REVIEW: Daddy Long Legs (London, 2012)
Nov. 25th, 2012 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllDaddy Long Legs St James’s Theatre, London
I spotted that there was a forthcoming musical adaptation of Jean Webster’s Daddy Long Legs in a newspaper, and, although it’s many years since I read the book – I suspect I’ve read Webster’s Just Patty more recently – I had to go. I keep meaning to see more theatrical productions (plays, musicals or dance) than I end up doing every year. So, that is what I was going to do a week yesterday. I had to pick up the ticket at the box office, so I couldn’t check it compulsively, only the diary in which I’d jotted down the time of the matinee. This time, I got there well in time.
Unfortunately, I got there hungry as a wolf. It was entirely my fault. I had just enough time – thought I – to wander around the vicinity, nose in map, and visit some charity shops and lunch. The reality was that I didn’t make any exciting finds, gawped at how much charity shops in Pimlico charge for clothes and failed to pop into a cafe or sandwich shop, even though I’d been hungry on leaving the coach. I only managed to get a croissant at the theatre, so I had a headache and a deep desire to kick myself as I took my seat. It’s to the production’s credit that my self-induced state didn’t mar my enjoyment one bit.
St James’s Theatre is, I understand, a new theatre built where an older theatre used to stand. I didn’t get much of a chance to take in the whole building, but the main auditorium is great. Three hundred and something seats – so they’re all good – descending down to the stage, allowing you to see and hear everything.
I’ll repeat that it’s many years since I read this book, and although I can visualise my copy, I have no idea where it is. I was curious about how they’d adapt what is an epistolary novel (and IIRC mainly written by one character). The answer is very cleverly.
This will contain spoilers for the musical and book, because I’m going to presume that you’ve read the book, and if you haven’t, you should have (if you’ve read Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did and Little Women etc). And then you should go see this musical if you can.
Jerusha Abbott is the oldest orphan at the John Grier Home, and her life is changed one day by a man she only sees from a distance, who looks to her like a giant daddy long legs. He is one of the orphanage’s trustees, who calls himself John Smith and offers to pay for her further education, in the hope of making a writer out of her, after reading some of her original essays. The deal is that she will write a letter a month to him, although he will never reply.
Said benefactor gets much more than he bargained for, and Jerusha’s letters are the heart of this play. I couldn’t tell you how closely the song lyrics and dialogue stuck to the book, but fairly closely I would imagine. The letters are also honoured by the use of lights to bring up the address and date that the letters were written in what looks like handwriting, projected on the set. The set was a two tier one, with upstage a study, a table and chair surrounded by bookshelves, downstage emptier, with several cases or trunks, that also functioned as desks, a bed and a mountain, and contained clothes, books and reams of paper. After a certain point, ‘Daddy Long Legs’ started pinning up the letters he’d been getting on the ‘bookcase’, a visual reminder of their effect on him and of the build-up of the relationship.
The play is a two-hander, and although it mainly focuses on Jerusha and her correspondent, who is not the old and grey figure of her imagination, the characters of Sally McBride, Julia Pendleton and the Semples et al were vividly drawn by the two performers. Jerusha (whom I thought used the nickname Judy eventually in the book) is played by Megan McGinnis, who was outstanding, natural and winning throughout.
The show is mainly comprised of songs, which from the first, tell the story. I wouldn’t say that any of them is a showstopper, but the recurring themes (melodically, but also the ideas of being ‘less’, of not being like other girls, of not being the man you think I am, of eyes) mean that they grow in power, and changes in gear, such as the song about Jerusha’s first visit to New York, are to be welcomed. The style is modern Broadway, I suppose, rather than trying to be of the time – although the costumes and set are very much of the period (1908-12). They allow the wit of the book to come through, but also the feeling, and McGinnis’s voice is pure throughout. I thought she was the better singer (or maybe in better voice than her co-star Robert Adelman Hancock, although he fumbled RnB influenced bits) although I loved the, at first, surprising duets, where writer and reader often combine, sometimes to funny effect, but increasingly to move you. But both actors were excellent at roles that they originated in the States (I hope that British producers, directors and theatre people went to see them and liked what they saw too), and they never flagged for a minute or seemed as if what they were doing wasn’t fresh. There was a lot of comedy, which is hard, but the timing was spot on. And most of this was sung without the characters directly interacting, with only one break for about two hours. Bigger musicals will have bigger songs, but I doubt they’ll be as continuously challenging of performers, or such intimate experiences with the audiences. I would love to know whether there were differences in response between the London audience and the American one.
