'The Rink' at Southwark Playhouse

Last week we went to see 'The Rink' by Kander & Ebb at Southwark Playhouse. Yes, the same Kander & Ebb that did 'Cabaret' and 'Chicago' and no, I hadn't heard of 'The Rink' either. I now understand why.

Southwark Playhouse has a good track record of putting on little played musicals in recent years and I particularly remember 'Grand Hotel', 'The Life' and 'Pippin'. All well worth seeing (I think we saw 'Grand Hotel' three or four times) with solid production values. And that's the same with 'The Rink' - great cast, great production, good band - but, well, it's just not the greatest show that Kander & Ebb ever did.

It starts off with the demolition crew arriving at the roller rink in some anonymous American east coast seaside resort that's seen better days. The owner has sold up and is leaving for a retirement in Florida when, unexpectedly, her 30 year old daughter turns up out of the blue to throw a spanner in the works with her rose-tinted memories of the place. The owner is the mother but the roller rink was left to both mother and daughter and she has forged her daughter's signature since she's only seen her daughter once since she ran away when she was 16.

We then get the story of their relationship in flashbacks to the daughter's childhood memories of her dad and the reality of the situation from the mother. The daughter runs away to find her father and she does eventually, only to find that he's started a new life with a new family and wants nothing to do with her. The arguments and memories continue and then we find out that the daughter actually has a young daughter of her own and she reconciles things between her mother and grandmother. Happy ending all round. But what a journey to get there.

I liked the production, it was serious and fun by turns and it's quite nicely constructed given the basic material but my problem was and is that I can't remember a single song. I left the theatre thinking that too. Not every song in every musical works and is memorable but there needs to be at least one really.  I can forgive many things for a good song but there weren't really any in this show.

Another thing that sort of turned me off were the costumes, particularly for the 30 year old daughter, Angel. Given Angel's age and the dad going off to fight in Korea after her birth then that places the show sometime in the early-mid '80s, so why is Angel wearing an early '70s tank top and green flared jeans? No-one dressed like that in the '80s, even in America. I know that's a silly point but it doesn't half draw the attention away from the singing and acting and the show when you're sitting there thinking 'that's just so wrong'.

Well done to Caroline O'Connor and to Gemma Sutton at the centre of the production as the mother and daughter. My overall verdict is well done to the cast and crew for their work and well done to Southwark Playhouse for putting it on, but it's a shame the material just isn't that good. Still, it was good to have an opportunity to see it. 

'The Scottsboro Boys' at the Garrick Theatre

I saw 'The Scottsboro Boys' at the Young Vic in 2013 and, after a bit of a gap, it transferred into the West End to the venerable and ornate Garrick late last year and it's got another month or so to run. I thoroughly enjoyed the first viewing and blogged about it at the time so wanted to see it again.

The production is the same and the cast is almost the same with a  few changes, like the inclusion of Brandon Victor Dixon as lead lad, Haywood, who originated the roll on Broadway in 2010. It's still staged within an old time minstrel format with Mr Tambo and Mr Bones, still has an imaginative use of chairs and the silent woman who eases her way into scenes and never speaks until the very end. It's the final Kander & Ebb musical and it does them proud, telling a little known story from the deep south, of injustice and unthinking racism because that's just the way it was. But it doesn't have to be that way.

It's the story of nine young black men and boys seeking work by heading north, full of enthusiasm and hope for a new life when the train pulls into Scottsboro in Alabama. Two white women are also riding the rails and they accuse the boys of raping them. No evidence is needed since white women wouldn't lie about such a thing.

That's the start of the real story of the Scottsboro Boys and their endless trials, always found guilty even when one of the women changes her story and admits that they weren't raped. But the south can't admit it got it wrong when black men are concerned. We follow the boys as they grow old and some are released, then others are, but Haywood dies in prison. They were all pardoned by the Governor of Alabama in 2013.

Despite the rather dour story the play zips along between comedy and tragedy at a nice pace so it keeps moving and we learn more about the leading characters. The white women are played by two of the boys with the addition of hats and shawls and Mr Tambo and Mr Bones play the sheriff and his deputy and various other white characters simply by saying they're white. They bring the comedy but, at the same time, the terror of a system that doesn't believe you have rights if you're not white. The only white man in the play is Julian Glover who plays the Interlocuter and the judge (and later, a bus driver), which is quite telling, wanting the lads to sing happy songs.

It's a song and dance spectacular and the staging is excellent. The props are minimal, a set of 12 chairs that are used with some planks of wood on top to depict the train rumbling through Alabama and are constructed to resemble their prison cell and as solitary confinement for Haywood. Some tambourines and a couple of clothing changes and that's it. Most of the play is set with the lads wearing a white prison uniform, every now and then re-assembling the chairs into a semi-circle to represent the court.

