SOUTH PACIFIC at Sadler's Wells - In a land far, far away...

As Lt. Cable sings, you have to be carefully taught.  For many years I had an active disinterest in  Rodgers & Hammerstein. The only show of theirs I had seen on stage was CAROUSEL which I found dreary, and despite seeing the films of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, THE KING AND I and OKLAHOMA!, still I never sought out their work; my baptism in stage musicals coincided with discovering Stephen Sondheim so I kept their perceived excessive sentimentality at bay.  Any liking I had for them was thanks to Barbara Cook, Nancy LaMott or Bernadette Peters cds. But all that changed in 2010 on a trip to New York when I saw Bartlett Sher's acclaimed Lincoln Center production which vividly illustrated a respect for the sub-plots of lonely people, unchallenged prejudice and the irretrievable loss of the future that war brings - and of course showed off their score magnificently!

Thanks to COVID, we had to settle on seeing Daniel Evans' production at Chichester online but here we are a year later, seeing it onstage at Sadler's Wells and how nice it was to see again. It reinforced how remarkable the show's score is when you see the show onstage: all those standards seem fresh when you see the characters' lives that they were written to illustrate.  

The original 1949 production won 10 Tony Awards - every one it was nominated for - as well as the Pulitzer Prize.  Seeing the show onstage again brings to mind the challenge Rodgers and Hammerstein faced when writing the score: Broadway sweetheart Mary Martin had been cast as Nellie opposite opera singer Ezio Pinza as Emile which worried her as she felt she would not be able to compete vocally with him in duets so they composed Nellie and Emile's "Twin Soliliques" so they take a verse each but as sung thoughts.

Based on James H Michener's 1947 novel TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC (which also won a Pulitzer Prize), nurses and sailors in the US Navy find love on an island in the South Pacific during WWII,  Nurse Nellie Forbush falls in love with French plantation owner Emile de Becque while Lt Joseph Cable falls for Liat, the young daughter of Bloody Mary, a wily Tonkinese peddler, but the happiness of all four founders on the perceptions of race from within and without.

One can only imagine how the plot twist of Nellie's racism was received by audiences 73 years ago but it is true that YOU'VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT where Cable sings of his disgust at his own capitulation to racist thinking was nearly dropped from several productions of the show but the composers stood firm against it and it's 1949 national tour was threatened with boycotts and cancellation in the South.

There are still rumblings about the show - only now it's being questioned for the representations of Bloody Mary and Liat; here's what you do - go write your own musical... and see if it is still around in 73 years.

Daniel Evans has sought to intigrate the character of Liat more into the action; difficult when she hardly has any lines but by featuring her in the productions opening and closing moments and making Bloody Mary less of a stock character - but if the actress playing the role is any good she can seize the character's changes in the second act anyway.

The cast felt capable but Julian Ovenden was excellent as Emile, his rich voice suiting SOME ENCHANTED EVENING and THIS NEARLY WAS MINE, the latter only spoiled by the over-emphatic orchestra; but his charisma and easy playing style made Emile the central figure of the show.  Gina Beck was ok as Nellie, she just doesn't have the star wattage needed to make her memorable after leaving the theatre but she certainly sang the songs well.

Joanna Ampil and Rod Houchen were also ok as Bloody Mary and Cable singing their songs well, they just didn't have that extra spark to make them memorable.  Douggie McMeekin as the eternal chancer Luther Billis left hardly any impression.

Daniel Evans' direction and Ann Yee's choreography kept the show moving along on it's perfectly constructed wheels until the moment the show always stalls towards the end when the battalion chiefs listen in to the radio reports from Emile and Cable on a deserted island behind enemy lines; it is a dead sequence visually with a lot of exposition going on.

But it was still a great experience to see SOUTH PACIFIC onstage again where it really lives and breathes.

50 Favourite Musicals: 11: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (1981) (Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1981, Alvin Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1983, Bloomsbury Theatre, London

Productions seen: four
  
Score: Stephen Sondheim

Book: George Furth

Plot: Franklin Shepard is a successful composer and film producer but as he looks back over his 20 year career he can see how step-by-step his aspirations were lost along with his two best friends Charley Kingkas and Mary Flynn.

