Books and Lyrics: James P. Farwell
Music: Giovanni Paisiello
Director: John Walton
An eighteenth-century composition set in the 1920s and produced for a twenty-first-century audience, James P. Farwell’s The Fabulist uses Giovanni Paisiello’s music for The Imaginary Astrologer as the basis for an equivalent light opera about the place between science and magic, and the different kinds of truth that both can teach. Premiering at the Charing Cross Theatre, this extended story has plenty of window dressing with the struggles of a female film director, the restrictions of Mussolini’s Italy and a pantomime cardinal seeking out rogue illusionists but gets so lost in its comic digressions that it forgets to make the pivotal love story believable.
Sisters Cassandra and Clarice are struggling with their latest film when they meet trainee fabulist Julian (claiming to be Agrofontido) and his friend Pupuppini who angle for a role in the movies. But Julian soon falls for the beautiful Clarice only to discover that not only have over 40 men proposed to her before, but that her father and uncle will refuse any potential son-in-law with such a fantastical job. So, he must persuade them he is someone else entirely.
The Fabulist proves a strange title for a musical whose lead character is really Clarice, and it is on her quick wit and ability to manoeuvre her family and her potential lover that the success of the plot rests, receiving her own solo in Act Two, Love Guide Me. As a result, Réka Jónás’ performance is one of the strongest in the show, not only vocally impressive but also a charming heroine with enjoyable comic timing and plenty of entertaining reactions.
The focus on physical comedy at every possible moment, however, detracts from anything else that Farwell’s lyrics are trying to say with lots of slapstick and visual jokes stealing attention from plot points and the meaning of the songs. The primary love interest – Julian (Dan Smith) – becomes a comic aside rather than a true hero, a slightly hapless character in a double act with Pupuppini (Constantine Andronikou) who never really demonstrates the qualities that make him the equal of Clarice, or why she chooses him over the tens of men who have tried to win her before.
The stage time given to this romance is also undercut by several other light touch strands that the viewer must pick through including an inquisition-like hunt for magicians by Cardinal Bandini (Stuart Pendred) who is Cassandra (Lily de la Haye) and Clarice’s evil uncle which pushes the broad tone further towards Carry On when the men dress in women’s clothes to escape detection. The astronomy interest of their father Count Petronius (James Paterson) and Cassandra’s successful film career are quickly relegated to the sidelines, not to mention the science versus magic versus religion debate and the apparent restrictions of Il Duce’s Italy. The latter at least delivers the best line of the show in the opening scene when exasperated with her extras Cassandra declares “Seven years of fascism and they still can’t walk in a straight line.”
Ultimately The Fabulist needs a tighter focus and a more consistent tone to capitalise on the sweep of Paiseillo’s music, deciding what it wants it to say. Convincing a cynical twenty-first-century audience to believe in magic isn’t the problem, with illusions here designed by Harry de Cruz, but expecting them to believe in this uneven love story proves far harder to conjure.
Runs until 21 September 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Missed a trick
