Score soars
With all due respect to Porchlight Music Theatre, its fine cast, resourceful design team and able directors, the real star of the company's revival of "Phantom" is the truly lovely score by Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist Maury Yeston ("Grand Hotel," "Titanic," "Nine").
Part operetta/part Broadway tuner, Yeston's "other Phantom" (a nod to Andrew Lloyd Webber's better known version) echoes Mozart's elegance, Rossini's playfulness and Verdi's drama. At the same time, the score conforms to traditional musical theater conventions with breezy little tunes like "Who Could Ever Have Dreamed Up You." As for power ballads, the lush "My True Love" and "You Are Music" -- an exquisite celebration of love and art -- have more heart and greater emotional resonance than the ponderous, overwrought counterparts in Lloyd Webber's musical.
Based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel about a horribly disfigured musical genius who inhabits the catacombs of the Paris opera house and falls in love with the company's promising young ingenue, Yeston's adaptation (with a book by playwright Arthur Kopit), lost the race to Broadway to Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera," which celebrates 20 years on Broadway in January. In 1990, Kopit revised his script for an NBC miniseries which sparked interest in the original Yeston-Kopit musical.
Regional productions followed, including one directed by William Pullinsi at the now defunct Candlelight Dinner Playhouse.
This revival is in good hands. Porchlight's commendable production under music director Eugene Dizon boasts a typically strong, well-matched cast of singers. The lively pace director L. Walter Stearns sets with the bustling "Melodie de Paris" that opens the show continues throughout, most notably in the form of the craftily staged "Phantom Fugue."
Kopit's script tends toward melodrama, which Stearns wisely plays for humorous effect, but not at the expense of the musical's emotional core. Stearns treats with sincerity, the obsession and alienation that underscore this gothic romance, resulting in a production with heart and depth.
Those sentiments are also reflected in Peter Oyloe's performance as the Phantom, the emotionally and physically scarred artist whose obsession with music and beauty first drives him underground and then drives him mad. The lanky baritone (nicely showcased in the anguished lament "My Mother Bore Me") has a strong voice and a stage presence to match. Even masked, he's compelling.
Bright-eyed Lara Filip, nimbly navigating an upper register that flirts with coloratura, plays Christine, the Phantom's protégé and the object of his affection who has also caught the eye of a wealthy count played by Kenneth Z. Kendall. Jim Sherman plays Erik's protector and the opera's longtime manager Carriere, forced out by Cholet (Daniel Waters) husband to the imperious Carlotta (Naomi Landman in fine form as the villainous diva), the modestly talented leading lady.
A couple of missed lighting and curtain cues and the occasional intonation problem plagued Sunday's opening. Space constraints make for some cramped staging and a special effect involving a chandelier had a less than spectacular result. That said, designer Robert Martin's rotating stage is an impressive and resourceful response to a small space, with the catacombs moodily lit by Justin Wardell, especially evocative.
"Phantom"
3 stars out of four
Location: Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago
Times: 8 p.m., Fridays and Sa; 2:30 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 11
Running time: About 2 hours, 15 minutes, including intermission
Parking: Street and valet parking
Tickets: $34, $35
Box office: (773) 327-5252 or www.ticketmaster.com
Rating: For teens and older