MG and I saw Mr. Lasko in Rogers Memorial Theatre's production of Jekyll and Hyde tonight. This has always been one of my three favorite Broadway shows of all time, along with Les Miserables (the triumph of the human spirit plus great music. How could you possibly go wrong?) and Phantom of the Opera (not so much with the inspiring, but very much with the nice music. And I love a good villain protagonist.) Which ties in nicely to why I love Jekyll and Hyde...I mean, most of you know that I'm kind of weird, so it will come as no surprise that I really, really like when
evil guys sing. I guess I just really like evil guys.
Prince Arthas,
Inu Yasha, and
Knives are just a few examples. Let's just ignore the fact that these particular examples also happen to be cartoons. It's late and I'm tired, and I'm positive I also like some non-cartoon evil guys. MG and Wren can help me think of more, I'm sure. But it's not the cartoonness that makes them cool. It's the evil. Stop looking at me like that.
But in order to be a good villain (yes there IS such a thing!) you need a few essentials. I would say the most important thing is a good villain laugh. Seriously. I guess you can sometimes get by with an evil smile...(think Nero, Wren) or a smirk would probably do...but you're only half-rate until you can get a nice, good laugh. And Mr. Lasko had an excellent evil laugh.
That's not to say that was the only good thing about the production--in fact, the whole performance was absolutely fantastic. I really liked his posture changes from Jekyll to Hyde and back, and he handled the
Confrontation well, which is one of the hardest songs to pull off that I've ever seen done on a stage. All in all, it was absolutely cool and was a pleasure to watch.
Mwa ha ha ha ha!
