Eileen Caiger Gray reviews SHOW BOAT at the SHEFFIELD CRUCIBLE
People standing in ovation at the end, eyes tear-pricked, seem to confirm it’s another winner.
Based on a novel, Show Boat was written in 1927 (film version 1936), pre-dating Oklahoma (1943) in paving the musical way. Well drawn characters, lively choreography and all round stupendous singing of the big Kern-Hammerstein numbers earn loud applause. Into the bargain, the strong, riveting storyline of Victorian romance and family relationships is woven through with issues of race relations, gambling and alcoholism, as well as with vaudeville and comedy. To achieve credible development of characters and story, some fine acting skills are required.
Bringing a fine blend of warm humour and human caring to showboat owner, Captain Andy Hawks is Allan Corduner, with Lucy Briers breathing wonderful wasp-chewing life into his sour-puss wife, Parthy Ann. As Frank Schulz, Danny Collins pours sunny fun and super dancing skills into his song-dance-comedy routines, working in lovely, lively combination with Alex Young as partner Ellie May. Their glitzy turn, Goodbye My Lady Love, at the Chicago Trocadero goes down a treat. Ditto Bill from the fine, strong voice of Rebecca Trehearn as Julie.
Magnificent as Hawks’ daughter Magnolia is Gina Beck, whose sunny smiles radiate infinite joy far and wide until bad fortune cloaks them in gloom. Her singing voice is colossal, with top notes that would beguile the Phantom of the Opera in the fraction of a trice! Sandra Marvin is a marvel too as Queenie, big Southern momma, strong, jolly and always complaining. The scene in which she duets with husband Joe (Emmanuel Kojo) in I Still Suits Me is another delightful showstopper, while the climax of Joe’s Ol’ Man River (his Paul Robeson bit) hits the spot too.
Though the true horrors of that era’s race segregation, tensions and violence are kept low-key, Ryan Pidgen does get the chance to be a repulsive, despicable, cruel white man (as well as an amusing Jeb.) But in the main, the fabulous ensemble work demonstrates a happy, joyful integration of blacks and whites, as in Can’t Help Lovin’ dat Man.
David White’s highly expressive, disembodied, musical hands put in regular appearances too (depending on your seating) with an odd glimpse too of his baton as he conducts his fine, invisible, under-floor musicians. Lez Brotherston’s set also works beautifully, the thrust stage set out as a wooden wharf with perimeter walkway (with capstans and cotton bales) where the shabby splendour of theCotton Blossom, the towering Colonial style show-boat-cum-floating-theatre makes its grand entrance.
Through the entire (rather long!) first act, the story unfolds along a Mississippi of Victorian times. In the second act, with its added momentum and emotional involvement, we whizz through the decades via projected news snippets, to end the intriguing story in the Roaring Twenties. It’s not just the contrast in dress-styles that’s remarkable, but the convincing physical ageing of the actors too, while the emotional development of their characters is ripe now to tug tight at the heartstrings.
Eileen Caiger Gray
The Show plays at The Crucible until January 23rd
