Monday 22 June 2009, The Chichester Festival Theatre
review by
© July 2009
This is an unusual production
of a classic musical, but then with John Doyle directing it was never
going to be exactly ordinary, though by his standards it is relatively
conventional productions, for example we do have a proper orchestra, positioned
(as is usual at Chichester) in the gallery above the stage. The programme notes
also provide a hint that things are going to be different. An essay by Jason
Carr, one of best contemporary composers-lyricists (long associated with The
Chichester Festival Theatre), sets the scene, including a fascinate
paraphrase of Ethan Mordden, noting that any of the show’s leading roles
can be a star, not something I had ever thought of, but it turns out to be
prophetic.
The show opens, as one might
expect, with Aunt Eller being the first character on stage, but here John
Doyle has departed from the norm, as instead of churning butter, Louise
Plowright, in stockinged feet, steps out on stage, almost skips on, tossing
falling leaves from her apron pocket about the stage. She is wearing a long
skirt, and blouse, with a black waistcoat (possible a mans waistcoat) and a
slough felt hat on her mane of blond curls, a long white waist-apron is tied
round her waist. Her boots, tied together with their laces are slung around her
neck. She is swiftly, momentarily
followed by Craig Eels (as Jud) with a crate of apples, which he tips so
they roll over the stage, then he exits. Soon we hear the classic bit of
Now a number of the chorus
come into their own. As one of them says he’s hitching up some cart, because
there is a party coming down from the station to go to the box social. Aunt
Eller’s response is that of course she’d lend the wagon, if she had been asked.
Louise delivers these lines beautifully cuttingly, as if to tell the guy he
should have asked her first before assuming she would lend the wagon, although
of course she will lend it.
Here The National’s
production had promptly shifted the action to the railroad station, but in this
production we stay firmly on the farm, and the action comes to the farm, as a
bunch of the chorus stand around in the spotlight, then Will Parker, played by
the athletic
Somewhere around someone
passes a negative comment about Jud Fry, which elicits a cutting firm line from
Aunt Eller about the fact that he is one of the hardest working hired hands
she’s ever had, and two women can’t run a farm on their own. The authority with
which Louise delivers that line reminds me so much of the authoritative way she
spoke as Donna The Dynamo running her taverna.
Having met Will Parker, it’s
now time to meet Ado Annie Carnes, closely followed by Ali Hakim the peddler.
Aunt Eller has a bone to pick with him over an egg beater he sold her. This
gives Louise another opportunity to stamp her mark firmly on the role, she is
such a strong charismatic woman, you just can’t imagine that peddler getting
away with palming his rubbish off on her. Of course he has to try and pacify
her, which he does by offering her a pair of red garters, taking her by
surprise he attempts to slip one onto her, and thus gets this 5ft10” women down
on her back across a cart, while her gets one of the garters on. She’s needless
to say pretty cross at the manhandling, however, she grabs the other garter and
goes over to her rocking chair to slip it on in a more modest manner. As the
pedler eventually beats a retreat, peddling his bicycle cart off-stage, sitting
in opposition on a swing Laurey scolds Ado Annie for going about with the
Pedler, when she is engaged to Will Parker, she defends herself, I’m Just
A Girl Who Can’t Say No. Natalie Casey who plays Ado Annie does
a convincing acting job, of managing to make this flighty, sometimes
unbelievable character into a believable character. After all in those days,
young women especially had little opportunity to really get to know a man
before committing to marrying him. Unfortunately her singing is her weak point.
I’m used to hearing Dorothea McFarlaine on the Original London Cast
album, and Natalie Casey just isn’t a patch on her singing wise, nothing
like as sweet or clever vocally. But she does act the part well, and out in
regional theatre we can’t have everything.
At last, with Many A
New Day, it is Leila Benn Harris’s turn to bring Laurey to the
fore. Leila Benn Harris is a fine young actress, who really made the
Curly arrives with Gertie
Cummings in tow, Amy Ellen Richardson somehow manages to turn this one
into a believable character.
Then Ado Annie’s father, Andrew
(Pop) Carnes, turns up. He doesn’t seem to much like Will Parker, and seems
relieved to discover that Will has spent the $50 he won, thus no longer
actually has the money. Pop then tries to get his daughter married off to the
peddler, whom she has also been going out with. Alex Giannini’s
portrayal makes the character rather unlikeable. But that is a perfectly
reasonable way of playing the character.
