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music by Marek Norman, book and lyrics by Richard Ouzounian, directed by Robin Phillips

Canadian Stage, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto

January 11-February 4, 2001

"No Life in This Party"

Richard Ouzounian claims to have thought "musical" after reading Carol Shield's novel "Larry's Party".  I wish he hadn't.  One can hardly think of a less likely source for an engaging musical unless one's goal is to prove to the world that Canadians actually are as boring as everyone imagines.  Shields's 1997 novel deals with the life of an ordinary man, Larry Weller, who unreflectively glides through life allowing things to happen to him more than actually taking any significant action.  His sole interest is in making garden mazes, after having losing himself in the famous Hampton Court maze during his honeymoon.  He becomes internationally renowned for his work, though neither Shields nor her character show any unusual insight on the subject.  Shields deliberately backgrounds Larry's unengrossing life of two marriages, two divorces, one child, a successful career by organizing the fifteen chapters of the book around topics like "Larry's Love," "Larry's Folks," "Larry's Work," "Larry's Threads".  The primary interest in the novel is not the plot at all but rather the wealth of wryly observed detail that Shields marshals under each heading.  She intentionally wants the reader not to see the forest for the trees, so to speak.  To extract the plot from the book and leave the detail behind shows a complete misunderstanding of Shields's experiment.

Ouzounian takes the view that Larry is "an ordinary man living an extraordinary life".  Unfortunately, his book for the musical never convinces us that there is anything in Larry's life remotely interesting.  Ouzounian's song lyrics do not improve matters.  Despite his professed love of musicals, he seems to have learned nothing of the craft of Ira Gershwin, Noel Coward or Cole Porter.  The sentiments are numbingly vapid, the words wallow in cliché and the rhymes are strictly of the "June-moon" variety.  The evening is rather like listening to a whole shelfful of Hallmark cards set to music.

Ouzounian has made the task of composer Marek Norman even more difficult by writing in verse of almost exclusively three beats per line.  It's no wonder that, despite slight variations of tempo, the songs are virtually indistinguishable from each other.  Not that Norman has much of a track record for inventiveness.  His music for "Dracula" in 1998 was imitation Andrew Lloyd Webber; and his music here, while probably aiming for imitation Sondheim, winds up as anonymous easy listening.  One might have thought that for a story covering a period from the 1950s to 2000, a composer would tap into the clearly varied styles of pop music to signal the passing of the years.  But no, except for a boppy second number for Larry and a tasteless pseudo-musical hall number about salmonella poisoning, the music is all in the same innocuous style one associates with commercials for the government.  The one successful song, "Little Lost Lives", sung by Barbara Barsky (Mrs. Marek Norman), does approach some of the understated melancholy of Sondheim.

Given the uninteresting story and the relentlessly unclever music and lyrics, it's a wonder that the Canadian Stage found such a high-level production team and cast for a piece that should have been nipped in the bud.  Robin Phillips' production is exquisite, becoming fey only when he has actors holding branches pretend to be a hedge maze being destroyed.  Phillips also designed the set (executed by Hisham Ali) as a kind of pergola whose gauzy walls can unfold in different configurations.  Visually it is a more potent symbol of the maze-as-house-as-life than anything in the novel or Ouzounian's book and lyrics.  (Ouzounian's characters speak more often of life as pieces of a puzzle than as a maze, thus muddling the work's imagery.)  Janice Lindsay's costumes more neatly typify and differentiate the characters than anything they say or do.  For a story told in flashback, Louise Guinand's lighting casts a lovely glow of memory over the action. 

Phillips has drawn as finely detailed performances from his cast as one can expect given that they have only trivialities to express.  Brent Carver, with his look of a little lost boy, is perfect as the uncomprehending Larry and the way he colours and controls his voice is as immaculate as ever.  Strangely enough, he frequently resorts to gestures and intonations in dialogue that he had previously used as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof" last summer and which clearly don't suit Larry the middle-class WASP.  Larry's first wife Dorrie, well played and sung by Susan Gilmour, is the character who undergoes the greatest change in the novel and the musical.  She moves from being narrow and unlikable to self-confident and aware of her past shortcomings.  It's too bad her big song about her new-found confidence sounds like an old Virginia Slims commercial.

The remaining actors all play three or four roles.  Phillips' clear direction assures that this never becomes confusing.  However, one can't help thinking that there are so many characters because Ouzounian has tried to include too many incidents from the novel whether they further the action or not.  Among the women, Michelle Fisk, delightful in her prime role as Larry's no-nonsense sister, Midge, is alone in injecting much-needed humour into the proceedings.  Julain Molnar as Beth, Larry's second wife, makes a good contrast with Dorrie--the intellectual versus the materialist--but giving her one song about eating crudités is hardly enough to establish her character.  Barbara Barsky, in her main role as the wistful Charlotte, Larry's girlfriend after Beth, makes a much stronger impression.  It is a treat to see Jane Johanson on the stage again as Larry's haunted mother, Dot, and three other women all made quite distinct through gesture and accent.

Among the men, Gary Krawford shows a versatility equal to Johanson's in portraying Larry's father, Stu, a British bus tour leader and two of Larry's self-important patrons.  As Larry's best friend, Hersh, Jack Wetherall is given little more than a sitcom figure to work with; but as Larry's Nashville patron, Questly, he has something meatier--a strong man trying to deal with grief.  Young Mike Nadajewski's main role is Ryan, Larry's son with Dorrie, who grows up with little knowledge of his father.  Nadajewski shows he has a fine voice and is a versatile actor, but neither this nor his other three roles rise above cliché.

This is CanStage's second attempt this season to create a marketable musical by linking a well-known subject with a well-known adaptor and director.  But "Outrageous", despite a star performance, was all plot and no character while "Larry's Party" is no plot and no character .  "Outrageous" had a drive and energy that suggested it could be saved if Brad Fraser would radically rework the book.  With "Larry's Party", one feels that the efforts of an extraordinary director and cast have been wasted on a work of irredeemable insipidity.

Photo: Brent Carver and Michelle Fisk with Jane Johanson and Gary Krawford in the background.  ©2001 Michael Cooper.