Theater Review | 'Where’s Charley?'
A Few Wacky Victorians in Love
Published: March 18, 2011
The most scrumptious English tea, with precisely cut cucumber sandwiches, warm scones, fresh clotted cream and a cake tray piled high, could hardly be more satisfying than the sweet, silly, thoroughly enchanting revival of the 1948 musical “Where’s Charley?,” at City Center through Sunday. The British director John Doyle’s staging of this rarely seen Frank Loesser show for Encores! is impeccable on every level, one of the most fully realized productions that this
concert musicals series has presented in recent seasons.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Rob McClure, left, and Lauren Worsham in
the Frank Loesser musical “Where's Charley?”
The singing is heavenly, the acting deft and effortlessly charming. Subtle
matters of accent and style are perhaps the toughest test for a wholly American cast romping through this unmistakably English material, based on the hugely popular 1892 farce “Charley’s Aunt,” by Brandon Thomas. Here, too, Mr. Doyle and his cast, which features little-known performers in the roles of the young
lovers, alongside estimable veterans like Rebecca Luker and Howard McGillin, emerge triumphant.
The Briton sitting behind me didn’t exactly erupt into cheers of “By Jove, I think they’ve got it!” as this spirited production reached its romantic conclusion, but he came pretty close.
When an oddity or rarity is on the bill at a concert staging of a musical,
you often emerge pleased at having heard the score presented in full but also
convinced that the songs would have fared better without the leaden baggage of
that exasperating, dated or absurd book. The opposite is the case here. Even
with this, his first full score for a Broadway musical, Loesser was writing
songs that emerge from the dramatic moment at hand and precisely reflect the
period and place in which the show is set. With its skillful echoes of the
British music hall and operetta, the score blooms onstage as it doesn’t entirely
on a recording. (Because of a strike, a Broadway cast recording of the original
production, starring Ray Bolger, was never made; the London cast recording
features Norman Wisdom in Bolger’s role.)
The confectionary plot, which often recalls a sugar-coated variation on Oscar
Wilde’s later “Importance of Being Earnest,” is classic farce turning on that
sturdy staple of British comedy: the cross-dressing man. The Oxford students
Charley Wykeham (Rob McClure) and his best pal, Jack Chesney (Sebastian
Arcelus), have invited their sweethearts to their rooms for tea, hoping to
further their already advanced romantic interests. A proper female chaperone is
expected to arrive in the form of Charley’s aunt, Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez, a
widow who has long lived in Brazil.
Peril impends when a note comes announcing that her visit must be put off.
But with Charley in convenient possession of a dowager costume for a student
theatrical, a plan is hatched for him to impersonate his own aunt. He spends the
rest of a frenetic afternoon wooing his beloved, Amy Spettigue (Lauren Worsham),
while dressed as the sporty Oxfordian he is, and fleeing the romantic overtures
of not one but two elderly gentlemen when he’s trussed up in a corset and
tripping over flowing skirts.
The widow’s suitors, attracted by a rumor of riches, are Amy’s uncle, Stephen
Spettigue (Dakin Matthews), who is also the guardian of Jack’s paramour, Kitty
Verdun (Jill Paice), and Jack’s father, Sir Francis Chesney (Mr. McGillin).
Happily for the increasingly exhausted Charley, Sir Francis is distracted from
the chase by the arrival of a love of his youth, now apparently going by the
name of Mrs. Beverly Smythe (Ms. Luker).
Mr. McGillin, a musical-theater leading man maybe best known for his long run
in the title role of “The Phantom of the Opera,” and the lovely Ms. Luker,
seemingly ageless both in person and voice, perform an utterly transporting
duet, “Lovelier Than Ever,” an operetta-style paean to springtime and young love
that’s perhaps the evening’s musical highlight. (To have another chance to hear
Ms. Luker’s bell-bright soprano, perhaps the loveliest of her generation, is
reason enough to see the show.)
But there are few lulls in this briskly paced evening, aside, perhaps, from
the first-act finale, the quasi-samba “Pernambuco,” which occasions an extended
ballet sequence that palls without the genius of the original choreographer,
George Balanchine, on hand to exalt it. (The choreography by Alex Sanchez for
the musical-comedy numbers is frisky and appealing, however. )
Ms. Paice and Mr. Arcelus, both excellent singers, share their own love duet,
“My Darling, My Darling,” a song that manages to spoof the swoony conventions of
operetta but also indulge them. Ms. Worsham delights with her pure, warm tone
and her agile comic delivery in her duet with Mr. McClure, a classic Loesser
conversation-in-song in which the lovers dream of the coming glories of
20th-century technology. (This number, “Make a Miracle,” made Stephen Sondheim’s
list of songs he wished he’d written.) Mr. Matthews gives a ripe comic
performance as the grasping Spettigue.
