'Rags' is a little performed musical with lyrics by Steven Schwartz ('Wicked' anyone?) so we headed up to Finsbury Park last week to see it. The Park Theatre is quite bijou and it was a surprise to see how large the cast is for this production. We were in the circle for the first time and you get a surprisingly good view from up there.
It's the tale of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe into New York in the 1900s, fresh off the boat and needing $20 to be allowed entry into the USA. We meet a young mother who has skills at lace-making and sewing, with her young son, who somehow get allowed entry and end up living and working in a family home making dresses for the rich German Jew who sells them at a profit. The young mother gradually influences the dress designs, takes on a private clientele and, at the end, opens her own shop. In the meantime we see the tensions between the different ethnic groups starting out their new lives in New York, the Italian community, the Irish community, all being looked down on by the 'established' American community wanting to end unrestricted immigration. There's a lot of current political messages in this play from the 1980s.
The book was rather relentless in it's emphasis on the Jewishness of the main characters, with every opportunity being taken to put the word 'Jew' in there somewhere. It was also a bit New York Jewish stereotypical with every character in there plus the young Jewish songwriter who wants to make music rather than work in a sewing sweatshop. Yes, we *know*.
That is all in the book and the songs but something at the end that really irritated me was down to the direction. At the end all the characters come on stage including the young girl who dies in a sweatshop fire but she mounts some risers and poses like the figure of Delacroix's 'Liberty' in the famous painting. Melodramatic nonsense or what? It struck me as rather cynically just looking for a nice image for people to leave with.
The show was OK but I can easily understand why it's rarely performed. The major problem for me was that at the end as we were leaving the theatre, I couldn't remember a single song. I remembered the dramatic scenes but the songs were gone. For a musical that's pretty damning. I have no problem with any of the cats, no-one was obviously poor but I think the material possibly wasn't worth giving your all for. I liked Carolyn Maitland as Rebecca, the young mother and dress-maker, who had a lovely voice and presence, and I loved the comic duet between Rachel Izen and Dave Willetts about maybe getting married or maybe not, or maybe ...? That pair knew what they doing.
If you're fan of musicals then go and see it, it's really not that bad and it's unlikely to be staged again for quite a while. If you're a fan of 'Wicked' then no, don't go. I'm pleased I saw it.
'Rags' is a little performed musical with lyrics by Steven Schwartz ('Wicked' anyone?) so we headed up to Finsbury Park last week to see it. The Park Theatre is quite bijou and it was a surprise to see how large the cast is for this production. We were in the circle for the first time and you get a surprisingly good view from up there.
The show was OK but I can easily understand why it's rarely performed. The major problem for me was that at the end as we were leaving the theatre, I couldn't remember a single song. I remembered the dramatic scenes but the songs were gone. For a musical that's pretty damning. I have no problem with any of the cats, no-one was obviously poor but I think the material possibly wasn't worth giving your all for. I liked Carolyn Maitland as Rebecca, the young mother and dress-maker, who had a lovely voice and presence, and I loved the comic duet between Rachel Izen and Dave Willetts about maybe getting married or maybe not, or maybe ...? That pair knew what they doing.
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