Sills Soars in a Spotty 'Pimpernel'
New Haven Register
The show-stopping moment in Wednesday's opening-night
performance of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" at the Shubert Performing Arts Center
came at a moment the musical's creators could never have imagined.
Posing as a gaggle of fops, our hero Percy and his Bounders paraded before
the Prince of Wales in their outlandish rococo garb. Before the prince could
address them, he was interrupted by a wave of feedback, courtesy of the
distempered sound system. Rather than ignore this elephantine dissonance,
David Cromwell � the actor playing the prince � used the mishap as a bit,
raising his eyebrow accusingly at Percy (Douglas Sills).
Sills, staying in character, explained away the unwelcome sound as amplified
gastric distress: "Late lunch," he ad-libbed. It was, hands down, the most
spontaneous and honest moment of the performance.
"The Scarlet Pimpernel," which runs through March 4, seems to be two plays
under one name. There's the brooding melodrama played before the backdrop
of the French Revolution, and there's the romp that has Sills flitting about in a
star turn as an irresistible coxcomb. The show is only entertaining when Sills
liberates it from its pretentious alter ego. The moment he leaves, he takes the
audience's interest with him. Talk about hushing a room.
Since it opened on Broadway in 1997, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" has undergone
three revisions in hopes of reconciling the musical's disparate halves.
Director-choreographer Robert Longbottom has cut and pasted the work of
composer Frank Wildhorn and bookwriter-lyricist Nan Knighton with results
that are mixed at best.
Andrew Jackness' scenery, Jane Greenwood's exquisite costumes and Sills'
unique talent as a charming clown are nearly forsaken in the confusion.
Sills stars as Sir Percival Blakeney, who disguises himself as a dandy to
conceal his heroic deeds fighting the Reign of Terror. As the dashing title
character, he, with his league of daring gents, prevails over Robespierre's
humorless agent, Chauvelin (William Paul Michals). Nobody, not even his
French bride, Marguerite (Amy Bodnar), knows of his ruse. The stakes rise
when Percy is called upon to save Marguerite and her brother, Armand, from
the guillotine.
This starched musical eventually breathes when it taps into Sills' comic
timing. Sills is a handsome Groucho Marx surrounded by an ensemble of
Margaret Dumonts serving as his foils. When he gives the stage over to
villains or lovers, he should return, Groucho-like, to send us to the lobby for a
smoke until it blows over.
Wildhorn's ballad-heavy pop score supplies his singers with more money
notes than a Whitney Houston concert. These moments may show off the
performers' pipes, but they add nothing specific to the characterizations.
When Knighton's predictable rhymes and cliche-heavy lyrics could be heard
through the Shubert's malfunctioning sound system, they never quite
distinguished the characters. With the exception of the "The Creation of Man"
and "They Seek Him Here" � two humorous songs starved for company � all
of the songs sound the same.
What's so frustrating about "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is that it has much to
marvel at: Sills, the production design and even some of Longbottom's staging
(when he's not recycling Rockette kick lines from his Radio City holiday
shows). Until the show straightens out its Jekyll and Hyde personality, "The
Scarlet Pimpernel" merely offers spotty entertainment.
-E. Kyle Minor, New Haven Register
February 24, 2000
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