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The Witches of Eastwick
by Mark Shenton Broadway.Com
LONDON - In an age when musicals have gone the way of oratorios and pop pageants, the West End opening of The Witches of Eastwick - which in the old fashioned way, bills itself a musical comedy - is at once refreshingly anachronistic but also delightfully new. Of course, this being a Cameron Mackintosh production, it has its chandelier or helicopter moment - namely, one at the end of Act One when the title trio of characters literally take flight (and reach the top balcony of London's largest musical house, the four-level Theatre Royal Drury Lane!).
But the show flies in other ways, too, not least in a script that restores comedy to the musical, and a score that restores real numbers to it. It's written by John Dempsey (book and lyrics) and Dana P Rowe (music), two youngish Americans whose last show, The Fix, was a sassy satire on the American political process that Mackintosh had nurtured to a production at London's Donmar Warehouse (where it was staged by Sam Mendes) and subsequently at Virginia's Signature Theatre, near Washington DC (where it was directed by Eric Schaeffer, who also now smartly directs Witches). Before that, however, Dempsey and Rowe had collaborated on the short-lived off-Broadway musical, Zombie Prom (seen at the Variety Arts); and the maturing of their talent, while retaining the vivacity and freshness of those earlier works, is amply demonstrated in The Witches of Eastwick, which eschews the pastiche styles of the earlier shows to reveal a genuinely original voice.
The result is a show that is tirelessly tuneful, good humored and grown-up -but never tired. John Dempsey's literate and witty script and lyrics travel a pleasingly adult path that actually takes its characters, as well as the audience, on a journey that really goes somewhere. Based on John Updike's 1984 novel, best known for the film version made of it a few years later starring Jack Nicholson, it tells, of course, of the strange effects that the arrival of a stranger from New York, one Darryl van Horne, has on a small New England town, and in particular to a trio of lonely, longtime female friends.
In the process, it provides composer Dana P. Rowe with the opportunity to provide a score of wide-ranging character; and for a range of compelling characters. There are three terrific diva roles for the title parts, and as they slug it out for Darryl's attentions, there's also another competitive war being waged for the attentions of the audience, too. The clear winner is Joanna Riding's Jane Smart, who melts from prim, uptight schoolteacher to carefree and sexy; the actress, who has previously made a strong impression in such National Theatre musicals as Guys and Dolls and Carousel (where she played a heartbreaking Julie Jordan) confirms her promise as a major musical star. Meanwhile, 21 years since she made a splash in the original Broadway company of They're Playing Our Song, Lucie Arnaz returns to originate a major role in a major musical with real authority, playing the sculptress Alexandra Spofford with mature sensuality and a strong vocal presence. Only Maria Friedman, as local reporter Sukie Rougemont, is lost in 'little girl' acting that is even more irritating for its insistent attention-seeking efforts.
But it is Rosemary Ashe, as the sour town gossip and do-gooder Felicia Gabriel, who virtually steals the show with a terrifying coloratura soprano that is as lethal as the cut of her dress and the hilarious, deliberately knock-kneed choreography she has been given. Stephen Tate, as her suicidal husband, is also touching and funny.
If it seems strange to have dealt with these characters before the supposedly principal one of Darryl van Horne, that is because Ian McShane(best known here for playing the title role in a long-running television series, Lovejoy) isn't quite in their league. Though he looks the part well enough, with a gone-to-seed appeal that is at once handsome yet repellant, his delivery of the songs is in the Rex Harrison/Henry Higgins mode of talk singing.
But the production has quite enough to divert despite this flawed performance. It provides a feast of no-expenses spared visual imagination, courtesy of Bob Crowley, who seems to have usurped the position previously occupied by John Napier as the pre-eminent designer of musicals today. Howard Harrison's dazzling lighting, and the witty choreography of Broadway's Bob Avian in collaboration with new British talent Stephen Mear, make their contribution, too.
It's a show which aims, first and foremost, to provide a fun piece of entertainment; and in that increasingly rarefied ambition, it triumphantly succeeds.
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