It's taken six years, but I've finally discovered what all the "phandemonium" is about.
I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco last week. It's playing an open-ended run with a top price of $65 per seat.Is it really worth that much - and is it worth waiting another year and a half before it arrives in Salt Lake City?
I'd say "Yes!" to both questions.
There's no getting around the fact that Sir Andrew's musical version of the classic thriller is a landmark. It may lack the substance of "Les Miserables," but the staging, the music and the technical aspects are in a class by themselves. The dazzling special effects nearly overshadow the bravura performances, but "Phantom" certainly ranks as one of the all-time great theatrical experiences.
Is there something slightly Freudian about the fact that two of Broadway's biggest shows - "Phantom" and "Beauty and the Beast" - have strikingly similar story lines? Why hasn't a psychiatric journal published an essay about "Deformed Men and the Beautiful Women Who Love Them"? Will a musical based on `King Kong" come next?
While Michael Crawford became an overnight legend in the title role of the original production, I'm impressed with the new crop of Phantoms. At the Curran, the Paris Opera House's mysterious Phantom is played by Franc D'Ambrosio, an operatic tenor with a rich, powerful voice and a commanding stage presence.
Lisa Vroman, who was Fantine during the 1991 "Les Miz" tour when it stopped in Utah, gave a completely flawless performance as Christine Daae. She has an elegant, crystaline voice far superior to some other stage sopranos I've heard, whose quivering vibratos I find especially grating.
Two performers in key roles - Connie Dykstra as Madame Giry and Joseph Dellger as Monsieur Andre - have Utah connections.
Dykstra was featured in two previous Utah Musical Theatre seasons - as Queen Guenevere in "Camelot" in 1991 and as Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" the following year.
Her "Phantom" costumes are considerably bleaker than Guenevere's regal gowns and Eliza's elegant Ascot races/grand ball frocks. As the stern Madame Giry, she's dressed almost entirely in stiff, stark, black dresses.
Further back, Dellger was at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in 1980, when he portrayed Malcolm, son of murdered King Duncan of Scotland, in "Macbeth"; Dromio of Ephesus, one of the buffoonish twin servants in "The Comedy of Errors," and Froth, the comedic customer in Mistress Overdone's bordello in "Measure for Measure."
At least, after finally seeing the definitive "Phantom," I'll have a new perspective for Desert Star Playhouse's parody when it opens Sept. 16 (directed by Edward J. Gryska and with a terrific local cast, including Bret Wheadon and Darla Davis.)
- OUR RECENT LIST of productions for the 1994-95 season had some unfortunate omissions. No, not plays that I inadvertently left out myself, but some exceptional plays that just aren't being done, at least this season.
I hope I'm not the only theatergoer around here who would would like to see local productions of the highly acclaimed "Someone Who'll Watch Over Me" by Frank McGuinness or Brian Friel's "Wonderful Tennessee" or David Storey's "Home" . . . or Peter Darnell's "An Imaginary Life" or Paul Rudnick's "Jeffrey" or Terrence McNally's "Lips Together, Teeth Apart."
There are dozens of "little" plays that rarely see the light of day beyond off-Broadway - while we get "Annie" and other overdone "fluff" ad nauseum.
- HORRORS! News releases from community theaters around the state often contain interesting errors. I just came across this statement about the soon-to-open "The Fantasticks" at the Heritage Theatre in Perry:
With music and lyrics by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, co-creators of "Little Shop of Horrors," the story centers around the efforts of two fathers platting the marriage of their respective son and daughter.
What's wrong here - other than "platting" instead of "plotting"?
Jones and Schmidt didn't write "The Little Shop of Horrors."
Composer Alan Menkin and the late lyricist Howard Ashman did.
This team went on to even greater fame - and Oscar statuettes - for their work on two Walt Disney animated features: "The Little Mermaid" and "The Beauty and the Beast."