'Pimpernel' Lead is Much Too Sharp
for the Fluffy Stuff Around Him
San Jose Mercury News
"They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel."
Thus goes Baroness Emmuska Orczy's rhyme about the Scarlet Pimpernel, the raffish fop-cum-hero who fuels her 1905 adventure about spies, lust and snuff during the French Revolution.
Ironically, the one place you can't find a whiff of the spirit of the Pimpernel legend is on the stage of the Orpheum Theatre, where the Broadway tour of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" took up residence Wednesday. Saddled with Nan Knighton's vacuous book and lyrics and Frank Wildhorn's elevator-worthy pop music, this musical-comedy mishmash almost makes a mockery of the tale that has enchanted hopeless romantics for a hundred years.
To be sure, Orczy's creation has never been the stuff of subtext and ambiguity. Bosoms heave; bodices rip; and heads roll into baskets throughout the swashbuckling action adventure. Beckett, it isn't. And yet, in the right hands, there is something redemptive about the exploits of Sir Percy Blakeney, a.k.a. the Scarlet Pimpernel, a man willing to risk everything to save the lives of those he has never met.
It can be a stirring fusion of history and fantasy, a dashing antidote to a dreary world. Certainly, the 1934 film version starring Leslie Howard and the 1982 remake starring Anthony Andrews captured the sweep and seduction of this classic.
Alas, Knighton and Wildhorn, perhaps in a desire to simplify Orczy's byzantine but delicious plot twists, have dulled the edges of the love triangle at the heart of the play. Knighton's truncated script robs the show of suspense and tension, racing from the introduction of the three principal characters (Sir Percy; the woman he loves, Marguerite; and the man she used to love, Chauvelin) to their daisy chain of betrayals.
As a result, only one thing stands between this production and schlock status, and that's Douglas Sills, a magnetic actor who cut his teeth at American Conservatory Theater before heading to Broadway to don the starched cravats that are Sir Percy's trademark. Fortunately, Sills doesn't so much play Percy, the English nobleman who conspires to save aristocratic French heads from the guillotine, as inhabit him. His flamboyant performance runs the gamut from tender to twitting as the deft actor attempts to hold the show together by sheer strength of will.
In one memorable scene, Percy outfits his league of counterrevolutionaries with unassailable principles and outlandish attire, all the while singing the campy tour-de-force "The Creation of Man." His full-throttle anthem to frippery briefly jolts the show out of its usual inertia.
What's missing in all this buffoonery is a sense of risk, the feeling that these characters care about each other and have something at stake. Even the show's impressive stagecraft, which includes a rather convincing beheading, can't pump any drama into this festival of fluff.
Amy Bodnar hardly helps matters with her saucer-shallow portrayal as the object of Percy's desire, the feisty Parisian actress Marguerite. Bodnar possesses a fine set of pipes, prettily singing one forgettable ballad after another, but she breathes no fire into her scenes. As the villainous Chauvelin, William Paul Michals does little to flesh out the character's motivations.
An interminable minuet, a flaccid bit of fencing and slew of slippery French accents reinforce the notion that this "Pimpernel," which has been radically revised since its 1997 Broadway opening, is as stale as a week-old baguette. If only the creators of this show had listened to Percy's bit of wit in the closing scene: "We must strive for good taste in the theater."
-Karen D'souza, San Jose Mercury News
April 6, 2000
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