Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Four stars
Elizabeth Newman’s final show as Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s artistic director is the last in a hat-trick of in-house musicals that follows Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and Footloose. All three have featured Kirsty Findlay as their female lead. Here she completes a magnificent season as Maria, the untameable force of nature who becomes governess of uptight widower Captain von Trapp’s seven children. Maria’s presence brings the growing pains of all into sharp focus, as love and liberation blossom even as the Nazis muscle in and annexe Austria. For the von Trapps, the hills and exile beckon.
Newman has invested Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse’s perfectly constructed adaptation of the real Maria Rainer’s memoir with a freshness and a poignancy that makes for a moving and irresistible experience. With a cast of twenty singing and playing all instruments in what has become Pitlochry’s house style, from the show’s title song onwards, Findlay and Co make each evergreen classic by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II their own.
Findlay makes for a cheeky Maria in the face of both Kate Milner-Evans as the Mother Abbess and Ali Watt’s gradually thawed Captain. Christian Edwards is affable as culture secretary Max, with the final song contest on set designer Ruari Murchison’s revolving mountain of steps looking like a precursor to Eurovision. Praise as well to the two teams of young actors who play the von Trapp brood with a confidence and spark that sees them slot seamlessly into the action alongside Sally Cheng as eldest daughter Liesl.
As the von Trapps learn to sing again, the show’s depiction of the healing power of music is telling. Watching the chilling results of populist politics emboldening institutional bullies to march over everything that is decent as the von Trapps seek sanctuary is frighteningly prescient. In this respect, Newman and co invigorating take one of the twentieth century’s greatest stage musicals sees it become a play for our time.
The Herald, November 23rd 2024
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