The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button - A New Musical REVIEW
Do We Really Know What Our Stories Are About?
PLEASE NOTE THIS REVIEW IS OF A PREVIEW PERFORMANCE
Booking tickets for new musical The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at Southwark Playhouse, Elephant was an obvious choice. The show promises so many elements that I love: it is new work, it has music by the wonderful Darren Clark, it has a cast to die for and it is set in Cornwall! Seriously you had me at ‘beginners on stage please’. So why am I still pondering over the Preview performance I saw of this show two days later? Why can’t I just say whether I liked it or not?
The story is based on a simple creative jumping off point: What would happen if somebody were born as an old person and gradually became younger throughout their life? Jethro Compton has taken this concept, based on a short story by F Scott Fitzgerald, set in it his home county of Cornwall and transformed it into a complex, globe trotting odyssey. The show has the most beautiful dramatic and musical heart that sometimes gets lost in unnecessary, random diversions and plot developments. It is all delivered by a truly outstanding cast that power the show through its near 3 hour running time.
There is a serious amount of plot to get through - so let’s take a deep breath and give it a try:
The story starts on the North Cornwall Coast on December 17th 1918. Benjamin is born to Mary and Roger Button but instead of celebrating the arrival of a naked infant the parents are horrified to discover a fully grown, fully dressed old man with a pipe and a walking stick. There is no flash of light or magic spell, to explain the birth of an old man who’s arrival causes his mother’s eventual suicide.
Benjamin’s father locks him in the attic to hide him from the world until one day when he has grown a bit 'younger' he escapes and makes his way to the local pub for a drink. Bennie is not much of a talker but, despite this, local bar maid Elowen is enchanted with the 55 year old and the pair fall in love.
At this point I thought that the show would become a fascinating love story examining what would happen to a couple with opposing ageing processes. But instead the couple go their separate ways. Benjamin ends up in a tin mine (important later!) and then they randomly meet in Portsmouth on the night before the Normandy landings and ‘make the most of’ what might be their last night together.
Elowen falls pregnant so is released from her national service as a nurse and when Benjamin finds out that he is a father he decides to go home from the war (right) and be with her.
They have a few years of normal life together and a second child is born. Elowen is not getting any younger but Benjamin is - although he disguises this by using hair dye and make up. Everything unravels when a bizarre chain of events causes his daughter to fall into the sea and drown. While trying to save her, Benjamin’s make up is washed off and he is revealed as being young. Angry at being discovered he runs away to find a cure for his condition and winds up in the US. Here he meets Jack, an old friend with whom he worked in the tin mine and went to war with. Jack doesn’t believe that the now young Benjamin is the old man he used to know. After attempting to drown himself in the ocean, Benjamin finds a message in a bottle that he had sent to Elowen when he was much older several years ago! This convinces him to return to Cornwall, where he is now the same age as his son and his wife soon dies of cancer. Eventually Benjamin becomes a baby and then vanishes.
Olivier winner Jamie Parker as Benjamin Button is a big acting beast. His character evolution is grounded in an outstanding development of physicality and voice. He gradually and subtly brings Benjamin from his 80s to his teens. If you ever wondered why actors win awards then watch Parker in this show.
As Button’s wife, Elowen, Molly Osborne needs to take the opposite journey to Parker as she ages more naturally starting as a young flirty barmaid and ending as an older dying woman. Osborne is heartbreakingly good in this role and we get the sense of her having lived her life while Benjamin is away.
The ensemble are vital as actors, and as musicians. It is their energy that sustains the piece and gives life to Darren Clark’s fantastic folk inspired score that imbues the whole show with a Cornish, Celtic soul.
Musical theatre is a beautiful and unique way of telling stories. It is emotionally charged and can bring complex themes to life through words, music and dance - each element can regulate our emotional temperature in a different way.
The best musical theatre has forward motion. Each element must be able to stand alone and develop plot or character in the language of the piece. The best shows find the most direct route to the story and to the audience’s heart. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is almost there and with some brave, clever and creative decisions will be a huge success.
This is not a bad show by any means but it is long and, worse, it feels long because it regularly loses its forward motion. There are elements that appear important to the writers but as an audience we feel like they are getting in the way of the story.
For example, there are three very long almost Gilbert and Sullivan type songs called A Matter of Time. Each is about series of bizarre coincidences that lead to a plot point - one involves a sheep being run over by a Vauxhall car, one starts with a baker sleeping in and ends with Benjamin’s daughter being drowned. I would respectfully suggest that all three are unnecessary and do not take us by the quickest route to where we need to go.
Where the show becomes its strongest and most emotionally connecting is in the scenes between Elowen and Benjamin as they attempt to work through the opposing trajectories of their ageing processes. That is the real and heartbreaking story here because it turns the traditional ‘growing old together’ story on its head and, at the same time, it has the potential to talk to situations that really happen in relationships when couples grow apart and their interests change. What a way to look at the question ‘Are you the same person at 40 that you were at 20 or even 30?’ As Benjamin’s maturity reduces and Elowen’s increases what are the conflicts they would face?
In Hal Prince’s autobiography, A Sense Of Occasion, he talks about having Sondheim stay out of the rehearsal room until he (Prince) as Director is ready to show what he has done with the piece. In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the very talented Jethro Compton might have overloaded himself by taking on the writer, director and scenic designer roles and it could be time to step back and have the piece examined in a new light.
Compton’s book has the concept and, more importantly, the heart to become a truly excellent and emotional piece of high quality musical theatre. Before it gets there The Curious Case of Benjamin Button needs to consider that it might not be about Cornwall, World War 2, space travel or Vauxhall cars running over sheep. Instead it could be a beautiful musical love story about the struggles a couple face when they grow apart.
Book your tickets for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at Southwark Playhouse, Elephant here:
https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Check out this beautiful song from the show. Time performed by Philippa Hogg and Molly Osborne