If only The Producers had got their hands on this -- a sort of "Wintertime for Chaplin"! Conceived to be "A Memory as Entertainment," the show presents the developmental stages in Charlie's life (birth, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood) as they took place on theatrical stages (music hall, streets, vaudeville, movie sets). Scenes of his mother's artistic and mental deterioration, his father's drunken demise, his and brother Syd's consignment to workhouse change to ones of searching for love and (more successfully) artistic success and financial security. Stylistically, music parallels all the stages, passages, searches and achievements. Fine in theory, but practice makes pathetic.
It's not that the actors don't work. Larry Raben has to be all over the place as the mature Charlie soothingly hovering over himself as a child (cute Drew Foster), the (Oedipus-)complex young man looking for a nymphet to sub for his mother while he tries to best his father (also Raben, wearing gray to distinguish himself from Jr.) as a performer, the mature mix of sad and silly, wry and wistful comic. Raben's versatility can't save the patchy story structure any more than can attractive, sweet-voiced Susie Roelofsz as his mother, first sweetheart (really dumb), and immigrant; or Catherine Randazzo as a variety of "other women." Whether as a series of femme fatales in regional dresses or Charlie's bitchy, pregnant stepmother (one of many unneeded parts), she carries off each individualistically.
Kelley McCollum has appeal as Sydney Chaplin. His voice of reason takes on a lot of exposition and sometimes clarifies time and scene shifts. Another fine voice, Ian Sullivan's, stands out in the vaudeville act, "Sullivan-Considine Time." The ballad "Pretending" is one of the show's few assets; most of the songs are forgettable, like the opening downer "Kennington Road." Original costumes for this production, in astonishing breadth of colors and textures, constitute one of the other pluses and should be kept if production development continues.
One of Charlie's worries is that U.S. audiences don't find his stage acts funny. Certainly true of those shown here! It's only when he's taught what's funny -- "A Chase" -- by Roy John's crusty Mack Sennett and Kyle Turoff's brashy attractive Mabel Normand that Charlie even begins to recall the real Chaplin. (A scene of his "becoming" The Little Tramp with appropriate musical recognition is effective but comes rather late.) Backdrop projections of the titles of his films make one wish to be seeing them instead of the boring goings-on. That Chaplin could have won a critics' award a decade ago makes one wonder what changes have been made since.
It's said the producer will use reaction to the Golden Apple version to shape further development. Ripe for first cutting is a boat scene in which immigrants view a tasteless cardboard Statue of Liberty with the face cut out, revealing a blonde showgirl. Workhouse melodrama is almost as heavy as the senior Chaplin's musical number in a coffin (yes, a coffin) but neither is as (unintentionally) funny as Shawled Mother's Mad Scene. Someone seemed to be videotaping the press night performance of Chaplin. If ever shown on TV, it will probably need a laugh track. Crying won't need prompting.
