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by Leonard Bernstein, directed by Roger Hodgman

Shaw Festival, Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake

May 25-November 1, 2008

"’Wonderful Town’ Lives Up to Its Name"

If you had to choose only one musical to see at either the Shaw or Stratford Festival, there’s little doubt which one it should be--”Wonderful Town” (1953) at the Shaw.  Not only is it all round the most successful production, but of the four--”The Music Man” and “Cabaret” at Stratford and “A Little Night Music” at the Shaw--it is the least often revived.  In fact, the present Shaw production is the work’s first fully staged professional production in Canada.  Once you see what a delightful show it is, it’s hard to understand why it’s not better known. One possibility might be that although it is the second of Leonard Bernstein’s New York trilogy of musicals--with ”On the Town (1944) and “West Side Story” (1957)--it is the only one not to have been filmed.  That’s all the more reason to head down to Niagara-on-the-Lake to see the one that got away.

The book for the musical is by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov based on their own play “My Sister Eileen” (1940).  The pair also wrote the screenplay for the popular 1942 Columbia movie of the play starring Rosalind Russell as Ruth and Janet Blair as Eileen.  The problem is that Columbia made its own movie musical of the film, also titled “My Sister Eileen”, in 1955 with music by Jule Styne and Leo Rubin.  This effectively prevented Bernstein’s stage version from coming to the screen.        

The Fields and Chodorov play is in turn based on a collection of short stories by Ruth McKenney published in 1938 about her experiences growing up in Ohio and then moving to New York City with her sister.  In its incarnation on stage the musical presents a fairy-tale version of New York, where beneath their gruff exteriors New Yorkers are actually warm-hearted.  Reinforcing the fairy-tale atmosphere is the character of Eileen herself whose beauty and innocence charm everyone who sees her.  Her older sister Ruth is rather like the ugly ducking.  She’s grown so used to Eileen’s preternatural abilities that she has taken on the role of combined guardian and wise-cracking sidekick.  Ruth’s suspicion and self-deprecation contrast completely with Eileen’s trust and self-confidence.  It’s no surprise once the two move into artsy Greenwich Village, that Eileen is almost instantly surrounded by admirers.  The question for her is which one to choose.  Ruth is so used to attracting no attention that she doesn’t quite know how to deal with what seems to be more than a professional interest from an editor, Robert Baker.  The subplot to the girls’ stories is that of between-seasons football player Wreck and his girlfriend Helen, who have been living together without the knowledge of Helen’s mother.  When Helen’s mother comes to visit, the sisters and Helen concoct an elaborate ruse to win her over to Wreck as a son-in-law.  In the meantime, we meet a carnival of colourful characters from  painters, to policemen, to prostitutes, to night clubs denizens to a boatload of Brazilian sea cadets.  Throughout the show Bernstein’s music as in his other New York musicals captures all the vibrancy and variety of the big city.

The production could not be better cast.  Lisa Horner was born to play Ruth.  Her tone of voice easily conveys raillery and sarcasm but can also be gentle, too, her tough exterior melting before another’s pain.  She has the great -- “Swing” when she learns to jive and becomes accepted by the arty denizens of the Village.  Chilina Kennedy is an ideal Eileen.  Exuding a natural aura of innocence and optimism, Kennedy makes Eileen’s magnetic effect on people absolutely believable.  She also has a lovely voice and Bernstein gives her the wistful song “A Little Bit in Love”.  The two singers also harmonize beautifully together as in the show’s best known song, the comic lament “Ohio” with its memorable refrain, “Why, oh why, oh why, oh -- Why did I ever leave Ohio?”

The sisters; love interests are the rough-edged editor Robert Baker for Ruth and the shy soda jerk Frank Lippincott for Eileen.  Robert has the two most emotional songs in the show, “A Quiet Girl” and “It’s Love”--and Turvey gives ardent accounts of both.  The second is especially effective since, as Turvey shows so well, it has just dawned on him why she feels so strongly about Ruth.  Jeff Madden is such a fine singer that it’s a pity Bernstein didn’t think to give Frank a song of his own.  Nevertheless, Madden, proves to have quite a flair for comedy in this uncharacteristically nerdy role.           

As Wreck, Thom Marriott, who has never appeared in a musical before, gives a fine account of himself and carries off his main song “Pass the Football” with zest.  As his live-in girlfriend Helen, Glynis Ranney is at her most sympathetic.  In smaller roles, Gabrielle Jones is appropriately forbidding but comically susceptible to flattery as Helen’s mother, Neil Barclay is suitably eccentric as a painter and the sisters’ landlord Mr. Appopolous, Thom Allison seems misunderstood as the outwardly slimy Chick Clark, Lorne Kennedy is almost unrecognizable as the cool hep-cat night club owner Speedy Valenti, Deborah Hay is the humorously ditzy prostitute Violet and William Vickers embody a sense of order and safety as the kindly police officer John Lonigan.  Ken James Stewart deserves notice for his hilarious drunk scene in the police station. 

The chorus is a well-drilled group who have to change identities at a moments notice.  In one scene the men are sentimental Irish policemen infatuated with the lovely Eileen and in another they are the hot-blooded cadets newly off a newly docked Brazilian ship.  William Schmuck has designed a set of New York brownstones that can change to any number of locations with the right push-on elements.  Judith Bowden has captured a handsome 1930s look in the costumes, though her Village artistes look rather more like 1950s beatniks than their 1930s equivalents.  Australian Roger Hodgman, who directed another urban musical fairy tale “She Loves Me” for the Shaw in 2000, moves the piece along with snappy pacing yet with enough pause for reflection to create the aura of nostalgia for a time and place that never was that lies at the heart of this delightful work.  

It certainly is not every day that we have the chance to see a musical by Leonard Bernstein that for most us will be a brand new experience.  The Shaw Festival production shows off “Wonderful Town” in the best possible light making it the number one don’t-miss musical of the summer.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Chilina Kennedy and Lisa Horner. ©David Cooper.