Full Article Text
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2019
THEATER: "Enchanted April" -- The Charming
Tale That Cannot Fail (Much)
AN ENCHANTED APRIL ** 1/2 out of ****
THEATRE ROW
It's 1922 and four women -- four strangers, really -- impulsively find
themselves renting the castle San Salvatore on the coast of theMediterranean for the month of April. It's absurd. A castle? For theentire month of April? Sunshine? And wisteria?
They all have their reasons. Lotty is a timid soul but when she spots an
ad offering a castle for rent she somehow gins up the nerve toapproach another woman in her club. They've never spoken despiteattending the same church on Sundays. Lotty plants the idea and her
friend Rose Arbuthnot tries to resist but then suggests maybe simply
writing for the particulars wouldn't be so wrong. Before you know it,they're advertising for roomies to share the expense and up pop thedour Mrs. Fisher and the glamorous Lady Caroline Dester. They alldecamp to Italy and the romantic setting conjures up the usual magic.
The women blossom, become friends, romances are begun or
rekindled with loved ones and it truly is enchanted.
That's the essential plot of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von
Arnim. It was published in 1922, between the wars and is the sort of
light comic novel the British do better than anyone else. Heck, as far
as I can tell, no one else even tries to write these sorts of books. It'ssweet, perceptive, very funny in the kindest and most charming sort ofway and well why not say it...enchanting. One hundred years havecome and gone and I can recommend it unreservedly.
It's been turned into a play several times, a radio play, a few musicals
and two feature films. The most recent movie is perhaps the mostpopular adaptation of all. That 1991 film was nominated for an Oscarand tweaked the story ever so slightly, as most adaptations can and
must. Joan Plowright was especially good as the starchy Mrs. FisherMICHAEL GILTZ AT WORK
Michael Giltz is a freelance writer
based in NYC and can be reached atmgiltz@pipeline.com
FAVORITE LINKS
Americablog
Five O'Clock Lightning baseball blogDeep Pop -- Lori Lakin's Blog
The Back Page -- Jason Page on ESPN
Radio
Cine-Blog -- George Robinson's Blog
Documents On Art & Cinema - Daryl
Chin's Blog
Brucie G's Wondrous Blog Of
Adventure and Mystery -- Bruce
Greenspan's Blog
BLOG ARCHIVE
▼ 2019 (86)
▼ November (6)
BOOKS: Is Finance The Root Of
All Evil?
and really you can't beat the Mediterranean for sumptuous settings.
Here it comes again. You really can't go wrong with this story and the
romantic idea of an Italian vacation to stir the soul. (E.M. Forsterpulled the same trick with A Room With A View. ) I'm not sure why but
they've changed the title to An Enchanted April, which seems more
random and annoying than the 1991 film insisting on just EnchantedApril. Otherwise, the book changes by Elizabeth Hansen are
reasonable choices.
In the original novel, Rose Arbuthnot is unforgivably religious and
finds her husband's career as a popular writer churning out
biographies of royal mistresses distasteful and embarrassing. It also
mentions they lost a child. Here Hansen downplays the Puritanismand gives Rose a sad monologue about her guilt over the little boy'sdeath. In the novel, the impossibly beautiful Lady Dester is just bored
of being chased by every man alive. Try as she might to be dismissive
or rude, everyone is charmed by her every utterance. Here, she ishaughty, which is fine. She's also haunted by the recent horrors of thewar, where Lady Caroline worked as a nurse and saw her share ofsuffering. In many ways, she is suffering from PTSD. Those changes
lead to some other modest plot changes but it's all fine and good. Four
women come to Italy, clash a little, loosen up and take a plunge intonewer and better lives.
The big problem is the score. C. Michael Perry did the music and he
and Hansen tackle the lyrics. It's all recitative tunes, with aimless,
meandering melodic lines, the sort of thing people think of as a laStephen Sondheim though of course Sondheim always offers greatmelodies. You rarely get anything approaching a proper song, justvocalizing about the lovely view or this and that from a modestly
voiced cast. It wouldn't matter that most of the performers are not
belters if they had some charming tunes to deliver. But alas, theflowers bloom but the songs do not. This being a musical, that is afatal flaw.
