The Morning Line

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The Morning Line THE MORNING LINE DATE: Thursday, March 19, 2015 FROM: Michelle Farabaugh, Jennie Mamary Faith Maciolek PAGES: 8, including this page. March 19, 2015 Review: ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at Paper Mill Playhouse By Charles Isherwood MILLBURN, N.J. — Granted, I didn’t actually tally them up, but the words “Kyrie eleison” — that’s Greek for “Lord have mercy” — seem to be sung more frequently in the musical version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” at the Paper Mill Playhouse here than they are in many a Mass. Which is saying something, if you’ve heard a few Masses in your day. This is a telling indication of the surprising self-seriousness of this polished but ponderous musical, with a book by Peter Parnell, music by Alan Menken (“Little Shop of Horrors,” “Newsies,” many a Disney film) and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (“Pippin,” “Wicked”). The veterans Mr. Menken and Mr. Schwartz wrote the songs for the lighter-toned animated Disney movie of the same title, collaborating for the first time. Most of those songs are included here, of course, but Mr. Menken and Mr. Schwartz have amply augmented the score with songs that didn’t make it into the movie and others. The musical is billed as being “based on the 1831 novel by Victor Hugo and the 1996 Disney film.” (Strictly speaking, the novel’s title is “Notre Dame de Paris.”) Bridging the gap between those two aesthetics — Hugo’s darkly thundering melodramatics and the smiley- faced warmth of a Disney cartoon — proves tricky. While the musical has a few moments of lightheartedness — I got a kick out of a singing statue of a beheaded saint — the spirit of Monsieur Hugo, who also, of course, wrote “Les Misérables,” the inspiration for the furrowed-brow blockbuster currently and seemingly forever in revival on Broadway, tends to dominate. (An earlier version, written and directed by James Lapine, was seen in Berlin; Scott Schwartz, Mr. Schwartz’s son, directs this version, which was originally mounted last fall at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.) The set by Alexander Dodge, simultaneously impressive and oppressive, features tiers of pewlike, antique- looking wooden structures, in which the Continuo Arts Symphonic Chorus sits (or stands) and sings, as if indeed participating in a Mass. Its members wear monks’ robes and hold books, looking very ecclesiastical as they chant forth those “Kyrie eleisons” and “dies iraes.” (They sound marvelous, too: One of the signal pleasures of the show is the rich choral singing.) The musical has retained some details of the Hugo novel that were tweaked for the movie. Dom Claude Frollo, played with sinister suavity by Patrick Page (“Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”), is once again the archdeacon of the titular cathedral. In a prologue woven into the song “The Bells of Notre Dame,” we learn how he adopted the deformed Quasimodo (Michael Arden) as a favor to his dying brother, who had parted ways with his pious sibling to take up with a Gypsy woman. Mr. Arden, who straps on his hump before our eyes, speaks in a strangled slur — as the character did not in the movie. Mr. Arden has a powerful voice, so fortunately when Quasimodo sings, the speech impediment evaporates and the syllables ring out clearly: We hear the sound of his wounded but pure heart. Total Daily Circulation – 1,897,890 Total Sunday Circulation – 2,391,986 Monthly Online Readership – 30,000,000 Quasimodo lives in lonely isolation in the bell tower of the cathedral, his only company the bells themselves and the statues of gargoyles, angels and saints surrounding him, and with whom he regularly converses. They encourage him to escape his virtual imprisonment, if only for a day. While on the lam he encounters Esmeralda (the lovely Ciara Renée), a Gypsy lass who rescues him from humiliation and abuse at the hands of cruel Parisian citizens, and pledges her sympathy with him in the song “God Help the Outcasts.” Gypsies are also outcasts in the Paris of the 19th century, and they are the particular bugaboo of Frollo, who becomes obsessed with scouring them from the city, even as (non-spoiler alert) he finds himself lusting after the beauteous, feisty Esmeralda, who rejects his advances. (For a woman who makes a living dancing erotically in the streets, and consorts freely with thieves and prostitutes, Esmeralda clings to her purity like a nun with a beady eye on future martyrdom.) Frollo directs the new cathedral guard, Captain Phoebus de Martin (Andrew Samonsky), to track down Esmeralda, whom he intends to blackmail into bed. But Phoebus, too, falls under her spell, and their confrontation turns quickly into flirtation: “I’m impressed,” Phoebus says after she deflects an attempt to capture her. “You fight almost as well as a man.” She retorts, “Funny, I was going to say the same thing about you.” Mr. Parnell’s serviceable