The main difference between this show and the one I saw back in 2013 - which is, otherwise, the same production - was that Brandon Victor Dixon took the lead role as Haywood Patterson, the lead lad of the Scottsboro Boys who wrote their tale in prison and died there. Brandon was excellent, a definite presence on stage and with a voice to match. He seemed to play it more angry and determined and pulled it off. He plays a formidable character who will not lie - even to get his own freedom - since he's suffered for the consequences of a tiny white lie for most of his life. It was a powerful performance.

Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon played Bones and Tambo and James T Lane played one of the lads and also Ruby Bates, one of the white women (with a shawl and hat, of course). Dawn Hope played the mysterious lady who appeared now and then and finally had a speaking line at the end of the play when she said 'no' to moving seats on a bus.

It's a grand play and a great production. Pop along to the Garrick if you can and see something very unusual - a musical with a serious and powerful message. And these are the real Scottsboro boys:

'The World Goes Round' at Union Theatre

Last Sunday we went to the matinee of 'The World Goes 'Round' at the Union Theatre in Southwark, a review of the songs of Kander & Ebb.

You might not know the names but you know their work - they wrote 'Cabaret' and 'Chicago' (and many more shows, such as 'Curtains' and 'The Scottsboro Boys', both of which I've seen). This review is something they put together in the early '90s to showcase their songs in another way. As far as I know, this is the first time the show has been put on in London since the '90s so it was worth seeing.

The Union Theatre is a small venue and I've been there before. It's another one of those little venues that seems to glory in not having seat numbers and investing in odd habits. Would it really detract from your artistic integrity to be a trifle more professional? Still, it puts on little played shows so that's a good thing.

Five mature singers and five young dancers present the show. There are no themes to try to pull the songs together, just a series of good songs sung by good singers. The show pulls together a range of songs from Kander & Ebb's career up to the early '90s so doesn't show their full repertoire, but it's a pretty damn good set of songs.

My favourites were 'My Colouring Book' and 'Maybe This Time' sung by Susan Fay and 'Class' sung by Susan and Emma Francis. Another favourite was about the end of the world with 'Coffee In A Cardboard Cup' sung by the whole ensemble.  The final song, acting as an encore, is 'New York, New York' in which the initial verses are all sung in different languages.

It's a great show (despite the theatre and having iron girders obscuring the action) so, if you've got the time, go and see it. It's only on for another few days so see it.

'The Scottsboro Boys' at The Young Vic

Tonight I was treated to a ticket to see 'The Scottsboro Boys' at the Young Vic, the first UK production of the last Kander & Ebb musical. I hadn't heard of it before - or the story it tells - but I'm very pleased to have seen it.

It tells the story of nine black teenagers arrested in Alabama for the rape of two white women in 1931 and all are convicted despite there being no evidence of rape. We see the lads young and hopeful, riding the train to a better life and jobs when it all falls apart and they're thrown into jail. They become a cause celebre for the North against the South which really doesn't help the lads, even when one of the women admits in court that she lied. Eventually the four youngest lads are released and the other five serve their sentences.

That makes it sound terribly serious - and the underlying story is serious - but that's where Kander & Ebb come in to make it a musical worthy of the stage to tell the story and get it before audiences. They use the theme of an old fashioned Southern minstrel show to tell the story and give it structure. I have to admit that I recognised this early on by remembering the 'Minstrel' section from the film 'White Christmas', one of the first big song 'n' dance numbers in the film.

We have the Interlocutor who tells the story and plays the role of the white 'boss' and judge and we have Mr Bones and Mr Tambo who take the story forward as they also play the roles of the sheriff and his deputy as well as the lawyers in the court case.  This is a nice motif since they're black as Bones and Tambo but then play white folks by donning different clothes. Just as the two white women are played by two of the black boys wearing a hat and a cardy round their shoulders.

And shadowing many of the scenes is a silent and mysterious woman, the only woman in the show. Who is she?

It's all a terribly professional show and it was great to see two actors in this after seeing them earlier in the summer - Adebayo Bolaji as one of the lads' leads (from 'The Color Purple') and James T Lane who played Ruby, one of the women (from 'A Chorus Line'). Julian Glover plays the Interlocutor (the 'boss', judge and governor). Colman Domingo and Forrest McClendon played Mr Bones/Sheriff/Lawyer and Mr Tambo/Deputy/Lawyer respectively and they were excellent, creating laughable and macabre grotesques as they went along. I'd also single out Kyle Scatliffe for praise as the lead lad who refuses to tell a lie even when his freedom depends on it. He played Haywood Patterson who eventually dies in prison.

The show ends by taking the minstrel theme to it's ultimate conclusion in which all the black actors come on stage all blacked up and with white lips like minstrels of old. They each tell their story and what happened to them next - and none of it is pretty - before wiping off the make-up and leaving the stage as the Interlocutor commands them to perform. This was received in silence only to be followed by a standing ovation from much of the audience.

I'd recommend seeing this show if you can - there's something here for everyone.

And who is the mysterious shadow woman? You'll just have to see the show to find that out...