Review of The Woman in White (long!)

[andrewmrichards]

Posted: 9/16/04 at 10:25am

Incidentally, I rarely get the chance to check this bulletin board, so if you have any questions / comments, please email them to me rather than posting them here and I'll do my best to respond.

Thanks
Andrew


The Woman in White
Review of performance 14/9/04


Firstly let me say this – whatever the reviews may say in the national press (and the two to have appeared so far were of the “Good-ish but….” Category) I personally believe this to be in very many ways the finest show Lloyd Webber has ever written.

The plot is very strong, and as one might expect of a 600+ page novel condensed into 3 hours of stage time, there is plenty of drama to drive the show forward. The thinning out of the story has served the show well, providing a focus where at times the novel lacked this. However, the major reason why the drama of the piece is so urgent is that every song contributes to the thrust. Unlike, for example, “Red and Black” from Les Mis, which I always felt was simply a re-stating of the function of “Drink with me” (or is it vice versa – a while now since I saw that show), or “Everybody loves a hero” from Aspects, every song without fail drives the plot and characterisation forward.

I make no secret of the fact that I am an admirer of ALW’s work, but – as with most shows – you can typically find at least one song per show which could be cut or at least shortened without losing anything from the drama; that is not true of this work. It is therefore his most dynamic and complete piece of drama perhaps since Superstar and Evita, reflecting the fact that in Charlotte Jones and David Zippel he may have finally found collaborators able to give him what Tim Rice contributed all those years ago.

Musically, there is no doubt that this is by far Lloyd Webber’s darkest score. From the first Britten-esque chords as Walter encounters the signalman to the chilling wedding scene, this is new territory for ALW. Unlike, for example, Phantom, where the chromatic sequences associated with the Phantom’s compositions are a contrast to the hugely romantic score, here the moments of unabashed romance (“I believe my heart”) are in stark contrast to and a real relief from the menace of the majority of the work.

The railway cutting which serves as the location for the start of the show introduces us quickly to “The Woman” and gives her an opportunity to launch into the melody which will become hers throughout the show; it is not credited in the programme as it winds its way throughout the show rather than ever being a single piece of music, yet it is perhaps the single most memorable opening theme of any ALW musical – including the likes of Love Changes Everything (Aspects) and the Overture from Sunset. Although I already knew the theme, hearing it in context with its full orchestration immediately stood the hairs up all down my back.

As Walter starts his work at Limmeridge with Laura and Marion, the musical tone lightens with “I hope you’ll like it here” and we are introduced to the girls’ uncle, played with a deftly comic touch by Edward Petherbridge. He is perhaps not quite as sickly as I might have imagined from the novel, but having said that, the original would have no doubt simply collapsed never to speak again from the shock of being under stage lights!!

Although the early part of the show is the lightest in tone, we are quickly introduced to the main dramatic tension – the fact that Laura is to marry someone who may (or may not) have a dark past. Once again the character – Sir Percival Glyde – gets his own motif which recurs throughout the musical. It is not, however, a full melody but rather a chord progression which serves to identify him and act as a unifying feature for the show in the same way as Scarpia’s theme in Tosca.

“Lammastide” is a celebration of the harvest and is somewhat reminiscent of “The Wall” from Aspects of Love (not fully recorded on the CD, if you’ve not seen the show on stage), but much more fully and interestingly harmonised – again we are treated to some wonderful discords as the show moves away from the light towards the darkness of the impending wedding. And what a wedding… Forget the Marius / piece of fluff wedding in Les Mis. Forget John and Kim’s “wedding” in Miss Saigon or John and Mary in Beautiful Game. This is one scary wedding. And I’m not using the word scary lightly – played out against a largely monochrome realisation of the church, the wedding is performed to a chilling, hugely threatening setting of “The Holly and The Ivy”. But forget the well-loved carol – this is one version that won’t be sung this Christmas. Absolutely stunning both musically and dramatically, this alone was worth the ticket price.

As, indeed was the next major song. “All For Laura” expresses Marion’s fear that she has acted out of her own self-interest rather than for the good of her sister, but turns into her vow that she will right the wrong she may have helped to perpetrate. It is without a doubt the finest song in the show, and for my money is probably the finest thing ALW has ever written. Heart-rendingly sung by Maria Friedman, this is an aria that would stand up against anything I have ever seen in the theatre – be it musical or opera. Not simply a beautiful piece of writing for its melody, it serves as the dramatic fulcrum for the whole show. My one regret was that the first act did not end here. It’s not that the material that followed wasn’t also extremely good, and didn’t belong here, but I simply wanted to have a 20 minute break to digest what I’d just heard.

Typically, Lloyd Webber’s shows open the second act on a brighter note. The wedding, as mentioned, in The Beautiful Game. “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” in Evita. “Masquerade” in Phantom. But not here. We are plunged once again into the despair that has become the sisters’ lives. Marion is drugged and we are treated to a (once again, highly discordant) nightmare sequence which is very good, although I would have enjoyed seeing it extended a little more.

