“Like the old tale, my lord: it is not so, nor ’twas not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.”
The intimate Studio Theatre at the Beck Center is a perfect venue for meeting and greeting The Robber Bridegroom, a bluegrass, farcical musical with a book and lyrics by Alfred Uhry and music by Robert Waldman.
The story is based on the 1942 novella by Eudora Welty, which is based on a German fairy tale by the Brother Grimm.
This is a tale of a wealthy businessman, his shrewish second wife, his beautiful spoiled daughter, a handsome but dastardly, polite bandit, and a bunch of legendary figures, some real and some invented by Eudora Welty, that takes place in the Natchez Trace. (Yippie-do-da-day!)
The first Broadway production, which was directed by Lorain, Ohio, native Gerald Freedman, who later headed the Great Lakes Theater, opened in a limited engagement on October 7, 1975. It ran for 14 performances and one preview before setting out on a one-year U.S. national tour. Its success on the road convinced the producers to mount a revamped Big Apple production with an extended book and expanded, heavily bluegrass-tinged, score. The music, deemed “country and southern” was arranged for guitar, fiddle, mandolin, bass and banjo. (Yah, that-there twangy sound!) This second Broadway production opened on October 9, 1976 where it ran for 145 performances and 12 previews.
The tale starts with Clemment Musgrove, the wealthiest planter on the Natchez Trace, arriving in town only to have all of the townsfolk trying to steal his money. He finally makes it to a hotel. Little Harp, a largely unsuccessful robber, plots with his brother, Big Harp, who is only a head that he keeps in a briefcase, about how they can steal Musgrove’s money. (You think two heads are better than one?) The duo eventually devises a plan in which they will kill him in his sleep. (Owww … scary!)
Jamie Lockhart rescues Musgrove from the Harps by tricking Little Harp into thinking that he killed them and their ghosts attack him. Grateful, Musgrove invites Jamie to his home for dinner and for the chance to meet and woo his greatest treasure, his daughter Rosamund. (Daddy … the matchmaker.)
Farce is difficult to do. Many parts of the Beck production, directed by Scott Spence, which has great choreography and musical staging by Lauren Marousek, are nicely set up for the telling of the ridiculous, melodramatic tale of overwrought and unbelievable love and lust. Others are missing.
It features a fine, though at times overly loud, enthusiastic orchestra (Evan Kleve, David Nicholson, Jesse Hogson, Michael Simile and Jason Stebelton), which sometimes drowns out the words of the songs, under the direction of Larry Goodpaster.
Standout cast members are Nic Rhew as Jamie Lockhart, the Gentleman Robber, who possesses a fine singing voice, and, as required, is tall, dark and handsome; Izzy Baker as the blonde, beautiful, air-headed femme-fatale Rosamund, the daughter of the wealthy Clemment Musgrove; and Jordan Potter, as Musgrove, the wealthy planter.
Seth Crawford, he of slight body and puppy-dog eyes, overdoes, much to the audience’s delight, the roll of Goat, the “dumb boy” who is enlisted by her stepmother Salome (Ruby Moncrief-Karten) to carry out her ill-planned scheme to kill Rosamund. Too bad others didn’t take Crawford’s lead, or weren’t directed to let totally loose.
Trad A Burns must have cleaned out all of the antique shops in Lakewood in order to build the marvelously ambitious rustic set!
Capsule judgement: The Robber Bridegroom is a farcical, nonsensical piece of bluegrass musical theatre fluff, which gets a” funish” production at Beck.
The show runs through June 29, 2025. For tickets call 216-521-2540 or go to beckcenter.org
Next up at Beck: A Chorus Line (July 11-August 8). The dance-centric musical that changed the American musical theater. Picture a bare stage, and all the dreams of Broadway performers lay before you. This time, you “gotta get it,” in honor of the 50th anniversary of this Broadway favorite. (A classic that must be seen and re-seen!)
[Written by Roy Berko]