FRINGE 5 out of 5: Xanadu a spirited send-up on wheels!
Xanadu: The Musical – at the Edmonton Fringe on Stage 25 (Strathcona High School) – was a daring Broadway experiment.
The original reference is to a favourite Victorian poem. The verse inspired a 1947 Rita Hayworth movie, Down To Earth. The story is about a gorgeous Greek Muse who descended from Mount Olympus to thwart the production of a tawdry Broadway show slandering the Gods, and then fell in love with a mortal. That led to a very bad movie called Xanadu. The film flopped spectacularly – despite some neat music from the Electric Light Orchestra. It was also Gene Kelly’s last film.
In 2007, for reasons known only to them, words-and-music-men Jeff Lynne and John Farrar decided to summon the moldering corpse back from the dead for another try. Their inspiration was to fashion a mock homage that took advantage of all the schlock and to celebrate it by sending it up. And boy, did it work. With its tongue firmly planted in cheek, the show turned out to be an outlandish entertainment, blossoming into an award-winning, audience pleasing hit of some proportion.
Now who better to take on this hip show designed for hip young people than that hip young company put together at Strathcona High by virtuoso choreographer-director Linette Smith? She has an impressive record for successful, youth-oriented musicals such as Spring Awakening, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Dogfight and has established herself as a Master of the Fringe.
In this version, the Muse, Clio (Arden Phillips) and her fellow muses descend to the Venice Beach of the 1980s – mistaking it for the European Venice of the 1880s. When the goof is discovered, the ever sunny Clio takes on a broad Australian accent (pilfered from Olivia Newton John – leg-warmers and all) and becomes Kira, whose task is to inspire Sonny (Brian Christensen), a local sidewalk chalk artist, to his greatest creative achievement (hold your breath): A ROLLER DISCO.
Smith’s zesty production is charmingly ditzy, in keeping with the self-kidding good humour and irresistible high spirits of the original. She directs at roller derby speed, her young cast is obviously in on the joke and having a great ol’ time with the material.
Phillips has a lovely Broadway style voice and makes a most winsome Muse. Christensen’s mouth breathing California slacker is very funny as he tries to figure out who this vision before him is. “Are you a Scientologist?,” he blurts out. The two sing extremely well and since their characters seem mentally a few leagues short of a marathon, are well suited. Smith’s muses are first-rate singers and dancers – although, in keeping with the times a couple seem a bit bearded and hairy for female demi-gods. Two stand-outs are the comic goddess Calliope (Kristen Johnston – a whole comedy troupe by herself) and the evil Melpomene (Mackenzie Reurink) who has a voice that Stentor himself could only envy. Of special note is a driving tap solo by Ryley Tennant.
The gotta-be-magic score by ELO is faithfully reproduced by the hard-working four-person house band under Stephanie Urquhart, and remains as luminous as ever.
If you love fetching music, animated performance and an unquenchably joyful sense of fun, you’ll find it in otherworldly quantities these evenings at Venue 25.
All that and roller skating too. WOW!
5 out of 5