The story rescues things, as it always does, along with two standouts.THEATER: Good Intentions No
Substitute For Good Me...
THEATER: "Richard III," A
Schemer Undone By Greed,...
THEATER: "Enchanted April" --
The Charming Tale Th...
THEATER: To Delete or Not To
Delete, That Is The D...
MOVIES: "American Dharma"
Bum Steve Bannon
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► 2012 (17)
► 2011 (15)
► 2010 (10)
► 2009 (43)
► 2008 (86)
► 2007 (781)
► 2006 (2412)
► 2005 (5)
Leah Hocking captures the genial charm of Lotty, who puts the plot
into motion and constantly insists something will happen because she
can see it. This could be ditzy or silly or jokey but Hocking makesLotty irresistible. Alma Cuervo is costumed to echo Plowright to a t.
Happily, her performance is not a carbon copy but Cuervo's own thing.
Though why they felt the need to have her slam her cane to the groundand shout "Brilliant" at the very end is beyond me. It was hardly acatch phrase of hers and simply underlined the lack of oomph fromthe finale.
With a very modest budget, the women were costumed nicely by
Matthew Solomon, though I doubt Lady Caroline would have worn aflapper costume to any dinner at the castle and Jim Stanek's suit could
have been a little more period appropriate. A little dab of Brylcreem
(or rather its precursor since that came out in 1928) would havehelped him too. The idea of white umbrellas serving as a backdrop wasfine and the sets by William Armstrong did the job despite very fewresources. The music was provided by two players though here again
the musical choices were unhelpful. Better just two pianos instead of
having one chintzily try to echo the sound of strings.
Still, for a brief moment it all works. Mrs. Fisher sings "This Feeling,"
a song about a tingle of excitement and pleasure she hasn'texperienced since her youth. Better than any other tune, it reveals
character and pushes the plot forward. Cuervo makes the most of it,the song approaches a melody and for a moment you forget the modestbackdrop, the performer and just get caught up in the moment. Thisfeeling doesn't happen very often, but it's a treat when it comes.
THEATER OF 2019
Frankenstein: Under The Radar Fest at the Public ** 1/2
Minor Character: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ***
Ink: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ** 1/2
Choir Boy ** 1/2
White Noise ** 1/2
Kiss Me, Kate ***
Ain't No Mo' *** 1/2
Ain't Too Proud **
The Cradle Will Rock * 1/2
Mrs. Murray's Menagerie *** 1/2
Oklahoma! (on Broadway) ** 1/2
Socrates **
The Pain Of My Belligerence *
Burn This **
Hadestown *** 1/2
All My Sons * 1/2
Tootsie ** 1/2
Ink ***
Beetlejuice **
Estado Vegetal ***
Hans Christian Andersen * 1/2
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia ***
BLKS ** 1/2
Moulin Rouge ** 1/2
Bat Out Of Hell **
Unchilding **
Sea Wall/ A Life ** 1/2
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ***
Betrayal *** 1/2
Fifty Million Frenchmen ** 1/2
Freestyle Love Supreme ** 1/2
Derren Brown: Secret ***
(A)loft Modulation * 1/2
The Great Society **
I Can't See *
Heroes Of The Fourth Turning ** 1/2
Chasing Rainbows: The Road To Oz ***
The Glass Menagerie (dir Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch) **
Terra Firma (debut of The Coop theater company) **
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ***
Dublin Carol ** 1/2
Soft Power **
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes
Of Cole Porter ***
For Colored Girls ** 1/2
Scotland, PA **
The Sound Inside *** (great cast, clumsy ending)
User Not Found **
Enchanted April **
DruidShakespeare: Richard III **
Broadbend, Arkansas
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book
lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the
way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new
releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal
recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz
Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on
entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as
guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called
Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.
POSTED BY MICHAEL GILTZ AT 12:59 AM
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Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)Newer Post Older Post Home
THEATER: "Enchanted April" -- The Charming
Tale That Cannot Fail (Much)
AN ENCHANTED APRIL ** 1/2 out of ****
THEATRE ROW
It's 1922 and four women -- four strangers, really -- impulsively find
themselves renting the castle San Salvatore on the coast of theMediterranean for the month of April. It's absurd. A castle? For theentire month of April? Sunshine? And wisteria?
