*Tristan and Yseult,* Nov 5, 2026

I saw Tristan and Yseult at St. Ann's Warehouse on Nov 5, 2026. Please note that this trailer was from a version a few years ago with a totally different cast:

I'm a fan of St. Ann's - - like their older cousin in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, they're presenters rather than creating orignal content. And what a joy to have some of the whackiest stuff being done all around the world brought to us in New York City.

I was drawn to Tristan and Yseult because I'm such a fan of the Wagner opera. I've seen it six times, the only opera I've seen that many times is Salome. The blurb on the St. Ann's website described it as funny, touching, and imaginative, with live music (but just hints of Wagner) and "low-fi aerial acrobatics." Sounded like a fun night at the theatre.

Let's say it was intermittently brilliant. Which is better than consistently mediocre...? Director and choreographer Emma Rice might have had a better sense of what works and what doesn't. The show has been touring on and off for twenty years, so she's had time to figure that out. It was two and a half hours long with an intermission and I think it would have been much more effective as an hour and a half with no intermission. Everyone's favorite thing, right?

The show had a live band (trumpet, trombone, violin, guitar, bass, drums, many singers) that contritubed underscoring for most of the show (music by Stu Barker). They did a number of short songs to start the show, ending with "Love Hurts," sung with aching tenderness and sweet, fuzzy harmonies by the entire ensemble.

The dancing was particularly thrilling, especially from my favorite performer, Matthew Churcher, an impish ginger who was wonderfully expressive in his dancing.

His character seemed like the Melot character from the opera, the guy who turns on Tristan and causes his downfall. One of the first numbers of the show was a giddy, violent dance for him, beating up a succession of guys through high kicks and grinning punches, all the while lip-synching to Yma Sumac! To paraphrase Jerry Maguire, "You had me at 'Yma Sumac'."

He was standing next to me in the aisle, smiling, and dancing a bit in the bridge from the intermission and the start of the second half and I will always regret not standing up and dancing with him!

The biggest misfire of the show was having a man play Yseult's gal pal - - Brangäne in the opera. The actor playing her was amusing for a while, like John Cleese on Monty Python. That’s amusing in a five-minute sketch but can become tiresome if sustained longer. But then she was given a startlingly vulnerable scene in the second act that almost made up for the annoying slapstick in the first act.

Yseult (aka Isolde) was played by Nandi Bhebhe, an actress with lots of charisma, a strong point of view, and a beautiful singing voice. Tristan was played by John Leader, who gave a master class in the power of stillness. The two of them had sizzling chemistry. The highlight of the show was their first love scene, after they've drunk the love potion. They each had one wrist tied to a cable and ensemble members on the side raised them off the floor and flew them around a bit, culminating in them making out in mid-air.

The second act started with another string of numbers by the band and the singers in the ensemble. The narrator of the show was played by Stephanie Hockley in a white 50s Dior-style dress and black cat-eye sunglasses. She has a glorious voice and sang Nilsson's "Without You" ("I can't live if livin' is without you" etc) which developed into an overlapping medley with "All By Myself," both songs effortlessly being sung at the same time. Genius!

This party vibe start for the second half culminated in a roof-raising performance of a song I knew but didn't know the title. I was jamming big time but not as much as the twenty-something guy sitting next to me. I asked him, during the ovation, what the song was. He gasped in disbelief and said, " 'Where the Hell Is My Husband?' by Raye!" Ah yes! I heard Raye perform it on the Graham Norton Show.