Stage Review
Julie Andrews' shoes difficult to fill
By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic
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| Cathy Foy plays the lead in the Diamond Head Theatre presentation of "Victor/Victoria."
'Victor Victoria' Diamond Head Theatre, 520 Makapu'u Ave Tickets: $10-$40, 734-0274 |
"Victor/Victoria" is like biting into a fancy chocolate candy. It's deliciously sweet on the outside but has a soft center.
The show was created for Julie Andrews, first as a movie, then as a musical that returned her to the live stage after a 30-year absence. She sustained it on Broadway for two seasons.
Without her personal star power and name recognition to hold audiences, can the show sustain itself? It depends on how you feel about soft centers.
The premise is that a starving soprano is unable to find vocal work in Paris nightclubs until she disguises herself as a man and becomes a smashing success as a female impersonator. That set-up divides the part in half. There are extravagant music-hall production numbers for Victoria, and comedy scenes for Victor. The songs work, but the comedy severely taxes credibility and patience.
Cathy Foy takes the central role in this production and does excellent work on the vocal numbers. Her bright, clear soprano reaches all the notes and her delivery gives the correct wry expression to the Henry Mancini music and Leslie Bircusse lyrics.
But as Victor, Foy is hampered by scenes in which the character is mostly quiet and reactive, and by a make-up job that gives her the look of a kewpie doll after a magic marker attack.
The book by Blake Edwards also turns on a single joke. An American gangster is smitten by Victoria, but refuses to believe she is a man. The gender question leads to lots of gay comedy among an array of supporting characters who line up to be either homophobic or closeted.
Worse, we can neither believe the gangster's gullibility or care about his dilemma. And love scenes between two people in tuxedos don't easily touch the heart.
Two acts of this and a final moral message on the virtues of "coming out" don't go far enough to sustain the action.
John Rampage stages and choreographs, keeps everything moving, and gives it a grand look — getting a big assist from lavish sets and costumes by Wally White and Hugh Hanson. Emmett Yoshioka conducts an unseen orchestra.
Among the supporting roles, Greg Howell plays Victoria's gay entertainer friend with lots of swish, Charles Degala is a long way from his shoulder holster as the gangster, and Ryan Lumpus is conformingly soft-centered as the bodyguard.
The role with the most guts and definition goes to Tara Hunt as the gangster's moll. Hunt exaggerates the character and gets great returns on two numbers, "Paris Makes Me Horny" and "Chicago, Illinois."
"Victor/Victoria" is beautifully dressed up in this DHT production, but without Julie Andrews, the show really has no place to go.
