The Scarlet Pimpernel
Seattle Times
About 20 minutes into "The Scarlet Pimpernel" at Paramount Theatre, a group of 18th-century British nobles led by Sir Percy Blakeney launches an audacious plot.
Across the channel the French Revolution rages. At the Paris guillotines, aristocratic heads are rolling. For men of means and honor appalled at the butchery, it's time for action. Or, as Percy boldly suggests, "exaggeration."
Following his lead, these gents (who are none too macho in the first place) are soon adding a swish to their step, pastel frock coats to their wardrobe, and high-pitched squeals to their vocabulary.
Under the disguise of extreme foppery, the valorous league of the Scarlet Pimpernel is born. And this touring Broadway musical by author Nan Knighton and composer Frank Wildhorn, based on the much-adapted Baroness Orczy novel, shrugs off its doldrums and goes for the gusto of campy comedy.
It happens not a moment too soon. For despite a major makeover after its critical drubbing on Broadway in 1997, "The Scarlet Pimpernel" still has all the musical and dramatic freshness of a day-old croissant when it tries to take the saga of Sir Percy (Douglas Sills), his double-dealing French wife Marguerite (Amy Bodnar), and the villainous French henchman Chauvelin (William Paul Michals) seriously.
Under Robert Longbottom's revisionist direction, the show now at least has some terrific swash to go with its less-than-thrilling buckle. It also boasts marvelously gaudy period costumes (by the great Jane Greenwood), charming and clever settings (by Andrew Jackness), and most crucially, a sensational Pimpernel who alone may be worth the price of admission.
Playing several parts rolled into one, Sills gets the star showcase for his multifaceted talent that new musicals rarely provide anymore. As a dashing hero, who doubles as an outrageous fop and triples as a snaggle-voiced Continental spy, Sills exhibits a streak of Errol Flynn, a touch of Danny Kaye, a dash of Jack Benny, and a soupcon of Dame Edna.
Never mind that Sills is also heartthrob handsome and a robust, surging tenor who can sound like Mandy Patinkin under a restraining order. All this can't hurt, of course.
But what most vitalizes "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is Sills' comic panache. He gets more room to cavort and cut up in this edition and does so royally, aided by a couple arch, well-staged patter tunes ("The Creation of Man," "They Seek Him Here"), and a few good "straight" men, including Michals' stuffed shirt Chauvelin and David Cromwell's bewildered Prince of Wales.
Whenever Sills isn't on site, the plot tends to thicken to a gruel. Knighton has ironed out and squared off the narrative line of "Pimpernel," excising some of the more ludicrous (and unintentionally hilarious) moments of the first draft.
The show now opens with Marguerite's farewell turn as a Parisian stage star, on the eve of her wedding to Sir Percy. And the romantic triangle is soon pumped up, to the point of turning Chauvelin (a still-smitten ex-lover of Marguerite's) into a glowering stalker.
The action sequences are less than nimble and virtually suspense-free, the French accents less than authentic.
But the biggest faux pas is that the music matches the show's story and setting only fitfully. More various than his "Jekyll & Hyde" numbers, Wildhorn's roster of tunes includes a gavotte, a march, and a nicely brooding rumination for Michals' powerful baritone ("Where's the Girl?").
But the score keeps slipping into a soupy pop-ballad idiom that has about as much to do with 18th-century France as cell phones do with the Middle Ages. The vivacious Bodnar in particular is burdened with some throbbingly forgettable ballads ("I'll Forget You," "When I Look at You"), which culminate in piercing, metallic crescendos.
Enjoying "The Scarlet Pimpernel" is a matter of enduring its stupider stretches to get back to Sills, and the good stuff. If one can do that, there's some real fun here - especially in the frippery.
-Misha Berson, Seattle Times
March 23, 2000
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