Caroline Or Change
Book and lyrics by Tony Kushner
Music by Jeanine Tesori
Directed by Michael Longhurst
Designed by Fly Davis
Minerva Theatre,
Chichester Festival Theatre
Wednesday 31st May 2017 19.30
CAST:
Sharon D. Clarke – Caroline Thibodeaux, maid to the Gellmans
Me’sha Bryan – The Washing Machine
Gloria Onitiri- The radio
Keisha Amponsa Banson – The Radio
Jennifer Saayeng- The Radio
Charlie Gallagher / Daniel Luniku- Noah Gellman, aged 9
Ako Mitchell – The dryer
Lauren Ward – Rose Stopnick Gellman, Noah’s stepmother
Beverley Klein – Grandma Gellman
Vincent Pirillo- Grandpa Gellman
Alex Gaumond – Stuart Gellman, Noah’s dad
Nicola Hughes – Dotty Moffat
Angela Caesar – The Moon
Ako Mitchell – The bus
Abiona Omonua – Emmie Thibodeaux, Caroline’s daughter
James Gave / Zephan Amish – Jackie Thibodeaux, Caroline’s son
Josiah Photo / T-ni Taiwo – Joe Thibodeaux, Caroline’s son
Teddy Kempner – Mr Stopnick, Rose’s father
This year’s Chichester musical opener is Caroline or Change by Angels in America writer Tony Kushner. We have learned just to watch a musical if it is being done at Chichester, as even the stuff I thought was not to my taste has turned out to be magnificent. I did draw the line at this year’s other offering Fiddler On The Roof though because I have always loathed the music to an incredible degree. I hope I never have to listen to anyone sing If I Were A Rich Man ever again.
The critical consensus on Caroline or Change is five stars and four stars with no dissenters. We went in to the Minerva in happy anticipation, after an extremely good meal with brilliant service at the Minerva Bar & Grill and a pleasant walk around the sunny surroundings. Positive mood. Here’s the conundrum. It started … and five minutes in, I was still trying hard to get into it and it wasn’t grabbing me at all, at ten minutes I was thinking, ‘Well, it must be me …’ and after twenty minutes I was thinking, ‘I really don’t like this musical.’ Then came the interval. My companion said, ‘I hated it. I predict that people will be leaving.’ We were standing under the video display with five and four star quotes. The first half had been full to the doors. Not an empty seat. We went back in. The two seats next to us were now empty, and I thought ‘I’ll shift along to get aisle leg room.’ Then I looked round and started counting. I got to 27 empty seats when the lights went down. In a 300 seater that’s 8% who disliked this 5 star musical so much they left in the interval. That’s a lot. The Minerva sold out very fast on the Friends booking this year. Seats were hard to get and at £38 were not cheap (well, half West End prices, but twice Salisbury Playhouse prices.)
So what was happening? The first thought is that an elderly Chichester audience didn’t like 1963 African-American music … quite possible on a matinee, but this was an evening, nowhere near so elderly, and it had been heavily advertised as Tamla-Motown in style. That’s the style of youth for even seventy somethings.
If only …
First is the music. The programme lists 30 songs in the 65 minute Act One, and 24 songs in the 68 minute Act Two. Fifty four songs? The result is none develop long enough to catch the tune before changing. There is a considerable range of African-American styles from soul to gospel, a definite nod to Shirley Ellis’s R&B playground ditties, a nod to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album to start Act Two (Santa Comin’ Caroline). The three piece girl trio, “The Radio” in the programme, are sartorially and movement based on The Supremes or Martha & The Vandellas, but the songs didn’t get long enough to stick. One that did, Salty Teardrops, in Act Two was outstanding and at last veering to Motown. The characters Washing Machine, Dryer and Moon are bizarre, and never get a song with a decent hook.
Caroline (Sharon D. Clarke) and Washing Machine (Me’sha Bryan)
In Act Two, Sharon D. Clarke single-handedly adds a star or two for any reviewer with the long Lot’s Wife (to massive applause) and throughout can do gospel, soul, blues, rock. But in too fast rotation. Abiona Omonua as Emmie, Caroline’s daughter is another stellar singer, more hard edged and jangly, as befits her character.
The trouble is that 99% of the dialogue is sung, in that “make up the tune as you go along” style that I loathe. I may be leaving some of you behind here, so let’s admit right away that I consider The Phantom of The Opera the second worst thing I’ve seen on stage (Forests by Calixo Beito is unbeatable in “worst ever” place.) I hate dialogue being sung to no apparent or memorable tune, even when the backing music is as good as it was tonight. In the very few times characters got to speak, they all did so extremely well. Kushner points out that this was originally done for the San Francisco opera, then he was advised it needed singing actors NOT opera singers (so “a musical” rather than “an opera”), so maybe it should be thought of as an opera, rather than a “musical” where I expect dialogue and songs to be presented separately, and songs given sufficient time. Maybe the “opera” is my issue.