And the story is lovely. Yes, it’s a romance, but it’s also about growth. Jerusha has come from very little to a world full of intellectual riches. She isn’t a Dickensian orphan, but was fed food out of duty, not love, didn’t own anything, for everything was a hand-me-down to be handed down, and even space had to be shared. ‘Daddy Long Legs’ has taken an interest in her, and despite his apparent silence (which he breaks in a moment that played brilliantly as pure theatre, after Jerusha informs him in a woebegone and cranky letter that she’s had tonsillitis) or because of it, she is able to imagine a grandfather, a confidante, a friend – someone she belongs to. But the truth is that (I repeat, I presume you’ve read the book, unlike the significant proportion of the audience who gasped at the reveal, even though the musical gives away more clues than I recall the book doing) Daddy Long Legs aka John Smith is really Jervis Pendleton, who is related to snobbish Julia, one of Jerusha’s fellow students. (This is where my memory is faulty, I thought Jervis was Julia’s brother, when he is, in fact, her youngest uncle, and that his name was Benjamin!)
They meet without her knowing who he is, and from the fact that he gets to read her thoughts about their meeting – generally positive – he starts to feel bad about his deception, because Jerusha is not like the boys he has previously sponsored. She is not just an object of charity, but as her characterful letters insist, a person with decided opinions and a thirst for education, for experience and an appreciation of life. So many of her letters include ‘I discovered’ and Jervis finds himself falling for her, but unable to do the right thing.
I suspect this is the biggest change to the book – by having Jervis be a character, although one who mainly sings what he is reading, he has a voice that he doesn’t have in the book, and does raise the dilemma of the deception that might put people off the romance. But we also see that, while he was brought up as a member of a family that thinks highly of itself because of its wealth, he hasn’t known much of love or belonging. We learn, as Jerusha does, that his mother died when he was young and he was looked after at a farm, where the Semples showed him more kindness and love than proud Pendletons did. He does good things, but Jerusha’s letters show him that an asylum may be clean and well-meaning, but it’s not a place of kindness and love. Both their growth as people throught it adds much to the romance.
There’s an explicit reference to Jane Eyre in the text, and Jerusha does gain a form of independence from her benefactor, who has let her down, although she doesn’t fully understand why, by becoming an author who writes what she knows, and sells. She calls Daddy Long Legs (or was it Jervis by that point?) both mentor and muse. Jerusha is sister to Anne Shirley, Emily Byrd Starr (especially her), Rose ‘Eight Cousins’ Campbell and (ugh) Rebecca, of Sunnybrooke Farm: an able orphan with a big heart and an open mind who’s given a chance. She’s also a Young American Woman – when she discovers politics, it’s great fun, and I bet British audiences laughed at different points to American ones.
I thought the production was so well done, it’s witty but heart-felt, inventive in terms of space and props, using the limitations well. I bought the original sound track and will listen to it after posting this (for one thing, I want to get A Chorus Line’s ‘At the Ballet’ out of my mind, where it’s been ensconced since going to see this.) I thought it won over people (many of whom seemed really posh, which made me empathise with out-of-place Jerusha even more when she arrived at her college) – every song got deserved applause, and it’s one of the most intimate and moving musicals I’ve seen, as it’s not about spectacle, although it’s never less than theatrical. Even if musicals aren’t your thing, if you loved the book, I think you’ll like this.
