Opening Night composer Rufus Wainwright pins show’s closure on post-Brexit audience taste

Composer and songwriter Rufus Wainwright has reflected on the early closure of new musical Opening Night, which continues for another 11 days in the West End.

Led by Sheridan Smith, the show is penned and directed by Ivo van Hove with new music by Wainwright. Based on the John Cassavetes film of the same name, the production announced plans to curtail its run last month, with producers Wessex Grove saying: “Opening Night was always a risk and, while the production may not have had the life we had hoped for, we feel immensely proud of the risk we took… What is sure-fire and safe has its place. But Wessex Grove exists to produce great artists in the West End and to provide the space for original, artist-led productions in the commercial sector, productions exactly like Opening Night.”

It received a variety of reviews, many glowing (like those from The Guardian, Time Out and the Metro), though others less so. There was overwhelming praise for the cast and Smith, but on the more negative side, WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton said: “The focus is always shifting, so that there is never an opportunity to get to understand any character before the next development lands.

“At the same time, Jan Versweyveld’s cluttered set, with mirrors and a table where the crew meet and chat, often doesn’t differentiate between scenes onstage in the play within the play that is being previewed to an audience, and the chaos backstage that is caused by Myrtle’s [played by Smith] meltdown.”

Wainwright has further ruminated on the show’s experiences in a new interview in The Guardian, stating that: “I do feel that since Brexit, England has entered into a darker corridor where it is a little more narrow in its outlook and the vitriol because we put ‘English rose Sheridan Smith through this ordeal of European theatre’ felt a little bit suspect to me…I was a little surprised by that.”

Dutch director Van Hove has, of course, had a steady stint of new productions in London in recent years, including sold-out productions of A Little Life, All About Eve and Network, each of whom used motifs like video design and abstraction in their staging, all each seen again in Opening Night. 

Wainwright continued: “There’s a lack of imagination and curiosity about change… All of the reviews from Europe were incredible for this piece; the staging and the rhythm is more European and there was a vitriolic reaction against that. I don’t think it was perfect and that I don’t deserve criticism, but this thing of shutting it down if it’s not exactly what you want is not really the theatrical lane that I want to live in.”

He surmised: “I think the West End has got pretty staid… The main objective I have is that people think about it for days and days and look: people have thought about Opening Night now for weeks. It has remained in the psyche of the press and the public … it does endure for better or for worse.”