Reviews 2001
Reviews 2001
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by music by Richard Rodgers, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, directed by Kelly Robinson
Stratford Festival, Festival Theatre, Stratford
May 31-November 4, 2001
"The Ring of the Von Trapp Family"
Forty-two years after it first appeared on Broadway, Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music" is more popular than ever. This is largely due to Robert Wise's 1965 film version starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. Usually, a film of a musical is considered as only one possible version of it while subsequent stage productions continue to redefine it. This has happened recently with Sam Mendes's stage version of "Cabaret" that now makes the film version look weak by comparison. Wise's Oscar-winning film, however, has such a perfect mix of song, scenery and sentiment that in the popular mind it has become the definitive version of the work, making it difficult for any stage version to compete with it.
Kelly Robinson's production for the Stratford Festival shows that this musical really belongs on the stage. He is so successful in finding its theatrical vitality that once audiences adjust to the differences between the stage and screen versions, I have no doubt they will want to see the Stratford production again and again.
People who know only the film will have to accommodate themselves to the various ways it has diverged from the stage musical. Maria and the Abbess sing "My Favourite Things" so that later when frightened by a thunderstorm Maria and the children sing "Lonely Goatherd". Frau Schraeder, a music-hater in the film, and Max sing two numbers cut from the film with Georg von Trapp--"How Can Love Survive?" and "No Way to Stop It". In the film Frau Schraeder breaks with Georg because she realizes he really loves Maria; in the stage version Georg breaks with her for her willingness to collaborate with the Nazis. Rather being off-putting, exposure to the original ought to spark many lively debates about the merits of each.
Director Kelly Robinson and designer Ruari Murchison seem intentionally to have made the show look as unlike the film as possible as if to tell us "Leave your preconceptions at the door". For one thing the palette for the costumes is completely different with pinks and greens replacing the dominant blues and lavenders of the film. We enter to find the wooden Festival stage covered with a circular floor of orange marble. The wooden balcony and staircases are removed so that a rock face can rise from the floor to just below the orchestra loft. My first reaction was that such an abstract set seemed more suitable for Wagner than Rodgers and Hammerstein. And I certainly could have done without the hanging balcony, wide as the stage, covered in a row of pink Alps. While the set does not work very well for the interior of the von Trapp villa, it is excellent for the abbey, the outdoors and especially for the final scene at the music competition.
The primary reason this abstract, potentially forbidding set works is due to the lighting of Michael J. Whitfield. His endlessly inventive combinations of projected patterns with appropriate light levels for each time and place tells us instantly where we are and what time of day it is. The finale with its roving spotlights at the concert and its chill light as the family hides in the convent are quite thrilling.
In his first show on the Festival stage, Robinson directs with great assurance. He makes full use of the stage (and the auditorium) and has created such a natural flow of action that several directors of Shakespeare for that stage could learn much from him. His direction blends seamlessly with Sergio Trujillo's exciting choreography. In fact, it is this highly inventive choreography--the extended balletic sequence for Liesl and Rolf after "Sixteen Going on Seventeen", the clever movements accompanying "Do Re Mi" and "So Long, Farewell" plus the beautiful ländler and waltzes--that will win people over to the stage version.
Aside from two problems, the cast is very fine. It's too bad the two problems are Cynthia Dale (Maria) and C. David Johnson (Georg von Trapp). Dale, with her lower voice and gamine looks, is a fine alternative to Julie Andrews. She sings the well-know songs beautifully and with very clear diction. The problem is that to project Maria's impetuosity and vivacity, she speaks her lines for more than half of the show as rapidly as possible. Without the nuances of varied speech patterns, her Maria becomes one-dimensional. The opposite is true of Johnson. He uses the dialogue to show that Georg's strictness is really a cover for a man with feelings. The problem is that he can't sing, causing a few cringe-making moments during "Edelweiss" in the concert scene.
The children--Shannon Taylor (Liesl), Jordan Dawe (Friedrich), Megan Barker (Louisa), Adam Dolson (Kurt), Lisa Manis (Brigitta), Alicia Thompson (Marta), Aislinn Paul (Gretl)--are extraordinarily good. As one might expect 7-year-old Aislinn steals every scene she's in, but the level of talent of these young actors is so high that one admires them because they're good at what they do not just because they're cute.
The other actors are all well cast. Jeanne Lehman (Mother Abbess) not only delivers the operatic "Climb Every Mountain" everyone expects but gives a personality to a character who can seem merely symbolic. Cory O'Brien (Rolf) is a fine singer and athletic dancer. The dance, a pas de deux really, between him and Shannon Taylor is the highpoint of the evening. Mary Ann McDonald (Else Schraeder) and Raymond O'Neill (Max Detweiler) seem exactly like two characters from a 1940s movie come to life--she the vamp, he the talent scout. The 1965 film makes a point about Frau Schraeder's dislike of music, but McDonald's clear voice and O'Neill's adeptness at comedy should persuade people to accept the very different way these two are presented in the stage version.
"The Sound of Music" is often accused of being just so much kitsch and hokum. Robinson's approach, with the aid of Murchison's abstract set, suggests that, although based on the real Trapp Family Singers, the musical is really a fairy tale in historical disguise, where Cinderella wins the Prince not by shoe size but song. The show should make a perfect family outing. For anyone wanting holiday from cynicism, book now.
Photo: C. David Johnson and Cynthia Dale. ©2001 Stratford Festival.
2001-06-05
The Sound of Music