Robert Cuccioli and Glory Crampton in Rothschild & Sons at the Park Theatre, London. Picture: Pamela Raith Phorography
Rothschild & Sons continues at the Park Theatre, London until 17 February 2018.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
At the heart of this UK premiere, directed by Jeffrey B. Moss, is a must-see performance by American actor Robert Cuccioli, re-creating his New York performance as Mayer Rothschild, along with Glory Crampton as his wife Gutele.
Cuccioli sings with a sensual baritone which combines with his acting into a performance of moving intensity. Crampton matches him with a warm mezzo voice as she grows from being a simple woman content to live in one room to the matriarch of the powerfully wealthy family.
The sons are a strong ensemble, with Gary Trainor as Nathan who spearheads the family’s wealth creation to unimaginable levels having the meatiest role, but they are all singer actors of talent and make interesting individuals.
Tony Timberlake, David Delve, and Tom Lloyd play a number of different roles, with Timberlake in particular a tour de force as different Princes and politician Herries, who was instrumental in consolidating the Rothschild fortune.
The vocal performances are consistently good, and rare these days outside of an opera house, without amplification. It’s a joy to hear them with singers as good as these, and at times it plays like a chamber opera, sensitively supported from the keyboards by Ben Van Tienen, with Tina Jacob-Lim (violin), Fraiser Paterson (flute and clarinets), and Amy Goodwin (cello).
First seen in 1970 on Broadway as The Rothschilds, it won a Tony for its lead actor and ran for some 500 performances, but lost to Sondheim’s innovative Company in most other categories.
Revived Off-Broadway as Rothschild & Sons in 2015, it has been further revised for London by librettist Sherman Yellen and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. Composer Jerry Bock died in 2010.
The storytelling is neatly done, though its theme of acquiring great wealth in an attempt to eliminate anti-Semitic prejudice does get hammered home.
And in an era where corporate greed and banker bonuses are pilloried in the media, the show tries to subjugate it with a love story between husband and wife and father and sons.
The problem is the score. It isn’t dated as one might expect, but sadly you just keep wishing there was more of it. There are some clever songs like ‘He Tossed a Coin’ and ‘Everything’ with its Yiddish undertones starts to fly, but there just isn’t the same musical depth and charm that made Fiddler On the Roof and She Loves Me into classics.
In the intervening 50 years since its world premiere, musical theatre has acquired a varied palette, from the grandeur of Les Misérables and the pseudo operatic Phantom to the hip hop of Hamilton, along with the rock sound of JC Superstar and others. Sondheim forged his own way as did, amongst others, composers like William Finn.
Had Rothschild & Sons had a more musically satisfying score, that these hugely talented singers could have revelled in, it could have been a real contender.
As it stands, it’s worth a trip to North London, but primarily for the performances of its two leading performers.
Leon Ferguson
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.