The Wild Party, The Other Palace – Review
Pros: A high-octane gin-soaked musical, performed with enthusiasm by a strong and energetic cast.
Cons: Weak lyrics and forgettable tunes, and a distinct lack of plot.
summary
Rating
Good
If you like 1920s musicals, you'll enjoy this homage to the Jazz Age.
With a cast of fifteen and an eight-piece orchestra, The Wild Party is a wild, exuberant homage to the jazz age of the Roaring Twenties. Featuring sparkling costumes, outstanding choreography and a uniformly strong cast, it is a spectacular, visually scintillating production that tells the story of vaudeville showgirl Queenie and her violent clown husband Burrs, who decide to bury their marital discord by throwing a party. And itās that party which fills the rest of the show.
The whole of the first half is expository, as the motley assortment of guests take it in turns to sing a number each, relating their life story, detailing their current situation, announcing their aspirations and profiling their partners: āMy Eddieās a hero, just like Lindberg. Except Lindberg was white and flew planes, and Eddieās black and beats people up.ā Along the way the show explores sexual freedom, gay relationships, cross-dressing, marital infidelity, domestic violence, antisemitism, racism and gender identity – which would be a lot to pack into a musical, were it not for the fact thereās a cavernous hole where the plot should be. For despite the bitching, arguments, schmoozing and boozing, nothing really happens until the last five minutes. The guests misbehave, break up, make up and seduce each other, and thatās about it.
The Other Palace – recently renamed from the St James Theatre – is a splendid venue, with a very steep rake guaranteeing excellent sight lines even right up in the gods. Soutra Gilmour’s set design is outstanding, allowing the cast to appear not just on the main stage, but in the gallery with the musicians and on three levels of staircase. This does mean, however, that on occasion you have to hunt to find out who’s singing the current song.
The music, by Michael John LaChiusa, is rooted in 1920s jazz, with frequent nods to Brechtās collaborator Kurt Weill – although some of the songs are more like first drafts for late Lloyd Webber musicals. While the songs are ably brought to life under the direction of Theo Jamieson, thereās none of the Kander and Ebb verve and sparkle of Cabaret or Chicago here, and youāll leave the show unable to recall a single tune. That said, there is a lot of it. As a sung-through show, thereās barely a moment when the band isnāt playing.
Michael John LaChiusa also wrote the lyrics, which suffer from being ploddingly pedestrian. āYou want to know why the past is called the past?ā says Gold, one of the Jewish producers. āBecause itās the past. Itās over,ā he adds weakly. Jokes, which are thin on the ground, drop limply from the performersā lips: to the statement āQueenie, in my day discretion was the ruleā, Queenie can retort no better than āDolores, in your day they hadnāt even invented electricity.ā
The cast is accomplished, with John Owen-Jones standing out as the bullying husband Burrs. Frances Ruffelle, as Queenie, has volume and gusto, but there’s no sense of a real person inhabiting her character. And this is part of the problem: there isnāt a single person in the ensemble of largely unlikeable partygoers that the audience can either relate to or empathise with.
The show has one or two stand-out moments. Most notably the manic scene at the end of the first half, where the characters romp in a bath full of homemade gin; but for the most part both the music and the lyrics are tedious, and the lack of action enervating. The second half, which deals with the morning after, begins somewhat bizarrely with a reprise of the scene that ends the first half. A clean break would have been more theatrically compelling.
Based on a scandalous 1927 poem by Joseph March, The Wild Party is a revival of the Broadway musical first performed in April 2000. Coincidentally, there were two productions of The Wild Party on Broadway in 2000; it could be that theyāve revived the wrong one.
Author: Michael John LaChiusa
Director/choreographer: Drew McOnie
Booking until: 1 April
Box Office: 0844 264 2121
Booking Link: https://www.theotherpalace.co.uk/theatre/wild-party/