Book, Music and Lyrics: Lisa Peretti
Director: Gabriel Barre
A wholesome tale of true love in a small town in America during the Second World War, the first public performance of Lisa Peretti’s new musical Winghaven Park takes place in a semi-staged workshop at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden for just three shows. Welcoming a host of theatre stars including Summer Strallen, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt and Jamie Muscato, this sweet story of Hollywood glamour and the real meaning of home is full of potential.
Peretti’s premise is a recognisable but still entertaining fish-out-of-water story when rising movie star and singer Vera Webster is booked by her agent to deliver a wartime radio broadcast from her hometown, taking her back to Winghaven Park and to the people she once left behind. Arriving for the Strawberry Festival, Vera is touched by the wartime stories of her former neighbours while encountering her erstwhile lover and now town vicar, Jim, bringing a flood of bittersweet memories.
Winghaven Park is principally a love story, and there’s considerable mileage in both the pull that Vera experiences between her career and the opportunity to star in an MGM movie with Clark Gable, and the unresolved backstory with her family and Jim. It gives Peretti’s heroine a classic Marilyn Monroe dichotomy: does Vera (Summer Strallen) want the fame and empty adoration of being a star or yearn for a private life filled with all-American goodness? Both options feel like a fantasy, but the show charts Vera’s growing self-understanding as she becomes a character to root for.
And the romance is strongly written, giving the complicated Vera and Jim plenty of mournful solos, wistful duets and tender love songs as they find their way back to each other. It helps, of course, that Jim (Jamie Muscato) is uncomplicatedly perfect – first love, war veteran and now beloved spiritual leader of his community with an incredibly forgiving nature. In creating these destined-to-be-together lovers, Peretti’s approach is unashamedly traditional and there’s a cosiness to the musical that is like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
As well as the two sides of Vera colliding, Winghaven Park also nods to its wartime context, and Peretti includes a subplot about Japanese-Americans being targeted after Pearl Harbour and the impact of loss on the wider community, including retaliatory behaviours. Set on Vason Island, there are hints about the vulnerability of being off the mainland, where both American soldiers and sailors are distrusted, as well as fears about enemy invasion, which could enhance the South Pacific references in the story and perhaps create a greater sense of paranoia to balance out the romance.
For now, this workshop presentation at St Paul’s Church directed by Gabriel Barre has plenty to be optimistic about, with provisional dance numbers choreographed by George Llyons and an interesting score that blends 40s jazz with musical theatre to create a mix of ensemble and character songs. There will be time to develop the concept, possibly making a bit more out of Vera’s sister Lily’s story (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt) as well, but in the meantime, just as Vera is drawn back to Winghaven Park, after this provisional viewing, audiences will be too.
Runs until26 September 2024