And in the key role of Charley, Mr. McClure scampers to and fro with tireless
energy, flouncing in and out of his skirts with comic verve, employing a funny,
pinched falsetto when Charley is impersonating his aunt. The most famous song in
Loesser’s score — really the only famous one — is “Once in Love With Amy,”
credited with saving the musical’s fortunes during an uneasy out-of-town tryout,
when Bolger invited the audience to sing along.
As performed (and led) by Mr. McClure, a nimble dancer and terrific singer,
it naturally brings the show to a genial, mildly intoxicating climax. Normally I
find the invitation to sing along about as appealing as a date with the dental
surgeon. On this rare occasion, I found it almost impossible to resist.
WHERE’S CHARLEY?
Book by George Abbott, based on Brandon Thomas’s “Charley’s Aunt”; music and
lyrics by Frank Loesser; directed by John Doyle; music director, Rob Berman;
choreography by Alex Sanchez; sets by John Lee Beatty; costumes by Ann
Hould-Ward; lighting by Paul Miller; sound by Scott Lehrer; concert adaptation
by Mr. Doyle; music coordinator, Seymour Red Press; original orchestrations by
Ted Royal, Hans Spialek and Philip J. Lang. Presented by Encores!, Jack Viertel,
artistic director. At City Center, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan; (212)
581-1212, nycitycenter.org. Through Sunday. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes.
WITH: Sebastian Arcelus (Jack Chesney), Jeff Brooks (Brassett), Dan Callaway
(Wilkinson), Rebecca Luker (Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez), Dakin Matthews (Stephen
Spettigue), Rob McClure (Charley Wykeham), Howard McGillin (Sir Francis
Chesney), Jill Paice (Kitty Verdun) and Lauren Worsham (Amy Spettigue).
A version of this review appeared in print on March 19, 2011, on
page C1 of the New York edition.
Published: March 18, 2011
The most scrumptious English tea, with precisely cut cucumber sandwiches, warm scones, fresh clotted cream and a cake tray piled high, could hardly be more satisfying than the sweet, silly, thoroughly enchanting revival of the 1948 musical “Where’s Charley?,” at City Center through Sunday. The British director John Doyle’s staging of this rarely seen Frank Loesser show for Encores! is impeccable on every level, one of the most fully realized productions that this
concert musicals series has presented in recent seasons.
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Rob McClure, left, and Lauren Worsham in
the Frank Loesser musical “Where's Charley?”
The singing is heavenly, the acting deft and effortlessly charming. Subtle
matters of accent and style are perhaps the toughest test for a wholly American cast romping through this unmistakably English material, based on the hugely popular 1892 farce “Charley’s Aunt,” by Brandon Thomas. Here, too, Mr. Doyle and his cast, which features little-known performers in the roles of the young
lovers, alongside estimable veterans like Rebecca Luker and Howard McGillin, emerge triumphant.
The Briton sitting behind me didn’t exactly erupt into cheers of “By Jove, I think they’ve got it!” as this spirited production reached its romantic conclusion, but he came pretty close.
When an oddity or rarity is on the bill at a concert staging of a musical,
you often emerge pleased at having heard the score presented in full but also
convinced that the songs would have fared better without the leaden baggage of
that exasperating, dated or absurd book. The opposite is the case here. Even
with this, his first full score for a Broadway musical, Loesser was writing
songs that emerge from the dramatic moment at hand and precisely reflect the
period and place in which the show is set. With its skillful echoes of the
British music hall and operetta, the score blooms onstage as it doesn’t entirely
on a recording. (Because of a strike, a Broadway cast recording of the original
production, starring Ray Bolger, was never made; the London cast recording
features Norman Wisdom in Bolger’s role.)
The confectionary plot, which often recalls a sugar-coated variation on Oscar
Wilde’s later “Importance of Being Earnest,” is classic farce turning on that
sturdy staple of British comedy: the cross-dressing man. The Oxford students
Charley Wykeham (Rob McClure) and his best pal, Jack Chesney (Sebastian
Arcelus), have invited their sweethearts to their rooms for tea, hoping to
further their already advanced romantic interests. A proper female chaperone is
expected to arrive in the form of Charley’s aunt, Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez, a
widow who has long lived in Brazil.
