Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Tuesday 24 May 1966, page 12


leisure — the arts

THEATRE ^

Ingenious sets

in fine musical

From JEAN BATTERSBY ui Melbourne

ROBERT AND ELIZABETH, by Ronald Millar and Ron Grainer; Princess Theatre.

IT is really better

to forget about the protagonists of

Robert and Elizabeth. The musical

play based on their lives pays only fleeting deference to the poets Robert and Elizabeth

Barrett Browning.

They are little more than an unusual hook on which . to hang a fairly conventional musical plot. In this case the Boy, a

tempestuous Robert Browning, meets Girl, bedridden Elizabeth Barrett. Their love, thwarted at first by her dominating father Edward Barrett, conquers everything, and they prepare to live happily ever after.

This very pleasant musical by Millar and Australian composer (famous themes for Grainer Steptoe and Maigret), belongs to the Lerner and Loewe school ... a combination of sl'?ck, staccato numbers, spoken as much as sung, interspersed with 1 i n g e r ing melodies for the romantic leads. The large Victorian family of Edward Barrett provides a ready-made I chorus for clever and

amusing ensemble numbers, and the street scenes ! of. 19th century London

i fill out the chorus.

June Bronhill, as she said in her curtain speech, knows the production backwards and inside out from her .long experience with it in England. She sings the role of the romantic invalid with warmth and pathos and assurance, without delving too deeply into the hypochondriacal

depths.

Well

matched

Dennis Quilley, whom Australians last saw on television in one or those

petrifying

Durbridge serials, is a good and attractive foil to her, playing Robert Browning with confidence and charm, and an appropriate flourish. And, since most of the humour in any Nice Nights Entertainment is predictable, tne other characterisations are comfortably smooth . • • Elliott Cairnes as the- inarticulate Guards Officer, Judy Banks as the g i g g [y> flirtatious young cousin, Valmai Johnston as tne sympathetic younger sister and so on. AH

Frank Thring, who p 1 a ys the grimly tyrannical father in a full Freudian d'This is an awkward and heavy role, explored in greater depth than any of the others, m or e suited to drama or -.a novel than . a musical.

June Bronhill and Dennis Quilley in the lead roles as Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning in the musical

Robert and Elizabeth at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne.

Edward Barrett is not merely a sarcastic Victorian despot, selfish, possessive and indifferent to his children's happiness. He is revealed as a mass of sexual and moral inhibitions. Whenever the turgid depths are stirred, some new complex comes to light . . . which is right and proper in serious

drama but an invitation to embarrassment in a musical, unless handled with considerable finesse.

His possessive control of Elizabeth is interpreted as heavily incestuous: his rigid disapproval of his provocative little niece :s shown as no more than a tight rein on his own lecherous impulses. It is all quite fascinating, but it

needs to be treated with a certain restraint if the transition from m u r k y soul - baring to zippy little musical numbers is to remain credible, and if Robert and Elizabeth are

to have their proper share of the limelight.

The production, using Malcolm Pride's London costumes and settings, follows the current trend for period atmosphere and mechanical ingenuity. London street scenes; Cremorne Gardens at a fancy dress ball, sombre interiors at 50 Wimpole Street, a rehearsal at the Theatre Royal, Vauxhall Station, Florence, are all reproduced in elaborate detail, from mantleshelf clutter to trains puffing out of stations.

Swift

changes

There are 15 scene changcs but. only two curtains. During the briefest of blackouts a crowded street gives way to a solid entrance hall; a bedroom (complete with patient) glides into place; smoky London becomes dazzling Florence. Modern audiences seem required to applaud the technical virtuosity of the set designer as much as the talents of the cast.

I find this rather distracting. I would rather concentrate on where I am than marvel at how I got there ... or thank heaven that I got there at all. There is one scene change

in Robert and Elizabeth which is handled more like a film dissolve than anything.

Frank Thring carries June Bronhill downstairs and across the hall. It is the beginning of her recovery. As he goes out through the door everything turns inside out. The room becomes a sunlit garden; walls and staircase vanish; trees sprout, houses and fences marshal! into place. Relief that the patient at last has some fresh air battles for suppemnfcy with relief that everything worked all right.

This is a smooth, professional production with an attractive cast and fine voices. It will not break My Fair Lady's records, but it seems set' for a very successful run.