The Light Opera In the Piazza

A review of DO I HEAR A WALTZ by Richard Rogers and Stephen Sondheim, at Park Theatre

I cannot in all conscience recommend DO I HEAR A WALTZ to any but the most forensic Sondheim fans.  It does contain a version of ‘We’re Gonna Be Alright’ but it’s the heavily cut and anodyne one where the couple actually may get along together rather than the acid picture of a disintegrating relationship when David Kernan and Millicent Martin delivered the sharper lyrics in Side by Side by Sondheim.

Not restoring this song gives a clue to Charles Court Opera’s production at the Park Theatre – it’s all about the singing, the staging feels very low-budget and the comedy isn’t given the free rein it should be to make the show more palatable.  

The story is curious – several American couples holiday in Venice but the plot revolves around maturing singleton Leona.  There are some good lines about getting by on one’s own, although she could use a stronger song which reinforces that; eventually she meets a Venetian shop owner who isn’t the handsomest of men, but she falls for him.  In a pleasantly un-saccharine ending he turns out to be in some ways false, but also accusing her for the way she treats him as a trophy to be acquired like a holiday souvenir.  If the music matched the modernity of the plot it would be better, but casting mostly opera singers makes many of the numbers sound forced.

As Leona, Rebecca Seale is the least operatically-trained member of the cast and after a shaky start is smart-mouthed and engaging; as her lover Renato, Philip Lee - a crisply starched alternate Mr Snow opposite Sarah Tynan in Opera North’s gorgeous Carousel at the Barbican - is the best singer in the show but he knows it and his solos are over-posed and unbalanced. Although he sings the beautiful ballad ‘Take The Moment’ at the end of the first act perfectly and with passion, it lacks the delicate tenderness with which Mandy Patinkin infused it on his 2002 Sondheim album.

Rosie Strobel turns in a nice cameo as the voluptuous proprietress of the Pensione Fioria with Carolina Gregory as her non-English-speaking and very reluctant maid.

It's all a bit uneven but the original collaboration was something of a mess anyway: this was a Rogers and Hammerstein chamber musical where Sondheim was drafted in as lyricist after his friend and mentor Oscar Hammerstein’s death.  It borrows heavily from Noel Coward's four-years-earlier 'Sail Away', a vehicle for Elaine Stritch as the travelling singleton, and had been designed for Mary Martin to play Leona but by the time the show was ready in 1965, Martin was 51 and Rogers felt her too old for the romantic role. Franco Zeffirelli was engaged as director but Dick Rogers, who was drinking heavily at the time, fell asleep in their first meeting. Rogers later described Sondheim’s lyrics as “shit” which did little to cement their working relationship.

Bit of a wasted opportunity, they really could have done The Light In The Piazza.

The 'National Pie Week' Musical: 3 Stars

Sweeney Todd is Sondheim's equivalent of Shakespeare's 'Problem Plays' wherein the protagonist struggles with a moral dilemma or social problem, in Todd's case precisely how many throats to slit in revenge for his deportation to Australia. As such, it requires a feat of both acting and singing that prove challenging to the strongest performers, and despite critical acclaim at Chichester, it still seems Michael Ball's stretched.

First of all, and disappointingly for his seat-wetting coterie of housewifely fans, he doesn't seem like Michael Ball.

Uncharacteristically dark and straight-haired, with a dyed goatee, it could occur to you he has sent comedian Phill Jupitus in his place. When I met Ball at Wimbledon towards the end of his Hairspray tour, he admitted he was nervous at the prospect of playing Todd because it was so far out of his normal vocal range, and he's not a trained singer.



Perhaps rightly he hasn't attempted the continuous stentorian delivery of Bryn Terfel or Denis Quilley in the role, because his voice wouldn't support it, but his brooding and introverted performance leaves a hole in the centre of the show which is now filled by a breathtaking Mrs Lovett from Imelda Staunton.

Staunton's ascent from comedy maids to 'national treasure' is well charted but this is something else: when you consider how many fine actresses have essayed Mrs Lovett, from Angela Lansbury to Patti LuPone you would think no-one could wring any more out of the sock of the part ... but Staunton finds nuances and subtleties in the script and the songs that simply weren't there before. It's a marvel to watch particularly, in the darker second half, the equal quantities of maternal affection and murderous creepiness with which she infuses 'Not While I'm Around', and her frantic harmonium playing and perfect Ball-straddling comic timing of 'By The Sea'.

