Review: Of Thee I Sing
November 8, 2008
Date reviewed: 7th November 2008
Venue: The Lowry, Salford
So it’s Obama for the White House! Not in the case of Opera North, where John P. Wintergreen is in occupation until at least March. Opera North’s celebration of the American election takes the form of a revival of the Gershwins’ political satire, Of Thee I Sing, a Pulitzer Prize-winning show from 1931.
The word “show” is a suitably vague term. Those expecting a musical comedy of familiar singable 32-bar songs will be disappointed. There is only one classic Gershwin standard, the prophetic ‘Who Cares?’ (“Who cares what banks fail in Yonkers?”), though ‘Love is Sweeping the Country’ and the marvellously adaptable title song are occasionally heard in cabaret or concert hall. Equally it doesn’t attempt the impassioned operatic statements of Porgy and Bess.
Of Thee I Sing is, more or less, an operetta set in a contemporary wise-cracking America (book by Marx Brothers’ script-writers!). Songs are often buried in extended ensembles, splendidly effective within the context of the scene, but meaningless outside it. The operetta element enables Ira Gershwin to emulate his hero, W.S. Gilbert, in elaborate multiple rhymes, and it’s no coincidence that the most entertaining number, ‘The Illegitimate Daughter’, is given to experienced Savoyard, Richard Suart, in his role as the French ambassador, complete with excruciating accent (but immaculate diction), Hercule Poirot gait and a little touch of American in Paris for his introductory music.
The story, concocted by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, is charmingly flimsy. The (nameless) party needs a Presidential candidate who will induce electoral amnesia about past failings, so John P. Wintergreen becomes the Love candidate. Problems arise only when he appears to have promised himself to two young women: beauty contest winner Diana Devereaux and secretary Mary Turner, whose way with a corn muffin decides the issue. Diana’s bid to be First Lady, the “discovery” that she is related to Napoleon and a denouement founded on Gilbertian logic pretty much make up the plot.
Of course the satire lies largely in this flimsiness. Written deep in the Depression, Of Thee I Sing shows a party concerned only with keeping power and a people obsessed with trivia: at one point the Supreme Court has to decide whether justice is more important than muffins. Deliberately silly as it is, it remains relevant. Even the vice presidential problem raises its head, though VP-elect Alexander Throttlebottom’s failing is opposite to Mrs. Palin’s: no one knows who he is!
Above all, however, Of Thee I Sing, in Caroline Gawn’s witty and inventive production, is huge fun. Richard Suart, Steven Beard (Throttlebottom) and a delightfully self-dramatising Heather Shipp (Diana) all pitch the self-parody perfectly. Rob Edwards leads a haplessly determined quintet of fixers in some of Kaufman/Ryskind’s funniest scenes. And at the centre, William Dazeley projects a noble vacuity as Wintergreen, matched by the unfailing sweetness of Bibi Heal’s Mary. Though hardly Astaire and Rogers, they bring a cheerful grace to the dance numbers and duet affectingly on the title song and ‘Who Cares?’.
It is, above all, a terrific ensemble piece, with the chorus changing from bathing beauties to secretaries, from Supreme Court judges to French soldiers, with unwearied élan and the orchestra under Mark W. Dorrell finding the authentic brassy Broadway sound (orchestration by the ubiquitous Robert Russell Bennett, I would guess).
Of Thee I Sing is now away from Leeds on what a presidential candidate would call a whistle-stop tour, but Opera North has plans to celebrate January’s inauguration as well. The Gershwins’ follow-up, Let ‘em Eat Cake, with a near-identical cast, opens on January 29th and February offers chances to see the two shows in sequence.
-Ron Simpson
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