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The Lincoln Center Theatre at the Vivian Beaumont
Marie Christine
musical by Michael John LaChiusa
November 27, 1999
Review by Andrew Yarrows
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I was originally supposed to have reviewed Marie Christine on November 12th, however I mistook the date I was to have seen the show and later realized I had tickets for the 27th. So, the following (finally) is my review. Originally I posted a foul-mouthed tirade regarding the manner in which I was treated by the Vivian Beaumont's house manager prior to the performance, but I have now "cleaned up" the review. You may view the "R-rated" version by clicking here. Otherwise, read on.
Marie Christine is, to quote a friend of a friend’s comments regarding
this summer’s Stanley Kubrick/Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman film Eyes
Wide Shut, neither a masterpiece nor a disaster, and it's anything but
a typical night of musical theatre (if there is such a thing). It's
something in between a masterpiece and a good, solid bit of theatre,
and I must confess that I find it hard to classify or rate as either good
or bad (which is why I am quoting that person’s thoughts on EWS).
Actually, it's far from bad. It's just very different, and mostly
wonderful--a powerful, musically and emotionally complex work that
is presented in one dense, well-crafted package, with the immensely
talented Audra McDonald heading it all. The show has its flaws,
certainly--a mostly inaccessible score, almost entirely dark and
unsympathetic characters and the accompanying, underdeveloped
story line, and plenty of moments that drag on at a snail's pace,
bordering on boring--but it also has more than a few strong points,
and in many ways they make the show's weaknesses easy to
overlook.
Just so those who aren’t familiar with the Medea story (the source
material for this loose, musical adaptation and resetting) aren’t lost
while reading through my comments, I’ll give a quick rundown of the
show’s story. Set in New Orleans in the 1890s, the story concerns
Marie Christine, a young mulatto girl who holds a curiously high social
rank despite still being subject to the various limitations brought upon
her by her black heritage. She is part of a wealthy family (a brother
of hers is a lawyer), reared as the child of a wealthy white man and
his slave lover, aspiring to be a lady worthy of her society while harboring a flare for the voodoo arts, as passed on by her mother. In other words, her acceptance in society is
borderline; she is certainly better off than a slave would have been years earlier, but she isn’t
exactly welcomed by high society, either. She’s more or less existing
on the fringe of things, in limbo. Anyway, Marie Christine meets a
white man, Dante Keyes, who has ambitions to make something big of
himself in the big city (Chicago), and she takes up with him against
the expectations of her family and society as a whole. After killing her
brother in the midst of a heated quarrel between he and Dante,
Marie and her forbidden lover leave Louisiana and go through a number of
tribulations before eventually settling in Chicago, where Dante soon abandons
her for a less controversial and more lucrative relationship with the daughter of a societal elite.
Demanding that she give up her children and vanish from his life,
Dante is dealt the ultimate blow as Marie kills both his new bride and
her own children, rather than allow them to be reared as second-rate
sons in a house that would most likely treat them like servants rather
than fully advantaged children because of their mixed race. Pretty
deep and complex stuff and, speaking in an overall sense, it gets a
a mostly decent treatment in Marie Christine.
The score, by Michael John LaChiusa (who also penned the lyrics), is
intermittently beautiful, sometimes powerful, often adequate and
occasionally boring; all that, and it manages to sound incredibly even
throughout. One thing is for certain--the score's strength lies in the
form of Marie Christine's arias, which is what the material relegated
to Audra McDonald's character basically amounts to. They make
excellent use of McDonald’s stirring, operatic pipes. The few
distinguishable songs in this otherwise tightly meshed score go to the
title character and, occasionally, a few others, but for the most part
the songs weave in and out of each other in a seamless way that
prevents the score from having any standout tunes. Not that having
“standout tunes” is a requirement of a good score, mind you (it simply
depends on the show in question, and every case is different), but I
found it difficult to grasp any sort of main theme, or even any
recurring music that would give the score a sense of cohesion or comprehensive
character. Here and there it is possible to detect distinct strands of
melody, but mainly songs and themes are run together in a manner
that muddies them into one, indistinguishable whole. As it stands, the
score is a tightly-knit design of musical threads, drawn from similarly
colored spools that do not allow for much variation or musical
differentiation of the show's characters. Every melody bleeds into the
next, the end result being an often bland musical experience that
rarely makes any remarkable impressions on the ear.
I think there is a tendency for music that is considered “difficult” or
“inaccessible” to automatically be deemed brilliant, especially lately,
and that bothers me. I think that Richard Rodgers’ Carousel score is
very accessible, musically speaking, and I also consider it to be
brilliant, so I don’t know why people are so quick to pass judgment on
music that has a wealth of melody. The most atonal, complexly
written and un-melodic score can be a piece of shit, in my opinion.
