The Woman In White

Who’s Afraid of THE WOMAN IN WHITE?

I’m Isa Goldberg reporting on the latest Andrew Lloyd Weber musical on Broadway.

There’s something predictable about the critical scorn for the latest from Sir Webber, another musical that endears itself through romanticism, histrionics and love of spectacle. At last, William Dudley’s scenic design is just that, the spectacle of spectacles, with cinemagraphic visuals that move from beautiful English countryside into haunted castles. The swirl of visuals moves the action and the audience with it. We may feel like we’re on a ride at Disneyland, but for entertainment, there’s nothing like it. Just as the story’s heroines are trapped in situations beyond their control, so the audience is guided into places we never hoped to enter. And if that’s not enough the show’s climax sends us under the spell of a speeding train. The one that’s supposed to trap the villain runs dangerously in our direction.

As for the music, it’s the dolce de leche version of romantic -- thick and sticky and certainly spreadable, as it carries through the longwinded two acts. Maria Friedman as so-called ugly sister Marian, the role she created in London is admirable indeed. Her finesse and confidence are the stuff of musical comedy heroines. Michael Ball too meats out his share of savoir-faire as the conniving bon vivant Count Fosca. At his comic best he croons with a live mouse, running up his arm and across his shoulders.

The story, about a nare-do-well aristocrat, aptly named Sir Glyde, who forces a beautiful young woman into an unwanted marriage in order to take her inheritance, is all about creating that perfect mouse trap. Ron Bohmer plays the role with the kind of heavy handed romanticism that makes him an easy suspect. The other actors, Jill Paice as the woman he weds and Angela Christian as the woman in white create the sturm and drang of this Victorian novel turned musical gala.

But those sets, WOW.

That’s This Week on Broadway. I’m Isa Goldberg.