Now we come to one of the
show’s many surprises, in this case a song I had almost forgotten about It’s
A Scandal It’s An Outrage, often dropped from cast albums, and possibly
even from productions, it is big number for The Peddler. Here the talented
Onto more classic ground with
People Will Say We’re In Love. At last
This is followed by an
impressive acting scene, one I had almost forgotten about, possibly because
both the film and even The National’s production didn’t quite make it
that memorable, but with Louise Plowright at the fore it’s unforgettable.
Curly and Jud take to goading each other into shooting at knotholes, their
bullets bouncing off a tin roof. The frightful noise naturally frightens the
assembled company, so much that Aunt Eller has to go and investigate. Her
impressive anger at the pair of them for scaring us all half to death,
and then the way she reassures everyone else that it’s just a couple of idiots
shooting at knotholes, is truly memorable. What a powerful, commanding, and
accomplished actress Louise Plowright is.
On with building up Jud’s
character, Ali Hakaim tries to sell Jud some new photographs of half naked
women, but Jud doesn’t want them, what he really wants is a real woman of his
own. There is one other thing he’d like, a Kaleidoscope with a hidden knife,
called ‘The Little Wonder’, but Ali Hakaim, displaying a surprising
conscience says he would never deal with something dangerous like that. This
leads into another surprising song, and one which is not only often dropped
from cast albums, and possible productions, I don’t even recall ever having
heard the title before. This is Lonely Room, and it is sung by
Jude. It is an extraordinary piece, in terms of plot and character development.
It does help to make more sense of the plot idea of Jud having unrequited love
for a woman, and in fact for Laurey. It also helps to make more sense of the
classic scene which follows.
We come at last to the Act
1 Finale, what a long act this seems to have been. This last number is a
big one, a true classic, and one of the pieces for which Oklahoma!
is particularly well known, namely Out Of My Dreams, otherwise
known as The Dream Ballet. Only in this production things are
very different to normal. Usually in productions of Oklahoma! all
the principal characters have their “Dream” counterparts, dancers, who spend
the rest of the production among the ensemble, but have to dress as the
principals for this number, and dance their parts. Back in 1947 Howard Keel
once got into trouble for attempting to sub for Dream Curly, when the dancer
doing that part had for once gone unaccountably missing. While in 2001 The
National’s production broke new ground in actually having Josefina
Gabrielle dance her own Dream Laurey (well she happens to be a trained
dancer), who had actually done dream Laurey in an earlier production. In this
production, with a cast of only twenty three, it’s hard to see how there could
actually be enough of them to cover all the dream roles and still have enough
dancers left to provide a decent ensemble for the ‘Ballet’. It should be
a hint that the programme doesn’t give any “dream” credits, to find that John
Doyle has arranged things rather differently. Here everyone actually has
to be his or her own Dream character. Nikki Woollastonn assisted by Jo
Morris has cleverly arranged the choreography to come up with something
involving the whole company, including those who aren’t really dancers. We
start with Leila Benn Harris sitting on that swing, singing that classic
song, three of the chorus (probably actual dancers) cleverly remove her boots
and stockings, while everyone else exits. Presently Louise Plowright and
Amanda Minihan lead the primarily non-dancer members of the company onto
the stage, all of whom are now barefoot. Louise and Amanda are carrying between
them Laurey’s laundry tub, seen earlier in the show, but now it contains only
one item, a very very long wedding veil. This group have been given a routine
to do, and they make a surprisingly decent job of it, though it is quite
obvious it has been kept simple, more modern dance than ballet, but it is
striking simply for managing to make such sensible use of a group of actors who
are not really dancers. This group spread around the stage in the large circle (reminding
me of the scene in Mamma Mia when Donna helped Sophie into her
wedding dress), they also spend a good chunk of time down on the floor, during
which their movements take on an almost aerobics like quality. Presently those
members of the company who are primarily dancers, come on, and take centre
stage, they too are barefoot, and display their talents vigorously, before
quickly disappearing, leading Leila Benn Harris,
All in all a very impressive,
if rather long, first act. One thing above all else is abundantly clear, Louise
Plowright is on tip top form, very much like when she starred as Donna
Sheridan in the London production of Mamma Mia. In a funny sort
of way this is a striking reminder of that. The other thing really noticeable
in this production, is the shear amount of time Aunt Eller is on stage. Often,
during many scenes, when she is not directly involved she is sitting in her
rocking chair, in the centre of the stage, as though half alert and half
asleep, attentive to the action, half there and half not. It is quite obvious
we are meant to be seeing the action of the show through her eyes, what a
wonderful device, especially with such an actress as this to play the
role.
For Act 2 the
setting moves to the Box Social, possibly set at The Schoolhouse, semi-public
buildings like that were often the focus for social events in a frontier
community, where very often buildings needed to perform several functions, as
there weren’t many of them.
