Rebecca - Charing Cross Theatre

I hadn't seen a stage production of Rebecca or read the book, but I had seen the Lily James movie (which I thought was ok). I was sadly disappointed by this I thought the score was good, but the translation felt clunky. The set pieces and set changes were loud, slow and cheap. Why on earth did they have people pretending to be birds?? I liked Lauren Jones a lot, and Richard Carson was decent, but was less impressed by Kara Lane's Mrs Danvers. I think maybe a different production of this (different direction and set) would be more enjoyable, but unfortunately this version didn't really do it for me.

No discounts yet? Most seats this week and next are 45/50 quid.

Oh, dear God. 

Before I lose myself in a rant, I guess I should summarize my previous experience with this show. I've listened to the soundtrack several times and enjoyed it, but I must admit that I when I saw it in Vienna last year I found it underwhelming. It reminds me of a Frank Wildhorn musical in all the worst ways; lots of lengthy, static ballads where characters simply exposit their surface-level emotional states. The twists at the end of the show are crying out for some darker music to accompany them, but instead, the most suspenseful parts are told solely through dialogue.

Having said that, the Vienna production did have the advantage of some of the most gorgeous production design I've ever seen. Even when Frank Crawley was standing center stage and singing a totally pointless 3-minute ballad about the novel observation that beauty is only skin deep, I could at the very least focus on his surroundings and immerse myself in the sheer excess of it all.

But when this production has Frank Crawley perform the same ballad in front of literally a goddamn white curtain - well, you can probably understand why it's such a slog to get through.

This set is a special kind of bad. It's the kind of set that makes every actor who stands on it look silly. It's the kind of set that needs to be scored on a scale not from zero to ten but zero to negative ten. It's the kind of set that would be improved were it replaced with an empty backdrop, as the demand for the audience to fully imagine a gothic Cornish estate would be less insulting than the parodic approximation they're otherwise stuck looking at. It's the kind of bad that makes you long for projections.

Yes, people, it's that bad.

Manderley's grand staircase has the beige, textureless quality of an early 2010s Minecraft build. The walls are bare and nondescript, their only features being a pair of doors. There is a single flight of stairs at the back of the stage that impotently climbs a meter or two upwards before curving behind a thin sheet of plasterboard. There's no furniture, no props, nothing interactive of any kind - the actors feel less like they're actually inhabiting the space and more like spirits passing through on their way to purgatory. Even in the final scene, when Manerley is ostensibly "on fire", the only thing for Mrs. Danvers to do is slowly and dramatically walk up the stairs with a blank expression.

Rebecca's bedroom is split into three distinct segments: the left segment has a window, the center segment has a bed, and the right segment has a dresser. The window has no curtains; the bed and dresser look like placeholder furniture you'd see while viewing a rental property. Fog machines are sometimes used, but instead of coming in through the window, the fog slides under the extremely noticeably gap between the left wall and the floor. The back wall, for reasons that at first are not apparent, is adorned with climbing roots; it's not until a few minutes later, when we transition to the beach, that we realize the same back wall is functioning as (presumably) a cliffside. The beach in question has no scenery; when Maxim and I reference a boathouse, they simply peer offstage left.

The set is not only visually incompetent but technically incompetent. The wall panels are heavy and cumbersome, taking half a minute to swap out for one another. There's a sense that set pieces next to each other in the script are not next to each other in the physical set, meaning cast members have to clumsily shove them back and forth like the pieces of a sliding puzzle. The audience sits and watches every moment. In the performance I saw, one of the panels got stuck and the scene went ahead with a wall completely missing. Other times, they just lower the curtain and perform entire scenes in front of it, pretending not to notice the highly noticeable clunking sounds of the set being reconstructed behind. It's for this reason that the poor actor playing Frank Crawley has to deliver his big solo number on a "set" of two wooden chairs in front of a white curtain.

The lighting does nothing to help matters. Sets were lit flatly and statically, rarely changing throughout scenes. When Maxim and I go to the Monte Carlo cliffs, there's no real sense that they've moved from the foyer of the hotel. Instead, to complete the "illusion", a pair of pitiable ensemble members pretend to be seagulls.

