Broadway royalty has pitched up at the Menier, already riding high with 15 Tony award nominations for its productions of La Cage aux Folles and A Little Night Music.
Paradise Found, a new show set to the music of Johann Strauss the younger, is directed by Hal Prince, now 82 and the doyen among helmsmen of musical theatre, in partnership with Susan Stroman, who brought Mel Brooks's The Producers to the stage and is also one of the best choreographers in the business. The cast, too, is packed with Broadway award-winners, chief among them Mandy Patinkin.
So why are they encamped in a shabby converted factory on a gritty street in south London? Partly, I'm sure, because they admire the Menier but also, I suspect, because they wanted to develop this show away from the prying eyes and theatrical gossip of Broadway.
Watching the results of their labours, I think they were right to be cautious, for the show is far from being the smash hit one hoped for.
Paradise Found often feels strained when it ought to be funny, mawkish when it ought to be moving, and Strauss's waltzes and polkas, played by a small band, begin to seem repetitive and constricting over a whole evening. One begins to long for some astringency amid the sugary whipped cream, more reality and bruising emotion in the show's depiction of love in the Vienna of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is also a strong feeling that we have been here before, in the plays of Schnitzler and Sondheim's A Little Night Music.
Richard Nelson's script is based on a novel by the Austrian writer Joseph Roth (1894-1939), in which the Shah of Persia is struck down by impotence and unable to enjoy sexual relations with any of his many wives.
His eunuch (Patinkin) suggests a revitalising trip to Vienna, where the Shah promptly falls in lust with the Empress. Realising this must be a non-starter if diplomatic relations are to be maintained, the eunuch and a Viennese baron dress up a brothel as a palace and disguise a prostitute, Mizzi, as the Empress. No end of noisy rumpy-pumpy ensues, but the promiscuous baron is suddenly smitten with jealousy and belatedly realises that he loves Mizzi himself.
The jocose, nudge-nudge, wink-wink tone of the production, with its gaudy costumes and often dire jokes, quickly becomes wearisome, while Ellen Fitzhugh's lyrics rarely achieve the wit to which they aspire.
Patinkin, perspiring freely as he struggles to keep the show afloat, could find far more pathos in the role of the eunuch, forever barred from the love he arranges for others, and Shuler Hensley's descent into alcoholism as the baron during the darker second half fails to ring true.
The best performance comes from Kate Baldwin, who is both affecting and a succulent feast for the eye, as Mizzi.
One emerges from the show in little doubt that this is a rare botched shot from both the Menier and the dream-team of Prince and Stroman. Theatrical paradise it certainly ain't.
Is the Menier producing this solely or is it a number of outside producers, they'll bounce back but they'll have to be more careful in future, they're on a high at the moment with La Cage and Night Music getting Tony Nomination and the Willy Russell plays have got a West End transfer.
I just get the feeling that this show was presented a little quieter than all their previous shows were. As if it was seen as experimental and to present it at this theatre would bring it some prestige before taking to the bear pit that is Broadway.
Theater is like cookery: You can assemble all the right ingredients but sometime the souffle just won't rise. "Paradise Found" is helmed by Hal Prince and Susan Stroman; Mandy Patinkin and John McMartin head the cast; and the score comes courtesy of Johann Strauss II. So why are their combined efforts -- and, boy, is this show effortful -- so dismayingly dreadful? The biggest problem is Richard Nelson's book, an adaptation of a tale of disguises and surprises in mid-nineteenth century Vienna, that lurches between extremes of tone and taste.
The lame, operetta-style first act, which takes off dramatically only about five minutes before intermission, is beset by entirely tension-free scene-setting and character introduction. Events are quasi-narrated by a more-than-faintly precious Patinkin, whose famed falsetto is put to (over)use in the role of the benign but naive Eunuch to the ancient Shah of Persia (McMartin).
Despite having hundreds of wives, the Shah cannot rouse himself to become aroused. Upon arriving in Vienna, he espies the inconveniently married Empress and declares she must be his.
Anxious to avoid a diplomatic catastrophe, our Eunuch and his new friend the Baron (Shuler Hensley) arrange for the Baron's twentysomething whorehouse girlfriend Mizzi (Kate Baldwin) to impersonate the Empress and bed the ancient Shah, a queasy event depicted offstage in enough loudly amplified puffing, grunting and squealing to make one prudish.
