Theatre Review: the Sound of Music

Our 'group' went to the first show of our subscription season on Saturday - the North American premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's staging of the Sound of Music. Many in the group loved the movie, knew all of the songs, and had been looking forward to this night for months. Not Paul and I - Paul has never seen the movie and I had seen it once - at a campy sing-a-long Sound of Music show that my work colleagues dragged me to years ago. The audience at that event was replete with nuns, bags of stings, Nazi's, Elsa's, kittens, and packages wrapped in brown paper. No wonder I was dreading the play.

This production has a number of things working against it: so many folks remember the Julie Andrews movie version that it would surely overshadow any theatrical production; it was produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber (enough said there); it featuresa large number of child actors; there was a huge pre-production reality show allowing Canadians to select the lead actress to play Maria; and many of the songs and much of the dialog is rather dated. However, all of this proved to be a minor distraction - if it was even an issue at all.

This may be the most popular and most-performed of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musicals, but from the time of its Broadway premiere nearly half a century ago, it has been vulnerable to charges of excessive, saccharine sentimentality. In fact, the reviews of that first show were devastating. Often these negative reviews were warranted because of the excessive sweetness that flowed forth from the stage. Luckily the Toronto staging avoid as much of this as was possibly yet still followed the story.

The tone is set immediately in the plain song opening with its chanting procession of nuns and spare but compelling spiritual imagery - and then, in striking contrast, a magical suspended oval which frames the figure of Maria coming to life in her beloved Austrian mountains and breaking into song.

The staging was stunning. In this production, for example, the hills really are alive in their own uniquely theatrical way. So are the abbey walls, reaching mysteriously up to the heavens, and the swirling mists which engulf the Trapp family as they begin their historic 1938 flight across the mountains from the invading Nazis.

Rarely in a production of The Sound of Music have the stakes seemed as high as they do here, thanks to a thrillingly executed climax which sees the banners of the Third Reich encircle the theatre auditorium, with a huge one flying over the heads of the audience, while Maria, the Captain and the children execute their cunning escape during a performance at the Salzburg Festival. This has the effect of making you feel as if you are there with the Van Trapps. The result was brilliant, but decidedly scary as well.

The show's success is in the manner in which embraces the two polarities of the play often used to mock it: nuns and Nazis. The chanting black-robed women who fill the theater in the sweepingly liturgical opening stand in stark contrast to the gun-toting Nazis who suddenly spring up in the penultimate scene. Rather than seeming corny, these bold strokes put the good-vs.-evil struggle that the original creative team believed in so vividly at center stage, while anchoring the plot’s more potentially syrupy elements

Canadians chose Elicia MacKenzie to play the role of Maria in the popular reality show this summer. Apparently they might have been right (he says grudgingly) as MacKenzie makes a charming Maria -- fresh, endearing, full-voiced and only occasionally betraying the fact this is her first professional engagement.

The rest of the cast acquit themselves excellently and help give the show a welcome dramatic heft. Particularly strong are Burke Moses(Captain Von Trapp) and Blythe Wilson, the Stratford Festival star of numerous musicals who plays the baroness with wit and charm. Megan Nuttall makes a lovely Liesl and her counterpart, Rolf, is given a nice edge by Shaw Festival vet Jeff Irving. Quebecois opera star Noella Huet, makes a warmly knowing Mother Abbess; her full-out rendition of “Climb Every Mountain” is the show’s vocal highlight - bringing thunderous applause from the audience.

This is an evening of enjoyable theatre; a well directed play, stunning sets, actors with skill who hit their marks. if you're in the Toronto area do try and seek out tickets - you won't be disappointed!

Comments

[sandrac]

Wow -- I'm surprised! It sounds very good. I had low expectations, just given how hard I thought it would be for the play to live up to the decades of hype around the movie. Glad you enjoyed it!

[girasoli]

I grew up watching the Sound of Music. I think they played it yearly on TV. It is one of my favorite musicals, although I must say I was crushed when I first found out that the Vonn Trapp family did not actually escape over the mountains. Of course if I knew my geography better back then, I would have figured that out on my own.

Too bad I am not near Toronto. I would love to see the production there. I enjoyed your review.

[Jerry]

Sandra - you should pop by and see it when you're next in TO.

Girasoli - it is a shame you live so far away because I bet you'd quite like this show.