Reviews 2001
Reviews 2001
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by Rupert Holmes, directed by Dennis Garnhum
Shaw Festival, Royal George Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake
May 25-October 27, 2001
“The Mystery Is Why They Staged It”
The Shaw Festival recently expanded the Festival’s mandate to include not just works written in Shaw’s lifetime (1856-1950) but also modern works set within that period. Last year this led to the production of the charming Bock and Harnick masterpiece “She Loves Me” from 1963. This year it has led to the production of the vastly inferior Rupert Holmes musical “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” from 1985. One need only reflect that “She Love Me” did not win a Tony for best musical and that “Drood” did to see that annual awards are no guide to quality. Problems with the work itself, the direction and the design--but not with the admirable cast--make “Drood” one of the lesser shows on offer at the Shaw this year.
When I saw the original production in New York, I thought it a mildly amusing but unimportant musical. To hear the work now, unamplified and with a cast of Shaw Festival’s calibre, only shows up the work’s flaws. Based on the novel Charles Dickens died before completing, “Drood” uses votes from the audience to determine the identities of the murderer, the lovers and the disguised detective. The show is cast in the form of a musical-hall entertainment with frequent comments by the Chairman and presentation of the action in highly stylized scenes. The latter aspect was considered innovative by those unaware of Brecht and Weill’s “Threepenny Opera” of 1928. The former aspect has been so imitated by dinner-theatre shows that it has lost its excitement. Without its gimmicks, the show tells Dickens's complicated story in such a sketchy way it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm for it. Holmes, particularly in the first act, gives us one short, instantly forgettable song after the next, each too reliant on lacklustre melodies and parlando style to sink in. Act 2 at least has the kick-line number “Don’t Quit While You’re Ahead” and Drood’s final song "The Writing on the Wall", but that’s rather slim pickings for a full-length musical.
Director Dennis Garnhum and designer Allan Stichbury do not help matters with a design concept that makes nonsense of the music-hall setting. The Royal George Theatre built in 1913 stands in quite nicely as a music hall and the actors who greet you in late 19th-century dress add to the period effect. Why then does the stage become see-the-back-wall modern on the other side of the proscenium with most of the action played on various bits of scaffolding? In the original production scenes were played against painted drops as per period practice. To a modern audience painted drops already connote artifice. To go beyond that to modern stage scaffolding totally undermines the music-hall atmosphere the actors try so hard to maintain. And this atmosphere is ultimately the raison d’être of the show. Besides that, Garnhum has the actors play their parts in a deliberately clichéd manner that has more to do with television comedy than the 19th-century. In trying to treat this trifle as if it were “Six Characters in Search of an Author”, Garnhum and Stichbury have outsmarted themselves. They are so busy in unnecessarily undermining theatrical conventions they forget that if we are not somehow involved in the story then the point of the voting which takes up much of Act 2 is lost.
Shaw ensembles have before been able to shine despite misguided direction and weak vehicles, and this is the case here. Primarily, it is Neil Barclay as Your Chairman, mediating between the audience and the action and as Mayor Sapsea acting in it, who holds the show together by the sheer force of his genial personality. He and a few other cast members seem to know that the show is at best a bit of silly fun and thus keep the show anchored. The performances less burdened with obtrusive shtick make the strongest impression. These include Blythe Wilson (Edwin Drood), much more entertaining and effective than Betty Buckley in the original, and Corinne Koslo (Princess Puffer), whose mixture of humour and intensity makes each of her scenes a pleasure.
Michael Querin with his strong voice would have made a much stronger impression as John Jasper, Drood’s uncle, if Garnhum had allowed him to portray this tortured character in a more realistic way. The same goes for Guy Bannerman in the comic role of Bazzard and Douglas E. Hughes (Reverend Crisparkle). Tracy Michailidis (Rosa Bud), with her lovely voice would have made a better impression if her diction were clearer. Jeff Madden (Neville Landless) and Jenny L. Wright (his sister Helena) in underwritten roles make little impression at all. Cameron MacDuffee (Durdles) and Jeff Lillico (Deputy) are already caricatures in Holmes made worse by Garnhum.
Two bright spots in the production are Kelly Wolf’s delightful period costumes, though I have to say I enjoyed the personal costumes she gave the actors when they mingled with the audience more than their stage costumes. Allan Stichbury provides the very inventive lighting. Timothy French’s choreography is more standard-issue Broadway than the kind of clever work we’re used to seeing at the Royal George.
As the performance progressed I couldn’t help thinking of the greater shows that would so much better show off the talents of the cast. “The Threepenny Opera” is one and “Sweeney Todd” another. I do hope the expansion of the mandate won’t mean the abandonment of operettas or the musical comedies of the 1920-30s that the Shaw pulls off so well. I’m sure the Festival chose “Drood” to showcase the music hall, a type of theatre that was so important in the period of the mandate. But when the director and designer go to such lengths to destroy the atmosphere they have set up, they also destroy any reason why such a work so weak should be mounted at all. “Drood” is a soon-to-be justly neglected musical directed to please no one.
Photo: Cast of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. ©2001 Shaw Festival.
2001-09-14
The Mystery of Edwin Drood