By the middle of act 1, I was actively trying to ignore the set and just focus on the admirable efforts of the performers - and they are admirable, make no mistake. Lauren Jones is the MVP, wholly sympathetic as a mousy, neurotic pushover without crossing the line into annoyance. Richard Carson was charismatic and his "I'll Never Forget Her Smile" was harrowing, but I think the production as a whole is confused with his characterization; his mood swings feel less "depressed guy with anger issues" and more "bipolar". Kara Lane's voice soars and her Mrs. Danvers was cohesive, though personally, I think the character works better when her malevolence is more eagerly embraced.

But this is where this show's other big issue arises: the translation is, most of the time, appalling. The lyrics are stilted and contrived, often failing to fit the tune (an illustrative example being Mrs. Danver's horrendous "writing paper and the envelopes" line in "Mrs. de Winter is Me"). The choruses often repeat the same lyrics ad nauseum, which is fine when a chorus is well-written, but in this musical it just draws attention to bad lines that skated by the first time. Rhymes are rarely even attempted, much less succeeded ("Rebecca"/"Forget her"). The songs that suffer worst are the more recitative ones like "She Was Used to Being Loved" or "I'll Never Forget Her Smile". The latter, especially, feels like Maxim is making it up as it goes along; it's almost tedious in its shoddiness, never resonating emotionally and only ever approximating the music as written.

There were many changes from the musical's previous versions. For historical purposes, if nothing else, I will summarize the ones I remember:

• The second chorus of "You Will Never Be a Lady" has been cut. No big deal.
• "He Lost His Wife Rebecca Unexpectedly" has been cut. Instead, Maxim and I share the first two verses of "Memories in a Bottle". This felt weird to me in the moment, but in retrospect, I think it works well. The whole Monte Carlo sequence feels breezier and more cohesive now.
• "Naturally Enchanting" has been cut and replaced with a new lovey-dovey song between Maxim and I. The song was good, and the English lyrics were actually quite cute - but it does make their relationship seem a bit too idyllic. I guess the idea is Maxim doesn't harden until he returns to Manderley, but I can imagine audience members being confused by his sudden change.
• "The New Mrs. de Winter" has been cut. There is no replacement. This is bewildering; the household staff and Mrs. Danvers are left with no musical introduction.
• Beatrice's and Giles' song about in-laws has been cut and replaced with new song about teaching I the ways of upper class life. I very much like this change (hooray!) The song is tuneful and funny, moreso than the one it replaced, and as with the prior new song, the lyrics are actually good.
• "The Ball at Manderley" and "I'm an American Woman" have been cut. Again, no big deal.
• The party guests have not arrived when I comes down the stairs; it's just Maxim, Beatrice and Giles. Words cannot express how much I hate this. A good fifty percent of that scene's impact comes from the fact that everyone from last year is there, and they all know what she's done. Also, Maxim doesn't even have a glass to drop, which is a good ten percent of the rest of the scene's impact.
• I gets a new song in act 2, immediately following "I'll Never Forget Her Smile". I don't remember the title but it had something to do with freedom. It was a miserable bore, with I standing center stage (in front of the white curtain, of course) forthrightly belting her character development despite said development being better conveyed in the two subsequent songs.
• "The Strength of a Woman" has been cut and replaced with "What's Wrong With Him?", which has been moved from act 1. This is... fine, I guess? I guess it depends on whether you want Maxim's motives to be foreshadowed or explained retrospectively.
• The reprise of "The New Mrs. de Winter" was slightly reworked. Mrs. Danvers and I now perform the counter-melody, quarreling back and forth. I remember liking it, although it does cover some of the same ground as "Mrs. de Winter is Me".

