From Here to Eternity
Charring Cross Theatre | ★★★✩✩
When this show premiered in the West End in 2013 it was Tim Rice’s first new musical in ten years. “I’ve been waiting for a good idea,” said Rice at the time. And indeed there are interesting notions behind this show.
One of them was matching Rice, one of the most famous lyricists of all time, with little known composer Stuart Brayson.
Another was inserting the gay subplot of James Jones’s original novel into the show. The daring story lines never made it to the classic Burt Lancaster 1953 film, set in Pearl Harbor a couple of weeks before the Japanese attacked.
Much of the talk ahead of the premiere was how that famous scene on a beach with Lancaster’s Sgt Warden (here played by a very good Adam Rhys-Charles) and his commanding officer’s wife Karen played by Deborah Kerr (here Carley Stenson) would be recreated on stage.
In Brett Smock’s new sure-footed if unexpected revival the scene is a low key though effectively staged affair. Sea and surf are subtly projected on Stewart J Charlesworth’s shadowy monochrome set which bisects the audience like debris of bombed buildings.
I say unexpected because it wasn’t immediately clear with Tamara Harvey’s original production that the good idea referred to by Rice amounted to a show that would be worthy of regular or even occasional revivals. Smock’s does little to change this view.
The evening is a
From Here to Eternity Carley Stenson (Karen) Photo Alex Brenner
Carley Stenson
but aside from the nostalgia hit the title will trigger in theatregoers of a certain (and Tim Rice’s) age, the story feels fatally rooted in the period it is set and with little to say to us now.
Donald Rice and Bill Oake’s book is efficient enough but only tackles the injustices experienced by their characters in a way that stokes interest rather than the required rush of empathy.
Still, to reference another old-school Hollywood star Paul Newman, there is a kind of Cool Hand Luke undertow to the evening which pits the human spirit against a brutal system.
Jonny Amies as Maggio (played by Frank Sinatra in the film) is excellent as a private whose mouth gets him into more trouble than his body can handle.
His refusal to buckle under pressure to tow the line is matched by Jonathan Bailey’s Prewitt who refuses his commanding officer’s orders to box for the army because he is haunted by the time his punch blinded a man.
Today that memory seems an awfully light premise on which to base a story of this length.
Also worth mentioning is newcomer Desmonda Cathabel who plays Lorene, the prostitute for whom Preoitt has fallen.
Granted, we root fir them but only as far melodrama allows. The case for musicalising the dusty original movie for modern audiences has yet to be made.
