Picture: Donato
Reputation continues at The Other Palace, London until 14 November 2019.
Star rating: one star ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩
The explosion of film-making in Hollywood in the late 1930s, as the Great Depression receded and talking pictures became people’ primary sources of entertainment, has proved a fertile setting for storytelling over the years.
In Alick Glass’ new musical Reputation, the demand for movie content leads shyster Freddy Larceny to place an advert in Variety soliciting spec scripts and a $20 fee – and then, after sending a rejection letter to the unsuspecting wannabe writers, sells the plots on to Hollywood studios.
This story of plagiarism, of vulnerable young writers being exploited by an ever-hungry system of capitalist entertainment, has the scope to form the foundations of a musical rich in humour, pathos and satire. Unfortunately, Reputation is lacking in nearly every department.
Glass – composer, lyricist and co-book writer in conjunction with his daughter, Suzanne – is also producer for this, his first musical. And while it’s possible to find productions where one person wearing so many hats produces greats work of art, it’s also more likely, as here, to carry with it the whiff of a vanity project.
The musical is partly narrated by Larceny himself – and yes, that is supposed to be the character’s real name. Jeremy Secomb is a fine performer, and to his credit bears the indignity of such a caricature figure well, even when subjected to Tamsyn Salter’s choreography. There are only so many times one can watch a mobster circle his hands around his head as he sing-screams “Paranoia!” Without wondering if one is being punked.
Director Warren Wills (who also acts as the show’s musical director) drops this narrative style when it suits, no doubt prompted by a book which is all over the place stylistically.
The story is predominantly told from the perspective of Michelle (Maddy Banks), a young Wisconsin girl at a Parisian finishing school who spends her spare time writing crime novels. Upon receiving a rejection notice from Larceny’s bogus scheme, Michelle is shocked to see the plot of her submitted manuscript become the talk of the town when Clark Gable and Joan Crawford are attached to the project.
What follows is a frankly tortuous discussion about ways to sue someone for plagiarism. One wonders whether Glass has a particular personal history in this fight, for that can be the only explanation for how the book expects the audience to be rapt.
It doesn’t help that so many scenes follow a pattern: events happen (or, more commonly, are talked about having just happened), these same events are then relayed to a friend, and finally the same events prompt a song.
The songs themselves range from attempts at period pastiche to the sort of plaintive pablum that soured many a 1980s Disney musical in the decade before they brought in Ashman and Menken to do it properly.
The most notable moments, though, are those whose melodies bear striking resemblances to other works: there’s a riff in the show’s most frequently repeated melody that brings ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ to mind, while the opening bars of ‘What We Like About Paris’ bear a striking resemblance to the chorus of Arthur Kent’s music for ‘Bring Me Sunshine’, as popularised by Morecambe and Wise.
Maybe such similarities are a witty meta-narrative to support the musical’s theme of plagiarism, but if so that would be displaying a level of wit and acidity that is in short supply elsewhere.
The cast do their best – Banks is charmingly sweet in her role, as is Ed Wade as her dashing but socially awkward lawyer. But so clearly is his role marked out as “romantic lead” that the book spends no time investing in the couple’s romantic progression – it just happens, because that’s what is supposed to happen.
All in all, the whole thing is one overlong farrago, especially when the Act II climax – that old cliché of a pivotal witness bursting through courtroom doors at a crucial moment – is performed offstage, by a character often talked about but never seen or heard.
The whole thing is baffling. And if Alick Glass is hoping that Reputation will award him his own reputation, he may be right – but for all the wrong reasons.
Scott Matthewman
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