PRELUDES (Southwark Playhouse)*****

 

By Sophie

Link: https://www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/show-homepage/preludes-in-concert

Available until: Livestreams on Saturday 8^th May at 3.15pm and 7.45pm. The show remains available for a couple of hours after broadcast.

Plays about composers have a habit of being exceptional. The first I recall was a production of the play Beethoven’s Tenth at the Watford Palace, at a time when I was much too young to appreciate the nuances of the work but old enough to believe the leading actor was the real Beethoven. Later, I saw brilliant productions of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus at the Old Vic and National Theatres, with two very different but excellent Mozarts in Michael Sheen and Adam Gillen, joined by two equally brilliant Salieris in David Suchet and Lucian Msamati. (I probably had entirely the opposite experience to most people in my delight at discovering that “Hercule Poirot is played by Salieri!” and am now very excited by Google’s suggestion that ‘the real Beethoven’ was played by another Poirot, Peter Ustinov, who also wrote Beethoven’s Tenth.)

Getting back to the production in hand, it’s fair to say Preludes had quite a lot to live up to.

Preludes is up there. Maybe not completely up there, but certainly up there enough to merit the five stars the other productions would all have been awarded, had I been in the business of writing reviews. (I’m not sure “That was the real Beethoven!” and “I like Mozart because he said RUDE WORDS onstage!” really count.)

Preludes tells the story of a young Sergei Rachmaninov. His first symphony did not live up to expectations and as he made the mistake of reading the reviews (never read the reviews! Very few reviewers have any idea of what they’re talking about ,and being a classical composer with mental health problems who has performed Rachmaninov’s Vocalise does make me an exception), he is now consumed with anxiety and unable to compose.

He seeks the guidance of psychotherapist Dahl, who offers hypnosis as part of his services, and begins the long and torrid path towards trying to learn to believe in himself once more.

Preludes was originally presented at the Southwark Playhouse as a fully-staged work in 2019. This revival is described as a concert performance, but it doesn’t really feel that way. Original director Alex Sutton has returned to recreate Preludes for a livestream audience, and without having seen the original, it is impossible to make comparisons, but it was exciting and absorbing to watch, extremely powerful, full of energy and incredibly emotional. It is difficult to feel that a fully-staged production could have offered any more – and it might perhaps have offered less, considering that one of the most powerful aspects of this productions is the facial expressions of Keith Ramsay.

Dave Malloy wrote the book, lyrics and some of the music - he’s not taking the credit for Rachmaninoff’s work! Or that of Johann Sebastian Bach, Modest Mussorgsky and Ludwig van Beethoven (yes, him again. He gets everywhere). However, he does deserve considerable credit for writing such a moving and sensitive story about mental health, composing a thrilling score which does not sound at all out of place alongside Rachmaninoff’s music. The work of the two composers joins together almost seamlessly and while you can hear where Malloy ends and Rachmaninoff begins, the fusion of Rachmaninoff’s classical and Malloy’s incredible mix of classical, musical theatre, rock and pop is magical. (The American accents seem a bit unnecessary, particularly as I think a lot of the cast are British, but the incongruity is soon forgotten.)

It’s possible the gorgeous Keith Ramsay has been mentioned once or twice already (it’s okay! I’m disabled! I can’t do stalking!), but he is truly mesmeric as Rach (short for Rachmaninoff, not Rachel). The wild, tortured desperation of the composer who wonders if he even is a composer anymore is passionate, believable and sensitively-portrayed and I don’t think you’d need to know anything about the composer or classical music to become emotionally invested in his story. Keith also has a powerful, agile and beautiful singing voice.

There are actually two Rachmaninovs in this play. As Keith acts and sings brilliantly as Rach, Tom Noyes is breathtaking on the piano, unquestionably virtuosic but also wonderfully musical and moving. He’s very much a part of the drama and the fact they’re two people is dramatically appropriate when the play focuses on a man who no longer feels as though he’s the same person as he used to be.

Dr Nikolai Dahl, the psychotherapist who helps Rachmaninoff, was a man, but in this production, the role is taken by a woman, Rebecca Caine, a performer who has achieved significant success in both opera and musical theatre, and you can certainly hear why. As digital theatre has been full of female actors playing male roles (the sight of a male Hamlet has now become almost a novelty), this did not seem like a great departure from the norm and indeed, the gender of the character seems completely irrelevant. Dahl is a human being, doing their job: a steady, focused and professional with the perfect balance of detachment and empathy.

Georgia Louise is gentle and kind as Natalya, Rach’s fiancée (and cousin, which makes the marriage illegal unless the Czar decides it isn’t), but full of strength and spirit. Norton James is lovely as Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin. Steven Serlin shows his versatility as writers Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy, composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the Czar of Russia and the mysterious Master, each one individually and impeccably characterised.

An incredible piece of work, not just as a musical but as a brilliant, sensitive and timely reminder that young men are not immune to mental health problems. Far from it.