[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" at Mercury Summer Stock

[Bob Abelman]

Mercury's 'Pimpernel' strikes a chord if not a balance

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 8/13/10

 

It is impossible to not compare The Scarlet Pimpernel, on stage at the Brooks Theatre, with Les Misérables, seemingly on stage everywhere else.   

 

Both musicals come from the same source material-novels written in the late 19th century, set during the bloody French revolution, and featuring an undercover hero sacrificing himself for the greater good.  But the tenor of their titles is just the start of their disparities.

 

Les Miz's literary roots are intellectual, weighty and gothic, which carry over to its overly dramatic staging, score and lyrics.  Its characters are complex and seek spiritual redemption as well as revolution.  Its hero, a former convict, breaks parole and risks the wrath of his archenemy by assuming the identity of a factory owner in order to do good in the world.  

 

Pimp springs forth from a pulp adventure novel with sequels that could have been prequels to the Harlequin Romance series.  Its hero, a British aristocrat named Percy Blakeney, risks losing his wife and card carrying privileges to the Heterosexual Man's Club by assuming effeminate airs so as not to let on to his archenemy, Chauvelin, that he is actually the swashbuckling Scarlet Pimpernel.

 

While Les Miz takes itself oh so seriously, with every moment monumental and every song an anthem, Pimp carries on with a bit of a wink and a nod, and most of the songs by Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton are romantic and melodic.

 

Yes, The Scarlet Pimpernel is Les Misérables with a limp wrist.  

 

Pimp is also an oddity, for there is not quite enough winking and nodding to render it a bona fide comedy or a parody of productions like Les Miz.  It is hard to laugh at something that does not consistently laugh at itself.

 

It is also hard to take this musical in earnest because of its occasional moments of hilarity.  In the production number "The Creation of Man," for example, Percy convinces his mates to be fellow foppish revolutionaries, and they adorn the tools of their trade:  silks, scarves and dresses.  The rest of the musical numbers are rather somber affairs.    

 

It is, perhaps, these disparities that led Les Miz to a Tony Award for Best Musical in 1987 while Pimp was merely nominated in 1998, along with a musical about conjoined twins, before losing out to Disney's The Lion King.

 

In the Mercury Summer Stock production of The Scarlet Pimpernel, director Pierre-Jacques Brault doesn't so much balance the incongruous elements of this play as embrace them all.  This makes for an entertaining evening.

 

The drama is the job of the talented and very intense ensemble members, who are in chairs on the bare stage during the entire production unless called upon to march in unison without going anywhere (a patented Les Miz move).  They also play secondary roles in support of the wonderful Shane Patrick O'Neill as the bad guy, Chauvelin.  O'Neill's dark and sinister antagonist is spot on, complete with a bold and beautiful baritone.

 

The romance is left to Jennifer Myor as Percy's French wife, Marguerite, who does not know about her husband's heroics and, oddly, does not call into question his abrupt transformation.  Myor is featured in 13 songs and has the lungs, charisma and skill to make each one memorable.  The orchestra consists only of string instruments plus a French horn which, under the fine direction of Eddie Carney, accentuates the romantic flavor of this production. 

 

The comedy falls to Brian Marshall, as Percy/the Pimpernel, and Ryan Bergeron, as the only genuinely gay blade in the band of merry men.  Bergeron hams it up, and he does so exceedingly well, although his comrades are fairly nondescript.  They neither complement nor sufficiently offset Bergeron's flamboyance and are not nearly as interesting.

 

Marshall, by design, does all the winking and nodding in this play, and he has excellent comic timing.  However, his delicate features and sweet tenor lend themselves more to Percy's alter ego than to his swashbuckler side.  This works, for the play's curious lack of action scenes results in more swish than swash, but greater balance from Marshall would result in more comic juxtapositions.

 

There is only one piece of stage combat in this play, when the Pimpernel and Chauvelin cross swords, but it appears as if neither really wants to hurt the other.  Similarly, the ominous guillotine, which looms large in several scenes as a symbol of the French Reign of Terror, looks as if it were borrowed from the amateur magician working the Finkleman bar mitzvah. 

 

While not much attention is given to these elements, the same cannot be said for the costuming.  The rentals and the period costumes built by Margaret Ruble are spectacular.  

 

All this suggests that Brault has placed priority on delivering a show that looks and sounds grand, despite the implicit imperfections in the play itself.  Mercury Summer Stock has identified this play's strengths and successfully matched them with their own.     

 

The Scarlet Pimpernel continues through August 21 in The Cleveland Play House's Brooks Theatre, 8500 Euclid Ave., Cleveland.  For tickets, $10 to $15, call 216-771-5862 or visit www.mercury-summer-stock.ticketleap.com.
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