Preludes in Concert, live streaming from Southwark Playhouse, London.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Experimental art about the struggles of an artist can be bad. Uniquely, horrifyingly, embarrassingly bad. As such, perhaps you never made the trip to see Southwark Playhouse’s autumn 2019 production of Dave Malloy’s Preludes, despite the cavalcade of glowing reviews and super-cool zealots like me jogging around London with a loudhailer imploring anybody within earshot to attend. Never mind, thanks to this weekend’s live digital concert, we all get a second chance to experience this objectively weird but wonderful musical about the famous Russian composer, Rachmaninoff. This might be the first show to work just as well in a streamed format as in a live auditorium, and here’s why.
Preludes is set primarily in the hypnotised mind of our “bifurcated genius” Russian composer. Keith Ramsay plays the anxious, tormented, conscious “Rach”, while Tom Noyes plays his elusive but brilliant creative muse “Rachmaninoff” (and the piano, very well indeed). The show completely abandons those platonic unities of time and place resulting in a piece as abstract as a 1900AD Russian hypnotherapy session should be. Setting the action in the black void of an empty Southwark Playhouse is fitting. Director Alex Sutton and lighting designer Andrew Exeter work magic to give this understated emptiness the slightest hint of a feeling of a grand concert hall, an anachronistic subway, or the opulent residence of the Tsar.
With this theatrical hinterland another step removed from us through a screen, it changes its relationship with the audience. Suddenly we have the temptation to tune out and check our phone or chat with companions, like the rude philistines attending the disastrous premiere of Rach’s Symphony No. 1. Sutton does not rely on swish camera moves or effects to keep us engaged: we engage because we are impelled to do so – hypnotised, almost – by the richness of the writing and the intensity of the performances. We find connection and beauty in art, the same way Rach must in order to save his career and his happiness.
Our tour guide of Rach’s mind is his hypnotherapist Nikolai Dahl, played here with a cold warmth (if the show can play fast and loose with making sense then so can this review, ok?) by the wonderful Rebecca Caine. Her calm provides a satisfying counterweight to Ramsay’s mania – a mania which, by the way, is among the most physically impressive musical theatre performances I have ever seen without tap shoes. Whether stilly staring down the camera lens or flinging himself about the Southwark Playhouse void, Ramsay delivers a mesmeric performance. On top of his capacity for the intense, he elegantly expresses Rach’s gentler side in the beautifully sung tender moments, especially with his fiancé Natalya.
The creation of an art is not a redemptive act that absolves the artist of sin. Even with Noyes’ gorgeous performances of Rachmaninoff music throughout, we root for Rach to get better not for the sake of the classical canon, but for his sanity and his relationship with Natalya.
Georgia Louise plays the supportive but human partner perfectly. She has genuine love and affection for Rach, but who wouldn’t be tested by a lover in the depths of despair? Through her character, Louise brings to life everything that is more important than art, those tiny moments of grace that make sense of the dirty chaos of life. That love that might even be God, and that inspires great art in the first place. Her act one closer ‘Natalya’ is a divine moment of traditional musical theatre amidst the experimental chaos, and Louise’s vocal performance is outstanding throughout.
The small cast is rounded out by Norton James as Rach’s famous opera singer friend Feodor Chaliapin and Steven Serlin as Tchaikovsky, Tolstoy, the Tsar, and the all-important anonymous modern-day Rachmaninoff fan. As emotionally heavy hitting as this show can be, it never falls into the trap of abandoning comedy. Both Chaliapin and Serlin deliver solid laughs throughout, as well as showing fine singing and acting talent that more than keeps up with the sublime leads. With a fair smattering of great songs each, there are many moments in which they steal the show.
Noyes’ virtuosic piano-playing is supplemented by musical director Jordan Li-Smith and Luke Holman on keyboards and electronics. The technical quality of the sound is excellent. This is a score that – for reasons best known to Malloy – can rocket between gentle piano pieces and deafening electronic noise. To balance those extremes with live vocals is no mean feat, but the entire production sounds and looks polished and professional.
Sitting alongside a generous helping of Rachmaninoff musical interpolation, fans of Ghost Quartet, The Great Comet, Octet etc. will recognise those Malloy signatures: minor sixths and diminished sevenths bloody everywhere, bleeps and bloops everywhere else, simply stated lyrics that shatter into poetry upon closer inspection, and phrasing so masterful that songs rarely need resort to rhyme.
The other great Malloy signature is, of course, an absolutely bonkers idea for a musical that somehow works due to the author’s stubborn commitment to their singular vision. This production’s entire team – led by producer Danielle Tarento – have leaned into Prelude’s strangeness and created a truly special live concert. The world needs more weird, experimental art. I would watch a thousand failed experiments to find another show like this.
Ian Bowkett
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