I was at yesterday's matinee. Unfortunately, it's a boring and listless production, with uneven acting.
Yes, the acting standouts are Mary Beth Peil, Laura Osnes, and Lilli Cooper, as macnyc points out in his post. Peil is the perfect embodiment of Mrs Peachum, and her "Ballad of Sexual Dependency" was show-stopping. She did more with a look or a slight move of the body than most can do in an entire performance. She and F Murray Abraham are well-matched, even if Mr Abraham is still finding his footing as Peachum.
Osnes, likewise, is doing the best work I've ever seen from her as Polly. She has that ideal balance between delicacy world-weariness. While I don't love Polly singing "Barbara Song" instead of "Pirate Jenny" at the wedding, she delivered it nicely, and it's one of the few moments that's well-staged in the production. Cooper is a superb Lucy, with a great smoky voice. However, the interpolation of "Ballad of the Drowned Girl" makes absolutely no sense other than to give her more material.
The fatal miscasting here is Michael Park as Macheath. He cuts a dashing figure in his tailored three-piece suit (even though his "kid gloves" look more like the kind you'd trim your garden with), but he has neither the menace nor the sexual magnetism that make for a great Mac. Likewise, his voice has lost some of the shine it possessed when he was younger. Sally Murphy, a performer I usually adore, is just plain odd as Jenny, write down to an unplaceable accent that's half-Austria and half-Minnesota. Abraham, as I said, is growing in the part of Peachum, aiding my his natural charisma, and the rest of the ensemble is passable with few standouts.
Clarke's production seems to be searching for a concept. It's messy, but not in an interesting way. If this was your first introduction to her work, you'd leave scratching your head as to why she's often touted as one of the visionaries of her generation.
|