book has the whiff of anachronism here and there, but a bigger problem is the heavy use of narration. Members of the ensemble, referred to as “congregants” in the text, provide reams of description. Some of this seems necessary to describe action too complicated to be depicted onstage, but much of it feels like shorthand storytelling that dampens the production’s theatricality. The central performers, including Erik Liberman as the wily Gypsy chieftain Clopin, leader of the more up- tempo gay-Paree numbers, have fine voices. The writers have provided a bounty of songs, usually (and sometimes monotonously) capped by rousing climaxes. Mr. Menken’s music is melodic as always, and Mr. Schwartz’s lyrics are nimble if not particularly inspired. (“Though our lives are tattered and torn/All I’m feeling now is reborn,” Phoebus sings in a pretty love duet with Esmeralda.) In keeping with the creators’ intentions to return the story to its darker roots, this “Hunchback” ends far less happily than the Disney movie. The wicked are punished, which is only fair, but without giving too much away, I can say that a requiem Mass would make an appropriate encore. Or maybe two. The Hunchback of Notre Dame Music by Alan Menken; lyrics by Stephen Schwartz; book by Peter Parnell; based on the novel by Victor Hugo, with songs from the Disney film; directed by Scott Schwartz; choreography by Chase Brock; sets by Alexander Dodge; costumes by Alejo Vietti; lighting by Howell Binkley; sound by Gareth Owen; hair and wig design by Charles LaPointe; fight director, Steve Rankin; flying by Foy; production stage manager, M. William Shiner; music supervisor/vocal and incidental music arranger, Michael Kosarin; music director, Brent- Alan Huffman; orchestrations by Michael Starobin; dance music arranged by Rob Berman. Presented by Paper Mill Playhouse, Mark S. Hoebee, artistic director; Todd Schmidt, managing director. At the Paper Mill Playhouse, 22 Brookside Drive, Millburn, N.J.; 973-376-4343; papermill.org. Through April 5. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. WITH: Michael Arden (Quasimodo), Erik Liberman (Clopin Trouillefou), Patrick Page (Dom Claude Frollo), Ciara Renée (Esmeralda) and Andrew Samonsky (Captain Phoebus de Martin). March 19, 2015 Review: A Darker ‘Pinocchio’ Strays From Disney’s Wholesome Take By Andy Webster The truths in the retelling of “Pinocchio” now at the New Victory Theater are more contemporary than we’re used to hearing. Bearing shadows truer to Carlo Collodi’s 19th-century tale than Walt Disney’s version, this family-friendly show, from the Windmill Theater and the State Theater Company of South Australia, manifests robust energy, visual flair and an aversion to modern-day phoniness. You know the story: The lonely toymaker Geppetto (a suitably burly and walrus-mustached Alirio Zavarce) carves a surrogate son out of an enchanted piece of wood. But once walking and talking, that boy, Pinocchio (Nathan O’Keefe), covets material things (like trendy shoes, not the Dutch-style wooden ones Geppetto gives him) and grows antsy at school. Miffed at Geppetto, he embarks for Playland, a trap for wayward children run by the perfidious Stromboli (a garish Paul Capsis). En route he meets the fluttering Cricket (a puppet imbued with morbid charisma by Jonathon Oxlade), as well as the cat Kitty Poo (Jude Henshall) and her friend Foxy (Mitchell Butel). Playland, of course, is a den of indulgence that transforms children into donkeys. But Pinocchio and his friends escape, only to discover that Geppetto has headed to sea in search of his charge. And off goes Pinocchio to find him, which is where, in the playwright Julianne O’Brien’s reimagining, the story takes a turn for the 21st- century fast lane. Pinocchio heads to Strombollywood, where he is lured into a scurrilous contract and abandons his friends for fortune and fame. This “Pinocchio” plays down the growing nose; the pernicious lie here is reality TV. Seeing the mistake of his ways, Pinocchio returns to sea, to encounter the Blue Girl (a Seuss-ian reconfiguration of the original’s Blue Fairy, played with elfin charm by Danielle Catanzariti), who supports Pinocchio on his quest and serves as a quasi love interest. There are overfamiliar elements (a mirror ball, a sometimes blaring rock score), and the galloping pace, under Rosemary Myers’s direction, can be exhausting. But the design — featuring Chris More’s video projections and Mr. Oxlade’s overall visual scheme, at one point incorporating a shadow play — blends sophistication with an endearing primitivism. And as Pinocchio, Mr. O’Keefe strikes the right balance between innocence and rambunctiousness. Pinocchio Alirio Zavarce, far left, and Nathan O’Keefe in this play at the New Victory Theater. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times “Pinocchio” continues through Sunday at the New Victory Theater, 209 West 42nd Street, Manhattan; 646- 223-3010, newvictory.org.
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