I spotted that there was a forthcoming musical adaptation of Jean Webster’s Daddy Long Legs in a newspaper, and, although it’s many years since I read the book – I suspect I’ve read Webster’s Just Patty more recently – I had to go. I keep meaning to see more theatrical productions (plays, musicals or dance) than I end up doing every year. So, that is what I was going to do a week yesterday. I had to pick up the ticket at the box office, so I couldn’t check it compulsively, only the diary in which I’d jotted down the time of the matinee. This time, I got there well in time.
Unfortunately, I got there hungry as a wolf. It was entirely my fault. I had just enough time – thought I – to wander around the vicinity, nose in map, and visit some charity shops and lunch. The reality was that I didn’t make any exciting finds, gawped at how much charity shops in Pimlico charge for clothes and failed to pop into a cafe or sandwich shop, even though I’d been hungry on leaving the coach. I only managed to get a croissant at the theatre, so I had a headache and a deep desire to kick myself as I took my seat. It’s to the production’s credit that my self-induced state didn’t mar my enjoyment one bit.
St James’s Theatre is, I understand, a new theatre built where an older theatre used to stand. I didn’t get much of a chance to take in the whole building, but the main auditorium is great. Three hundred and something seats – so they’re all good – descending down to the stage, allowing you to see and hear everything.
I’ll repeat that it’s many years since I read this book, and although I can visualise my copy, I have no idea where it is. I was curious about how they’d adapt what is an epistolary novel (and IIRC mainly written by one character). The answer is very cleverly.
This will contain spoilers for the musical and book, because I’m going to presume that you’ve read the book, and if you haven’t, you should have (if you’ve read Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did and Little Women etc). And then you should go see this musical if you can.
Jerusha Abbott is the oldest orphan at the John Grier Home, and her life is changed one day by a man she only sees from a distance, who looks to her like a giant daddy long legs. He is one of the orphanage’s trustees, who calls himself John Smith and offers to pay for her further education, in the hope of making a writer out of her, after reading some of her original essays. The deal is that she will write a letter a month to him, although he will never reply.
Said benefactor gets much more than he bargained for, and Jerusha’s letters are the heart of this play. I couldn’t tell you how closely the song lyrics and dialogue stuck to the book, but fairly closely I would imagine. The letters are also honoured by the use of lights to bring up the address and date that the letters were written in what looks like handwriting, projected on the set. The set was a two tier one, with upstage a study, a table and chair surrounded by bookshelves, downstage emptier, with several cases or trunks, that also functioned as desks, a bed and a mountain, and contained clothes, books and reams of paper. After a certain point, ‘Daddy Long Legs’ started pinning up the letters he’d been getting on the ‘bookcase’, a visual reminder of their effect on him and of the build-up of the relationship.
The play is a two-hander, and although it mainly focuses on Jerusha and her correspondent, who is not the old and grey figure of her imagination, the characters of Sally McBride, Julia Pendleton and the Semples et al were vividly drawn by the two performers. Jerusha (whom I thought used the nickname Judy eventually in the book) is played by Megan McGinnis, who was outstanding, natural and winning throughout.
The show is mainly comprised of songs, which from the first, tell the story. I wouldn’t say that any of them is a showstopper, but the recurring themes (melodically, but also the ideas of being ‘less’, of not being like other girls, of not being the man you think I am, of eyes) mean that they grow in power, and changes in gear, such as the song about Jerusha’s first visit to New York, are to be welcomed. The style is modern Broadway, I suppose, rather than trying to be of the time – although the costumes and set are very much of the period (1908-12). They allow the wit of the book to come through, but also the feeling, and McGinnis’s voice is pure throughout. I thought she was the better singer (or maybe in better voice than her co-star Robert Adelman Hancock, although he fumbled RnB influenced bits) although I loved the, at first, surprising duets, where writer and reader often combine, sometimes to funny effect, but increasingly to move you. But both actors were excellent at roles that they originated in the States (I hope that British producers, directors and theatre people went to see them and liked what they saw too), and they never flagged for a minute or seemed as if what they were doing wasn’t fresh. There was a lot of comedy, which is hard, but the timing was spot on. And most of this was sung without the characters directly interacting, with only one break for about two hours. Bigger musicals will have bigger songs, but I doubt they’ll be as continuously challenging of performers, or such intimate experiences with the audiences. I would love to know whether there were differences in response between the London audience and the American one.