Peril impends when a note comes announcing that her visit must be put off.
But with Charley in convenient possession of a dowager costume for a student
theatrical, a plan is hatched for him to impersonate his own aunt. He spends the
rest of a frenetic afternoon wooing his beloved, Amy Spettigue (Lauren Worsham),
while dressed as the sporty Oxfordian he is, and fleeing the romantic overtures
of not one but two elderly gentlemen when he’s trussed up in a corset and
tripping over flowing skirts.
The widow’s suitors, attracted by a rumor of riches, are Amy’s uncle, Stephen
Spettigue (Dakin Matthews), who is also the guardian of Jack’s paramour, Kitty
Verdun (Jill Paice), and Jack’s father, Sir Francis Chesney (Mr. McGillin).
Happily for the increasingly exhausted Charley, Sir Francis is distracted from
the chase by the arrival of a love of his youth, now apparently going by the
name of Mrs. Beverly Smythe (Ms. Luker).
Mr. McGillin, a musical-theater leading man maybe best known for his long run
in the title role of “The Phantom of the Opera,” and the lovely Ms. Luker,
seemingly ageless both in person and voice, perform an utterly transporting
duet, “Lovelier Than Ever,” an operetta-style paean to springtime and young love
that’s perhaps the evening’s musical highlight. (To have another chance to hear
Ms. Luker’s bell-bright soprano, perhaps the loveliest of her generation, is
reason enough to see the show.)
But there are few lulls in this briskly paced evening, aside, perhaps, from
the first-act finale, the quasi-samba “Pernambuco,” which occasions an extended
ballet sequence that palls without the genius of the original choreographer,
George Balanchine, on hand to exalt it. (The choreography by Alex Sanchez for
the musical-comedy numbers is frisky and appealing, however. )
Ms. Paice and Mr. Arcelus, both excellent singers, share their own love duet,
“My Darling, My Darling,” a song that manages to spoof the swoony conventions of
operetta but also indulge them. Ms. Worsham delights with her pure, warm tone
and her agile comic delivery in her duet with Mr. McClure, a classic Loesser
conversation-in-song in which the lovers dream of the coming glories of
20th-century technology. (This number, “Make a Miracle,” made Stephen Sondheim’s
list of songs he wished he’d written.) Mr. Matthews gives a ripe comic
performance as the grasping Spettigue.
And in the key role of Charley, Mr. McClure scampers to and fro with tireless
energy, flouncing in and out of his skirts with comic verve, employing a funny,
pinched falsetto when Charley is impersonating his aunt. The most famous song in
Loesser’s score — really the only famous one — is “Once in Love With Amy,”
credited with saving the musical’s fortunes during an uneasy out-of-town tryout,
when Bolger invited the audience to sing along.
As performed (and led) by Mr. McClure, a nimble dancer and terrific singer,
it naturally brings the show to a genial, mildly intoxicating climax. Normally I
find the invitation to sing along about as appealing as a date with the dental
surgeon. On this rare occasion, I found it almost impossible to resist.
WHERE’S CHARLEY?
Book by George Abbott, based on Brandon Thomas’s “Charley’s Aunt”; music and
lyrics by Frank Loesser; directed by John Doyle; music director, Rob Berman;
choreography by Alex Sanchez; sets by John Lee Beatty; costumes by Ann
Hould-Ward; lighting by Paul Miller; sound by Scott Lehrer; concert adaptation
by Mr. Doyle; music coordinator, Seymour Red Press; original orchestrations by
Ted Royal, Hans Spialek and Philip J. Lang. Presented by Encores!, Jack Viertel,
artistic director. At City Center, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan; (212)
581-1212, nycitycenter.org. Through Sunday. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes.
WITH: Sebastian Arcelus (Jack Chesney), Jeff Brooks (Brassett), Dan Callaway
(Wilkinson), Rebecca Luker (Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez), Dakin Matthews (Stephen
Spettigue), Rob McClure (Charley Wykeham), Howard McGillin (Sir Francis
Chesney), Jill Paice (Kitty Verdun) and Lauren Worsham (Amy Spettigue).
A version of this review appeared in print on March 19, 2011, on
page C1 of the New York edition.
