Phantom

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

In 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera took the universe by storm. And to think it all started with a stream right where they wanted to build the Paris Opera House in 1861. To ensure a sturdy foundation, the stream became a lake. Originally, water from the lake fed the hydraulic stage machinery. Today the reservoir remains as a resource in case of fire.

Country Dinner Playhouse’s production of Arthur Kopil’s 1991 musical Phantom produced and directed by Paul Dwyer is simply a 100 percent breath-taking knockout, and shouldn’t be missed under any circumstances. Maury Yeston’s music and lyrics supports Kopil’s intriguing thesis of a story behind a story.

Whisperings of a phantom living in the Opera House began with normal sounds bubbling up from the lake. The mysterious whisperings grew and in 1911 Gaston Leroux fed his imagination for his novel The Phantom of the Opera.

Early films turned him into a monster to showcase Lon Chaney, Claude Rains, Herbert Lom, Jack Cassidy, and Maximillian Schell.

With overwhelming powerful music, Webber showered him with a romantic twist, a magnificent voice, and a determined ownership of the opera house. Deformed by a fire, and a love of opera he banned himself to live in the catacombs buried deep in the bowls of the opera house.

A mystique surrounds the story, the likes of which no other story claims. A mystique surrounds Webber’s Phantom of the Opera that no other musical comes close to.

Kopil saw another story within the story, a human story of the love of a father for his deformed son, a memory of a mother who died at childbirth, and a young soon-to-be-opera star who stirs memories of his mother.

Mystery, murder, egos hungry for power, revenge, and romantic interludes all play a game of twist and turn closely held together in the charisma of the story, Phantom.

Couple that with Rob Weston’s scenic design promoting elegance and an understanding of a theatre in the round requirements, gorgeous costumes supplied by Costume world, Inc. Mitch Samu’s music, Kitty Skillman-Hilsabeck’s enhanced choreography, and a skilled professional character-oriented cast, and the result is a brilliant production that relegates the word awesome to a simplified explanation just because there is no word big enough to describe this production.

Randy St. Pierre, with his enchanting lyrical voice reaches a depth of power and rich quiet intimacy inside Eric, born to deformity, protected by his father in the bowls of the Paris Opera House. A human being, Erik comes alive through St. Pierre with a scale of vulnerabilities, a desire of love sparked by a memory, anger spurned by frustration boiling to revenge.

Craig Lundquist provides soul to Gerard Carriere, a father who spent a good portion of his life protecting a son he loves more than life itself. As Managing Director of the Opera House, his secret remained safe. New owners La Carlotta (Dee Etta Rowe) and her patronizing husband, Alain Cholet (Greg Price) carry their own agenda retiring Carriere.

Flaunting more ego than talent, Carlotta grabs stage center with a malicious bent, and Rowe fills her with an enormity capturing Carlotta more than any other actor I have ever seen in this role.

Somewhere behind Cholet lives Price. A chameleon actor Price drives Cholet into a nervous twitch of cow towing to his wife with an electrical current sparking between the two.

Tracy Venner-Warren epitomizes everyone’s conception of Christine, with youth, beauty, a crystal clear voice, innocence, full of magical life, and an honest heart-felt love for a man who believes in her voice, a man who won’t let her see his face, and a devastation for a truth she thought she could handle, but handle too late.

Smooth as silk, romance for the sake of romance glistening from his eyes, Count Philippe de Chardin comes to life through the charming expertise of Erik Bryan. A major supporter of the Opera House, de Chardin demands attention from would be beautiful girl singers who clamor for singing lessons, while feeding on his romantic attention, and demands attention from the powers-that-be at the Opera House for his deep wallet. During the opening scene at a street fair awhirl with puppet shows, balloons and venders of all types de Chardin melts in the presence of the beautiful clear-voiced Christine. Sending her to the Opera House for lessons from Carriere, unaware Carriere’s position has been ripped from underneath him. de Chardin melts the hearts of young beauties, while Bryan melts the hearts of all who see him in action.

The music and lyrics stretch into depths mere conversation cannot venture with such songs as: “Where In The World,” “This Place is Mine,” “You Are Music,” “Who Could Ever Have Dreamed Up You,” “Without Your Music,” and “You Are My Own.”

One of the many extraordinary highlights happens when Carriere has opportunity to tell Christine Erik’s story accompanied by a ballet performed by Young Carriere (Robert Hoppe), Young Erik (Matthew Farley), and Belladova (Natalie Jenson), an incredible moment of understanding, heartbreak, stroked with desperate reality and survival filling out emotions so difficult to express that only dance and music can accomplish.

There are only two minor jolts within the context of the production that could be tweaked to perfection. The magnificent falling chandelier is reduced to an awkward fall resembling a poor attempt at a Japanese lantern cheapening the horrendous scene, and Carlotta’s murder on the long metal staircase shouts an ill at ease moment that could just as well have gotten its point across after Carlotta reaches the top of the stairs.

The large cast, consisting of 21 characters plus the Ensemble, is represented with superb detail in costume, attitude, personality, and agenda, hidden and otherwise. No one hides behind costumes and wigs. The truth of the story stands clear, tall, and proud in an ultimate presentation of mystery, deception, clashing egos, desperation, murder, revenge, love, and heart-breaking tragedy.

Country Dinner Playhouse raises the bar once more to a perfectly conceived and executed production of Phantom keeping alive the intrigue of a story begun in 1861.