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The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Reviewed by Terry Morgan
Actor’s Co-op
Through October 26.
RECOMMENDED:
You cannot fault Actors Co-op for ambition. In taking on Rupert Holmes’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the group has tackled one of the most difficult and large-scale musicals of the past 30 years, and this intimate production is nonetheless a highly enjoyable show of sublimely smart and silly fun.
Stephen Van Dorn’s staging nimbly uses every inch of the available theater space, sending the 19-person cast hither and yon, creating a constant sense of movement and making the audience feel like part of the show. His take on “Jasper’s Vision,” where he turns Holmes’s stage directions of a vague murder into an eerie nightmare of masked automatons, is a highlight. Julie Hall’s choreography is inventive and superb, constantly surprising with her clever use of limited space, and is particularly striking in the Indian-inflected number “Ceylon.”
Edwin Drood (Catherine Gray) was promised in marriage to Rosa Bud (Eva Abramian) when they were both children. As adults, they intend to marry, and then travel to Egypt, where Drood plans to build a road using the blocks of the pyramids as paving stones. However, Rosa’s music tutor, John Jasper (Craig McEldowney, alternating the role with Van Dorn), is obsessed with her, and wants Drood out of the picture. Unfortunately for Drood, Jasper isn’t the only one who might want him dead, and when Drood disappears, there is a myriad of suspects.
The underlying conceit of the play is that the Music Hall Royale is putting on a production of Charles Dickens’s unfinished Drood novel, and the show slips back and forth between the “show” and the company putting it on. Foremost among the latter is the Chairman (the masterful Peter Allen Vogt), who runs the theater company and narrates the story. Vogt finds every humorous nuance in the witty text, and seemingly ad-libs many more, to the extent that, on the night I attended, the show had to pause multiple times simply because the audience and cast were laughing so much. He’s also quite amusing in the role of the easily swayed Mayor Sapsea.
Gray is solid as Drood, but she’s funnier as the actress playing Drood, and she sings her heart out in the final number, “The Writing on The Wall.” Abramian is a proper damsel-in-distress as Rosa, and her singing voice is lovely, especially in “Moonfall,” although she is sometimes drowned out by the live band. McEldowney revels in his villainous role as the opium-addled Jasper, and Greg Baldwin is an audience favorite as the happily drunken Durdles.
Brandon Parrish and Selah Victor are a gloriously over-the-top stylized double act as siblings Neville and Helena, and Isaac Wade is charming as the music hall underdog Bazzard. Finally, Gina D’Accario is brilliant as the opium den mistress The Princess Puffer, bringing expert comedic chops to bear. She also has the strongest voice, which she ably demonstrates in numbers such as “The Wages of Sin” and “The Garden Path to Hell.”
There are good reasons Holmes won the Tony for Best Musical, book and lyrics (among others): it’s a deftly wrought and delightful confection. My only quibble with it is that the act-closing songs aren’t as strong as the others in the show, but that isn’t going to change. If some of the singing voices in this production aren’t as powerful as others, it’s a relatively small demerit. Overall, this is a impressive and worthy production of a landmark show that doesn’t get done often enough.
Actors Co-op Crossley Theatre, 1760 N. Gower St., Hollywood. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2:30 p.m. through October 26. https://www.ActorsCo-op.org
