[NEohioPAL] Review of Cleveland Play House's "Daddy Long Legs"

[Bob Abelman]

CPH's 'Daddy Long Legs' weaves an entrancing web of romance

 

Bob Abelman

 

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,

The Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier

Member, American Theatre Critics Association 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald on 11/4/11

 

Cleveland Play House's Daddy Long Legs, currently on stage at the Allen Theatre, is nothing if not disarmingly charming. 

 

Written as a novel by Jean Webster in 1912, Daddy Long Legs has gone through numerous stage and screen adaptations over the last century.  Most recently, it has been transformed into an intimate, two-person musical by John Caird with music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, which premiered at the Rubicon Theatre Company in California in 2009.  

 

Much of this musical's charm comes from its source material.  

The story is set in early 20th century New England, where Jerusha Abbott is the oldest orphan in the John Grier Home.  That is, until an anonymous benefactor recognizes her intelligence and creativity and sends her to college to be educated as a writer.  Required to write him a letter once a month but unaware of his identity, Jerusha invents one for him--Daddy Long Legs-having glanced at his tall, gangly frame from behind while he was leaving the orphanage.  

Her spontaneity, playfulness and passion for life, as reflected in her wonderfully penned letters, ultimately captures the benefactor's heart and threatens to breach his self-induced anonymity.  

This is a delightful and captivating love story, made even more so by the fact that the novel was written as a collection of Jerusha's poignant and poetic correspondences.  So too is this musical.   The clever and time-honored device of epistolary narrative is adopted in the songs, with each song serving as a separate self-disclosure as written by Jerusha or as read by Jervis Pendleton, the secretive man who has become her patron saint.  

In fact, the limited dialogue in this play simply segues from one of the 24 musical numbers to the next, complemented by a projection of the script-written date on which the letter that constitutes each song is written.

When Jerusha's writing and Jervis' reading of these letters occurs simultaneously, as it does in many of the production's songs, delicate and perfectly balanced harmonies result.  These harmonies take unmemorable songs that offer brilliant lyrics but rather monotonous melodies and make them soar.  

The novel Daddy Long Legs was written in the tradition of period novelists Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice), Louisa May Alcott (Little Women) and Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), who created strong, independent and imaginative women openly dissatisfied with the gender-specific limitations of their time.  It is this air of Jane Eyre that comes across so beautifully in this play.  Jerusha's irreverent tone and passionate temperament make her a particularly endearing and engaging character in this day and age.

What accounts for most of the CPH production's charm, however, is the cast, director and musical director, who were all members of the original production.  

 

The petite Megan McGinnis, as Jerusha, is winsome to the point of distraction.  The lanky Robert Adelman Hancock is boyishly charming, particularly when Jervis' inner-child peeks through its benefactor façade.  Both are wonderful singers with crystal clear voices that blend one into the other, and they are incredibly gifted, intuitive performers.  Having played opposite each other since this play's inception, McGinnis and Hancock have come to complement each other beautifully.  

 

Playwright Caird, a Tony-winning director best known for his work on large-scale musicals such as Les Misérables and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, nicely facilitates the storytelling through imaginative staging on a simple, single set.  The dark library that houses Jervis' office-a creation of David Farley's (along with period costuming)-becomes the orphanage, a college dorm and a farm house with subtle changes in Paul Toben's lighting and small adjustments in assorted set pieces.  A six-piece orchestra under Laura Berquist's superb direction underscores all this activity.

 

In brief, everything about this production is intimate, inviting and. charming.  

 

Despite this play's few blemishes-a storyline that was even predictable in 1912, a bright young lady who can't figure out the blatantly obvious identity of her benefactor, and the ridiculous pretense that two people sharing a small stage for over two hours can't actually hear or see each other until they can-it is extremely easy to surrender to this production's intricately woven web of romance.  

 

And surrender you most certainly will.  

 

Daddy Long Legs continues through November 13 in Cleveland Play House's Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare.  For tickets, which range from $49 to $69, call 216-241-6000 or visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
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