Fiddler On The Roof

Mayflower Theatre, Southampton

****

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Directed by Craig Revel Horwood

Paul Michael Glaser

Making his UK stage debut, it’s a treat to see Paul Michael Glaser step up to the challenge of Tevye in Craig Revel Horwood’s take on this classic musical. Some 40 years ago the actor enjoyed global stardom as the Starsky of Starsky & Hutch fame, but to mis-quote Michael Caine, not many people know that around the same time he also enjoyed a supporting role as Perchik in Norman Jewison’s movie of Fiddler. Thus it was almost destined for Glaser to rise to the mantle of the story’s leading man and as a father and husband who has known profound personal tragedy in his life, his performance at times evokes real pathos. When Glaser's Tevye reaches out from the stage to share his deliberations with the audience and we share his monologue debates with God, there are moments of truly wry observation and a shrug so authentic that it symbolises a person familiar with enormous challenge. Not quite the finished product, Glaser occasionally stumbles in word and performance, though these are but bumps that a few performances into the tour will iron out.

Revel Horwood again directs a musical that has been set around a cast of actor-musicians. To explain, all the cast are on-stage members of the orchestra and have responsibility for giving life to Jerry Bock's wonderful score. To their credit, this is quite possibly the best actor-muso production to have been seen in some time. As musicians the performers are spot on, no small task given that they are denied the luxury of sheet music that a typical pit-orchestra would enjoy and all play entirely from memory. Bravo to them and to the slick musical direction and orchestration from Sarah Travis that allows them to blend in effortlessly with the staging. Extra special credit to Jennifer Douglas who as the most nimbly gamine Fiddler gives the show a perfect haunting klezmer-esque violin signature.

It is easy for a Fiddler On The Roof to slip into cliché and the meerkat-Russian accents that plague the dialogue, though thankfully not the songs, would be best dropped. Together with some of the ridiculously glued on beards, they distract from the otherwise beautifully simple design of the show and at this early stage in the run, these points can be easily addressed. A more permanent irritation is the Hebrew text written on the timbers and the roof tiles of the village buildings. Whilst Anatevka may be fictional, it is not some Disney created fantasy village. It represents a beautiful if at times grim snapshot of a culture destroyed and Diego Pitarch's whimsical lettering cheapens that memory.

The supporting cast prove that they can act as well as play a tune. Daniel Bolton’s Fyedka is a beautifully voiced Cossack dancer. Liz Kitchen gives a wonderfully gossipy Yente as well as a touchingly hilarious Grandmother Tzeitel. Jon Trenchard’s Motel is a delightfully plausible and sincere schlemiel whilst Claire Petzal’s Chava broke hearts as she clawed in vain at the rock of her father’s faith in choosing to marry Fyedka. The audience on press night were warm and enthusiastic, laughing in all the right places and even clapping along to To Life. That they laughed however at Golde’s (Karen Mann) raw grief at Chava’s marriage suggests that the structure of that moment needs to be re-examined by Revel Horwood.  

The choreography, as to be expected from such an expert in movement, is divine. Revel Horwood has reproduced Jerome Robbin’s original Broadway staging and Glaser's Tevye, swaggering in his celebration of life is glorious, whilst the highlight of the Bottle Dance exceeds expectations with sweetly synchronised movement that is as always, breathtaking.

Playing at Southampton until September 14, the show tours Britain and Ireland until well into next year. It’s an affectionately crafted production, crammed full of familiar numbers that are sung to perfection and makes for a grand night out.


To find out tour dates and to book tickets visit the production website here

The Witches of Eastwick

Watermill Theatre, Newbury

*****
Based on the novel by John Updike
Book and lyrics by John Dempsey
Music by Dana P Rowe
Directed and choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood

Alex Bourne (lucky devil) with l-r Poppy Tierney, Joanna Hickman and Tiffany Graves

Driving along the M4 through a horrendous storm, a vivid streak of forked lightning over Newbury suggests a good omen for the opening night of Craig Revel Horwood’s take on The Witches Of Eastwick. And indeed on approaching the Watermill Theatre, set as its name suggests amongst some of Berkshire’s finest wetlands, the evening was to prove an enchanting first commercial revival of the show in five years.

An initial visit to The Watermill finds the auditorium surprisingly small for such a regional centre of excellence, yet the stage is designed thoughtfully and with an attention to detail that smacks of outstanding production values notwithstanding the budgetary restrictions that are probably imposed upon such a modest venue. Actually, “outstanding” is the one word that sums up this show.

Revel Horwood is a gifted director, not only for the movement and choreography he envisions, but more importantly for the performances that he coaxes from all of his talented cast. The three leading ladies are Tiffany Graves, Poppy Tierney and Joanna Hickman, all accomplished actresses who not only bring depth and nuance to each of the women they portray, but also excellence in their acting and vocal work. The story is pure comic-book fiction, yet each actress portrays her two dimensional character with canny three dimensional depth. Billed as a musical comedy, these performers work their seductive skills upon the entire audience and in an unashamedly sexual staging, Revel Horwood extracts performances from his Witches that lustfully sizzle, yet remain on the right side of decency throughout the show, just. The act two opener, Another Night At Darryl’s, led by a smouldering Tierney as sculptress Alexandra, with its suggestions of mud wrestling as the three women daub each other with her wet clay, has to be seen to be believed. Similarly with Sukie Rougemont's (played by Graves) steamy act one number Words. The song is a singer's minefield, demanding fast and complex lyrics to be delivered whilst Sukie is being seduced and made love to. Graves nails it.

