Last week the Secret Victorianist
caught a show on Broadway – A Gentleman’s
Guide to Love and Murder at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Although it’s set in
1907-9, I wanted to write about the play because of how much it owes
dramaturgically to nineteenth-century melodrama.
The premise is simple – after his
mother’s death, Monty Navarro finds there are only eight members of the
D’Ysquith family between him and an earldom and so sets out on a murderous
rampage, removing them one by one. Along the way he must also juggle his
fiancée and mistress. The story is told retrospectively through a confession
written in his prison cell prior to his execution for the one murder he did not
commit.
The Secret Victorianist at A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder |
The staging of the production
demonstrates a self-conscious interplay with the conventions of the Victorian
theatre. The scenes of Monty’s confession are played out on a stage within the
stage – an ornately decorated proscenium arch, similar to those I saw in
miniature at Pollock’s Toy Shop. Different locales, such as the frozen lake
where one relative meets his demise, are suggested by 2D scenery, a nod to the
painted backdrops which conveyed place in plays such as Wilkie Collins’s and
Dickens’s The Frozen Deep (1856).
Portraits in Victorian and
earlier dress come alive to deliver old-fashioned views on the purity of the
bloodline and the prudence of rigidly enforced class distinctions, making
Monty’s bloody ascent seem to stand for a new era of improved social mobility.
The set for A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder |
What’s most Victorian about the
play, however, is the co-conspiratorial relationship between the audience and
the murderer (here more hero than villain). As in so many melodramas, the
suspense doesn’t come from doubting what will occur, so much as waiting for actions
we’ve already anticipated to happen. Instead, surprise comes from the innovative
staging and comedic delivery – it’s like watching a magician at work.
Another layer of audience
awareness is added by the use of one actor (on the night I went, Greg Jackson)
to play the entire D’Ysquith family. The dramatic play is doubled as the
audience enjoys each murderous plot devised by Monty (Jeff Kready), along with
each new character assumed by Jackson.
The lack or ‘moral’ resolution
may set the play apart from its historical models, but the opportunity to
identify with a wrongdoer and revel in his societally disruptive behaviours
(undermining marriage, class, inheritance) is distinctly familiar.
If you have the opportunity to
watch the musical, I’d take it – it’s a riotously fun production, and an
imaginative reworking of some staple dramatic traditions. Find out more here.
Do you know of any other theatre
in New York you think the Secret Victorianist would enjoy? Let me know – here,
on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.
Haa.. I watched The Gentleman's on Wednesday matinee 22 Apr 2015, maybe we watched it at the same time ?
ReplyDeleteI heard a lady sat near me commented : she can't understand the words the actors saying.. hahaha
I do wish more victorian- english style musical too... its more exciting !!
cheers
Afraid I was at an evening showing! :)
DeleteYes, when I saw Matilda on Broadway too, the English accents seemed to be hard for people. Don't really understand why! They all articulate a lot...