Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to Phantom of the Opera is a mixture of brilliant and unengaging. Bob Crowley gives us a new dimension of design in his sets and costumes which are nothing less than breathtaking.
The story is simple: it's ten years later; Raoul, who married Christine, has become a drunkard and a gambler; they are in Coney Island, and Christine will have to take a job singing to support her husband and child. The Phantom is there and is still pursuing Christine. The songs (music by Webber, lyrics by Glenn Slater) are not memorable, and it starts with a mournful tone. But setting the action in Coney Island gives them (book by Webber and Ben Elton) the opportunity to create some theatricality by incorporating the flashy acts, Cirque style, that might have been there a hundred years ago (e.g., dancing girls, acrobatics). These tangents from the story are exciting and entertaining. Of course, all of the performers sing and act well (Sierra Boggess as Christine has a beautiful voice), this is, after all, an A L W musical.
Crowley's pier design is thrilling, his horse and carriage is magic. The Phantom was a singing teacher, and now he becomes a kind of Frankenstein.
Director Jack O'Brien does his best to keep it all flowing, Jerry Mitchell's choreography is lively, and lighting by Paule Constable is super. But the show has plateaus. Without the "numbers," like a group beach scene with bathing beauties and the spectacle of the brilliant design the show would be rather boring, as in a slow ballad that is all exposition. Unfortunately, the actor playing the Phantom, Ramin Karimloo, is not sympathetic enough for the show's ending: he plays it tight and cold, and we can't identify with him or have sympathy for him. So, as we say in show business, "I walked out whistling the scenery."
