Sweet Charity (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Sweet Charity Laura MacDonald Sweet Charity. Book by Neil Simon. Music by Cy Coleman. Lyrics by Dorothy Fields. Directed by Matthew White. Choreographed by Stephen Mear. Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre, London. 19 February 2010. Sweet Charity was a major turning point in Bob Fosse's career as a director-choreographer, and as an exemplar of his legacy, this 1966 musical presents any director and choreographer who wish to revive it with very specific challenges. Fosse crafted the musical as a valentine for his wife Gwen Verdon, tailoring the title character to Verdon's strengths as a performer. He consolidated his choreographic style, and in so finely integrating dance as a means of expression, created showcase opportunities for women in supporting roles and the ensemble. Sweet Charity requires detailed choreography to allow for heightened expression by characters who were originally created and developed primarily through movement rather than words or music. Despite its success with re-conceptions (and re-orchestrations) of Broadway musicals on a small scale (for example, a chamber production of La Cage aux Folles), the 150-seat Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre seems an unlikely venue for the expansive dances required by Sweet Charity. Further, through the 1990s and 2000s, the pool of dance talent in London's West End has not continued to grow and develop at a rate comparable to Broadway; British ensembles frequently lack the speed, precision, and energy of Broadway dancers. Excepting Peter Darling's work on Billy Elliot (2005), most modern musical theatre choreography seen in London during the past decade has been in re-mountings of Broadway productions or in original work by Americans such as Susan Stroman and Rob Ashford. Without consistent, original British musical theatre choreography setting a high standard for musical theatre dance, any revival of a dance musical in London faces casting challenges. [End Page 464] Click for larger view View full resolution Tamzin Outhwaite (Charity Hope Valentine) in Sweet Charity. (Photo: Catherine Ashmore.) [End Page 465] Director Matthew White is a veteran of the Menier, having successfully staged Little Shop of Horrors and The Last Five Years. Choreographer Stephen Mear (Mary Poppins [with Matthew Bourne] and The Little Mermaid) makes his Menier debut with Sweet Charity. Casting long, lean dancers and framing them in a flocked, red velvet, triple proscenium designed by Tim Shortall, White and Mear cleverly caged the women who are yearning to break free from their oppressive careers as dancers for hire in a Forty-Second Street tango palace. In emphasizing the literal and metaphorical cage in which the women live, White and Mear focused attention on the female body in relation to its environment and social conditions, turning the physical limitations of the Menier into an advantage. Rather than opening with a solo dance for the show's leading lady accompanied by the overture, White and Mear instead introduced the ensemble of dancers in their dressing room, before they are summoned to display themselves on the dance floor. Opening in the dingy ballroom effectively established a physical contrast between the dark and cramped interior quarters and the expanded, more open space of Central Park, where Charity is introduced and marked as a woman who thinks outside the ballroom. Featuring the ensemble before the leading lady foregrounds a reading of Sweet Charity as a musical about a collective women's experience, rather than as a star vehicle. In "Big Spender," the most iconic number in Sweet Charity, the leggy dancers balanced themselves on stools while a single customer circulated among them. Their seated position caused their posture to slump, contorting their limbs and emphasizing the availability of their bodies for hire. The physical limitations of the set design seemed to impose further restrictions on the dancers' movement. Josefina Gabrielle, previously seen as Laurey in the Stroman revival of Oklahoma! and more recently as Irene Molloy in the Mear-choreographed Hello, Dolly! in Regent's Park, was outstanding as Charity's worldly friend Nickie. Tiffany Graves ably accompanied her as the wisecracking Helene. Their carefully wrought performances beautifully evoked the time and place their characters inhabited, and as performers, they made the most of the musical's many showcase opportunities. When they leapt across...