The action moves to London, and more precisely to the streets of London, among the dregs of life. Walter has sold everything he holds dear, and has hit the bottle while living in a dingy attic room. Trying to find him, Marion encounters the less salubrious elements of London’s night life in “Lost Souls”. This is a far more realistic picture of the prostitutes territory than we get in, for example, Les Mis – there are no “tarts with an ‘eart” here. It is much closer to Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. Realised in an energetic and threatening 7/8 time signature, our heroine is taken in, robbed, beaten and spat out at the other end. Finally finding Walter again, Marion pleads with him to help and together they hatch a plan to get their revenge on Glyde and his friend Fosco.

So it is that we end up with the overblown (physically) Fosco, played to comic perfection by Michael Crawford. He has featured through the first act, but he is here given what is almost a 10 minute cabaret slot. “You can get away with anything” is his chance to shine, and he does. Witty, original and memorable, it’s like a sparkling diamond in an increasingly black sky. With only assorted mice and birds to accompany him (running along his arms, around his neck, and on one memorable occasion almost into his mouth) Crawford milks this part for all he’s worth. Yet it never becomes a Michael Crawford performance – we are always watching Fosco. The producers of the show have made a definite decision to make Fosco the comic element of the production, perhaps at the expense of his menace. Where the novel makes him the real brains in the partnership, here Glyde is infinitely more menacing. In some ways this is a pity, but with all the darkness we are treated to, the dramatic need for comic relief is palpable and this is not in the same league as the high camp Herod from Superstar. A concern must surely be whether Crawford’s undoubted mastery of comic timing can be replicated once he has left the show. But that is a question for the future…

I have tried to be careful not to give away too much of the plot, but I must mention that the scene labelled “The Seduction” rather came as a surprise. I had heard that there was a seduction between Marion and Fosco, but had never imagined that Marion would be doing the seducing! The music – a very seductive waltz – and the lyrics fit perfectly together here, at once witty and threatening.

And so finally we move back to Limmeridge – initially to an asylum, where the plot takes an almighty twist, and then back to the same railway siding where we began the show, as “the secret” is finally unveiled. To a certain extent, the actual secret was a bit of an anti-climax, having built it up for 3 hours by that point, but that’s almost an irrelevance. The manner of its revelation, the journey we have taken to get to this point and the twists in the plot until this point mean that the secret is not the focus of the plot, simply one more marker along its way.

Well, that’s about it for this review. I have mentioned a couple of the performaces, but it’s fair to say that there was not a weak cast member, right down to the Corn Dolly Girl who led the wedding scene. Special mention must go to Angela Christian as Anne Catherick (the Woman of the title) who was scary, pathetic, haunting and beautiful. Her performance and voice stood out for me – no mean achievement in a cast like this. For what it’s worth, she reminded me a little of Samantha Morton as the psychic character in Minority Report – simply in the way she was able to capture the “other-worldliness” of the character.

Much has been made of the set for this show. Remarkably, it was actually extremely simple – it could almost be peformed in blacks as was The Beautiful Game – but constantly shifting was a series of projected images on all sides. This meant that our empty stage was one moment among the hills of the lake district, seconds later within a library. Truly inventive, and a nice way of achieving a realistic feel without the need for such a heavy set as required for the likes of Sunset Boulevard.

In conclusion, I would rate this as being as good as anything ALW has ever written, and as good as anything written for the theatre in the past 25 years. I look forward to getting the CD, as I suspect that with a little more study, this will indeed reveal itself to be Lloyd Webber’s finest score.

Andrew Richards

Updated On: 9/16/04 at 10:25 AM

[leeinlondon]

Posted: 9/16/04 at 10:33am

"Lammastide” is a celebration of the harvest and is somewhat reminiscent of “The Wall” from Aspects of Love "

And the song is completely reminiscent of sections of the original London Martin Guerre.. even down to the staging !!

[andrewmrichards]

Posted: 9/16/04 at 10:55am

Well, we can all be snide. I, for instance could ask if that's the same Martin Guerre that saw fit to use the lyric
"Claude
when he got quite bored
tied me with a cord...
but only loosely"
and then go on to suggest that it's unlikely ALW ever got to see it given the length of its London run...

Nonetheless, it would be nice if the feedback was slightly more constructive, no?

Andrew

[mallardo]

Posted: 9/16/04 at 11:43am

Andrew, thank you for a superb, well-informed review. I'm glad to hear Angela Christian stood out - I enjoyed her as Dorothy Brown in Millie, on Broadway, despite the limitations of that role.

[leeinlondon]

Posted: 9/16/04 at 11:43am

I don't know why you went on the offensive like that.. you are obviously very sensitive about anyone making anti webber comments.

Martin Guerre lasted nineteen months at the Prince Edward by the way.. hardly the open and close you seem to suggest. The fact that you can pick out some duff lyrics from the first version of the show does not change that Lammastide is very similar in musical style and staging to scenes in Martin Guerre.

My feedback is always constructive in that I will point out the specifically where in my humble view things are not as they could be with a show.. and overall I am usually positive as you would know if you had read my reviews and other postings !!

By the way if we are going to start pulling lyrics out I would draw your attention to the Woman in White review from the Times:

"Pity Lloyd Webber, who must put to music some dismal recitative: “you’re all that I know, someone I can’t let go”, “life is so unfair, such a cross to bear” and so on. But he overcomes a lyric that predictably rhymes voice, choice, you, true, everything bar love and dove, to produce a beautiful love-song, I Believe In You. " Updated On: 9/16/04 at 11:43 AM