The Simple Magic of Once

                My favorite thing about New York City is that you can wake up in the morning and have no idea what adventures await.  My traveling companion and I had planned go to the Book of Mormon lottery in hopes of getting tickets to the Sunday matinee, with our back-up plan being getting tickets to a different show at the TKTS booth.  Well, somehow we got wrong information about show times and missed the lottery completely, but it turned out to be a stroke of luck for us.  We headed into Times Square and got tickets for the matinee performance of Once – one of the best unplanned experiences I’ve had in quite some time.

Playbill with Autographs

                I am a true believer that theatergoing is an experience, not a passive activity.  The folks at Once clearly agree with me.  The show was truly an experience from the second we entered the doors of the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.  The stage at Once is (before the show and at intermission) a real bar, where audience members are invited to come and purchase a drink.  We went right up on stage and bought ourselves a beer each.  I’ve never actually been to Ireland (sigh!), but it felt like we were in an Irish pub, right down to chatting with the bartender (he heard us talking about Sleep No More, so we filled him in on that as best we could).  We hung out on stage for a while and then took our seats (I like to have ample time to read my Playbill before a show).  Cast members came out onto the stage while audience members were still buying and drinking their beverages, and started playing and singing traditional Irish and Czech songs.  It was organic, like music that would truly spring up in a pub.  Slowly and without much fuss, the audience was directed off the stage and to their seats as the cast continued to entertain us.  I hardly even noticed the stage clearing of bar patrons.  The transition into the beginning of the show was perfectly seamless as Steve Kazee (excuse me while I swoon) began singing.

                I don’t want to give too much away, especially for those who haven’t seen the movie, but I’m willing to take the (possibly controversial) stance that this show is better than the movie.  I know I’m not the only one who thinks so.  The show was hilarious and heartbreaking in all the right ways.  I loved how natural and organic the music was and that the band and the cast were one and the same.  We had the marvelous experience of seeing Andrea Goss, the understudy, go on for Girl.  She absolutely blew me away.  I love to see understudies go on, and this experience did not disappoint.  The show was so seamless and the transitions were tight and natural.  There wasn’t a whole lot in the way of sets and props, which worked as a big plus for the show – no distractions for the audience for big set changes, etc.  The main thoroughfare for the characters was the very same pub where we had gotten our pre-show beers.

                In all, the haunting/delicate/gorgeous/moving music, the perfect mix of simplicity and complexity, the phenomenal acting and singing, and the flow of the book all came together to create not just theatre, but an experience which will be on my mind for some time.  Well done, Once.