Theatre in Review: Chaplin (Ethel Barrymore Theatre)The writer Ken Mandelbaum once noted that Broadway musicals about the silent film era never really succeed, and certainly Jerry Herman's cult flop Mack and Mabel, Carol Channing's long-ago disaster The Vamp, and Elaine Stritch's also-ran Goldilocks are prime examples of what happens whenever the theatre tries to evoke the years before Al Jolson turned to the camera and announced, "You ain't heard nothin' yet!" Still, there's nothing inherently wrong with using Charlie Chaplin's life story as the basis for a show -- it offers plenty of drama, lots of colorful personalities, and the many opportunities for music both soaring and satiric. But the people behind the new musical Chaplin failed to find a focal point for their sprawling tale. Their expansive approach results in a show that offers viewers a fast-moving Gray Line tour through the high points of its subject's tumultuous existence -- but look hard or you'll miss a lot. Any episode of Charles Chaplin's biography -- his Dickensian childhood, mentally ill mother, record-shattering fame in the newborn film industry, a disastrous string of marriages, devastating sex and political scandals, exile from the US, and late-in-life domestic happiness -- would be enough for a play. In order to get them all in, the librettists, Christopher Curtis and Thomas Meehan, must resort to desperate acts of compression. In their telling, Chaplin's mother, Hannah, is a devoted parent one minute and ready for the madhouse the next. Syd, Chaplin's brother, is presented as his business manager and factotum (which he was), but no mention is made of Syd's substantial (if now forgotten) career as a film actor. When Chaplin meets young Oona O'Neill, he notes that her father, Eugene, has won the Pulitzer Prize. "For his plays, not his ice-cold heart," replies Oona, summing up her troubled youth in a single line. "So that's how it is," says Charlie. (Cue the wedding bells.) A few minutes later, Charlie and Oona are happily envisioning their future, and the children they will have; left unmentioned is the fact that Chaplin had already fathered two sons (one of whom became, for a time, a Broadway star). Often, Chaplin feels like one long montage. The first ten years of his career -- at three different movie studios -- breeze by in a single number. His first three wives have to share one song among them. (Actually, his first wife, Mildred Harris, gets a scene of her own, but it's just a little wisp of a thing, barely worth mentioning.) Curtis and Meehan are so busy filling in names and dates that the appearance of talking pictures -- arguably the biggest brake on Chaplin's career -- only gets a line or two. This Reader's Digest Condensed Books approach leads to the kind of dialogue that makes you appreciate silent movies. "You never wanted to marry me -- you wanted to marry Charlie Chaplin!" he yells at one ex-wife-to-be. Later, Oona tells him, "The world loved the Tramp -- but you are the man I love!" Really, there must have been plenty of old copies of Photoplay lying around the office where Curtis and Meehan worked. Because the songs are forced to carry their share of the never-ending exposition, the score (music and lyrics by Curtis) rarely rises about the pedestrian. "Look at the People," in which Hannah teaches the boy Charlie to observe passersby on the street, is charming, and is reprised to good effect when he uses the memory of that episode to create his Little Tramp character. Two of Chaplin's big solos -- "If I Left London," in which he contemplates throwing over the stage for film, and "Where Are All the People," when his career is effectively over and he is banned from the US -- are fairly predictable but nevertheless deliver the goods. It helps that Rob McClure, last seen running riot in Where's Charley at Encores! is an ideal Chaplin. Not only does he look like the original, he creates a complex character who, underneath his comic brilliance and enormous surface charm, is desperately needy and ruthlessly driven -- a man possessed of the emotions of an abandoned boy. He also manages the not inconsiderable trick of suggesting Chaplin's unique comic talent. So complex and shaded is McClure's performance that it's like seeing a real human being inserted into the panels of a comic strip. Even if the truth is much more complicated, it's probably a pretty good idea to use Hedda Hopper, the gorgon known equally for her eccentric millinery and vendettas, as the locus for all of the hostile forces that drove Chaplin from Hollywood, and, ultimately, the US. It's an even better idea to have Jenn Colella play her with a deadly look in her eyes, a mirthless bark of a laugh, and a voice that sounds permanently pitched for the nearest radio microphone. She tears into her big number, "All Falls Down," with a fury that makes it terrifyingly clear who is in charge of Tinseltown -- and it's not a much-married, politically squishy film comic who has never surrendered his British passport. Christiane Noll is charming as the young Hannah and touching as the feeble-minded old woman she became. There is also solid support form Jim Borstelmann as Alf Reeves, Chaplin's right-hand man; Erin Mackey, a charming Oona O'Neill; Michael McCormick as an exasperated Mack Sennett; Zachary Unger as the boy Chaplin; and Wayne Alan Wilcox, superb as Syd, the stalwart brother who, the show suggests, was the real love of Chaplin's life. Warren Carlyle's staging -- he also choreographed -- is loaded with clever ideas -- the opening sight of Chaplin on a tightrope, surrounded by friends, lovers, and enemies; a stunt-filled romp for a chorus of Chaplin look-alikes -- all of them staged with a cinematic flair. Scenes fade in and out between the past and present, reality and film with the fluency of a well-cut movie. If the dances aren't particularly inspired, it's largely because the songs, so overburdened with exposition, don't provide Carlyle with much in the way of opportunities. However, the director has obtained a striking black-and-white production design from a first-rate team. Beowulf Boritt's scenic concept places the action on a vintage soundstage with flats, painted drops, and muslin drapes constantly reshuffled to make each new location. Layered onto this are the film sequences -- both period clips and authentic-looking new material -- by Jon Driscoll. (Intriguingly, Driscoll projects images of those instantly recognizable film scratches, flickers, and white spots onto many scenes, giving them the patina of a vintage film.) Working with basically no color at all, Ken Billington provides a stunning series of unfussy theatrical looks, heightening the impact of each number with peerless grace. This may be his best work since the revival of Chicago. The sound design, by Scott Lehrer and Drew Levy, preserves a nice balance between the voices and orchestra; it also provides a number of well-judged effects, including cheering crowds. Chaplin climaxes with a bit of a coup de théâtre set at the 1972 Academy Awards -- the moment when Hollywood made peace with one of its founding members -- and ends with a shamelessly sentimental ballad, "This Man," that brings down the house, ensuring that the audience leaves suitably teary-eyed. But too much of Chaplin is the stuff of B movies; one of founding fathers of American cinema deserves so much more.--David Barbour 
|
