"Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812" at San Jose Playhouse

San Jose Playhouse production photo by Scott Donschikowski

 

I'll be honest: I had never heard of San Jose Playhouse until now. And I only know about them now because one of the cast in Shotgun Players' production of this play mentioned that his next gig was going to be a different role in the same show in San Jose. So we looked it up and decided to check it out. All told, I saw the Shotgun production about a dozen times during its long run, so I was looking forward to seeing what this other theater was going to do with it.

As I noted in the Shotgun article, that was the west coast premiere, and also the first time, to my knowledge, that the show had been staged in such a small venue. San Jose Playhouse's home in 3Below Theaters is a bit bigger, I think, though I didn't count the seats. It's a converted movie theater that had been further modified for this production to give it a little runway and a bridge where the fifth or sixth row would normally be. I thought that worked pretty well, although we were seated in front of that bridge, so it was a bit tricky to turn around and see what was happening back there at times.

The Play

Fundamentally, this was the same script and score as that used by Shotgun, though we noted several differences in particular scenes. I suspect those were differences between the Off-Broadway and Broadway versions, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with the Broadway version to know all the differences there. I'd say on that level, the words and music were at least 95% the same.

The Production

This is where we noticed a lot of differences, of course. From looking at their past production list, San Jose Playhouse comes at this from a more traditional musical theater background and approach, where Shotgun is more about plays and sometimes stages a musical. Of course, this being a Dave Malloy show, it's not really a traditional musical, either. But reading the artist biographies, it's also clear that some (notably Musical Director Stephen Guggenheim, who also plays Pierre) have opera backgrounds, and that definitely comes across in the production.

The set design by Jon Gourdine is attractive, but I question some of the choices, such as having double doors upstage center for entrances, but no curtain around it, so we see the actors coming across to that entrance. I realize some of this is probably limitations of the stage in the former movie space, but some discreet curtains or some lighting changes could have smoothed that out. Also, there is a raised section on each side upstage, and characters seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time going up and down for no apparent reason, other than there was a raised area to fill.

The musical and vocal work was strong: lots of instruments, well played, and good, strong voices. There were rather more problems with the mics and sound system than I would have expected from a company that does musicals--mics turned on late, so that lines were missed, and lots of extraneous mic noise. That felt a bit amateurish for a professional production.

There were definitely a few odd directorial and blocking choices, too. Many wouldn't be noticed by the casual observer, but since I happen to be deeply immersed in the show recently, I noticed things such as some stagings that directly contradict the lyrics being sung (e.g., singing "Andrey isn't here" repeatedly when in fact, Andrey is standing right there, or Pierre singing about Natasha standing in the middle of the drawing room while watching her descend a staircase). More serious were some blocking choices such as having Pierre standing directly in front of Natasha in a crucial moment so that many of the audience cannot see what she is doing, or Natasha walking into the room where Andrey and Pierre are having an important, intimate discussion so we can see her mixing and drinking poison, which totally distracts from the scene.

The costumes were really nice. For the most part, everyone has a single costume throughout, which is fine, though a bit confusing when the characters are all dancing about in an ensemble number. Why are Natasha and her family dancing about and celebrating Anatole's impending secret elopement? Put a coat on them or something!

The Bottom Line

Comet is a substantial and difficult undertaking, and San Jose Playhouse does a very credible job with it. They obviously have the resources to hire a good cast and musicians, and produce nice costumes and sets. With a bit more attention to the details of the staging, they could go from a very good show to an excellent one.

The show runs through May 28 at 3Below Theaters in downtown San Jose. Theater options are pretty limited in the south bay, so this is well worth checking out if you're inclined.