There are similar shenanigans at the brothel and in the bedroom of the soap manufacturer's wife, where everyone races around in search of (mystifyingly overplayed) pleasure. But farce completely relies on jeopardy, and here there's none. And note to designer Beowulf Borrit whose unatmospheric Perspex sets overfill the Menier Chocolate Factory stage: If people need to hide in a closet, build one sturdy enough for the doors to close.
Halfway through the second half, the mood darkens. His reputation ruined, the Baron considers suicide. Shunting forward 15 years, we rediscover him destitute. It now becomes clear he and Mizzi are the focus. Yet despite sterling work from Hensley -- almost the only person whose dignity remains intact -- the gear change is too abrupt. It's too late to ask audiences to engage emotionally with such hitherto preposterous figures.
Of all people, Prince knows that waltz musicals can work -- step forward "A Little Night Music" -- but press-ganging Strauss hits from "Die Fledermaus" or reworking "Wiener Blut" as "Feeling Good" is more a conceit than a musical theater idea. Though lyrically adequate, too many numbers lack drive or dynamism. And the eight-piece band is a little too heavy on electronic keyboard to sound authentic.
What this material needs above all is charm, a quality entirely absent, especially in the costumes, which are garish and busy enough to register at Madison Square Garden. In this tiny house, they look vulgar.
The now dubious oriental "exoticism" of "Paradise Found" is reminiscent of "Kismet," a show that appeared dated at its Broadway premiere in 1953. That so much talent could have attached itself to a new but equally moribund tuner is baffling.
Reviewed May 23, 2010. Opened, May 26. Running time: 2 HOURS, 25 MIN.
I saw PF on Tuesday and thought it was absolutely fantastic! My detailed comments will be posted on the thread about my "mini-feast of theatre" in London.
THEATRE 2020: CURTAINS**** LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE GIRLS***** WICKED***** KEITH RAMSAY TAKING NOTES WITH EDWARD SECKERSON***** KAYLEIGH MCKNIGHT CONCERT***** RAGS***** ON MCQUILLAN'S HILL** DEAR EVAN HANSEN***** THE JURY***
SADM - it was sold out on Tuesday night and everyone in the audience seemed to love it - rapturous applause throughout. The only thing negative about it for me was the appalling new seating in the Menier. I never had a problem with the old seating but the new seats are dire. Whoever designed them has certainly never suffered from a bad back! I was literally in agony for the entire night - could not sit back properly and was in so much pain I would have left early from many shows. But this show was so wonderful it was more than worth suffering the pain. Cannot believe how anyone could give this show a negative review!
THEATRE 2020: CURTAINS**** LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE GIRLS***** WICKED***** KEITH RAMSAY TAKING NOTES WITH EDWARD SECKERSON***** KAYLEIGH MCKNIGHT CONCERT***** RAGS***** ON MCQUILLAN'S HILL** DEAR EVAN HANSEN***** THE JURY***
I think it was sold out before it opened, they even put a couple of extra performances on. So it's sold out status is in no way a reflection of it's quality or lack thereof. It also means it wouldn't close early despite the awful reasons.
Although i didn't like it, and think it was low quality and misguided, i do think most of the reviews are a bit too vitriolic. It isn't without its charms, it just doesn't have anywhere near enough of them.
I'm fairly gobsmacked that you found it fantastic bob8rich, and that the audience were estatic. Are they putting E in the pre show food?
LOL boybooshka! I'm honestly just as gobsmacked that anyone could dislike the show. It was seriously one of the top 5 things I've enjoyed most so far this year (including all the shows I saw in New York in March). I was in total rapture every single second - and that was despite being in considerable pain having to suffer in those awful seats. Just goes to show how different individuals' tastes can be. (Like I could not comprehend how anyone could possibly like Hairspray, which I found to be mindless rubbish, totally humourless and boring in the extreme.)
THEATRE 2020: CURTAINS**** LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE GIRLS***** WICKED***** KEITH RAMSAY TAKING NOTES WITH EDWARD SECKERSON***** KAYLEIGH MCKNIGHT CONCERT***** RAGS***** ON MCQUILLAN'S HILL** DEAR EVAN HANSEN***** THE JURY***
Yeah i'm all about the different strokes for different folks, makes the world a much more interesting place. how boring would it be if we all liked the same stuff.
As for the seating at the Menier, i definitely agree with you on that. not only are they uncomfortable, they squeeze far too many people on each row.
