The Midnight Train Crossing

I took a "Chance" on seeing Little Women in that I didn't really know anything about it, beyond seeing the movie a few times and reading the book like, five times.
But I didn't know anything about the actual musical. While I was watching it, I couldn't help but think "So this is what it's like to see a show without being able to recite it - or at least sing all the songs."

I did like it. I thought that the cast did a really good job, and it's always good to see a *good* stage adaptation of a book that I like. I mean, I was expecting to like it, but since I didn't know anything about it, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was.
It wasn't a really elaborate musical. There wasn't a large cast, or any real big dance numbers, but that didn't really suite the story. Maybe it was because I didn't do any research for it, but I left with a song from Wicked stuck in my head... So none of the songs (to me anyway) were catchy enough to stick in my head.

Before I get into what I liked about the play, and give my usual spoiler summary as I go down the song list, there were a few negative things. None of which were the cast's fault. But, during the first act, there was a baby crying. Yes, a baby. Why would anyone bring a very young child to see this show? And then, sadly, during act two, someone's cell phone rang... and rang... and rang... and rang.
Finally, at a few points during the second act, I think that the stage crew's voices were being projected over the speakers. It wasn't that loud, but there were some soft murmurings at places where there should not have been.

Okay, now onto the good stuff.

The curtain (which turned out to be a scrim) had pages printed on it, pages of Little Women . My mom and I were trying to read the largest one, but after the first sentence we gave up. It was too far away and it was rather messy handwriting.

Highlights in the cast were Professor Bhaer (Andrew Varela), Laurie (Stephen Patterson) and Jo (Kate Fisher). Maureen McGovern (Marmee) was given top billing, and while she did do a nice job and she had a nice voice, I just... wasn't sure why she had top billing.

Watching Kate Fisher as Jo, I decided that she would make a wonderful Elphaba in Wicked. She had the voice but more importantly, she had the attitude. Any of the scenes in which Jo was arguing with her sisters... or Laruie... or the Professor were just brilliantly done.

The opening of the play takes place in a boarding house in New York, where Jo has just received another rejection letter for her latest story - "an Operatic Tragedy" with lots of blood and gore. She reads it to Professor Bhaer, and as she's telling the story, on a bridge above them, characters in elaborate costumes act it out.
Jo sings it, as well as the "characters" in her story - the tragic heroine Clarissa, the Evil Lord Braxton and the dashing hero, Rodrigo.
It was kinda cool. They were acting on the bridge, and she was doing the same thing on the stage. I didn't know who to watch.

The scene shifted back two years to Jo in the attic of her home, as she and her sisters Meg (Renee Brna), Beth (Autumn Hurlbert) and Amy (Gwen Hollander) prepare to put on their Christmas play.
With their father away at the Civil War, Jo and her sisters are determined to put on the best play - an Operatic Tragedy (which has a strangely familiar plot...). The interaction between the sisters was nice. They really did seem like sisters.
The girls go downstairs to tell their mother, Marmee as she is known, about their plans. Marmee, incidentally, got applause as soon as she walked on the stage.

After Jo steals a Christmas tree from their neighbors, the Laurence family enters the scene. Mr Laurence was fabulously played by Robert Stattel. He was a brilliant mean old man - who gets a very cute scene later. And Laurie was decidedly a-dork-able. He had a lot of the funny lines and just his whole manner on stage was great.

When she's alone, Marmee tries to write a letter to her husband, but it turns into a ballad about how she is "Here Alone." It was a pretty song and she sang it well, but I would not have come home raving about it.

With a scene change, and a major time jump, we meet Aunt March, a society lady in the full sense of the word. She was perfectly played by Neva Rae Powers. She scolds Jo for her unladylike ways and sets a challenge in the song "Could You?" if Jo can become a proper lady, Aunt March will take her to Europe. This song was pretty amusing as Jo attempted to be a "lady" with rather mixed results, while her aunt used a sort of reverse psychology on her.

Valentine's Day rolls around and the two elder March sisters are off to a ball. Meg is scared to go, but Jo, Marmee and Beth manage to convince her, and the four have a cute practice ball in "I'd be Delighted" , during which Marmee firmly tells Jo that doing a can-can sort of kick is certainly not allowed.
Amy wants to go to the ball too, and is very upset when she finds out she can't go. And so, after the elder girls leave, she collapses dramatically across the couch and just lays there dramatically until someone notices. Her mother and other sister don't comment, so she just lays there posed for awhile. It was pretty funny.
Then comes the drama, as well as some unintentioned comic relief. Furious because her older sister Jo always gets everything (At least that's what Amy believes), Amy takes the story that Jo is planning on submitting to a magazine and burns it in the fire place.