I feel compelled to post my thoughts because I have never seen anything quite like this. Having seen REBECCA multiple times and most recently in Vienna I knew what I was getting myself in for. It's grand, it's camp, it's gothic. The characters are broad, it's certainly a 'type' of musical that some will buy into and others won't. This production is an abomination and I'm embarrassed for all concerned. To say it's like a school play would be rude to the hundreds of teachers who work hard putting these on in challenging environments. I've never seen such a mess of production design, both in actual design and execution. The above review really says it all. It's incoherent, noisy, illogical and BROWN. Honestly, if they painted the set a different color it would help things. I don't recall seeing such a physically ugly production in years of theatre going. Even the confines of the CX, which is a challenging space at the best of times, have had some beautiful designs, some simple, some elaborate. This one defies belief and will be savaged by the critics.

The cast try hard with clunky lyrics that don't rhyme or even fit into the musical beats. Shoe horning in words with too many syllables over not enough music. How have these got outside of the rehearsal room? Didn't an actor say "sorry - these words just don't fit..."??
Messy vocals from the ensemble - there was one 'cut off' that was frankly laughable. And they're staring directly at the conductor on the screen! By that point I was beyond caring.

The direction is inane. There's no logic, no style or no cohesion. One second it's 'realistic' then they're walking across a table and it's a cliff face. One moment 'Ich' is on the widow sill looking out being tempted to jump, the next she is facing the audience (and a wall?) being persuaded to jump. The audience aren't idiots - there is no internal logic to any of the scenes. Where is the door, where is the window, where is the wall? You can't just change things like that mid-scene. Actors becoming birds with menus. Fine, if that's the tone you establish from the beginning and maintain. Is this a concept? Is this theatrical? Am I tripping? Who knows. The scene transitions will haunt your dreams.

The song list is expanded and changed, as the above poster says. One new song sounds like a rip off of "Easy Street" with a complete vibe shift that frankly was laughable. So many scenes presented "in one" infront of the shower curtain whilst the set is noisily changed. Imagine singing a belty song and being upstaged by the scraping of the set? For all the talk of the orchestra it sounded like they were singing along to tracks most of the time.

The floor is beyond destroyed - it looks utterly atrocious. Quite how this set will survive until November is beyond me. It's like The Play That Goes Wrong. You expect it to collapse at any moment.

Rebecca's bed deserves a special mention. A box mattress with a quilt that you wouldn't use in your guest room. The sumptuous Mandalay... that set along signifies the care that's gone into the physical production.

The Vienna production is vast, sumptuous and stylish, fitting the 'epic' mega-musical feel. The only way this could be saved would have been in a chamber musical format which London does very well. Reinvent it. Do something different and theatrical. Imagine your high school attempting a production of Phantom. It's that, but nowhere near as endearing. Instead you feel sorry for the lead actors who are doing their best amongst the noise and endless supply of brown paint that drowns them.

It's infuriating seeing the prices being charged for this. Good luck to the cast - you've been majorly let down.

Oobi alittlebrainsalittletalent  

Thank you both for your reviews.

I hope I may ask you a few questions in follow up to your entertaining and informative reviews?

I have a bit of a love for underdog “famously bad” musical productions. How does this rank alongside “Too Close to the Sun”, “Behind the Iron Mask”, “Gone With the Wind”, “Imagine This” and the like - all of which I saw?(!!!)

Tempted to see this for the collection, but is it so bad it’s good or just plain bad?

They couldn't even afford to put some railing on that metre high grand staircase!

The material isn't as bad as those flops (that still doesn't mean it's good), the main criticism lies with the offensively bad set design. There are high school/college productions that have a higher set budget. 

No way will the seagulls be cut - Kunze laughed at that moment, meaning it was 100% the intended effect.

Kunze sounds like a Ku….mplete liability. By the sounds of it, if I was working on this, I wouldn’t be sat there laughing. I’d be trying to rescue the show somehow from the impending disaster.

The white curtain is literally what the songs are performed in front of.

When the bows start is the Manderlay set. The Manderlay set is a masterpiece in comparison to the set for the hotel in Monte.

Self respect? Dignity? The opportunity for a proper production of his show to ever get a London theatre again?

Agree!