The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return

I traveled into Seoul to see Moulin Rouge yesterday, and I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I would! I was really hoping I'd get to see a musical while I'm in Korea, partly as I just love musicals so much, but I was also kind of curious about how the experience would compare to the West End or Broadway. I knew there would obviously be a language barrier, so when I saw a poster advertising Moulin Rouge over Christmas it felt perfect as I'd already seen it on Broadway so knew it well and had something to compare it to. And looking at it objectively without all of the emotions of seeing my favorite actor Aaron Tveit and it being the show that made me realize my dream of traveling to New York, I think I actually enjoyed it more in Korea? Although I admit I do think a big part of it was the language barrier as I couldn't tell the awful script so I could just project what they were saying and the tone didn't feel so inconsistent and it overall just felt less Glee like (Moulin Rouge is one of my all time favorite movies, and one of the worst written musicals I've ever seen. My feels on it are COMPLICATED)

The staging was ever so slightly different for Korea, there was no 'can-can seating' for one, which is where the stage in the Al Hirschfeld literally wraps around the first few rows of the audience. I think the stage was just too high for that to be viable, and it didn't hurt the show at all - if anything I always felt that the people in the can-can seats probably missed out on a lot of the show. There also weren't any side stages, or dancers gyrating in cages before the show started, which I can't say took away from the experience.

Top two photos of the Korean production, while the bottom photo is of the Broadway production for comparison. You can also just see the people sitting in the middle of the stage in the bottom photo, which are the can-can seats.

I felt like the emphasis is more on the acting in Korea than it perhaps is on Broadway and the West End. Like with Aaron Tveit's performance as Christian specifically I feel like fans are more impressed by his singing ability and whether or not he 'opts up' during El Tango De Roxanne rather than how he's actually performing the character, and with all of the actors I saw in the New York show they just felt more concerned with a voice performance and just projecting the acting as big as they could. And don't get me wrong I loved it and could tell how hard everyone was working on that stage, but the acting in the Korean production didn't feel as exaggerated or over the top and so just felt more believable as a result (and the theater in Korea was much bigger than the Al Hirschfeld too, before anyone tries to jump in with that). The Korean cast were still all incredible singers, but it didn't feel like the sole purpose of the performance, and if the singing had to be taken down a notch for an acting choice then so be it. I'm not saying either is better, it just felt like the priorities were different between the two productions and I liked it a lot more and I was able to get really lost in the show. I even shed a few tears when Satine died as the whole emotional turmoil of the characters leading up to that point just felt so much better executed than what I saw in New York which fell a bit flat.

I really loved the chemistry between the two leads, I saw Lee Choong Joo as Christian and Kim Ji Woo as Satine (there are two main casts as they perform more than 8 shows per week). Christian was perfect, he was so fresh faced with wide-eyed wonder that it felt very believable that he'd get obsessed with Satine and this was his first experience with love, whereas Satine felt older and world-weary by comparison. At least until halfway through Elephant Love Medley, when she begins to fall for Christian and starts to light up around him, and she's devastated by the Duke later in the show. It felt like such a natural progression to their relationship, and I believed in it, unlike on Broadway where I always got the vibe that Karen Olivo and Aaron Tveit didn't like each other much in real life which spilled over into complete indifference on the stage so I never bought into their romance. And I feel bad saying that because I really love Aaron and I feel like I'm really dragging him in this entry, but I truly feel that Christian is his weakest role he's ever done which is why it pains me so bad that he's so attached to it.

The whole entire Korean cast were amazing, with particular shout out to Zidler and Nini. I also really liked Lee Chang Yong as the Duke, a role that I found kind of ridiculous on Broadway, but he felt much less comical and more genuinely threatening in this production. Several times I felt like he had a kind of young De Niro energy, and he seemed like he was deriving actual pleasure from making these people as miserable as possible, which makes more sense for this iteration of the character honestly as he doesn’t really have any other motive unlike the movie.

I don't mean to do so many direct comparisons between Broadway and Seoul, but it's difficult not to when I have such an emotional attachment to this show. And I do feel like a lot of my preference for the Korean production comes down to the fact that I couldn't understand what they were saying, so I wasn't internally playing 'Name That Tune' every five minutes, and I couldn't pick up on the cheesy dialogue or inappropriate tone for the moment. I could just pretend to myself that they were saying the right thing for the given moment, and it's kind of a shame because it proves that this show could of worked if it was better written by people who actually cared about and understood the source material, which I felt the Korean production obviously does.