They all have their reasons. Lotty is a timid soul but when she spots an
ad offering a castle for rent she somehow gins up the nerve toapproach another woman in her club. They've never spoken despiteattending the same church on Sundays. Lotty plants the idea and her
friend Rose Arbuthnot tries to resist but then suggests maybe simply
writing for the particulars wouldn't be so wrong. Before you know it,they're advertising for roomies to share the expense and up pop thedour Mrs. Fisher and the glamorous Lady Caroline Dester. They alldecamp to Italy and the romantic setting conjures up the usual magic.
The women blossom, become friends, romances are begun or
rekindled with loved ones and it truly is enchanted.
That's the essential plot of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von
Arnim. It was published in 1922, between the wars and is the sort of
light comic novel the British do better than anyone else. Heck, as far
as I can tell, no one else even tries to write these sorts of books. It'ssweet, perceptive, very funny in the kindest and most charming sort ofway and well why not say it...enchanting. One hundred years havecome and gone and I can recommend it unreservedly.
It's been turned into a play several times, a radio play, a few musicals
and two feature films. The most recent movie is perhaps the mostpopular adaptation of all. That 1991 film was nominated for an Oscarand tweaked the story ever so slightly, as most adaptations can and
must. Joan Plowright was especially good as the starchy Mrs. FisherMICHAEL GILTZ AT WORK
Michael Giltz is a freelance writer
based in NYC and can be reached atmgiltz@pipeline.com
FAVORITE LINKS
Americablog
Five O'Clock Lightning baseball blogDeep Pop -- Lori Lakin's Blog
The Back Page -- Jason Page on ESPN
Radio
Cine-Blog -- George Robinson's Blog
Documents On Art & Cinema - Daryl
Chin's Blog
Brucie G's Wondrous Blog Of
Adventure and Mystery -- Bruce
Greenspan's Blog
BLOG ARCHIVE
▼ 2019 (86)
▼ November (6)
BOOKS: Is Finance The Root Of
All Evil?
and really you can't beat the Mediterranean for sumptuous settings.
Here it comes again. You really can't go wrong with this story and the
romantic idea of an Italian vacation to stir the soul. (E.M. Forsterpulled the same trick with A Room With A View. ) I'm not sure why but
they've changed the title to An Enchanted April, which seems more
random and annoying than the 1991 film insisting on just EnchantedApril. Otherwise, the book changes by Elizabeth Hansen are
reasonable choices.
In the original novel, Rose Arbuthnot is unforgivably religious and
finds her husband's career as a popular writer churning out
biographies of royal mistresses distasteful and embarrassing. It also
mentions they lost a child. Here Hansen downplays the Puritanismand gives Rose a sad monologue about her guilt over the little boy'sdeath. In the novel, the impossibly beautiful Lady Dester is just bored
of being chased by every man alive. Try as she might to be dismissive
or rude, everyone is charmed by her every utterance. Here, she ishaughty, which is fine. She's also haunted by the recent horrors of thewar, where Lady Caroline worked as a nurse and saw her share ofsuffering. In many ways, she is suffering from PTSD. Those changes
lead to some other modest plot changes but it's all fine and good. Four
women come to Italy, clash a little, loosen up and take a plunge intonewer and better lives.
The big problem is the score. C. Michael Perry did the music and he
and Hansen tackle the lyrics. It's all recitative tunes, with aimless,
meandering melodic lines, the sort of thing people think of as a laStephen Sondheim though of course Sondheim always offers greatmelodies. You rarely get anything approaching a proper song, justvocalizing about the lovely view or this and that from a modestly
voiced cast. It wouldn't matter that most of the performers are not
belters if they had some charming tunes to deliver. But alas, theflowers bloom but the songs do not. This being a musical, that is afatal flaw.
The story rescues things, as it always does, along with two standouts.THEATER: Good Intentions No
Substitute For Good Me...
THEATER: "Richard III," A
Schemer Undone By Greed,...
