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The "Candide" Review This review of the Monterey Opera Association's Candide appeared in the Monterey Herald on June 27, 2000. As the first review in a real live Knight-Ridder-owned daily newspaper to mention ME, I provide it for anyone who was unable to catch my performance in person. NOTE: This review is © The Monterey Herald; talk to them if you want to use it. "Candide" and "Cunegonde" were adopted from the Orphanage of Cast-Off Mascots at lileks.com. If you want to adopt a mascot of your own, follow this link. |
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Actors, direction keep "Candide" lively and wittyBy CRAIG ARNOTTSpecial to The Herald"Candide," Voltaire's 18th-century swipe at runaway optimism. has made it to the 21st century smoothly courtesy of Monterey Opera and the MPC Theatre Company. This Leonard Bernstein musical has endured at least 15 incarnations on its way to becoming a comic operetta, which is perhaps the best genre to file a work of such unapologetic cynicism. Glitches were few during last Thursday's opening night performance. An unresponsive spotlight left Candide (S. Jason Black) in the dark during his introduction, and the enthusiastic 30-piece orchestra, though ably conducted by Mark Hanson, at times drowned out the vocalists. Admittedly, it's hard to tame Bernstein's bullish score, the de facto star of the production. Written in the same time frame as the composer's triumphant "West Side Story," "Candide's" music is similarly blustery and emphatic. It also shares the same sort of brass and string interplay associated with Gershwin, a key Bernstein influence. The operetta plays out like a condensed epic, packed with enough melodrama for three musicals. This becomes evident when just minutes into the first act the impressionable Candide finds his true love in the coquettish Cunegonde (Tausha Edwards). Soon after, the Spanish Inquisition intrudes and Cunegonde and her prissy brother Maximilian (Joe Settineri) are swiftly killed. Yet, after a short while, they miraculously reappear, confronted by the astounded Candide in the first of what the narrator slyly calls "credulity-stretching coincidences." These coincidences are best encapsulated in the wry song "You Were Dead, You Know." Many more reincarnations follow as Candide scours the world in search of Cunegonde while falling prey to war, disease, corruption and every other imaginable side effect of 18th-century progress. And though the second act can't sustain the breakneck frivolity of the first, it cements the idea that wealth and idealism can be a dangerous mix. MPC's production has an intentionally haphazard feel. Changes in locale are sometimes signaled only by a change in hats. A countryside is depicted with cardboard sheep hovering over the stage, while Paris, the city of light, is announced by a rotating mirror ball. During the battle scene, fake limbs are thrown on the stage like used cigarettes. With these Spartan and playful touches director Sid Cato keeps the action lively without undermining Voltaire's wit. The operetta's five leads have been referred to as "out-of-town professional talent," which is a polite way of describing ringers. Black is solid as Candide, and provides a great rendition of the softly enveloping "It Must Be Me," arguably the musical's best number. Edwards peaks with "Glitter and Be Gay," a song that puts her through some very demanding vocal gymnastics. But for actors who are engaged to each other offstage, Black and Edwards seem to have a vague kind of chemistry on it Perhaps they'd been arguing over the wedding invitations just before the curtain rose. Martin Beal's multiple roles, among them the narrator Voltaire and the crackpot philosopher Pangloss reveal the actor's versatility and shrewd comic timing. His asides to the audience and feisty interplay with the chorus give him the aura of a circus ringmaster. As the broadly gay Maximilian, Settineri nearly overplays a character which is begging to be overplayed, while Elizabeth Finkler shows an engaging lunacy as the cursed old lady who must hobble through life with only one buttock. At least those behind "Candide," which marks the start of a five-year collaboration between Monterey Opera and the MPC Theatre Company, avoid that fate by staging much more than a half-assed production. |
Incidentally, if you've paid a call on this site before, you've seen The S.O.B. Manifesto. I'm pleased to report that Dave the "Candide" sound man and his adorable son Shaun make #3 for good sound men I have encountered. But I still say I don't need the damn thing.
And here I thought "out of town" meant "imported from New York and/or Los Angeles."
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