Annie
Get Your Gun was originally
conceived for Ethel Merman and, along with Gypsy, Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly, is a musical theatre girlís best friend. Mary
Martin, Betty Hutton, and, more recently, Bernadette Peters have added their
names to the roster of megastars whose personal charms have been the right fit
for the sharp-shooting country hick. Currently onstage at Massey Hall, Louise
Pitre is adding her own signature
to the musical in a concert staging.
New Yorkís Encore
Series has pioneered and
championed the staged concert version of musicals, many of them long-forgotten
or rarely produced. Chicago,
which was revived to great acclaim and greater financial reward, is perhaps the
finest example of Encoreís work, not so much for its artistry as for its invention
of whittling down the scale of a commercial monster to a manageable scale of
mini-monster. Annie Get Your Gun
is in another class altogether, since its pedigree has always been first class
and its place in theatre history never questioned.
The thing about
a vehicle, especially a musical vehicle – and perhaps even more, a
vehicle for La Merman – is that the show rests squarely on the starís
mighty shoulders. For Pitre, this is not an issue. She has shoulders with
shoulders. And the score, which is after all the only worthwhile element to
discuss, since the script (aka ìthe bookî in musical theatre language) is
little more than a series of lead-ins to the songs, is there to flatter the
leading lady.
The most
striking feature of this production is the orchestra, all 28 of them, plus Rick
Fox, the gifted musical director.
Just as Encore does it on
Broadway, producers Tina VanderHeyden and Stephen Adler have managed to finance
what we havenít seen, or heard, for decades – a full complement of
instruments, unaugmented by synthesizers and other enhancements. The Overture
is stirring and really evokes another time, a time when music could be played
rather than replicated. For this alone, many thanks.
Pitre, not to
let the lady languish in a lower paragraph acknowledgement, gives the show her
all. She twangs and teases every lyric and lame joke as though each was pure
gold. She doesnít let up for a moment. And the audience responds to her from
her entrance to her final bow. Not a particularly warm performer, Pitre is best
served with roles like this that portray her as an underdog fighting to achieve
respectability.
But there is a
problem inherent in vehicles of any kind, and that is the balance between star
and everyone else. In Mermanís day, audiences may not have cared who played
what or how the star interacted (or didnít) with her colleagues. At Massey
Hall, the leading lady appears willing to give and take with everyone on the
stage, but the material and some of the casting makes the effort almost
pointless.
The script is
dreadfully thin, made even thinner with an adaptation by Don Carrier. Better, I would say, to have dispensed with as
much dialogue as possible and cut to the next song. Talented people such as Jonathan
Wilson, Sandy Winsby and Avery Saltzman do what they can with what little (and itís
precious little, too) theyíve been given. And the staging, which begins with
energy and clever use of limited space, runs down to a whimper during the
second act. Donna Feore
directs the actors to play front and centre, as she must, though attention to
those in the balcony should be encouraged rather than ignored, as they were on
the opening night. The choreography, like much of the dialogue, would improve
with further editing out, especially the staging for Thereís No Business
Like Show Business and My
Defenses are Down.
Billy Ray
Cyrus, sharing the marquee with
Pitre, plays the somewhat thankless role of co-star. But a star vehicle has no
co-star. Rather, she has support and a good sport who accepts that he is there
to balance her and not compete with her. Cyrus, whose stage persona is sweetly
unassuming and altogether macho, has no particular actorís technique. He might
be a better fit for television or film, but he is out of his depth as a stage
actor, even in a musical where personality can cover a multitude of technical
deficiencies. He has a pleasant voice that lacks any emotional range or colour
and he is not skilled with a lyric. The songs he sings all sound pretty much
the same, one lyric just as weightless as another. The added burden for anyone
playing the role of Frank Butler
is that he gets the songs that serve only to highlight the greater quality of
his leading lady. He sings Iím a Bad, Bad Man and My Defenses are Down while she sings You Canít Get a Man With a Gun, Doiní What Comes Naturílly and a host of others. They sing together and they
sing in ensembles numbers, but he has no standout moment of his own with which
to define himself as performer or character. In the absence of material, then,
he has himself, and Cyrus, sweet though he is, just doesnít have enough to
balance or complement the overpowering (and occasionally overpowered) Pitre.
Michael
Gianfrancesco has designed an
attractive stage for the concert, and John Munro has conceived a very smart lighting scheme that
combines concert lighting with more traditional musical theatre elements –
we are never in doubt about where we are or why. Greg Connolly has yet to find a sound balance that doesnít
obscure the dialogue and much of the ensemble work.
VanderHeyden
and Adler have gambled big with this venture. I hope that they find audiences
to sustain the run and, with good
luck, to produce more orchestra-rich concert stagings.