Five memorable numbers: MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, OUR TIME. NOT A DAY GOES BY, GOOD THING GOING, OUR TIME

One show had to just lose out on the top 10 - how ironic it had to be MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.  After their previous show SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FEET STREET won eight Tony Awards and nine Drama Desk Awards, the partnership of composer Stephen Sondheim and producer / director Hal Prince were expected to come up with another smash hit.  But it was not to be... MERRILY lasted a mere 44 performances after a troubled rehearsal period where the original leading man and choreographer where replaced and audiences walked out, confused by the back-to-front plotline.  Prince's concept of a cast of teenage performers, all in sweatshirts and jeans, backfired and the resultant failure had a lasting effect on it's devastated young cast as well as Sondheim and Prince who would not work together again on a new work for 22 years.  The odd thing is that the seemingly revolutionary plot-twist of having the story told backwards originated in 1934 in a play of the same name by George S Kaufman and Moss Hart, which had also closed losing money - albeit with more performances.  It was neglected at Awards time too, MERRILY received a single Tony nomination for Best Musical Score - which lost to Maury Yeston's NINE.  The palpable sadness of that original production has remained, especially as that cast's recording of the score has kept the show alive down the years - remarkable considering they recorded it the day after they closed.  Since then MERRILY has gone on to be reclaimed as one of Sondheim's most remarkable scores - particularly as the usual criticism thrown at him that he is too cerebral to be emotional is made ridiculous by songs such as NOT A DAY GOES BY and GOOD THING GOING which are tear-triggers of the highest magnitude.  Sondheim's score ripples with great songs whose tunes appear throughout the show in different guises so you can track them seemingly down the years as Charley, Frank and Mary's lives change and grow apart.

I was lucky enough to see MERRILY's European premiere when the Guildhall School's production transferred to the small Bloomsbury Theatre two months after it was first staged at the school.  Ian Judge's wonderful production swept me away and made the show instantly one of my favourites.  Over the years as it's status has grown with every UK and US revival, Sondheim has revisited the score and added new numbers for Frank and Gussie, the musical star he marries, but for me the original score is the one I return to.  After the 1983 Guildhall show I had to wait 17 years until another London production at the Donmar.  Michael Grandage's production featured career-defining performances from Samantha Spiro as Mary, Daniel Evans as Charley and Julian Ovenden as Frank and won three Olivier Awards for Best Musical, Best Actress and Best Actor for Evans; sadly no West End transfer occurred.  That happened three years later when Maria Friedman's production at the Menier Chocolate Factory transferred to the Pinter Theatre for a few months.  While happy that this remarkable show was finally seen in a proper West End house I was less enthusiastic by Friedman's garish and broad production - it did however win the Olivier for Best Musical Revival. The latest news on MERRILY is that Richard Linklater has announced he will make a film of it with the absurd idea of filming it over 20 years so the characters can be seen to age properly... one is tempted to think of Olivier's line to Dustin Hoffman while he was holding up filming doing his Method shenanigans "Why don't you try acting?".

A much more poignant and telling film take on MERRILY is Lonny Price's wonderful documentary BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED from 2016.  Initially a film about the making of MERRILY and the impact of it's failure on it's young cast, Price - who was the original Charley - had remembered ABC News filming all of the audition and rehearsals for a segment in one of their news programme but when they were informed they had an investment in MERRILY they stopped the filming and put out a statement that the footage was destroyed.  However the original videotapes were finally tracked down and Price utilizes the footage to recreate the excitement of the young cast turn to bewilderment at it's failure to work despite Sondheim and Prince's best efforts.  The bigger themes of looking back to see what you gave up to live your dreams - or giving up your dreams to live - are as palpable as MERRILY itself - do hunt it out...

