WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? A CHAMBER MUSICAL. To 12 November.
Glasgow
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? – A CHAMBER MUSICAL
by Henry Farrell lyrics by Hal Hackady music by Lee Pockriss (‘Baby Jane’ by Richard Lewis)
Citizens’ Theatre To 12 November 2005
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 5 Nov 3pm
Runs 2hr15min One interval
TICKETS: 0141 429 0022
www.citz.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 October
Hollywood noir glitters on stage.
This production doesn’t have star quality on stage, and that’s its glory. Instead Andrea Miller and Karen Mann give top-grade dramatic performances calling attention to roles rather than performers, unlike the Davis v Crawford grudge match of Robert Aldrich’s 1962 film. Mann’s crippled Blanche endures torment in her upper-room prison from Miller’s vengeful younger sister until achieving peace with a final admission. The irony is, it’s hate-filled Jane who’s suffered most. As Miller approaches front stage the soured maturity behind the mask of youth caked on her face shows through, a grotesque palimpsest of beauty smeared over ravaged, raddled features.
It relates back to a car accident when it seems drunk Jane’s driving left her sister’s back smashed. And beyond that, to the showbiz kiddies’ dad pushing blonde Jane as a Shirley Temple star while Blanche lurks furious in her shadow. Lise Gardner’s snarling young flashback Blanche contrasts Mann’s apparent calm resignation, while Sally Reid’s younger Jane shows the child-star mix of curls and selfish ways that will curdle into midlife bitterness over being her damaged sister’s keeper.
It’s a sour autumn postlude to Dundee’s revival of another showbiz sisters musical, Gypsy. If this chamber musical’s score isn’t so memorable musically, the numbers are expressive enough while Hal Hackady’s lyrics are witty and supple and Henry Farrell’s book propels the story through present-day narrative and filmic past-tense insertions.
And there is star quality, in Kenny Miller’s bravura direction and design. Steely and silvery, it’s at once glam and rancid. Under a ceiling both high and oppressive, Blanche’s upstairs prison is made remote by a sweeping staircase. Its walls obsessively repeat the motif of its occupant’s young adult stardom, when level-headedness put her ahead of her former child-star sister’s alcoholic unreliability. Downstairs is a cramped prison, the house door perched awkwardly at one side as if the outer world, seen vaguely through translucent glass, were a threat to be avoided. As it is in this claustrophobic piece which, supported by Richard Lewis’s able piano and Damaris Chalmers stalking the stage as a glamorously operatic Spirit of Hollywood, admirably suits the chamber scale of Miller’s production.
Policeman/Daddy Hudson/Stage Manager/Mr Gault/Male Dancer: Johnny Austin
Friend/Mama Hudson/Edna Stitt/Female Dancer/Bonnie Dunbar: Julie Austin
Woman/Little Blanche/Young Blanche/Female Dancer: Lise Gardner
Director/Mailman/Band Leader: Richard Lewis
Baby Jane Hudson: Andrea Miller
Blanche Hudson: Karen Mann
Man/Martin/Edwin Flagg: Danny Nutt
Little Baby Jane/Young Jane/Female Dancer: Sally Reid
Spirit of Hollywood: Damaris Chalmers
Director/Designer: Kenny Miller
Lighting: Michael Lancaster
Composer (incidental music):Matilda Brown
Musical Director: Richard Lewis
Choreeographer: Julie Austin
2005-11-03 03:22:29