NEW YORK (AP) — Fame is a fickle friend, and always has been, as shown in a new musical by veteran composer Michael John LaChiusa about the shifting public reaction to a daring stunt from 1901.
"Queen of the Mist" is based on the real-life story of Anna "Annie" Edson Taylor, an independent, stubborn, 63-year-old woman who was the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive.
The Transport Group Theatre Company's spirited, witty melodrama is performing off-Broadway at The Gym at Judson Memorial Church, previously the site of "Lysistrata Jones" before its announced move to Broadway. The show stars seasoned musical performer Mary Testa, who ably fills the cavernous space with her powerful voice and expressiveness. The book and rhythmically varied music by LaChiusa ("The Wild Party" and "Marie Christine') chronicle Anna's journey from small-town grifter to her dreamed-of achievement of a becoming "world sensation," buoyed by her persistent, seemingly delusional belief that she always had "greatness" within her.
Languidly paced by director Jack Cummings III, the more than 2 1/2-long show could use some pruning, although it's filled with a variety of charming, period-costumed musical vignettes, lyrics that are clever and at times hypnotic, tasty ragtime- and vaudeville-flavored tunes, and brisk choreography by Scott Rink. A live six-piece orchestra is directed by Chris Fenwick.
Testa sings Anna's confident anthem, "Greatness," through a series of amusing vignettes in which Anna fends off creditors after numerous failed creative enterprises. Skipping from town to town to avoid debts and jail, she eventually lands wearily at the Auburn, N.Y., home of her sweet, supportive sister, dutiful housewife Jane (played appealingly by Theresa McCarthy).
When Anna sees the deadly stunts being performed for tourists at Niagara Falls, (whimsically depicted in "Glorious Devil/The Waters") she gets the idea to apply her "scientific mind" to riding over the falls in a barrel of her own design. She hires a sleazy but likeable manager, Frank Russell (a personable Andrew Samonsky) to promote her stunt, and they soon bond as they navigate the rocky shoals of marketing her barrel ride to a jaded public.
The wonderful ensemble includes Tally Sessions, Julia Murney, Stanley Bahorek and DC Anderson. They enact a variety of parts, such as tourists swaying to the thrall of daredevil stunts, a rabble of journalists and a series of hucksters.
The suspense leading to Anna's departure over the falls ends the first act, as "the oaken barrel, the casket/womb, teeters right on the edge of doom." The second act, increasingly lugubrious, drags a bit as the focus becomes Anna's downward spiral. She fires Frank right after the successful stunt and also dismisses Jane from her life. Testa wrings every drop of melodrama as an increasingly impoverished Annie grimly devotes herself to a lonely pursuit of the elusive fortune she expected after her barrel ride.
Lighter Act 2 moments include McCarthy tarted up as a vulgar tramp in "Million Dolla' Momma," playing a bawdy burlesque parody of Anna at the behest of now down-at-heels Frank. Murney also lends some spice with her depiction of Carrie Nation as a mean-spirited snob. Samonsky provides a welcome calming presence with his absorbing portrayal of Frank's hopeless devotion to Anna.
Unusual configuration of the gym space seats the audience on opposite sides of the stage area, in steeply raked rows, looking down onto the proceedings much as spectators would have lined the waterside at Niagara Falls to watch an entertainment. "Queen of the Mist" musically brings to life a colorful and tragic figure long forgotten by history.
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Online: http://transportgroup.org/
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