Well-Liked 'Pimpernel' is Elusive
Contra Costa Times
Two things:
1. The audience absolutely loved "The Scarlet Pimpernel." They laughed in all the right places, applauded heartily, and even sighed when it was appropriate. Those involved with the show could ask for little more than that, outside of maybe answering all 15 questions right on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."
2. I, on the other hand, was not nearly as enthusiastic about the occasionally hilarious musical melodrama, energetically directed by Robert Longbottom. In fact, as the show unfolded, I found my mind filled with visions of Harvey Korman, the old "Carol Burnett Show," Mel Brooks' "History of the World -- Part I," Monty Python, the Keystone Kops and those bustles-and-breeches movies Hollywood used to turn out in the 1930s like so many sausages in lace cravats.
To say "Scarlet Pimpernel" is derivative is insulting to those who safari through the various show-business cemeteries, plucking inspiration here and there for their artistic products.
In this case, Nan Knighton and Frank Wildhorn seem to have swept across an enormous theatrical junkyard, prying a fender from an old movie, taking the bumper away from an elderly vaudeville routine and swiping the hubcaps off old television shows to cobble together this musical based on the 1905 romantic novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy.
This is the second or third version of the musical. A larger production played on Broadway for some time, closed, then opened with this smaller streamlined version. The criticism of the big production was that it seemed unable to make up its mind about what it wanted to be -- an over-the-top musical romp, or a somewhat more serious melodrama dealing with swashbuckling through the French Revolution.
What seems to have happened is, instead of deciding on a single story, the producers opted for two plays, performed simultaneously -- one, a perfectly dreadful melodrama, the other a wickedly funny bit of silliness that turns swashbuckle into swishbuckle. But that silliness also gives birth to the Scarlet Pimpernel character, and creates the sort of performance opportunity that earned former Bay Area actor Douglas Sills a Tony nomination for the title role.
Sills is back as the star, and he is wonderful. As the Scarlet Pimpernel, he creates a memorable comic character that is so much larger than life, it towers above the play to take on a life of its own. This is also true with the other two leads: Chauvelin (William Paul Michals), the enemy, who is a major player in the Revolution, and Marguerite (Amy Bodnar), the love interest sought by both men. These wonderfully well-wrought characters easily overshadow the meager script.
Sills' character, Percy, marries Marguerite, but quickly grows to believe she is betraying him and working as a spy for the French Revolutionaries. Naturally this is all a misunderstanding, but why bog yourself down in details right now? It's not really that important. Honest.
Anyway, he believes that Marguerite is going to continue giving information to Chauvelin, and so, to thwart the treason, he becomes the Scarlet Pimpernel, enlisting his cricket-playing pals to become a brave little band using their wits to outsmart the French and save aristocrats from getting their heads chopped off.
To preserve their anonymity, Percy decides that his merry men will present themselves as the biggest fops in all of Christendom. And they are quite hilarious at it. In fact, the number they perform, "The Creation of Man," is the flat-out funniest moment in the show.
And there is some other lovely music in the show. In a different time, Wildhorn would probably have had quite a career as a pop ballad composer. Several of the songs, particularly "You Are My Home" and "When I Look at You," have some enormously evocative lyrics. Unfortunately, instead of making them intimate love ballads, they are turned into breast-beating anthems that render their emotion into mere noise.
But the real problem with "Scarlet Pimpernel" is that it isn't really a cohesive show; it's more a series of delightful moments and hilarious bits than a complete play.
But, as I mentioned before, the rest of the audience surely did seem to be having a wonderful time.
-Pat Craig, Contra Costa Times
April 8, 2000
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