OK, I promised so, I deliver.
I went to
MJ The Musical, London on the 29th of August which was Michael’s birthday. Right off the bat, I was a little disappointed that there was no mention of it. Ironically, I went to a Gorillaz gig the next day (completely unrelated in terms of style) and De La Soul played and dedicated a 5 song tribute to Michael “in memory of the late king”.
So, anyway,
do be warned, if you want to go into
MJ the Musical with fresh eyes, maybe don’t read the review or at least skip right to the overview at the end.
I will be spoiling a little, but will blur out major spoilers. My review is largely focused on the interpretation and themes rather than the sequence of what happened.
Also, I’m an English literature graduate so this will most likely be incredibly detailed and long, so, I
’ve highlighted some key aspects to make reading a little easier.
**Also trigger warning, the show contains quite a bit of focus on physical and emotional abuse as well as addiction. I will be talking about it in the review. Take care 
**
Venue:
Prince Edward Theatre in London is a fantastic venue. The seating organisation was a little bit confusing when booking. I decided to treat myself to dress circle tickets which was a fabulous experience. No notes here to be honest. Great views although a little bit obstructed to the left side of the stage from the dress circle. but not a major issue considering most of the actors stuck to the middle of the stage.
Intro:
As you walk in, there are signs everywhere that ask the audience not to join in with the song performances until the very end. I’m not really a theatre goer these days , but I’m assuming it’s common place to see on the west end. The problem was, it was difficult to pinpoint at which point we were allowed to join in and I could tell most audience members were very confused. I think this has much to do with the pacing towards the end, which I will talk about later.
I found some of the attention to detail, lovely.
For example, the stage was covered with a sheet which was partially transparent, but had Michael’s quotes written in his handwriting all over them. Lovely touch.
Right at the beginning of the show, the “dancers” are shown walking around stage stretching and chatting, to make it a more of an immersive experience for us. Soon you find out that you are a part of a rehearsal as Michael Jackson joins the dancers, while the first song plays.
The Story:
The setting of the story was fictionalised. It centred around Michael’s preparations for the Dangerous tour, while two fictional journalist were trying to do a piece on Michael. I thought it was a great set up for going back in time to show
Michael’s story from the pre-Motown days. It used facts from his life, but took some creative liberties on how Michael spoke about his life. It did heavily base them on things he said before in interviews, his book, etc.
Something which I didn’t expect was how heavily the musical focused on Michael’s lived experience of his traumas, something I will elaborate on.
There was only a slight insinuation as to the Jordy Chandler allegations, as “the family that’s hanging around is odd”, but everything took place before the accusations.
The mention of his
opioid use was very prevalent, but I thought they did it very tastefully and with sensitivity to the topic of addiction. Very often we see addicts being portrayed in media as broken or shameful people. But I really liked how the show dug into the root causes of addiction as a coping strategy, for not just the external pain that Michael suffered from the Pepsi incident, but also the pain that his father inflicted onto him. It humanised him. It showed that, just like anyone else, all he wanted was to make the pain go away and the medication he was prescribed, worked at least for a while.
Here’s the kicker: the musical portrayed his father,
Joseph, as the main
villain of the story. Of course we all know of the abuse that Michael and his brothers suffered at Joseph’s hand. But the musical didn’t shy away from portraying exactly what Michael described Joseph to be: cruel, cold, emotionally physically and psychologically abusive, and lacking in affection. It didn’t sugarcoat anything. As much as it showed
Katherine as a loving
nurturer, it also commented on her as being an
enabler of the abuse. At the same time I found myself empathising with both of them. The script managed to portray the
complexity of the family dynamic and how both of them were trying to do their best with what they had. It showed that Joseph and Katherine really believed they knew what’s best for the boys even though it inadvertently caused them and the most sensitive Michael the most pain.
But, what It really emphasised to me, was how
Michael had internalised his father’s voice and how much that ultimately wore him down: it drove him to the perfectionism that, although made him the genius he was, ultimately set up the foundation for his felt anguish and loneliness which became patterns throughout his life.
The story also touched on important aspects of Michael’s life like his struggles with vitiligo, breaking into the industry as a black man, leaving the Jacksons all
honourable mentions.
Michael the Person:
I really like how they
captured Michael’s personality. They showed him as a warm, loving, incredibly funny man (there were many ha ha moments that had the audience and stitches). Someone with a beautiful, caring, open heart, incredible sensitivity for his work and people around him and a regular human being.
It showed his child like behaviour without making it look ridiculous (eghm Man in the Mirror movie anyone
?).
I like that they didn’t shy away from talking about all of the “weird” stories that floated around him. But even in those instances, they made him very relatable and honestly, made me see him from a new perspective. Having struggled with an incredibly difficult relationship with my own father, I saw the parallels between the trauma that I’ve had to live with and the trauma which dominated Michael’s life. A lot of the things that happened to him; how he behaved, the people he surrounded himself with, all made sense.
Music and Performance:
The musical showcased all of Michaels best, from Motown to History. Although the storyline took place before History, they managed to tie in some History songs like
2Bad or
They Don’t Care About Us.
