Hal Prince, A Life in The Theatre, performed by the Royal Academy of Music’s Musical Theatre Company at the Susie Sainsbury Theatre, London.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Broadway legend Hal Prince, producer/director extraordinaire who died aged 91 in July, was remembered and the hits (and misses) of his great body of work lovingly re-created by RAM’s new intake of musical theatre students – and didn’t they do him proud.
Only 11 weeks into their course, director Matthew Ryan and musical director Daniel Bowling (who worked with Prince on the London versions of The Phantom of the Opera) knocked them into shape in creating a two-hour revue that was little short of magical.
From the moment the cast of 35, gorgeously grouped by choreographer Matt Cole, opened up with the earthy ‘Life Is … (what you do before you die)’ from Kander and Ebb’s underrated Zorba, the audience knew they were in for a great time.
Show after show that benefited so much from Prince’s deft touches and understanding of what makes winning theatre were represented, sometimes not with their best-known numbers but with ones that showed the company’s skills-set and teamwork to best advantage.
No ‘Send in the Clowns’ for A Little Night Music, no ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina’ for Evita. Instead, ‘The Glamorous Life’ and ‘Requiem, A Waltz for Eva and Che’. All the better for not feeding us the obvious.
There were musicals some of us had barely heard of such as Grind, A Doll’s Life and On The Twentieth Century alongside Prince’s great collaborations with Stephen Sondheim on Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and the quaint Pacific Overtures, Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret, Zorba and Kiss of the Spider Woman, Lloyd Webber’s Evita and Phantom, Kern’s Show Boat, Jason Robert Brown’s Parade and more.
But Prince’s misses weren’t overlooked. When the public couldn’t get a handle on the back-to-front Merrily We Roll Along in 1981, his idea of clothing everyone in identical T-shirts with names emblazoned across chests to identify the characters went down like a lead balloon.
The show lasted only 16 performances and marked the end of team Sondheim-Prince until they got back together for the much-tweaked Road Show 22 years later.
The students gave us a medley from the much-later successful Merrily, the title song segueing into ‘Opening Doors’ and the glorious ‘Our Time’.
Prince himself (or at least the actor representing him) came on as narrator and told the odd story as one show glided seamlessly into the next. The many costume changes were slick and stylish (set and excellent costumes by Rachael Ryan).
As it was RAM, it’s a given that all the singers could sing and act – they don’t take duds – but what director and MD teased out of them was truly astonishing.
A full orchestra, 35 of them matching the size of the cast, caressed the scores of Sondheim, Lloyd Webber, Kander and Ebb, Coleman, Kern, Grossman, Jason Robert Brown, Bock and Bernstein with the fire and respect they deserved as a glorious showbiz past was properly celebrated.
It was Talent with a capital T and Entertainment with a capital E. King Hal would have been proud to direct it.
Jeremy Chapman
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