And at this point, attention is drawn to the fire place. I hadn't really been paying attention, but my mom said that it was on stage the whole time, even when Jo and her aunt were in the garden. After Amy burned the papers, two stage hands came out and knelt down next to the fire place.
Like the rest of the scenery, it was on a track, but for some reason, it was not moving. One of the stage hands left, but the other... well, he went behind the fire place and just stayed there out of sight until later, when he pushed the fireplace off stage.

At the ball, Meg first meets John Brooke (Michael Minarik) and there is a delightedly awkward scene between Meg and her future husband. And cuteness abounds. The two head off to dance, leaving Jo and Laurie alone. Laurie says that he has been watching her pace back and forth in her attic (Kinda creepy in a way) and he says that he really wants to be friends with her, if she'll just "Take a Chance on Me" I really liked this song. He sang about all the things they could do, like fly on golden wings, and get a camel through a needle. (I don't really remember the lyrics, I just remember I liked them).

Later, comes the cute scene with Mr. Laurence to which I was referring. Upset about how much time his grandson is spending with the girls, he storms over to their house. Beth is the only one home, and she happens to be playing the piano at the time.
He asks her which of the horrible March girls she is, and she responds "I'm Horrible Beth". When he asks her if she's scared of him, she replies honestly. "Yes." and that she thinks it's because he has a hard face. He says that he can't help his face, and he tells her to play again.
After edging around for a bit, trying to stay as far away from him as possible, Beth starts to play, and hesitantly sing "Off to Massachusetts." Apparently, Mr. Laurence likes this song, because he starts to sing along. He and Beth both relax and end up singing and playing a duet, at the end of which, he invites her over to play on his piano.
This was one of my favorite scenes in the play. Both Beth and Mr. Laurence were brilliantly done.

The song "Five Forever" was another cute song, as the four March sisters accept Laurie into their club as their brother. The siblings promise to always stand by each other and be together. It was a cute dance number.

Somewhere next comes the famous hair cutting scene - where Jo cuts her hair and sells it to get her mother money for a train ride to Washington - her father is ill. (She got a pretty good deal, $25) Her mother and sisters appreciate this effort, but Aunt March is not impressed. She says that proper ladies do not cut their hair and sell it. The trip to Europe is off.
Laurie, being Laurie comes out, sees Jo and tells her she looks different, but he likes it and he's sure that by next summer, all the girls will be wearing their hair short (He'd said a line similar about her dress before)

In the spring of the next year, John upsets Meg by telling her that he's enlisted in the army. But before he leaves he has something to tell her. He fumbles over the words a bit and then pulls out a sheet of paper, and then proceeds to read his proposal. He says he's not rich or handsome - ("You are handsome," interrupts Meg. He looks up from his paper, "Really?") or wise, but... he loves her, and if she'll agree to marry him, he knows he will come home safely from the war. ( "More Than I Am" ) Meg agrees, because, well she loves him. (And after all, he IS so adorable).

Jo is *not* pleased by this turn of events. How can all four sisters always remain together if Meg goes off and gets married? Her other two sisters are delighted by the news though.
She's in for yet another shock when there is another proposal - this time to her from Laurie. He tells her that he's always loved her, ever since he first saw her and he wants to marry her.
Jo is shocked that he would do such a thing. She trusted him., and then he went and did something like this. (I guess being proposed to is a betrayal). She refuses him and kicks him out.
She can't get married, she has to live her dream of becoming a famous writer - of becoming "Astonishing." I thought this song was pretty cool. Not quite Defying Gravity, but in a similar vein.

Intermission was more than fifteen minutes, but I think that they were fixing the fireplace, because when it came back out during the second act, it slid easily along it's track , and merited a round of applause.

The second act begins the same as the first, in the boarding house. This time, Jo not only has the professor, but Mrs Kirk (Neva Rae Powers) as her audience. She comes home all excited from an interview at "The Weekly Volcano Press" where she decided to be very forceful in selling her story - she read it to the publisher.

Once again, her story is acted out. It's the same story as before, with Clarissa and the rest, only this time it follows her adventures - her journey through the woods as she gradually gives up her riches for safe passage, to first an old hag (played by Marmee) and then a troll (Played by Amy). (Clarissa, by the way, is played by Meg). Clarissa makes it through and fights with the evil Braxton, but... "should have had fencing lessons". Fortunately she is saved by... her sister! Rodrigo too (Beth). In this scene, I really liked all of their voices.
She impressed the publisher, and not only did she sell the story, but was hired to write four more.
During this scene it was also established that Jo does not like the alcohol that was kept in the house - the Professor gave her some to celebrate and she made a great face. Reminded me a bit of me actually...

However, her good mood is not to last, because she gets a telegram from home. Beth has fallen very ill... with Scarlet Fever. Jo hurries home, oblivious to the offers of help from the Professor. As Mrs Kirk can see, the two are more than just "casual acquaintances".

