Stage Review: South Park gets an A for taking on difficult musical

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Stage Review: South Park gets an A for taking on difficult musical

Friday, May 26, 2000

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

This is not your usual straw hat musical comedy.

'The Triumph Of Love'
Where: South Park Theatre, near South Park Fairgrounds, Corrigan Drive.
When: Thurs.-Sun. 8 p.m. through June 4.
Tickets: $10; 412-831-8552.

Mainly, it's small, just a cast of seven, making it a godsend to South Park, which has a stage about the size of a tight two-car garage and would be hard-pressed to come up with a kick-line of chorines, even if they had space to display them. But the flip side of small is that every part is important -- no one can hide amid the jollity or swirl of rousing choruses that fill up more familiar musicals.

That "Triumph of Love" is new further increases the degree of difficulty. Give us a song from Rodgers and Hammerstein and we can easily fill in for any vocal shortcomings. But every lyric in "Triumph of Love" needs to be delivered with clarity, especially because so much of its plot, character and humor is in those lyrics

That's right, humor -- you don't hear much of that in new musicals. Susan Burkenhead's wonderful lyrics are full of sly wit and surprises.

But it's a bit misleading to call "Triumph of Love" new. The original play was written in 1732 by Marivaux (No. 2 in the all-time Gallic comic rankings, right behind Moliere -- sort of an 18th-century Noel Coward). "The subtlety of his dialogue makes it almost impossible to translate him adequately into English," say the books. But Birkenhead and librettist James Magruder have managed a very thorough make-over, stuffing it full of songs but also transforming Marivaux's polished diction into an arch comic language of their own devising. Framed with elocutionary formality, it continually undercuts that with colloquial irreverence and modern references.

As to plot, well, there really isn't anything new under the sun, including this tale of a princess who disguises herself as a young man and penetrates a secluded garden estate where two philosophers are training a young man to become a ruler of perfect rationality . . . does that sound familiar? The theme is the folly of the dream of reason. But the plot sounds like bits and pieces of Shakespeare and Boccaccio and Mother Goose and all the great storytellers, realized in a charming comic blend of innocent characters and sophisticated telling.

So it all depends on how you do it, and it isn't easy. Arch language needs stylish delivery or it can set your teeth on edge. And you want to hear every word.

Much depends on the princess (Maureen Renihan), who has to make not only the young prince (Christopher Martin) and elderly philosophes (Lisa Rothhaar and Tom Strauman) fall in love with her, but the audience, too. A great deal also depends on those three, who must be likable and even touching in spite of their folly. And the tart subplot of the three "henchmen" has to be in good hands -- gardener (Christopher Warden), jester (Juston Thomas Zeno) and princess' maid (Nancy Mimless) whose earthy couplings and sarcastic comments are comic counterpoint to their masters' high follies.

Face it, I love this show. That is, I loved it on Broadway two seasons ago, when a negative New York Times review helped send it to an early death. But would I love it at the South Park Theatre, the company started five years ago by Audrey Castracane in the building where Shirley Custer and friends pioneered in 1977?

Cut to the chase: Give South Park and director Rick Campbell an A for taking it on and a solid passing grade (B- ?) for achievement.

Renihan's princess is cute, with lovely comic effrontery, but she overplays the vamping -- she shouldn't have to bat a single eyelash to get them to fall in love. As the comic philosopher, Mimless can be deadpan dead on, but sometimes her deadpan slips into vacancy. Warden is a gutteral top banana -- sorry, rutabaga -- but occasionally he garbles his very funny words.

Of the elderly pair, Rothhaar never catches the pathos that should tinge the comedy of hauteur brought low, but Strauman does. As the two sit all dressed up for love but destined to watch youth wed instead, Rothhaar has the delicious final line: "Maybe we'll meet someone at the wedding."

Everyone sings well enough and the two-keyboard and percussion accompaniment gives you a good idea of the attractions of Jeffrey Stock's score without drowning out the lyrics. If you like the show as much as I do, you'll rush to buy the CD, featuring Susan Egan and Betty Buckley.