The Marvelous Wonderettes: So Nice I Saw Them Twice

Remember how I wrote a very Pollyanna-esque report on The Marvelous Wonderettes?

I was a little apprehensive that perhaps what I wrote was too generous and glowing.  So I returned to the show.  Was it really everything I thought?  After all, I was distracted by more than a dozen of my friends in attendance, all of my friends involved in the show, documenting for a friend, the fact that it was preview night, and the company of my mother.

I am proud to say that the show was so wonderful I am blogging about it again.  Because it is that enjoyable and because the four-member cast only have so many friends and family - they deserve audiences larger than 30 people.  Go see the show!  Details here.

I have never cried watching a movie, so I'm definitely not that crying over-emotional type of girl.  Yet, Kristen Fox began to sing her solo of Secret Love and about thirty seconds in my arms welled with goose flesh and my eyes began to tear up.  To me, this may be the most tender moment of the show - the only moment where one of the characters looks entirely insecure and stands there baring her soul without any humor or choreography - just raw emotion.  I did not even notice this number the first time I saw the show, which is why I know was distracted.   I cannot imagine this song being sung more perfectly.  Ever.  By Anyone.  This song came from her soul and from the depths of perfection vocally.  Wow.  Then she knocked my socks off with the ending of You Don't Own Me in a way that was definitely not executed in my first viewing.

What about the rest of the girls?  They have found their balance in the group numbers and in their belting solos that was not there my first time.  I have never really experienced seeing a show once and then seeing it again only a week later and having it be exponentially improved...but it was.  Wow.  The little moments were more noticeable in the mannerisms of each character - Cindy Lou's facial expressions of jealousy and brattiness, Betty Jean's awkwardness in every movement, Missy's shyness, Suzy's all-American sweetheartness and gum-chewing.

A special surprise for me was when I was innocently sitting in the back near producer Stephanie Johnson, and she motions for me frantically.   The next thing I know she points to the script, saying, "This is your line!" as a microphone enters my grasp.  Thank heavens it was the easy closing line, "Ladies and Gentlemen!  The Marvelous Wonderettes!"

For a Marvelous time tonight and Saturday, call on the Wonderettes.