Rebecca - Charing Cross Theatre

Interval. Read back at my posts to see how excited I was for this.

I am gutted. It is a complete car crash. The sets are shocking. They clearly spent all of the money on the orchestra, which still somehow manages to sound paper thin.

They cut Die Neue Mrs de Winter (which is my favourite song!) - although they still sing the reprise. ‘Rebecca’ has also been halved.

I don’t understand the direction. I am so sad.

And you’re surprised?!!!!!! The writing was on the wall with this one since day 1.

I’m amazed they are allowed to use the show logo too from the Vienna production

I’ll post some full thoughts when I’m home but the fire was just a smoke machine and red lights - no fire, or any other special effect. Funnily I actually sat next to Michael Kunze this evening and After the fire, he turned to the man next to him and put his thumbs up, so he clearly liked it.

Act 2 was significantly better.

So an odd night at the theatre! I've been waiting for this since 2006. I've never been more hyped for anything before. The evening started oddly. We are in our seats - the only people in the row. About 2 minutes before start time, we are joined by people with laptops, notepads and some were setting up phone tripods to record the show. Michael Kunze comes along and says we are in his seats - we were in our correct seats. Seems that after we booked our tickets, this row was taken off sale for the production staff and they hadn't realised someone had actually bought tickets there. So we had to move down 2 seats and I ended up literally sitting next to Kunze, which was great - he said he'd get us some drinks at the interval to apologise for the problems, but he forgot! But he was genuinely so lovely.

So in terms of axed songs, the only two songs I noticed that were gone were Die Neue Mrs de Winter and I'm An American Woman (the costume problem at the end of act 1 now happens BEFORE the party and only Maxim, Frank and Beatrice are there. We never see Mrs van Hopper again after Monte). Zeit in Einer Flasche has been halved and is now a duet with Maxim and Zauberhaft Naturlich is now a duet with I. I have to say, I don't understand some of these changes. The show is such a huge success world wide... why did they feel the need to change things? Zeit in Einer Flasche is one of the best melodies in the show and it is now completely wasted. Just makes no sense. I'm not entirely convinced that Christopher Hampton understood a lot of the nuances in the lyrics, either. For example, the orchids are essentially a metaphor for Rebecca - this has been completely lost in the English translation and now the characters spend a silly amount of time just singing about plants. In terms of translations, they are completely different to the 2004 English demo and not always for the better - Kein Lachen is one in particular where I think the demo translation was better. For 'Rebecca', they have used the translation from Pia Douwes' 2018 album.

In terms of Die Neue Mrs de Winter, yes, Danvers' entrance is gone. After Zauberhaft Naturlich, there is a thunderstorm and they are transported to Manderlay where they meet the servants. Mrs Danvers then enters through a door on stage. We then get the reprise of Neue Mrs de Winter, but nothing before.

The cast were all actually wonderful. I was worried about Kara Lane after act 1 but she was wonderful in act 2. Richard Carson was just delightful and Alex James-Ward as Favell was thoroughly awful - perfect casting, actually. The characterisation of Mrs Danvers is different from previous versions, but I feel this was intentional.

It feels like they've slowed a lot of the songs down, and as a result act 1 feels like it drags. The staging is shocking. Genuinely. Monte is like a school production set. At one point, the ensemble come on moving their hands like birds pretending to be seagulls. It is odd. The Manderlay set is slightly better, but still underwhelming. Genuinely amateurish - and I have to say, I feel at times, that is a compliment. A lot of scenes take place when the curtain is down - again, it's just weird direction. The curtain comes down and then entire songs and scenes are played out with no set in front of the curtain - and we can HEAR the sets being moved around whilst this is happening. They also use the aisles a lot - a lot of scenes take place literally in the middle of the stalls. Like literally in the middle (the walkway between the 2 stalls sections). Again, it's just odd and I think something that is going to be criticised heavily in reviews. Certain scenes rely heavily on projections... which is a brave choice considering how much Aspects was ripped apart for this.

I don't think the orchestra paid off - for its size, it doesn't sound it. It sounds thin - the money should have been invested in the set.

Act 2 was actually great. So much better than act 1. The crew next to me were making notes throughout, so hopefully it'll change a lot over the next 2 weeks before press night.

Part of me thinks they should have just booked a small west end theatre (the lyric or something) and done a big grand production with epic staging - even ship it over from Vienna when it closes in a few months. At least then you'd get some decent reviews... I just can't see this doing well and I think the reviews will be brutal, sadly. 

I think that she just lacks of the coldness of say Susan Rigvava-Dumas or Kata Janza. I can't really explain - I guess I would say that I'm not sure why Ich would feel intimidated by Danvers in the London production. It's not that it's performed badly, it's just different. It's the same throughout, which makes me think it was a conscious directing choice. She seems more fragile, perhaps. 

Were you expecting an actual staircase on fire?

I thought this production to see how the English translations worked in performance, with a view to taking it forwartd into a full scale production in the future.

Shop over the Vienna set and put it in the Lyric? Lol.

That set is huge - hence the reason this am dram version is being done here instead.

I went in last night knowing nothing - I hadn't heard any of the songs, didn't know the plot or the premise. And I had a lovely time. Yes, the set and costumes are cheap as chips and it looked like a student production. However the performances are tremendous. Kara Lane brings the roof down as you'd expect, and Richard Carson and Lauren Jones are utterly sublime. Stunning vocals and stunning acting performances. The performances definitely make this show worth a watch.

HOW CAN YOU DO REBECCA WITHOUT FIRE..... THATS LIKE DOING STARLIGHT WITH NO SKATES?!?!?!

Thanks to all who have offered their thoughts about this production.

I'm planning a trip to the West End to see a bunch of shows and have only one or two time slots left. I'm considering either "Rebecca" or "Guys and Dolls."

I know that everyone seems to be saying that "Guys and Dolls" is a "must see." I've hesitated because, with a few exceptions, '50s era musicals are not my favorite. I also have no interest in standing up for two hours and in general don't like immersives.

I love the novel "Rebecca," so I'm curious about this show. However, I also tend to be critical of adaptations of my favorite novels, so I'm not sure that this show would be a good gamble.

If anyone has an opinion about "Rebecca" vs "Guys and Dolls," I'd love to hear it!

Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask!