All about the new musical comedy based on "The playwright Candida" seems to Pocket format, fragments of songs by Joshua Schmidt to the use of only four musicians to boil down the story of Shavian to about 90 minutes without intermission. Even the space where it landed in New York - Lincoln Center is the theatre of Newhouse Mitzi e. - is intimate.
All that is not a bad thing. A fantastic cast of only five, a single set and a book by Austin Pendleton, which preserves a large part of the spirit of the original author makes "of the Minister, a woman" a little jewel of musical comedy, if it can be an acquired taste.
Unlike "my fair Lady," the big, brash music with sumptuous songs based on "Pygmalion of Shaw," the new show open Sunday has a lyrical smell and has influence of Kurt Weil. This means that some 20 songs, but not the toe-tapping quality of "I could have danced all night." Some tunes last only a few bars, some in four-part harmony. No stick exactly to the head, but many are missed as soon as they finish.
Schmidt, who wrote the music for the renowned "Adding of Machine", makes atmospheric songs, seductive, often atonal - more like appetizers than entrées. The actors sing often not accompanied or in isolation at the melody of the Orchestra, adding voice that dip or mounted on a dime.
Pendleton has stripped the play in three acts of Shaw wrote in 1894 at his heart. It is the story of a love triangle between the Rev James Morell, a Christian Socialist pompous; Candida, strong and beautiful wife; and Eugene Marchbanks, an old poet of 18 years with a love of Candida. It is Shaw's more feminist, poses nude men how embarrassing boy will always be.
"I am up for auction, it seems," Candida tells her husband when the two rivals prepare to make their case for his affection. "What you bid, James." Jan Levy Tranen lyrics move the story almost as soon as the script. "If I shrink, I shrink your brutal embrace/if betrayed, betrayed by the tears on my face / I fear you step,"Marchbanks crying at a given time."."
In view of the difficult music, a good distribution is crucial and "of the Minister, a woman" has a. A charismatic Marc Kudisch plays the blowhard Morell so well that it is difficult to root against him, while Bobby Steggert depicts the poet simpering with a callowness which makes him a natural romantic rival of strong masculinity of the Reverend. Kate Fry is warm and loving and exasperated as Cadida, perfectly expressed as an object of affection so much. Two pieces smaller - Drew Gehling and Liz Baltic as employees of the Reverend - add another pair of excellent voices to the mix.
Keeping everything that this set is Director Michael Halberstam, the art director and co-founder of the theatre of the Writers' in Glencoe, Ill., where the musical made its world premiere. Halberstam manages to keep it that is a domestic drama seem dizzying and universal.
A simple yet crowded into force, same set loaded book by Allen Moyer and formal costumes, in the 19th century by David Zinn add to the relevance of the minimalist tale. You can not dance all night, but there is something here lush in its recount.
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