I loved that it featured some of Michael’s lesser known songs like
Tabloid Junkie, or Price of Fame.
What I found very disappointing, which is a very common theme with any Michael Jackson production, is the complete lack of feature of
Invincible. I’m a huge invincible defender. I find that album to be so severely underrated as most of us do. But this musical being greenlit by Sony and the estate holders, John Branca and McClain it really comes as no surprise. I mean, surely they could have fit in
Unbreakable or
Threatened.
Ahh, anyway.
The performance of the songs and the dancers I thought were fantastic. I lacked the spontaneity of Michael which is to be expected. Nobody can beat him.
Jamaal Fields-Green did a decent job at portraying main Michael and I thought he is a fantastic dancer. I wasn’t super keen on the singing or the way he spoke. We all know Michael had a very distinct soft spoken tone, but at times it felt like Green was parodying him. Because of that, although I haven’t seen the New York version of the musical, judging by what I’ve seen online I think Roman Banks is a much better MJ (sorry). I did however really love
Mitchell Zhangazha who played a fantastic Thriller era Michael. He flowed so well and sang equally brilliantly.
Matt Mills as Joseph was absolutely incredible. No notes there honestly. The man carried the weight of Joe‘s character so well.
KoKo Alexandra who played Katherine did a fairly good job, although I thought she played her a little bit too strong. Although Katherine was certainly a strong woman, I always found Michael took on her strength in presence, yet gentleness in character.
The musical sequences were fantastic. I really enjoyed seeing the Jackson 5 performances,
Off the Wall and
Thriller medleys were incredible.
The highlight of the night for me was the second performance of T
hriller.
And warning of major spoilers ahead.
Joe is portrayed as the literal devil that takes Michael’s soul and controls him in a very dramatic yet quite sad and disturbing dance between the two of them. But it puts such an interesting spin on Thriller for me. It almost made it seem like that’s what Michael had subconsciously in mind when he wrote Thriller. So huge props to the writers they did a fantastic job at interpreting this song.
Pacing and Ending:
Here’s where I run into a few issues, but I will start with the positive. For the most part the pacing was fine. We jumped back-and-forth between “present day” Dangerous Michael and Michael from the past which was very easy to follow. Something happened towards the end and honestly no spoiler warning needed because I don’t even know what it was that made it feel so off.
It felt like they tried to cram a little bit too much into 2 1/2 hour run time especially in the last 30 minutes.
With the “Thriller” scene, I mentioned before being as dynamic as it was, it felt a little bit like there was no resolution to it. Which fair enough, you could say the resolution in his life was the ending of it, which was not the intended focus of the musical. but I still think the story should have a resolution.
There was a
Man in the Mirror sequence that came after, which made completely no sense to me. I have a vague idea what they were going for, but it felt somewhat incomplete or rushed.
I love the sentiment of ending on
Man in the Mirror as accumulation of what Michael’s life was about but…
coming off of the whirlwind of Joseph Jackson becoming the literal devil in Michael’s life to “ oh yeah if I look at myself in the mirror, I can fix this” feels a little bit of a stretch and a reach. What made you come to the conclusion? How exactly are you going to reach that point? What exactly are you seeing?
Again, I get what the directors/writers were going for, but it needed a little more time to settle and explore the theme to bring it to a more natural resolution.
Everything sort of felt like “here’s
Man in the Mirror so you feel good leaving the theatre. And now let’s sing a bunch snippets of songs of Michael’s songs. This was the confusing bit for the audience. Everybody stood up at
Man in the Mirror to applaud but were visibly confused when the show kept going. At some point, they took away the props for
Man in the Mirror and brought them back out again after some period of time. Everybody sort of stood there like “is this the time we’re allowed to join in?”. And then they started playing all of the random snippets of Michael songs and I think people were just done. Some people started leaving.
I honestly didn’t know what hit me. I feel like I blanked out for the last 10 minutes out of pure confusion.
Overview:
6/10
Did I love the show? Love is a strong word. I definitely enjoyed it.
I loved seeing Michael from this different human, yet loving perspective. I loved hearing the song interpretations and medleys. It was a real singalong experience all the way through. For the most part I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing. I had a couple of moments of tears. I loved most of the musical sequences.
But some major disappointments were the parody-like nature of Green’s speaking voice,
Complete lack of features from Invincible (Justice for Invincible I swear I love that album so much), and the confusing and puzzling ending.
I really expected to leave in tears, anything Michael related makes me weep like a baby. And in fairness, there were a few touching moments where I definitely shed a tear. I wanted to feel a sense of fulfilment, but I left feeling a bit frazzled, and like I was lacking resolution.
Alright, after a solid two hours, here we are! These are all my thoughts about MJ the Musical.
I really hope you enjoy my tangent. Let me know what you think.
Sending so much LOVE,
Susie
. That answers my question if the musical is the same in every city or if the shows are different - seems to be nearly the same everywhere and I agree with a lot of things you wrote.
