This eloquent critic offers better advice than this professor; she says NOT to do your homework and to just Let it go. ***** The Golden Apple, as performed by Lyric Stage, offers one of the most complicated, unique, entertaining and satisfying American musical theatre performances I’ve experienced in a long time. Sung straight through, no dialogue, no recitative, one intermission, its thirty-three musical numbers present a phenomenal challenge to cast, stage director, musical director and orchestra. Easy to see why it’s only been attempted so few times since 1954. Lyric Stage’s production, directed by Stefan Novinski, choreographed by John de los Santos and conducted/ musically directed by Lyric Stage’s resident musical director Jay Dias, rises elegantly to the challenge. The show’s convoluted, “in joke” laden story line, borrowing elements of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, but moving the action to post Spanish Civil War era rural Washington State, can confuse even the most attentive, classically educated audience member. Here’s my suggestion: let it go. Sit back and enjoy the sweeping romance, gentle humor, clever parody of Rodgers & Hammerstein “book” musicals, and the non-stop vaudevillian routines that pop out of pie contests, balloons, faux space ships and crystal balls like 1950’s stovetop Jiffy popcorn. It’s meant to be funny. The Golden Apple’s exquisite music swells throughout Carpenter Hall as composer Jerome Moross must surely have dreamed it might, under Jay Dias’ inspired guidance. Cast singers, leads to chorus, all embrace the composer’s intentionally folksy “Americana” tone while employing their best-supported classical musical theatre vocal technique. No disappointments. -- Alexandra Bonifield criticalrant/2014/10/31/finding-true-home-with-lyric-stages-the-golden-apple/
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 11:05:27 +0000
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