The fact that the stage version of “Singin’ …” cleaves close to the screen original can almost make it feel as if you’re watching the movie itself. Thus, casting comparisons can become an issue. Many more people are likely to have seen a hit movie than have attended even the longest-running stage musical. Screen-to-stage musical adaptations are less typical than the reverse and tend be reserved for the best-loved movies. It hardly needs saying that Lina fails and is exposed for the shallow no-talent she always was. The incurably vain Lina is naturally incensed when she discovers what’s going on and tries to destroy her romantic rival’s career. Make it a musical and have the sweet-voiced Kathy Selden, a rising starlet with whom Lockwood is madly in love, dub Lina’s vocals. Lockwood’s ever-resourceful friend, Cosmo Brown, has the answer. She squawks like a crow and is tone deaf. With “The Duelling Cavalier” already in production, can they pivot to sound? The chances are promising except Lina has a challenged larynx. The unexpected arrival of talking pictures places their careers and the fortunes of Monumental Pictures in jeopardy. Their fame is founded on creaky romances with titles such as “The Royal Rascal” and “The Duelling Cavalier.” “Singin’ in the Rain” centres on the plight of silent screen idol Don Lockwood and his blond wannabe fiancée co-star, Lina Lamont. tour, this production, featuring several of its original lead performers, is making its North American debut in Toronto. The show later transferred to London’s West End for a long run and in 2021 was revived there.
The much superior version now before us is the latest iteration of a critically acclaimed 2011 production at England’s Chichester Festival, directed by Jonathan Church, its then artistic director. It robs the movie of its meta.Īn early adaptation, also featuring real water, played a week at Meridian Hall, then the O’Keefe Centre, in August 1986. As the show’s knowingly satirical slant underlines, it was a time when the plots were light on irony and the “big numbers” well garnished with high-kicking legs.Įven so, there’s a whiff of irony in the fact that “Singin’ …,” which began life as a 1952 MGM motion picture - screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, songs by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed - with the movies as its dramatic lever, specifically the disruptive late 1920s transition from silent films to “talkies,” has more recently become fodder for various live stage adaptations. Real water, of course, is but an incidental delight in this superbly staged, vibrantly choreographed and excellently performed evocation of olden days Hollywood. And the orchestra? Let’s just say they’ve taken precautions. Mirvish Productions, bless them, thoughtfully offers rain ponchos, just in case. There’s so much of it, not just during the title song - cue iconic umbrella and lamppost - but also in the grand finale that patrons in the front rows are likely to get wet. No cheesy video effects, no artificial droplets just gallons and gallons - sounds so much more drenching than litres - of good, old-fashioned H2O. In case you were wondering: yes, it does actually rain in “Singin’ in the Rain,” the big, splashy must-see musical currently drawing crowds to Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre.
23 Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St.
Based on the classic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, songs by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed.
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