Picture: PBG Studios
Romance Romance continues at Above the Stag Theatre, London until 6 April 2019.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Premiered Off-Broadway in 1987, Romance Romance then had an eight-month run on Broadway, and has been seen in London in various incarnations.
This production at Above the Stag, a venue dedicated to LGBT+ work, has been adapted by Barry Harman, the writer of the book and lyrics, as an all-male production.
In the current revival of Company the gender of some of the roles is altered. In the all-male Pirates of Penzance at Wilton’s, the daughters are all played by male actors. Here the two female roles are rewritten for men, and the relationships are same sex. If you were unaware of the original, you would think it had always been written as so.
A double bill of seemingly odd bedfellows, the central theme of the search for romance and the compromises made in enduring relationships is played out in two very different centuries, in Europe and America.
Turn of the century Vienna is the setting for the first. Alfred Von Wilmers, a handsome and wealthy aristocrat, is bored with his liaisons with frivolous gigolos and young men of his class. Played with sexy, macho, virility and a charming baritone by Blair Robertson, he recounts his dissatisfaction in letters to a friend in Naples.
Mirroring him is the fey Valentin Weninger, also recounting his adventures to a friend in France, and in the midst of ending his relationship with his lover Emil (‘Goodbye, Emil’). Jordan Lee Davies’ performance is impeccably timed and right on the button. He lights up the stage with every entrance.
Disguised as a poet and a butcher’s boy, they meet and begin a romance, often commenting on themselves, enacted by two masked attendants.
The machinations of the plot work their way to the predictable ending, with a funny weekend in the country along the way. Reminiscent of A Little Night Music, Keith Herrmann’s music is very much his own and not in any way sub-Sondheim. It’s a contemporary operetta, in keeping with the notion that romantic love is all too often just so.
The Hamptons in current times is the setting for the second piece. Two couples are spending the weekend. They’re all handsome, beautifully dressed, gym toned, in perfect relationships. Or so it seems. Little discontents emerge, the inevitable irritations of any long-term relationship. Romantic fantasies of greater intimacy abound.
The ensemble playing of the four actors is tight and funny. The songs in a more contemporary style are melodic and poignant. Alex Lodge as Sam and Ryan Anderson as Jeremy are the best friends who concede that beneath their friendship may be lurking something more.
The quartet ‘So Glad I Married Him’ and the haunting ‘Small Craft Warnings’ are just two of the many lovely songs in this half of the evening. Anderson’s singing of ‘How Did I End Up Here?’ is thrilling, his effortless ringing top notes always underpinned by emotion.
Direction and staging by Steven Dexter and Summer Strallen are focused and inventive. The musical quartet directed by Aaron Clingham on piano, with wind, cello and percussion, are delightfully period in the first half, and contemporary in the second.
Romance Romance was a musical I was aware of, but had never encountered. To do so in this production has been a very great pleasure. I can pay it no greater compliment than to say I’d happily watch it all over again. And to say, whatever else you see, don’t miss it.
Leon Ferguson
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