Before the curtain went up on the first night of Phantom of the Opera at Keble’s O’Reilly Theatre, producer Finley Bettsworth and his crew were terrified. The dry ice company couldn’t find the door to deliver their dry ice; the QR code for the online programmes took you to a completely different website; and the giant chandelier, due to drop down on the audience at the climax of Act One, was hanging in the wrong place. On top of that, Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Really Useful Group (R.U.G. – but may be the ‘U’ should stand for something else – Uncooperative? Ultra-greedy?) had charged them thousands of pounds for the right to put on the show, and then had insisted that they have a larger orchestra even than the one in London’s West End. Finley had to negotiate for days just to be allowed to change the background colour on the posters from black to blue.
So it must have come as something of a relief when, two hours later, the audience rose to their feet as one, in a standing ovation for one of the slickest, most professionally produced and most flawlessly performed shows Oxford has seen for many months. To be clear, this was an evening of utter, unbroken, jaw-dropping delight.
The play itself is utter twaddle of the highest order. The cast and crew of the Paris Opera live in daily fear of a man with deformed features who escaped from a travelling freak show years ago, and now lives in the basement where, for reasons unknown, (a) they are unable to find him, and (b) there is a full-size lake. His dastardly plan is to use all the evil powers at his command to get them to put on his very own rubbish opera. Meanwhile, a young chorus-girl is thrust into the limelight and becomes a star, before being captured by and falling in love with the man in the mask. It’s like a musical monster mash-up of Beauty and the Beast, Frankenstein and 42nd Street. Why this show is the second-longest-running hit in the history of theatre is perhaps its greatest mystery. Maybe audiences are drawn by that famous chandelier trick. Even the strident ‘Phantom Theme’ that echoes musically throughout was lifted brazenly by Lloyd-Webber from Pink Floyd’s 1971 track Echoes. And by the way, what on earth was going on with the French in the 19th Century? They seemed to be forever hiding deformed men in their public buildings. As well as the Phantom in the Opera, they had Quasimodo over at Notre Dame, and The Man in the Iron Mask down the road at the Bastille. At least in the UK our duality-metaphor anti-heroes like Mr Hyde were out and about enjoying themselves.
Anyway.
Directors Jak Spencer, Tom Freeman and Alexandra Hart have intelligently recognised that part of the undeniable appeal of Phantom is its over-the-top silliness, and they have capitalised on the humour in the play. Their production manages to be both a full-on, heartfelt tribute to the original and also a gentle, tongue-in-cheek send-up. While giving the musical numbers everything they’ve got, the cast seem to be winking at the audience playfully too. So our heroine Christine Daae (played with a voice of soaring beauty by Chloe Cameron) wears Doc Martins under her frocks. The theatre owners, Messrs Andre and Firmin (a joyously over-the-top Christian Goodwin and Kayvan Gharbi) allow their gay subtext full rein, and become more akin to Mr Wint and Mr Kidd from Diamonds Are Forever than a pair of opera producers. The resident diva Carlotta and her Italian stallion baritone Ubaldo (Eleanor Bogie and Louisa Woolley) deliver a gender-bending comic double-act that Lord Lloyd-Webber would never dare attempt. An air of light cheekiness suffuses the production, counterbalancing the grand guignol that pervades the setting.
Out of this playfulness and passion something meaningful stirs. That Phantom (Declan Ryder hitting all the right notes both musically and dramatically) gradually becomes more than a pitiful monster and evolves into a symbol of musical obsession, of dedication to art that stands outside the world of profit, nepotism and compromise. The love between him and Christine is not one of sexual passion but of artistic purity – and the artist ultimately loses. Is this all a guilty confession from Andrew Lloyd-Webber about sacrificing his integrity for wealth, fame and success? It’s a thread that runs through the show and gives it an emotional centre to which this production allows full expression.
The orchestra, all 27 of them, is tight, light and punchy, delivering a musical accompaniment of Original Soundtrack quality. Even as the audience left they were still playing away under the watchful baton of Joe Waymouth. The production switches into brief sections of pre-recorded music at key moments, but it’s so skilfully done that you can hardly tell. Likewise, the cast are all miked up, and the sound mix is judged to perfection. Every word is clear as a Notre Dame bell.
Stage effects are some of the most challenging things for any student production. Here they include a magical vanishing chair, pyrotechnics, and people being hanged, as well as the centrepiece Big Chandelier Drop. Astonishingly, even on a minimal budget, every element works perfectly. The audience gasp and leap backwards in their seats as the chandelier swings their way.
Other highlights include Chloe Cameron’s incredibly heartfelt performance of the ballad Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again', and standout moments of theatricality like the sounds of all the building’s doors being locked one after the other.
It’s somehow fitting, though, that possibly the most delectable moment of the entire evening was one of which Producer Bettsworth may not even be aware, and which was improvised on the spur of the moment. It came during the curtain call at the end, when Eleanor Bogie, still partly in character while taking a bow as the diva Carlotta, smiled at the audience and gave them the tiniest of gestures with her hands, simultaneously asking and allowing them to stand up – which they did in unison. It summed up the production: confident, elegant and gently self-mocking. It was what Carlotta would have done.