Orphaned boys in the workhouse are regularly beaten and fed nothing but porridge, while a sign towering above them reads “God is Love.”
Its harsh irony, highlighting child labor practices in high society in 19th-century London, echoes in the eerie sounds you hear. Encore! Production of “Oliver!” Begins: Brass murkiness, woodwind rasps, stringy wormy growls. Lionel Bart’s musical, based on Dickens’ novel ‘Oliver Twist’, premiered on Broadway in 1963, but became ‘Sweeney Todd’?
The version, which kicked off its two-week run at City Center on Wednesday, was directed by Leah Debessoné and is certainly tougher than any Oliver! I’ve seen it, but not that many. For casting and construction reasons, it is rarely done professionally. But the euphoria underlying Bart’s adaptation, packed with songs that are hilarious even when sad, can’t stay dormant for long. Glorious Food” is filled with joy while singing and dancing. The song (choreographed by Lorin Lataro) is so irresistible that even a heavy concept can’t weigh you down.
I’m not saying that a serious approach is unwarranted. Recall that Dickens himself was sent to work in a shoe shine factory when he was 12 years old. Recall that he calls Oliver “the object of death” in the first sentence of the novel. And Burt, at least in his lyrics, doesn’t emphasize the brutishness. Even the bouncy title track is violent, proposing various ugly fates for a boy who dares to ask for more food.
“What will he do when he’s black and blue?” Mr. Bumble, the poorhouse weedle, asks gleefully in a rhythm of sixes and eights.
But deBessonet’s delightful and beautifully sung production features a poignant turn with Lili Cooper as the proud Nancy, Raul Esparza as crime den leader Fagin, and Benjamin Pajak in the lead role. And at this point it’s still too muddy. Needless to say, the drama must be persuasive as a sociology.
Partly as a result of the encore being so short! The rehearsal period compresses what would probably take months into 12 days. The staging is sloppy in places, and the violent parts involving Bill Sikes (Tam Mutu) should be shocking in this rethink, but they aren’t. Spoiler alert: It appears that Nancy’s dress was beaten to death at the end, not Nancy herself.
Another difficulty in reframing “Oliver!” for 2023 is incorporated into the material. Like many musicals made from Doorstop novels, it cherry-picks the plot so vigorously that what remains can hardly support the song. A script is used.) The transition from Oliver’s workhouse to mortician’s institution to Fagin’s lair across Dickens’ eight chapters happens quickly here. It’s going to be a thin porridge.
And then there’s the problem with the song itself. There are few duds in the score, and many of the songs (such as “I’d Do Anything” and “Oom-Pah-Pah”) are very humming, with the audience participating almost unconsciously, They are not action dramatizations. as vaguely implied by it. The song “Consider Yourself”, in which his Fagin pickpockets welcome Oliver to the gang, led by Artful Dodger (Julian Lerner), is a non-perfect company song featuring buskers, workers, flower girls and 20 extras. It starts logically. A school in New York City — in a way that screams unreconstructed musical comedy.
You don’t want to prevent it. There is too much joy to reap. Bart was an untrained song expert and later Irving Berlin. The songs are so humming, probably because his method of composing is built on humming along.
“Oliver!” It meant a fun number, even to the point where I wouldn’t need anything in a modern musical. !” is utterly irrelevant, and Mr. Sowerberry and Widow Corney’s “That’s Your Funeral” is an equally bubbly number. Although his wives (Tom Sesma and Rashidra Scott) are funeral directors.
Inappropriate as drama, however much they steal from richer plot developments, such songs serve a vital function like the witty prose of a novel. They make the darkness of the story almost literally bearable and sustain you throughout the story.
And it’s not just music that has that effect, but it’s always light. (Though, on songs like “Boy for Sale,” “Where Is Love?,” “Who Will Buy?,” and “As Long as He Needs Me,” it’s stunning.) The lyrics are equally uplifting. Brings deBessonet calls them “miserable”, but their quality is often marred by complex rhymes, many of which are built on Cockney pronunciation (uppity/cup o’ tea) and can’t help but smile. It becomes
That makes projects that darken the show difficult. Created for his 1994 London production at the Palladium, the busy and atmospheric orchestration by William David Browne increased the number of musicians from his twelve to his twenty-one, although the original was a symphony. I’m not sure if it was more like his hall of music. , did not go well with the material. Similarly, deBessonet’s vision overlay can obscure more than it reveals.
But you probably don’t need “Oliver!” Become a Gesamtkunstwerk. Dickens, after all, intended the story as a popular entertainment, a lavish melodrama serialized for two years and very extravagant.
Also, of course, in the presentation of Fagin, who indulges in anti-Semitism. Forcibly referred to as a “Jew” in his novels, and often played with a prosthetic nose and a Yiddish accent in his early work, Fagin was a Jew even though Bart, born Lionel Begreiter, was Jewish. Regardless, it’s a terrible caricature.
Esparza — dull-eyed, greasy hair, constant sniffling, no prosthetics — takes it down to near zero, but on violin and clarinet to the song “Reviewing the Situation.” The music that accompanies Klezmer-like still bears traces of Fagin’s religion. De Bethsonette concludes this work with caution.
The song asks, “Can someone change?” Fagin’s questionable answer is “S’possible”.
I’m also skeptical of the potential for change, at least for musicals like “Oliver!” cannot be They don’t have the bones for it. But if the joy dividend continues, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth reinvesting in what made them meaningful in the first place.
Oliver!
May 14th at New York City Center in Manhattan. nycitycenter.orgRunning time: 2 hours 20 minutes.