50 Favourite Musicals: 35: A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (1962) (Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life: 

First performed: 1962, Alvin Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1999, Open Air Regents Park, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Stephen Sondheim
Book: Burt Shevelove, Larry Gelbart

Plot:  Pseudolus, a slave in Ancient Rome, agrees to help his master's son get the girl of his dreams in exchange for his freedom - but the road to liberty never runs smooth...

Five memorable numbers: COMEDY TONIGHT, EVERYBODY OUGHT TO HAVE A MAID, PRETTY LITTLE PICTURE, THAT'LL SHOW HIM, FREE

The original 1962 FORUM won an impressive six Tony Awards, but one contributor got nothing... composer Stephen Sondheim.  Yes, it won Best Musical but that is for the overall production: Shevelove and Gelbart won for their riotous book, George Abbott won for his direction, Zero Mostel and David Burns won for their performances, Harold Prince won Best Musical producer... but the score? Nothing.  It can be argued that it was a crowded field that year: nominations went to Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh for LITTLE ME, Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for STOP THE WORLD - I WANT TO GET OFF and, the eventual winner, Lionel Bart for OLIVER! - but a nomination for BRAVO GIOVANNI, a vehicle for opera singer Cesare Siepi?  You would think that Sondheim could comfort himself with his Best Score awards for WEST SIDE STORY or GYPSY - wrong!  The Score Award was discontinued from 1952 to 1962.  He would finally be nominated for Best Score with his next show DO I HEAR A WALTZ?, small comfort for what had been a difficult process writing with Richard Rodgers.  Not that FORUM was a breeze either; rewrites, recasting and the baffling out-of-town lukewarm response.  But Sondheim concentrated on the form of the piece and ditched most of his generic musical comedy songs and, in particular, changed the opening song from the whimsical LOVE IS IN THE AIR to the barnstorming COMEDY TONIGHT and hey presto, a hit was born.  The adage that you can't have a good musical without a good book is proved by Gelbart and Shevelove's excellent writing - based on plays by Plautus - which provides a solid base for the capering, light-hearted songs and the farcical characters.  The role of 'Pseudolus' is a Tony Award magnet on Broadway: Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers and Nathan Lane have all played it and have all won Best Actor in a Musical.  No such luck for London productions but the two revivals I have seen have had barnstorming performances from Roy Hudd at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre in 1999 and Desmond Barrit at the Olivier Theatre in 2004   About time for another revival I reckon...

I was going to choose a clip from Richard Lester's 1966 film version but it is woefully dated despite the involvement of original stars Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford, so instead here is a glorious version of EVERYBODY OUGHT TO HAVE A MAID from the 2010 Proms tribute to Sondheim with a perfect imaginary revival cast of Simon Russell Beale, Daniel Evans, Julian Ovendon and Bryn Terfel - I love this!

MY NIGHT WITH REG - revisited at the Apollo Theatre

Last year the best production I saw on stage was Robert Hastie's revelatory revival of Kevin Elyot's MY NIGHT WITH REG, a play that had languished in memories for nearly 20 years.  The National should hang their head in shame for leaving Elyot's key work on the shelf.  But then we probably would not have had this revival with this particular cast.  My original blog is here

I was lucky enough to see it at the Donmar twice but now it has transferred for a limited season to the Apollo Theatre - ceiling staying up nicely - and it was great to see it again.  It was interesting to see it on the bigger proscenium stage and to see how the cast were adapting their performances to a bigger auditorium.

I am happy to report that apart from a slight broadening of a couple of performances, Hastie's production is still a marvel, funny and profound by turn with the cast of six working seamlessly together to keep the action ricocheting between them while beneath lies caverns of subtext.

 

Kevin Elyot always plays with the concepts of time, consequences and memory and what struck me seeing REG again was how skillfully he does this, how something significant at the start of the play is dismissed as a half-remembered memory by the end, how things important to one person are forgotten by the other, how when someone dies what remains are half-remembered moments in time.

Geoffrey Streatfeild as art-dealer Daniel, Julian Ovendon as the rootless John, Jonathan Broadbent as lonely Guy, Richard Cant as the terminally dull Bernie, Matt Bardock as the ever-randy Benny and Lewis Reeves as the plain-speaking younger lad Eric are giving memorable, heartbreaking performances that deserve all the plaudits they have received - do yourself a favour and get to see this once-in-a-lifetime production.