THEATER: "Enchanted April" --
The Charming Tale Th...
THEATER: To Delete or Not To
Delete, That Is The D...
MOVIES: "American Dharma"
Bum Steve Bannon
► October (21)
► September (10)
► August (9)
► July (7)
► June (3)
► May (6)
► April (10)
► March (5)
► February (1)
► January (8)
► 2018 (38)
► 2017 (6)
► 2016 (2)
► 2015 (22)
► 2014 (2)
► 2013 (5)
► 2012 (17)
► 2011 (15)
► 2010 (10)
► 2009 (43)
► 2008 (86)
► 2007 (781)
► 2006 (2412)
► 2005 (5)
Leah Hocking captures the genial charm of Lotty, who puts the plot
into motion and constantly insists something will happen because she
can see it. This could be ditzy or silly or jokey but Hocking makesLotty irresistible. Alma Cuervo is costumed to echo Plowright to a t.
Happily, her performance is not a carbon copy but Cuervo's own thing.
Though why they felt the need to have her slam her cane to the groundand shout "Brilliant" at the very end is beyond me. It was hardly acatch phrase of hers and simply underlined the lack of oomph fromthe finale.
With a very modest budget, the women were costumed nicely by
Matthew Solomon, though I doubt Lady Caroline would have worn aflapper costume to any dinner at the castle and Jim Stanek's suit could
have been a little more period appropriate. A little dab of Brylcreem
(or rather its precursor since that came out in 1928) would havehelped him too. The idea of white umbrellas serving as a backdrop wasfine and the sets by William Armstrong did the job despite very fewresources. The music was provided by two players though here again
the musical choices were unhelpful. Better just two pianos instead of
having one chintzily try to echo the sound of strings.
Still, for a brief moment it all works. Mrs. Fisher sings "This Feeling,"
a song about a tingle of excitement and pleasure she hasn'texperienced since her youth. Better than any other tune, it reveals
character and pushes the plot forward. Cuervo makes the most of it,the song approaches a melody and for a moment you forget the modestbackdrop, the performer and just get caught up in the moment. Thisfeeling doesn't happen very often, but it's a treat when it comes.
THEATER OF 2019
Frankenstein: Under The Radar Fest at the Public ** 1/2
Minor Character: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ***
Ink: Under The Radar Festival at the Public ** 1/2
Choir Boy ** 1/2
White Noise ** 1/2
Kiss Me, Kate ***
Ain't No Mo' *** 1/2
Ain't Too Proud **
The Cradle Will Rock * 1/2
Mrs. Murray's Menagerie *** 1/2
Oklahoma! (on Broadway) ** 1/2
Socrates **
The Pain Of My Belligerence *
Burn This **
Hadestown *** 1/2
All My Sons * 1/2
Tootsie ** 1/2
Ink ***
Beetlejuice **
Estado Vegetal ***
Hans Christian Andersen * 1/2
Cirque du Soleil: Luzia ***
BLKS ** 1/2
Moulin Rouge ** 1/2
Bat Out Of Hell **
Unchilding **
Sea Wall/ A Life ** 1/2
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ***
Betrayal *** 1/2
Fifty Million Frenchmen ** 1/2
Freestyle Love Supreme ** 1/2
Derren Brown: Secret ***
(A)loft Modulation * 1/2
The Great Society **
I Can't See *
Heroes Of The Fourth Turning ** 1/2
Chasing Rainbows: The Road To Oz ***
The Glass Menagerie (dir Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch) **
Terra Firma (debut of The Coop theater company) **
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ***
Dublin Carol ** 1/2
Soft Power **
The Decline and Fall of The Entire World As Seen Through The Eyes
Of Cole Porter ***
For Colored Girls ** 1/2
Scotland, PA **
The Sound Inside *** (great cast, clumsy ending)
User Not Found **
Enchanted April **
DruidShakespeare: Richard III **
Broadbend, Arkansas
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book
lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the
way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new
releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal
recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz
Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on
entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as
guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called
Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes.
POSTED BY MICHAEL GILTZ AT 12:59 AM
NO COMMENTS:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)Newer Post Older Post Home