I’m not saying that Marie Christine’s score isn’t brilliant, really; it
occasionally is. However, I did find it to be somewhat pretentious and
even somewhat typical of new musicals of late--trying hard to be
difficult, musically. Not that I had trouble "understanding" or
"accessing" the music, personally, but I can see why many members
of the audience were either dozing off or fidgeting throughout the
evening, and why several people seated in front of me never returned to their seats
after intermission. It’s not the sort of music one can really appreciate
without hearing it a few times from start to finish. I have since heard it again (you see, I got revenge for what happened to me, not that I’m going to spell it out for you), and only now do I start to appreciate select
pieces of music in the show. Still, Marie Christine’s score is so tightly woven that
you can really only appreciate it as a whole; it’s very hard to
examine, or even to detect, any individual pieces.
On the other hand, as I stated earlier, the score's arias are excellent
and stand as the most memorable pieces of music of the entire evening. Of the show's many characters, Marie Christine is the most
detectable, musically; her character has a consistent musical voice
that separates her, melodically speaking, from the whole of the
score. Songs like "Way Back To Paradise" and "I Will Love You" are a
breath of fresh air, and received the loudest applause from the
audience which, speaking of them, seemed mostly confused as to
when it was appropriate to do so. I suppose that’s one of the
consequences of a score that lacks much definition in the structure of
its songs.
As an aside, what is it lately with relatively new composers using
these three part names? There’s Michael John LaChiusa, Ricky Ian
Gordan, Jason Robert Brown, etc. Whatever happened to just a first
name and last name combination, like Stephen Sondheim or Richard
Rodgers? I guess the three part name sounds a little more
distinguished and fancy? Still, I find it annoying and trite. Maybe we
can chalk this up to being just one more thing we can blame Andrew
Lloyd Webber for...
Anyway, McDonald (in the title role) handles her material like a
master, her voice powerful and flawless throughout. This is the first
time I have seen her live onstage, and I was not disappointed; she
has great presence on stage and, along with that glorious, operatic
voice, excellent dramatic talents. As Marie Christine she is completely
believable, giving the role the fiery, passionate character it demands.
Vocally commanding, McDonald held my attention completely, her
every word full of the emotion and depth that the character itself and,
more importantly, the book do not really provide on their own merit.
McDonald gives Marie Christine life and makes her lively and real, but
I question whether or not a less talented leading lady could do the
same with material that is somewhat lacking in terms of character
and plot development.
Speaking of plot, Marie Christine’s book does not adequately explain a
number of significant events, just as its characters are occasionally underwritten. In particular, the show suffers from a rather large
"hole" between the events at the end of Act One and the start of Act
Two. When we leave off at Act One's curtain, Marie Christine and
Dante have gone to Chicago together, but when Act Two begins, the
show has resumed at a much later point in time. Dante soon
abandons Marie for a politically advantageous marriage with the
daughter of a powerful (and obviously corrupt) Chicago man, the
events of the previous five years only hinted at and occasionally
outlined in the form of small flashbacks. We learn (or gather, rather)
that Marie Christine and Dante went to New York after the events in
Act One and encountered all sorts of trouble, stemming mostly from
Dante's gambling and the resulting financial consequences, but also
from Marie Christine's involvement in the death of a man who was
poisoned to death by his two daughters, apparently by way of some
voodoo magic she worked on the girls. Aside from the fact that Marie
Christine's relationship with voodoo is inadequately explored
throughout the show, making the existence of her powers a confusing
plot point and little more, the events that occur during the 5 year
span between the acts are presented so unclearly that it's hard to
care about them at all. Unfortunately, because they bear so heavily
on the course of things in Act Two, one has to. We are suddenly
presented with two new characters, the young ladies who poisoned
their father to death back in New York, but they seem completely
out-of-place and unnecessary in light of how time has been bridged;
they only add to the confusion. If new characters are to be introduced
from within the time period skipped between both acts, they should
be presented and explained clearly, not run by the audience in a
bewildering series of recollected vignettes that poorly illustrate the
significant events that have occurred between 1894 (the end of Act
One) and 1899 (where Act Two begins). Why have new characters
been introduced in the second act when characters from the first act
remain vague? Is there any reason to have those girls in the show at all? I didn’t think so.
