Viviana Durante and Mbulelo Ndabeni in Three/8:38/Seven at Wilton’s Music Hall, London. Picture: David Scheinmann
Three/8:38/Seven continues at Wilton’s Music Hall, London until 18 May 2019.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
The originally programmed Seven Deadly Sins by Kurt Weill with Meow Meow and Viviana Durante was cancelled at a week’s notice and replaced by this triple bill.
Three is an assortment of songs from Weill’s Threepenny Opera. Accompanied on piano by Robert Clark with Joe Richards on percussion, we get the ‘Overture’, ‘Soldiers’ Song’, ‘Love Duet’, ‘Tango-Ballad’ (here called the ‘Pimp’s Ballad’) and ‘Mack the Knife’.
Originally written for actor-singers, Threepenny Opera has also been performed by opera singers, and recorded by opera singers such as Teresa Stratas. This reviewer must confess to a preference for actor-singers such as Weill’s wife Lotte Lenya and performers from the world of musical theatre.
Fine singers, the balance of the voices meant that the lyrics were often lost and the sonorous operatic bass of Timothy Dawkins drowned out his fellow singers. Charles Johnston and Wendy Dawn Thompson came off best in ‘Love Duet’. Sadly, ‘Mack the Knife’ was deconstructed to such a slow tempo that the drive of the song was lost.
8:38 is a dance work choreographed by Javier de Frutos and performed by Viviana Durante and Mbulelo Ndabeni. Two dancers are positioned behind a pair of double ballet barres. They dance in a contemporary style mixed with classical ballet.
The music is ‘Bach: Concerto for Oboe in C# Minor’. The age difference is apparent and the frequent glances denote a relationship unfolding. We then get a snippet of Weill’s ‘Hymn to Peace’ from Johnny Johnson. The woman moves under the bars and is enfolded by the man.
The music changes to Lotte Lenya singing a heartfelt ‘September Song’, the lyrics about the passing of time adding a greater poignancy to the dance unfolding. Every word is intelligible. Ndabeni, with his tall elegant physique, is a dancer to watch, expressive, and with each movement extended to the very tips of his limbs. Durante partners him expressively and the whole piece is a joy.
Finally we get to The Seven Deadly Sins. Pianist Robert Bridges joins Clark and Richards for this two piano version arranged by Jonathan Greer.
Thompson sings well but operatically as Anna I and Stephen Anthony Brown, Peter Van Hulle, Johnston and Dawkins acquit themselves as the family.
The work, created for Lotte Lenya and dancer Tilly Losch, is about two daughters, both named Anna, I and 2, leaving Louisiana to travel to various American cities in each of which they encounter circumstances that involve one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Anna I is the more materialistic of the two, often having to deal with the consequences of Anna 2’s more moral actions. However, in this semi-staged performance, we get no Anna 2. All we get is Thompson singing Anna I, so the piece fails to make sense. Whether this was because of a late reschedule and lack of rehearsal time or an artistic decision we are not informed.
It’s worth going for the dance piece 8:38, but we must bide our time in the hope of a future production that does The Seven Deadly Sins justice.
Leon Ferguson
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