Street Scene

Synopsis

Set in a New York tenement building over a long hot summer's day and night, Street Scene is a meeting of Broadway musical and American opera. It incorporates an array of show tunes, arias, blues, jazz and spirituals in a musical melting pot that captures the diversity of working class New York in 1947.

Our Review:

Theo Bosanquet - 21 September 2011

Kurt Weill’s Street Scene, adapted from Elmer Rice’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, is described broadly as an ‘American opera’, but in many ways it’s the original soap opera.

A down-and-dirty street level saga to rival anything seen in EastEnders, it chronicles the highly melodramatic lives of a disparate group of New Yorkers over a 24-hour period.

There’s Frank (Geof Dolton), the hard-drinking stagehand whose wife Anna (Elena Ferrari) is having it away with the milkman. There’s studious Sam (Paul Curievici), whose affections for their sweet daughter Rose (Susanna Hurrell) are rivalled by a married man. And there’re no end of nosey passers-by, curtain-twitching housewives and cheeky children to ensure the community grapevine thrums with the intensity of the heatwave that’s hit it.

Weill’s score (written in 1946) is a hotch-potch of musical influences and contains a few stand-out melodies...

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Latest User Review

B Frost - 29 September 2011:

I'm afraid the issues with balance almost completely ruined the production for me. I applaud the intent, but the result was an unintelligible mess - and thanks to poor diction and direction, even non-underscored dialogue went most often unheard. ...

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