As for the actual theater experience in Korea: I was so anxious leading up to it, more so the idea of getting to my seat and having the box office staff (I had to collect my ticket, and OMG I'm so excited over a real, actual ticket and not a QR code!!! They even gave free photo cards of the leads 🥰 I hate this shift to digital only options in Europe so much, give me my memento!!!), the usher, potentially the audience members to get to my seat, and having them find out I couldn't speak Korean and omg why is she even here if she can't understand the show?? Of course none of that happened, and everything was fine. If anything I was surprised at how few people I had to interact with compared to the West End or Broadway: there were no security or bag checks, no one telling you where your seat is, staff in general felt kind of minimal. Other than the box office, the only person I interacted with was the usher checking my ticket as I went in and I could get away with a simple "감사합니다"

There's no food or drinks allowed in the actual theater which I liked a lot, as someone with auditory processing issues it really affects my ability to focus on and hear the show when someone is loudly chewing and rustling packets behind me, so I really appreciated that. For the actual BlueSquare Theatre specifically there isn't much of a rake to the seating, and the mezzanine/dress circle felt like it started about 5 miles back from the stage. I was 4th row from the front in the orchestra/stalls, which felt perfect for the height of the stage. Unlike London there's ample leg room and you don't have to fold yourself up like a pretzel to sit down. I also noticed a lot of people were there by themselves, which also made me really happy. I go to the theater by myself a lot, and the West End is intent on making this more and more difficult by even refusing to sell less than two tickets at a time in some instances which is gross. I like cultures that support independence!

I know my blog readership is exclusively Western, but I thought I'd detail it in case you ever find yourself over here. And I really do recommend going, I had so much fun and it's one of my favorite experiences I'd had in Korea. It also felt kind of testament to just how much I love musical theater as I just switched off to the language barrier and got into that zone and thoroughly loved it. It’s just the medium, it means so much to me.

I saw a poster on my way back to the train station for Sweeney Todd, so I guess now the question is do I go see that as well 😈

Oh! You Pretty Things

I went to the antiques mall today, and as it'll probably be a while until I get to go again so I figured it was a perfect excuse to take some photos.

I love all of the Black Forest bear carvings. This one's an ashtray and you put matches in the bear's backpack, but you could easily repurpose it for sewing notions or the like. Look at that face, he just wants to guard your stuff!

It's time to try defying gravity

I traveled to London yesterday, and I am so absolutely beyond exhausted. According to my Apple Watch I walked just over 25,000 steps, and I was awake for a total of 27 hours (after an insomnia driven night of 2.5 hours sleep 💀) It was intense! And now everything hurts!

I started out at the V&A as there's currently a free exhibition on called Re:imagining Musicals which I was curious about. It's about 50% new stuff and 50% things that they usually display in the 'Theatre And Performance' section that was jiggled around and repurposed. The way they've moved everything around makes it much more interesting to look at so I hope they keep it like this from now on and it's not temporary.

The exhibition starts with a display dedicated to the world of Oz and it's many adaptations, including Wicked, which I obviously found really exciting. They had Elphaba's dress on display too, but as it was right at the beginning everyone was kind of bottlenecked into a small area which made it difficult to see on such a busy day. I wasn't bothered as they have Elphaba's dress on display at the Victoria Apollo too, and it's actually better as it isn't obscured by glass and you can even touch it if you want to. I was more excited by the 3rd edition of The Wizard of Oz sitting right there! What I wouldn't give for an early edition of that book.

Satine!! Now this is new. I have mixed feelings on Moulin Rouge! The Musical, but I felt quite emotional seeing this as it reminded me of seeing Karen Olivo descending from the top of the Al Hirschfeld stage wearing it. And the details are just gorgeous! That bead work!!

The set design was one of the best things about & Juliet (second only to the costumes!) so I loved getting to see scale models of the artwork behind it all.

I've developed mixed feelings about Frozen The Musical too, especially since the Frozen II additions. I've seen it on Broadway and a couple of times in London and ultimately decided that it's good and I love some of the additional songs, but it misses a lot of what I love so much about the movie. But I still loved getting to see Olaf! This is the version of him Elsa and Anna build out of toys when they're kids.

There was a lot more that I didn't photograph just as it's based on shows I'm personally less interested in so don't think it's restricted to just this. It's a pretty expansive exhibit and I'd recommend it!

I had hoped to also visit the Beatrix Potter exhibition at the V&A but their online ticketing service was down and I wasn't bothered enough to queue, so I decided to walk up to Oxford Street which ended up being A Mistake. Like, just get the Tube, why am I like this? I generally prefer to walk as London isn't that big and you can see so much more that you'd otherwise miss, but this was pretty far with nothing to look at and I don't recommend it. And because of all the walking I didn't really have a whole lot of time to do much else beyond grab some food and a lot of coffee. I did stop by the Disney Store as I'd saved up to get a Mickey Mouse jacket I'd seen just a couple of weeks ago when I saw Hamilton, but they didn't have it anymore :( Crushed.

