REVUE REVIEW: THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL

Pictured: Dana Jean Phoenix, Mark Cassius

JOHN COULBOURN, Special to TorSun
24 DEC 2013
R: 3/5

In Gypsy: A Musical Fable, lyricist Stephen Sondheim (inadvertently perhaps) offers advice to aspiring musical theatre producers, cloaked in his ode to burlesque's ladies who lurch: "You can pull all the stops out till they call the cops out, grind your behind till you're bent," sings Mazeppa, the weary hoofer, "But you gotta get a gimmick, if you wanna get ahead." It is advice composer Eric Rockwell and lyricist Joanne Bogart clearly heeded, and hence, THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL has not just one gimmick, but five.

But not all gimmicks are created equal, as evidenced by Vintage Productions' take on their show, revived after a successful Fringe Festival stint this summer for a limited commercial run at the Panasonic Theatre. In a world where imitation is recognized as the sincerest form of copying, Rockwell and Bogart band together to tell and re-tell the same simple story five different ways, each version in the style of one of the lions of 20th century musical theatre. 

To begin, they tell the story of the hapless June (Dana Jean Phoenix) in the style of Rogers & Hammerstein in a vignette titled Corn — an obvious homage to Oklahoma! But as the melodrama progresses — June can't pay her rent and so is being forced to marry her evil landlord, Jitter (Mark Cassius), but is rescued finally by the leading man Willy (Adrian Marchuk), while the diva Abby (Paula Wolfson) offers advice from the sidelines — they touch on pretty much the entire R&H canon, in a series of songs slyly referencing the teams' style without ever slipping into actual plagiarism. And, despite the casting, they avoid any reference to June is Bustin' Out All Over —  which is commendable.

From there, they tell the same story four more times, tackling, respectively if not always respectfully, the styles of the aforementioned Sondheim (A Little Complex), Jerry Herman (Dear Abby!), Andrew Lloyd Webber (Aspects of Junita) and Kander & Ebb (Speakeasy), throwing in an homage to Marvin Hamlisch at the end for good measure. Musical director Michael Mulroney, seated on stage at a grand piano, provides musical accompaniment and sardonic commentary throughout.

It's a talented cast and director Vinetta Strombergs makes the most of what is clearly a limited production budget, taking Rockwell and Bogart's admittedly "Inside Baseball" book and score and enlivening it with touches borrowed from directors like Rouben Mamoulian, Harold Prince and Gene Saks and choreographers Agnes de Mille, Larry Fuller and Bob Fosse.

But despite her best efforts, Strombergs simply doesn't have the resources to transform a Fringe hit into a mainstage offering, particularly when she's encumbered with an intermission in the middle of a 90 minute show, which simply lets the air out of a production that has just found its legs after a lacklustre start. But in the end, this show's problems are more than merely budgetary — and if you want to know what's missing for too much of it, take a listen to Adler & Ross's score for Damn Yankees — that song about "All you really need is heart." 

BALLET REVIEW: THE NUTCRACKER

Pictured: NBOC Nutcracker Company

JOHN COULBOURN, Special to TorSun
16 DEC 2013
R: 5/5

The weather outside was certainly frightful but, of course, inside the Four Seasons Centre Saturday evening, it was nothing short of delightful — although no one was foolish enough to sing a chorus or two of "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…" for the gathered crowd. And frankly, why would they? Not only did Mother Nature need no such encouragement, the audience happily had other things on its mind.

It was the first unofficially official night of the Christmas season here in Toronto — the night the artists of the National Ballet of Canada and a few hundred of their closest friends from the National Ballet School and similar institutions band together once again to weave a magical Christmas tapestry out of threads spun by composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, author E.T.A. Hoffman, choreographer James Kudelka and designer Santo Loquasto.

And frankly, unless one were stuck behind the wheel of a car, the snow falling outside when glimpsed through those glorious glass curtain walls at intermission, simply added to the magic as THE NUTCRACKER exploded onto the stage in a swirling vision of seasonal spirit once again.

By now, of course, the NUTCRACKER story — or at least the version told by the NBOC — is familiar to most, a timeless tale of siblings in the time of the Russian Czars. On a winter's night, young Marie (Houston Toews) and her brother Misha (Tristan Brosnan) find themselves sharing a dream-like adventure, when their Nutcracker (Guillaume Côté) — a Christmas gift from the mysterious Uncle Nikolai (Jonathan Renna) — comes to life and sweeps them off to the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy (Greta Hodgkinson), aboard a magical sled conjured by a beautiful snow queen (Xiao Nan Yu).

In the palace of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Marie and Misha are entertained not only by the their hostess, who lives in a beautiful Fabergé egg, but by her subjects as well. A beautiful sheep and a wily fox (Chelsy Meiss and Giorgio Galli repectively), a bunch of adorable lambs, a bumblebee (Tanya Howard) and a whole garden of flowers dance for them, before the children are whisked back to the bedroom where the adventure began. It is a simple, timeless story, wonderfully told in a fashion that just never seems to grow old, filled with the magic of dancing horses, roller-skating bears and simple childhood that is as evergreen as the giant tree that sprouts mid-stage and mid-story.

But it is also a glorious evening of ballet for the entire family, for while the younger set thrills to the timelessness of the tale, parents can get lost not only in the delight that comes from watching children like Toews and Brosnan throw their hearts into their performances, supported by the impeccable artistry of dancers like Hodgkinson (who in her character's signature dance seems to have chimes instead of toes) and Côté (an artist who can not only bring nobility to the stable boy Peter, but boyishness to the Nutcracker, as well.)

