iTunes Exclusive Episode The Bodyguard The Musical

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Greetings Empire member and or members.
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Number 305
Representing the 305. What's up?
Welcome. My name is Rob. I'm the executive producer of the Clubhouse Podcast.
And there are certain songs they hear that make me think of tiny tunes.
And we're going to get to that.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode joining me across the desk as he does from time to time.
Is my co-host?
And a man who's been to a few live shows in his day, he is Chad. Welcome sir.
More than my fair share, just to be sure.
I'm going to get you a different clip for that. I'm not sure.
Yeah, I'm not saying it looks like it's about to fall apart.
Yeah. I bought some new clips for the studio and it looks like the mics may be a little larger than they should be for them.
I'll have to check that out later.
Whenever we do one of these things, it is to review something and this is no different.
We are reviewing a stage production today that is here in the Dallas Fort Worth area until July the 30th.
But it is a nationally touring company.
So you may want to check out and see when it's coming to a city near you.
It is the bodyguard to musical and we checked it out at music hall at Fair Park.
So shout out to everybody at Dallas Summer Musical to our buddy, Fruttons.
You score!
We're taking care of us and letting us check this out so we can review it for you.
As I open my written review, currently located at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
That is our website.
It's real simple. If you're over the age of 25, you need to be told what the bodyguard is.
Welcome back from the cave.
It is the early 90s and Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner make a film about Rachel Merrow.
Did I get that right? Did I say that right?
I believe that's her name, yes.
Merrin.
Merrin, no yet.
Rachel Merrin, who is a pop star who is trying to cross over into acting and on her way to try to get to an Oscar.
But she starts receiving threatening letters from a stalking fan.
And so a bodyguard named Frank Farmer is hired and shenanigans.
Based on a script from a very unlikely source.
Maybe one Lawrence Kasdan.
Yes.
So if you were alive and cognizant in the 90s, you know this story.
You know this soundtrack. It was everywhere.
It kind of solidified Whitney's iconic status.
I mean, she was already pretty much there.
But this was just the only kind of thing she had left to conquer really entertainment.
Kind of like Prince and Purple Rain.
It's kind of what put them over the edge.
Similar, but I would put them on the same level.
No, not quite.
The close.
Maybe you were a karaoke host for many, many years and maybe certain songs from this soundtrack maybe permeated through your shows for 16 years.
I don't know.
Or maybe you were a karaoke host.
I don't know.
Could be. You don't know.
I don't know.
So it was getting paid into a musical.
Not on Broadway.
Has not made Broadway yet.
I think I played Broadway.
I think I played Broadway.
As I had a very interesting conversation with the friend of the show Tracy Jordan at the intermission.
I think I played on London's West End.
Started there with the great Heather Headley.
There's another great R&B artist.
She originated the role on the stage as a tour.
Good choice.
In our Fairburg and this currently national touring company, it is the great Deborah Cox.
And that is with huge exclamation points and capitalized letters.
First of all, how are you doing? Good for us.
Secondly, we do want to put a caveat on this.
If you're going to see this musical and trust me, you'll find out our thoughts at the end of this thing.
Make sure you check the website because there are certain performances that she will not be in.
However, the young lady playing her understudy.
You're going to be okay.
That's all I'm saying.
So let's just get right to it.
A couple of things about this musical that you need to know.
Number one, make sure that you've gone to the restroom before it starts.
I'm going to leave it right there.
Just trust me on this.
Make sure you are completely waste-free when this starts.
You're not a fan of jump scares.
Oh, there's a couple of them.
But I'm saying right off the bat.
Secondly, this is a little bit different in the fact of A.
It's the shortest first act I think we've ever spent.
B, it's probably the longest second act we've ever spent.
And C, they're both the exact same length.
So it's an hour, 15 minute intermission, an hour.
Which I don't know that we've ever experienced in a musical before.
So it's probably balanced first and second act as far as length goes.
It stops pretty much where you'd expect it to before the break.
And this is also not just songs from the Bodyguard soundtrack.
These are songs that encompass her career.
I would say up to that point because I don't know that there's anything after the film that they put in the selection here.
I don't think so.
It's kind of like your-
Nothing for my love is your love.
Right, it's kind of like a Whitney's greatest hit compilation up to the point of the film's release.
I dug this, man.
Not a huge fan of the film just because of what the soundtrack did to my life for many years.
What the R-Swip, that soundtrack became to rape to rape.
Although I love Curtis Stegger's version of Elvis Costello's Peace Love and Understanding.
I loved this musical.
It was-
It had elements of modern technology, much like Dirty Dancing the Musical did,
where it framed things a little bit differently than a traditional musical would.
There's great lighting and effects.
Visually, it's absolutely stunning.
I loved the way the musical selections worked out.