What I am now wondering is if I can make it a four-in-a-lifetime production...  Click on the banner to book.

Here the cast give you an introduction to the play:

*My* Night With Reg

Scary but true.  It's been three years since I have been to the Donmar Warehouse.

I have seen two Donmar productions in the past year but I have not visited the theatre!  By way of explanation, I saw CORIOLANUS at the NT Live showing at the Ritzy Cinema (an experience I am still trying to get my head around) and I also saw THE WEIR when it transferred to the Wyndhams Theatre but nope, no actual visit since seeing Jude Law and Ruth Wilson in ANNA CHRISTIE.

It's not that I haven't wanted to see recent productions there but the Donmar is now one of the theatres that usually sell out by the time of the first preview so as you can't beat them, you have to join 'em!  So back on the mailing list and back in the front row of the circle...

And what a production to come back to, a timely revival of Kevin Elyot's quietly devastating 1994 play MY NIGHT WITH REG.  It has taken 20 years to get a London revival - the sadness is that Elyot died less than two months ago during the pre-production for this production.  He was such a fine writer, perceptive but with a deadly cutting wit, and it's a shame that he leaves only a handful of plays alongside his other writing credits for television, namely his Agatha Christie adaptations which included the last David Suchet Poirot episode and my personal favourite, his BBC adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY.

MY NIGHT WITH REG opened at the Royal Court in 1994 and was such a success that it transferred to the Criterion and then the Playhouse Theatres, later being filmed for the BBC with the original cast of Anthony Calf (John), David Bamber (Guy), Joe Duttine (Eric), John Sessions (Daniel), Roger Frost (Bernie) and the late Kenneth MacDonald (Benny)

With that great cast I had doubts if I could really enjoy this revival but the combination of Elyot's timeless writing, Robert Hastie's insightful direction and a cast that is truly an ensemble made for a wonderful experience.

The play has been compared to US plays that dealt with the AIDS crisis - THE NORMAL HEART, AS IS etc. - but, like Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA, Elyot was already looking back to the 1980s when writing his play so with hindsight, he could view the crisis with less hysteria than the Americans.  Unlike these other plays REG has a profundity and a universality that leaves the American plays thin and trite.  I remember seeing the film version of Terrence McNally's LOVE! VALOR! COMPASSION, also written in 1994 and also based around a group of gay men and almost ran from the cinema at the sheer banal cutesiness of it all compared to what Elyot had written.

Shy and lonely Guy is throwing a housewarming party in his new ground floor flat and has invited his old University friend John who he has silently adored for years although they hardly see each other.  John, oblivious to Guy's unrequited love, confides in him about his sex life and, after another University friend Daniel stops by briefly between air flights, John tortures Guy further by telling him he slept with Daniel's partner Reg the night before. Exasperated by his friends' teasing about his non-existent sex life, Guy blurts out that on a recent trip to Lanzarote he had unprotected sex with a man who got him drunk.  Also at the party is Eric, a young chap who is helping to paint Guy's conservatory and who acts oblivious to the passes made at him by John and Geoffrey.

Imperceptibly the scene jumps ahead in time to the get-together after Reg's funeral and the same group are joined by Guy's friends Bernie and Benny, a couple who separately also confess to the hapless Guy that they too slept with Reg.  Guy, who also has to listen to his beloved John's pain over losing his sometime lover Reg, is encouraged by the others to make a pass at Eric.  he clumsily attempts to but is equally clumsily rebuffed.  It's only after another time shift and another funeral that some truths are revealed and some lies are maintained.

As in Chekhov, Elyot puts the audience through the exquisite pain of watching his characters desperately trying to find love but being unwittingly rebuffed or misunderstood while also making them multi-faceted and surprising at every turn, six excellent characters that the exceptional cast mine for every inch of surface wit and sub-textual pain.

