Kern’s Show Boat at Lyric Opera, 2011-2012

On Saturday my wife and I saw Lyric Opera’s new production of Jerome Kern’s 1927 musical, Show Boat. I love Show Boat and have seen it staged more times than I can count. I can’t remember a time when I hadn’t seen Show Boat—it continues to be performed at the St. Louis Muny Opera roughly every six years. With the Muny’s huge facility they can actually put a full size showboat on the stage. The scale of the Muny’s productions is unmatchable.

Lyric has gotten stingier with its production photos lately. The shot above is the best I could manage. As you can see it depicts the production’s large showboat set piece with chorus and cast members.

We liked the production but found it uneven. Morris Robinson (Joe—“Ol’ Man River”) and Angela Renee Simpson (Queenie) were superb. The first act performance of the show’s most famous song, “Ol’ Man River”, was as good as I’ve ever seen. I wept throughout. I wish the director had turned Ms. Simpson loose a bit more. Although her performance was simply wonderful she was clearly keeping it toned down a bit.

Our opinions split on Nathan Gunn’s Gaylord Ravenal. We both thought his looks and acting were excellent but I liked his singing better than my wife did. I wish he hadn’t cheated on his high notes but you can’t have everything. I found Ashley Brown’s Magnolia appealing as an ingenue but I did not find her convincing as a Ziegfeld headliner. Alyson Cambridge as Julie LaVerne, the part originated by the incomparable Helen Morgan, was exquisitely beautiful and had a lovely singing voice but in her case I think the decision to split the cast between opera singers and musical comedy performers betrayed them. Her singing was too precise, too a tempo. I think she over-performed her second act song, “Bill”. Understated, it should have torn your heart out. It didn’t.

The one performance I found disappointing was Ross Lehman as Captain Andy. I thought his timing was lousy. He persistently stepped on his own gag lines.

The dancing and crowd scenes were probably the best I’ve seen in any Lyric production. The sets were glorious, particularly the gorgeous backdrops of the Columbian Exposition and The Palmer House. A combination of backdrops and cartoon sets helped propel the second act along at a dizzying pace.

Overall, I recommend the production strongly, particularly if you’ve never seen Show Boat on stage before.

Spoilers Follow

The production differs in some significant ways from the standard production that prevailed until the release of the “restored” recording in 1988. Unlike on that recording the black cast members never use the “N-word” although white cast members do. This production thankfully restores Queenie’s first act song “Misery’s Comin’” which in the standard production appeared only in the overture and as incidental music in the background. I found that an excellent choice.

We never learn that Kim (Gay and Nola’s daughter) has become a movie star in her own right. I presume that’s for the sake of time (the show runs just under three hours, cut from a potential total length of four hours).

At the end of the show Gay and Nola do not reconcile, unlike the standard production or the two movie versions. No Hollywood ending. The message, apparently, is that decisions have consequences and some may never be forgotten. As the curtain falls Kim embraces her father, Nola stands off to the side. That’s truer to the Edna Ferber novel in which, once Gaylord has left, he’s never seen again. There’s only one message to an Edna Ferber novel: men are shnooks.

The Critics

John Von Rhein liked it:

Besides the cinematic fluidity of Zambello’s pacing, what makes this “Show Boat” sail along so smoothly is the expertise with which it integrates trained operatic voices, musical comedy singers and a pride of Chicago actors and dancers into an energetic troupe of performers. Lyric’s talented cast comprises 22 roles and calls for a dozen dancers, and that doesn’t include the two choruses, one Caucasian, the other African American.

So did Andrew Patner:

For Lyric, Zambello has reconnected “Show Boat” with its operatic kin and full orchestra, gone deeply and with great knowledge and respect into the stories and context of the show’s black and mixed-race characters and brought together trained opera singers, musical theater performers and stage actors in a strongly braided cord. She’s perfectly cast an ensemble across the board to perform some of the most enduring songs and theater music ever written.

As with “Porgy,” Zambello, artistic director of the Glimmerglass Festival who started her career as an intern and then assistant director at Lyric in the early 1980s under the late Ardis Krainik, has been working with “Show Boat” in various forms for years to develop a clear and cohesive presentation of a 40-year survey of the lives of traveling show people. All orchestrations, including banjo and acoustic guitar, are those of the great Robert Russell Bennett, who created the orchestral sound for the original 1927 production as well as its 1946 revival.

Chicago Theater Beat:

Show Boat’s production values are as grand as its players. Chorus master Michael Black and choreographer Michele Lynch helm a vast, high-spirited chorus who are a consistent delight to behold. As if by magic, Peter J. Davison’s sets conjure up the grand locations of Chicago’s own Palmer House Hotel, the World’s Fair and the Cotton Blossom in all its exquisitely crafted glory. And Paul Tazewell’s costumes – flouncing petticoats, high stepping boots and feathery hats – are a supporting cast in themselves, with hints of bright red that complement the sets and create a moving work of art.

A few problematic elements exist in Lyric’s Show Boat. The venue isn’t used to spoken-word dialogue and the sound is a bit patchy at times. Also, both Magnolia and her daughter Kim appear far too young at the end, taking into account how much time has passed. Overall, however, Lyric has revived Show Boat in a way that would surely please Kern, Hammerstein, Ferber and the god of theatre himself, Dionysus. Intrigue, suspense, laughter, tears, visual and aural heaven: it’s all here. Get on board!

Check out the production photos in Lauren Whalen’s review.