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Show: The Wild Party
Society: London (professional shows)
Venue: The Other Palace
Credits: Book, music & lyrics Michael John LaChiusa & Book George C. Wolfe
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 21/02/2017
The Wild Party
Chris Abbott | 22 Feb 2017 12:38pm
Frances Ruffelle as Queenie and John Owen-Jones as Burrs in The Wild Party. Photo: Scott Rylander
Since taking over the former St James Theatre in Victoria, Andrew Lloyd Webber has renamed it The Other Palace and it is to be a place to see musicals in development, a welcome addition to the London theatre landscape. It’s an intimate auditorium, steeply raked and a little precipitous to enter, but providing excellent sightlines from all seats.
The opening production, The Wild Party with book, music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa with George C. Wolf assisting on the book, is not as new or unrefined as some of the other productions in the opening season, having been seen on Broadway in 2000. It will be a welcome development, though, if this venue enables more lost shows to finally make the journey across the Atlantic.
The show could hardly have been better cast than it is here, with a stellar company of musical theatre luminaries, and with the whole show in the hands of choreographer of the moment, Drew McOnie, who also directs and provides an exhilarating and inventive account of this difficult piece based on a notorious 1920s poem.
Set in prohibition era Boston, the show features a group of degenerates and low-life types boozing, drug-taking and swapping partners through a long night with a tragic ending at a party hosted by Queenie and her abusive partner Burrs. As Queenie, Frances Ruffelle is an almost constant onstage presence, the link between all the characters and the one to suffer the most: it is a striking and beautifully sung performance. As the unsympathetic Burrs, John Owen-Jones is particularly effective in the clownface interludes though he convinces also in an unsympathetic role as the sadistic bully.
As sometime rival Kate, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt provides a very suitable contrast, and introduces her new boyfriend Mr Black, beautifully sung by Simon Thomas. The cast of 15 fill the stage with movement and colour, relationships and bodies intertwining and reforming. Particularly noticeable however was the clarity of Dex Lee in the role of Jackie, often in league with the androgynous Armano brothers, brought to wholly convincing life by the sinuous Genesis Lynea and Gloria Obianyo. All the other performers have opportunities to shine and none fails to step up to the mark; this is a musical masterclass and should be recommended viewing for those in training (and the show is likely to become a staple for musical theatre schools).
And in the classic nine o’clock number slot, Donna McKechnie returns to the London stage and dominates it. From the slight delay in her entrance in order to build anticipation, to the anguished way in which she forces out the final words, this is a supreme example of acting through song from a vastly experienced and enthralling performer.
Technically, the show is of a high standard and the costumes in particular, especially seen at close quarters in this venue, are remarkably effective, adding their own charge to the overall atmosphere of tawdry glamour and the sleaze beneath the sparkle.
Above all else, the success of the show must be down to Drew McOnie, working with musical director Theo Jamieson to create a remarkable example of dance theatre which is also largely sung-through, the first of a few sections of spoken dialogue coming more than 20 minutes after the opening. McOnie not only provides exhilarating and appropriate routines, he also has a gift for telling a story through dance. His work alone is more than ample reason to see this original, compellingly cast and dark musical tragedy.
- : admin
- : 21/02/2017