Joanna Hickman fiddles furiously as Alex Bourne seductively strums

Three witches of this calibre demand a devil that is up to their strong characters and Alex Bourne’s Darryl van Horne is perfectly cast. In a show where the performers are all required to play an instrument, (a delightfully long-established economic policy of The Watermill) Bourne’s sex fuelled rebel naturally plays the electric guitar. The actor brings perfect gravitas and presence to van Horne and his Dance With The Devil is but one example of a performance that will please many women in the audience.

The baddy of the piece is local townswoman Felicia Gabriel. It is usually wrong to compare castings from different productions, but let’s make an exception. Rosemary Ashe who created this harridan at Drury Lane in 2000 reprises her monstrous character and like a fine Scotch whisky, she has wonderfully matured over the years. When early on in the show an indignant Felicia proclaims “I am Eastwick”, Ashe aint kidding!

Rosemary Ashe leads the (washing) line in the wonderful Dirty Laundry ensemble number

Licensed by Cameron Mackintosh, this show represents by far and away the best musical revival to be staged out of town this summer and the producers would do well to consider how its glorious spirit can be transferred to London come the autumn.

The ingenious effects of Revel Horwood's staging are not smoke and mirrors. Close up, we can all see how everything’s done, but for once, that really doesn’t matter. The magic of this show lies not in its special effects, but rather in the crafted talent and beauty that Revel Horwood has inspired his entire company to deliver. You won’t see a better cast this year.

Runs until 14 September 2013. Booking details here

To read my profile of composer Dana P. Rowe, click here

Dana P. Rowe - A Brief Profile

With the UK’s first professional production of The Witches of Eastwick in five years opening at Newbury’s Watermill Theatre, I spent a brief while with composer Dana P.Rowe, to talk briefly about the show and his collaboration with writer John Dempsey.

The show, based upon John Updike’s novel and following on some 13 years after Jack Nicholson created the on-screen role of Darryl van Horne, received its global premiere at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane as a Cameron Mackintosh production. Rowe and Dempsey had already been collaborating since the 1980’s with two modestly successful hits behind them, Zombie Prom from 1995 and The Fix in 1997 (that Sam Mendes had staged at the Donmar).

If there is a theme to Rowe’s and Dempsey’s output, it is the tackling of social issues and commentary via stories that are either faux-horror, or of comic book style structure. Simple fables, often with a literally in-credible or zany storyline, yet all speaking towards a message of simple comment upon the human condition.  Where The Witches of Eastwick shines a light upon urban life and relationships and frustrations that have gone awry, Zombie Prom takes a sympathetic view of a high school boy killed in a freakish nuclear power station disaster, whose mutilated corpse returns from the dead to seek re-acceptance from his peers and school prinipals and above all, be allowed to attend the school prom. It’s a ridiculous whacky premise, but at its heart it speaks of an outsider desperately seeking affection and recognition.  Rowe speaks with some tenderness and personal experience when he talks of the difficulties of being an outsider excluded from the “in-crowd”.

Musical theatre is no stranger to tackling darker aspects of humanity, though where Rogers and Hammerstein didn’t mince their words with human comment (think of the abusive streak of Billy Bigelow in Carousel, or the menace that overshadows Jud Fry in Oklahoma) so Rowe and Dempsey adopt a different strategy of directness. I suggest to Rowe, particularly with the imagery of Zombie Prom in mind, that the world that he and his collaborator portray is one that could have been drawn by Roy Lichtenstein. Simple images, primary colours, and punchlines that whilst they may be superficially obvious or even shallow, actually speak to us with a poignant irony upon the world they describe, sound out from his compositions and Rowe is quick to endorse the suggested similarities between his work and Lichtenstein’s iconic imagery. 

Whilst Rowe’s output with Dempsey has not been prolific, their creative relationship continues to this day, suggesting an artistic harmony and union that has a reassuring degree of timelessness. With Merrily We Roll Along, just closed on London's  West End, describing the arc of destruction that shatters the working friendship of a lyricist and composer, it is strangely comforting to find a harmonious and productive partnership that has existed between two creative talents, for so long.

Rowe's craft is simply to take his perceptive perspectives on life and set them to some uplifting melodies. Act one of The Witches of Eastwick closes with the marvellous composition I Wish I May. More than 8 minutes long its a song for the three Witches and the Devil, that is a biography of the ladies and a glorious perspective on how Satan has understood their personae and endowed them with what they think they most desire. It's a vast canvas of a number, that in its grandeur echoes Bigelow's Soliloquy. The song opens with tender heartfelt verses from each woman, before crescendoing to its final stanzas as their diabolical lover makes them all, literally, fly. It is one of those few songs that is truly as thrilling to listen to as it is to watch on stage.

The man's music speak to us all. His songs are classically structured yet written with a timelessness that does not date their message. The lucky folk of Newbury are blessed with Craig Revel Horwood's take on The Witches of Eastwick being with them until September 14th. For the rest of us, it's only a short trip (or broomstick flight) down the M4 for the chance to savour some of the funniest and most stirring musical theatre written.

Read my review on The Witches of Eastwick at Newbury's Watermill Theatre

The Witches of Eastwick plays at Newbury's Watermill Theatre until 14 September 2013