And there are other problems with the book. When the show begins,
we see Marie Christine’s mother speaking to her daughter
(presumably from beyond the grave, which she continues to do
throughout the show at various intervals), and from this early contact
we can infer that Marie is acquainted with voodoo powers. The
keyword here is “infer,” as nothing is ever truly spelled out about her
magical abilities. We see her use them to treat variously afflicted members of New Orleans society, and also to kill a servant girl who
crosses her in the middle of the first act. Then we hear about them
repeatedly in act two, but other than using her powers outright there
is little information given to us about their origin, or especially their
meaning, in an overall sense, to Marie’s character. Anything I
deduced about their greater meaning came mostly from my own
knowledge of Louisiana voodoo culture, because nothing is clearly
implied by the book. It seems more or less intentional that we take her powers for granted, but ultimately they seem gimmicky. If they didn’t exist at all, the show could still have gone on just as easily, and probably with less confusion. Is Marie Christine a serial killer? After all, she
apparently kills no less than five times (directly or indirectly) by the
end of the second act. Of, course, I’m making a joke, but it’s not
unreasonable to suggest that one might be more than a touch
confused by the things, presented as they
are. Even the character of Marie Christine’s mother seems vague and
without much purpose. Obviously she represents the past, her
teachings influencing her daughter’s present actions, but like so many
other aspects of this show we are never given enough explanation to
make her presence seem truly warranted or dramatically effective. She seemed to bring a mystical atmosphere to the stage and nothing more.
To change the subject, the show's set design by Christopher Barreca is sparing and serves
the show well. Rooms materialize with a few chairs and a desk, a
table, or a number of other individual pieces, and through clever
lighting, the opening scene successfully brings to life a water-side hill.
Because the Vivian Beaumont features a round front stage that juts
out into the house and a more standard rear stage area, the main
focus of attention is on what occurs out front. A sloping, wooden
platform makes up the rear stage, rising to a horizon upon which
various background pieces are distributed for particular scenes,
ranging from a single tree to a series of revolving ballroom
chandeliers. The costumes aren't bad, either. Toni-Leslie James's
designs are faithful to the historical period and also serve the
characters well, Marie Christine's colorful garb making her appear to
be the upper-level society girl that she is, as well as the mysterious
and exotic spirit which lies hidden beneath that exterior. Later, in the
Chicago scenes, her dress is more gloomy, emphasizing how much of
an outsider she really is beyond the less socially forgiving
boundaries of Louisiana’s Creole culture.
Graciela Daniele's direction is strong, if not hampered from time to
time by the book's inadequacies. She also serves as choreographer,
something that becomes immediately apparent in the first few scenes
involving Marie Christine. The character's movement is heavily
influenced by dance, and smooth transitions are made from ordinary
dramatic gesturing to full-fledged dance sequences, the choreography
stressing the exotic nature of Marie Christine's Creole upbringing and
mysterious, voodoo influences. Such directorial decisions help to
better define the characters. Good use is made of the stage, with
events in the foreground and background given proper emphasis. I
found myself liking the Beaumont's stage very much; it allows for
more dramatic possibilities and unique, beneficial stage
arrangements than a typical Broadway theatre does, and Graciela's
direction proves that she is well aware of this potential.
The rest of the cast is excellent. In the second lead role, opposite
McDonald, is Anthony Crivello as Dante Keyes, the charming but
extremely insincere lover who abandons what seems like true love for
political aspirations and social acceptance. Crivello doesn’t have the
greatest singing voice, but his acting is strong. He, like McDonald,
manages to make the best of the material which, while certainly not
horrendous, is occasionally less than stimulating and sometimes drawing. Also excellent are
the three “prisoners,” women who wander in and out of the story at
various points, offering a sort of narration. In the opening scene they taunt Marie, then a fellow prisoner awaiting execution, before Marie begins to recount the events that landed her in her present position. Jennifer Leigh Warren,
Andrea Frierson-Toney and Mary Bond Davis handled their parts
expertly, although their presence often seemed less necessary and
(as with many aspects of this musical’s characters) uneven. They appear at highly irregular intervals in the show. I think greater consistency is needed if they are to effectively serve the need for which they are intended.
Mary Testa as Magdalena, a bar mistress who offers to help Marie
save herself and, eventually, her children from the wrath of Mr.
Gates, the evil man backing Dante’s political ambitions, is solid. I’ve
seen her do other things and I think her strength is really musical comedy,
but she was fine in the role. She did produce a few laughs from the
audience, although her comic number, “Cincinnati,” which opens the
second act, seemed incongruous against the much darker material
that surrounds it. Basically, she isn't given much to do here, but works her
magic on what she can.
All things considered, this show is very much a vehicle for McDonald,
something I've heard said again and again since it was first
announced and which now, having seen it, I agree with. She is truly a
shining star amidst what otherwise is an unextraordinary (but still
quite good) musical, a show that features a solid (though not
particularly memorable) score, ample book and lyrics, and generally
excellent cast. I would suggest making a strong effort to catch the show before the end of its limited run.
-------Andy
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