The nominating committee of the Drama Desk has this year created two music categories -- Outstanding New Musicals and Outstanding Musical Revue. Since our country's most divisive wars seems far too serious a subject to be identified with the song and dance image evoked by the term revue, The Civil War made it into the first category. Critics, unlike the legion of wild-about-Frank fans, will most likely feel the third Wildhorn musical to have arrived on Broadway doesn't warrant a place in either category.

Actually, it seems to fall into a new genre that may, if it succeeds, lead to yet another classification for the awards nominations that sprout this time of year like the first blooms on the forsythias. In the words of the book's collaborator, Gregory Boyd (the artistic director of the distinguished Alley Theater in Houston which launched one of this season's outstanding theatrical coups, a production of Tennessee Williams' never produced Not About Nightingales), The Civil War represents an "experiment" that departs from conventional narrative. Instead of plot this new formula borrows "techniques from rock, from concert performance, from oratorios and song-cycles."

If you can keep yourself from pouncing on the word formula as in formulaic music and characters who are representative types rather than individuals, you might just find quite a bit to like in this series of animated postcards with music. The distinguished director Jerry Zaks has arranged the postcards into a handsome album, with an assist from that wizard of projections, Wendall K. Harrington, to enhance the documentary flavor. The music may depart little from the mixmaster sounds that are Wildhorn's trademark but it does have the benefit of some superb voices, most especially Cheryl Freeman and Michael Bell who deserve every show stopping ovation they get.

While the slaves tend to get the show's best scenes and songs, the cast as a whole is praiseworthy. At times even good are bested by the incongruous blend of peppy rhythms with earnest lyrics -- for example, Keith Byron Kirk as Frederick Douglas philosophizing about racism to catchy rock beat. The soldiers on both sides are neatly balanced into numerous striking tableaus. The battle scenes are excitingly staged but after one too many lose their impact and fail to convincingly bring home the immensity of the losses incurred during this terrible brother-against-brother war.

Some of the best and most original moments are provided by Leo Burmester as Autolycus Fell. Until Wildhorn and his collaborators add him to the show's every mounting body count, Fell and his hookers ( (Hope Harris and Beth Leavel) add some much needed comic relief to the grim saga of death and destruction.

Will you learn anything new about the Civil War? Not unless you've been living in a glass bubble and don't know that the North was against slavery and the South for it and that slavery, though terrible, did exist.

Are their any heroes to root for and villains to hate? Again no, because this is a musical peopled by representative types from the era rather than characters you're likely to remember. No Sir Percy to rescue victims of the French Revolution from the guillotine. No Dr. Jekyll to battle his evil alter ego Mr. Hyde. Just one continuous singing album of animated images.

Like the cast, the entire creative team is topnotch. Douglas W. Schmidt's scenic design includes a dramatic metaphor for this war of families in deadly conflict -- a replica of the spectacular Victory frieze with the figure of Athena, the goddess of defensive war and guardian of Athens at its center. Costumes and lighting by two master craftsmen William Ivy Long and Paul Gallo, add to the visual authenticity of this panorama. One wishes that one day Mr. Wildhorn could tap into genuine emotions instead of the feel good ersatz in which he specializes.

Information from this site may not be reproduced in print or online without specific permission from esommer@pipeline.com


Back to CurtainUp Main Page

© Elyse Sommer, April 1999