[Strangler Lewis]

As for Phantom as a play: when we did Hamlet in high school, Euro played the Ghost standing backstage and using a microphone. I don't remember anyone saying, "Ghost sounded like a guy backstage coming over the loudspeakers." Yet that is exactly the feeling I had seeing Phantom at the Orange County Performing Arts Center some years ago. Perhaps it could not be otherwise, or perhaps their sound engineer was unsubtle, but it was not very phantomy.