This production is a text-book example of the importance of scale. If any
element of a show – its story, its score, its cast, its sets, whatever – is
out of proportion to the other elements, the show won’t come across as well.
Here everything seems in balance and, as a result, this contemporary
pop-musical tragedy following a prince and pauper type of plot works very
well indeed.
Storyline: A working class Liverpool woman struggles to support her
children after her husband abandons her. She is pregnant again but figures
the salary from her job as a housekeeper will stretch just enough. Then she
learns she is to have twins. Her childless employer offers to take one of
the two children to raise as her own. The two boys grow up on opposite sides
of the economic divide but come to know each other. They don’t know of their
relationship, however, because their mother and the employer believe an old
wives tale that twins separated at birth will die on the day they learn of
their connection.
The first time the show was produced in London’s West End, the equivalent
of New York’s Broadway, it was something less than a hit. It ran for six
months in 1983 but closed before breaking even. It was a 1988 staging at the
Albery Theater which was well received and subsequently transferred to the
Phoenix that is still running some fourteen years later. On the basis of
that success, a Broadway production was mounted at the Music Box Theatre
which had a profitable two year run. Both the Music Box on Broadway and The
Phoenix in the West End are small theaters by Broadway and West End
standards. With seating in the vicinity of 1,000 and the balcony overhang
fairly close to the proscenium, they both give audiences a very intimate
feeling which is just right for Willy Russell’s modest little musical.
Russell, who was well known for straight plays, wrote the book, the
lyrics and the music for this musical, giving it a score reminiscent of the
early 1960s British Invasion music of the Beatles, the Dave Clark Five or
even Petula Clark who sang the lead for a while during the show’s Broadway
run. The entire score is fleshed out with a musical theater lushness in the
arrangements and the lyrics are serviceably precise in their delivery of key
plot points. The link to the pop music of early 1960’s England’s isn’t too
surprising given that Russell’s plays not only include the well known
Shirley Valentine and Educating Rita but the less familiar
John, Paul, George, Ringo . . . and Bert.
Currently holding down the part of the mother who can’t afford both twins
is Linda Nolan who delivers both the bright and lively musical numbers of
her good days and the emotion of her struggles with poverty. The
handkerchief quotient of the melodramatic climax is so strong that it comes
as no surprise that she is still choking back sobs all the way through the
curtain call. The simple sets, lighting and a wide range of costumes that
clearly establish time, age and economic circumstance are all the work of a
single designer: Marty Flood. They all contribute to a well balanced
production.
Book, Music and Lyrcs by Willy Russell. Directed by Bob Tomson and
Bill Kenwright. Musical Director Rod Edwards. Designed by Marty Flood. Cast:
Linda Nolen, Philip Stewart, Paul Crosby, Mark Hutchinson, Luisa Lydell,
Ruth Gibson, Daniel Taylor, Stephen Pallister.
