@ Edinburgh Playhouse, on Fri 8 May and Sat 9 May 2015 and
@ Theatre Royal, Glasgow, from Tue 2 Jun to Sat 6 Jun
Lorna Luft‘s gaudy production is as subtle as, well, Lorna Luft. Belting out the songs her mother, Judy Garland, imbued with depth and colour, the unrelenting volume gets Luft noticed, but the numbers quickly start to sound the same. Taking us on a tour through Judy’s most famous songs, from The Trolley Song to I Got Rhythm, the remaining cast, while talented, can only do so much. If every song is a showstopper, there cannot be a show; with no vision or framework of substance to hold it together, and every scene utilising the same bold red and black design palette, this production desperately needs some emotional light and shade.
It is not an easy ask for anyone to perform under Garland’s shadow, but the three women – Louise Dearman, Rachel Stanley and Georgina Hagen – are all talented enough to hold a show on their own account. It is unclear, however, whether they are meant to be impersonating Judy in tribute form, actually playing her (there are a few ‘theatrical’ montages set up to take us back in time), or simply showing us the songs that she made famous. Whatever the original intent, it is not sustained enough to be successful, and so the show fails on all of the above fronts, while these ladies’ powerful wings are constantly clipped by the constraints of the ‘Judy Garland’ theme.
Performing under shadows of their own, Darren Bennett is placed as Fred Astaire in A Couple of Swells, and Ray Quinn as the ubiquitous love interest for most of Judy’s love songs. As professional as the ladies, these gentlemen hold their own, even if they are frequently – and literally – obscured by the distracting montages and extraneous choreography of the male dance troupe, The Boyfriends. Quinn is tasked in his opening number, For Me and My Gal, with filling the remarkable dancing shoes of Gene Kelly. Astonishingly, this young man’s liquid dancing style is startlingly resonant of that of Kelly and, coupled with his easy smile and palpable charisma, is perhaps the one successful impersonation of the night.
Alongside the numbers, film footage of Judy’s movies and TV appearances play in the background, but the juxtaposition of celluloid and live action does not gel. Judy’s raw ability to draw the eye has not dimmed with time and, when she is on the screen, it is too easy to forget about what is happening on the stage. The show’s most poignant moments come from Judy herself, and not from the efforts of her daughter.
Despite the bling and the almost sycophantic eulogising, there are some flashes of faux self-awareness peppered here and there. ‘I’ll never need to see a psychiatrist,’ Luft chortles to the audience mid-show, ‘I have you.’ The closing number of the show is an amalgamation of Over the Rainbow and Chasing Rainbows. Luft is certainly chasing something, but it comes at the expense of a cohesive vision and respect for an audience’s comfort level.
This is a glossy, expensively-produced show trying desperately to fill two hours and a very large stage. What it is lacking in imagination could have been made up for in intimacy, in a smaller venue with a smaller cast – and a greater focus on the performer-audience relationship which Judy understood so well.