Review 3

Friday 7 April 2000

Richard Chamberlain stars in a less saccharine version of "The Sound of Music."

Like wine, sugar evidently improves with age.

You can forget your preconceptions about "The Sound of Music," that syrupy warhorse you think you've seen four or five too many times. Portland Opera's Best of Broadway series brought Rodgers and Hammerstein's final collaboration to the Portland Civic Auditorium on Wednesday, starring Richard Chamberlain in a production with more weight than the lighter-than-air versions you remember.

Even in its most saccharine incarnations, "The Sound of Music" always has pulled its dramatic soul from the political atmosphere of 1938 Austria, in the weeks before the Nazi takeover. Plucky Catholic postulant Maria Rainer arrives at the villa of authoritarian Austrian naval captain Georg von Trapp, to serve as governess to his children. Maria transforms his seven unruly children with the sound of her music and then captures the heart of the captain, sending an heiress on her disappointed way. But the couple has an obstacle as big as the Alps to overcome: Von Trapp is against Nazi control of Austria and must get his family out of the country.

Director Susan H. Schulman directed this show for its Broadway revival in 1998, and it's clear she had more than a light entertainment in mind. Schulman has taken the glorious Rodgers and Hammerstein score and nestled it in a production with dramatic contrasts. Scenic designer Heidi Ettinger's shadowed, cloistered convent makes the sunlight bounce more brightly on the Austrian Alps in the next scene; the pastels of the mountains and Captain von Trapp's villa give way, insidiously, to the red Nazi flags. But this is far from a historical drama. Meg Tolin portrays Maria with a buoyant energy that propels the show forward. In fact, Tolin's Maria is so plucky, it's easier to believe she'd challenge the socialite Elsa to a fistfight than that she'd turn her back on the man she loves and retreat to a nunnery. And while the romance between Tolin and Chamberlain may seem more forced than tender, Tolin's scenes with the seven children provide the emotional heart of the show.

Captain von Trapp, the whistle-blowing martinet, can be a thankless role. Chamberlain's personal charm softens the captain, making him less wooden. But the real surprise is Chamberlain's singing voice: a rich baritone that makes you wish Rodgers and Hammerstein had given the captain a few rollicking solos of his own.

The supporting players are well-cast. Rachel de Benedet as Elsa is breezy and wry; Drew Eshelman as Max is her able comic counterpart. The children give natural, pitch-perfect performances, and Kate Reinders and Luke Walrath are charming in "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" (even though Walrath looks more like 30 going on 31). Jeanne Lehman, as the Mother Abbess, gives a powerful, stirring performance of "Climb Every Mountain."

Catherine Zuber's costumes are a great improvement on the 1950s-influenced costumes of the original Broadway show and the movie. The bias-cut gowns, military uniforms and Austrian folk costumes lend an authentic feel. Although some of the folk-dance-inspired choreography seems too challenging for performers who clearly were cast for their voices, and not their dance ability, the orchestra, led by Randy Booth, was excellent.

In the end, the greatest strength of this well-paced, well-acted performance is that it pulls you into a too-familiar story and makes you forget you've known the words to all the songs for 35 years, makes you forget you knew before you entered the theater that the von Trapps would climb every mountain at the final curtain.

© 2000 Margie Boule

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