Why You Should Never Take Kate Carraway to IKEA
Subway Suicide Statistics Released
Street Heart
The TTC is Experimenting at Bloor-Yonge Station Like It's 1984
Newsstand: November 27, 2009
Glorious! The True Story of Florence Foster Jenkins: The Worst Singer in the World has just opened for CanStage at the Bluma. It tells the tale of Ms. Jenkins, a soprano who died in 1944, shortly after giving a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall. The hook, to which the play's subtitle alludes, is that Florence Foster Jenkins was truly an awful singer. If you want to hear for yourself, check out this recording of her singing the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute. Glorious! follows Florence Foster Jenkins from the time she meets her pianist, Cosmé McMoon, to her performance at Carnegie Hall, and is supposed to be an inspiring comedy about someone following her dream no matter how terrible she is. The problem with Glorious! is that art begins to imitate life a little too closely - the play seems to believe itself to be both inspirational and hilarious when, in reality, it hardly functions on a higher artistic plain than Madam Jenkins' singing.
Once again, CanStage seems to have exhibited that they have more dollars than sense. The costumes and stage design are beautiful and a talented group of performers has been assembled. As Florence, Nicola Cavendish displays impressively precise comic timing, seeming like something of an American combination of Hyacinth Bucket and Dame Edna. Jonathan Monro is slightly less-successful as Mr. McMoon - he never seems to quite capture the bitchiness of the dialogue the script apparently requires from Florence's obviously-gay-to-the-entire-world-but-her pianist.
Peter Quilter's script really is to blame in this production. He tells Florence's story as a rather tepid farce, and then attempts to make the audience really feel for a character in the play's final, maudlin monologue whom he had been mocking entirely for the rest of the show. The biggest laughs, uncomfortably, are provided by Maria Vacratsis as Florence's Spanish-speaking maid. It's actually shocking to see a new play that thinks cheap shots at Mexicans, queers and the Japanese are high comedy. Like its own "diva of the sliding scale," Glorious! seems convinced it has something remarkable to share with the world, but it is rather unfortunately mistaken.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Wikipedia's surprisingly blunt summary of Jenkins is awesome: "Florence Foster Jenkins (1868–November 26, 1944) was an American soprano who became famous for her complete lack of singing ability."
It's disappointing that the play sucks, though; it's an interesting enough premise (especially if you're appealing to a wider audience), and it sounds like the main actress was good. Blah.
Wow, when people said she couldn't sing, they weren't kidding. That recording was worse than I expected -- kinda like a little yappy dog at the park more than a Carnegie performer.
The vibe of the play from what I can tell is that whole wacky-zany-madcap thing, which just grates on my nerves. "She thinks she's an amazing singer but she isn't! Har har har! What spunk! [Sigh] Ain't she great?"
Perhaps the "Mexicans, queers and Japanese" jokes would play better elsewhere since there are whole swaths of the United States that still find that high comedy.
And what's with that quote they're pulling for their promo material "a hoot and a holler and a joyous romp" (Theatre Guide London)? As soon as something is labeled a "romp" or "a hoot," that's almost sure indication to me that it's funny to nobody but the bluehairs. And the Québécois. ;-)