First on stage is Louise, the
moment she steps out onto that stage the atmosphere is electrified. There is
something about Louise Plowright, she really does have a gift for being
able to grab an audience from the word go (when she wants to). As soon as the ensemble enter we find the Box
Social in full swing. As Louise and the other principals lead the company with The
Farmer And The Cowman. It says in the programme ‘The Company And
Will’, but really Will, Curly, and Andrew Carnes all have their moments in
the spot light, and as for Aunt Eller, well she is very much the pillar of the
song in almost any production of the show, and especially in this one, when we
have Louise Plowright to play the part. In terms of character and
singing it with conviction this is an excellent song for her. I knew it would
be as soon as I read that she was to play Aunt Eller. Though her singing might
have benefited from a different orchestration. However, she does a perfectly
decent job with it, and gives the number of tremendous energy and joi de vie, that
really sells it to the audience. The entire company join in with great
enthusiasm, but it is Louise who leads them, like the excellent leading lady
that she is (when given the chance). The song actually started with Alex
Giannini standing in the centre of the stage, on top of a barrel, which was
on a porter’s trolley. He kind of led them into the first verse of the song,
but very strongly supported by several other members of the company, including
Louise. Then as the song degenerates into a bit of a riot, by now someone has
pushed the barrel over to down stage right, Louise goes to clamber onto the
barrel. She seemed to have some difficulty doing this neatly, I’m not sure if
that was intentional on the part of the choreographer, but even if it wasn’t, it
looked like part of the action, in keeping with the character. At this she
takes command of the situation, geta
a gun (somebody’s rifle), fires it to gain
attention, and orders Andrew to sing the chorus of the song, basically ordering
everyone to behave themselves. Which of course they do. Throughout the number
there is a lot of dancing by the entire company, choreographically it is
clearly based on American Line Dancing, and therefore not impossibly
complicated. All the company, even those actors who are not primary dancers,
look as though they are managing the routine fairly comfortably.
The number ends with them all
going off to start the auction. Aunt Eller initially appears somewhat less than
keen at being the auctioneer, but if that’s who they all want as auctioneer,
She declares they will start round the other side of the house, and work their
way back here, so they all head off-stage, leaving Will Parker and Ado Annie
for All Or Nothing. In the programme notes it credits the number
as being just Ado Annie, but it is in fact a duet.
As Ado Annie departs, The
Peddler enters, he proceeds to buy Will’s various presents, so that Will now
has $50 in cash, and can thus get Ado Annie. The Peddler does not actually want
the girl, he prefers to be unencumbered. He will not however, buy The Little
Wonder, he does have some moral scruples, however Jud Fry enters offers to
buy that instead. There follows a scene with Will Parker
The Auction itself proves to
be rather interesting. Normally when I’ve seen this the focus of attention has
been on Curly. But here the one who actually carries the scene is the auctioneer.
I really noticed just how good Louise
Plowright is with that American accent, especially with lines like “It’s
all for the school house, for learning”, and “This is ma niece’s hamper”.
For the auction, Louise is standing on the back of a cart. A cart which gets
well used in this production. The bidding between Ali Hakim and Will Parker for
Ado Annie’s hamper is quite comical, in contrast to the more serious nail
biting bit between Curly and Jud. for once the audience is a little divided as
to whose side they are on.
The next scene finds Jud
talking to Laurey, there is an undertone to this scene, possibly of a sexual
nature. Laurey finds this scary, a point which Leila Benn Harris puts an
emphasis on, this reminds us perhaps of the time and place in which this show
is set. One can almost feel a sense of relief when Laurey and Curly finally
declare their love for each other with People Will Say We’re In Love
(reprise).
Moving quickly on to the
Wedding, we’re now back on the farm. The Peddler turns up, along with his wife,
Gertie Cummings, everyone is surprised he’s got married. But it seems her
father insisted at the point of a gun.
A quick costume change for
Leila, now finds Laurey in her Wedding Dress, just married to Curly.
The discussion as to whether
Curly should be tried in a proper court the next day, or whether to convene the
court there and then, brings Louise to the fore. She has a commanding stage
presence, which this scene makes rather good use of, as Aunt Eller declares to
the Judge, that they are not asking him to break the rules, just bend
them a little. With Curly declared not guilty, on the grounds of self
defence. The Company conclude with the final reprise of Oklahoma!
then Laurey is taken off on her honeymoon, with Curly pulling a cart, the same
cart that Jud’s body was removed in. The majority of the cast exit, leaving
Louise with the falling leaves, Craig Els comes on and tips the box of
apples, they roll across the stage, he exits, things have come full circle, we
are back where the show started, it was all a memory. And with that Louise is
the last to exit.
