½
Annie Live!, on NBC
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streaming sites: Google Play; iTunes; Peacock; Vudu; YouTube
Caution: spoilers.
A live performance (on December 2, 2021) of the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name. It was previously adapted into a movie in 1982 (which I've seen) and again in 2014 (which I haven't seen, but want to). I didn't like it as much as the 1982 movie, and probably not as much as actual theater buffs enjoyed it, but I still thought it was pretty good. The dancing was superb. The only two songs I remembered were "The Hard Knock Life" and "Tomorrow", which were good, but the ones I didn't remember were good, too. The acting was fun all around. My only real complaint is that the story seemed incomplete, to me. (More about that later.)
In 1933, there's an 11-year-old orphan named Annie, who lives in an orphanage run by Miss Hannigan (Taraji P. Henson). Miss Hannigan hates her job and all the orphans, especially Annie, though I thought it was unclear why she hated them (despite the fact that there's a whole song about it; then again, I didn't catch all the lyrics). Annie is prone to running away, and the one time she does so in this story, she meets a stray dog whom she names Sandy. Unlike the movie, when Annie is captured by a cop and brought back to the orphanage, Sandy gets away. (I assume it would have been problematic to have a dog throughout the whole play, but he shows up again at the end.) One day, a woman named Grace Farrell comes to the orphanage, looking to bring one orphan to spend two weeks (leading up to Christmas) living with her billionaire employer, Oliver Warbucks (Harry Connick Jr.).
Long story short, Annie melts the hearts of Warbucks, Farrell, and all his other employees. But I just don't think the play showed us enough reasons why everyone fell in love with her. I don't feel like we really get to know Annie and her charms quite as well in this play as we do in the movie. Not that she displays no personality at all; she's certainly likable enough. But I wish more time would have been spent showing the growing relationship between Annie and Warbucks (perhaps without so many songs, which I felt didn't advance the plot so much as stand in its way, at least in this one respect). Meanwhile, Miss Hannigan wants to get Annie back, and it's unclear why, considering she hates her so much. But I can only assume the orphanage receives funding based on the number of orphans it houses. (If this was made clear in the movie, I've forgotten about it.) Eventually, Warbucks decides he wants to adopt Annie, but she has always dreamed of being reunited with her parents, who left her at the orphanage as a baby. So Warbucks uses all his connections, including the FBI, to search for them, while also offering $50,000 to anyone who could prove they're Annie's parents. Miss Hannigan has a con artist brother named Rooster, and he and his girlfriend Lily St. Regis are among the many people who try to scam Warbucks into believing they're his parents. And they get some help with this from Miss Hannigan. Of course, their subterfuge is discovered in the end, thanks to the FBI, who learn that Annie's parents are dead. But before Rooster and Lily learn that they've been discovered, Miss Hannigan tries to reveal the truth to Warbucks, and I'm completely confused as to why she does that. Oh, also I should mention that FDR plays a part in the story, and it seems like Annie is the one who inspires him to create the New Deal. Anyway, some more things happen, but that's all I feel is necessary to say about the plot. Overall it was a great production, even if I had to take it as read that Warbucks so quickly comes to love Annie. All the amazing song and dance numbers couldn't quite make up for that, but I feel bad about feeling this way. The play probably deserves a higher rating than I've given it.