Second is the plot …
What plot? It’s based on a very slight story, and references along the way to JFK and Martin Luther King fail to add weight for me.
Caroline … flashback to 1943 and her husband
Louisiana 1963. Possibly Lake Charles. Caroline is the stoical, dignified, downtrodden, depressed maid for the Gellman family. She inhabits the basement area with a washer and a dryer (both personified, as is The Moon). It’s underground, unique in the area with its water table. There are a lot of remarks about it being underground. Noel, the 9 year old Gellman son, visits her and lights her cigarette daily. His mum (mom) died a year ago. His clarinet-obsessed dad has remarried Rose, who is from New York. Being from New York, and from a left-wing Jewish family, Rose is unused to black servants in the deep South, and tries clumsily to befriend Caroline. There is an issue. Noel keeps leaving cents, dimes and nickels in his pants (trousers). Rose says Caroline can keep this change (Caroline or change … geddit?) She is deeply insulted. The amount escalates to quarters, a dollar bill. In Act Two the family arrive for Hannukah (cue: Jewish music and dance) and Caroline, Dotty and Caroline’s daughter Emmie have to wait table. Rose’s dad is an unreformed Marxist, and ends up in arguing with Emmie, who “talks back to white folks.” The old man gives Noel a $20 bill as a Hannukah gift. Noel leaves it his pants. Argument ensues, leaving Caroline to make an anti-Semitic remark for which she feels tremendous guilt. She leaves.
Caroline & Emmie (Abiona Omonua)
The whole “small change” plot is done in the German play Plastic as an aside sub-plot between West Germans and an East German cleaner. It’s done funnier, with excruciating embarrassment and last ten minutes, not two hours and a quarter. If you’ve read or seen The Help it’s a vastly better take on the same white folks and maids situation.
In an odd piece of synchronicity, the stage is set before the start with a statue of a Confederate soldier as a Civil War memorial as in many small Southern towns. It disappears in the black out before the play, and it turns out to have been removed and decapitated by young African-Americans. This month, New Orleans has been removing such statues. Most were put up 30 to 50 years after the Civil War, so are held not to be War Memorials so much as symbols of white supremacy.
We’re both into the subject matter. One of the most moving places I have visited is the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Caroline is no Rosa Parkes. One bell that did ring was the problem the New Yorkers had in relating. A friend from Mississippi said as much to me years ago. Because of legally integrated schools, and proximity, there might be a colour barrier, but there was also familiarity. He said Northeners coming to the South, whose own schools were segregated by economic district in practical terms, found themselves irritating African Americans by “trying too hard to be best buddies” in what was a patronizing way. Rose’s fault here. I’m sure Kushner got this right.
The singing performances are superb. The musicians are superb, with a rock band one side, string quartet the other. I think the performances alone are getting those high ratings. Neither of us liked the story, the lyrics, the dialogue, or the music. Maybe it was expectation … I had been thinking Jewish songwriter … New Orleans … orchestral settings … Randy Newman! But it’s not in that class. I spend most of my day with music playing. I have hundreds of blues, gospel and early soul records. I love this music. This was ersatz, fake … but then I guess much of the recorded canon was actually written by New York songwriters, mostly Jewish ones too.
Over dinner we had decided to book the NT live broadcast to cinema of Kushner’s epic 8 hour Angels in America (two x four hours). Our first words at the end were “Forget all about Angels in America! No way!”
So I’m really sailing against the tide here … it’s been very popular whenever it’s been done since 2003, but for me …
TWO STARS
**
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
5
Claire Allfree, The Telegraph *****
Georgina Brown, Mail *****
Bella Todd, The Stage *****
Anne Cox, Stage Review *****
4
Susannah Clapp, The Observer ****
Fiona Mountford, Evebing Standard ****
Sarah Hemmings, Financial Times, ****
Matt Trueman, What’s On Stage ****
Peter We have just walked out of Caroline or Change and looked up reviews on the train – all wildly enthusiastic. Is it us? We were totally unengaged and found the music cacophanous.
See what Peter Viney thought – says Fiz (my wife) – his reviews are usually spot on.
Yes. Spot on. We are not alone in being unmoved by it. PHEW!
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I’ll quote what I said about the interval above, Neil! It was full at the start. No empty seats. At the interval:
I got to 27 empty seats when the lights went down. In a 300 seater that’s 8% who disliked this 5 star musical so much they left in the interval. That’s a lot.
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