And the story is lovely. Yes, it’s a romance, but it’s also about growth. Jerusha has come from very little to a world full of intellectual riches. She isn’t a Dickensian orphan, but was fed food out of duty, not love, didn’t own anything, for everything was a hand-me-down to be handed down, and even space had to be shared. ‘Daddy Long Legs’ has taken an interest in her, and despite his apparent silence (which he breaks in a moment that played brilliantly as pure theatre, after Jerusha informs him in a woebegone and cranky letter that she’s had tonsillitis) or because of it, she is able to imagine a grandfather, a confidante, a friend – someone she belongs to. But the truth is that (I repeat, I presume you’ve read the book, unlike the significant proportion of the audience who gasped at the reveal, even though the musical gives away more clues than I recall the book doing) Daddy Long Legs aka John Smith is really Jervis Pendleton, who is related to snobbish Julia, one of Jerusha’s fellow students. (This is where my memory is faulty, I thought Jervis was Julia’s brother, when he is, in fact, her youngest uncle, and that his name was Benjamin!)
They meet without her knowing who he is, and from the fact that he gets to read her thoughts about their meeting – generally positive – he starts to feel bad about his deception, because Jerusha is not like the boys he has previously sponsored. She is not just an object of charity, but as her characterful letters insist, a person with decided opinions and a thirst for education, for experience and an appreciation of life. So many of her letters include ‘I discovered’ and Jervis finds himself falling for her, but unable to do the right thing.
I suspect this is the biggest change to the book – by having Jervis be a character, although one who mainly sings what he is reading, he has a voice that he doesn’t have in the book, and does raise the dilemma of the deception that might put people off the romance. But we also see that, while he was brought up as a member of a family that thinks highly of itself because of its wealth, he hasn’t known much of love or belonging. We learn, as Jerusha does, that his mother died when he was young and he was looked after at a farm, where the Semples showed him more kindness and love than proud Pendletons did. He does good things, but Jerusha’s letters show him that an asylum may be clean and well-meaning, but it’s not a place of kindness and love. Both their growth as people throught it adds much to the romance.
There’s an explicit reference to Jane Eyre in the text, and Jerusha does gain a form of independence from her benefactor, who has let her down, although she doesn’t fully understand why, by becoming an author who writes what she knows, and sells. She calls Daddy Long Legs (or was it Jervis by that point?) both mentor and muse. Jerusha is sister to Anne Shirley, Emily Byrd Starr (especially her), Rose ‘Eight Cousins’ Campbell and (ugh) Rebecca, of Sunnybrooke Farm: an able orphan with a big heart and an open mind who’s given a chance. She’s also a Young American Woman – when she discovers politics, it’s great fun, and I bet British audiences laughed at different points to American ones.
I thought the production was so well done, it’s witty but heart-felt, inventive in terms of space and props, using the limitations well. I bought the original sound track and will listen to it after posting this (for one thing, I want to get A Chorus Line’s ‘At the Ballet’ out of my mind, where it’s been ensconced since going to see this.) I thought it won over people (many of whom seemed really posh, which made me empathise with out-of-place Jerusha even more when she arrived at her college) – every song got deserved applause, and it’s one of the most intimate and moving musicals I’ve seen, as it’s not about spectacle, although it’s never less than theatrical. Even if musicals aren’t your thing, if you loved the book, I think you’ll like this.