Excellent performances abound from Julian Ovenden as John, the golden boy who doesn't have to try too hard for whatever he wants; Geoffrey Streatfeild as the flamboyantly outrageous art dealer Geoffrey; Lewis Reeves as the tantalisingly young but surprisingly moral Eric and the double act of Richard Cant and Matt Bardock as the couple Bernie and Benny, whose every conversation ends in a skirmish.

If I don't include Jonathan Broadbent as the lovelorn Guy in that line-up it's because he was the one who ultimately failed to erase memories of the original cast member but then again, David Bamber was unforgettable.  Broadbent slightly overdoes a Harry Potter-ish schtick which fails to match Bamber who played the role with no concessions to audience sympathy but won it nevertheless.  Broadbent was certainly effective in his scenes of desperation as his unattainable object of desire confided in him of his own sex life.

Robert Hastie's excellently subtle direction draws you slowly into the devastating fall-out of the friends' lives and judges the pace beautifully, almost situation-comedy moments suddenly giving way to moments of aching pathos and unwitting cruelty.

Peter McKintosh's design and the always-admirable Paul Pyant's lighting give the production a solid unity that supports the play well.

I had forgotten how skilfully Kevin Elyot plays with time through the course of REG and seeing it again made me want to experience the memory plays that he wrote after it: THE DAY I STOOD STILL (1998) and MOUTH TO MOUTH (2001).

Robert Hastie's Donmar production of MY NIGHT WITH REG is a fitting tribute to this under-rated and sadly-missed writer.

If there were any doubts that Stephen Sondheim is theatre royalty then this year's extended celebrations for his 80th birthday proves it. But then if anyone deserves to be celebrated it's our Steve.

The Donmar are paying tribute to the great man with their production of PASSION but they also are honouring two previous Sondheim shows they have staged with concert performances at the Queens Theatre with the original cast members. The first show was very appropriate for the subject of looking back, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.

Based on the 1934 play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, the story charts the disillusion and falling-out of three seemingly close friends only the action takes place in reverse so we start in 1980 with Frank, Charlie and Mary no longer speaking, through all the compromises and betrayals that erodes their friendship to the final scene which shows them all meeting for the first time on a NY rooftop to watch Sputnik overhead in 1957. The device is hugely affecting, by the time you reach the end you feel for the three young people, so wide-eyed with hope and optimism for the future which you know will founder on the rocks of distrust, infidelity, compromise and alcohol.

I was curious to know exactly how they were going to stage this - surely they couldn't just sing the songs with maybe an onstage narrator filling in the blanks? Luckily no, we got the full show acted out although with no costumes and in between lecterns set up across the stage. I was worried that Owen, who had not seen the show, would not be able to get into the story but luckily the performances more than made up for any lack of trappings. Reprising their roles as Mary, Charlie and Franklin were Samantha Spiro, Daniel Evans and Julian Ovenden and it was a delight to see them together again, they obviously enjoy each other's company as much as we did! All three were in fine voice and transcended the bare stage and their fellow cast members sitting in a semi-circle at the back of the stage to flesh out their characters and their stories.

Also I should mention the scene-stealing Anna Francolini as Gussie, I had quite forgotten what an excellent character the book writer George Furth created in her - the bitchy, egomaniacal Broadway star who becomes Frank's second wife. Fine support too was provided by Mary Stockley as Beth, Frank's first wife and James Millard as the crass but caring Broadway producer Joe Josephson.

And of course it was a joy to hear Sondheim's blissful score 'live' again - with songs of the calibre of "Not A Day Goes By", "Good Thing Going" and "Our Time" it is truly one of his most under-rated scores. I don't mind telling you I was a-blub for most of the second half.

Unbelievably there are still people who purport to love the theatre who still fail to recognise Sondheim's unique place within it - surely anyone who has been able to experience in the space of the last few months his individual scores for ASSASSINS, PASSION, INTO THE WOODS and now MERRILY must surely be able to understand exactly why he is to be celebrated as he has this year.

This Sunday sees a similar concert performance of COMPANY with the cast of the Donmar's 1995 production - I cannot wait!