THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Music and lyrics by Elvis Costello and book by Sarah Ruhl, based on the original story and screenplay by Budd Schulberg and the Warner Bros. Film
Young Vic Theatre, The Cut, London SE1, until November 9, 2024
For his directorial swansong at the Young Vic artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah pulled off a coup by attracting music legend Elvis Costello to stage his first musical there. The first thing to say is that songs are proper country/folk/blues songs with catchy melodies, beautiful harmonies and clever lyrics that only Costello could have penned. They're the best new theater songs to appear in a long time and a cast recording really must follow.
The source material is Elia Kazan's 1957 film of the same name, which was a high minded blast at the fascist potential of American popular culture. It centered on Andy Griffith's movie debut as Larry 'Lonesome' Rhodes, a drifter and hillbilly guitarist from Arkansas, who spins homespun stories first on the radio until he hits the big time on TV. Soon he's mixing with the political elite who enlist him to give what today is called 'media training' to an unprepossessing Republican Senator seeking re-election.
Here, Ramin Karimloo, the golden voiced star of many Phantom and Les Mis productions plays Lonesome. Anoushka Lucas, so great in the Young Vic smash, Oklahoma!, plays Marcia, the local radio producer who discovers him in a prison cell while scouting for subjects for her serious-minded program A Face In The Crowd.
Marcia's premise is that everyone has something interesting to say, but do they? Here, Lonesome has nothing original to say, it's all second-hand populism, but he's a consummate media performer. Remind you of anyone?
Barely literate, he has an innate understanding of the microphone and how to engage directly with ordinary folk and their concerns. He breaks the rules, creates his own, infuriates the production crews, but is saved because advertisers flock to him. So, it's a parable, but what saves it from preachiness is Sarah Ruhl's adaptation which tones down the more hysterical edges of the movie. Considering the totally co-dependent relationship that now exists between showbusiness and politics in our modern era the film was astonishingly prescient for 1957.
Ruhl's book is quite faithful to the film and curiously when it does stray it loses its way. In the movie Patricia Neal's memorable Marcia was much more a woman of that time and while she was aggrieved that Lonesome hurriedly marries the young baton-twirling Miss Hot Springs, the focus wasn't her jealousy but rather her coming to terms with the monster she created. Here, Marcia is given more agency as a modern woman and, curiously, is dressed in increasingly bizarre costumes which fit neither era. This damages the central conceit of the piece which was that they were all complicit. Towards the end Marcia hankers back to a time when “he actually loved those people”. But the point, surely, is that he never did.
While Karimloo, an accomplished singer/musician, really elevates the great songs here, he doesn't present as malignant enough for this conniving huckster, and audiences then begin to think why are people falling for this obvious game. Lucas demonstrates again that she's a force to be reckoned with as a charismatic musical lead.
Anna Fleischle's production design is wonderfully 'school play', underlining the phoniness of Lonesome's own TV setting, and is enhanced by costumes that are both witty and lavish (with the one exception).
Kwei-Armah's direction starts well but curiously runs out of steam in the second half. The Texan rally splashes into the audience but lacks fizz despite the best efforts of this great ensemble cast. Spoiler here – the climax of the story takes place in a TV control room where Marcia deliberately leaves a mic open over the closing credits as Lonesome lambasts the fools who follow him. In a scene which in the movie bristles with tension, she later confronts him, but here there is no build up and it falls flat. Things are partly rescued however with a great musical finale.
This is a musical which has great ambition but in the end is stymied by the lack of scale. This is nobody's fault, but it points to a key challenge facing creators of new musicals. If you start in a relatively small space with a small cast when your material is crying out for scale you are often hobbling yourself. It's like opening the window and seeing only part of the sky.
This is a great piece which deserves further and bigger re-incarnations.