I think the cast here is great.
I'm not going to say it's my favorite musical of the year,
because again, as we've talked about recently on this thing,
we've seen some strong material this year.
The bar's pretty high.
I mean, this year has probably been the strongest year we've spent reviewing stage productions
in the three or four years we've been doing this now.
Either we've gotten accustomed to it,
or just the quality of productions that we've seen this year have just been kind of staggering.
But this will also be way far from the bottom, too, for me.
Debra Cox absolutely destroys it.
What I love about her in this is she's not trying to be Whitney.
Yeah, that would have been the biggest mistake they could have possibly made
has tried to make.
And it was a very conscious choice.
It had to have been.
She didn't want to do Whitney, but she gave it enough of an essence of Whitney.
I guess is the word I'm looking for.
It was still respectful to her portrayal of the character,
but enough that she made it her own.
And I really dug that about it because it kept everybody going.
There was never a point where I looked around and people were just like,
okay, where's the thing?
She kept the audience's attention.
I really, really, really was not.
And I set the bar for her incredibly high walking into this joint.
I was not disappointed in any way, shape or form in her.
Frank Farmer played by Judson Mills, you might recognize him.
He was actually, most recently, he started an episode of Westworld.
He was, he did some Walker Texas Rangers.
He did a lot of work with Chuck Norris to three years on a soap opera.
So this guy's been around for a minute.
The only thing for me for him, and he can't help this.
There was a little bit of a height differential between them.
That was a little odd for me, but I thought he did fine for the role.
I mean, because a lot of people, and I know you're included,
maybe he wasn't up to par in the deal,
but I just thought his portrayal was on purpose on a certain level distant.
I don't know if it was, if I would say up to par,
it's just that with Whitney, and I know it's really unfair to make this comparison.
And maybe very unfair to make this comparison.
But with Whitney and Kevin, the chemistry was palpable.
And I've never seen the film, but I've seen scenes from it,
and I get that.
I can see them, I can see things transpiring the way they transpired in the film.
Here, I just didn't get that chemistry between those two.
Hmm, not between the two principles.
I see you and I saw it differently.
I mean, I thought they had great chemistry.
And maybe the chemistry between him and the girl that played...
Nicky?
Yes.
Who was?
...understudy.
Was palpable.
And maybe if I had seen her in that role, it would have been more convincing.
Nicky played by Jasmine Richardson.
Right, I don't, maybe I would be saying,
singing a completely different tune if she had been playing that role.
Because if something about them, the scenes that they shared together,
they clicked better.
It convinced me that that would work.
Whereas with him and Miss Cox, it just, I couldn't buy it.
They just didn't, they couldn't sell me on it.
And I don't know who's really to blame for that.
You know, there are certain things about the presentation
that just didn't sit quite well with me.
Every time they would go into slow motion when the stalker would show up.
But see, that was fine by me because I want to say that was in homage to the film.
And maybe so, but on film, it works.
Live, it just doesn't.
It looks kind of cheesy.
It didn't bother me.
It looks a little hokey the way the music slows down.
And just, he's always whipping his gun out.
And it looks like he's trying to be like Keanu Reeves and 47 Ronin.
It just, I just kind of clenched my teeth.
Just gritted my teeth a little bit.
It didn't really bother me.
It made me cringe.
And the stalker himself, he kind of became a punchline.
He was played by Willie D.
Actually, no, but it says in the performance, it was Willie D.
But he's actually one of the dancers.
Oh, that was in the beginning of that.
Yeah, that's assassin.
Not the stalker.
Let's see.
The stalker was played by Jorge Penaigua.
Penaigua.
There you go.
You're back on him with that.
It became like almost like a joke amongst the audience.
Every time he would show up and they were trying to make him look menacing and incredibly dangerous.
And everybody kind of started giggling a little bit.
See, I found that as nervous laughter more than anything.
And that's just the way I heard it.
And every time he would appear, they would telegraph his appearance way too early.
And it kind of took the suspense out of it.
You're like, okay, well, okay.
Oh, except one point.
Well, it wasn't.
I still jump scare at one point where he showed up.
Oh, yeah.
And the second act.
Okay, okay.
But as far as like the very end, I'm like, well, there he is.
And it just, it kind of drew it out.
I'm like, okay, we see the guy.
We know it's coming.
And then it's immediately followed by another really incredibly hokie slow-mo shot.
See, again, he didn't really bother me.
I, I, I loved this so much.
I loved how they went deep into the, the back catalog to make certain songs work.
I mean, run to you.
Oh, yeah.
Come on, dude.
Yeah.
Now, as far as musical performances go, you have no complaints from me.
None at all.
Um, it, it, it.
And yes, there was a scene in the karaoke bar until I'd say about that.
