Picture: Jonathan Keenan
Paint Your Wagon is in repertory at Liverpool Everyman until 14 July 2018.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Opening its 2018 rep season with another classic musical, Liverpool Everyman will certainly be expecting audiences to make comparisons to Fiddler On the Roof, with which they re-launched the rep model last year.
To meet this challenge, director Gemma Bodinetz has chosen Lerner and Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon, which first appeared on stage in 1951.
It’s a piece that could be thought beset with problems of content, being very much a product of its time. However, Bodinetz explains that she chose the piece almost specifically because of three themes – ones that have probably been partly responsible for keeping it off the stage for decades.
The gold prospectors are no respecters of the earth, plundering it thoughtlessly for their own financial gain. They displace indigenous communities and rob them of their land, turning them into exiles. And finally, they have an attitude toward women that we’d hoped had long since passed, but which clearly remains rife everywhere, and has become a major talking point in, among other places, the theatre industry.
Ben Rumson strikes gold, staking his claim in a newly dug grave. Pretty soon he’s Mayor of Rumson Town with a population of 400 men – and one woman – Rumson’s own young daughter Jennifer. The men plead with him to send her away, whilst she wonders why they all act so strangely whenever she’s around.
Jennifer falls in love with Julio but he’s an outcast, a Mexican who is forced to live outside the town boundaries. Meanwhile, Jacob Wooding is a Mormon, with what seems like more than his fair share of wives, so an auction is held and Elizabeth Wooding is sold to Rumson.
It’s a veritable goldmine of political incorrectness, and Bodinetz digs deep and uncovers its rich vein of modern relevance in an earthy, raw production. It’s not really necessary to tinker with the writing, as the stories manage to reveal their own currency if played out with honesty.
Bodinetz has turned to two of her leads from last season to head up the cast, with Patrick Brennan as Ben and Emily Hughes as Jennifer.
Brennan hurls himself into the role with gritty determination, and his rough-round-the-edges delivery matches the character well. Hughes has some great musical numbers that she makes maximum capital out of, and she’s given a love interest with a big singing voice in Marc Elliott as Julio.
Richard Bremmer is an obvious choice for Jacob Wooding, having the perfect stature and bearing for the part, and Keddy Sutton and Emma Bispham pull off a splendid double act as his squabbling pair of wives.
The company is made up of eight men and six women this year, so there’s a lot of cross-gender casting which helps deliver Bodinetz’s vision of the piece. But it also makes for big comedic moments, especially in the scene at Jake Whippany’s music hall, where the entire cast become fandango girls.
Being a repertory company, the performers have been cast for their ability to play a variety of roles (they have four plays to perform including an Othello next month) so in the main they’re not from a musical theatre background.
They’re not all dancers either, but choreographer Tom Jackson Greaves has once again pulled out all the stops to create some great ensemble numbers that fill the stage with movement. In many ways, it’s the slight edginess of the vocal delivery that gives this production its charm.
Frederick Loewe’’s score has been deftly adapted for a six-piece band by musical director George Francis, and with her splendid new company of actors, Bodinetz opens the season with a big ‘Whoop-Ti-Ay’.
Nigel Smith
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