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July 24, 2009
Exceptional lead performers
TUTS' Annie and Millie are both worth seeing this year.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
The message that comes through loud and clear from both Theatre Under the Stars' productions this summer is that pretty much any challenge can be overcome with optimism and determination. It's a timely reminder and audiences of both Annie and Thoroughly Modern Millie will leave Stanley Park's Malkin Bowl uplifted – though more so by Annie.
For those who have seen Annie before and are skeptical about the potential entertainment value of seeing it again, the TUTS production has a freshness and vivacity to it, for which director Glynis Leyshon, music director Wendy Bross Stuart and choreographer Jason Franco deserve much credit.
For those unfamiliar with the show, Annie takes place in New York City during the Great Depression, and tells the story of a young orphan, Annie, who is convinced that her parents are still alive. Annie escapes from the orphanage – run by the mean and ever-drunk Miss Hannigan – to try and find her parents, but is caught by the police. Though returned to the orphanage, Annie is saved from it when billionaire Oliver Warbucks' personal secretary arrives to take one lucky orphan to live with her employer for two weeks. Annie happens to be in the right place at the right time and, though there are some snags along the way, she eventually gets the family for which she has longed.
Onstage, the orphans steal the show, with the nine-year-old Michelle Creber as Annie leading the way – she has a great voice and enough chutzpah to save the role from being saccharine. The cuteness is left to fellow orphans Molly and Tessie, played by Olivia Steele-Falconer and Sophie Visscher-Lubinizki, respectively, in short bursts so that the humor injects energy into the production. The kids' version of the song "Fully Dressed" (a commercial for Oxydent: "You're never fully dressed without a smile") is actually more entertaining to watch than the adult version that precedes it, but both are excellent.
David Adams as Daddy Warbucks, Colleen Winton as Miss Hannigan and Todd Talbot as Rooster all stand out vocally and in their acting, although Talbot overplays his part as the con man brother of Miss Hannigan, using big movements and big sound, when more subtlety would have made him easier to watch.
The main con artist in Thoroughly Modern Millie, Mrs. Meers, is also one of the least compelling parts of that musical, though more from the way in which the character is written than because of the performance of Sarah Rodgers. The main plot of Millie is a traditional boy meets girl tale, with a love over money moral: Millie Dillmount, a small-town girl from Kansas, comes to New York in the 1920s to find herself a husband and does so (but not the husband she initially wants, of course). The sub-plot is stranger: Mrs. Meers, the owner of a rooming house for wanna-be actresses, sells some of her clientele into white slavery. And, as if that isn't odd enough, Mrs. Meers is a Caucasian woman pretending to be a Chinese woman, in order to hide from the police because of earlier transgressions.
The cartoon-like, over-the-top portrayal in dress and accent, as well as the "evil" music and exaggerated skulking movements of Mrs. Meers and her real Chinese henchmen allow for an interpretation that the writers of the musical – Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan – were making fun of racism by being so overtly stereotypical in their rendition. However, they don't quite succeed and one is left wondering how offended to be by this character and whether the concern about racism is outweighed by the character's assistants in crime, Ching Ho (Aaron Lau) and Bun Foo (Daeyoung Danny Kim), who prove to be good guys; one of whom even gets the (white) girl. In fact, the duo garners many of the evening's biggest laughs with their songs and acrobatic dance numbers, as well as the innovative use of supertitles on bed sheets and sandwich boards, because they speak Cantonese throughout.
Another mitigating factor about this musical – which won the 2002 Tony Award for best new musical – is that the Asian characters are treated no worse and no better than anyone else, as everyone is a stereotype, which is generally the case in musicals: the ditzy Southern Belle, the buxom cabaret headliner, the down-to-earth rich boy and others. But, story aside, what makes the TUTS production worth seeing is a fabulously talented cast.
Diana Kaarina as Millie is probably the best singer of all the TUTS performers this year. She does brash, delicate, cute and energetic, sometimes in the space of a beat or two. Seth Drabinksy as Millie's boss at the Sincere Insurance Co., Trevor Grayden, has a phenomenal voice as well and his operatic outbursts are not just hilarious, but gorgeous. He also shines, as does Kaarina, in the duet "The Speed Test," which gets progressively faster and requires great diction. In this song and in "Forget About the Boy," the toe-tapping contributions of Millie's fellow stenographers – the TUTS crew has created steno desks that allow the actresses to provide percussion with their feet – works to great effect.
It would have been preferable if director Shel Piercy cut out 15 or 20 minutes of the musical, but he, as well as choreographer Shelley Stewart Hunt and music director Christopher King, have done a really good job with some questionable material.
Annie and Millie are on at Stanley Park's Malkin Bowl until Aug. 21 and 22, respectively. Tickets are $32 to $39 and can be purchased by going to tuts.ca or calling 604-684-2787.
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