SITE GUIDE
SEARCH
REVIEWS
REVIEW ARCHIVES
ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP
FEATURES
NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings
LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway
NYC Restaurants
BOOKS and CDs
OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Connecticut
Philadelphia
Elsewhere
QUOTES
TKTS
PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS
LETTERS TO EDITOR
FILM
LINKS
MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
Writing for Us
A CurtainUp 
London Review
London ReviewEnd of the Rainbow
|
I don't need help, I need pills. — Judy
|
Tracie Bennett as Judy Garland (Photo: Robert Day) |
Set in the Dorchester Hotel where Garland (Tracie Bennett) is staying with her latest toy boy fiancé, club pianist, Mickey Deans (Stephen Hagan) whom she met when he was delivering drugs to her New York hotel room. Hilton McRae plays Anthony, Garland's current show pianist, a gay Scotsman and someone who adores her.
Tracie Bennett's performance is mesmerising. It isn't an attractive picture of Judy Garland —, often drunk, sometimes high as a kite on drugs as she battles to rehearse to perform at The Talk of the Town to provide her with some income — but it is one that you will never forget. There are also moments of mostly black humour. During the play, the hotel refuse to extend her credit and she threatens one of the managers with the prospect of the sight of "Dorothy splashed all over their red carpet." It's not really how I want to remember Judy Garland. The theatre programme tells us that child stars like Garland and Mickey Rooney in the 1940s were fed amphetamines by the Studios to keep their weight down and to help them stay awake for the long hours of filming on a hectic schedule.
Bennett is amusing but this play never shows the real charm snf charisma of the star. It is a compelling portrait but an ugly one. She hoovers up any pills she can and is devious in concealing alcohol and drugs taped to hiding places like the underside of the piano. She finds in the pianist's briefcase a bottle of pills and swallows them all. These were prescribed by a vetinarian for Anthony's sister-in-law's springer spaniel's mange. Garland finds the whole episode hysterically funny and on all fours, she pretends to widdle on the legs of furniture, runs round the hotel room with her tongue hanging out and finally rolls over for her tummy to be tickled. She doesn't care. She can only cope with alcohol and drugs.
Whilst her husband to be Mickey Deans is ostensibly her carer, we have no doubt that the person who really cares about her is Anthony the gentle pianist. At one point he suggests that she might like to leave to live with him away from the pressure of show business but this is the stuff of fantasy. It is Hilton McRae's performance which has the emotion in it. I am pleased that his performance too has been nominated for an Olivier.
The set is Dorchester rococo with plush carpets and gilt frames pictures on the walls and a piano. The backdrop balcony is raised to reveal a six piece band for The Talk of the Town sequences.
There are some of Garland's famous songs and Tracie Bennett has taken lead roles in musicals so she can belt them out but at times the songs feel desperate and unhappy. She sings, "A Foggy Day in London Town", "Just in Time", "You Made Me Love You" "For Me and My Gal", and with deep irony, her final number before the breakdown is "Zing Went the Strings of My Heart."
When Garland goes missing during The Talk of the Town concerts she is carried back in inebriated, her face grazed from a fall. She is fighting drunk, totally convincing but this is tragedy - the disintegration of a star.
|
Subscribe to our FREE email updates with a note from editor Elyse Sommer about additions to the website -- with main page hot links to the latest features posted at our numerous locations. To subscribe,
E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com
put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message -- if you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country. |
| End of the Rainbow
Written by Peter Quilter Directed by Terry Johnson Starring: Tracie Bennett, Hilton McRae With: Stephen Hagan, Robin Browne Design: William Dudley Lighting: Simon Corder Sound: Gareth Owen Musical Supervision: Gareth Valentine Arranger: Chris Egan Movement: Jason Pennycooke Running time: Two hours and 15 minutes including an interval Box Office: 0870 060 6632 Booking to 21st May 2011 Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 8th March 2011performance at the Trafalgat Studios One, Whitehall, London SW1A 2D (Tube: Charing Cross) |
|
Musical Numbers
|
|
|
REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V): Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email . . . also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review. |
