The Music Man is a fantastically catchy musical set in 1912 Iowa, in which conman "Professor Harold Hill" persuades a town to purchase large numbers of musical instruments and uniforms on the pretense that he will operate a marching band for their children, but his plans to defraud the town go awry when he falls in love with the town's fierce but socially unpopular librarian and music teacher, Marian Paroo. It won five Tony Awards in the year of its release including Best Musical, despite having as a competitor the greatest work of music ever written. More pertinently to how I first encountered it, it plays a minor role in the Rorshach's Blot classic Larceny, Lechery, and Luna Lovegood! as the play to which Fred drags Angelina on every one of their dates. eso theatricals were recently putting on a run of the play, and having previously enjoyed their Sweeney Todd, I was eager to see this too.
Again, the performance was clearly that of amateurs rather than professionals. That said, the set and costume design were absolutely fine, the acting and music adequate and the singing good (except for some unfortunately consistent disharmony in the school board barbershop quartet, whose source I was unable to ascertain). The weakest part of the performance was the generally unimaginative choreography, which often was nothing more than characters marching round the stage and raising their arms in synchronisation. To be fair, it is my understanding that someone had to step into the role of choreographer at a late stage, which suggests that they probably didn't have all that much time to rehearse the dancing either, and therefore had to remain on the easier side of things.
There were odd moments - for example, when a very Dutch woman exclaimed of herself and her two children (both played by Hungarians) "Oh, but we are Irish!" But overall, the performance was enjoyable; it did a better job of conveying the energy of the musical than its beauty, but did a quite reasonable job of the latter too.
(Incidentally, a more mainstream reference to The Music Man than Harry Potter fanfiction: Marge vs. the Monorail)
Eso Theatricals is an English-language theatre company operating in Budapest, who this weekend put on a series of performances of Stephen Sondheim's classic musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I had a passing knowledge of the musical from various sources, but this was my first time seeing it; the performance was in various ways sub-professional, but nevertheless well worth the 3000Ft ticket price and time.
We'll start with the good: Tamás Pál and Dóra Stróbel were fantastic in the lead roles of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. They both sang and acted well, bringing across the characters of an intelligent but haunted Sweeney and a Mrs. Lovett who is independently psycho but nevertheless driven into true depravity by her love for Sweeney. They bounced off each other magnificently, with "A Little Priest" being unsurprisingly a highlight of the show.
Similarly, Chris Hunter put on a stellar performance as Anthony, while Hans Peterson and Mario Cossu were convincing as the Judge and the Beadle respectively. The music was played well enough not to stand out, which is precisely what is wanted in musical theatre. The lighting was understated, and resisted the temptation to play up to the dramatics of the rest of the piece. (The play did in some parts feel too dramatic, but perhaps that is unavoidable when you're adapting a Victorian penny-dreadful).
The setting was well arranged. We entered to a ghostly organ piece, with various cast members standing in position around a darkened and smoky room with old-fashioned lanterns. The aesthetic of Dark Old London was well captured (though this aesthetic of course belies the fact that the London of the Victorian era was considerably safer than the London of today).
Moving on to the forgivable: the sound was in the early stages poorly balanced, but was corrected within the first ten minutes. Non of the accents even came close to cockney, but with the exception of one obnoxiously-American-accented extra this did not especially hurt the performance. Dóra Stróbel in particular came off as motherly and yet at the same time pragmatic largely as a result of her Hungarian way of speaking. Viktória Pászthy as Johanna was often difficult or even impossible to understand, but ultimately Johanna isn't really an independently interesting character so much as a Ms. McGuffin, so not understanding her hardly detracts from the rest of the play.
Overall I enjoyed the play, and would recommend going to see it were it not for this having been the last showing, and for this blog having o Hungarian readers.
I spent the day in Stratford-upon-Avon, a picturesque but rather dull town which is chiefly famous as the birthplace of William Shakespeare. After a walk along the River Avon and a traipse through the Moving Arts and Design (MAD) Museum, in the afternoon I could find nothing better to do than to watch a play put on at the Swan Theatre by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The play, Volpone, was written by Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Jonson.
For the most part I've found marble runs are much the same,
but this was a nice one.
From a more serious part of the MAD Museum. I didn't understand most of the
"artistic" "sculpture" type things, but I liked this one.
The play was well-performed and enjoyable. It tells the story of the greedy nobleman Volpone, who feigns sickness unto death in order to procure gifts from those who wish to ingratiate themselves unto him, and so be named his heir. The title character was very convincingly played by Henry Goodman. although to me it felt like just as important a character was his assistant Mosca (Orion Lee). Lee was less convincing - his flattery seemed to be laid on impossibly thick - but it was still an entirely competent performance.
The play was originally set in Renaissance Venice. This clearly was not - despite keeping the Elizabethan language, they used modern dress and a variety of modern gizmos (mobile phones, a stock exchange tracker, etc) and updated many of the references. The accents were varied - businessman Corvino (Matthew Kelly) spoke in a broad Yorkshire accent, his much-abused wife Celia (Rhiannon Handy) in a vaguely east-European accent, traveller Peregrine (Colin Ryan) is firmly American, and the only Italian accent to be heard is when Volpone disguises himself as a travelling seller of snake-oil.
The ending of the play seemed very accelerated. An attempt by Volpone, Mosca and their various avaricious fools to frame Celia and Bonario (Andy Apollo) for adultery and battery goes awry when Volpone's love of mischief and Mosca's greed causes all to turn upon each other. Celia and Bonario are subsequently exonerated, which is fair enough; the judges then, with no further investigation, are somehow aware of all the underhanded dealings to which hitherto only the audience has been privy. There was some satisfaction in seeing so many unpleasant characters punished and the only two good characters (not the only likeable characters, to be sure, but the only good characters) leaving the court hand in hand (Celia having been granted a divorce "with her dowry returned in triple", and Bonario being granted the lands of his father, "who could not live well but may perhaps die well") but given that until not ten minutes hence all had been entirely under control, the sudden downfall of the main characters combined with a moralistic epilogue made the ending rather unconvincing.
I didn't buy the program, although the cast-list which I do have mentions that it contains among various essays one by "leading financial journalist Gillian Tett on greed of modern-day bankers". Similarly in the trailer (below), director Trevor Nunn refers to the "fact" that "greed has not gone away, but has in fact increased". It didn't spoil my enjoyment, but it was disappointing to be reminded of how Guardianista the arts world is.
All in all, the play is well worth seeing if you're around Stratford. But putting a major national theatre in Stratford is stupid, because it takes a solid hour to get there even from Birmingham. I blame public funding of the arts, which moves theatre away from what people want to see not only by changing the plays which are performed, but also by moving genuinely worthwhile plays like this one away from audiences. In any case, is it worth going to Stratford to see? Probably.