There remain the bows. And
here is a lovely and very fitting surprise. The last on stage for an individual
bow is our leading lady Louise, alone.
Wow! What a show.
I’ve seen some good shows on
the Chichester Festival Theatre Main Stage, including Out Of This
World, How To Succeed In The Business Without Really Trying,
and
John Doyle really has done Chichester proud, directing this
unusual production of a classic. He has succeeded in taking Okalahoma!
away from the fictionalised Wild West of Hollywood, where everything looks far
too clean and colourful, and very often unconvincingly immodest. Binnie
Bowerman has given these characters wear modest sensible costumes that look
like they could really have lived out on the frontier. Clothing that would not
have looked so very out of place in a Laura Ingalls Wilder novel. David
Farely’s set design is very simple, clever and effective, no fancy scenery,
just those two off-white sheets, and a number of useful carts, and chairs and
such like. The simplicity of the set means that the actors have to work that
bit harder to put the show across. They can’t rely on spectacular scenery or
amazing special effects, or for that matter Mackintosh machinery, they
are thrown more onto their own resources to create the illusion or where they
are supposed to be. With a few notable exceptions, I much prefer this kind of
simplicity.
There is simplicity too in Nikki
Woollaston’s choreography. Obviously it was always going to be tough to
follow in Agnes De Mille’s footsteps. Wisely Nikki Woollaston
does not attempt to do anything of that sort. The choreography is well suited
to the mixed abilities of the cast. Some
of them are dancers and these people of course get more complicated things to
do.
Musically the breezy
brilliance of Richard Rogers’s is score is under Catherine Jayes’s
capable baton. Maybe it’s her experience of conducting so often in the open
air, but the orchestra play the classic score with feeling and make the whole
show feel so very out of doors. However, orchestration is one area where I
think this production could have been improved. Why did they use Jonathan
Tunick’s orchestrations? Why didn’t they go the whole hog and have a new
orchestration just for this production? Why on earth; Given that the direction
had completely rethought the staging of production, amongst other things to see
it through Aunt Eller’s eyes. And given that the choreography had clearly been
done especially for this production, taking into account the size and ability
of the cast. Why couldn’t the production have had it’s own orchestration. I
suppose licensing rights can be an issue, sometimes it is only possible to
obtain the rights to a show if a particular orchestration is used. Nevertheless
I do think this interesting production would have benefited from having it’s
own orchestration., appropriate to it’s particular cast. It wouldn’t have been
that difficult to find someone to do the job, after all Musical Director Catherine
Jayes has reorchestrated many a classic musical during her years as Regents
Park Open Air’s Theatre’s resident Musical Director, while the
composer-lyricist Jason Carr has a long association with Chichester and
also happens to be an orchestrator of note. It is possible that if they had had
good orchestration tailored to this cast
then:
Julia Wilson-Dickson has clearly done a decent job as Dialect coach, as
far as I could tell everyone sounded reasonably in accent. Louise Plowright,
as I would expect, did a good job with Aunt Eller’s speaking voice. She is the
kind of actress who although she does not have a natural gift for accents, she
does have a facility for mastering them decently.
Bearing in mind that this is
regional theatre, and therefore can’t pay West End salaries, I think that Jill
Green has done a good job of casting the piece, in fact although there
might be a few minor rough spot generally the cast are all very well suited to
their characters. Therefore the casting is excellent. It is a mixture of people
who have spent almost their entire careers in regional theatre, and those who
do have West End experience, in some cases indeed experience of being West End
principals. There is generally good supporting performances from: Amy Ellen
Richardson, Tim Morgan, Amanda Minihan, Kylie Anne
Cruikshanks, Melainie Cripps, Leon Else, Michelle Francis,
Matthew Gould, Eugene McCoy, Kristopher Mitchell, Darragh
O’Leary, Laura Scott, and, Rebecca Sutherland. Good by
regional theatre standards, at any rate, basically up to Chichester’s usual
high standard. There are eight individuals who might count as principals, one
of these is Andrew Carnes, played by Alex Giannini. I did not find his
performance as good as when I saw him play Buddy in Follies in
Northampton. I think part of the problem may have been that the standard in
this production was actually higher, and while his Follies colleague
had managed to raise her game tonight to match this production, he perhaps
didn’t have anywhere to raise his to.
