“The Mystery of Edwin Drood” is a story that’s been told many times in many ways. When Charles Dickens died on June 9, 1870, “Drood,” his final novel, was unfinished. Only six of the 12 chapters had been written and published in the popular installment manner. The story simply stopped at the point where Drood disappears.
The mystery of what might have happened has inspired many storytellers since: writers, playwrights, poets and journalists. Countless versions have appeared on stage, television and in film. One of the most intriguing is a musical conjured by Rupert Holmes in the 1980s. The British American musician was then known for his popular story-songs, e.g. “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).” As a result, New York impresario Joseph Papp approached Holmes and asked him to consider a “Drood” musical. Intrigued by the mystery and enamored by British Pantomime theater from childhood, Holmes agreed. He created the 1985 award-winning musical you can see at the Durango Arts Center during August.
If you go
WHAT: “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” a musical by Rupert Holmes, presented by the Durango Arts Repertory Theatre, directed by Jenny Fitts Reynolds.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Aug. 16-Sept. 1; 2 p.m. Aug. 18, 25, and Sept. 1.
WHERE: DAC, 802 East Second Ave.
TICKETS: General admission $25, students $15.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.durangoarts.org/theatre or call 259-2606.
To say the musical “Drood” is a big undertaking is an understatement. Not only is the work basically a melodrama with music, it is a play within a play. Holmes set his piece in a Victorian music hall with a troupe of traveling players who all portray the Drood universe.
“It’s a challenge on many levels,” Director Jenny Fitts Reynolds said. “The actors all have to play double parts, and everyone has to learn seven different endings.”
That’s the most unusual twist Holmes added to his version of the basic story.
“With so many different possible endings, it keeps the cast and crew on their toes each time it is performed,” Fitts Reynolds said.
The character Edwin Drood is a young man, an orphan, engaged to marry his childhood sweetheart Rosa Bud, also an orphan. John Jasper, Drood’s uncle and guardian, is the village choirmaster. As only Dickens could construe a villain, Jasper is obsessed with Rosa Bud – and he’s an opium addict. Surrounding the problematic love triangle, other Dickensian figures appear: two more orphans, an opium dealer, a curate, a mayor, a sexton and assorted hangers-on
Holmes, however, tells the story through the music hall players who reenact the mystery as if it were an old-fashioned British Pantomime.
“On the surface, ‘Drood’ is joyful and perhaps a bit silly, but underneath the jokes, the gags and the melodrama, it is a show about creating theater,” Fitts Reynolds said.
A master of ceremonies narrates (Jeannie Wheeldon, doubling as the mayor). A woman actor, as in the Victorian convention of “the lead boy,” plays Drood (Lilia Reynolds, doubling as Nutting). John Jasper struggles with his various obsessions (Geoff Johnson, doubling as Paget).
Audience participation is encouraged – in British Panto fashion.
“The audience will vote on the ending,” Fitts Reynolds said. “That’s the hardest thing to pull off for the actors. The women have to learn seven different endings, the men have to learn three, so we have to be ready for whatever the audience chooses.”
Holmes breaks his musical into two parts to parallel Dickens unfinished tale. It’s announced that Drood has disappeared, and everyone is left to wonder what happened to him – and who might be responsible.
“The cast will come out into the audience,” Fitts Reynolds said. “Each actor will work a section – by asking for a show of hands. Then we will give the results to our stage manager, Lori Fisher. She will tally the totals, and when we find out what the audience has chosen, we’ll perform that ending.
“The script is explicit about the endings, so we have rehearsed them all,” she said. “But each night, we just don’t know what we will be playing.”
Anyone say challenging?
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
