Annie

[shannon_a]

Went to see Annie tonight. It was our second Berkeley Playhouse musical, and the start of their new 2011-2012 season. Overall, it was an entirely enjoyable experience. I think the libretto isn't quite as strong as that of Seussical, which we saw last season, but it's nonetheless obvious why it's survived some 35 years as a popular musical. The Playhouses' performances, choreography, directing, and general enthusiasm were all quite good, which was what I'd really loved when we saw Seussical and what caused us to get season tickets for this year.

The stand-out performance in the show is "Hard Knock Life", which is just the 2nd song in the show. It's entirely performed by the kids in the orphanage, and they were jaw-droppingly good. The staccato beating of the wash basins added immense depth to the piece while I gawked at the artful swinging of mops, which looked really dangerous, but was carried off flawlessly. And, the kids were the best part of the show (again), so that piece was nice also because it was entirely theirs.

When I heard "Hard Knock Life", I was also suddenly drawn back to my own youth, because I remembered Hard Knock Life, with those metallic percussions, playing as part of an ad on TV for Annie when I was growing up. It must have been showing at some local theater for an extended time.

I'd been less enthused about this show than some of the others on the schedule because I thought of it as a kid's show. I was somewhat surprised that this wasn't entirely the case. Yeah, there are a lot of kids in the show, but there's also some pretty strong historical basis for everything and some discussion of real problems and issues. I was particularly surprised by an extremely biting song about Herbert Hoover in the first act.

Overall, a very enjoyable show, and my recommendation for the Berkeley Playhouse stays very strong.