Critic Whips Out Sword but
Audience Loves 'Scarlet Pimpernel'
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
OK; what we got here is a Frank Wildhorn musical. You know the drill. Critics do not like it. Civilians do like it.
"Jekyll and Hyde," "The Civil War," "The Scarlet Pimpernel" -- the reviewers are unimpressed and the public goes, "I can't believe we were in the same theater! That show is stupendous! What's wrong with you? Indigestion that evening?"
So here we go again. A touring production of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is playing at the Paramount Theatre. I didn't like it. The two women to my right, Paramount subscribers, did like it.
If only to demonstrate that I was in the same theater with all those people who gave "Pimpernel" a standing ovation the night I saw it, I'll start by praising at least parts of the show.
The Jane Greenwood costumes are sensational. The French wigs in the first scene look like 2-foot high white chocolate truffles. The English hats in the third scene look like 2-foot-high tornadoes that just swept through a warehouse full of ribbons, feathers, flowers and lace.
The scenery by Andrew Jackness suggests the wicked French artistic fantasies of Watteau in the first scene. The third scene is reminiscent of the wholesome British visions of Gainsborough.
Principals Douglas Sills, Amy Bodnar and William Paul Michals sing well, as do the two dozen members of the supporting ensemble. Also, Sills is a good comic. At times, to divert suspicion from his manly Pimpernel persona, Sills impersonates a campy queen.
Director/choreographer Robert Longbottom, a veteran wrangler of Radio City Rockettes, devises humorous routines for Sills and his co-queens -- in reality, doughty freedom fighters.
So much for making nice.
-Joe Adcock, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
March 24, 2000
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