Jungle boogie

Photo: Phillip Hamer

What: Tarzan
When: June 25 – July 2, 2014
Where: The Muny, St. Louis

It’s doubtful that the 2006 stage adaptation of Disney’s 1999 animated film “Tarzan” will ever make anybody’s list of Great Musicals. But the Phil Collins score (expanded from the five numbers he wrote for the movie) is filled with songs that are never less the serviceable and, in the case of “You’ll Be in My Heart” and “Sure as Sun Turns to Moon,” really quite moving.

And then there’s the book by celebrated playwright David Henry Hwang. While hardly in the same league as his more famous plays, it still tells its version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs story clearly and intelligently. There’s even a nice message about the importance of family—both biological and (to quote Armistead Maupin’s Anna Madrigal) logical.

Photo: Eric Woolsey

Even so “Tarzan,” like many recent Broadway musicals, relies heavily on slick production values. You wouldn’t want to attempt a concert version of this. Happily, the Muny’s cast and design team are more than up to the task, so the result is a couple of hours of family friendly fun that, while it may not challenge, entertains without fail. Who, on a St. Louis summer evening, could ask for anything more?

You all know the story by now. Shipwrecked with his parents, the baby who will become Tarzan first becomes an orphan when the leopard that has killed the son of the ape couple Kerchak and Kala kills his parents as well. Over husband Kerchak’s objections—he has good reasons to distrust humans—Kala names him Tarzan and raises him as her own. Misfit though he is, he slowly adjusts to life in the ape clan until the arrival of botanist Jane Porter, her scientist father, and their unprincipled guide Clayton bring him into contact with humans for the first time—and forces him to ask hard questions about who he really is.

Photo: Phillip Hamer

Quentin Earl Darrington and Katie Thompson are Kerchak and Kala. He’s a commanding presence, she’s sympathetic, and together they make a believable couple. Their duet “Sure as Sun Turns to Moon” is a charming picture of a couple who have been together so long they know each other’s thoughts. I wish someone had given Ms. Thompson a dark wig or a cap to mask her flaming read hair, though; it looks odd next to the rest of the ape clan.

Nicholas Rodriguez is a funny and charming Tarzan, with the necessary buff physique. I think he tends to overdo the “scratching his head” pose to emphasize his ape upbringing, but he’s got a solid voice and the agility the role requires. Kate Rockwell, meanwhile, makes an impressive Muny debut as a wonderfully self-aware Jane. Her song of botanical discovery "Waiting For This Moment"—with the ensemble taking on the roles of exotic jungle flowers—is a highlight of the first act.

As Tarzan’s best ape friend Terk, Gregory Haney also makes a strong impression in his Muny debut, bringing all the necessary sass and attitude to the part, along with some strikingly athletic dancing in “Trashing the Camp”; you can see a bit of it in the preview video. Nathaniel Mahone’s Young Terk has that same attitude down pat, and he’s matched by an equally strong Young Tarzan in Spencer Jones—a three-season Muny veteran and with the ripe old age of nine.

Photo: Eric Woolsey

Local favorite Ken Page exudes his usual charm as Professor Porter, while Michael James Reed, who was such a dashing and vital Henry IV with Shakespeare Festival this summer, is a thoroughly reprehensible Clayton.

Timothy R. Mackabee’s jungle gym set provides lots of interesting playing areas, especially when combined with the Muny’s turntable, and gives Tarzan and the ape dance ensemble lots of places to swing and climb. Leon Dobkowski’s costumes allow them to look sufficiently simian while still permitting plenty of freedom of movement. Chris Bailey’s choreography is a nice mix of modern dance and African folk moves. Director John Targaglia keeps it all moving along nicely and creates some fine stage pictures. He has also given the adult Tarzan an impressive first entrance, gliding in over the audience on a modified zip line. The crowd loved it.

Photo: Eric Woolsey

I haven’t been to the Muny in many years, and I have to say the overall experience has improved. Lines at the concession stands are shorter and the variety of drinks is better. The new fans run nonstop (the old ones shut down during performances because they were so loud), so there’s always a breeze. And it appears that audiences are taking the instructions in the new “theatre etiquette” page in the program to heart. People aren’t constantly wandering the aisles as they used to do and most of them aren’t dashing for the parking lot before curtain call.

“Tarzan” plays the Muny nightly at 8:15 through Tuesday, July 2. Great art it ain't, but it aims to please and generally succeeds. For more information: muny.org. Transportation tip: Metro runs a shuttle between the Muny and the Forest Park/Debaliviere Metro station, starting at 7:20 PM. I recommend it as a low-stress alternative to parking and driving in Forest Park.