Take one snow storm, add the National Ballet's NUTCRACKER — and you've got more delightful Christmas magic than you can shake a stick at.

MUSICAL THEATRE REVIEW: ONCE

Pictured: Stuart Ward,
Dani de Waal

JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
04 DEC 2013
R: 4/5

Many stories begin with ONCE, as in "Once upon a time…" But while, in adapting the story and music from the 2006 movie of the same name to the musical stage, playwright Enda Walsh and composer/lyricists Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová have created something some might consider a modern-day romantic fairytale, they adroitly — and wisely — sidestep conventional notions of an "and they all lived happily ever after" ending, in favour of a more pragmatic but satisfying "and they all managed to make the most of the present and get on with their lives."

Having cleaned up at the 2012 Tony Awards, ONCE has spawned the obligatory touring company to bring the tale to the provinces, and it pulled into the Royal Alex last week for a Toronto run over the holiday season, adding another love interest to the Mirvishes ongoing and now public affair with the genre. It's a simple love story, simply told — more of a romantic sketch than a portrait, really — spun out in a faux-Irish working pub in modern-day Ireland, where immigrant and native alike struggle with economic sobriety after a long and ill-fated, Euro-inspired binge.

It is in that environment that a Guy (played by Stuart Ward) and a Girl (Dani de Waal) meet. He's an Irish-born vacuum repairman and, after wearing a groove in his guitar writing love songs to a woman who left him for New York, he's ready to throw in the towel, musically speaking. She's a Czech immigrant with a daughter, a mother and no visible means of support, living a life in which everything seems to suck — except her vacuum cleaner.

And while it's immediately obvious to everyone that the Gods of both Hoover and Kismet intended them to be together, they aren't too quick on the uptake. Instead of falling into each other's arms, they fall into music, conspiring to build a romance of sorts through a score comprised mostly of Celtic rock-love songs. Meanwhile, Dublin life plays out around them, reflecting both the joys and the sorrows of Irelands's post-prosperity letdown, all sketched with the same minimalist brush strokes Walsh uses to create his main characters.

While it's an unusual writing technique, it serves to draw a willing audience into the story, demanding that one intuit the humanity to flesh out the skeletons with which director John Tiffany and movement designer Steven Hoggett populate their stage. They offer only brief and telling glimpses — but little more — into the lives of their principals and a lovely roster of supporting players, all of whom, like Ward and de Waal, do double duty as the orchestra.

And in the end, it all comes together as a strange and sometimes hypnotic hybrid of theatre, ceili, and illuminated story telling that is undeniably charming, despite a certain sense of corn-fed American complacency in de Waal's performance (evident, to a lesser degree in Ward's) that leaves one feeling that, somewhere just out of sight, ONCE's main street Dublin just might intersect with Disneyland's Main Street USA.

PANTO REVIEW: THE LITTLE MERMAID

Pictured: Marc Devigne, Chilina Kennedy,
Ross Petty, Jordan Clark,
Dan Chameroy


JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
01 DEC 2013
R: 5/5


It's going to take Santa a bit of time to figure things out at a certain Toronto household this Christmas. One can picture him, in fact, pacing the living room of the Ross Petty home, trying to figure out whether the head of the household has been naughty or nice. But if the jolly old elf were to ask me — and that's highly unlikely — my best advice would be to lay on an extra sleigh and fill the house, for while Mrs. Petty's little boy is currently being mighty naughty, it's never been nicer — and fans of the annual Petty Christmas panto are reaping the benefits.

This year's edition of the made-in-Toronto stage Yule tradition is titled THE LITTLE MERMAID: ONTARIO's O-FISH-al FAMILY MUSICAL, and as usual, the closest it comes to the Disney Classic with which it shares a certain titular resonance is the Broadway-bound production of Aladdin, playing up the street and, between us, looking rather lacklustre by comparison. In fact, this year, Petty doesn't just hook a winner, he nets a whole school of 'em.

First off, there's Chilina Kennedy in a memorable turn in the title role, playing Angel, an environmentally aware mermaid concerned about her future in Toronto Harbour, ground zero for a casino planned by the evil Ogopogo, played with — ahem — his usual villainous flair by Petty himself. Then there are bang-up performances from regulars like Eddie Glen (as Sponge Bill Triangle Pants) and the gender torturing Dan Chameroy, once again channeling his feminine side as Plumbum and  proving once again that in nature, at least, there is nothing like his dame.

Meanwhile, to label performers like So You Think You Can Dance's Jordan Clark, Canadian Idol's Marc Devigne and the very gifted Lana Carillo mere supporting players seems to diminish their fine work — and happily, director Tracey Flye and choreographer Marc Kimelman give each of them every opportunity to shine.

But in the face of such a barrage of talent, the real star of the show this time out just might be Reid Janisse, who not only does some giddy on-stage work as Carl, the Clownfish, but in his off-stage guise as writer, demonstrates an impressive understanding of what makes a good panto tick, and as a result, turns in a script that runs like a Swiss clock. That, at two and a half hours (with intermission) runs a little long is a niggling complaint, considering the laughs he's packed into the show — for every age.

Set designer Michael Gianfrancesco and videographers Ben Chaisson and Beth Kates meanwhile come together to create an amphibian production capable of vibrant life either on land or under the sea, all dressed to impress by Erica Connor's swimmingly successful costumes.

In short, it's an impressive panto package, tied up with a pretty bow by musical director Steve Thomas, serving up a playlist of re-purposed tunes — modern pop to classic show tunes, with original work thrown in for good measure. In fact, this just may be one of the most memorable Christmas pantos Santa's ever found under the tree — wickedly naughty and as nice as can be.