak novel.
Dracula
Many ballet companies have taken on the challenge of adapting Dracula from the novel to the stage, bringing it to life en pointe. But it is a very challenging story to adapt for the ballet world - while the story of the vampire in pursuit of young and pure maidens is perfect for the ballet world, many directors have difficulty simplifying the story to fit the stage. Here is a portion of the adaption done by Northwest Ballet in Bellingham, Washington - other portions of the ballet can be found on the poster’s profile.
Swan Lake is especially intriguing because there are multiple endings for it, and if you go see a production it’s pretty much a toss-up whether you get the happy or the sad ending. Keeps you on your toes! (Haha.)
I’ve seen ads around San Francisco promoting a Frankenstein ballet, which I know nothing about but really want to see.
And I must put in a shoutout for the production of Sleeping Beauty that cast the fairies as vampires! Look for Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, it’s an amazing work of genius.
I made this pdf document using the two texts of Phantom from Project Gutenberg so I could keep track of what de Mattos left out of the original novel (none of this is my own translation). I thought I'd share it since I know others were also interested in seeing just how much was cut/changed, and it's nice to be able to search with ctrl + f.
I've laid them out side by side, lining up sections by paragraph:
Chapter titles are hyperlinked with the table of contents and footnotes are hyperlinked with their place in the text.
Please feel free to share freely as both texts are in the public domain.
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