The support is variable: there seems a casting mistake between John Bowe (Judge Turpin) and Peter Polycarpou (Beadle) because Bowe's by far the stronger actor and Polycarpou an infinitely better experienced musical theatre singer: I'd have had them swap roles. Weak contributions, too, from a softly boyish Luke Brady as sailor Anthony, and a frankly dreadful shrill and colourless Johanna from Lucy May Barker, but a scary and strong Old Woman from Gillian Kirkpatrick.

Underlit and over-directed (Jonathan Kent is determined to make it an opera) the piece is bizarrely costumed with 1930s garb, and Pirelli arrives in a motorised van - yet the atmosphere is still Victorian grinding poverty. No one around me could suggest what the 30s (or 50s, who could tell?) hair and clothes did for the show, apart from to wonder if Imelda had come dressed for 'Vera Drake: The Musical" and to put the price of pies up to 'thruppence'.

"Who knows if it's going to run" sings Todd in the pie song ... it's clearly an expensive package, but at over thirty years old the dust's on the script as well as Mrs Lovett's pie crusts, and without Ball playing to his gallery of admirers, it may have a tough time filling the Adelphi across the summer. The producers have some gimmick casting in mind, though, comedian Jason Manford (who as far as I know can't sing) arrives as Adolfo Pirelli in June whilst Robert Burt does a real job at Glyndebourne.

Was the 'Go Compare' man (Wynne Evans) not available?



This review written for www.remotegoat.co.uk

Phone rings, door chimes, pretend you're out ...

Poor Steve Sondheim. During his 80th birthday year in 2010 his works were exhaustively produced and his dramatic entrails more pored over than in any autopsy. There’ll be less of a retrospective when he’s dead. In London, the revivals ranged from a lumpen ‘Follies’ atop a Walthamstow boozer to a puppyishly adoring all-star Albert Hall Prom which was the theatrical equivalent of humping the Great Man’s leg.

As the dustcart follows the Lord Mayor’s show, here comes Southwark Playhouse’s production. Company contains some of Sondheim’s best lyrics, is most autobiographically representative of his own views on relationships, but it’s not the best ‘book’ musical in the canon. Indeed, the script by George Furth is so inconsequential that the show works largely as a song cycle wherein married friends revolve round bachelor Bobby in a carousel of exhortation to find a wife. Updating it with iPhones and MacBooks robs it of a certain 70’s ‘Mad Men’ style and contemporaneous conventions about relationships, but does bring some fresh perspectives.

In his first fully-fledged directorship, Joe Fredericks allows too much unevenness: Siobhan McCarthy’s uncannily accurate impersonation of Bette Davis doing Margo Channing is funny but can undermine the power and pathos in her bravura rendition of ‘Ladies Who Lunch’, Mark Curry’s archly dated portrayal of husband Larry clings more to Mr Clifford in Acorn Antiques than to Broadway, and for a musical so deeply rooted in Manhattan the accents wander widely and the singing projects some very English vowels.

Cassidy Janson as Amy scores highly for her comic timing and vocal precision in ‘Not Getting Married Today’ in which she’s partnered by the strong and charming voice of Greg Castiglioni as Paul. Two of Bobby’s single girlfriends also stand out: Katie Brayben as April the air hostess manages to find the comedy in the script, her dumb blonde resistance to Bobby’s chat-up lines were one of the few laugh-out-loud moments, and Michelle Bishop as spunky punk Marta takes command of ‘Another Hundred People’ with genuine panache.

Bobby is meant to be an enigma, often portrayed as a coolly suave playboy who degenerates into a self-pitying mess, but Rupert Young‘s performance showed less of an arc since his Bobby is a greasy sweaty cokehead from the outset, perpetually dishevelled and disoriented. It’s a more modern reading of the part and emotionally distanced from the audience, but improves in the second act when ‘Being Alive’ was thoughtfully phrased and strongly delivered.

The singing is mostly very fine indeed, but the production lacks pace - you could see the audience’s attention wander - entrances need more immediacy and less clunking over the underlit Bridge-of-Sighs-made-from-scaffolding set - and for the dialogue to crackle authentically, cues need to be picked up much more smartly.


This review written for www.londonist.com