Rough Crossing

Rough Crossing
By Tom Stoppard. Lyrics & Music: Andre Previn. Musical Director: Mark Connors. Directors: Fiona Kennedy, Jane Sizer. Villanova Players. F.T. Barell Auditorium, Yeronga. 18 Nov – 4 Dec 2016

The best things about Villanova Players’ Rough Crossing were the musical numbers. Performed either by piano or to a synth backing they captured the period and brought life to this dull, inconsequential play by Tom Stoppard.

Set on a transatlantic cruise liner in the 1930s, the wafer thin plot revolves around two playwrights trying to finish their musical in time for a Broadway opening, the composer who has a speech impediment and is in love with the leading lady, and the male star, her former lover. The plot, freely adapted by Stoppard in 1983, was originally written in 1926 by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar as Play at the Castle, which in turn was adapted by P.G. Wodehouse as The Play’s the Thing during the same period.

Musical comedy books have been built around less, also farces, but the problem is Rough Crossing has a major identity crisis, it’s a bit of both and neither works successfully. To add to the confusion it also includes the play-within-a-play structure so in actual fact we have three plays in one.

Stoppard’s conceit of the composer Adam Adam with a speech impediment wears out its welcome very fast, as does his continually inebriated Chief Steward Dvornichek, over-played with relish by Villanova stalwart Leo Bradley. Jacqueline Kerr’s Natasha came across as a wave of sanity amongst an ocean of chaos and delivered her songs with panache. Shane Weatherby’s leading-man Ivor stretched hamminess to a new level, while Matthew Hobbs and Patrick Leo worked wonders with roles that were just not funny enough.

Having an actor who could play piano and sing was wise casting for the composer role and Mark Connors accomplished both with polish. A quartet of pretty dancers added vitality to Andre Previn’s period appropriate musical numbers, which sounded like they belonged in Dames at Sea.

Sets and costumes reeked of First Class travel but unfortunately Stoppard’s contributions never left steerage.

Peter Pinne

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