Wonderland through the looking glass

Copyright Ken Howard, 2012

Who: Opera Theatre of St. Louis
What: Alice in Wonderland
When: June 13-June 23, 2012
Where: The Loretto-Hilton Center

Congratulations are in order for the orchestra, chorus, and the wonderful cast of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis's Alice in Wonderland, and especially for soprano Ashley Emerson as Alice. They do exceptional work with difficult and, ultimately, not very persuasive material. The opera pushes the performers and the company’s technical capabilities to their limits, but does so for no valid dramatic purpose. This is flash for the sake of flash, and it gets tiring rather quickly.

The problem, in my view, is that librettist David Henry Hwang and composer Unsuk Chin have extended, augmented, and generally beaten to death Lewis Carroll’s whimsical and witty creations. They have added irrelevant contemporary cultural references and have bookended the whole thing with a prelude and postscript that seem to have been dropped in from a German Expressionist cabaret. Your mileage may vary, but I found it rather heavy going.

That’s not to say that Mr. Hwang and Ms. Chin haven’t put a lot of brains and talent into this Alice. Mr. Hwang’s impressive credentials speak for themselves, of course, and his expansions of Carroll’s text are often brilliant, particularly in the Mad Tea Party sequence. But they’re mostly in a radically different and aggressively contemporary style that has little to do with the original. They also tend to outstay their welcome. Yes, having the Dormouse turn his story of the three sisters in the treacle well into a rap number is funny for about thirty seconds, but after that it becomes tiresome.

Ms. Chin’s impressively eclectic score is a treasure trove of nearly every musical meme of the last half century. It’s clearly the work of an immensely bright and gifted composer, but it’s often too clever by half, employing elaborate musical and percussive effects that detract from the text rather than amplify it. This is most obvious in her settings of Carroll’s verses, every one of which goes to great lengths to break the meter of the original, thereby draining much of the comic effect. Like the March Hare, she’s murdering the time.

All that said, Alice is very nearly redeemed by the impressive performances of its huge cast. Ashley Emerson, who was such a delight in Daughter of the Regiment last season, simply could not be better as Alice. Her diminutive stature is perfect for the part and her voice, while sometimes lacking the power needed to pierce Ms. Chin’s orchestration, has the flexibility and range the role requires. Ms. Chin seems to be fond of pushing her singers to the upper and lower limits of their voices, and towards the end Alice is required to hit some notes only dogs can hear.

Bass-baritone Aubrey Allicock is a wonderfully deranged Mad Hatter, but he’s equally effective in the Hatter’s very non-canonical lament for lost time. Tenor Matthew DiBattista shines as the rapping Dormouse and countertenor David Trudgen is a fine Rabbit and March Hare. Mezzo Jenni Bank has a nice turn as the hip-hop Duchess and soprano Ashley Logan is an appropriately abusive Cook.

Soprano Tracy Dahl, a familiar figure on the Opera Theatre stage, has a lovely turn as the Cheshire Cat, while soprano Julie Makerov exudes homicidal glee as the Queen of Hearts. Choreographer Seán Curran makes a rare on-stage appearance in two pantomime roles: the Caterpillar (accompanied only by James Meyer’s bass clarinet) and the Mock Turtle.

He’s great fun in both, although the Caterpillar’s sequence is another example of a joke that goes on too long, and having the unspoken dialog projected on the screens used for the projected English text might be a problem for those with visual impairments. If you’re going to do a scene in pantomime, it shouldn’t require subtitles.

There are many other fine performances in this cast—so many, in fact, that I can’t list them all here. I will say that there doesn’t appear to be a weak link in the lot, which is pretty remarkable given that there are 35 named roles altogether.

If his enthusiastic program notes are any indication, director James Robinson loves this Alice at much as I don’t, so it comes as no surprise that his blocking, pacing, and stage pictures are all exemplary. There are places where the action is likely to be baffling to anyone who is not familiar with the original novel (the business with Bill the Frog-Footman, for example), but that has more to do with the adaptation itself.

Fanciful sets by Allen Moyer and Tenniel-inspired costumes by James Schuette add to the strong visual appeal of the show, as do Ashley Ryan’s wigs and makeup. Lighting designer Christophe Akerlind and video designer Greg Emetaz also bring Wonderland’s magic to life.

Conductor Michael Christie and members of the St. Louis Symphony do a marvelous job with what sounds like a very challenging score, as does Robert Ainsley’s chorus.

For me, the bottom line on Alice in Wonderland is that all the truly spectacular work by the performers and designers is not ultimately enough to compensate for what I see as a fundamentally wrong-headed attempt to “improve” Carroll’s creation. There’s a fine line between the respectful adaptation and the complete deconstruction and re-write. This Alice crosses that line. I didn’t care for the results, but of course, your mileage may vary, and the production itself is certainly beyond reproach.

Alice in Wonderland continues through June 23rd at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus. For more information, you may visit experienceopera.org.