“The Mystery of Edwin Drood” continues Durango’s winning streak of spirited and stylish melodrama-musicals.
Last weekend, the Durango Arts Center’s “Drood” opened and runs through Sept. 1. Directed by Jenny Fitts Reynolds, it is well worth a ticket.
Fitts Reynolds (no relation) has assembled a solid cast of local talents and folded them into an organic company aided by her creative team: Ben Matson (music director), Suzy DiSanto (choreographer), Megan Sander (costumer) and Siena Widen (set designer and prop mistress). Credit lighting designer Jasmine Lewis for creating magic throughout, particularly three dream sequences.
If you go
WHAT: “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” a musical comedy by Rupert Holmes based on the unfinished novel by Charles Dickens, presented by the Durango Arts Repertory Theatre. Directed by Jenny Fitts Reynolds.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Aug. 23-31, 2 p.m. Sundays, Aug. 25 and Sept. 1.
WHERE: Durango Arts Repertory Theatre, 802 East Second Ave.
ADMISSION: $20 students and $25 adults.
MORE INFORMATION: Call 259-2606 or email info@durangoarts.org.
NOTE: Running time: two hours 30 minutes. Open seating.
To say “Drood” is an energetic production of an award-winning Broadway musical is an understatement.
If you liked “Cabaret” in 2022 at Fort Lewis College, you’ll relish “Drood.” If you loved last May’s “Chicago” at Merely Players, you’ll fall for “Drood.” All three shows exploit a genre inspired by British music halls and American vaudeville.
In 1985, composer Rupert Holmes adapted Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel as a musical. When Dickens died in 1870, he had completed only six of 12 chapters, hence the mystery in the show’s title. In “Drood,” the audience votes on a conclusion, and the players enact one of the many scripted and rehearsed endings.
The musical’s premise is simple: A group of fleabag British players perform the Dickens drama in a Victorian music hall. It’s a show-within-a-show. The troupe stages Dickens’ tale about John Jasper, a choirmaster with an opium addiction and an obsession for the comely orphan Rosa Bud. She is engaged to another orphan, Edwin Drood, the hero. Orphan twins arrive from Ceylon to complicate matters further.
This is melodrama, and artifice reigns.
Miraculously, Fitts Reynolds has whisked her company into a rich British music-hall pudding. “Drood” mixes jaunty narration, jokes and songs interspersed with dramatic bits to forward the plot. Everyone overacts – winking, sighing, smiling and stepping out on occasion to take a bow.
DAC’s 20-member ensemble performs with zest. Jeannie Wheeldon plays The Chairman and doubles as Mayor Sapsea. With a welcoming smile, Wheeldon guides us through the story, which includes glitches and ego turns amid the framing tale. Lilia Reynolds fulfills the Victorian practice of “the lead boy,” performing Edwin Drood, the young hero, with assurance and ease.
Katelin Bowie illuminates the ingénue, Rosa Bud, with feigned innocence and a player’s love of the spotlight. “Moonfall,” the show’s central ballad, is sung as a duet by Rosa and Edwin. Because of Victorian tradition and Holmes’ contemporary gloss on Dickens, two sopranos deliver the most memorable song in the show.
Geoff Johnson, a master of comic and/or tragic menace, deliciously portrays the smarmy villain, John Jasper. Fitts Reynolds doubles as director and Princess Puffer, a wizened opium den proprietor, the role Chita Rivera made famous in the 2012 Broadway revival.
Jade Sophia and Doug Gonzalez play the Ceylonese twins with panache and the always effective raised eyebrow. One of our finest lead and character actors, Conor Sheehan, morphs joyously into Durdles, Dickens’ happy drunkard. And Morhriah James gives each of her multiple characters some shine.
The big finale unspools as per audience preference. Be assured there’s a rousing, happy ending, and I’m not giving anything away by writing that. This is melodrama, and artifice reigns.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