To me, that was one of the highlights because if for no other reason, his interpretation of a certain song.
Yes.
Because that's pretty much probably how you hear it every time somebody asks to sing.
And the three young ladies singing where do broken hearts go.
Very funny.
They stole that scene.
They, they, they pretty much.
I want to know how many times she had to do that scene without laughing knowing what was going on around her.
That's what I want to know.
She's like, she has to block out her peripheral vision.
I'm not even going to look over there.
You almost have to because it's so comical about these three drunk girls in a karaoke bar.
Then realizing that it's Rachel Marin in the room singing one of her songs.
They're taking selfies.
What's there is?
There is a suspension of disbelief involved in that because that wouldn't happen really much in real life.
No, they would have picked her from the get-go.
Or even them singing their own songs.
There's rights to that that you can't do because of record company contracts and things like that.
Yeah.
But again, suspension of disbelief.
It's a great scene.
Yeah.
It wraps up act one very, very nicely.
And again, we're talking about nods to monitor technology.
That's incorporated into the script.
They've updated that script.
So it reflects the way things go.
With social media and things like that.
It plays very heavily.
Opening with Queen of the Night, which I'm a big fan of that song.
I thought they did really well.
Great choreography in this.
I like it.
You got dancers who are singing, which I think is great.
I think I like Debra singing it more than I want.
You're sure I'm going to do it.
I'm not sure that I debate you on that.
Again, Debra Cox bringing it.
Absolutely bringing it.
But just because she may not be singing the lead,
don't worry, you're understudies.
You're understudies both here.
We have Dequeena Moore, Jasmine Richardson, and Naomi C. Wally.
The other two are two of the karaoke singers.
So you're going to be okay.
I love how they're just in here as college girls.
But they have names in this production that you can definitely tell.
And we're going to let it go because you can see it for yourself.
Yeah, I'm not going to spoil it.
I thought musically it was tight, great sound mix.
Everything visually worked really well for me.
I'm not sure if there's anything else we need to talk about
when we get to the final analysis.
Make sure you stick around for the curtain call.
Yeah, don't ever leave before the lights completely come up.
This is a Marvel Comics test for real Marvel Studios production.
Stick around for the post credits.
So the way we do the final analysis on the show,
we're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs down.
We're not going to give you letter grades, numbers, microphones,
anything like that.
What we're going to do is we're going to ask up the two questions.
Question number one is, would we see this production again?
If the answers know, then we're done here.
But if the answer is yes, this is a stage production.
We're going to ask the question, where do you want to sit?
Because depending on where you want to sit, and by the way,
I was looking up tickets for this the other night for a friend of the show
whose name I can't mention because there might be a surprise involved
for someone's spouse therein.
Very affordable.
Really?
You can find tickets for this show as low as $20.
Wow, really?
So yeah, so don't think that a night of the theater is going to break you back.
And guys out there, don't be like, oh, it's the theater.
Change your mindset.
It's a whole different ballgame.
So depending on where you want to sit, depends on how bad you want to go.
Chad, would you see this again?
Probably.
Where you're going to sit.
It's not an instant yet.
It's probably.
I mean, I would go just to watch your do her thing again.
Okay.
I'd probably sit close to the back of the front section.
A little bit further back from where we sat.
Yeah.
We sat audience right.
Probably about two thirds of the way down.
Yeah.
I would see this again.
I'm probably right there with you.
Be in that center section somewhere so you can take it all in.
But the beautiful thing about music called Fair Park is there's not a bad seat in
whole place.
Not really.
I mean, go check this out.
It is the bodyguard, the musical.
It's a lot of fun.
It's really well put together.
Make it a date night.
Make it a double date night.
Make it guys night out.
Girls night out.
Whatever.
So enjoy yourself.
It's playing here at Music Hall through July the 30th.
But this is a nationally touring company.
So check it out wherever you may be.
Also there's another guy whose Rachel's old bodyguard that you will recognize as one
of Penguin's old bodyguards on Gotham.
So there's a little bit of that going on there too.
It is the bodyguard, the musical.
Thanks again to everybody at Dallas Summer Musicals for bringing us out another successful
season for them.
And we're getting ready for their next season coming up later this year.
And a strong season coming up for them.
You ain't kidding.
So stick by the channel.
Thanks to our boy, Fransusco for helping us out.
Also, like I said earlier, I also got a chance to have a nice conversation with Tracy
Jordan, another one of our favorite people in the entire world that we get to deal with
all the time with Dallas Summer Musicals.
Thank you guys so much for everything you do for us.
That being said, we are going to do the plugs.
Visit our website.
www.theclubhousepodcast.com you can find our written reviews there as well, a bunch of
stuff you need to know.
Maybe some stuff you don't.
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Brittany Palmer, dancer.
I'm telling you, make it happen people.