Seeing Wicked was as special as always, although it seemed to be a bit of an off day for some of the cast and everyone around me was talking about it during intermission. Glinda was absolutely perfect, I remember not feeling too confident about Helen Woolf the first time I saw her (all the way pre-Covid, OMG!) but her Glinda has really grown on me and her performances are a real highlight. Mark Curry has taken over as the Wizard, and I really loved how natural he managed to make the role. To be honest the Wizard is a character I'm usually underwhelmed by, I think because he's choreographed so theatrically that it often just seems too over the top and corny but Mark made it work. And even though some of the performances were so-so I’m still thrilled to have seen it as there’s no such thing as a bad Wicked performance. It's truly my happy place and I just spend each and every show trying to soak in as many details as possible.

They had some new merch! I don't usually collect the Wicked snow globes, they're really collectible among fans but I've always thought the quality of the molding is kind of janky for how much they cost, but I just had to get this one. It's not often they take much notice of Fiyero, and I love his romance with Elphaba so much since reading the book. I even feel like they tried to deepen Fiyero's skintone a little too which made me happy and is good to see! You can see the back here too. Honestly the quality is kind of disappointing, I've bought more detailed snow globes from Disneyland Paris for half the cost, but I'm happy with the representation and how it'll look on my collection shelf. A good buy regardless!

I also got a necklace (the usher asked if I visited a lot as I bought both the brand new things and I felt so called out 💀), and I totally did not go to London for a bag but I bought one anyway and I adore it. I was walking past TK Maxx, not even going in, and saw it through the window and did a double take. My orange Kånken is getting really beat up looking and I've felt for a while it's probably time to retire it. This couldn't be more perfect!

Must be the season of the witch

Autumn is truly my favorite time of year, and my most cherished thing to do is just simply walk around and see the trees change. It happens so quickly and I like to be able to capture it. It's like witnessing real magic.

I wanna be in the room where it happens

So I finally got round to seeing Hamilton on Monday. I've listened to the OBC before and never really vibed with it, to be honest hip hop isn't really my thing which probably isn't a surprise to anyone. And so I kind of guessed that the show wouldn't really be my cup of tea either which is why it's taken me until now to get round to it (plus it's one of the most expensive shows on the West End!). But I still wanted to go and actually see it with my own two eyes at some point to give it a fair shot as listening to a cast recording is obviously no where near the same as getting the full context of a show. And yes I know there's the pro-shot on Disney+, but to be honest I don't really like watching recordings of theater. Watching something on that scale through my 15" laptop screen isn't really giving it a fair shot either, especially with my ADHD brain making me want to skip ahead. I need to be a captive audience member. If I can't see something in person, then I'd rather just not bother.

The Victoria Palace Theatre that currently houses Hamilton is right by Wicked, and it felt every shade of wrong having to walk straight past it.

I can't say I had a bad time and it was enjoyable enough, but as I guessed from the beginning it wasn't really my cup of tea and seeing it in action didn't really change that for me. I can appreciate that it's a good musical in that it's well paced, well characterized, it hit every emotional beat that it needed to, had some good melodies, and I personally adored the costumes, I think that was hands down my favorite part and I was marveling at the details every time they changed. I always felt the costumes didn't look particularly impressive in the photographs, but boy was I wrong! So I'm glad I got to see it. It felt weird calling myself a musical theater fan without having this on my seen list, so I’m happy to have crossed it off if nothing else. But it also didn’t change my mind on thinking Lin-Manuel Miranda is over hyped XD

I admit I’m far from the most knowledgeable about US history being European and all, but it has always struck me as a weird story to simplify into a Broadway show. I feel like I want to give it some grace as while I want to rag on the historical accuracy, it also drives me crazy when people do that with Anastasia because it's not supposed to be historically accurate and never once presents itself as that. I also do genuinely hate when people won't let anyone enjoy anything and use it as some kind of superiority complex, like no one is allowed to like flawed things and just accept that absolutely nothing is perfect. And I'm 100% sure I do not have any fresh takes here, but I just had the overall sense when watching it that I'm not sure colorblind casting the Founding Fathers is as woke as it thinks it's being, and it felt weird to me to see African American culture painted over these racist historical figures. I get Miranda wanted to modernize the story and make it relevant for audiences, but implying everyone in the US is an immigrant and shares the same struggle when at the beginning many were colonizers and those who weren't were either forced there through slavery, or Indigenous and being slaughtered, feels insensitive at best. There’s casual mentions here and there of the slavery that was going on behind the scenes, but it just felt a bit tone deaf and uncomfy and I guess I worry about how it's reframing history. Especially to foreign audiences who may not know any better.