That said his performance is by no means bad. He generally manages to
fit into his character and make his flaws part of his character’s flaws (always
a useful thing to do). There remain seven principals, any one of whom by
Mordden and Carr’s definitions could have been the star of the show. Natalie
Casey acts the role of Ado Annie well, she knows exactly what she is doing
on that score, unfortunately her singing lets the whole thing down. We’ve had
that sort of problem before at Chichester, sometimes involving leads, but
fortunately in this production her role is not the lead, and this is regional
theatre, so with her good acting she gets away with it. She is paired up with
I thought Leila Benn
Harris to be an excellent actress when I saw her play Rebecca in Imagine
This, a real West End Leading Lady. She trained at Arts Educational,
and they do seem to have a tendency to turn out a certain kind of principal,
someone who whether or not they are actually star of the show is going to make
themselves noticed. On the
The biggest surprise of this
unusual production is that it makes Aunt Eller in the star of the show. Fortunately
we have in the form of Louise Plowright a supertrouper actress
who can rise to the occasion. To borrow a line from Hot Shoe Shuffle“You
wanna to know what it’s really like? Fantastic!” to have her where she
truly belongs as a Leading Lady in a production of a legendary musical. When I
first read that she was to play Aunt Eller, with memories of Maureen Lipman’s
performance at The National still in my mind, I wasn’t sure that the
role would really be that great for her. I reckoned she’d be good for the role
though. Little did I know they were going to make her into the Leading Lady!
And what a leading lady she is. Tonight she is on tip top form.. This dazzling
dynamo is a real pillar of the show, just like she was when she headed the cast
of Mamma Mia. How lucky can this show get! For when Louise
Plowright is truly given a part that fits her talents perfectly she lights
up with a sparkling performance, And when she’s got the plumb position of Star
of the show she raises her game to hit the heights, with a truly West End
standard performance, in fact the best even The West End could offer. From the
time she first steps onto the stage at the start of the show, right down to the
final bow, she is carrying the show, with strong support from all the other principals,
but they’ve jolly well got to play to her high standards. The role does suit
her brilliantly. Not only does it place her at the centre of the show as
Leading Lady, but also the demands of this particular role are a good match for
her abilities. Acting-wise she gets some jolly fine lines (I never realised how
good they were until I heard her say them). Her attention to detail when she is
acting a part is well utilised, particularly by making her play a character
through who’s eyes and memories we are seeing the action. As for
characterisation she is brilliant. I never thought of Aunt Eller as feisty, but
with Louise Plowright playing her, she becomes very feisty, just like
her performer. And this really makes the character. Hitherto I’d felt Aunt Eller
to be a bit well straight-laced, a bit too upstanding. But Louise has infused
into her character a little bit of Donna The Dynamo. The strong-minded
hardworking vivacious woman who runs her own life, and bosses the men working
for her around, and won’t stand any nonsense from anyone. See the similarity?
It’s exactly what the character needs to make her believable. Then there is the
dancing. Compared to some singer-actresses in the big musicals Louise isn’t
that much of a dancer. She can manage well enough when she has too, her time in
Hot Shoe Shuffle would be testimony to that. But sometimes she does
struggle, and it shows (like it did when she was in Follies). One
of the wonderful things about this production of Oklahoma! is
that like in Mamma Mia the choreography she is required to do
seems to be easily within her capabilities. As a result she displays a
confidence and joi de vie that would otherwise be lacking. The only down side
to this role, is that singing-wise it does not serve her well. Louise Plowright
is a gifted Musical Theatre singer. She may not have the versatility or range
of some of her rivals. But with a decent song, and the right arrangement she
can achieve a winning performance that even more versatile rivals will struggle
to match. Her recording of Does Your Mother Know for example, is
better than any other version of that song I have seen or heard (including the ABBA
original). Her performance of The Winner Takes It All is
so brilliant that when a clip of her singing it turned up in a documentary that
also included Meryl Streep’s, Louise’s far eclipsed Meryl Streep’s
(which the documentary was supposed to be promoting). But then Louise
Plowright has a peculiar knack for singing vitriol like no other performer
I have ever heard. Her sensational rendition of Could I Leave You
in Follies was also by far the best rendition I have ever heard
of that song (eclipsing even the likes of David Kernan, and, Louise
Gold!). The only draw back to Oklahoma! is that she doesn’t
get nearly enough opportunity to utilize her singing talents. There is the
ingenious twist of basically having her lead the company with the title song,
but that is largely an ensemble piece and she’s only leading it because she’s
got the strongest voice. True she does a bit of singing in Kansas City,
but that’s really
I’ve seen some good shows
down here at
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