Somehow Jo convinces Mr. Laurence (Although I don't think it was very hard) to give Beth his grand piano. A pregnant (she's married by now) Meg helps her weak younger sister down the stairs. At the sight of the piano, Beth starts to look well again, and she and Mr Laurence perform "Off to Massachusetts" again.

Back in New York, professor Bhaer is reading a letter from Jo. The transition to this scene was rather well done. She was writing it and reading it as she did so, and he started reading it out loud. For a few minutes they were together, and then she faded out and exited.
Then Bhaer sang an awesome song called "How I Am" , basically about how life wasn't the same without Jo, and he missed her, but he couldn't tell her that in a letter. His voice was wonderful on this song.

Jo takes her mother and Beth to Cape Cod for a vacation, and perhaps in hopes that the sea air will do Beth some good.
The sisters sing a pretty song called "Some things are meant to be" while flying a kite. During this scene, of course there were some really... um... clever... special effects with the kite flying. As Jo launched it, a string carried it up.
Maybe from further back it looked better, but... well... not the best thing in the world from up close at least.

The ending of this song was sad though, Beth says that she's not afraid to die. The only thing she's worried about is making Jo sad. At the end of the song, Beth asks her to let her go, but to remember her. And she knows that Jo will achieve her dreams

The next scene opens on the empty house. The piano is covered in a black cloth. And, interestingly, that made me get teary. Beth did not die on stage, they only talk about it afterwards, but somehow, the black cloth on the piano made me get teary... (And it is as I'm writing this review. Bah :) )

Amy enters, in a sort of ridiculous looking dress. It's very poofy and frilly and just... large. She's back home from Europe. She's a Society Lady now... actually she looks a lot like her aunt. The three sisters are reunited and they go over all of Amy's souvenirs from Europe. But presents aren't the only thing she's brought home - Laurie met her in Europe, and in Venice, in a gondola, under a bridge, after talking for hours and discovering they had so much in common, Laurie stood up in the boat, proposed, and then fell into the river. Amy says it happened so fast it was "The Most Amazing Thing" . The two are a bit nervous about telling Jo, but she's not as angry as they fear. I guess after Beth's death, nothing else seemed important to her...

Which leads me into the next song. Marmee finds Jo sulking in the attic. She is still in mourning for her sister, and she says she's jealous of her mother, who is so strong. Jo wishes she could be like Marmee, and just deal with everything.
Marmee tells her that things have not been easy for her, and she sings an (almost) show stopping song called "Days of Plenty." Marmee survives by remembering what she had. By remembering the good times.

Left alone, Jo remembers the way things used to be, when the four sisters promised to always be together, and always be there for each other. But now, Meg is married and a mother of twins, Amy is engaged and has changed a lot on her trip, and Beth is just gone...
Jo fears that she cannot write anymore, since her family is basically broken up. All her life she has depended on "The Fire Within Me" to keep her going. Her sisters were her love, her life and her inspiration.
But then, as she wanders the attic, remembering... She suddenly rushes for her notebook and starts to write.... about a Christmas... and four sisters... Meg, fretting about how they don't have nice things, Amy, sad because they will not get presents, Jo, worried about how this is their first Christmas with their father gone, and Beth... Beth, who says "But at least we have each other"

Spring brings Amy's wedding. Meg and John are helping to get ready, and groaning about it. Amy is spazzing out that she made the wrong choices.
Meg asks John if she was this bad before their wedding, to which he responds, deadpan, "Worse."
They all are worried about rain, since it's an outdoor wedding. During this scene, Amy's family learns that a new habit that she picked up in Europe is, in times of stress, to start speaking in French.

During all of the commotion, Professor Bhaer arrives with a package. He waits in the garden, and after carefully wiping off the bench with a handkerchief, he sets the package down, and then sits next to it on the dirty area. (Again, "Awwww" from me)
Jo comes out and is quite surprised to see him. He says that he was in the area so he decided to visit. And... he presents her with the package... The novel she has written... about her and her sisters. He tells her that he loved it... and... after a bit of cute awkwardness... that he loves her. He loves her fire, he loves that she's outspoken, and that she's a writer, and he even loves that they argue. This song is called "Small Umbrella in the Rain" which is a nod to the final chapter of the book, which is called "Under the Umbrella".
It starts to rain in the middle of the song, and they stand under the small umbrella (in the rain), but while they were sitting I kept seeing her manuscript sitting on the bench and thinking "Isn't that getting wet too?"

After the song, he tells her (with several pauses for kissing) that her book is going to be published. And then, they are in the midst of a rather passionate kiss, when in walks Marmee.
Jo awkwardly introduces him, and Marmee (rather unfazed by what she walked in on) takes him inside, but not without giving Jo an approving look. Sort of a "nice catch"
Alone on stage, Jo reflects over these past few years and concludes that yes, everything (including herself) has been astonishing.