I didn't get to do much else in London as I wasn't feeling great (it turned into full blown sinusitis by the next day and I had to get antibiotics, fun) but I did go back to Urban Outfitters for the vintage jacket I'd seen the previous week when I saw Wicked. I think it's a High School cheerleading jacket? It's not anything I have any knowledge of, I'm not even sure why I'm so taken with it, but I'd tried it on before and couldn't get it out of my head and was so happy to see it was still there.

I like that it has the original badges of when Krista competed in 1988 and 1990, plus a picture of I assume Krista herself. I think that's why I'm so charmed by it because this really isn't anything I've ever been drawn to before, but I can really see it has a history and I absolutely love that. I Googled 'Piner' and it appears to be a school in Santa Rosa, California. I bet Krista would find it absolutely wild that her old school jacket ended up in the vintage section of an Urban Outfitters on the opposite side of the globe.

I also ended up getting the blu ray of Elvis which is now the only movie I physically own. I used to have a pretty huge DVD collection, but probably like many gave it up for streaming (and pirating) which feels so much easier. But the past couple of years I've been getting increasingly fed up with just picking everything off of a digital list as nothing is tangible anymore. I started by buying my Switch games as cartridges instead of downloads, the odd physical book, and a couple of months ago I started buying vinyl again. More recently with all of the talk about how some movies and TV shows are being silently removed from streaming platforms like some kind of censorship got me thinking about how I really ought to start collecting my favorite movies too. As I'm starting from scratch I figured I'd go with blu ray this time as the resolution is better and they usually have more special features. Which is honestly another thing I miss from before, when we'd get DVDs with entire extra discs of making of documentaries and behind the scenes.

One short day in the Emerald City

I went to see Wicked yesterday, mostly as I hadn't seen it in a while and it felt like the most convenient day for me to travel, but it ended up being the 16th anniversary show! I literally had no idea, and it's a weird coincidence as I accidentally caught the 35th anniversary of Phantom of the Opera last year too. It's like I have a sixth sense for these things, but no actual awareness.

It wasn't really a whole lot different from a regular show, I didn't even realize right up until the end when they gave a speech after the bows and dropped some confetti and balloons. It felt good to be back though, seeing this show always feels like coming home. Which is a phrase that feels so trite, but I don't know how else to describe it, I just feel the most 'me' when I'm there. Sharing my interests is something that I've always struggled with as it's not something people were ever kind to me about so I've felt like I had to hide my special interests so people wouldn't make fun of me, and it's still something I find difficult to open up about. It's funny because the more I talk about something then the less it probably actually means to me, which then skews people's perceptions of me which I get frustrated about. I'm working on it! But this show is so very important to me, and every time I see it is so special.

But there's no place like London

I traveled to London on Thursday, but I've had some mysterious nausea bug ever since so I didn't feel like writing about it until now. I mostly went to see &Juliet, and I also stopped by the Jack The Ripper museum which I'll put behind a cut at the bottom because, you know, murder.

I didn't know a whole lot about &Juliet before going other than that it was some kind of riff off of Romeo & Juliet and it's had some polarizing reviews. It's a jukebox musical that literally opens with a Backstreet Boys song though, so it's really not anything to be taken that seriously. And I had a lot of fun seeing it! It's just the right amount of silly and very lighthearted, and to be honest I felt like it was the jukebox musical that Moulin Rouge wishes it could be and failed (the musical, not the movie). The score and book worked together really seamlessly, and the music always matched the tone of what was happening on stage. I guess I can understand not liking it if you're a Shakespeare purist, but it's not supposed to be that deep and there's enough straight Shakespeare adaptations out there already. Romeo's introduction to Jon Bon Jovi's It's My Life absolutely killed me, and I really loved the sets and costume design. The costumes were a blend of Elizabethan and modern street wear which sounds like it could be a hot mess but worked really well. I would absolutely go see it again!

Otherwise I mostly did a whole lot of nothing and enjoyed every single second of it. I ended up doing about 20,000 steps and I'm not even sure how? I just had a really chill time looking through my favorite clothing stores and trying on a bunch of stuff I had no intention of buying, browsing the art and book stores, and just really taking my time with it. It was really nice not to be in a rush or have anywhere to go and just enjoy the city.