Unfolding
Emma Vieceli
Directed by Cat Nicol
Between the Bars
ADC Theatre, Cambridge
Star rating: 5
I see dozens of new musicals in professional fringe theatres every year. Most of them are unmemorable and unlikely to go anywhere much. Unfolding is in a completely different league.
I have rarely seen a new piece so perfectly developed and ready to fly away to a bright future. And these people are, remember technically “a bunch of amateurs”. They all have day jobs and no one has been paid for this show. Actually, in this instance, the word “amateur”, so often used pejoratively, couldn’t be less appropriate. Unfolding gleams with professionalism.
Rose (Emma Vieceli who also wrote the piece) has corresponded with an American pen friend, Mark (David Barrett) since her early teens. They know a great deal about each other and become close friends although they’ve never met. As the years pass he marries and has a daughter while she remains single. Now, as her 40th birthday approaches, she is under pressure to go to New York to be matron of honour at the wedding of her school friend, Florence (Vikki Jones – delightful work) in a Greenwich Village bookshop. Would it be a good opportunity to meet Mark at last? But he hasn’t written for a year. Then a devastating letter arrives.
It is an intensely powerful story which, as it unfolds, takes in some pretty brave issues including female to male domestic abuse, suicide and, maybe less contentiously, persuading ultra-conservative parents to accept gay marriage. Fear of flying is in the mix too. Yet there’s a lightness of touch which brings in plenty of affectionate humour. It’s warmly compelling.
There are no weak links in the immaculately directed cast of ten. Vieceli herself is a magnificent singer and stage-commanding actor and her scenes with Barrett (lots of warmth and emotion) are very moving. Danielle Padley does a fine job as young Rose, a crisp publisher and a toffee nosed American matriarch and Helen Petrovna is funny but totally believable as Florence’s in-your-face friend Carly, delighted (sort of) to “escape” from her husband and children for a few girlie days in New York.
There are some stonkingly good theatrical ideas in this show too. Director Cat Nicol and choreographer David Mallabone, for example, create the best airport scene I have ever seen using slick ensemble repetitive commands and actions to a create a fascinating rhythmic counterpoint. It’s both funny and clever. And the simple beginning with spotlighted young Rose singing her letters to stage left young Mark (Ed Chancellor – lots of adept multi-roling) works nicely.
Behind the back curtain is a six piece live band playing in a pleasingly wide range of musical styles – at one point we get a rag time number which incorporates a tap dance. Musical Director, Liz Townsend conducts from keyboard and everything flows and coheres seamlessly. We hear a lot of Kaat De Backer on cello and it brings a mellow warmth to several numbers.
I am not given to gushing, as regular readers of these reviews will know but Unfolding really is something very special and I hope passionately that there are people out there who will take it to more stages in more places. After all it has begun life in the ADC – as did Six.
Incidentally, 5* shows seem to be like buses. You don’t see one for months and months and then suddenly it’s two in a week. Yes, both Unfolding and Patience, courtesy of Charles Court Opera Company, really have made this crusty critic purr.
