What: Meet Me in St. Louis
Where: McPherson Playhouse
When: Until Dec. 13
Tickets: 250-386-6121
Rating: Three stars (out of five)
Matching the magnitude and dramatic impact of its spring production of Les Miserables would have been a tall order for the Victoria Operatic Society.
Maybe that’s why Meet Me In St. Louis, instead of a more familiar and challenging stage musical, was chosen as the community theatre’s December production.
It’s the polar opposite, and as history has shown, you can only do so much with this flimsy, old-fashioned stage show inspired by Vincente Minnelli’s beloved 1944 MGM movie musical starring Judy Garland.
It is what it is.
The good news is that, working around limitations arising from attempts to adhere to the film’s episodic style, director Chris Moss and his collaborators have done a decent job creating a palatable diversion.
They have clearly acknowledged that the stage version’s chief strength is not its plot, which is pure piffle and certainly not enough to hang a legitimate musical on. It’s the songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane.
Its more recognizeable nostalgic favourites include Skip to My Lou, The Boy Next Door, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, the insipid title tune and of course the rousing and tuneful one Garland popularized.
You know The Trolley Song is coming, and teasers in the overture further whet your appetite, but to enjoy this show you don’t have to wait for the clang-clang-clang of the heart-pounding standard that is almost impossible to listen to without visualizing Judy Garland. While the cast does the Act One finale justice splendidly in tandem with music director Tom Mitchell’s fine orchestra, there are other highlights before it rolls in.
This is thanks in no small measure to Angelina Robertson, who with apparent ease helps us overcome memories of Garland’s star turn as Esther Smith, the lovestruck teenage daughter in a well-to-do American family in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1903. Her performance overshadows what passes for high drama in this shamelessly sentimental saga, i.e. conflicts over whether a potential suitor will call, who’ll take the Smith girls to the ball and the family’s reaction when its cranky patriarch (played with amusing self-absorption by Doug Crockett) announces he got a promotion and will be moving them to New York before the 1904 World’s Fair opens.
“Remind me to spank you after dinner,” he says to his mischievous youngest daughter, Tootie (Tori Farkas), in one scene that reminds us this took place long before the age of computers and political correctness.
As bizarre as this might sound, Robertson — in her appearance, vocal potency and onstage confidence — brings Miley Cyrus to mind as the romantically frustrated ingenue on the cusp of adulthood.
Robertson clearly has the chops to handle this daunting role. Blending acting talent with musical versatility, she puts her powerful voice to particularly good use while conveying romantic yearning in The Boy Next Door, during her wistful version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or headlining The Trolley Song, the ensemble highlight that, next to the energetic “dance sensation” number The Banjo, benefits most from Katelyn MacKellen’s sprightly choreography.
The frenetic square-dance ode to Skip to My Lou also helps ignite a show that on opening night occasionally seemed low on bombast.
Other highlights include a touching rendition of You’ll Hear a Bell by Francesca Bitonti, affecting as the family’s all-knowing matriarch; and A Raving Beauty, an engaging duet in which Brandon Adams, as wealthy suitor Warren Sheffield, unleashes his amazing baritone while professing his romantic fervour for eldest daughter Rose, played by a wryly amusing Emma Gillespie, whose pluckiness and petulance is a highlight.
Robertson, Farkas and Mariah McDonald, as Tootie’s slightly older sister and partner-in-hijinks Agnes, also shine musically and do some fancy footwork with bowler hats and canes in Under the Bamboo Tree.
Pint-sized Farkas is beyond cute as impish Tootie, a comic spitfire who steals one scene after another.
Others who shine under Moss’s workmanlike direction include smooth-voiced Ethan Otto as John Truitt, the dashing object of Esther’s affection; David Underhill as Lon, the Princeton-bound son; Amanda Russell as Katie, the family’s sassy Irish housekeeper, and Ian McIntyre, whose comic flair as Grandpa is as eye-catching as the sombrero, chef’s hat, top hat, Shriners cap and other headpieces he takes turns wearing.
Indeed, Lal O’Connor’s handsome period costumes, including bowler hats, pinafore and frilly dresses, colourful bonnets and ballgowns, are a hallmark of this show. So is that historical candy apple-red trolley designed by John Britt that complements Guy Chester’s and Margaret Bowes’s colourful, period-appropriate set depicting the Smith household, inside and out.
