Like Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice before it, Charles Dickens' 1830's novel, Oliver Twist, is a bit of a literary double-edged sword. It has been the subject of innumerable film and stage adaptations - including the 1968 Best Picture-winning Oliver!, adapted from a Best Original Score-winning musical of the same name. It has also long been the subject of racial controversy surrounding the portrayal of one of the main antagonists - Fagin. In the original novel, Fagin, like Shakespeare's Shylock, is an offensively rendered Jewish caricature described by Dickens as "a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair." Dickens' initial publications contained illustrations, provided by George Cruikshank, that epitomized Jewish stereotypes. Dickens even refers to Fagin as "The Jew" more often than by his name, often in a pejorative manner. The anti-Semitic nature of the character has been intentionally toned down over the years, and Lionel Bart redefined him as a charismatic antagonist worthy of our sympathy in his musical adaptation, Oliver!
The Williamsburg Players' production of Bart's Oliver! has some strong performances, but is marred by technical issues and an unfortunate depiction of Fagin. While the character's makeup and prosthetics are successful from a technical standpoint, the design appears to be based on the caricature illustration in Dickens' original novel. Patrick Soderholm is talented, but his cartoonish, Muppet-like vocal choices only exacerbate the lampooning roots of the character. The Theater Stud wishes The Players had made Fagin a much more realistic character, as Bart intended, to avoid any unintentional connection to Dickens' problematic, racially insensitive character description.
The set, designed by Steve Olson, is aesthetically pleasing but not always practical or realistic. The set is large and sprawling and allows the actors generous opportunity to interact. Scene changes, however, often involve lengthy blackouts and musical vamps as sections of the wall are laboriously unfolded to reveal different parts of the city. Fagin hides his valuables in a secret compartment with a hinged door in a brick wall. Oliver runs across the bridge to escape a police officer, who catches him by simply walking across the lower level of the stage indicating that the bridge has no actual reason to be there. More focus on the practicality of the set would be welcomed.
The live orchestra sounds great and is blended well with the ensemble, which is a testament to musical director Mike McCoy. The orchestra's room-filling sound is welcome, but results in a need for working microphones on solo numbers, which isn't always the case. Kimberlyn Williams-Middleton (Nancy) suffered the most at my performance, as her microphone didn't seem to work for the entirety of Act One.
When Williams-Middleton's microphone worked in the second act, she was very well-received. "As Long As He Needs Me" is one of the better performed songs in the show, despite her tendency to slide between notes. Her stage presence is strong enough to carry her scenes, even when her microphone was not functioning.
Ronnie Littman makes an endearing Oliver with a sweet, straight-toned singing voice. Ryan Schoenberg - who plays The Artful Dodger - looks far older than Littman, which takes a little away from the intended relationship between the characters. He sings his songs an octave lower than written, but performs them well and with an energy that makes the age disparity excusable. All of the young actors are quite good. The opening number, "Food, Glorious Food" showcases the plethora of young talent as the children energetically sing, dance, and perform flips while enthusiastically interacting with each other.
Adam Stillwell's Mr. Bumble is appropriately intimidating and commanding of the stage, most notably when Oliver asks for more food. His pairing with Starla Kramer (Widow Corney) is not always successful. Both actors have proper energy and vocal ability, but Kramer defaults to over-acting and delivers her lines with an unplaceable hodgepodge accent. Alex Bedont has a nice baritone voice and is fittingly brooding and formidable as the violent Bill Sykes.
Alex Stachowiak's choreography is energetic and fun, and makes good use of the athletic and acrobatic dancers in the cast; however, some of the songs suffer from repetitive dance moves that are tedious by song's end. "Consider Yourself" is presented with high-energy dance by the entire company across the large stage, but keeps returning to the same set of motions: slap your knees, move to the side, jump in the air and clap under your leg. By the time the encore came, we didn't care to see it again.
Final Thoughts: The kids in this cast are high energy and more than worthy of our community support. Otherwise, there is a lot of "good, but not great" happening here. Strong performers tend to be undermined by technical issues or staging flaws and the show has an overall unpolished feel. Often a throwaway song, "Who Will Buy" is one of the most polished, well-balanced scenes in the entire show. In his director's notes, Peter Natale mentions that this production had several weeks less rehearsal time than is customary. The Theater Stud wishes they had those extra weeks to polish up the show and do a little more research into Fagin's history. This show could have been much better.
Jonathan McCormick
Limited Run
Performances run thru August 2nd, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.
at the James-York Playhouse, 200 Hubbard Lane, Williamsburg, Virginia 23185.
Tickets are $20 for adults, $12 for children and students with ID and can be obtained by
calling the box office at (757) 229-0431 or online at williamsburgplayers.org.
No comments:
Post a Comment