New Webber production underachieves

Deborah Temkin Contributing Editor

When my father asked me if I wanted to go see a preview performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical, The Woman in White, I jumped at the chance. After all, it is Andrew Lloyd Webber—the composer responsible for Cats and Phantom of the Opera, among several other staple Broadway musicals. If Webber puts his name on a musical, I assumed it must be good. However, I was sorely wrong.

Critically acclaimed in London, the show features an award-winning British and American cast. According to Playbill, Maria Friedman, who debuted and currently plays the lead role of Marian Halcombe, is Webber’s favorite voice and her character’s music was specifically written for her broad range. Having won several Oliver Awards (the U.K.’s equivalent of the Tony), Friedman has been cited as a main reason to see the show. When I was (un)fortunate enough to see the show, Friedman fell ill and was replaced by her understudy, Lisa Brescia. Brescia was as good in the role as was possible given the excruciating plot, the dizzying effects, and the flat ranges of her fellow actors.

The show, based on the English Gothic novel by Wilkie Collins, focuses on two sisters, Laura (Jill Paice) and Marian, from Limmeridge, and the mysterious “Woman in White,” Anne Catherick (Angela Christian). The story begins with a pseudo love-triangle between the sisters and their art teacher, Walter Hartright (Adam Brazier), who sees Catherick en route to Limmeridge.

After an hour of developing this purposeless storyline, the story takes a twist when Marian informs Hartright that Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde (Ron Bohmer). Catherick reports to Hartright that Glyde has been abusing her. Hartright tells Marian this, but she doesn’t believe him and sends him away, marrying her sister off to Glyde. Catherick meets Laura and Marian and reports that she has a secret that will take down Glyde but before she can reveal it, she’s captured by Glyde.

By the end of the first act, we believe that Laura is dead, Catherick has been taken to a mental asylum, and Marian is determined to find out Catherick’s secret. Throughout all of this, comic relief comes from the character of Count Fosco (Michael Ball), who helps Glyde get away with stealing Laura’s money and carrying out his crimes.

The second act casually reveals these secrets and ends abruptly. The secrets are predictable, and in some ways downright offensive in the implication of importance and vulgarity. As a Vassar woman, I was very offended at the political bend of the secrets’ connotations. In full, the plot was unoriginal, slowly developed, and hard to digest.

The music left much to be desired. Webber has been famous for creating the irresistible songs that are often repeated ad nauseum during talent shows (“Memories” from Cats or “Music of the Night” from Phantom). The show ran as an operetta—there was very little dialogue, and as such, the music dragged on and on and became very repetitive.

Perhaps the only notable piece was Count Fosco’s “You Can Get Away With Anything,” which, compared to Webber’s classics, falls short of becoming one of his best.

The only potentially redeeming quality of the show was its novel use of CGI animation to create scenery on a rotating semi-circle wall. The actors were able to walk through rooms in the same scene as the projected backgrounds changed behind them. This effect became tiresome after a while, and the actors’ movements and the animations’ movements were not always aligned, creating a distracting, dizzying effect for the audience. The use of this technology could be a new frontier for Broadway shows, and could potentially allow smaller productions to use the same scenery as the original.

Overall, this show was not worth the money spent. If you are interested in flashy animation or watching the downfall of a once unrefuted Broadway legend, this show is for you. Otherwise, go see Avenue Q or Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, both of which are better suited for the Vassar audience, and frankly, are better put together.

The Woman in White opens on Nov. 17 at the Marquis Theatre.